Wednesday.

Wednesday, February 28. 2007
Sociology is starting to suck. The prof moved off sex being the cause of all irish customs to some BS about individuality and identity (not that the sex argument wasn't BS, too -- but at least it was more interesting). Coupled with the fact that I had to wake my @$$ up at 9:30 to go to it, you might guess that I wasn't a very happy camper. Whatever. I was buying food after that. Nothing makes you happier than having a fresh supply of food, right?

Has anyone every told you that Irish weather sucks? Well, that would be an understatement. My trip into the city started with swirling 40 mph winds. The full-arch rainbow in the distance and ominous clouds let me know that this trip into the city would be slightly less than dry. I was right. By the time I got off on O'Connell, it was raining.. AND I had to go to Lidl (possibly the worst, but cheapest, grocery store in existence - screw German efficiency). But it was cheap. And I do like buying my produce from farmers on the street -- even in the pouring rain. That is one thing I will really miss in Dublin.

On another note, I think my entertainment budget is going to go up. I've discovered a comic book store, and the classes I had in comics and film studies is teaching me to really like the more outlying stuff. I've recently bought Freakonomics (on advice from 2 roommates) and "Put The book back on the shelf." I really like Jean-Pierre Jeunet films and I have intentions to eventually own the "Sin City" and "Barefoot Gen" series. "V for Vendetta" will be mine, soon. I might get it after Greece (I have the intention to buy the second "Barefoot Gen" book for the flights and beaches). "Persepolis" would be nice, too, but that's not too high on my list. If you want something different - check the stuff out. The art is great.
Posted by sweeneyb at 11:03 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

I hadn't seen a rainbow in months

Saturday, February 24. 2007
The other day, I was thinking that for all of the living in Ireland I do, I see very few rainbows anymore. In fact, I hasn't seen one in probably 3 or 4 months. But after finishing my job today, it started to drizzle a bit. Irish drizzle. This is a kind of rain where there aren't so much drops as a constant mist. Think of those "misting areas" in theme parks on really hot summer days. Off to the east was a gigantic rainbow with the full spread of colors. It was probably 3/4 of an arch too. So pretty good.

But now, off to eat lunch, swing by a church in the city, and settle in at O'Neill's for the Ireland vs. England game. I hope Italy beats Scotland. Franklin's parents are in town and watching it with him already.
Posted by sweeneyb at 10:03 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Quick update

Wednesday, February 14. 2007
Spain was amazing. The more I think back on it, the more I like it. It sucked that we had to leave Bilbao early to catch our plane in Vitoria, but I'm still glad I went. Wait for the pictures of the Guggenheim. That place was completely unique. Pictures will probably be up mid-next week. I'm going to Stockholm, Sweden this weekend, so I'll upload them together.

As for what's going on -- I'm not even sure. I'm sick (again), but getting better. This semester is going by so fast. I booked spring break tickets yesterday -- I'm spending ~11 days in Greece. Finally - warmth. Because I'm saving so much money there, I think I'll do something the weekend before St. Patrick's day. I think there are some people going to Amsterdam; I think I'll join them if I can do it for under $200. So that'll mean 2 weekends NOT traveling between now and April. Sick. Then May, and I'm graduated. Scary.

And tonight - I'm taking pictures for the Erasmus Students Network 20th anniversary party. It is another stoplight party, so .. hehe. We all know what happened at the last stoplight party. Well, everybody except me.

Happy Valentine's Day.
Posted by sweeneyb at 08:09 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

I have missed computers

Thursday, February 1. 2007
I've rediscovered computers after last semester's full load of humanities and a buggy wireless card that crashed my computer every, oh... 5 minutes or so. Getting the Zen to work with gnomad was the start - I got hooked. Then the program to mount my Zen as a normal filesystem didn't work -- so I decided to re-write it from scratch. I had to learn a TON of crap about C and building/linking systems in Unix before I could really start... and then reverse engineer FUSE (a filesystem authoring system) lifecycle and learn the libmtp & FUSE API's. That was actually really fun. Turns out, the program DID work... it is just horribly slow.

But writing in foreign languages was a total confidence boost. Enough to attempt one hell of a php project. Basically, I had to reverse-engineer the forms that Ryanair uses to search plane flights in order to get a list of places and prices for a given date. And the result is really magical. I would have never thought of going to Oslo, which may be next weekend's destination.

And now, I'm sitting in a 2nd year computer lab listening to people have trouble compling simple dictionary programs in Java (and other trivial programs). I remember doing them -- and they are milestones. First year milestones. I love having gone through school and having gained a skill -- and being pretty decent at the skill. I didn't think that I could really just "pick up" new systems (granted, i'd had a bit of prior experience). But I shouldn't have a problem finding a job at all -- this stuff is easy. It just needs to be done.
Posted by sweeneyb at 07:35 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)
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