Since Last I Saw You

Since last I saw you
My heart didn’t beat
My tears kept on running
And my soul did weep

For your beauty is perfect
pure and divine
Oh if I could only
forever sit by your shrine

I would sit there and be
Till the end of all time
For that end would be also
– I’m sure of it – mine

After the weekend in Connemara, I had to call in sick on Monday because I woke up with a headache and nausea that made it hard for me to even write the emails to the different offices that needed to be informed. I lay in bed the whole day drinking tea and water and sleeping in between. I only had to take one Ibuprofen in the morning, though. I consider this good because I don’t really like being on painkillers.

I went to work on Tuesday and had new/further tasks to perform concerning SDs network infrastructure. I’m still tasked with the documentation but my work concerning switch documentation is mostly done and all that’s missing are the desk numbers and respective ports in use. Now I was asked to also create a new diagram showing the network layout. Now, you’ve seen the pictures; it’s a hell of a job, figuring out what goes where and what is what in the first place.

All the while, I’m also still fumbling around with my virtual environment and I want to get the most out of it because I might have to know my way around it later. I actually didn’t do much – if anything – concerning the virtualization today. I was busy making my way through cables and switch configs because another side project of mine, is to teach Eamonn the ways of the force… uhm the cisco switch cli.

I fear I won’t have enough time to finish even one of my main projects before my time here comes to an end. It’s almost mid-term and I’m looking forward to our trip to Derry-to-Galway-to-Derry-to-Dublin this weekend.

Well, good night!
Angelo

Ireland Is Ridiculous

…ly beautiful!

Seriously, this country must be photoshopped. I took a lot of pictures this weekend, none of which will actually be able to show any of the beauty of this place. You cannot capture this on film, canvas or keep it in your memory for long. I am very sad because that last part becomes so brutally clear to me now.

My alarm went off at 5am on Saturday. I washed up, put my hiking boots on and started walking towards city center at 5.50am. It was raining that day and I took out my umbrella to try and keep my backpack dry. I wasn’t very successful and in the end, all my stuff was wet – not dripping wet but wet nonetheless.

The bus left Dublin city center around 7.25am and we arrived in Westport just shortly before 11.30am. We had a guided tour through Westport and an hour for lunch afterwards, where we bought food and drinks for the evening. We then left for Croagh Patrick, the mountain that Saint Patrick allegedly sat around on for quite some time, quite a while ago. The hike to the first level already had me completely drenched but not from rain but from sweat. It was very beautiful up there and I would have loved to go all the way to the top but that would’ve taken at least another hour and a half and we didn’t have that much time. When we were back at the bottom and left Croagh Patrick, our goal was to reach Kylemore Abbey at 5.30pm to have a 20min tour through the Abbey. We didn’t quite make it but still had the tour with another guide, after which we visited the garden and the little chapel.

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When we arrived at the Sleepzone hostel, the view was absolutely stunning. The hostel itself is located at the Killary Harbour, a fjord connected to the North Atlantic. And again I’m devastated when I think about how much beauty was simply lost when I look at my pictures now.

I had a couple of beers after dinner and went to bed at 3am in the morning. My alarm woke me up at 7am and I washed up and went to see if the sunrise looked as amazing as the sunset of the day before. My expectations were greatly outdone by what I saw and I was certain that my eyes weren’t worthy of the sight that sat before me. I’m not ashamed to say that it brought tears to my eyes and I will always remember this moment though the images will fade from my mind eventually.

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Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. ~Edgar Allan Poe

Dublin Staff Relay and Where To Find Me

Thursday was a very nice day. I’ve started playing around with one of the servers here that is not in the productive environment of SD and set up a couple of virtual machines. It’s nice to see, that I haven’t forgotten everything that I’ve learned in the Windows seminar in my first year. I was able to set up an active directory, DHCP and DNS and was fumbling around with users, groups and respective policies.

At around half past four in the afternoon I set out with Linda and Genevieve towards Phoenix Park and the Dublin Staff Relay. The drive there was crazy because the traffic was unbelievably bad and there was one particular funny/exciting moment, when Linda drove up the bus lane all the way to the next intersection and when we were waiting there to cross the road, sirens came out of nowhere. We both thought that we were busted but when an ambulance came around the corner, we laughed delightedly at the daring maneuver and that we got away with it. However, we were still pretty short on time so Genevieve jumped out of the car and ran for our tent with the runner’s numbers and we tried to find a parking spot somewhere. After a couple back-and-forths, Linda found a spot on an adjacent field that was accessible from the road. We carried drinks and food towards the tents, looked for ours for about 10 minutes and set everything up, when we finally arrived. We were surprised to see, that we were actually sharing a tent with quite a lot of other companies like Mitsubishi and Europcar.

022 Dublin Staff Relay

I didn’t really see a lot of the running but that was fine as I got to talk to the people instead. We had a couple of beers in the tent and most of us went to the pub afterwards. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones to have that idea and the pub was crowded, so we had to stand around with drinks in hands. It was a very nice evening and I talked to pretty much everybody that came to the run. I have to remember to buy the next round when we go out again because I was freeloading 3 drinks and I don’t want that to pop into people’s minds when they think about me. 😉

I was given a ride home by another colleague and went to bed at around 12 o’clock. Needless to say, this morning was far from being a good morning. I stayed in bed as long as I could and actually even longer than I should have, had breakfast, filled my water bottle and left after already having missed the first bus. Fortunately, I was still quite early and the office stayed quiet till well after 9am.

I’m also going to go home early today because I have to wash my clothes for next week as I will leave Dublin tomorrow morning for Connemara. I’m very excited about that as you must know! J

Seeing as I will get a visit next month, I will follow end this post with a short description of where to find System Dynamics.

The River Liffey cuts Dublin into 2 parts. Close to the harbor mouth, the „recently“ built Samuel Beckett Bridge spans from Sir John Rogerson’s Quay over to the North Wall Quay. The first thing you notice about the bridge is the shape it has. The Beckett Bridge looks like a harp and is easily distinguishable from any other bridge in Dublin.

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When you get closer to it, no matter on which side of the Liffey, you will see that O2 has an office building right next to the bridge. On the bottom right of that building, there is a passage that leads you to Whitacker Court and if you turn left the door into the building will be on your left hand side. It’s of no use to describe the rest because you won’t get past that door unless the woman down there buzzes you in. I found out that she is not really the door opener for the building but belongs to another company in the building and she also seems to leave that front desk fairly often.

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Cheers,
Angelo

Getting Ready

Monday was kind of a slow day. I was still stuffed from Sunday evening because Eamonn (my host dad) made potatoes and potatoes and beans and a few more potatoes and fish and soup. He also talked me into having a pint of Guinness with him and later when I complimented him on the food, he slipped me another pint. I had a really bad night that night because my stomach was aching in almost every possible position that I tried to sleep in (and there aren’t really that many sleeping positions). I did have breakfast, although I didn’t think I could fit anything in that morning. Work was good, as I put a couple of cables in place, to replace some of the old patching and worked on the documentation of the whole thing some more. I got offered a server to install a couple of VMs to try whatever I liked and I love the opportunity to try that out some time this week.

Today, I switched some of the ports and so far nobody complained. I guess I will take that as quiet confirmation of my good work because nobody affected was actually aware that I have changed things. I also had to “fix” a printer earlier today. The Lady at the front desk changed the toner and after that the printer got hung up on the idea that it would be cool to process the job using the manual tray. There was no paper in that tray, naturally. So I did what the printer asked me (or anyone who would be willing to listen) to do: push the “OK”-button to use another tray. I did that and the printer was happy to oblige and print to the end of all days or at least till it runs out of toner again.

People here are getting ready for the Dublin Staff Relay on Thursday which I will attend to help with the organization because I can’t really run 5k in much faster than 45 minutes and I believe that’s just not going to cut it. I still like the fact that I’m being invited to all those company events. The staff here tries to maintain an internal social network which is an awesome idea because as I explained some time ago, most of the people working for System Dynamics don’t really get to see each other when they’re on-site with the clients.

After work today I went to O’Connell Street to one of the many camping/outdoor shops there and bought a pair of hiking boots, for ~70€, for my tour to Connemara this weekend and also the upcoming company hiking event I will attend in the first week of July. I’m very excited about this weekend and I hope that the weather will turn out nice so I can take lots of pictures of Ireland’s wildest region for you guys… Or no pictures and just enjoy the hell out of it 😉 we’ll see 😛

Take care
Angelo