Working Away

Tonight I spent the evening working. I finally got around to putting The Pigs site together. It's 6th again and his Paranormal Ivestigation Guys. I've put together a CMS for that site too.

Then after that I went and did some updates on the Neptune Leisure website.

Then when you think there is no more to do I started updated the CathyMcCrone.com. I truly am way to busy for words.

I think it's time to hit the hay, for there is more work anon.

Weather

We went up to Newry today to do a bit of shopping. We got tiles and kitchen stuff. When we got back I waited a while to bring them in from the car. Big Mistake! I just brought them in and the rain is incessant! I got soaked and I had to dry and clean the floor too. My laziness does not like all that extra work!

This weekend's running

I was out and about on Saturday. I wanted to do a 10k but I only had time for a 5 mile run. I did it in 51.20ish which is an improvement of over a minute from last week so I am happy with that.

This week I intend to do some sprints and a tempo run of 3 or 4 miles and then try a 10k next weekend.

The cost of Calls

I had an issue with Paypal recently and had to spend some time on the phone with their support staff. It's all sorted now thankfully but I happened to check my phone bill online with O2. It turns out that the calls to Paypal had cost my around €12.

The issue is not with Paypal. They provide an 1890 number which is charged at the local rate no matter where you call from in Ireland. You can get a rough estimate of these charges from Eircom.

My O2 package is Active life 250 which gives me 250 anytime minutes a month. Minutes that I never fully use and this month was no different. It turns out that O2 anything minutes don't include locall 1890 numbers. That's a bit much but I suppose 5c a minute ain't so bad. But what is this? If you make any other calls over your 250 Active Life minutes you will be charged 25c a minute!!!!

Nice way to turn a profit O2. That is sly and I think unfair! So if you have a choice between a locall or local number take the local number it will probably be cheaper, and next time you are talking to o2 let them know what you think about this rip off.

Bottled water

I stumbled across this graphic today. It highlights what impact bottled water is having on the planet. With all the talk of carbon footprints, and global warming there is something easy we can do. Don't buy bottled water, use filters, drink tap water.

I am going to avoid it as much as I can and on the rare occasions I do have to buy some water I will go for the local supplier.

My Flickr account

I have finally put some pictures up on my flickr account. They are pictures from Pere Lachaise in Paris. They were taken in 2006, that's how big the backlog is.

I really have to get all my photos together and sorted but alas I am but one man.

Piclens

Pat in work, set me onto Piclens. It is a cool firefox plugin that lets you browse pictures in a really cool way. You can use it on a Google image search, on Flickr and on facebook anda few more places.

Try it out it's excellent.

24 hour Party Politicians

Some TDs are setting up a committee to see if it is worthwhile having a dedicated TV Channel for the Oireachtas.

I personally am in two minds about this. It is an extraordinary waste of tax payers money that could be better spent in a hundred different places but, there is always a but. If the politicians were being watched they might actually turn up and try to do something useful.

Let's think about this rationally, TDs in Ireland hardly spend any time actually debating issues, and in the last year or so no major laws have been passed so is there any point to showing this on a TV channel? The answer is no!

Start making things better and fighting for your constituents and then we might want to watch.

Paintballing

We went paintballing on Sunday in Skirmish in Roundwood. It was for Alex's birthday. He made sure we were all there on time by telling us it started an hour earlier than it actually did.

Once we got going and out there it was pretty badly organised, more resting than games and with people not obeying the rules some of the games were pretty boring. Alex did manage to fall into a river though, considering no one else even say a river that was inpressive.

There was a group of idiots with us and they were shooting people from point blank range between games and stealing paintballs, until they were thrown out. When will scumbags learn eh?

More Running

I was out running a couple of times this weekend. I did 5 miles in 52:31 and 2 miles in 18:06. It's coming back to me know. Hopefully I will try a 10k next week and see if I will be able to do the bupa 10k in 2 weeks time.

The things people do...

I was on my way to the shop tonight to pick up a bin tag (oh the exciting life I lead). I parked the bike, headed in and got what I wanted. On my way out a guy came around the roundabout outside the shops sideways, doing a handbraker (I haven't said that in years).

I thought it was going to be some loon, but the guy who got out after parking was a respectable looking man in his thirties. What sort of idiots are allowed drive cars???

I took it easy on the way home to avoid lunatics and was over taken at high speed around a corner but another mad man.

Is it just me who wants to get home safely from each journey?

A long long weekend.

I had a very long weekend. I had a confirmation on Friday and then a wedding in Cavan on Saturday. Me and my good friend, Jack Daniels, had a very late night.

Today I was back in work and I put in a long day getting back on track in this short week.

And since it's a mid term break the traffic is great! Hurrah!!!

Bebo

It just sold for stink loads of cash. Facebook is also worth a fortune, but do social networking sites actually make any money? Our social network sites the new .com bubble ready to burst when people realise they aren't money makers or am I completely missing their attraction.

I'm a member of facebook but I've never clicked an ad, I don't know anyone who has, so why do big companies shell out huge amounts of cash and spend so much on advertising?

Who knows eh?

25A this is what I would do

I was on the bus today again and on the way home the journey wasn't too bad. It took 40 minutes from town to my part of Lucan and with a few tweaks it could be nearer 30 maybe even under.

Why doesn't Chapelizod have it's own bus route so the 25A can go down the N4 bypassing Chapelizod. That would save nearly 10 minutes right there. And if the bus driver didn't have to take fares and the ticket machines didn't take in your card, rather you tag on and off like an Oyster card in London.

That would get the journey time around 30 minutes and that is not even considering traffic light sequences or the routes once the bus gets to Lucan.

It can be done with a bit of effort.

Paypal Issue

I had a bit of work done (some stylesheets) on the internet and I paid the guy through Paypal. I had to add a new credit card and the payment didn't go through a few times because of currency conversion problems. It finally went through and all was well or so I thought.

This afternoon I got an email from Paypal saying my account access had been limited because they thought a third party may have been trying to access my account. I called them up and checked and it reall was an email from Paypal.

I've got to jump through some hoops to allow the payment to go through but it's very good to see that they are checking these things. It's makes me feel even more secure using the web.

Go Paypal!

Give it up for me!

This is an old clip but it always makes me laugh. You don't have to be normal to run a large company and being a billionaire might send you cuckoo, but by god, it's funny.

It's been ages

I've only noticed how long it's been since I last posted, so what have I been up to in the interim? I've been out running twice, I even did a negative split for the first time in ages, although I am feeling it a bit today.

I took the bus today because of the forecast storms that never materialised (it's great when they get it wrong in a good way).

And again I've been working way too hard. Anyway, back to work!

Dick Pound Talks Sense

Dick Pound is the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). He has spoken out about Dwain Chambers and the BOA not allowing him to go to the Olympics.

He has said that he has served his time and people who serve their time should be allowed to rehabilitate themselves and he's also said that the BOA stance against Chambers wouldn't stand up in court.

Hopefully, he will be allowed to run and run clean in the Olympics. It would show that you can make it without drugs and that people can make mistakes and redeem themselves.

Brrrr

It was freezing today. Just when my bike finally started this morning it started to snow. I nearly lost my face to the elements before I got into work.

What was worse was the heating in work was on the fritz. I had to code with number hands and a numb brain.

Needless to say everything today took a lot longer than it should have.

Roll on tomorrow where I will bring my thermals to work, just in case

Is there any justice?

I was just reading what Victor Conte had to say about drug cheats. He was the man behind BALCO who invented the untraceable steroid THG.

Dwaine Chambers has served his ban and he is not allowed compete in the Olympics or on the main european circuit.

I've written about drugs a lot on here, but let people come back after their bans. Let them move on and redeem themselves. Look at the great work David Millar is doing in cycling.