St. Nick

Ever have one of those bad hair days where it looked like you were out on an all-night bender with Nick Nolte? Me too.

View with a Room

With a view behind of Knocknarea behind you and Culleenamore Strand in front of you, this is pretty much a slice of heaven. For several months we passed a gate along the road taking Gabriel to rugby training and I always wondered what was down by the water. Occasionally you have those moments when you just know that someday you are going to find out. When a friend of ours was hosting Gabriel and they went to the beach to collect cockles and mussels she rang to say they were "painting the cottage" in Strandhill. Wouldn't you know when she began to give directions it was the very same gate we passed all those times ...

It is an idylic spot, and currently one of two favourites; the second being out at Aughris Head. Stunning.

"The One"

It's a miracle. Eight days after diappearing, Lisa looks to the window and there is Neo waiting for breakfast. She did a doubletake and then let out: "Neo is back!!" Even though he was very talkative he hasn't given us any idea of where he had been or what had happened. He was sporting a limp and on investigation I did find a sem-healed puncture wound on his left hind leg. Could be a bite. He didn't appear to have lost any weight, so perhaps he was nursed back to health and made the journey when he could? He just won't say, and we are thrilled to have him back.

Men and their tools

What is it with men and their tools? Perhaps the question says it all. Gabe and I spent a few hours happily organising hardware in the studio today; a vacation day to boot. You would have thought Gabe was on the Playstation he was so excited sorting screws, so I am beginning to think there must be a hardware gene ... oh right, I guess there is.

For someone who has judged past success with power tools as, "Well at least I didn't hurt myself," I was proud of the job I did creating an interlocking grid that fit into Lisa's drafting table drawer. Just look at all those plugs!

Don Quixote?

On Sunday I helped our neighbour put up a wind turbine to power the electricity at his house. It was a bit comical and even more death defying at one point trying to get a very top heavy metal pole, with propeller, lifted into the air with a stiff wind blowing against us.

When we hooked it up to the controller box and it started spinning, everyone left out a collective cheer and then a yelp as the box blew and a small cloud of smoke appeared.

I'm curious to see how the whole set-up works out, as Lisa and I would love to be off the grid and hope to one-day build a passive house.

Frogger

It isn't quite the scene from Magnolia, but we do get overrun with frogs each year to the extent that there is no way avoiding running quite a few of them over on the driveway and neighbouring roads. There has been quite a dry spell here over the last two weeks (beautiful actually) and Gabe and I had to add water to the pond today, so we're not sure if the weather will affect this year's plague. There are hundreds of tadpoles in our little pond.

Viral marketing

I had no idea tonsillitis was contagious, or that there were even multiple types. I had viral tonsillitis, which is the first time I ever experienced the "joy" of not being able to swallow or speak easily. My tonsils were swollen but looked nothing like some of these beauties.

You really should try to keep all your body parts and your tonsils form part of your immune system. The only reason to consider having them removed is if the condition becomes chronic. I was back in shape after two days of a strict regimen of gargling with warm salt water and taking a witch's brew of apple cider vinegar, cayenne pepper and salt.

Eirgone

When I get around to it, I am going to create a site to help those in a similar position avoid Eircom altogether. I know they still technically own my line, but I am paying less and getting more. TalkTalk is now my telephone provider and I get unlimited local and long distance for €30.99/mth, including line rental. I use 13434.ie for calling mobiles and international.

During the transition, Eircom screwed up adding a TalkTime package to my account and I got walloped with a €219 final bill. To their credit (and I use that term with great reservation) I will be refunded €85 in charges, but the error never should have been made in the first place. Good riddance.

My first good experience with TalkTalk, other than a smooth as silk transfer process? I sent an email support inquiry on Friday about my billing credit card and got a personal call back on Saturday afternoon from a customer rep, as well as a written email confirming the call. I wasn't dreaming ...

Four Eyes

Update: With slightly more statistical accuracy than the New Hampshire primary exit polls, the decision was clear: 10-1 for the new specs (C). Apparently no one wants to see me without glasses so I am burying my contact lens case in the back garden. Thanks for all that voted and hopefully this will get you primed for more important votes later this year.

I got new glasses this week and they have created a bit of a stir, so stir the pot some more with casting your vote in the first ever Verticalbones blog poll. Dig the dramatic lighting ...

(I couldn't find an elegant way to integrate Blogger's built-in poll element with a picture, so I'll just date this post to stay at the top of the page along with the poll. Or, you can believe I'm actually posting from the future, which means I already know the results.)

Ego tripping at the gates of Google

Can anyone honestly say they haven't put their own name into a Google search? I've even set up an automated search that mails me a digest each week of several searches, including my own name.

Best returned search so far ...

Justin Knecht was treated at Bucyrus Community Hospital after a reported hunting accident Tuesday. Knecht told the Crawford County Sheriff's Department he was hunting in Lykens Township when his rifle failed to fire. After reloading, Knecht fired upon an animal and accidentally shot himself in the foot. Knecht drove himself to the hospital for treatment.

Do I carve the same pumpkin every year?

It took me a while to photograph the pumpkins but mine actually looks even a bit better after some cold and damp nights. I'm not sure I mentioned that fireworks and bonfires are the big things here in Ireland around Halloween. Still pretty subdued around the whole decoration thing.

The pumpkins from last year still rank as some of the best.

Buzz, buzz, buzz, I wonder what he duzz

I can't recall the last time I was stung by a bee. I do recall going to a flea market or auction with my folks and while walking across a field to the car I stepped on a yellowjacket nest. Obviously that stuck with me.

A few days ago, we walked into the bedroom to find 30-40 bees clinging to the windows trying to get out. They were coming through the wooden ceiling. The good news was they were very lethargic. I was able to push them out the window where they just sat on the sill and died.

I should have checked the floor that evening while getting into bed, and after slipping off my shoes, stepped on a bee and got a nice sting on my big toe. Geez, I forgot how much that hurt! Lisa applied some baking soda and water and "bee sweeps" will occur nightly until we deal with the hive in the attic.

(This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license versions 2.5, 2.0, and 1.0)

I get the point(s)

Contrary to the statistics of bad photos taken by speed cameras, my registration was crystal clear on the notice I received of doing 80km/h in a 50km/h through Ballinacarrow. The guys in the office were happy to report that was a "known" spot for a speed trap ... thanks for the tip guys, €80 and two penalty points too late.

Here's a good pic of the crowded stretch of road where it took place.

I don't recall seeing too many speed cameras in the States, but the are rampant over here, particularly in the UK.

Oh the irony

While driving to work, I put on the album Black Market by Weather Report. I remember as a kid throwing ridiculous temper tantrums to get my Dad to turn off this music. Coincidentally, Jaco Pastorius was born in Norristown, PA, a town or so over from where I eventually went to high school.

I also used to torture my parents with my Atari 2600, or incessant begging to play me in some game where I would play endlessly as they awaited a turn. Gabe has turned the tables on me by annihilating me in Starcraft after devouring the strategy guides. I did get my revenge the other night, patiently pecking away at his defenses before sending in a massive fleet of destroyers and wraiths to finish him off ...

Eating = Living

You really haven't lived until you have had one of Beta's scones ...

I'm gonna "bale"

I've really enjoyed watching the farmers bale hay. It's not that I haven't seen this before (I lived on a sheep farm in Western Pennsylvania for part of my childhood). What I haven't seen before is the sense of community and cooperation. The rain has been fairly constant here over the Summer and dry weather presents a short opportunity to get the job done, so all the farmers come together in each others' fields to help out. The only thing I can compare it to is the Amish working together to raise a barn in a day.

Kittyhawk

When we originally got the cats from our friends in Clare, Ciaran said they were trained assassins and the carnage has been pretty regular this past week. The capper however, was this young hawk. The angle makes the cat look a bit bigger, but trust me, this was a big bird. Look at those claws!

Lost and found

Well, the good news is that I've learned a lot about making nice bootable backups of my MACs. The bad news is that I didn't have one in place for my work laptop (which really had the most current data of all my machines). It's not going to happen again and Gabe and Lisa have airtight backups at home now.

Considering the cost of drives these days, you may want to ask your boss or IT department if it is more affordable just to have a Firewire drive on your desk. I suppose there are information theft issues, but I question how any restore process could be as seamless.

Interlink (or Interstink as I've referred to them) lost my laptop from Sligo to Dublin. Apparently the shipping label came off the package??? Anyway, Mactivate has my machine, I'm just waiting to hear what data can be recovered.

Stop what you're doing. Backup.

After you finish reading this post, back up your computer. Stop what you are doing and just consider what would happen tomorrow if all your data disappeared. Not only your data, but all that time you spent customising your machine exactly the way you'd like. All those photos. All that music. All that time installing programs.

Actually, I'd recommend cloning your machine to a bootable external drive. Cloning your machine allows you to get everything back in a similar state, as well as being able to boot from your backup and continue working. Not worth €130? Think again. I'd pay that several times over to have all my data back.

For you MAC users out there, I've learned a few things in last couple of days. 1) Make sure your external drive is HFS+ formatted. Even drives that come from Lacie may need to be formatted correctly to be recognised by programs like Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper. 2) If you're on an Intel MAC, you'll need to be sure that your partition scheme is GUID, if you'd like to boot from it. Disk Utility will tell you that and allow you to change it. 3) Intel machines can boot from a USB or Firewire drive. PowerPC can only boot from Firewire. 4) Don't forget you can turn your computer into a Firewire drive by holding down the "t" key when booting. Even if your System Folder isn't recognised, you may be able to copy your files. 5) Apple won't sell you a replacement drive for your laptop. You need to send it away to an approved technician. (There are only two in Ireland.)

Stop what you are doing. Go buy an external drive. Backup. Use software that runs automated, scheduled backups. Here's a good list for MAC.

The final straw ...

There are times when you feel a negative forcefield is surrounding you and nothing appears to be going right. The last couple of days have been like that.

First off, we have had no phone service for three days, which may be better than the week previous where you could talk for an indeterminate amount of time before being disconnected. At least we know where we stand. That also means no dial-up at home. As you may already know, there is no mobile coverage at the house, so no communication with the outside world.

I came to work on Monday to find this little lovely on my laptop ...

This drive has reported a fatal hardware error to Disk Utility. If the drive has not failed completely, back up as much data as you can and then replace it with a working drive.

I spent the next 14 hours unsuccessfully trying to do a complete back-up of my system. (I do have most of my personal files backed up, but wanted to create a clone. However, OS X is structured with strange permissions and invisible files, particularly within Apple applications.)

So I decided to turn to Apple Discussions to find out how to salvage my data and couldn't for the life of me find a search function on the Apple Discussions site. Was I going crazy? Then I saw this ...

With the popularity of the iPhone and it's related discussion areas, we have experienced heavy usage and reduced availability of Apple Discussions today. In order to improve site performance, we have temporarily disabled the following site features:

* Search
* Read tracking (the "blue dots")
* Subscription emails

I'm going to need a few more pints today.