Joe’s Blog

Running update:
Turns out my first run was around 2 miles (misread the map) so thats why I didn’t collapse when I went to 3 miles.
Sun 13th 2 miles - tech park
Tue 3 miles - met my cousin
Wed 3 miles - first continuous run
Fri 3 miles i think- it was a long time ago
Sun 3 miles - graham joined us
Mon - i forget
Tue - 3 miles i think
Wed - 5 miles from Arena - met Sean
Thu - break (labs etc)
Fri - 5 miles from Concert Hall, Kilmurray, River Bank
Sat - something like 6 miles - along the river/beach from my house to BallyB and back by the road.
Sun 28th - break
Mon - 5 miles along bank
Tue - 5 miles along bank

These last few days have been tough - I know I can do 5 miles and the temptation to have a break is huge but I haven’t stopped so far. Today was really muddy too which didn’t help

This is another flash thing, but it’s actually in Family Guy series 5 episode 6 i think -
Peanut Butter Jelly Time - sound definitely needed

Silly Cats
Silly Cats
For Car Enthusiasts:
Killing a Smart Car
For Computer People:
The Sysadmin Song
For Sci-fi fans:
Star Wars geeks get the piss taken out of them

and a whole lot more at http://video.google.com/

One of my friends from Siemens in Erlangen is in Shanghai at the moment and has written quite an interesting account (in german) on his site http://www.dokoupil.com/China/. Here is one such entry

Irgendwann war eine Pinkelrunde angesagt und ihr werdet es nicht glauben, ich stand am Pissour und auf einmal hatte ich ein warmes Tuch in meinem Nacken. Ich wurde massiert und mein Nacken eingerenkt. Die hatten also extra jemanden der sich für das Wohlbefinden der Gäste sorgt. Das ist mal ein netter Service.

Roughly translated:

Eventually I needed to use the toilet and you’ll never believe it, i was standing at the urinal when suddenly there was a warm towel on my neck. I was massaged and my neck was “put right”. Someone had organised this for the well-being of the guests. What a nice service

But Robert is best behind a camera and his photos tell quite a story of:
German beer festivals in Shanghai
Formula 1


Shanghai and the tunnel


Camping on the Great Wall of China I think


And of course - A paper factory by Siemens

Hmm - musings for this week - I’ve been very good and not so good.
Jogging-
I finally got some jogging done on Sunday - a quick run around the technology park but it turns out that it was less than a mile. Tuesday morning then I had a real challenge (set by george & dec) to run 3 miles-down to the groody roundabout, into the college and back by the Lodge. I was doing well until I met my cousin that I hadn’t seen in ages and stopped to talk for a good long time. No sooner had I started again when I met Emilia and another quick chat so any idea of how long the run took went out the window. Yesterday I was ready again after some coaxing and did the same run in about 30 mins - woohoo.

The not so good news is that Civilization IV was released. I never knew this game till one day I couldn’r rent a playstation game I wanted - Gran Tourismo or something so I picked this random game from the shelf. It took quite a bit of time and frustration to get into the game but when I did it took hold….This is the only game that can make me play through the night and not notice the time going by, the motto being - “Just one more turn”. That was Civ II, I liked Civ II Call to Power and Civ III was good too but Civ IV is beginning to lose its appeal. The game is very different in the way the world is presented (fully 3D) but the rest is essentially the same. However, this game demands a lot of processing power and a strong graphics card. But worst of all it crashes - frequently!!!! Firaxis and 2K games are nearly ready with a patch and I hope this fixes the problem. Maybe then it will be possible to have a good mulitplayer game and then Civ IV might be a big improvement.

Research wise we had an induction day this week which gave some good pointers on preparing and writing the thesis, reports and organising the project in general.

Also, goodbye and good luck to Salvador who has been with us in the wireless research group. Salvador is from the University of Malaga and is working on the Celtic-Gandalf project. It was a pleasure to know him and I hope we meet again some day.

PS: Since 11:11 on the 11th Nov(11), it’s carnival time!

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored.

You’d like to your lover to think you are loyal and faithful… that you’ll never change.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was ruthless, cold-blooded, and sarcastic.

Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything… no secrets.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You’ll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You’ll do anything for love, but you won’t fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Harry has done a very impressive job on the uldownunder site which is now live here and for those of you that don’t know Harry et al, some of their college days are still to be seen here.
And Harry, if you are reading this, I resent that remark about firefox!

I keep meaning to catch up with this blog and say everthing and now ive got to cut it down to a few points and wipe the slate clean. So over the past month i’ve

Been researching telecomms, more specifically convergence in phone and data networks, possible next-generation networks, the theory behind UMTS, IP Multimedia Subsystem, SIP and so on.
The group are really good to work with and a cup of coffee and a chat in the mornings helps a lot. I’ve survived a few weeks of being a TA (teaching assistant) in the telecomms labs too.

Outside of that, I’ve done a few things at the weekends - last weekend I was in Waterford at Laura & Dec’s place for another Boards Beers and we made use of the extra hour that night.

I finally got back up to dublin - first time since Joeys exhibition in June. We went to a really good place to eat - good food, good portions (unless you go for the calamari) and good prices, definitely a place to go again http://www.pod.ie/about_mkt.php - update: changed to www.marketbar.ie. Anne put me up at her place as usual so I was shopping in Blanchardstown where I got some nice new shoes but I also got to see what Dundrum was like - not as open but still plenty of good shops, House of Frazer is similar to BT and Harvey Nichols is just on another level and not one that I’m sure I like. Also got to see Catherine & Joeys house in Ballbriggan although I woke them up very early on Sunday - Anne took me to the Airport with her and they collected me there at 10am!

The weekend before that was quite enough - the house is a lot quiter that the one in the summer but then again I was usally working on Saturdays. At the start of October I was home again, and although I missed bringing home the turf, I made a good effort at throwing it into the shed with Paul, Denis and Jane and it was all done by Sunday, finished for another year or so, thank god.

Hmmm, what else strange or significant happened - I’m disgusted with BT - they refused my application for a telephone line but thats their loss. Unfortunately Digiweb and Irish Broadband don’t cover our estate so it looks like we’ll have to get an eircom line if we want broadband.

Anyway I think thats a decent recap of events and I’d better go now before I burn out.

PS the best new blog I’ve seen http://aliveinlimerick.blogspot.com - update: blog closed down

Heres a sample -

A man in his 40s from the Northside of the city appeared in court this morning charged with a carjacking yesterday in the city centre. On Wednesday morning a 20-year-old female student sitting in her car on Lower Gerald Griffin Street was told to get out of her car by a man with a kitchen knife. She ran away and the man drove off in her car.

Of course in my day, 20-year-old students didn’t have their own cars. I used to cycle to college. In short pants. And bare feet. Of course, in them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o’ tea.

Anyway, on Wednesday afternoon Gardai spotted the car on the Dock Road, arrested a man and recovered a kitchen knife.

Meanwhile, the Limerick Post reports that a card skimmer was installed on the Ulster Bank ATM at the Crescent Shopping Centre. When someone finally noticed it, 4 Romanians suddenly pulled it off and ran away.