But still getting a Nora fix!

Angel sent a couple of photos yesterday, and while we were talking she put me on speakerphone and Nora, who was fussing at the time, seemed to settle a little when she heard my voice... freaky!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

Drooling on mum be fun!!!

Burrito Baby

More photos to come soon, including a couple from just after Ike hit.

HP Lappies decided that the week that I am travelling and need it to take notes on it (it is a funky tablet PC) and of course it decides now is a good time for the harddrive to start to fail. It all started on the plane on Monday morning and has not stopped since. Takes the lappie over 30 mins to boot and longer if I want to do anything with it.

Turns out that the harddrive has some bad blocks (as opposed to happy or good blocks?!) and it is on its last leg. I am getting the same error in the event log every 7-8 seconds... which can't be helping things!

Only fix that I have found is a new harddrive, which luckily is on order now. That still leaves me with a machine that barely works and I need to type up all the session notes from the day on it. I went to Best Buy after leaving the site and got an external drive so that I can back everything up just in case the whole thing dies on me before I get home and I am backing it up now. Although I am typing this from the lappie and it is ok... seems that as long as I do not hibernate or power it down I may be ok... fingers crossed I do no experience a blue screen of death! And if I do, then I have a client customer I should be able to use to type any notes up on. Sigh... never easy is it?!

Angel had a conference up in Vancouver for the past several days. All very exciting stuff around statistics, trending, image manipulation, polar bear issues and other such exciting Scientific Editor stuff. Needless to say any session (apart from the polar bear keynote session) would put me to sleep in 5 minutes flat, so kudos to anyone who could stay awake... and even better understand what was being said.

Anyhoo... we both flew up to Vancouver on Friday evening (photos will be posted soon). Angel started the conference on Saturday morning and I took myself out for a long walk around Vancouver. While on my walk in Stanley Park I saw a couple looking intently in a shadowy area. Being curious I approached. They asked me a question but with my iPhone on I heard nada. Anyway, there was a Racoon (photo below) hanging out with his buddy the white chested squirrel. The Australian couple asked me what it was... and my answer was 'uh, a Racoon?!' They then proceeded to ask if the squirrel was a baby racoon. It took a lot of self control not to laugh at them, but my answer was 'nope, that would be a SQUIRREL!'

Silly Ozzies.

Trip was fun, although having to get up at 5:30 in the morning on Monday (Pacific Time) to start the work day was not fun. Vancouver is a nice town, and we had fantastic weather for the weekend which worked out really well for me.

On the flight back I went to boot my PC up to download some photos and to maybe do some work. When I tried to take it out of hibernation I got the following error message, which freaked me out as I had not backed my PC up, in uhh... never!!! Finally, after pleading, begging and threats of violence, the PC booted up, and as soon as I got home I backed up my critical files. Sigh... What a pain.

Anyway, to wrap up this brain dump, it has been a long week and is only Wednesday. I finally got home at around 9pm with Cammie with me (picked her up from my parents). She was screaming the whole way home, but after a good brushing, she settled down and was very cuddly Monday and Tuesday night. Tuesday morning I was up at 4:30am to fly up to Dallas for a meeting, and I got back from that at 6:30pm, only to have to get on another call at 8pm. Sigh... I will be glad when this week, and with it the engagement dominating mylife, will be over.

Wondering why bloggy been quiet lately? Been in Ireland for two weeks. Longer post coming soon with a recap but highlights were;

Left parents house at 6am on 8th March for flight to NYC. Had 9 hour layover (planned) in NY where we had lunch with Sanj, Uchi and Katie. Back to airport for a 9 hour delay (weather then flight crew exceeding flight time just before takeoff). Flight due to leave at 9:25pm actually left at 7:00 am!

Spent day or so resting, visiting Belfast and catching up with lots of family.

Hit the road on the 11th heading north in my Aunt Carol's Ford Focus TDi (nice car). Visited Antrim coast including Giants Causeway and Old Bushmills Distillery. Stayed in B&B, getting out of gale force winds. Left Angel's boots in room. Headed to Derry and then down through Sligo to Westport. Visited Connemara National Park next day then headed to Galway. Visited Galway (staying in a really nice little B&B) then moved on to Cliffs of Moher, which is a fantastic view, but did not get as many photos as I would have liked as I dropped the camera and cracked lense! Stayed in Kilorglin that night then onto the Ring of Kerry.

Got to the bottom of Ring of Kerry but could not do the Skellig Experience due to rough seas, but Angel did burn her mouth of microwaved soup and we spotted we had a flat tire when leaving. Changed to junior tire then limped up to Cahir, finishing Ring of Kerry and visiting Druid Circle of Kenmare which is a couple of big pebbles set in a circle, with a couple of larger pebbles in the middle.

Next day we drove up to Kilkenny, where we spent most of the day, really enjoying the town, then off to Dublin to visit and crash at Santhosh and Caroline's place. Arrived Sunday night... night before St Paddy's day. Went out for meal and drinks. I managed to get a stomach bug and spent most of St Paddy's day either in bed, or wishing I was in bed... quote of the day from Santhosh was... 'You did not have to go above and beyond by actually turning green today!'

Visited Guniness Storehouse, Book of Kells, and Dublinia exhibit as well as side trip to Glendalauch (spelling?) and Powerscourt. Oh, and we got two new tires for front wheels of car. Back up to Belfast to relax, shop and then have large family get together at the Belfast Castle (25 of us in total). Down to Dublin next afternoon where we crashed early ready for our 6:40 am flight to Paris then onwards to Houston. Got home, had dinner with parents, brought cat home then early to bed where cat proceeded to alternate between cuddling with Angel or with me... and she has not stopped since... I have a lap cat more often now than I ever did before... guess she does not like us leaving.

Back to work on Monday where we both had a cold. Angel betting better. Me not so much. Sore throat better, but cough developing into a nice hack... argh!

Photos to follow when I can charge camcorder where I managed to take a bunch of photos after breaking my other Sony camera!

Photos of our recent trip to Mexico City are now online. Captions to follow... sometime! Click here to get to the slideshow.

I get home from my trip to Tallahassee for work last night. The cab drops me off outside just before 9pm, and as soon as I get out of the cab with my bags, the first thing I see is Sherri and Julia (you may remember Julia as one of our flowergirls at the wedding... if you made it to the wedding that is!). Sherri shouts out 'Wooo our Mr Mike is home!' It was very nice to be greeted home that way.

Anyway, Angel had been working out with them and had just gone home, but instead of using the gate into the patio area, she had taken the long way. Reason? Well, it seems that a small salamander had been climbing the gate the other day and somehow his two left feet had been squashed in the gate. And I mean completely crushed. Poor guy (or girl... not sure) had been there for two days but was still alive and alert. Angel had not wanted to go near him as all three of the girls were very upset about it, and could not bring themselves to do anything. Angel said 'If you cut him off he will bleed out' but I still was dispatched to do something.

That something ended up being a delicate surgical operation using my leatherman to scrape his crushed appendages off the gate without killing the poor fellow. He (or she) was a little live wire after one had been freed, but with the use of an old boarding pass I managed to pry him/her off and I put him/her (would be easier to use It I guess, oh well) under the bushes inside our patio area. Good news is that he/she/it was able to hobble away, so I hope it does ok!

Ok, you may wonder what the photo has to do with that story. Well to be honest... nothing. I just heard the fire trucks approach earlier (turns out there were 6 or 7 of them) and I went up to take a photo. Turns out the Antiques place at the corner is on fire... Looks like an electrical fire!

So between Christmas and New Year Angel and I went down to Mexico City. In parallel her parents and brother went down to stay with a family friend. Sherwin was planning to join us at the tail end of the trip, but unpredicted events resulted in him joining us a little sooner, which was fun.

More details on the trip and more photos will be uploaded soon... but I need to get back to the meeting I am in!

No wonder the poor boy failed the guide dog tests... after we left yesterday it seems the owners son took the dog out for a walk and somehow in the 20 minutes they were out he managed to eat rat poison. They rushed him to the vet and the vet made him throw up. By the time we got back (around 7:30pm) he was all fine, and happy to see people, as long as they gave him a rub.

The photo above is of him having a breakfast bone.

The hotel, or 'Auberge' where we are staying seems to be partly family owned and run. One of the residents is a golden lab, who went for the guide dog test but seems he flunked out of school. Honestly, I think he threw the tests as he seems like a smart guy, and probably realised that life as a guide dog would be a lot tougher than a family hotel dog.

Anyway, he was very friendly this morning, and I asked him if he wanted to take my bag and go to work for me. He then stood up, grabbed my bag by the handle and was about to walk away with it. It really was very amusing, and seeing how long the day is probably going to be (yesterday we finished around 7pm), I wish he had!

... are always fun, especially when you have to fly to the city where an internation golf tournament is being held. The result tends to be busy flights and no hotel rooms.

That is what has happened this week. Flights were not actually all that busy, but hotels were. Ended up in a hotel 30 minutes away from the site, and in the middle of a forest. Add to that the fact that the GPS unit ended us up 300 yards short of the hotel, outside someone's house, makes for interesting trips.

On the flip side I have a room with a fireplace, although it is too warm to use it!