Well the financial pressure is off

I got 2 new tenants to move in at the end of September/beginning of October. They are friends in the respective final years. One lad is doing his masters and the other is doing his final year of a degree in European studies. They seem nice and quiet and easy to get on with. Lets hope it all plays out that way.

The big bonus for me, is that I don’t need to worry about finances too much over the next 7-9 months, and I can spend money like its going out of fashion while away with the lads in America.

I have noticed that the dollar is recovering pretty well over the last month or so, after its highs of 1.6 to the euro. Its down to 1.45, and with all due respect to the American economy, I could use a higher exchange rate for about another 2 months. Its crazy that its only 2 and a half weeks away, and only a week and a half before I’m off to Barcelona. September is going to be a busy month.

Meet the family properly

This weekend there was a going away party for M’s sister G. She is headed to Edinburgh for a year studying dance. The party was on in Cavan, so that meant I was staying in the family home for the weekend. I drove M and her friend up and we arrived about 4. There was torrential rain which meant I had to take some detours and some times I had to drive through the puddles (big puddles).

Anywho, I got to meet potential daddy in law. He had the Dublin vs Tyrone match on the tv when I arrived and delighted in every score against Dublin. His advise was that I should be too, because I didn’t have the safety of other Dubs with me, I was in country land now. It wouldn’t take much for him to dig a hole. I could only smile and tell him it didn’t take him long to threaten me. I know plenty of people that would have taken his threat to heart and been a bit put off, but most people haven’t had an upbringing with my father. There are very few that will slag as much as he does, and it has stood me well in my adult years. The rest of the weekend went along in that tone. Obviously him being the only male in his house wanted to stamp his authority, at the same time I couldn’t roll over and let him win. I’m way too competitive.

G was at work all day, and when she got back from work, she was getting ready for her night out, then on the night out she was off everywhere saying goodbye to everyone she could meet, so I didn’t really get to speak to her all weekend.

M’s other 2 sisters Ei and Ea kept me company for most of the weekend. Ei is the older of the 2 and is extremely smart. She reads books like they’ll disappear out of existence if she doesn’t get them all read in seconds. She acts the middle child too, not doted on like the youngest, not old enough to go out on the town and likes to have her own space in her room because nobody really pays her attention, so she may as well disappear and be a quiet observer. While everyone else was bombing around getting dressed up, or working on the computer, I stayed sitting with Ei talking about books and films and anything else the conversation happened to roll around to, and I spoke to her on an adult level. I think she enjoyed that because when I got up the next day, she was sitting at the kitchen table waiting on me to get up.

Ea is the youngest, and is a very sheltered young girl. She is not allowed to watch 15’s or 18s films, which is fair enough, but she is also not allowed to watch the Simpsons for some reason. Its a strange setup but it has led to her being overly fearful. Pirates of the Carribean for example is a film she is afraid to watch. On the other side of things, she is very inquisitive and will take the chance to ask what a word she has not heard means. She asked me the meaning of about 5 words I used in her presence over the weekend.

Overall, it was very pleasant and eye opening weekend, and hopefully I made a decent impression on the group.

Old floods…. and very young me.

So going from newest to oldest. I’m in the blue tracksuit here.

Then in these 2 I’m in the shorts with the white squares on them

And finally…… I’m the one pointing at the camera.

Recovering

Well the assessor was out yesterday and once I get a full contents list out to them, it should take 2-4 weeks to process. My own assessor is talking mad money in the claim. I’ll have to see what they agree on in the end, but it looks like it could be a fairly big settlement one way or another.

The residents, including me, have meet with one of the local politicians to try and get the issue sorted once and for all. We want a meeting with the drainage engineers in Dublin City council. We are currently looking at early September for that meeting. In the mean time, it is all about getting the drains cleaned and the area somewhat secure. I have designed a flood blocker for my front door, and I’m hoping to implement it over the weekend. Will see what time I get.

I have put the house pretty much back together, there is of course still a smell and plenty of work that will need to be done once I get the money through and once I get back from holidays. In the mean time, I am going to have to do something about the smell before I show the house off to potential tenants. I expect there to be a few viewing this weekend seeing as the leaving cert results came out yesterday. I really cant wait to be living within my means again.

There will be postings in work for promotions tomorrow. I am pretty much guaranteed one of them, mostly because I work the hardest around here and everyone knows it. Well to be honest, I don’t work the hardest, but I do work the smartest, which means I get more done in less time than everyone else. Makes it look like I work the hardest.

On a side note, my parents were going through old photos of the floods of the past (which were nowhere near as bad as now) and have found a picture of me aged about 2 or 3 in the middle of one. I may post it up here, depending on how much you all want to see it.

Some pics of the occasion

On a side note, I won tickets to the Clone wars film tomorrow with Movies.ie. Yay me!

The great Dublin flood of 08

Ok so great is a bit of a misnomer. It was far from great when the water started seeping in my front door. Saturday we had record rainfall, and like most summers on my road, it started to flood. The drains get clogged up during the dry months and once the rain falls heavily my area of the road (being one of the lower points) starts to fill up. Over the years I  have seen this many times, and up until now there has been no real damage done. The road flooded but it lasted about an hour or two and then it went away. I used to stick on the wellies and paddle out in it. At one point I had a blow up lilo that I floated down the road on. I have only ever once seen it close to the height it was at on Saturday and even then it came nowhere near the height of the floors in the house. I have plenty of pictures to upload, but my computer at home is out of action.

I spent all of Sunday pulling up my carpets and cleaning up the absolute filth that was left behind. I moved my car up the road as soon as I saw it starting to flood. M’s car was in the driveway and as this is higher ground I thought it was safe. I was wrong. The water came up above the height of the door seals and started to fill up with water. Part of yesterday was spent bailing it out. Right now, I am waiting on a call from the insurance company, so they can send out an assessor. At this point, I am not sure how much work I am going to have to do, and how much I will do.

On the plus side, footballs back. Man U won the Community shield on penalties yesterday. Yay!

Alton Towers, Part 2

After an evening worrying about Oblivion, I heard the screams, and I saw the black hole the coaster dropped into it was time for day 2. Day 2 saw us wanting to get in the big attractions left. We didn’t want to rush things, nor did we want to miss anything, so we bought the fast pass tickets. This gets us basically to the top of the Oblivion, Air, Nemesis and Flume rides and cost £8 each. Considering it saved us 50 mins on each ride, I think it was worth it.

Before we could do any of that, me being the loving boyfriend that I am, decided to win a teddy for M. Realistically I just wanted to embarrass her a bit by making her cart around a large fuzzy object for the day. I was under strict instructions not to win anything huge no matter how much I believed I could. For the sake of my own pride, I could not allow myself to get a prize that was guaranteed, e.g. a hook a duck prize. This left me with a very narrow options. I decided to go for the hardest game first, which co-incidentally had what I deemed to be the nicest teddies. You’ve probably all seen the game. You get a hand full of plastic rings, and you have to get one onto a bottle top. You can throw and throw and throw, and get absolutely nothing. I decided to concentrate on one bottle at the front, and just kept trying to get that one. It paid off, I won a teddy, and M picked out a delightful yellow duck, now named Dash. We spent the rest of the day cataloging Dash’s day with photos, which will be uploaded when M gets back from her current week away with her friend. She brought the camera with her.

The first of the rides we headed for was the Flume. In retrospect, this was probably a bad idea. We were up the front of the boat, with M right in front of me. She got drowned from head to knee. Below the knees were covered by the front of the boat. Luckily she brought some shorts with her to change into, but she still had to carry the jeans she had on in order to dry them.

After the soaking, it seemed like the best idea was to get something to eat, and watch the pirate show. Yes we are big kids. It was a bit of armature dramatics, but it was a bit of fun to watch too.

Spinball Whizzer was the only ride we really had to queue for on the day, so we decided to get it out of the way. After about 45 mins of queuing we were nearing the front and suddenly the ride stopped. There was some sort of problem that saw a car or two stuck on the tracks. It didnt take long for them to get the ride going again, but it does not fill your heart with confidence. The spinball ride was probably the most fun. It didnt do loop-de-loops, or manic drops, but it span around constantly as we went around the track. We both laughed all the way through the ride. M’s trousers, which we were hanging up to dry through the queues, were still wet, but a little drier for the ride. An idea was brewing…..

We headed for Nemisis and Air, which are right beside each other. After our second trip of the weekend on Air, the jeans were dry. Maybe there is something to this tumble drier technology….

Nemesis is a standing up roller coaster and at one point does a full 360 loop sending your legs up before heading for the ground. They actually had a little stream running beside the ride that had dyed red water in it. Its a nice touch for setting the mood.

The day was rounding up nicely, but there was still one challenge left. Oblivion! Its a long walk up the path to the top, and as you walk you hear the screams as the next victims plummet into the black hole. This is the only other ride that involved me taking off my glasses. Once we were strapped in, I looked to my left to see one of the ride attendants smile manically at me, and give me the thumbs down. All I could think at that point was, thanks for that buddy. As high a climb as it was to the start of the ride, the coaster tick, tick, ticked its way up further still. As I looked out from the top over the park, all I could really focus on was the fact that the track dropped mere feet in front of me. At the edge, the seats stop at an angle, giving you a view of whats to come.

The writing inside the arrow reads “Don’t look down”. You have enough time to read the sign and realise there is no way out now. As that train of thought finishes, the catch is released and you plummet!

The END!

Alton Towers. Wohoo!

Well I survived another weekend away. I have not been to many theme parks in my time, especially not ones based around roller coasters. I have been to Hong Kong Disney, but they were more attractions than roller coasters. I have to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. We stayed in a hotel in Derby and rented a car to drive to and from the park. This worked out well, as we were only about 30mins drive away, parking was easy and the price of the hotel compared to staying in a hotel on site was well worth it.

There is a monorail that brings you from the car park to the entrance, and each train is themed, from a Carribean theme complete with Reggae accented welcome voice, to a summery grassy train with a high pitched, child oriented welcoming voice.

Once in the front gate, the layout seems to be borrowed from Disney land, or vice versa. You are immediately into the shopping street, with food and merchandise. Straight ahead in the distance is the center piece for the park behind a lake, Alton Towers itself. We got ourselves a map, which is quite detailed, however I would say that the layout of the park is quite scattered. You cant walk to any park of the park directly from one spot, you generally have to go through a number of other areas to get to the farther reaching areas, nor is it laid out in a circular path that attracts an orderly stroll through trying one ride at a time.

Either way there are a few major areas of the park, and each area has its flagship ride. Mutiny Bay was first for us, and this is a pirate themed area geared towards chargeable games for teddies etc. Being a pirate area, you would expect water too and the Battle Galleons ride was a simple tracked ride, with one important addition. Water cannons! There are periodic water cannons all along the ride, where people not on the ride can attack those on the ride with water, while those on the ride fight back. Needless to say, this resulted in a lot of wet people. This was one ride I was going to avoid, no matter how tempting it is to drench kids with water.

We did however start our day slowly with a trip on the tea cups, and with some heave-ho you could get them spinning as fast as you like. Fast as you like for me, translated into fast as I possibly could. Its a good start.

Next we headed for Katanga Canyon, and while the Flume and the Rapids looked appealing, on the first day we didn’t fancy getting wet, so we had a go on what looked like a rather tame roller coaster, the Runaway Mine Train.

It was actually quicker than it looked, and at one point went through a dark tunnel, which added to the thrills.

Onwards and upwards, we headed to the gloomy wood. They have done a good job of adding atmosphere to this area of the park, but it is something that could easily be expanded on. There is only really the one ride, which is Duel. A haunted house ride that has been developed into a gun game in the same vein as the Buzz Lightyear game in Disneyland. We still went on it, and I racked up what I believe to be an impressive score of 54000 odd points. It was the highest I had seen of anyones. I am pretty competitive so had to check all the scores of other people. It showed scores beside peoples photos at the end of the ride.

Next on the path was Forbidden Valley. A number of the bit rides are located here. Ripsaw and Blade work off the premise of rocking you backwards and forwards, and to be honest, this sort of ride makes me sick. M said the same about her so we avoided these two and headed for the roller coasters.

The 2 big roller coasters here are Nemesis

and Air.

We saw the queues for Nemesis were 50 mins long and decided to head for Air instead. The signs are very good at pointing out how long you are likely to wait for a particular ride, and it does stack up to the time you do actually wait. Air had a 50min wait too, so we decided that it was going to be this long no matter what and just queued up. I have to admit to being a bit nervous at this stage. Especially when your strapped in, and then before it starts it rotates your pod so your lying flat looking down at the ground. For the first few minutes all you can see is the ground getting further and further away from you, before it hits the peak. Then it rolls slowly around the peak before it accelerates straight towards the ground, pulling you off to the side at the last minute. Twists and turns and ups and downs, your body is thrown every which way. At one point it twisted so I was looking up at the sky while the track pulled us up into the air before pulling us straight back down again head first. Then just as soon as its started, its over, and your heart has a moment to relax.

We didn’t fancy queuing for another 50 mins at this stage, and headed off for something to eat and wandered off in the direction of food and the Towers. Neither of us had any idea what Hex: the Legend of the Towers was about, so ventured in there after food. I am not going to say more about the ride, because it took us pleasantly by surprise. My advise, if you dont know what it is, and plan on going to Alton Towers, dont look it up, just do it.

This was just a stop on the way to Rita though. Rita is another 50 min queue, but this is one fast ride. None of the rides really left my stomach behind, but this one did. Once we got to the top we were strapped in and were asked to remove our glasses. This is one of 2 rides they asked us to do that for. There is a count down and then the train is then accelerated from 0-100km/h in 2.2 seconds. It flies around twists and turns causing my stomach to lurch at each pitch and fall. If I close my eyes I can still imagine the speed.

Right next to Rita is the Corkscrew.

This had a very short queue and was as disorientating as it looks. To slow things down, after the corkscrew we took a break and went on the swings.

We rounded off the day by looking at the last of the coasters and finally popping onto the Charlie and the Chocolate ride. Its a very basic kids ride, that does make you feel part of the story. Very nostalgic and I would say great for younger children.

The last 2 coasters are Spinball Whizzer, a roller coaster that spins around like a teacup as you go through the course.

And finally Oblivion! A vertical drop into a black hole!

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The next days adventures to follow tomorrow.

Triathlon pics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthonymcg/sets/72157606441116876/

I am up to my tits in work so no posting in any detail. Lots of people at my level off training or just not around. Means I am currently covering 4 teams on my own when it should be 2 people covering each team.

About 6 weeks to America

With that in mind, here is the ever changing details of our trip

http://www.tripit.com/trip/show/id/813757

And a blog we have set up for our antics.

http://www.usallin.com