I won't explain why this is so unusual or why I'm devoting an entire blog post to it. Just go over and listen for your self.

Get off the train. Let a few people go first. Their useful for following to find the right ticket validation machine to go through. Most people use the very wide one at the end of the row so it's safe enough to follow them as that will leave you almost directly in line of the steps that lead down to the exit. When you get off the train, turn left and be prepared to follow quickly as people leaving the station do so very quickly. You will gradually turn to the right. Scan with the cane carefully as there are three steps to go down before you meet the ticket validation machines. These steps will be on your right side and as you go down them the ticket validation machines are in a row to your left. When you get down the steps continue following the crowd to the left. There will be two very small plastic signs that most likely don't even reach past knee level on the ground. One is at three steps that lead down to another area but I have no idea what it's used for and I don't know what the other sign is for. There's a bin and a pole to the right of it. When you reach the pole your only a few feet away from the row of machines. If you stand with your back to this pole and bin and you walk straight forward, you'll meet a machine however although you can get through this machine if you have the correct ticket with you, it's not the best one to go through in terms of accessibility as you will find no land marks between it and the steps down. Again, although you know of these land marks and their useful if the crowd is too quick for you to follow, try where possible to follow them as it's much easier. When you meet the ticket machine, go straight through. During rush hour there are usually two people there. One on the outside and one standing in the way of the door thing so it doesn't close. This machine is slightly wider to allow access by wheel chairs but is used informally for commuters who purchase yearly tickets. Again, continue following the crowd through this machine. They will turn gradually left as when you are facing with your back to this specific machine the stairs down are almost directly in front of you. If you turn left with them, scan with the cane to the left. You'll find a pole. Navigate around this pole and take a step to the left. Walk straight ahead and you will find the side of the steps. This is a wall with a rail on your right. If you move about three or four steps to your left you'll meet another wall. I find using the right is better. It's personal preference though. I choose it because I can go straight out of the station at the bottom while following the wall and because most other people try to rush out the door nearest the traffic lights it usually results in me getting there before the rest of them. Oh, plus, I avoid the people giving out news papers too so its win win. Right. Half way down the steps is a small platform. It only lasts for about two steps. When you get to the bottom you'll notice tactile markings. Go straight out to the very edge of the footpath. Use the cane by scanning the edge of the path as you turn to the left. Follow that path with the cane scanning the step to your right. You will come across one pole that is out on the edge but it's not a huge obstacle considering the mess on the left. You'll meet a dip. After this dip the traffic light pole is only a few steps away. Use that crossing. At the other side, move to the end of the tactile and take a sharp left. Attempt to continue in a straight line for around twenty feet. After you do this, gradually turn left scanning to your right for a wall. Continue down this road scanning the wall and steps on your right. These are reasonably straight so you shouldn't have major problems. There are two areas however where the wall has been removed and the path widens. Simply carry on straight. You will be aware when you come to the corner as the surface of the path changes and you will meet tactile markings that are sloped from a traffic light pole toward the corner. Find this corner and take a sharp right. Stay in close as there are a few poles and metal boxes used for maintenance or something on the outside of this path. On this street, continue walking until you reach a change in the surface. Be aware that there are two points along the wall that jut out. However, the cane will detect these. When the surface changes, immediately start walking to the right scanning for the ramp that marks the start of the road. This is a very wide corner that turns to the left. Continue following this ramp until you feel a slope up and a change in surface. There are a lot of poles on the edge of the path on this road but the buildings on the right have very inconsistent fronts that angle, curve, jut out and are generally hard to follow. The road gradually curves to the right after a while but after meeting the first pole on the edge, take a step to the right and walk down the centre of the path for around 40 feet. This will likely help you avoid the person that begs at the wall and allows you to avoid a lot of the navigation you would need to do if you followed the building edge. After 40 feet or so, turn to the right gradually and begin following the buildings around to the right. After the dip, you will soon meet a change in surface as well as access covers down to the seller for the pub on the right. After passing these two metal covers, step to the left and follow the middle of the path for a short time. You will meet a tactile crossing. Use these traffic lights to cross the road. After crossing the road, use the cane to find the gulley. Follow this gully for only a few feet. If you continue to follow this you will meet poles as well as the edge of the foot path. Veer in to your left but don't follow the edge of the building. Go straight along the centre of the path. You will very likely meet a slope down as well as tactile markings. Cross this very quiet and narrow road and continue along the path following the buildings to your left. There is only one obstruction on this path. It is a barrier used by a coffee shop. After the barrier you are only a few steps away from the crossing at the bottom of Kildare Street. This route is much more in-depth and complicated than when walking it with a dog. I’ll prove it. Standing on the train, the doors open. The dog with experience now takes this as his sign to start. He carefully stretches off the train. It’s not a step; it’s more like a stretch. It’s great! By him stretching to the platform, I instantly know how far it is. I don’t even think he knows what he’s doing. We walk, following the crowd to the machine. The dog stops at the step and as he knows I’m a bit to egar for my own good, he angles his body around my left knee just a little bit to stop me going any further. This is not something he’s trained to do but he rathers stopping at steps even if I know their there. We change angle slightly so we’re not walking at a curve down the three steps. Once at the bottom, the dog corrects his angle and makes a bee line to the furthest ticket machine. He weaves to the right of the crowd that are now in front of us so we pass them out. We rather get to the machine ahead of most of the other passengers as it’s easier for the dog to take his time in placing him self so as we can continue the recommended guiding position even while walking through the gap. We get through the ticket validation machine and the dog again veers to the right as he wants to get past others who have got through the machines while we were going through the one for yearly tickets / wheel chair users. He stops again at the steps giving me just enough room at the rail to walk down with him. Again, that’s another technique as it almost forces me to stop with him. We go quickly down the steps but we take the door to the far left. This is because we are ahead of most of the crowd and if we time it right, we can usually get to the crossing just before the lights change. That’s important as with a busy crossing like that, I don’t like to cross when the lights have changed before I get there as it breaks a very important habit. The dog should always stop at a controlled crossing. We cross the road and swing around the traffic pole on the other side toward the left. We keep going at a steady pace along the buildings on the right. The dog slows down at one point for an instant because there is a pole slightly too close to us and he rathers being on the safe side. We meet the changed surface and turn tightly to the right. We continue walking and he concentrates on the roadway into trinity that is denoted by the changed surface. If cars are going in or out of this gate he stops rigidly until they have passed. We continue on our way, turning to our left along the narrow path where the strange building fronts are on our right. The dog sees the seller covers in the distance so makes a decision to guide me around them. We pass them and stop at the crossing. Here, we do something that very few guide dog owners bother with; we perform a strict left turn. This is where the dog turns around to your right across your body and continues around in a circle with the handler following until they face left. This is done strictly at this crossing for two reasons. The first and most important is that the dog goes ahead of me and therefore is officially guiding and watching out for obstacles. I am basically not walking anywhere that he has not checked first. In my experience with this particular dog, this is not really necessary but it’s always good to be aware of. The second and most important reason is that we regularly continue down this road to the Dawson Street so he needs to be aware that stopping here is a necessity and although he may like going to Dawson Street, it is me who controls our direction. Simply stopping and doing what would be considered by trainers as an incorrect turn to the left doesn’t place in the dogs mind the importance of this junction. Anyway, with all that rubbish out of the way, we cross and quickly turn to the right. We continue straight stopping at both crossings before hitting the corner of Kildare Street. See? Isn’t that so much easier? Fortunately, I hope to have my dog working again tomorrow. I’m looking forward to cutting out all the complications.

These are my views and are strictly not those of my employer. I write this as an indevidual with specific personal political views and opinions. This post should thus be read as such.

Expanding on what others have said, It is true. Ireland does need an election. but first we all as a society and a nation need to analyse and fix The way the power is distributed as the way that legislative changes are discussed and made in Ireland is flawed at every level.

Look at the Oireachtas chambers and committees. Every motion goes through the same process resulting in the same messing every time. What is the point in having a chamber system based on a debate system when the debate is pointless. What is the point in having a demecratic system if party wips mean that party members must fall into line. couple that with the obvious majority being controled by the same wips and it's not a democrisy we have, it's a mess!

People keep complaining about ministers. When in actual fact Ministers are but puppets who's strings are pulled by the departments they have been asigned to. Look at Noel Dempsy after his holiday last week. He was completely right to take a holiday and I understand his complacent attitude upon his return when hounded by the media. He's only a man! He is suppose to be managing his department but all he really needs to know is what is going on. He hasn't got experience in this area, he depends on the people working in his department to have that experience.

And, then look at the departments. Their staff are employed to do a job they've never been interested in really. for the majority of people there, they are taken in, trained to the minimum standard required to do their job then left at it. There are people right from CO's right up to AP's who have interests, abilities and skills in different areas but these are not utilized. There is one office that I am aware of where a CO has more computer experience than the one single person in her area who has been promoted to a position where he manages the entire IT infrastructure. I caught a small portion of a program last night that spoke about taking ownership of your career by improving the environment and processes you work with. I work for a private company. I attempt to do just this. However, people employed by the government work to very specific guidelines. Even when they have the ability and willingness to do more, the flexability in the government isn't there to allow them to do it.

So, stop asking for a reelection and start demanding and implementing for your selves the reform that Ireland needs as a democratic nation to get back on it's Feet. FG, FF, the greens, labour, none of them are going to be able to make a change in power. None of them because the current attempt at a democratic system doesn't allow for it.

Usually, I'm quite a posative person. Today however, I am not. So, just put up with it! Firstly... I was out on Saturday. Problem was that I had just far too much on my mind for me ever to enjoy my self so the night was doomed right from the start. To add sault to the woond, the group that I went to see was suggested to me by a lot of people but I found them utterly boring. Their called Electric avenue. Their a cover band so I didn't really expect anything origional from them but what I found was so dull, so dry, so void of creativity I think I lost all faitth in humanity. How people can listen to this mind numming vomit is completely beyond me. If you want to listen to music that is arranged and sang like the artist who origionally performed it fine... That's your thing so I cant and won't be bothered listening. But if you cant do it, don't try! Their music attempted to mirror every artists song they sang owver, look, put it this way, Pick a famous painter. if you could paint, would you try to mirror every stroke that painter used to create a piece of art or would you take inspiration from it and then put your own indevidual touch to it. Even if you knew you could never be as good as that painter, you'd still do what you could to enhance his or her art with your own style. That's what i would do anyway. If you don't do that, what's the point? In painting terms, why not just take a picture of it. In music, why not just play a CD and have done with it. Sorry. I'm probably being overly crewel. But, as i say. I'm in a generally negative and pissed off mood so tuff. I heard a young singer lately. She did what she thought was a simple and uncleaned version of Molly Malone. I heard a recording of it by chance. It was so full of feeling and so full of indeviduality that she made the song her own. No one else could sing the song like that because the feeling in it was based on her experiences. Her loves, hates and heart break. The timing was not exactly normal,In fact, it was choppy. But it all fitted together like the song was written to sound that way. This woman has more singing and performance ability in her little tow than this group of six musicians as a band.

AS you all probably know by now, I'm very active on twitter. If you want to follow me, go on over to www.twitter.com/digitaldarragh I heard about something today that caught my attention briefly. It's called Twitter Psych. It examines the words you use in tweets and generates a psych profile of what you talk about most. Now, take it with a rather large pinch of sault but it's some fun. Visit the site your self at http://www.tweetpsych.com Here is the analysis that it generated for me. Scary isn't it? I dwell on the past,I don't talk about sex half enough, I'll have to fix that... I'm a control freek, with no regard for money, I'm overly negative and I dwel on morbid thoughts. Oh, I almost forgot, I'm imotive too! but hay, it's all good. I'm highly analitical and quantitative, I like relaxing and being entertained, My thought processes are at a high level and my conseptual thinking is logical or something crazy like that. Jesus, I'm screwed up aren't I? Time This user Tweets about time 49% more than the average user. This indicates references to time in general, including the past, present and future. Past This user Tweets about the past 48% more than the average user. This may indicate a preoccupation with events that occurred the past. Numbers This user Tweets about numbers 42% more than the average user. This may indicate highly analytical and quantitative thinking. Leisure This user Tweets about leisure activities 33% more than the average user. This includes activities other than work and may indicate a desire to engage in relaxing and entertaining behaviors. Control This user Tweets about control 31% more than the average user. This includes restraint and moral imperatives and may indicate a desire to impose order. Thinking This user Tweets about thinking 28% more than the average user. This includes abstract thought and cognitive mechanics and may indicate an high level of thought processes. Conceptual This user Tweets about conceptual thoughts 23% more than the average user. This includes higher-level abstract thought. Logical reasoning and philosophy are examples of conceptual content. Negative This user Tweets about negative sentiments 18% more than the average user. This includes negative emotions, negative feelings and morbid thoughts. Present This user Tweets about the present 16% more than the average user. This includes references to present time and currently occurring events. Future This user Tweets about the future 12% more than the average user. This includes Tweeting about time as it relates to the future and may indicate an interest in events yet to occur. Senses This user Tweets about physical sensations 6% more than the average user. This includes sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile feelings. Anxiety This user Tweets about anxiety 5% more than the average user. This includes uncertainty, nervousness and apprehension. It may indicate a stress and fear. Constructive This user Tweets about constructive behavior 3% more than the average user. This includes creating and building things and indicates an interest in development and creative processes. Positive This user Tweets about positive sentiments 2% more than the average user. This includes positive feelings, thoughts, emotions and agreeability. Primordial This user Tweets about primordial content 2% less than the average user. This includes lower level dream-state and unconscious modes of thought. Some researchers refer to this as "reptilian" thought. Money This user Tweets about money 3% less than the average user. This includes references to income and money in general. Social This user Tweets about social behaviors 3% less than the average user. This includes inclusive Tweets, social behavior and speaking directly to the listener. Self Reference This user Tweets about itself 3% less than the average user. This includes tweeting about themselves, their activities. In most social media, doing this too much is regarded as a faux pas. Emotions This user Tweets about emotions 9% less than the average user. This includes a wide range of positive and negative emotions and may indicate a generally emotive perspective. Learning This user Tweets about learning and education 41% less than the average user. This includes Tweeting about school as well as self-teaching activities. Sex This user Tweets about sexual references 69% less than the average user. This includes sexual references and may indicate a preoccupation with sex. Media This user Tweets about media and celebrities 86% less than the average user. This includes references to celebrities and mass media and may indicate an interest in celebrity culture.

This has to be the best thing about Windows 7 I've seen to date. If your a techy, this is a dream come through. Add a new folder to your desktop and name it GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} you will now see the icon above on your desktop and a very extensive list of options. You'll find everything from the task manager, device manager, accessibility options, event viewer, troubleshooting wizzards for sound, printers, network connections and displays, network utilities for configuring the firewall, internet options, task bar and desktop properties and more. It's a great way of getting to a configuration option quickly. Especially if your not mad about the newWindows 7 control panel.

These are tunes composed by the legendary fiddle player Maurice Lennon A musician that I am very happy to play music with regularly when he's in Ireland.

The first tune, If only you were mine, was composed by him when he was 19 when his heart was broken after a woman he loved married.

The second Tune, Maeves dance, was composed by him about two years ago. He watched a documentary that told of an Irish family who emigrated to Australia when their Daughter, Maeve was only six. After a short time passed, she was tragically hit by a car and was killed instantly. However, this is not what the documentary focused on. Instead, it focused on an imaginary world that Maeve created and wrote about in great detail in her diary. Maurice was captivated by this world and the second tune, recognised by its waltz tempo was the result of the inspiration he got from this world.

People into Irish music may notice there's a swing to the waltz tempo. Maurice likes to play it this way to attempt to illustrate the child like nature of the world and the inspired tune.

I hope I do them justice.

Oh. let me dedicate this to someone who I really hope has a fantastic music career ahead of them. I've been very impressed with her singing over the past few days.

Use this link to listen to the recording.

I created the old nicky Kealy website years and years ago and it has been needing an update for ages. Now, with some perswation from the twitter community, He has finally agreed to allow it to be updated again. The new site includes a blog and a whole new layout and design that is more modern and functional. Visit him today at www.nickykealy.com Remember, if you would like a site done, please get in contact with me.

Emma described this to me while walking through Gragton street in Dublin last Friday night.

It's a sign made of light that makes the letter show up really brightly on the ground. There are also little star things at random points too. She'd probably make a better job of describing it than me as I really have no idea what I'm talking about. Here's the picture of it though for you poor people who can see.

Oh, I should have said, Dublins 98 are a radio station targeting dublin City.

The sign is in their Grafton street studio to highlight a campaign they are running at the moment. In a knuttshell, there is a large block of ice with what simbolises €30000 in it. The person who guesses how long it takes for the ice to melt cloceist when it's taken out of the cooling unit next Saturday at 2PM wins the money.

I got this from a fella in work known as the Legend or the LegEnd. Not sure which. But, thanks to him I was able to dig out the service tag of my laptop without getting someone to read th ebios or look at the serial number on the bottom. Go into the command prompt. and type this: wmic bios get serialnumber It will return the code for you so you can use it on the Dell website to get support. Very nice to have.

Saturday was a very active day. I offered to go for a mooch as Emma calls it around Drogheda. A Mooch is Emma’s word for window shopping. Believe me! Window shopping for someone who can’t see the window never mind what’s behind it is as interesting as watching paint dry. But, Emma attempts to solve this by showing me every! Single! Item of clothing that she takes an interest in. Ah, it’s not bad actually. It’s worse when people don’t show you anything. You’re left standing there in a world of your own while the person you’re with ogles over things their looking at twenty feet away.

I took her for lunch in a small restaurant down a narrow pedestrian street later that day. For the life of me, I cant remember what it was called. But, they do the nicest stake ever!

While doing a bit more mooching, I got a call from a friend. He asked if I’d be interested in doing a gig with him that night. It gets interesting though. When he called me, he had no one else organised. He forgot he had the booking so didn’t have the usual line up. The couple hadn’t even asked for a piper but he knew he could rely on me to pull things together musically if he got musicians that hadn’t played music with us before. He had to organise a base player, a drummer and a guitar player / singer. Luckily, Paul, our usual base player was available. This fella is without a doubt one of the best base players in the country. He can make it talk! He can play everything from pop, rock, jazz, blues, and country to Irish traditional. On drums we had Gary. We hadn’t played with him at all before in fact, I don’t know where Conor found him at all! But he was fantastic. Aside from Alphrid, a drummer that I don’t get to play music with often enough, he’s probably one of the best drummers I’ve heard around Ireland. Some would call his style too busy but I liked it. It was very technical but there was a lot of great improvisation in his playing that really suited. Although he and Paul never met before their percussive styles matched very well. Finding a guitar player and singer was much more difficult. We called over 40 people between us. From Belfast to Dublin we exhausted all our contacts. At such short notice no one was available. An hour before we had to leave for the gig we got a call. Our normal guitar player already knew about the gig and because he knew he couldn’t do it he organised someone else that he knew locally to stand in for him. Olly was his name and he was brilliant. He had done his research and had a lot of our normal set list learned off. He made it his own though by throwing some others into the mix too. It all went very well. He was able to relax into our style very quickly.

So, with a replacement drummer and guitar player / singer, we still got the normal sound of the willing fools.

The bride and groom were ecstatic at the end of it. Very few people were not up on the floor dancing by the end as well so it was a great result.

But, as Connor said while we were carrying the equipment in, “ok, we’ve proven that we can pull a gig out of the bag within a few hours with everything going against us time and time again! Just once I’d like to turn up for a gig without putting together a new band.” He’s right! There’s nothing we haven’t had to plan around.

I’ll have to tell you about the five hour search for a guitar string in Israel during their Sabbath day which is a Saturday that resulted in a visit to some random person’s house and getting lost in a multi story underground car park that had been locked from the outside. But that’s for another boring morning while commuting to work on the train.

Back to this weekend, the wedding was in the most fantastic hotel I’ve ever seen. It’s a place called Darver castle and it’s about ten to fifteen miles south of Dundalk. Huge stone walls, ornate floors, massive archways and very large rooms make this place a site to behold. Getting to the castle is a funny drive. You go down nice main roads for a while then you turn down this road that is just about big enough for a car to get through. It is one of those very old roads with grass in the middle. You meet the three huge gates to the castle after a few minutes. When you go in through the gates you drive through a huge expansive driveway. It’s such a world apart from any other hotel I’ve ever been to.

Well, Christmas is now almost here. It's the 14th of December in Ireland so we've 11 days left until the big day.

I am really getting into some of the Christmas music again. Not the stuff that seems to get on everyones nerves like Fairytail in New york but the good stuff!

So, Here you go. Happy Christmas from DigitalDarragh.
Or, it could be a punishment. haha. you'll just have to see.

Yes, we may get completely ripped off by the budget today and it could effectively screw the entire country for the next fifty years as we struggle to get out of this recession but what is writing about it going to do? what is worrying going to do? What is complaining from a distance going to do? It's going to do absolutely nothing! that's what. so. Yes, we are not looking forward to this budget but there's no point worrying about it. If it's going to happen it's going to happen. Unless we're willing to actually do something about it then there's no point writing dozens of blog posts giving out. So. Today, I'm going to stay posative, I'm going to keep an eye on the budget speech, I'm going to work as normal and then, when I get the results, I'm going to see how it effects me and plan around it to try to mitagate against any major problems that may arise as a result. Until we find a way of doing something about this mess our selves, we're just going to have to put up with what the government are doing. I'll put it this way. Their doing the job and they have the advisers. We don't. I'm not saying their making the best choices. I'm not saying their making the worst choices either. Because I don't know. I'll tell you what choice isn't the right one though. Being constantly negative. We're not going to get out of this by fighting every decision the government makes. Because at the end of the day. although I personally have no trust in FF, I don't see any other party being any better. So, either get behind them and try to help this country better or find a way of doing it your self. Writing negatively and telling stories of how we're all doomed because of the stupidity and incompatence of the government is doing one thing and one thing only. It's playing straight into the oppositions hands. And, do you really think FG or labour will do any better? Come on. Think about it. Look at both parties. Do you think they'll do better? what about SF. Do you think they'll do better either? Do you think you'd do better? Lets face it. decisions were made baddly but in 1990, I remember traveling on a bus and a builder telling me the boom wasn't going to last. I remember people saying how it couldn't last for seventeen years. I remember small businesses saying that the more multi-national businesses that came in the less compeditive the market was and the less viable it was for them to stay in. I remember the home grown companies saying that the multi-national companies weren't going to look after the Irish interest. Everyone remembers this. Every single one of us had the oppertunity to do something about this. Either by supporting local produce and manufacturors or by lobbying public representatives, councilers and TD's when decisions were made that would, in the long term lead to the situation we find our selves in now. But no one did it. We were all happy to go along with it when things were good. Yes. the government could have done something but we were happy to go along with their decisions. especially when those decisions resulted in lower tax and VAT. Answer me this. Why was it so easy for English to get such a firm grasp during the plantations. Do you know? It was because the Irish have always been a divided people. It takes a lot to make us come together. When we finally did come together, the routes of the plantation had already taken hold. It's the same now. Instead of coming together and fighting the common cause of beating this recession we instead fight the government instead of helping. How do we help? I don't know. Maybe start by sending suggestions, complaints, problems, comments or simple updates to your public representatives in the Oireachtas. If your not sure how to contact your local TD, look his or her contact details up on the Oireachtas website. It's all there. That's the least we can do. So, stop complaining because without doing something and contributing to the resolution of the problem you are part of it. negativity seeds negativity and it's negativity that has this country where it is today. Not bad government decisions.

Ok. I'm sorry! 1. I left the house without my iPod and my earphones. I had been looking forward to listening to the new Julie Fowlis CD since I got it last night but I couldn't because I left the stupid iPod at home! 2. I had to do something while traveling to work on the laptop before I got to work but because I forgot my earphones I had to do it with jaws, my screen reader, talking through the speakers. To ensure others didn't hear what I was doing and the synthesized speach didn't annoy people, I had to have it at a bearly audible volume. 3. What I was trying to finish didn't work. I'm still not sure why it wouldn't. I was basically adding some functionality to a site that I have created for an organization but the code was showing without the functionality! It makes no sense and when I tried the exact same steps when I got to work it all went fine! 4. I tried to log onto my home exchange server to check for new mail but it looks like my internet connection at home is down. That's going to be gone all day so I'll have to keep up with my personal email during breaks using web mail via my backup server. 5. The budget is coming tomorrow so things here are quite on edge. Plus, we were given some news a week and a half ago about the company I work for that will apply in April that has everyone very worried as well so although I'm fighting, I'm not happy about it. 6. I've decided that I'm just going to go buy a coffee. But guess what? I have €1.46 in change on me. a coffee is 2:50. I'm not going to an ATM to get money out. If I get a 20, it's just going to be spent before I even know it's gone. The Irish urin currency just falls through your fingers as soon as you break a note. 7. I can look forward to the prospect of sitting on a crowded train today at a quarter past five on the way back home without any music to listen to. I really should just go back home to bed. I'm not liking this Tuesday.

Well, yesterday I promised that pictures would follow our decorating attempts on Saturday night. Click on any of these pictures to see them in a new window at a much larger size.

As the description in the graphic describes, the tree is shown in the room with only it's lights eluminating the walls. I'm told that it makes the room look very different. There's a lot on there. There's two sets of gold and silver beeds, four sets of lights, red silver and gold tinsil, four bells, 12 glittering star things, ten lantern shaped things, the usual round shiny things tat are also come in red, the angel on top and in the middle, probably not very easy to see, a hand made wooden angel that was given to us last year by a very good German friend of ours.

There's a lot on the tree. It probably sounds a bit too much. But, the tree is over six foot high. In fact, considering the one in the porch is six foot high, I'd say ithe one in the living room is over seven foot high and is very broad on the bottom so to get rid of the bare look, it's necessary to have a lot on it. A part from the angel on the window looking out, it is the only decoration in the living room as with it, nothing else is needed.

Speaking of the angel, Emma loves this.

It was dark out when this picture was taken so unfortunately some of the features of the angel cannot be seen. A better picture will be taken during the weekend when it's not so dark out. Well, that's the plan anyway.

The angel has a white dress on that is very intricate. It's just less than a half a foot high from bottom to top. The top part of is light up with fibre-optic lights on it's back. It's very difficult to explain it other than that.

The next picture was also taken outside.

This time we look at the front of the house. We have an extention to the left of this picture so from left to right you can see the living room window with the angel, the porch with the fibre-optic christmas tree and on the right you can see Emma's sowing room. It has an electric candle thing. This looks like a tryangle shaped candle stand with about seven candles on it. Three on the left and three on the right and one on the top. Again, up close, this is very detailed. There is a leaf effect at the bottom of each candle stick to make it look very authentic.

So there you have it. I hope those descriptions were comprehensive enough to give you an idea of how things look. Oh, I forgot to mention. The christmas tree in the porch is about six fot high. It's not half as dominating as the tree in the living room.

I don’t mind saying that it was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced. For the people who read this who are not blind, go home tonight and imagine someone is in your house. Imagine that the scope of your awareness is limited to that you can hear, smell and touch. Imagine that someone is outside that scope. Their aware of you but your not aware of them. Imagine that you are alone with that person and you don’t even know it. The dog barks! The silence is broken. I jump out of sleep and I’m fully awake and alert. But. I’m frozen. Unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to process what is happening. My commen sense tells me it couldn’t be happening and it was just a bad dream but the part of me that still is frozen with dred cant ignore what ever it was that woke me up so quickly. I’m not sure why I’m frozen solid but I know that it’s not something I drempt. I’m still unable to move. I feel stupid for being afraid of what is possibly nothing. What is it? I can feel something. I cant hear anything though. The rain batters the window. The dog isn’t barking now. I’m consintrating on trying to hear something but I cant move! I won’t move. I’m afraid that if I do, what ever or who ever it is, if something or someone is in fact there they will know I’m not a sleep and ……. No. I cant think of that. I lie there. I know that a lot of time passes. But still nothing! I start to loosen up. I tell my self that I’m stupid. The dog could have got spooked by something out side the apartment. I tell my self that the presence I felt wasn’t a person. It couldn’t have. I’d have heard him or her. It was all in my head. I try to sleep. After more time, the alarm goes off. I spring out of bed, throw the clothes on from the day before, grab the dog and leave the apartment within minutes. I don’t need to be out that early but the feeling of being watched won’t go away. As the cold morning air hits me on the way to the train station, I convince my self that there is no way someone else was in the apartment with me all that time. I say it to no one because I feel so stupid. I push it out of my mind and I hardly give it another thought. Satisfied that it was not real, I continue on for another month. Things are as normal as they’ve ever been. One night, after going to bed, I hear a door close. Determined to fight the feer I experienced the month before I check that the rooms are empty. More time passes without incident but residents speak of apartments that have been broken into. I’m assured that my dor cannot be opened using a card like others have been as the lock is too stiff so I’m happy with this reassurance. I also feel very confedent that the dog will be vocal in his notification that someone is in the apartment. One morning however, I leave the apartment and open the second door toward the stairwell. Freddie emetietly behaves like someone is near. Without any reason to be concerned, I greet the person. He doesn’t respond. I let the dog walk over and find that he’s lying on one of the ornamental sofa’s. He’s a sleep but concerned that he may be locked out of his apartment, I wake him up to see if there’s anything I can do to help. He admits that he’s sleeping rough. Satisfied that he’s telling the truth, I continue to work. Within five minutes, On the way to the station, I call another resident and ask him to check the landing as with the break ins in the building I would rather that he’s monitored. I’m told that he’s no longer there. I return home the next evening to find that the door to the spare room is open. Things begin to add up and I become less sure that my previous fears were unfounded. Because of the mounting security problems in the building, I ask my land lord to get something done about it. He has the largest stake in the building as he owns most of the apartments. He fights the management company to get extra security added. The security company installs new locks but it is learned that keys have been left in post boxes. This has no effect as as soon as keys are provided, one is stolen. After some more time, I decide to move out. Packing begins and everything is moved to the new hous. While clearing out the spare room I find a cussion, different to the others in the apartment standing up against the wall in the spare bed. I’m now convinced that someone was there both when I was there and when I was away. I return to the apartment for the last time to clean it to ensure it’s ready for the next tennent. I open the door and the dog stops dead in his tracks. I know straight away that there is someone in front of me. I muster a very angry and demanding voice and demand to know what the hell he’s doing in there. He tells me that he was given the apartment. Concerned that he could be armed, I leave and close the door to the apartment and the door to the stairwell. The next time I go in I bring Emma with me. She doesn’t inform me that he has any kind of weppon so I confront him further. I ask him again. “Who gave you this apartment!”. He answers again that he was given it. When I demand to know who gave it to him he says he was given it by magic. I give up and leave again. This time, I call a neighbour to stand at the door with me and call the gards. He comes out and attempts to leave. I block him and tell him that he’s going nowhere . Expecting a confrontation I feer for the worst and tell Emma to take the dog out of the way. Instead, he calmly agrees that he’ll stay and returns to the apartment. Another resident passing by tells us that he knows who the man is. A number of very shocking facts are divulged and we’re advised to leave the building. The gards arrive and ask us a number of questions before going in side. They already know the man and their aware of what he’s been doing in the building. I wish I understood how they were aware of it but yet did nothing to stop him but that’s a story for a later time I think. They also back up what I’d been told a short time before and suggest that I do not confront him again. I was told he had been linked to a number of high profile and serious crimes in Tallaght and had travelled to Drogheda to hide. I was also told by the same person that he enjoyed acting stupid to throw people off. The Gards went up and threw him out. When we met outside, they requested proof that he didn’t live there as he told them that I was the intruder, not him! Of course, a call to the land lord proved that but I’m still amazed that they needed proof! When all that was done, they just sent him on his way. Thank god, I’ve never heard from him since. When he was gone, the Gards asked me to go to the apartment to make sure he had not taken or damaged anything. The gard walked through each room describing everything she could see. When we got up stairs she told me there was a cussion on the bed. When I checked, it was the same one from the spare room. I completely loved that apartment. It was in a great location, the inside was done to such a high standard, the church design was really unusual and the high vaulted sealings with the windows made everything sound fantastic. But, when I returned to that apartment, everything seemed different. I knew that he’d been in there, I knew that I was stupid for not trusting my instingt and I knew that he could have been there a lot more than I knew. I don’t mind saying that it was the most frightening thing I’ve ever experienced. For the people who read this who are not blind, go home tonight and imagine someone is in your house. Imagine that the scope of your awareness is limited to that you can hear, smell and touch. Imagine that someone is outside that scope. Their aware of you but your not aware of them. Imagine that you are alone with that person and you don’t even know it.

I’m not sure where to start this entry. Do I start it by talking about the fantastic gig on Friday night? Do I start by talking about how I didn’t make it to bed on Friday night? Do I talk about the crazy crowds in Nury on Saturday morning? Or, do I talk about decorating the house on Saturday night. Ah! Too much happened! It was a very busy one. Ok. I suppose it’s more logical to start from the beginning. Friday night, I did the usual gig in Dundalk. It’s an Irish music gig that I’ve only recently been invited to play at. Usually, it’s Malachy on guitar, Alan on fiddle and banjo and my self on Pipes whistles and the bodhran. This week though, instead of Alan, we were joined by Noreen. She also plays the fiddle but she has a very different style. Both musicians would be the same in terms of experience and talent but I really enjoy when Noreen plays music with us as the change is very nice. Of course, they’ll say the same when someone stands in for me. The change, no matter who stands in is always nice. As usual, I was last to leave the pub. We normally wait around after everyone has gone to stay for a drink with the bar staff. It was around 4:30 when I finally got out of there. There was method in my madness though this week. I’d organised with Emma that we’d go straight from Dundalk on Friday night / Saturday morning to Nury. For people out of Ireland, Nury is in the occupied 6 counties in the north of the country. It therefore benefits people in the 26 counties who can travel to it to go up there for shopping as the VAT (Value Added Tax) is less up there than it is in the 26 counties. In certain shops such as Argus, further discounts can be found as for some reason, their prices are lower in the 6 counties. The reason that we were crazy enough to go to Nury so early on Saturday morning was to avoid the huge tail backs on the way into the town. Last year, we left Drogheda at 8AM but it took us 3 hours to get into Nury! It should take 45 minutes at most! So, the shops opened at 8AM, but the crowds started building at half seven! It was amazing! Ten people ascended on the door trolleys at the ready within a few seconds. By the time we got from the car park to the door at 20 to 8, the line was a good fifty feet long. By a quarter past 8, there were people in the shops complaining that there were no trolleys left. I’ll not bore you with the rest of the events of the day but I have to tell you, I got 48 pints of Bulmers for around 50 Euro. You can really appreciate why people are travelling to get these prices. I’d promised Emma that we’d put up the Christmas tree and decorations on Saturday night. I’d been invited to a large house party on Saturday as well but I decided to cancel. I’ll probably get an ear full next Friday though. The tree I bought a few years ago is over six foot so with four sets of lights and a lot of decorations; it needs a lot to fill it. It’s not over done though from what I’m told. I have a picture of It on Emma’s camera but as usual she’s been too lazy to edit it for me. I’ll annoy her about it later. The reason it is so big is I bought it when I was living in the most fantastic apartment ever. It was an old converted convent and I was on the top floor where the chapple use to be. It had really high vaulted sealing and the bedroom was up stairs over the bathroom and the spare room. The living room and kitchen had no sealing so when standing in the bedroom up stairs, you could look down into both rooms. I’ve a very scary blog post to write about my time in there. Anyway, back to the decorations, it’s all done now for another year. We’ve a tree in the porch, we have a fibre-optic angel in the window of the living room and we have an electric candle thing in the front window on the other side of the house so from the front the two windows on each side of the house is lit up with the porch in the middle containing the fibre-optic tree. I hear it looks well. Again, pictures will be available soon. I have to admit, Sunday was more or less lost. Because I didn’t get to bed at all on Saturday night and was therefore up for almost 48 hours straight, when I did finally get to sleep on Saturday night, I didn’t wake until 4PM on Sunday afternoon. Terrible isn’t it? I felt terrible for losing most of the day. It’s not like me at all!

No! not me! Come on... You should know me better than that at this stage! I'm sitting on the enterprise in first class on the way to work this morning. Believe me, there is really no better way of traveling to Dublin. While sitting here, I notice that the cairage is almost full but yet very few people are talking. When Emma who's sitting beside me speaks, she wispers. The entire environment screams "BE RESERVED!" Around me, rattles can be heard from every side. What was once a very quiet and modern train seems to have fallen into some disrepair in recent years. Still, the heat is at a perfect tempriture, the seats that recline to provide that extra bit of relaxation during the trip are still a welcome change to the upright cattle props that we normally sit in while being hurded from one stop to the other. Even the carpeted floor on this train adds a difference. With all this comfort and relaxation, I begin to overhear a phone conversation behind me. The young woman who is probably in her mid twenties with a fantastic northern accent is confiding in a friend seemingly. I hear her talk about a possible love interest. They talk about a possible encounter that may be on the cards but how she is still unsure if she will follow through with it. She exclaims that she is too afraid of being hurt again and she doesn't know if she's ready yet. This conversation may as well be preached across a 10000 wat sound system to me as because everything else is so quiet, I cant help but be drawn to the one voice that can be heard. But I am interested. How can someone who is afraid to be hurt be so comfortable to voice her feelings on a crowded train. How can she be so open to inadvertently profess her deepist worries to a cairage full of complete strangers. Maybe she's just so caught up in her conversation that the rest of the world has faded into the background. Either way, I find it strange, interesting and kind of sad that what should be a private conversation with I assume is a close friend has been broadcasted around the cairage. Or, I could just be really bord on this train trip to Dublin.

Thanks to an idea I got on Twitter yesterday, I've added a new tutorial to LALRecordings that looks at RSS, what it is used for, how you can benefit from it, how it works in Internet Explorer, Outlook 2007, Firefox and a stand alone application called Sharpreader.

The audio tutorial is now live for everyone to listen to at http://www.lalrecordings.com/node/34

As always, your comments, suggestions and even complaints are always more than welcome. Please send them to Info@lalrecordingsr. .com. Without feedback, LALRecordings wouldn't know what our visitors want.

Visit www.lalrecordings.com for a lot more recordings on Windows, Linux, mobility aids, accessible media players and mobile phones to name just a few topics that we cover.

I could never say I'm any good at audio production, but I took this on a while ago because it needed to be done.

I have just released the December edition of InfoVics to the VICS Ireland website for members to listen to it.

I'm nervous as to what the feedback will be like. It's the first audio thing I've done like that.