Earlier in the week, I went to the last of the Siemens Feis Ceoil Young Platform concerts. They’re a series of concerts, featuring young Feis winners - some really amazing stuff. The concert was absolutely fabulous, and all the performers are people to watch out for - and for six euro, the price was definitely right

But I came home in a foul mood, with a cracking headache.

The concert was opened by the Galway Boy Singers, who were wonderful (bar two of them, who didn’t seem to know the words). They sang some ‘normal’ songs, and Double Trouble, which I really enjoyed. What I didn’t enjoy quite so much was the moron beside me, with a digital camera that made lots of ‘cute’ noises while taking photos, and tinkled out a little tune as she repeatedly turned it on. Grrr…

What really got me though, was that every half minute, there was a hyper-sonic tone, just for a second or so. I initially put it down as the flash regenerating, on any of the many cameras around me - several people took photos of the Galway Boy Singers. They all left at the interval though, and the noise continued. Its frequency & regularity leave me thinking it can only have been a rodent deterrent. (I’m not just nutso - dad heard it too).

While I understand the need for these things - in a concert hall!? Could they not use some non-sound-based method!? Or at least take out the damn things while there’s actually a concert going on? Icky, icky, icky. Avoid the John Field Room, of the National Concert Hall, at all costs. Unless of course, you’re old, and can’t hear high tones. In that case, lucky you, and enjoy.

Grrr

It’s almost like when I moved in. Except the bookshelf, which is full of books. It’s really rather weird. It hardly feels like my room at all. Moving is strange. And I have way too much stuff - even having thrown out *lots*… It’s a bit scary really. There’s lots of wondering what my room in Munich will be like too. I’ll be glad once I get there and settle in a bit. All the waiting is getting to my nerves - it’s awful, knowing that I’m going, but not yet being gone. I’ll miss everyone so, so much.

How exactly do you decommission two tonnes of Semtex?
[Colm says you dump it in the sea. I don't like this answer - it may be effective, but it's gotta be bad for the environment!]

Actually, while we’re on it, how do members of the IRA meet with people like General de Chastelain? Given that membership of the IRA is still a crime in both Ireland and the UK, how are these people openly involved in the decommissioning, as members of the IRA, and apparently immune to the rule of law?

So, I finished up at work on Friday. It was *weird*. I’ve been working there for the last fifteen months - longer really than I’ve been at anything else before, considering how the summer holidays break up school/college years.

For a few weeks before I finished, I was trying to do as little of my normal work as possible, to give my replacement a chance to find her feet (while I was still around to answer questions). I found odds and ends to do, but really did find myself at a loose end more often than not. I think my boss got worried around about the third time I went to ask if he had anything that needed doing

Training in my replacement was *difficult*. Maybe it was just a personality clash, but I found her really hard to work with. It just seemed like she didn’t care, didn’t want to think, didn’t want to try. The stuff I’ve been working with involves some *very* quirky tools, that get updated once a month. Every month, there was an update - and every month, I found out what was in the update after it happened

One month, the update actually broke stuff so badly that we basically couldn’t have any new content for our local sites, that wasn’t also on the US site. As it happened, this was also the month that we were preparing to launch sites in several (five?) new markets So the month after that, I got sent a list of changes, and got a chance to test the tool before it was updated A month later tho, and we were back to normal…

So what I’m trying to say is that my job required a bit of thinking, a bit of willingness to work around problems, a bit of fudging-it to make things work, and not just doing things exactly according to a month-old step-by-step document. And my replacement just didn’t seem to get this, and didn’t seem willing to try. So that was hard. In the end, I sort of gave up caring. It’s not “my site” anymore.

On my last day, I was at a total loose end. I had nothing at all to do. I wandered around, chatted, wandered more, surfed the internet, wandered, mailed people, wandered, chatted, and so on. At three, everyone came around to my desk, and my boss gave a little speech, to say thank you. He told me he’d gotten amazing emails of thanks from the site managers (they were the people who provided me with content, that I had to put on the site) - doubly amazing because this kind of thing was so unheard of, from them. He refered to them as “customers” - which is, I think, the first time I’ve heard anyone else call them that, in work.

I think that’s why the praise is so rare - no one else treats them like our customers. They treat them like team-mates. Which is all very well - they *are* part of the team - but ultimately, they’re our customers. And they’re the link between the technical side of the team and our partners from other companies. They’re responsible for our real customers, out in their countries. So as far as I was concerned, they really were our customers. And the customer is always right (within reason - as soon as they get abusive, they immediately lose that).

I think that attitude was part of what made my job so much fun. The site managers had very little knowledge of the technical possibilities & restrictions of our tools - so they came up with ideas that weren’t limited by the systems. Of course, that made things difficult, but it was also hugely rewarding There’s very little more satisfying than being asked to do something, telling your customer “I’ve no idea how to do that, or whether it can be done”, asking around and being told there’s no way to do it, and then going ahead and making a way to do it anyway

(Big thanks to Stephnie & Stephen for one of the most difficult, and most rewarding challenges - extracting information on partners & links that were available, so that they could be rotated around the editorial calendar to give everyone a fair appearance on the site)

Anyway - everyone came around my desk, boss made a little speech, and gave me a bag of goodies (doughnuts & cookies) - these were duly shared out, and I thanked people. There was also a lovely card, and some cold, hard (or room-temperature, crumply) cash Many thanks guys

After that, I chatted to a few people, before they all drifted away - I went around to share out the last of the cookies, and then went back to my desk, and did a few last bits and pieces… I guess I just didn’t want to leave I replied to a few last mails, collected some stats for one of the managers I’d just finished a project for, and generally pottered… Eventually, about five o’clock, I left. It’s really, really weird to think that I won’t be going back there - not this week, or next, or maybe forever. It’s sad, but it’s been good. Thanks again guys, for everything.

Go mbeirimid beo ag an am seo aris.

So, Colm & I went to see Bewitched this evening.. Unfortunately, someone didn’t want us watching movies on a school night - there was a problem in UGC, power was out and the generator wasn’t working (this may or may not be true - it’s what we heard, from poor harried staff, who didn’t seem to know an awful lot about what was going on really).

So we didn’t get to see the movie

Saaaaaad panda

Rain fell in my eyes this morning… It tickled.

Now they’re all sore tho. Icky

Got my papers from TCD the other day, to donate my body to the anatomy dept. For any of you who haven’t considered it, think about it. You’re not going to need it once you’re gone, and wouldn’t you rather student doctors learning on a cadaver first, rather than a real, live patient!? It’s dead easy to do - write to the anatomy department of your chosen medical school (RCSI, TCD, UCD or UCC), and ask them to send you the paperwork.

Then all you have to do is fill in your name & contact details, get your next of kin to sign it, and send back the form to them. You also get an instruction sheet, that you can leave with any other important papers you have, on who should be contacted after you’re dead. They’ll only take your body if the coroner doesn’t request a post-mortem, and they need to get the body within 48hrs of death. Your body will be preserved, and then used for teaching and/or research.

After 1-3 years, your family will be notified that the body is ready for burial. At that stage, your family can either have it buried themselves, or the medical school will arrange for it to be buried or cremated. The school will also arrange for a minister of the religion of your choice to be present, if your family want it. None of this precludes the family having had a funeral for you before they give your remains to the medical school (as long as they do it within 48hrs of death), or a memorial service without your remains present.

Come on guys - it’s not like you’ll be needing it, when you’re gone

Also, for those of you who can - go donate a pint of blood. The number of eligible donors is dropping all the time, with various health scares, while the number of units needed really isn’t falling. So those of you who are eligible, please donate! If you’re scared, nervous, whatever, bring a friend! It’s really not that scary, I promise.

Went to their concert last night, with Colm, Colin, Mary, Gerry & Marian… Started out with food in the Porterhouse - mmm, yummy! After a bit of confusion, we found our seats - man, was it warm. They had the same piece of carpet on the stage as in their “Live” DVD, and it looked like they were filming (they did a white-balance check thingy, and other such clues).

The concert was fantastic. Absolutely amazing. I’ll leave the technical details to the boys to write up, but it was great. Two and a half hours straight, of brilliant music. Alison Krauss is the Mayor of Crazy Town, but she more than made up for it. If you ever get a chance to see these guys, go.

In other news, my folks got home, safe & sound Go them!

Well, today’s been an interesting one! Mum and dad have been in Nice for the last few days, at an Emergency Medicine conference. They were due back tonight, late. So last night, I checked the Dublin Airport Arrivals page, and there was only one flight from Nice today. Arriving in Dublin at 12:40. Definitely not late… I didn’t think much of it - just presumed it was because I was too far ahead of time…

Until this morning, when I checked again, to see that there was still only one flight due in from Nice before tomorrow. And then I panicked, and rang the others… They were in no rush to get the house tidy, as they weren’t expecting mum & dad until late either. So I think there was a bit of panic there, the house was tidied up, and they checked The Diary - which said mum & dad were due in at 21:40… Uh oh…

When the Arrivals page said they were in, and I’d gotten no response to a “Welcome Home” text, I started to worry… I called dad, and his phone was still ringing as if it were in France (beeeeeep, beeeeeep, instead of ring-ring, ring-ring). Rosie eventually got through to him, and he was indeed still in France, blithely unaware of the lack of flight this evening.

Mum and dad wouldn’t believe their flight didn’t exist, so they went back to the hotel, to check. And of course, it turns out they were never due home today - their flight is tomorrow evening. They did get the time right tho So they booked back into the same hotel - Nice isn’t the worst place in the world to be stuck for a day, and mum didn’t have work tomorrow anyway. I do expect some war, but hopefully by the time they get home, things will be alright!

I’m off to see Alison Krauss tomorrow night anyway, tho - really looking forward to that!