30 Challenges in 2016

Feb 15, 2016 | ,

Jenny is to blame for the following posts.
She’s turning 30 on Thursday. Wish her a happy birthday in the comments or over at her blog. To mark this she wants thirty challenges for the next year. I became very interested in this and stole the idea a few weeks ago.

Since then people have given me a number of suggestions such as

  • Learn to use a compass and read a map. Using some kind of accessible method.
  • Clime Croke Patrick and play a tune at the top.
  • Knit a granny blanket.
  • Make finding a basketball hoop accessible to someone who can’t see where it is.
  • Eat vegetarian food only for one week.
  • Learn a tune on the fiddle
  • Play music for 24 hours solid.

There’s more but I’ll give more detail in the next week or two.

I love all of these suggestions and where possible, I’m taking them to a slightly new level. For example, I’ve heard a lot about veganism in the past few weeks so instead of just eating vegetarian for a week I’ve decided with the help of Emma to go all out and try a vegan diet for a week.

This week I’ll explain some of what this will inhale.

As those who know me will understand, I love meet. Chicken, stake, some fish, pork, it’s all good. Having no milk or dairy products or in fact, no products based on animals at all will be a shock to my system. However, I think it’s an important exercise and challenge so I’m up for giving it a go.

The following posts will explore my vegan week in more detail. Look at the 30 challenges in 2016 tag for more.

Error updating iPhone. IOS problems.

Jan 14, 2016 | ,

I’ve had problems updating my iPhone from IOS9.1.1 to IOS9.2 since it was released in the middle of December.

I’ve tried the usual fixes:

  1. Updating from the iPhone as normal. This fails just after verifying the update.
  2. Updating from iTunes. This fails trying to create a backup. IT always says there isn’t enough space on my 2TB hard drive that’s about 50% free.
  3. I even resorted to resetting to factory defaults and installing the update before restoring from an iCloud backup. This gave the same errors as before.
  4. Obviously this is after various resets and trying from different wireless and wired networks on different Internet connections.
  5. I’ve even tried changing my regional settings to see if it was something related to my connectivity to an Irish update repository.

Today I’m trying something different. I’ve downloaded the firmware for IOS9.2 and I’ve restored using that IPSW file using iTunes.

Of course this is going to wipe the iPhone again but restoring from an iCloud backup using Doulci activator will get everything back as it was. Excluding WiFi, Email and social network passwords for some reason.

This is the first time in about six years that I’ve had problems with an IOS upgrade. It’s quite frustrating and disappointing.

the night before Christmas

Dec 24, 2015 |

Join us while we wind down before Santa comes later. Méabh really doesn’t understand it quite yet. She’s learning though.

[podcast]https://audioboom.com/boos/3992256-the-night-before-christmas.mp3[/podcast]

Listen or Download

Babies, houses and star wars. Beat that for a title!

Dec 16, 2015 |

Are you going to Star wars? I’m hoping to get to it in the next few days. I must look later to see if there are any cinemas that are providing audio description. There are a few around Dublin city that are good at it.

This site is now twelve years old. Imagine that? During the life of the site I’ve said this next part too often but here goes again. I’m very sorry for neglecting this lately. But It’s Christmas, the end of yet another year so let me make up for that slightly with a bit of a post.

When I say a lot has happened since my last post I’m really under stating it.

Emma had a baby. I now have a son! He was eight pound ten ounces at birth. Now he’s a monster at about fourteen pounds or more. He’s now just over two months and he’s growing at an incredible rate every day.

I should have written about the birth but I’ve been far too busy enjoying time with Méabh my two year old daughter and Rían my two month old son to spent time putting into words the incredible memories and thought’s I have.

I was so fortunate to be there and involved with the birth of my son. I was even more involved compared to Méabh’s birth. It was such an incredible experience. Although I really didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl I felt a tiny tinge of delight when I heard I had a son. As always, the mid wives and nurses couldn’t have been more professional, efficient and helpful. I am very thankful for the care and time they gave Emma. Nothing was a problem. Nothing was an inconvenience.

Méabh absolutely loves her little brother and from the first day we got back from the hospital she has been really helpful to us and loving to her brother. Jealousy is something we were told to watch out for but just over two months on all Méabh has done is watch after her little brother. We hope it will continue like this but all indications are that it will.

Off the baby topic, we’re doing a huge amount of work to the house. The number of jobs the builder has taken on are actually too long to list but some of the highlights are:

  • New driveway. Finally we’ll get rid of that stupid slip of contract that fit the car and no more.
  • New stair case. People tell us we’re mad doing this but I didn’t like the design of the old stair case and no one could actually upgrade the existing stairs fully without leaving bits behind that would stick out so this is going to be a better job.
  • Moving light switches and burying wires in the hall. Again, we were going to get this done in 2008 but there’s a lot of work involved which will cost a lot to do right.
  • Renovating the garage. My office is moving from upstairs into the garage so as we can give Rían his own room.
  • Insulating the shed and basically making it into a part of the house for storage. This wasn’t part of the original idea but it makes sense to do it now.
  • Reinsulating the front wall of the living room. This was done when we bought the house back in 2008 but we’ve still had problems with the heat in that room so this will help.
  • More insulation. We’re also insulating a lot of the ground floors and the roof in the extension.

It’s incredible to go in every night to find that the house has been ripped apart and put together again.