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Just arrived 2006 October 31 1:20

Posted by diamond in : Work, Health , 2 comments

I have just arrived in the google apartments in mountain view. I have travelled dub->lhr (1 hour) and lhr->sfo (11 hours) today, and gotten one hour’s sleep in the last 39 hours. I’ve also driven on american highways for the first time ever. The sheer terror of it boggles my fried brain. The absymal surfacing of the roads, the stunningly bad handling and suspension, the aggressive unhelpful road users, aaaaaaagh. And now at last i sleep.

*Update*
I was too tired to remember clearly. It was in fact 30 mins sleep in 39 hours.

The life that is 2006 October 27 15:48

Posted by diamond in : Work, Random, Health , add a comment

Things have been so so hectic since i moved to dublin. Between trying to get up to speed in work, looking for accomadation, starting a new relationship, trying to get a life together, stay sane, etc, there’s not been much room for breathing.

Myself and niall went to see a property in glenageary during the week. I looked up the dublin transport office website to see where the nearest dart station would be, and off we went. Unfortunately, i assumed that the said station was the glenageary one, and didn’t double check it. Compare the route i intended to take vs the route we actually ended up taking.

So, despite careful planning, we ended up being about 10 minutes late, and that only because my father was able to direct us over the phone when i called for help. When we arrived, there was about 15 people standing in a line outside the house, and another 4 or so inside viewing the house with the letting agent. He was taking down the names and numbers of people who were interested, but at best we were on the second page of said list. The house was lovely, and in a really nice neighbourhood, so needless to say it was off the market the next day.

It appears that the “If you haven’t paid tax this tax year all you need to do is give us your PPS number and we’ll take care of the rest” spiel we were given on the first day of starting here wasn’t exactly… accurate. When i recieved my first payslip yesterday (horray for getting paid at least -), the figures didn’t make much sense to me, so i went to talk to the payroll department. “Oh no, you’re on emergency tax, you’ll have to apply to the tax office to get a tax cert”. Huh. Anyway, that’s done, it should arrive in the next week or so… when i’m in california. Next month’s pay check is going to be severely hurting as i’m not going to be able to hand in the paperwork in time for it to processed. It could be worse, it’s just extra hassle i’d rather not have to deal with.

It appears that this whole trying to get into work in the morning from balbriggan thing is having a toll on me. I kinda collapsed on Tuesday night from exhaustion, couldn’t walk straight etc. I guess the biggest problem is the lack of permenant accomadation is preventing me from getting into any sort of routine where i can regulate things like sleeping properly.

I’m off to the states on monday, being collected from balbriggan by taxi at 03:45. There’s then a one hour flight to london heathrow, followed by an eleven hour flight to san francisco. There i’ll be collecting a rental car and driving an hour or two south to mountain view where i’ll be crashing (in the sleep sense) for as long as possible to try and recuperate. Horray for this modern jet-set lifestyle -/ I guess at least i should have a chance to relax a bit.

Traction 2006 October 19 23:07

Posted by diamond in : Health , 3 comments

I’m now up to 19 minutes with 40kg of tension at the physio’s (up from 30kg and 34kg of the previous visits). It’s a rather interesting experience. As the machine applies the pressure, you slide down the table a bit until the harness across your chest begins to restrain you. Then, as the pressure increases, every time you breath out you’ll slide a tiny bit more. Eventually it reaches a stable point where you can only take shallow breaths as your ribs are being compressed. It’s fine as you’re not doing anything more exerting than lying there, but did make me somewhat nervous the first time. Also, forgetting to remove my leatherman from my belt was a bad move. The straps around my waist ensured i had a rather unusually shaped bruise on my hip where my leatherman lives. Still, the experience is generally quite benign, and along with the various stretches i’ve been given to do, seems to be helping my back recover. The stretches take about 35 minutes, and the physio has told me to try do them twice a day if possible. I suspect that’s mostly in the im-possible category, but we’ll see how it works out.

House-hunting 2006 October 17 20:38

Posted by diamond in : Random , add a comment

Myself and niall went to view a house yesterday. It was advertised as having 2 double-rooms. The master bedroom did in fact qualify as a small double-room. The second bedroom didn’t even have a double-bed. For that room, here were your options any one of:

I wish i could say this was an exception, but of all the properties we’ve viewed in the last few weeks, all of which were advertised as having 2 double-rooms, only one actually lived up to that. Gah.

Asha and Jet 2006 October 12 20:51

Posted by diamond in : Work, Random , 2 comments

I had a rather unusual evening today. As i was getting off of the train in balbriggan, i noticed a woman carrying a very large cardboard box off of a carriage ahead. I was thinking to myself that that must have been damn awkward to get onto the train with the amount of people crowded around when she went back onto the train to retrieve a child in a buggy. She was quite clearly flustered, and almost knocked the box off of the platform as i was approaching, so i grabbed it for her. She hurriedly said thanks and tried to move both box and buggy along the platform towards the exit. It wasn’t going well; she was obviously far too stressed and the task was too much for one person regardless. I picked up the box and motioned that i’d carry it out of the station for her.

On the way she asked me if i knew a number for a cab company in balbriggan. I said that i didn’t, but that my car was parked nearby if she’d like a lift. She seemed quite taken aback at the offer, but gladly accepted it, remarking that i was soooo nice, too nice in fact. I replied “Yeah, it’s a bit suspicious”, to which she laughed and agreed. I told her to wait at the station and that i’d be back in about 10 minutes. On the walk to the car it occurred to me that she might well either think better of taking a lift with a random stranger or find a cab in the time i was gone. Feeling a bit stressed that i might be wasting my time i returned to the station to find her sitting on the steps in front smoking a cigarette. It turned out she’d also been worrying that i might not return, and had decided to finish smoking before giving up on me.

I gave her and her daughter a lift home, stopping at supervalu on the way (where she bought me a box of cadbury’s roses to say thanks). She introduced herself as Asha. I later found out her daugher, whose name was Jet, was 4 months old. Asha is of a very mixed descent (i know irish, arabic, and japanese were mentioned in the list), is a single mother, musician with her own sca band, and is trained in a whole bunch of things all of which she regretfully admits are both really difficult and completely useless. She invited me in for a drink, which i declined until she said she wanted to play me a couple of songs she’d recorded. The first was an elvis cover, not really my taste. The second was one of her own, more in the style of pj harvey, which i approve of. After chatting for a while i took my leave as it was quite obvious she wasn’t going to relax and stop trying to say thank you every couple of sentences. All in all, it was quite a surreal experience. Here’s to stepping outside of the routine every once in a while.

I found out today that i’m probably going to the states for work for the first 3 weeks of november or so. This means i’ll probably be able to attend the ubuntu developer summit that’s being held in google hq in mountainview. Horrah -) The whole trip idea however does fill me with some fear. I’m not the most social of people, and i’ll be chucked in at the deep-end over there. I’m sure it will work out fine, i just don’t expect i’ll relax from now until i’ve been there for a week or so and not died yet -)