Paula and I are complete old fogies… we rang in 2008 from bed. On the plus side… it’s the first time in several years we’ve actually been awake at midnight. 🙂
Have a wonderful, safe and peaceful 2008!
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Category: Idle
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We really like traveling in the winter
One of the things Paula and I have found is the off season is really nice. The weather may be cooler but the prices are lower and (my favorite part) the crowds are lighter.
There is, however, one more thing I was noticing today: the lighting is dramatic for most of the day. If you’re trying to take pictures during the summer, they really look best at sunset and sunrise. During the winter, however, the sun is lower and the light is more dramatic.
Grenada has been a joy so far. I was a bit stressed at the beginning since my grasp of Spanish is pretty much nil, but I’ve decided to relax and let Paula handle it all. :) After spending most of the morning traveling yesterday we had an early dinner then walked around a bit near hotel. We slept about 12 hours then spent today going up and down the hills that surround the Al Hambra palace. Tomorrow we head up the hill to see the grand Moorish complex, we can’t wait.
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Got Sharepoint?
I’ve got a new job (soon)! The beginning of next year I’ll be joining the Sharepoint team in Redmond, Washington. I’m super-excited about this new position. I’ll be moving into the greater Office organization and getting a chance once again, to work with friends from the past.
While Paula and I are both really excited to be moving to Redmond we’re still a little bit stressed and sad. We’re facing down our second international move in less than two years (can you say “gluttons for punishment”?) and are a little disappointed to be leaving Ireland. We love the Irish people, the country and especially the convenient travel.
We will, however, be over the hump soon and are working hard to distract ourselves (went to Waterford last weekend, going to Spain this weekend, going to western Ireland in early December and to New York for Christmas with my sister <phew>).
January 14th is my first day… so I’m sure the time will fly.
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Good thing I’m a patient fellow…
… because this may take a while.
If you’re like me and like to adjust the look and feel of your SmugMug site then you’ll love this: a visual reference for the SmugMug Class and DIV IDs.
I was poking around Chris MacAskill’s SmugMug galleries and came across this wicked cool reference. I’m now going to load the printer up with 8×10 photo paper and print this beauty for my wall.
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And album title of the year goes to…
With an EP title like “David Carradine Is A Bounty Hunter Whos Robotic Arm Hates Your Crotch“, how can you not love these folks?
The quirky title might grab your attention but the Dublin quartet will definitely please with great tracks and a style described as “synth-grunge”. Check out their My Space page and have a listen.
Note: I realize “Whos” is not “good English”… but that is the album title. They are, after all, quirky.
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Now that’s just damn smart
I’ve made no secret of how much I love SmugMug. Great price, straight-forward UI, unlimited photo storage, open APIs… blah, blah, blah. You want loyal customers? Simple: make a great product and support it well.
Well, here’s another tip for loyal customers: give ’em free stuff for no reason whatsoever.
I logged into SmugMug tonight to check the stats on my pictures and guess what? They’re going to send me stickers and a camera strap… just ’cause.
I’m feeling the love.
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Prophetic
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And the fun keeps coming!
Okay, I’m starting to get my head back above water.
Paula and I got back from Germany last Tuesday, and Thursday our friend Max flew in from Colorado. We went from ten days of touring Germany with my parents to five days of touring Ireland (well, Paula and Max did most of the touring… I dug through e-mail :)).
And now more fun news, our friend Christopher is going to come stay with us next week! We’re both stoked to have yet another visitor from the states. We really enjoy living in Ireland but do miss our friends tremendously.
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A quick summary of our German trip
With work, out of town visitors and life all pouring heaps of activity into my life I fear I’m never going to have time to write a proper post about the trip we took to Germany with my parents so I’m just going to brain dump quickly so I can refer back to it later.
Here’s a quick summary of our German trip:
- Flew into Düsseldorf to visit our old house and haunts
- Drove to Ilsenburg in the Harz mountains to stay for a few days. From Ilsenburg we took a day trip to Goslar (home to some of Paula’s ancestors) did some hiking and visited Wernigerode.
- Drove to Hamburg, toured the massive harbor and saw some of the town.
- Drove to Lübeck to stay a night and tour the old town
- Drove north to check out the Baltic Sea then south through Schwerin to stay in Berlin for a couple nights.
It was a fantastic trip and a great chance to spend some quality time with my parents. About the only complaint we had was that there are no smoking restrictions in Germany, so no matter where you go you are going to be sucking in lots of second-hand smoke. It’s not ideal, but you just gotta deal.
Oh, and Tami, you might be able to eat off the streets on weekdays but not on weekends. They don’t sweep the streets on weekends. When we were walking around Lübeck the local guide told us the streets were filthy because they don’t sweep on weekends (I just figured they were filthy because people couldn’t be bothered to use trash cans).
