Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (18)

Today I spend a lot of time on my feet, I didn't do any running but went for a game of pitch and putt which took about 90 minutes and then went out for a walk for around 90 minutes and my knee feels grand.

I even had time to do about a minute of skipping which is so hard but the knee was fine, so i hope to get out for a short run tomorrow morning if possible.

Riding my bike

I took my bike out for it's first real trip today. It was only about 10 miles but it felt good and I managed ok. It is great being able to accelerate up hills. It's also great being able to drive without people tailgating and being aggressive.

It's nice to have a real bike at last.

Paris Pictures - A lampost on Pont Alexandre III a bridge on the Seine

I am a sucker for lamposts. No matter where I go I will be seen on my knees trying to get a good shot of a lampost. Contorting myself like a renowned acrobat.

This picture was taken in January 2006 on Pont Alexandre III which is one bridge away from Place de la Concorde.

It took a few attempts to get it which invloved holding the camera about 6 inches from the ground tilted at a very strange angle.

It was a beautiful night and Paris is beautiful at night.

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (17)

I did an hour long walk tonight (i had to get petrol, don't ask!) and my knee feels fine, i will do some stretches and leg raises tonight and then attempt a short run tomorrow morning.

This week I've noticed my knee less and less so that is great knees.

I have a physio appointment on wednesday and then I might try an Osteopath, to get to the cause of the injury and to try and prevent it recurring.

I'm number 1!

I wrote an article about my friend's Dad's Interview Coaching website and would you believe it appears as number 1 in google for the key words Interview Coaching Louth.

I am chuffed about that. So hopefully lots of people will read it and perhaps I will get lots of traffic.

I wish!

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (16)

I bought a skipping rope today. A grown man who is not a boxer bought a skipping rope. I got the cheapest one in the shop. There was no way I was going to pay €18 for a rope that counted for me.

It's a good thing I didn't because I can count to 1 and 3 when I need to, I don't even have to concentrate that hard.

My skipping was awful but I just wanted to give the knee a little test, without having to go for a run.

I can feel my knee but no pain as such, I am just more away but i will stretch it out tonight and hopefully it will be fine in the morning. I intend to run tomorrow night or perhaps saturday morning.

Maybe 6 minutes!

Helium trying to get focused

I joined Helium tonight. It's a site where you write and rate articles and somehow make money. I'm not really sure how you make money and that is not why I joined.

I decided to join to write some articles, to try and focus my writing on something very specific and try and improve.

I'm going to see how my articles get rated. I will let you know how I do.

Say no to filth!

I picked this up on theregister today.

iTunes goes barmy

I had to restore my iPod Shuffle to it's factory state because it had stopped working with my computer. I finally got it working again and reinstalled the latest version of iTunes. I opened up my library and I had about 20 albums I never had before!

What the hell is going on?

Translation Tools

I was uploading a website for some Russian friends and I had to use their Russian Hosting package. Now I don't speak much Russian, in fact I speak none. So I had to find a tool that could help me and I came across WorldLingo. It is really cool and translated the sites I needed using it's url translater.

Just enter the url you want to translate and the languages you want to use and then go about your business. It sits on the top of the site like a frame.

A really handy tool definitely worth bookmarking.

New Harry Potter Cover

The cover of the last harry potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been released. The countdown begins.

Roll on July 21st!

Taking Green all the way!

Would you be this green? Or would you really care!?

I heard that Barbara Cartland was buried in a paper coffin to save some trees, it didn't stop her writing her trachy novels though did it?

Spooky Stuff

Check out the Haunted Dolls on 6th's Blog. The first one is quite good, the second one is a bit rubbish if you are cynical.

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (15)

It's the morning after the night before and my knee feels ok. I am going to do a small bit of gym work today and make a physio appointment before my next run which will most likely be on Saturday morning.

I intend to use the Infrared massager on my knee again tonight too.

Going Postal

Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat and his global television conglomerate intent on pushing him into as many markets.

Won't somebody think of the children!

A small run, a huge step

My recovery from patella tendonitis continues to gather pace.

I did a 5 minute run this evening in the local park. The weather was just perfect and I headed out.

I had no pain or twinges of any sort in my knee during the run. It's about an hour after it and I have the tiniest twinge now but nothing major to report yet and lets hope it stays that way.

It's been a long day

The sun is shining and being indoors is a nightmare. I will be out for a short run tonight, perhaps a mile so I will keep you posted on that.

If my knee is up to me I may be able to make a comeback!

You say tendonitis I say tomato

So for my 100th post I would like to state that I do know how to spell tendonitis even though I have got it wrong every time in all my posts. I have sorted it all out now.

I have done a lot towards my recovery and I am nearly there, well that's how I feel today.

You can relive my adventures here.

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (2)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (3)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (4)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (5)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (6)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (7)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (8)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (9)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (10)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (11)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (12)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (13)
Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (14)

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (14)

Walked for 30 minutes tonight at a high tempo. It's not the same impact as running but at the moment it will do. The knee feels fine although I am aware of it.

I think I need to be distracted from it while out for a run.

I am going to stretch and do weights before i go out again and this time it will be for a short run.

Bike Woes

I decided to take the bike into work today. It is a cold foggy morning in Dublin. I tried to start her up and it took about 5 minutes to get her to turn over. I thought it was just the cold.

Then I got on the road and after about a kilometre the bike started to judder and then came to a halt. It took about 5 minutes to ger her started again to bring her home and she cut out again.

I hope I was low on fuel or it was too cold otherwise I will not be happy.

67 = 3!

For the last week or so I was riding how in the top 60000 of technorati, I have 67 blogs linking to me. Now I have 3! I'm back in the millions.

I'll have to lay people off and make cutbacks :o)

Patella Tendonitis- Recovery (13)

Unlucky for some but so far not me.

I went out and walked for about an hour and after yesterday's run there was no pain. I am still aware of my knee but i think I just need to be distracted.

I am going to try and early morning run if I can get out of my warm bed early.

Patella Tendonitis- Recovery (12)

Well my knee was feeling weird last night and a bit odd this morning. Not painful but it just didn't feel right.

The weather was too nice to ignore. So I went out for a small run. I have spent months doing stretches and weights and with no improvement so to hell with it, i thought.

I went out to the local park and did some stretches and then ran about 3/4 of a kilometre without any pain or ill feeling. So I stopped and came on home because I don't want to push it.

I warmed down and it has been a few hours now and no ill affects...

The end may be nigh!

Google conspiracy theory

I came across this video today.

Hmmmm.

Save the world! Come on!

Why not try some of these tips to save the world!

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (11)

Well it's back, although it never really went away. After a week or so of feeling good my knee has reverted to it's painful state.

I hadn't taken on more exercise, I hadn't added any more weights. I certainly didn't do any running. I was stretching as normal and doing leg raises as normal but last night and today my knee has been painful. The pain is slightly below the kneecap and on the inside (left knee).

I really don't know what to do next it's been over 8 months now. I have tried physios and physical therapists.

What next? Answers on a postcard please!

You big muppet!

A guy in Sligo is suing a hospital after he fainted when his wife was giving birth and broke his jaw. What a charming individual.

I'm a one bike kinda guy.

Now that I have sold my old Yamaha, I am left with only one bike. So tonight along with my new bike gear from Aldi, I took her out on the mean streets of Dublin.

The boots I got today are so much better for changing gears although I was heavy coming from 3rd to second and went into first. I will have to sort the lead foot out.

I cut out once at lights. Still getting used to brake and clutch but it's a lot smoother. I think I will be bringing her to work next week.

So Long Yamaha!

I bit the bullet and sold my Yamaha Aerox to a bike shop. I've had it for sale online for a couple of weeks now. I just wanted to get going on my new bike and with the old one hanging around that wasn't happening.

Time for some real biking to happen!

Trees Glorious Trees

I have just stumbled across a website with pictures of amazing trees. Take a look it is absolutely fantastic!

Bidvertiser - Day 4

I've been using bidvertiser instead of Google Adsense for 4 days now and the results are not great so far. I've had 160+ impressions with only 1 click through. With adsense my click through rate was around 8%. So at this stage I would have hoped to to have around 13 clicks. But alas I only have 1.

Why is this? My site is getting more traffic than ever. I am getting more return visitors. So what is the problem?

I think that it could be the ads and the content of the ads. They are not based on my content. They are not localised. They are based on the general area of my blog. My blog is very general but Bidvertiser makes you pick a single topic for your blog.

I have declined all ads for casinos and gambling because of personal preference.

So I currently have some ads that aren't really suitable or relevant to my site. I will try and change the ads that are shown and see if this helps but if the CTR does not pick up I will remove the ads.

The Paranormal in Ireland

My good friend and Brother in Law 6th has finally started his own blog. I have been badgering him for ages to do it. Now his blog is all about the paranormal and the paranormal in Ireland. It will compliment his great site 6thsensitive.com, which is always worth a visit.

I've experienced first hand what sort of stuff he does and it certainly opened my eyes. So if you want to read about Ireland's own Paranormalizer.

So pop over and say Boo!

The printer of the future

Check this out from the whizzkids at Silverbrook. This is just outrageous.

Interview Coaching & Techniques in Louth

I have had a lot of interviews in my time. Way too many. I have gone for jobs that were not for me and blown interviews for good jobs just through lack of preparation. I got to where I want to be in the end but had I gone to a professional Interview Coach I would have gotten here a lot sooner.

I have been looking into this area recently and there is so much to learn. A friend of mine's father is an Interview Coach in Louth and with all his experience you are bound to get to where you want to be sooner than I did.

So build your confidence and further your career with a visit to Ronald Roche for Interview Coaching in Louth.

Ja Kel Daily - Site Review

Jason Neuman dropped me a line the other day about his site jakel daily dot com. He is a man after my own and John Chow's heart and he sure does want to make money.

His site isn't all about making money though, it is a personal blog which has great pics of his trip with the family to a safari park and good wordpress tips. So check it out.

When Nature isn't good enough

The Grand Canyon, not grand enough for you? Add a skywalk, that will make it better.

I know people have to earn a living but can there be some boundaries?

Paypal - Instant Payment Notification & Website Payment Preferences

When you use Paypal it is also important to tie these transactions into your own backend systems.

For example fi you only have 10 products to sell, you want to make sure you decrement the number of items on stock or if you are using it for a holiday home booking system, you don't want a double booking.

There are two ways to achieve this. You can use IPN (instant payment notification) or you can set the Auto Return for Website Payments in your Website Payment options. Both options interact with a url on your server which you specify (profile/wesite payment preferences/return url or profile/instant payment notification preferences/ Instant Payment Notification (IPN) URL) in a slightly different way.

You need to put a file on your server that interacts with paypal. The example is using IPN and Classic ASP.

Things to note about this approach, as Paypal calls this from behind the scenes, users will never see it and session and application variables cannot be used. The events on that page will be fired but never shown on screen.

You can use the Auto Return Function and this is rendered on screen either by a click or be a timed redirect. It can use session and application variables and it can be used to show a thank you message to your customers.

It would be best to create functionality for both scenarios so that your site captures all paypal activity and not just the ones that redirect which may not happen.

Hope this helps

SQL Injection

As a web developer you should always structure your data access to avoid SQL Injection attacks. I came across this great cheat sheet for sql injection.

This is one of the first things you should learn when you start working on web applications so have a read.

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (10)

The recovery is going well. After the weekend of little or no exercise due to the wonderful Irish weather, my knee is feeling perfectly normal. No pain no twinges.

I want to start running but I am going to keep up the weights and rowing that i have added to my routine and maybe get a gait analysis before i start back with a very short run.

Who loves to eat?

I sure love to eat and my good friend Purdy of the beauty tips has started yet another blog. This one is about all her favorite recipes.

How about some Bacon & Mushroom Pasta. Yum.

Making money

I used to have Google Ads on my site but I got a mail last week saying they had banned me. It turns out that since I work in an office with a shared external IP, it looks like I am clicking my own ads. If only they used MAC Address.

I'm dissapointed but since I use google ads to advertise I am happy that they take so much care of your money.

So I am now trying out bidvertiser to see how that works out. It pays you for every $10 worth of clicks.

I will let you know how it works out for me.

Weather

Was travelling around Dublin today visiting mothers as you do on Mother's day and the weather was amazing, Rain, snow, sun wind, sleet, warm, wet, dry.

It must be a great day to be a weather forecaster. "It's going to be changeable today. So wrap up, bring a bikini and some skis and some scuba gear and you will be fine."

Thanks for the bump John

My link just appeared on John Chow's site and it has giving my site a nice boost. So thanks to John for that.

Hittail - so far so good

I am really enjoying using hittail for tracking where visitors are coming from. My blog is quite new but I am starting to get some action from the likes of google.

I've had a lot of hits for my Pictures from Rome and my pictures of St. Peter in St. Peter's Basilica.

My personal favorite random search is for Gabriel Duarte the architect. I have a scam email from a person with the same name :o)

John Chow Review

I'm getting a link back from John Chow it's part of a link back for review scheme he has running.

I am looking forward to seeing what affect that has on my stats.

I'm easily excited.

Out on the bike

I took the bike out this afternoon, i was wary after my last venture out and the shambles that turned into.

I was much better with clutch control and only cut out once and that was mid U-Turn, I got scared of the kerb so eased off the throttle and didn't use the clutch. I should have used the brake and clutch a bit better.

I didn't venture far as the weather is pretty poor and I don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

Registering .ie Domains

In Ireland we have a very tightly controlled TLD. It is controlled by the ieDR who used to be terrible but over the last few years are really getting their act together.

I was reading on Michele Neylon's blog about a certain company (they won't get any publicity from me) who are boasting that they sell .ie domains for €69.99 ex vat. Now I am a reseller for HostIreland and I am a small company and I sell .ie domains for €50 inc vat.

Do these people not realise that people who use the internet tend to check prices elsewhere.

hmmm

Makeup and Beauty - Site review

As you all know I'm all about the style. No sniggering at the back.

This site I have come across is all about practical makeup and beauty tips. It is well written and very professional and it is definitely worth a read even if you only have the most fleeting interest in beauty and makeup.

Purdy, like me is new to the blogging game, so let's all wish her luck.

I'm off now to apply some power energising cream which is nothing like moisturer.

St. Patrick's Day

Well it's March 17th. Green Beer, viking hats and lots of parades and drinking.

The weather is turning windy here in Dublin town so anyone wearing a novelty oversized hat should have it strapped down. There is nothing more tragic than a novelty oversized hat blowing down the street! Really people. Be careful out there.

Riding the bike

I set out last night to ride the bike over to my mothers about 10 miles away. There are lots of lights and roundabouts on the way so it should be good practice.

Unfortunately I didn't get that far.

I got to the end of the road and cut out. Then when joining the main road i cut out a few times and then at the second roundabout I cut out again.

I decided to call it a night and head home and got home without any problems.

I will try and take it out again over the next few days and hopefully not cut out as much.

Show me the money - Site review

The reason I got into blogging was after reading about John Chow. His site is a blog the helps you make money online. His site makes a heck of a lot of money and it shows you everyway possible from ads to affiliates.

Although his site is all about making money and how to make money it is entertaining and compelling reading. Maybe that says more about me than it does about John Chow.

I sure want to make money but I would like people to read an enjoy my blog and that something John Chow has definitely managed to do.

He makes money but he does spread the love, you can review his blog and get a link back to your site. Nice!

Could I be the John Chow of Ireland???

It'd not like riding a bike

Riding my new bike is not a lot like riding a bike. Firstly it has gears and secondly it goes a lot faster. So even though I was on my Yahama Aerox for over a year it is still taking time to get used to my new ride.

I was practising U Turns, I've not done one with my feet down yet but I will get to that tomorrow. And I was practicing going through the gears. All was ok with that except the gear pedal is a bit sticky so wouldn't budge from time to time.

Time to get the WD-40 out.

Another Myth Ruined

Check out what myth is not true.

Tell everyone and take advantage!

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (9)

Another day another gym session. I concentrated on cardio so it was cross trainer and rowing. Knee feels fine. Will do some weights on the knee tomorrow and I am to do a 2 or 3 minute run mid to late next week. That will be the real test.

Dublin Tourist Attractions (1) - Kilmainham Gaol

Kilmainham Gaol was built in 1795-6 as a modern jail to replace the ye olde dungeon that stood near by.

It closed in 1924 and was restored over the past 30 years.

If you are anybody in Irish History you paid a visit to this establishment (As you can see from the picture I also paid a visit). The inmates are a who's who of Irish history and culture including Charles Stewart Parnell, Robert Emmet, Countess Markievicz, Eamon de Valera and of course Padraig Pearse and the rest of the Easter Rising leaders were executed here in 1916.

If viewing this wonderful building and finding out about Ireland's rich history is not enough to make you visit Kilmainham Gaol, maybe the fact that it is used in the films The Italian Job, Michael Collins and In the name of the father, might change your mind.

You can only view the jail as part of a guided tour but it is informative and quite entertaining.

It is in Inchicore in Dublin which is very close to the city centre. Unfortunately it is very easy to find because of the Hilton Hotel that has sprung up across the road.

Address: Inchicore Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8

Tel: 01 677 6801

Opening hours:
April-Sept: 9.30 a.m. to 4.45 p.m. Mon-Sun Oct-Mar: 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mon-Fri; 10 a.m. to 4.45 p.m. Sun; closed Sat

Charges: Check Heritage Ireland's Website

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (8)

I had to walk for about 40 minutes today and my knee feels fine, nothing unusual. I didn't do any gym work but i will do some stretches and leg raises later.

Exciting Post eh?

When Spam gets nasty

Have a read about this bright spark and spam king.

Hittail - The story so far.

I have been using Hittail for a ew days now and it is nice to see where my visitors have come from. A lot are coming from the next blog link at the top, others are coming from my other photo and travel site.

Since this blog is very new I am not in any search engines so I am not getting suggestions yet. I look forward to them.

Dublin24.com - Revamp

I just updated my oldest site. It used to be my company's site but now it is a site for my pictures and my travels.

Dublin24.com

The long arm of the law

On my way home tonight I was pulled over by the Gardai.

I pulled in and took off my sun glasses, and said, "You ain't got nothing on me copper! NOTHING!"

Turns out my brake lights weren't working.

:o)

Photo freak out

I was stumbling across the web and came across this barmy photo.

Presidential Speeches

This is a classic clip from the Late Show wit David Letterman

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (7)

I was in the gym today. I did 10 minutes on the cross trainer and added 5 minutes rowing which was more strenuous on my knee than anything I have been doing lately.

So far no reaction so that's good.

Things seem to be looking up

AIB the bank that likes to say no to cards

I was in AIB on Grafton St. in Dublin today. I was buying some currency. I asked for my currency and was told the price. I handed over my debit card from a different bank. They said they could not take it.

I said how about my credit card. They said not unless I had some Photo ID.

SO i can go to any shop in the world and use my credit card, but not in a bank in Dublin.

hmmmmm

Paolo Nutini - New Shoes

My bro-in-law just send me a mail saying check out Paolo Nutini - New shoes. So I did a search on youtube and found a few links.

Check him out. He has an amazing voice.

Aon Bikecare - Motorbike insurance

I rang up my current insurance company and added my new bike to my policy. The quote was ok. So I had to pay it, no problem, just ring them with my credit card details.

Alas it was not so simple. My insurance company does not process credit cards directly, their parent company does but only to a maximum of X amount. My quote was €40 more so i have to go and write a cheque or get a postal order for the amount.

I think I'm going to get a sock full of pennies for them, that'll teach them a lesson.

Zener Cards & The Paranormal

Yesterday I was talking about Zener Cards and the website 6thsensitive. Well he has actually sold a packet of these cards to some guy in Hartford Connecticut.

Nice work

Photos of my bike

I have finally got around to it and here it is.

I took it this morning before i went for a ride. I am getting better!

The Paranormal - 6thSensitive.com

If you have any interest in the paranormal, whether you are a sceptic or a "believer" a good site to check out is 6thSensitive. It is run by a guy called 6th, who I know. His real name is Mark, but don't say I told you.

I just noticed he has started selling Zener Cards. These are the cards that scientists use to test for clairvoyance. They look pretty cool.

Patella Tendonitus (6)

I was in the gym this morning. I started with 10 minutes on a cross trainer followed by some weights including leg raises. I couldn't get on the leg press machine but maybe it's a good thing as my knee feels good this afternoon. It feels almost normal!!!

How do you get here?

I've been looking at the stats for my blog and there are a lot of hits coming in from google. The strange thing is that I cannot find my blog on google. So I have put hittail on my blog to see what keywords are bringing you here.

I'm looking forward to the results.

Getting out of bed

Like most people getting out of bed is one of the most difficult things I have to do everyday especially on the cold and dark mornings.

I've heard great things about Light Therapy and this lamp in particular.

Creationism - The Simpsons Approach

Ned has a nasty shock at the museum.

I wish I was making this up - GodTube

I came across godtube today. Check out the video about the banana.

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (5)

I felt a lot of pain in my knee yesterday. It was not confined to the front where I had the original problem. It was generally very twingey (is that a word?).

I used an infrared massager on it for about 20 minutes after my nightly stretches. It seems to have calmed my knee down, it feels a lot better than yesterday. There is still an occasional twinge but it is a big improvement.

I'm not going to exercise the knee today, I will keep it to some stretches and pick up the weights again tomorrow.

What I've been working on - Redpages.ie

I have been working on putting together a sort of web directory service for the sites I have been working on over the last year. I have about 40 now so I want a place to show them off and advertise them outside of my portfolio.

I've put them on a different server to my other sites so they have incoming links for google, so fingers crossed this will raise their profile

Good for web developers - Hit Tail

I came across this article on Michele Neylon's Blog. It is a very useful tool that finds what search terms people are using to find your site and offerings you suggestions for articles you should write.

Looks very good, I will be using this on a few sites to see how it works out

How to kit out your evil lair

If I was an evil genius intent on controlling the world this is how my evil lair would look.

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (4)

I was in the gym for the second time this week. I stepped up the weight a fair bit today. So I expect to feel it a bit tomorrow.

I intend to work on my knee until the friday after next and then add some weight bearing exercise. Maybe a 1k jog. It all depends on how the knee feels.

So far it feels good!

Recent Sites (1) - HealthFirst.ie

We developed the site for Dr. Alan Smith and his company (HealthFirst.ie) that provide public health consultancy services.

This site is an example of a simple brochure site and how affective a simple site can be to build awareness of a product or service.

Amazing Site for any web designers

I stumbled across yet another site and I have to say this one is a cracker. It is the Wayback Machine. Put in a link to one of your old sites and you can see what it looks like down through the years.

Enjoy.

CSS Help (1)

I litreally stumbled by this CSS Cheat Sheet. It's handy for those of us starting out with CSS.

Giveaway website

I got this site in an email today and it has lots of good free downloads. Could find something really useful there.

Pictures of Dublin (1)

I'm always taking pictures wherever I go but this is the first i have taken in Dublin (like I was a tourist).

This is the famous Ha'penny Bridge across the River Liffey in Dublin City Centre.

A tourist just asked me for directions...

I was walking back from lunch and I was stopped by a tourist asking me for directions. He asked me where Grafton St. was and directed me to his "map".

He was looking at a map of ireland from an atlas. Something like this. It would have been easier if he had a globe.

Luckily we were standing about 100 metres from Grafton St. So I showed him the way.

Combat Global Warming

I was using StumbleUpon and I came across this list of tips to help the fight against global warming. It is definitely worth a link.

Combat Global Warming.

Gym Etiquette

I was in the gym this lunchtime doing some weights to help my knee recovery and I noticed a few things about my fellow gym goers.

Why do some men insist on wearing GAA short shorts, that look like polyester hot pants. This in itself is a crime but to do squats in them... Why?

Then in the changing rooms I got back from my shower to get my gear and there was a guy taking up the room of three or four people, 2 bags, shoes one place, gear another. I had to wait for him to move and boy was he slow.

So to be a good gym member, do not wear GAA hotpants or hog all the room in the changing rooms!

No-one is biting

My bike has been for sale for a couple of weeks now and not one person has been in touch. It was on Adverts.ie. Now I have put it on buyandsell.ie so hopefully I will get a few calls this week.

Rome Pictures - St. Peter

This is the statue of St. Peter in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

We had spent the day walking around Rome, we had got to the hotel in the mid afternoon, so we decided to just walk around to get our bearings.

On our way back to the hotel we decided to talk a walk to the Vatican. There were no crowds as it was after eight, so we took a walk around. It was a stroke of luck as the Basilica which is enormous was basically empty and it was a wonderful experience to stroll around the biggest church in the world like it was your own private chapel.

Paris Pictures - Sacre Coeur

I was in Paris in January 2006. It is a really spectacular city.

I am finally getting around to organising my pictures but i am putting up one of my favorites.

This picture was taken on a very clear and crisp Parisian winter's morning.

This is Sacre Coeur Basilica near Montmartre and the picture doesn't quite capture how beautiful this building is and how perfect the day was.

Riding my new bike

I was out tonight on my new bike. I've never ridden a bike with gears before so it is all a bit new for me.

I cut out a few times starting her up, but i have got the hang of that now. I was the same when i started learning to drive a car.

So I have driven up and down the road. It takes a lot more room to turn than it did on my moped and of course my left hand is the clutch not the brake so they are the things I have to get used to.

I will go out again tomorrow and hope to get a bit better.

wish me luck!

Paypal - Mysteries Unravelled (1)

I've been working a lot with Paypal recently. I have been using it to book days in my friends Holiday home in Bergen, Norway.

There are a lot of help documents for Paypal but it is all very vague and it is very hard to be pointed in the the right direction.

If you are going to do any development with Paypal, you should set up a developer account. This allows you to create a SandBox Account. A sandbox account is a fully functioning Paypal account where the emails are not send and the Financial instructions are not carried out. So you can test all their functionality without having to use your own credit card, and have to deal with messy refunds.

Once you have logged in to your developer account you create a Sandbox account, this account can have real details if you like because no emails are sent and credit cards are not charged.

With this Sandbox account you can create buttons, set up IPN URLs and you can test them out before going live.

Big Train

Back in the late 90's there was a stetch comedy show on BBC called Big Train. It was written by the writers of Fr. Ted (Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan).

We've had a good laugh in the office today at the clips below.

Enjoy.

1. Staring Competition
2. TomHenderson
3. Can you speak English

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (3)

I had no pain in my knee yesterday except a slight twinge in the evening. I did some stretches and my knee feels very good today. I will do at least 2 weeks more stretching and weights before i think of doing any weight bearing exercise

Celebrity Blog

I just came across Keith Floyd's Blog. Read a few messages and you will see that he is still as eccentric as ever.

Oslo Pictures

Those of you who know me, know that I go to Oslo a lot. Last March I actually bothered to bring my camera and got these great pictures of Oslo in Winter.

I have finally got that photo album together and there is still more to come.

Let me know what you think of the pictures.

Zero Gravity

Stephen Hawking is going to experience zero gravity. Next stop space

Patella Tendonitis - Recovery (2)

A day after doing a whole lot of weights and stretches my knee is feeling ok. No twinges so far today. I will be doing some weights again tomorrow and tonight I will do some stretches. Hopefully I will start to see some progress over the next few weeks.

Mind Control

The first mail I got today was this story from Sky News. Chinese Mind Control. It really is creepy and unusual!