Darragh Ó Héiligh blog and accessibility guides

My father left his  first comment to my blog yesterday.  Well done!!!!!

He had one suggestion.  Leave an audio tribute to Ronnie Drew.  I think it's a great idea so here it is.  Even if your not in to Irish music, you should have a listen.  The pipes are a powerful instrument.  Ok.  I'm bound to say that considering I'd spend every minute of the day on them if I had the option.

Listen to the recording directly via this link.

I'm liking The Script at the moment.  Well, more specifically, I think their drummer is cool. 

http://www.thescriptmusic.com/

The man who cant be moved was good but the song "We cry" is even better.

Looking for a style to be inspired by is really difficult!  But... I found two really young musicians on YouTube last week that definitely helped me get out of a bit of a rut that I'd been in musically for the last while.  I've been spending a lot of energy on the Bodhran over the last month or two because I'm finding it hard to deviate from the norm. 

Unfortunately, a lot of this post isn't going to make sense to you if you’re not into drumming or music. 

When playing something like a 4 4 beat, there's only so much you can do.  You can vary the dominant beat, you can double treble or quadruple the beat so for every one beat you have two, four 6 or eight, you can even play a 3 4 beat over it and make the dominant beat match that of the dominant beat of the 4 4 time.  You can only do that for one bar though or you'll distort the timing too much.  If you’re interested in any of that stuff let me know and I'll do a separate audio recording demonstrating them.  Anyway, if you listen to this attached file you'll get a fair idea of what I'm talking about. 

I should stress that ordinarily, I never think of music in terms of such structures.  I play by ear and by heart. The brain rarely comes in to it.  I met a percussionist last year while playing in Israel who made me think of bodhran playing in a very structured manor and although I wouldn't ordinarily even think of doing such a thing it really made me expand my range and in my humble opinion gave me a much better outlook to enable me to expand my skill. 

You might think that playing a drum is easy.  You only need to play in time with the music but there's much more too it.

Anyway, take a listen to this.  I'd really like to get a drummers perspective.  I'd also love to get really experienced bodhran players ideas as well! 

If you’re interested in listening to what's inspired me this week, here are the two links to the YouTube recordings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzIBWhaifcw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK8cqr6u5Bs

After a nice productive but relaxing Saturday, I Dragged Emma kicking and screaming over to the computer room to record an audio post wih me.  It's very random, relaxed, informal but friendly and informative....... I hope......

Either way, have a listen.  Let us know what you think.  What should we call the bird?

Oh, sorry, I will get around to make that stream properly. As it stands at the moment, you may be prompted to save or open the file. Just hit open. It will play almost right away depending on your connection.

I'm having a really quiet Saturday so far.  I've to go to Dublin soon but I've been taking the oppertunity to play some music before I go.  I decided to quickly record another track for the Bodhran.  I do this regularly to find parts that I want to improve on.  I haven't done it for the pipes or the whistle in a while though so I'll have to start back at that again.  I thought it would be an idea to stick the recording up here.  If nothing else, just as an excuse for a post.  I've not written in a while.  actually, I have but I haven't posted it yet.  I wrote on the train on Thursday night on the way home but things have been so busy at work lately  didn't have achange to take it from the laptop yet.

Anyway, if you want the track, click here.

Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't look at stats much however todays caught my eye. 

For some reason, a total of twelve searches resulted in people coming to my site in the past ten hours. 

People searched for Darragh Ó Héiligh, Darragh O Heiligh, Darragh O'Heiligh, DigitalDarragh, Digital Darragh, O Heiligh and darraghoheiligh. 

Is there a reason that someone or some people are finding it very interesting to search for me by name?

Well, for those of you who couldn't just find me at www.digitaldarragh.com or www.darraghoheiligh.ie , pleased to meet you.

I'm Darragh / DigitalDarragh, I'm from Drogheda, working in Dublin, I've a dog called Freddie, my girl friend is Emma, My two main loves in life are Technology and Irish music.  Emma, don't be picking things out of that that I don't mean.  .  . 

And you are??????????

This track is much better quality than the Youtube clip. PLuss, it's a full set of tunes. 

For some reason, the mike I'm using at the moment doesn't pick up all the tones of the drum but still, it hasn't come out too bad.

Have a listen. This is a re-mastered track that I really like at the moment.

Morning / afternoon depending on when your reading this and what part of the world your in.

Last night we went to Dundalk to one of the best sessions in the country. 

I bribed Emma into using my N95 to record a set of tunes. 

I'll submit a recording that's much better quality soon but here's one that you may find entertaining as you'll get a much better idea of the music in this place.

You can also see this at youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niGnqO_vyho

Let me know what you think. Good or bad?

Ah thank god for Fridays!  I’m in a fantastic mood this morning!

I woke up to the most fantastic Email I’ve received in years this morning! Anyway, with that aside, I Had a really relaxing walk to the train station with my dog working excellently.  We made it to the station in less than twenty minutes when it usually takes us 25 so we were walking at a really nice pace but the dog wasn’t feeling the pressure at all.  He was veryrelaxed which is good as I’ve had him off the pain killers for a while so I’ve been concious  that he may be experiencing some discomfort.  He goes through stages where it’s better to keep him off the tablets than to give them to him and the last two weeks have seen him doing great without them.  Yesterday he was a bit stiff and didn’t want to stretch much but it didn’t seem to bother him. 

I got to Dublin and the sun was still shining.  Again, he worked really well weeving in and out of the crouds making a bee line to the office.  It’s funny, while crossing Kildare street he looked up at me as if to ask, are you going for a coffee this morning?  If I go straight to the office I go left but if I’m stopping for a coffee first I’ll go straight and he’ll find the first open door to the left. It’s funny, if Mark, the owner of the shop is standing outside organizing the display, the dog will stop me waiting for me to say hello and all that kind of thing before waiting for the command to continue into the shop over to the counter.  It’s funny the expectations they learn to have.

OH, this morning, I think I slept on the train right from I got on from Drogheda just before I got off at Pearse!  That never happens!  I feel great now though. 
So, what else is happening.

The fella I’m teaching on a Thursday night is coming on really well.  After six weeks of lessons he’s got three tunes and we’re even moving on to ornamentation using grace notes. Now, if he’d only have more confedence in him self we’d be great!  I really enjoy teaching.  It’s a real challenge but looking at people progressing is a real reward.

Oh, would you believe it, yesterday was the first bad day I've had in this new job!  For the first time in four years I was on the phone all day!  The others who work with me are all off doing another job that I was fortunate enough to get out of but as a result, I'm stuck doing all the other stuff!  I've no kidea how things are going to go today as I've to catch up on all the stuff I should have done yesterday!  I've a laptop to bring back across to Lenster house, I've tapes to rotate, a backup  CASO server to troubleshoot as the jobs running on it are on hold for some unknown reason  and the tape library says it's in use although there's no processes running and I've  two viruses to remove from a machine for one of the staff.  So, there you have it, loads of stuff to do today as well as try to cover the office as well! 

I love being busy.

On the Tenth of June, my birthday, we took a drive over to Skerries over to Bill Haneman to let me play the Tailor brothers Úilléann pipes.  The Tailor Brothers were origionally from Drogheda however left to find work and obviously, money in the states.  Do a search for the Tailor brothers and you'll find the history of them.  Basically, the pipes wer play are an evolution of these pipes.  It was an absolute honor and privlidge to play them. I have a few pictures below to show you them.  I'll let the tags on each image speak for them selves.  Just move your mouse over each picture to see a short discription. Users of screen readers, do nothing, you'll automatically get this information.

 

My thanks to Bill Haneman.ie for giving me this oppertunity.

As the title suggests, I'm expanding my offerings!  I'm currently teaching a number of students on the Úilléann pipes, Bodhrán and tin whistle.  As I've recently purchased two new bodhráns and one half set of Úilléann pipes, I am now in the position to teach more students.  The Bodhráns that I've purchased are one half and one full size.  All three instruments can be provided to interested students and rates are very competitive.

I teach from the age group of five up.  My youngest student started at six and the oldest is in his forties.

I welcome students with no musical background to the more advanced musician looking for guidance or advice. 

I've played music for the past twenty years touring in Ireland, America, Israel and Europe.  I began teaching for the Black rock school of music five years ago. 
Classes can be held any day excluding Monday and Tuesdays in Drogheda and normally last between thirty minutes and one hour depending on age group and experience.

Email me at d@digitaldarragh.com or call/text 087-7670464.

I just cant figure out Cake walk.  It's so complicated!

I finally got it to record through the right input on my sound card and it's even outputting to both sound cards similtainiously which is fantastic but I'm having problems!

The recorded audio is very distorted and choppy.  Not the kind of distortion that you'd expect from bad levels but distortion like clicking right the way through the recording. 

When I try to record a second track, for some reason it plays back the first track as I want it to but the music I record is a second ahead that on the first track.  That definitly shouldn't be happening. 

It's either a hardware incompatibility or with any luck, just something I haven't come to terms with in Cake walk.  There are a huge amount of options to set before you even start looking at recording something.

There are a few groups that I would really like to see bring out more CD's but they just won't!  Flook, Michael Mcgoldrick, Julie Foulis, John McSherry, At first light and loads of others.  I want more of their music.  No, I crave more of their music.  So, I've gone cralling through youtube again to listen to little bits of gigs to give me a taster of what I hope will come soon. This one for example sounds cool but it's already on the last Flook CD.  I like the solo that John Joe Kelly does in the middle though.  The sound quality is terrible but still, you can hear his excelent technique throughout the piece.  Now, if only I could get him over here to teach me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE-mtABPsSk&feature=related

I must actually do a recording of my own.  I have one of me on the pipes on youtube at the moment but it's not one I particularly like. 

google for john joe kelly youtube and the first two results you find are two fantastic solos'  this one is one I only found today so it's probably only been added in the last few months. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wntaX0EafFs

This guy is easily one of the best players in the world.  He has incredible control over the drum and his passion for drumming shines constantly throughout the recording. 

I'm seriously thinking of going down to Milltown in Co. Claire for the Willy Clancy music festival.  It's probably the biggest Piping festival in the world.  It's held during the first week of July.  I'll look around for accomidation this morning and then see about getting time off work to go down.

Well, after catering for over seventy people, cooking and cleaning for a week, buying huge amounts of food and alcohol, having one absolutely fantastic evening, it's all over.  It's now twenty five past three and I'm finally going to bed soon. Not a particularly late one but people have been here since 6PM. So, I'm relieved to finally be done.

I'll write more tomorrow or Monday but in short, this has been one absolutely fantastic night and everyone who came had an excelent time.  If I ever think of doing this again though, shoot me.  Please!

I was thinking, there are a few good things in life that we don’t pay enough attention to.

Finding a cable that’s been lost for a minimum of three years for my wireless headset out of pure luck without even looking for it!

Living in an area where your elderly neighbours know each other so well that they feel comfortable sitting on a wall at half eleven at night having a chat.  As people in the area passed them they’d also stop for a few minutes for a chat.  It was really nice to see.  You don’t get that kind of random community interaction so much any more.

Your dog working really well then stopping at the kerb as he’s suppose to only to look around and look at you as to say, hay, look at me.  I’m doing a good job today!

Working on a problem for so long that it begins to frustrate the hell out of you only to suddenly find the solution.  That happened me yesterday.  I’m responsible for some really important stuff here at work.  If backups don’t run as scheduled very important data could be lost.  The book really does stop at me.  So, yesterday when I found that an entire full backup as well as two incremental backups hadn’t run since Saturday night, I was very worried.  Fortunately though, I solved the problem at around 4PM yesterday afternoon.  Just on time really as it gave me the opportunity to make sure last nights backups went ok.  It really made my day to fix it independently.  Considering I’ve only started learning this system during the past month!  When you have five tape vaults backing up about fifty servers, there’s a hell of a lot to learn!

One thing I love is playing music to a crowd of people who don’t necessarily appreciate Irish Music but who stop what their doing to listen because something’s caught their attention.  That happened on Friday night.  Someone asked me to play the lonesome boatman, a slow tune that’s played on the whistle.  While playing it, the entire room fell silent.  You could have heard a pin drop.  I ordinarily play it on the D whistle but that time I played it in A.  It was really nice!  Because they got into it, I got into it.  It might sound stupid, but when there’s that connection between performer and audience, I don’t care what anyone says, it’s a more powerful form of communication than talking.  You can feel what notes their hanging on.  Once you’ve caught them, you’ll not lose them for the rest of the tune.   I was going to write more, but I think that sums it all up.  Go on, if you have your own blog, write about things you like.  Random things that you wouldn’t ordinarily think about. If you don’t have a blog, write me a comment.

It's been almost two years since I've bothered to do an audio post but here goes again.  During this short recording I speak about Cora Smyth, a very nice fiddle player that I've started listening to, A brief technical issue that I'm running into, a quick house update and some other random ramblings. Listen to it from here.

As Emma will attest to, I am absolutely terrible when it comes to remembering people or place names.  I don’t know how many times I’ve met someone on the street or somewhere else and have had to introduce them only to completely forget their name!  Some times I have absolutely no idea who the hell they are at all!  I have actually mastered the art of going through an entire conversation without once needing to say the other persons name!  If I have someone with me of course, the other person I’m talking to will, after a while introduce them selves, therefore giving their name away to me. This of course was proven during my last post where I got the pipe makers and even the dates wrong! So, again, here goes with the correction. Thanks to Ronan Browne for this:

1. The pipe maker of the 1st set was James Kenna circa 1770's
2. The 2nd set was made by Denis Harrington circa 1845
3. The Kenna pipes are in what was the normal key of the time which was roughly around where modern concert pitch is today.  All the old sets of that era seem to be what you might nowadays call "narrow-bore D"

Sorry for my complete lack of communication at the moment.  I took on a job to do in what limited spare time I have at the moment that is much bigger than I had hoped.  It’s paying well and it’s letting me do some really cool asp.net development but it means I’ve no time for anything!

OH, Sunday night, I went back to two sessions in the Rathmines Inn and Mortins in Ferhouse.  I haven’t played there in months and it was really good to go back.  As always, I really enjoyed the few tunes with Maurice Lennon as well. He has a knack of slowing me down a lot but at the same time, he can play as fast as the rest of them when the mood takes him.

OH I’ve just had an absolutely fabulous weekend. I spent most of it in the Pipers Club in Dublin playing music.  I said last week in one of my posts that one of my priorities in the weeks ahead was to increase the priority that I placed on playing music.  This weekend I certainly kept that promise to my self.  What made the weekend really great though was not that I played lodes of music, it was the fact that I played a few sets of pipes that were really old but have changed my entire perception of old instruments.  Most old recordings are very muddy and the style of playing is quite different.  I was always led to believe that this was due to the change in pipe making for that time. Naturally then, I expected all old pipes to be the same!

On Saturday however, I played two sets of pipes belonging to Ronan Browne, a piper of incredible experience, taste, skill and imagination.  He’s also very opinionated and likes to talk a lot but really, he’s a nice guy.

The first set I played was a Canna set.  These were made back in 1782 and were a concert D set.  This alone is very unusual for that time period but what was even more unusual was their fabulously bright happy sound and the best tone I’ve heard from a chanter in a really long time.  These weren’t the loudest pipes I’ve ever heard but the feeling from every note and the responsiveness of the chanter was unbeatable and unlike anything I’ve ever heard.   I played them for about ten minutes and I enjoyed absolutely every second of it. These are a very old set and therefore only have one regulator. There is also no lever for turning off the drones.   It really doesn’t matter because they all just fit together so well.

The second was a Coyne set in B from 1812.  This was probably one of the biggest sets I’ve ever played. Still though, they were incredibly light and the workmanship on them was incredible!  I was even impressed by the key mounts.  They were even shaped and moulded.  They weren’t as easy to play, mainly because the fingering was slightly different but still, the sound from them was just out of this world.  Not as responsive as the Canna set but still an absolute pleasure to play.  When I played an air, the changer sung out every note but when I went into a jig and then a reel afterward, they took the pressure equally well.  Triplets were simple to really push out and the drones were balanced so well I almost forgot they were there!

I’m meeting someone later in the week to play a set of concert pitch pipes made by the Tailor brothers. That’s something I’m really looking forward to.  The tailor brothers originated from Drogheda, the town that I’m from and they were the first people to develop the design that is currently in use.  That is, a design where the bores are bigger and the pipes are in D concert pitch.  This was actually to facilitate the performances in larger halls in the States.  I have to admit, this is going to be a personal highlight of mine and it’s one I’ll not forget in a hurry.  I saw the pipes yesterday and I had to stop my self drooling over them. The workmanship of these and the detail is just……. Wow.  Really, I couldn’t begin to describe them because they are just too amazing. The ivory mounts, the metal inserts, the German Silver keys and even the wooden decoration on the stock for the drones and regulators is just so carefully finished that my description could never do it justice. Oh, one thing I really liked was the keys on the regulators.  Their so chunky!  They feel absolutely brilliant!  I’m really looking forward to running them through their paces.

If you haven’t realized, I absolutely love playing old pipes.  In fact, even new pipes.  I really enjoy comparing them to my own.  I have to say though, I’m very lucky with my own at the moment.  Their singing beautifully at the moment. 

OH, that reminds me, I’ve started doing lessons again.  I already have a few new students but if anyone wants to learn the Úilléann pipes, tin whistle or Bádhrán send me an email.

I've been corrected.

First, let me say, I'm absolutely terrible with names!  I think I've just proven that in this post because I got the spellings and in fact, the names completely wrong!  Ronan was kind enough to email me with a few corrections:

Emma told me to blog so… here goes.

There’s a lot happening but not much you’ll really be interested in. 

Last weekend, I went down to a good friend of mine in Carlow as his girlfriend organized a surprise for him for his birthday.  The poor fella’s getting old so it was the least I could do. I have to say though, I really enjoyed my self.  I’m spreading things very thin at the moment as I’ve just so much to do but the break last weekend really did me a lot of good.  That is, excluding the lack of sleep I managed to catch up on last weekend.  Because I’m travelling a lot during the week and up at absolutely crazy times in the morning, usually before 6AM, I like to have nothing to get up for during the weekend.  That’s not to say I sit around doing nothing, I just like to wake up when I’m ready as posed to an alarm clock screaming at me at an unmerciful hour.   What can I say! I like my Sleep!  If sleep can’t be had, coffee is very regularly a good replacement.  Oh, I had a great cup of coffee this morning. It was only instant and I made it my self but it just really hit the spot.  Sorry. I’m just rambling.

I’m not playing enough music at all at the moment!  I’ve not played regularly in months.  It’s something I’m going to have to pay more attention to.  I don’t want to let things slide like they did a few years ago.  Music is a very important past time for me and if I don’t keep it up I feel guilty and more importantly, my fingers start to get tight and the ornamentation that I want to use just won’t work!  I’m thinking of going to a few gigs and classes that the pipers club are organizing this weekend, but I really need to do some practice first! I must also get to a few sessions with Maurice Lennon again.  I usually enjoy his music so it might get me motivated again.

On the technical front, I’ve moved away from Linux" somewhat and am now focusing more of my energy on windows 2003 server for my administration needs.  AS YOU CAN SEE FROM MY EARLIER POSTS RELATREGARDING Orca and Ubuntu, I’m still reasonably involved when I get time however as my new job focuses more on the windows side of things I need to prioritise and learn as much about Windows server technologies as possible in a very short space of time.  Would you believe actually, the accessibility of Windows Server technologies is much worse than that provided in Linux"?  With Linux", on my laptop, I had speakup in the console when I was sitting in front of it and when accessing it via SSH, I had access via what ever screen reader I was using.  Essentially, I could SSH to any remote machine and start using it without needing to install any additional assistive software.  Here, where I work now, there are dozens of servers.  All of which I need regular access to.  So, I therefore need to install Jaws onto each one.  I fortunately don’t need to install a full version.  They don’t need servers or anything like that however it’s a real pain none the less!  The servers don’t even have sound cards so I can’t access them with any ease while standing in front of them.  The best thing I can do is take a laptop around with me to remote desktop into them.  That’s basically what I’m doing at the moment anyway.

At home, I’ve decommissioned my Linux" server and in its place I’ve installed a shiny new Windows 2003 SBS operating system complete with Exchange 2003, IIS, Sharepoint, and all that other stuff. I have to say, although it’s exceptionally easy to set up, I’m not overly impressed with its flexibility.  In Linux", I had things set up really well, customized to meet the needs of my self and Emma.  We both had different set ups because we both have different requirements.  In Exchange, there’s a standard way of doing things and if you want to go outside that, exchange is no longer your friend.  In saying that, there’s certainly a reason why it’s so popular.  That is, anyone who’s got any experience with Windows conventions can set it up.  If you know that right clicking on absolutely everything will get you a lot of options, you’re going to be able to set it up.

On the work side of things, I’m still really enjoying my self.  I’m still having problems with remote access, a topic I think I wrote about last week or the week before but accessibility related problems are slowly but surely getting a bit easier to handle.  My main thing at the moment is finding an alternative way of reading bar codes for all these tapes I’m managing.  There are six very active tape servers at the moment and labels for each tape.  Each server takes a minimum of twelve tapes with a maximum of 24.  That’s a lot of labels!  Backup Exec, the application that we use for managing these backups will give the bar codes when a tape has been processed but that’s far from an efficient way of obtaining that information. So, I’m on the hunt for a more accessible solution.

OH, on the Linux" accessibility side of things, I’ll be working on another few recordings soon so if your interested, stay tuned.  If your not, you should be!  Linux" is the future!  It’s coming and there’s no escaping it!

Frustratingly, I lost my pen drive last week. In the search for a temporary replacement, I found one that I hadn't used in ages! It's only a 128MB drive that I keep for emergencies. I found a track on it though that was recorded during my last Israel gig. There's also a track similar to this on Youtube however the last two tunes on the Youtube recording are replaced by one much better tune on this audio-only recording. Listen to me, Darragh Ó Héiligh, playing Roisin Dubh followed by Crague's pipes on the Úilléann pipes.

Could I be any more obvious?

Seriously though, if I do say so my self, it's a good recording. I really love the response I got at the end.

You know what happens if you don’t blog in a few days?  Too much happens to keep track of. 

Well, firstly, on Saturday I went to my god Childs confirmation.  Her name is Sarah and she’s just the coolest little person I know.  There were fifty people making their confirmation along with her so as I was at the back of the church, I easily crept out a few times to grab some air and let the dog water the plants on the church lawn.  I’m a very caring guide dog owner aren’t I?  Ah, it was just too hot in there and I have to admit, I’m not the most religious person in the world and a mass that goes on longer than 5 seconds bores me.  I’m the same while in training, I tune in for the first few minutes but unless there’s some practical application I just find it incredibly boring!

The mass was the dull part though.  Later that night I went out for a meal with her family, her god mother and her boyfriend and a few other people that I didn’t really know at the start.  I had planned on not even going but I was kind of pressured into going.  If I didn’t I’d have felt guilty.  Instead of coming home at half eight / nine as I’d expected though it ended up being one of those crazy nights that you can only have every once in a while.  I drank over twice as much as I would ordinarily have and I really felt the effects of it.  Even before leaving the restaurant, I knew that I was on a downward slope.  I knew that I should go home but no, the people I was with were having none of it and I was told that I had to go out to a local pub for another while.  You know what happens after that.  One turns into three.  That was after the three I’d had in the restaurant!  After the pub I was in flying form so we adjourned to a night club in Drogheda called fusion.  This place is absolutely nuts!  It’s huge!  I’d been there a few years ago but now it’s completely different!  Absolutely amazing!  The noise in this place would send you sideways!   Even when you’re sober!  To say I was completely disorientated is an understatement!  I’ve been able to get around no problem in any nightclub with no problems only using the cane but that place had me baffled.  Once I tried to go off on my own but the music had me confused.  So much so that I walked in a circle back to the people I was with without even knowing it.  It wasn’t until someone grabbed my arm and pulled me back over that I’d any kind of clue as to where I was!  I actually thought they’d moved at first.  Believe me, it’s not nice experience and one that I’ll be in no hurry to repeat.  I still think though that although I was quite .......... intoxicated, I really wasn’t bad enough to send my senses crazy like that. It was so loud that when I went outside to get some oxygen, things I listened to sounded like they were coming through someone else’s ears!  Weird experience let me tell you.  Anyway, shortly afterword I decided that I’d had enough so made my way home.  See?  I got back here with no problems using the cane after a hell of a lot of alcohol so I really do think it was just the crazy level they had that music at that disorientated me.

Strangely enough, when I woke yesterday morning, my stomach wasn’t at me at all!  That’s even after the additional bulmers I drank in the club!  I really don’t know how I was able to function yesterday.

Anyway, that was my eventful weekend in a nutshell.  Of course, a few other thing happened blah blah blah blah but you don’t really want to hear about that stuff. 

Back over to the house though, this week as I said before I have time off while changing to the new job primarily to work on the house.   Emma’s off too as she’s working in there with me.  Today the man who built our kitchen was there to fit it.  I had a few things for him to change and at times I think he was very close to the stage of killing me with his hammer but he kept his cool and I’m really impressed with how well he’s adapting.  One thing though is that he’s not really taken the initiative to ask me when he’s not sure about something. I’ve also had a few complaints about how he’s made things easier on himself but I let him away with one major part of the construction where I really believe he could have done better so as a result I’m pushing more comprimization from him so any little thing that I want changed on his design is done as we go along.  I’m a hard person to work for as anyone who has worked with me will attest to.  However, I’m fair.  I’m a perfectionist.  I like people to set expectations and meet them and if possible even exceed them.  In return I’ll do the same.  The fella doing the kitchen has learned that quickly which is admirable.

So, the kitchen is almost in, the plasterer has been touching up the walls so that their more suitable for painting, the Plummer has been in burying the pipes in one of the rooms and for the day I’ve been doing loads of stuff.  Mainly clearing rubble from the front of the house.  There was an unbelievable amount of rubble from the fire place, creating the channels in the walls for pipes and cabling, digging channels in the floor for the gas pipes and in some places increasing the door sizes internally.   Oh, there was also some ready mix concrete mistakenly pored onto of the rubble which hardened over the last few weeks so I had to use some persuasion to loosen that up a bit.  Thanks to the “Persuasion”, I was also able to break up some of the fireplace so I could get it into the trailer.

That’s all for now.  You know, I’m glad I’m in the house this week.  Because I’m there, I’m providing a much more significant say as to how things should be done.  I think that’s critical now that we’re well and truly into the reconstruction stage and away from the destruction.

I'd love to get a few pictures actually.  I'll try to do that tomorrow.

We have the house one month today.  The progress has been slow.  In fact, much less paced than I had anticipated however, the benefits should be very obvious when it's all finished.  Much more thought is going into each room than originally planned which inevitably means more money is required but that's just the joys of it I suppose.

The living room will possibly need to be dry walled on one side.  Both to make it easier for electrical wiring to be hidden and to make the room more insulated.  The electrician has already been there though so this is going to be another job that needs to be touched up when the dry wall has been installed. 

The fireplace in the kitchen will be removed.  That shouldn't be a huge job.  It's going to take some hard work but it's not going to cost a huge amount to do.  I'm also getting all the kitchen cabinets replaced.  Actually, the entire room will have gone through a complete redesign when it's all done.  The design won't be perfect but functionally and visibly it should be great.  That's under way at the moment.  Yesterday, I took the doors off the presses and removed the top presses.  I need to wait for a Plummer to come in before getting rid of the bottom presses as I need to disconnect the sink first.  I know that's as easy as squeezing both pipes together but believe me, if you saw the size of those pipes in there you'd wait for a Plummer too.  I have a feeling he'll have a better tool for doing it than I do.

In Emma's sowing room, which is the front room just off the kitchen, I'm going to get someone in with a cango hammer to bury some of the pipes that for some reason were left surface mounted after the first major job that was done in the house in the 70's.  Obviously, a Plummer is needed there too.

Up stairs, the computer room i.e, the box room is going to need some repair work done to the walls.  We've had a lot of rewiring done in the house.  Not really because it was needed but to modernize the whole place, install CAT5 network cable in most rooms and put in more television points etc one of the walls in that room was used as a main channel.  It shouldn't take much for that to be fixed up.  Plus, I already have a very cool desk custom made for exactly what I need in that room that will fit each wall like a glove.  Don't worry, for you sighted people, pictures will very likely be available when it's finished.

Nothing will be done to the spare room at the moment.  It will do as it is for a while.

In the master bedroom, nothing really needs to be done with the walls..... At the moment, the electrician may change that between today and tomorrow...... I'm putting down a laminit floor but that's really all that needs to be done in that room for the moment.

Then of course, I'm replacing seven doors internally so their all decent solid doors. 

There's a lot yet to do.  But we've also done a lot.  Although it doesn't feel it at all, we've set the wheels in motion to make the next month go a lot smoother than this one has. 

We've got the gas ready to be installed.  The installation date for that is the 14th of March.  The Electrician has been and should be finished by tomorrow afternoon, the Windows will be installed late this week and I've to write up a list of jobs that I want a builder to do this week such as insulate the attic in the extension.  Block up access points that have had to be made, repair small whole in the extension sealing that was made by the electrician, remove the fire place and a few other things that I can’t think of at the moment. He'll be kept busy.  Put it that way.  Oh, of course, we've also done a few cosmetic jobs like remove wall paper, take up carpets to allow access for the  electrician, purchase lights and light fittings, repair the garage door, and take the place a part by removing things like the kitchen, sowing room, and living room doors.

Oh, finally, never try to move an American style Fridge on your own.  It's not worth it.  I moved our fridge from the kitchen to the living room yesterday on my own through the hall and two door ways.  Of course, to ensure the bottom didn't get damaged while going over the door saddles it had to be lifted across.  Have you ever seen those American style fridges with the water dispenser on the front?  Their huge!  And a ton weight!  I'm telling ya, when you start to work on a house you realize what you’re capable of.  But even so, not something I'm going to do again.  When it's been moved back, I'm getting someone to help!

That's about all for the moment; I played at a session in Dundalk on Saturday night.  Emma used a coolpix to video parts of it as I was hoping to put it up on youtube but the quality given by that camera is not great at all so I'm going to have to try something else.

Nothing is happening at the moment on the technology front in my free time.  I'm just slightly too busy to start anything new.  In work, I finally figured out that LibATA problem on the Novell test PC and got the multi-boot working with OpenSuSE, Fedora, Mandriva and of course my favorite, Ubuntu 7.10.  Before I went home on Friday, I tested a very cool new firefox extension that's just been modified to work on Firefox 3 that displays HTML elements in a dialogue box just like Jaws and Window eyes does.  For example, users can now look at a list of links on the page so if on the website for www.linux.ie, I can easily skip to the home link by going to the list and arrowing to home.  Of course, everything is numbered so if I know the number associated with the home link on that page I can press that as well.  Same goes with form fields, frames, image map links, tables, lists, headings and other elements that I'm not listing here.  Only difference compared to this functionality in Windows is this is actually a Firefox extension and not something that the Orca screen reader bothers with at all.  So, the screen reader as it is supposed to be.  A layer that converts the interface to speech.  The application is then responsible for making its self accessibility.  This is as I've said before, the underlying principle behind Gnome and Orca.  It is also what makes it so powerful.

So, to finish, welcome to another week.  The last week in February 2008.  It's been an eventful, stressful and tiring month but there is certainly light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, I've to go spell check this...

Ah it's just fabulous.  Remember that tune I was talking about yesterday? I listened to it about three or four times in work.  Thanks to my wonderful brain, it is now learned.  I was walking back from the house this morning over to my parents house and it suddenly came to my fingers.  It's funny.  I regularly get tunes just popping into my head and my fingers start to play as if they were on the chanter of the pipes.  They don't need to move much.  they just hmmmm. I don't know how to describe it.  I suppose it's like someone who can sing humming a song to them selves after they hear it.  Anyway, I got to my parents house, grabbed an old whistle and started playing it.  Fortunately, it's exactly as it sounded on the recording I have so that's another one added to the list.  I'm looking forward to going somewhere to play it now in public.  With some guitar backing it will be cool.  Or, at least I hope it will.  Sometimes, these things just sound better on a CD than they do in person.

Anyway, that's all for the moment.  I'm in Drogheda this morning as I had to go over to the house to let the electrician in.  I've also given him a few more things to do.  Hopefully it won't cost much more extra on top of the quote he's already given me.

Oh, the kitchen plans have been drawn up.  We're moving along.  Slowly but surely.

Warning, this post is not for people who get offended by bad language. 

Picking lights is not something you can do easily!  Oh no! It’s something that takes great care and consideration.

• Will the lights be bright enough?
• Will the light fittings fit in with the feeling of the rest of the room?
• Are they suitable for the installation of a dimmer switch?<
• >If spot lights, do they take energy saving bulbs?  If not, what is the implication of this? <
• >How long from the sealing do they hang?

To all these questions I say, I don’t give a fuck! I’m blind!  Give me a room of darkness!  It’s a hell of a lot bloody cheaper! I don’t care if they look like suspended drops of water.  We’ve enough water outside; we live in a country that seems to have rain every second of the year.  For anyone crazy enough to be interested, that’s 31536000 seconds of rain each year.  That’s a lot isn’t it?  So, why the hell would you want more water in side! Or, what about those lights with little glass things that make noise when anyone walks into the room!  Their kind of different and nice the first five or six times but after that, they just get fucken annoying!

Know how much lights are going to cost just for the living room, hall, kitchen and bathroom?  Over Three! Hundred! Euro!  Well, in fairness, that’s also including a sensor light for outside to point toward the driveway.  There are no lights on our side of the street which is great but it’s probably a good idea at least for the sighted people out there to stick in a sensor light that activates when people come close to the house.  I was also thinking of getting a cool wireless camera kit that I saw yesterday for €170 but I kind of talked my self out of it for the moment.  I’m kind of kicking my self that I didn’t get it though as I could get the electrician to wire it in for me and that would be that job done and taken care of.

Good morning all,

Sorry I’ve been quiet lately.  Blogging just doesn’t seem to be part of my daily routine any more! It’s terrible.  I’m trying to get back into the habit of it but it’s not going well.  All that said though, here are a few things that I’ve been doing, thinking about, working on etc.

Firstly, my knee was causing a lot of pain last week so on Thursday and Friday I worked from home.  It was a necessary evil and I’m very lucky my employer was able to be that flexible.  Although I was at home, I was just as busy as if I was in the office and actually with a lot less distractions, I got a lot more done!  I wish they’d bring a work from home option in this place.  It would make this type of work a lot more tolerable at times.

While I was at home, I worked on a script to automate many of the troubleshooting steps the engineers working on the Novell team need to walk customers through on a day to day basis.  It will hopefully cut out a lot of time for each case they need to deal with.  It will also cut out any user error on both sides which is always a good thing.   I’m writing the script with the dialogue package as the user interface.  The back end is simple, it’s just giving the installed system standard commands but making the menu system in dialogue is just a pain!  I’ve something wrong in my syntax and I’m at a bit of a dead end.  But, with some work I’ll get there eventually.  Unfortunately, my test PC is undergoing a lot of ……. Testing at the moment, I’m trying a few distributions out so the scripting will just have to wait.

Speaking of distributions I’m trying out, the first one is Mandriva 2008.  Of course, the installer is completely inaccessible so I got someone in work to take care of that part for me.   After the installation though, I tried to get Orca running but although it launched, I got no speech output.  With a bit of digging around, I noticed that the default synthesizer was set to espeak.  Out of curiosity, I installed Festival and changed the default synthesizer from Espeak and all works.  I’ve not really had time to find out why ESpeak isn’t working but I’ll look into it shortly.    For now, Gnome looks clean, fast and there are no hardware issues as a result of installing Mandriva.  I think I’ll use it for the remainder of today and move onto another distribution tomorrow.  In the mean time though, I’m hoping to test firefox, Open Office and Pidgin as they are the tools that should work easily enough with Orca no matter what distribution it’s on.  The person who read the screen during the installation also wants to try Compiz for 3D graphics so I’ll probably do some messing around with that as well.

One interesting finding was that Mandriva is still using the old lib-ata module so it still differentiates between IDE and Sata controllers.  Ide is still seen as had and Sata is still seen as SDA for example.  That meant that installing Mandriva side by side with OpenSuSE caused problems with Grub.  Nothing that couldn’t be fixed of course but it’s starting to be a common problem.  Ubuntu had the same issue.

Aside from the technical stuff, I did some more work on the house recently.  I stripped all the walls in the living room and pulled up the carpets in two of the up stairs rooms.  Pulling up the carpets is in preparation of the electrician and Plummer coming around to work in a week or two.  So, I’m getting to the end of the work I can do to the house before the major jobs are done so at least things will start to slow down for a while.  I’d say after I get some of the remaining paper off the kitchen this weekend and pull up the carpet in the living room, I’ll have about two weeks of nothing to do.  Hopefully though, after the windows have been replaced, the wiring enhanced to meet our needs and the gas installed, we can start decorating.  That is going to be an arduous task all on its own though.  There’s going to be a lot of difficult work to do!

Oh, last week I was also contacted by a friend I haven’t heard from in ages!  I’m sure she’ll see this in her feed reader when I post it so "Hello there stranger! Hope all is well in the land of the crazed".

Finally, last night, would you believe it, I composed a tune!  I don’t know how or why, but it came to me just out of the blue.  It’s a jig and I’ve called it “Scraping walls”.  I’ll have to record it and post it at some stage.

That’s all folks…

Sorry about the title.  It was more interesting than something boring like: summary or the week just past.  I hate that kind of thing.

I didn’t blog on Friday!  I don’t know why either.  It wasn’t like I was exceptionally busy or anything like that, I just didn’t really get around to it.  Laziness I suppose.  That’s the only reason. Remember I blogged about falling last Tuesday?  Well, the result was that I badly hurt my knee.  So, I worked from Home on Thursday and Friday.   I got quite a lot done actually.  It was very nice to work from the comfort of home.  I’d love the opportunity to do it more often.  I might try to talk to my manager about it at some stage this week. 

You know it’s very hard to use a guide dog and a crutch at the same time?  The poor dog is use to me practically running everywhere.  He’s really taking some time to get use to the fact that I’m limping along, slowly, with a crutch in the other hand keeping the weight off my left knee!  He’s doing very well though considering everything. 

I didn’t really blog about it last week because I had hoped to save it until having the video footage but I did about six gigs the week before last as I think I listed in one of my earlier posts.  The big one though, on the Saturday night was captured by Emma on Video using my sister’s video recorder.  Problem is, we can’t find the cable to connect it so I have nothing to show you yet.

I know this post is a bit random but my heads all over the place today.  I’m tired and I really just want to go to sleep!  This weekend, like every weekend coming up over the next two months, was spent working on the house.  Emma and I worked on one room for two days pealing and chipping off a surface that feels very lumpy.  It’s called woodchip and it’s almost impossible to get it off!  I’d say it easily took the two of us twelve hours to get it all down off the walls.  We knew it was going to take a long time before doing it and a lot of people had warned us that it was going to be a very cumbersome job so at least we were prepared.  Funny, we did another room with ordinary paper in less than a half an hour afterward.  Compared to the woodchip, the paper came off just by touching it!  Thank god for steamers though.  Without it we would still be chipping away at that first room.  That woodchip is in the hall and stairs walls though so we’ve still got a lot of it to remove.  We’ll probably leave it for a few months though.  The hall isn’t a room we really need to be too concerned about at the moment.  We’ve a lot of other things to do before that.  I must say, getting up and down off ladders and leaning to the side when you have a very dodgy knee?  Not an easy task at all.  I’ve been told to get it sorted but I’ve a feeling it will sort it’s self out after a few more days.

So, what else is left to do in the house?  Well, this is a reasonably comprehensive list. 

Electrician is coming to put more sockets into the living room.  There’s only one double socket in there at the moment.  We’re getting that removed and getting six new ones put in  We’re also getting about four or five double sockets into a room that Emma is going to use for sowing etc.  I have a lot of sockets going into the room that I’m using for technology and I’m also going to get some network cable run from a central point in the house over to other rooms so I don’t need to depend on wireless connections all the time. 
We’re also getting double-glazed windows installed. Fortunately, I have the quotation for that already so I’ll probably get that done soon enough.  We’re getting the front of the house done in a wooden finish and the back will be done in the standard white. 
We’re waiting on two companies to get back to us with quotations for the gas installation.  We have oil at the moment but we’re getting it switched over.  We’re also buying two radiators for up stairs and two for down. 
Aside from those big jobs, I also have to insulate the roofs in the extension and the roof up stairs as well.  Oh, and there’s a wall that is letting out the heat at the back of the living room so I’m going to blob on some insulation onto that as well. 

One that’s all done, we can look at the interior of the house.  I’d like to replace the internal doors, redecorate the entire thing and just make it as livable as possible.  It will probably take some time then before getting all the rooms up to the standard that we want them to be.

Don’t get me wrong.  From the picture I’ve just painted there, it sounds like the house is a run down old shack.  It’s not by any stretch.  We just have very definitive specifications as how we want it to look and feel.  That involves doing quite a lot of work.  The up side though will be that it is a very comfortable and extendable property that really stands the trial of time.

I just wanted to write to show you two YouTube videos that really stand out as my favourites at the moment.   Unfortunately, none of them are on CD yet so that’s the only source I have to listen to them via. 

 

The first one from Tony Byrne is a guitar player I play regularly with.  He’s a musician with a group that I follow closely by the name of At first light.  This is a very difficult tune he’s playing.  He learned it off a piper that released it about fifteen years ago. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF8YqUHjxAk

 

This next one is Michael Mcgoldrick,  a flute and Úilléann pipe player fromManchester in England.  He is probably one of the best musicians in the world.  This man has a way of learning a tune, looking at it from every angle and coming up with a version that is really cool while keeping the foundation of the tune intact. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehSTssRUTRk

I was getting a lot of attempted log ins on my server on Sunday.  So much so that it was actually slowing down the DHCP daemon.  So, I temporarily shut down SSH for a few hours and set up a cron job to start it up again after 2 hours.  Very Clever wasn’t it?  So, as a test, I changed the port for SSH to 32 and have it mapping to 22 on the internal machine.  This should be fine but for some reason….. It’s not.  I’m not getting any response from port 32 or the default of22.  I’m not sure why yet but I’ll figure it out later.   My thinking was that if these automatic tests that seem to be causing me problems are by default checking on the normal port for SSH then changing that default could actually slow them down slightly.

They say that today Monday the 21st of January is the most depressing day of the year.  Christmas related debts, bad weather, and work related stress amount to a very blue day.  Personally, I’m very tired but depressed? Na.  Of course, there are better places that I’d like to be in right now compared to sitting at my desk in work but hay.  With the good we must take the bad.  It allows us to appreciate the good times that bit more.

I had quite a good weekend this week actually.  On Saturday, My self and Emma were working from 11 to 3PM to help out with a recruitment open day.  I was doing a lot of role plays to assess peoples call handling skills so it was interesting enough.  Not something I’d like to do too often but it was a break from the norm and the money will come in handy for the house.  It also gave me an opportunity to show Emma the new office.  I don’t think it’s as bad as she thought it was going to be which is great.  There are some space issues but I think they’ll be ironed out when facilities can see how things are going.

On Saturday night, I worked on an application on the server called Gallery2.  It’s a basic enough gallery application.  In a nutshell, it allows users to organize, sort, comment, filter and present images.  So, if you have a lot of photographs and you want to be able to show them to people or even just port them from one place to another then it can be handy.  I set it up for Emma as she’s really into photography and it’ll possibly help organize the thousands of pictures she’s been building up.
Sunday up to 4PM was quiet enough.  I did some practice on the pipes for a while but aside from that I had a very lazy day.  From then on though things got much more interesting.  I met with Fimbar Fury. At his house.  Maurice got me in contact with him.  He wanted to try to adapt a reed that he’d made a few days before to my chanter so it was a good opportunity to learn from him.  The man is just a fountain of knowledge when it comes to tuning pipes.  You pick up a few things as you go along and the need arises but some of the things he knows have been handed down by countless pipers.  The result is that every note I played had an associated tweak on the reed.  For example, the high d, or the thumb as he called it was very sharp with his reed.  So, he got a bit of string from a banjo, doubled it over, twisted it a bit and put it up the staple of the reed.  That actually worked well but he suggested that I remove that at some stage soon and get a long piece of copper welding rod.  That can be bent slightly and stuck up through the chanter.  I already have a piece of metal up there but he says it’s not long enough.  He demonstrated the difference it can make and it’s amazing what a small piece of metal can do.

After talking to Fimbar, we went to Rathmines to play some music.  It’s nice to have the pipes behaving again but I didn’t bother going to the second session in Fairhouse.  I’ve a lot on this week so I didn’t want to start the week off tired.  Thinking back, that didn’t really do me much good did it!  I hardly slept for some reason last night anyway!

So, to close, I’ve a lot on this week:
Tuesday evening I’m teaching,
Wednesday night I’m playing in a pub called the Speaker Connolly,
Thursday I’m playing in Mortins in Fairhouse,
Friday night I’m doing a private gig.
Saturday night I’m doing a gig in the Seamus Ennis centre in the Nall.

OH, and on Friday, not to forget, we’re getting the house so there’s a lot to do on that side as well.

I've to go to a friend of mine tonight to get a few things done with the pipes.  I'm buying a practise bag and I've to get a crack fixed at the top of my regulators.  His name is Bill haneman. You'll find his website at www.billhaneman.ie  He's a very tallented pipe maker.  Strangely, he's only been making Úilléann pipes full time since March.  Already he has a four year waiting list and he's stopped taking orders.  That's some job isn't it?  When you can just stop taking orders because your too busy after less than a year in business. Fair play to him.

One of my students, Helen who started learning the pipes in August has just ordered her first set of pipes from him.  At the moment, she's playing on a Burk set that I've loaned her.  When I get things sorted with the house, I'll be putting out advertisements for Pipes, Bodhran and Tin whistle lessons into the local papers.  There are no musicians in the area teaching the pipes and actually definitly none within a wider area offering a set on loan for the first few months ! So, I think I'll get a reasonable amount of interest.

Well, that's all for now.  I'm leaving in about seven minutes.  so I'll probably write during the weekend again at some stage.  I'm working tomorrow interviewing in a recrutement open day so I'll be kept going. 

Have a good one.

So last night didn’t actually go as expected in terms of recording anyway.  I played so much music that really, recording took second place so I’m very sorry for not putting something up here for you to listen to.  I do actually have one tune that Maurice played that I haven’t heard before I think so I might put that up.  It was Scottish I think.  It has a great minor in the second part.  Possibly not a piping tune but still nice to have it in the head for a while.

Tony byrne on Guitar from At first light was there with his girlfriend playing fiddle, Maurice Lennon one of the founding members of Stoctons wing of course was on fiddle as well.  There was another guitar player there but I cant think of his name.  So, there were basically five of us playing.  I mostly played the pipes but I got a few tunes in on the Bodhrán as well.

Oh, after the session, Maurices partner, Sandra dropped into a conversation that I was doing a gig with Maurice next Saturday on the 26th.   With a guitar player called Mossy.  We played on the Pat Kenny show there just before Christmas on the 17th so we’re use to playing together but Although Maurice was suppose to tell me, he forgot so I’ve just over a week to prepare.  I’m not too bothered though.  Maurice is an outstanding musician so I’ve full confedence that we’ll bring it all together.

So, that’s basically the updates for this morning.  In work today, I have to interview one person for a technical position in a team that I use to work in but other than that, it should be a reasonably straight forward day.