A quick review of the Irish Blog Awards 2011

Mar 21, 2011 | ,

I was at the Irish Blog Awards in the Europa hotel in Belfast on Saturday. I was there with hopes of snatching the prise for best blog post for my piece titled Thanks Freddie written just after retiring my previous guide dog.

There were bloggers there from all over the country. Damien Mulley, the man behind the blog awards tweeted on Friday that only 130 tickets had been sold but I actually think more than that attended on the night. Numbers certainly seemed down on the last two years but I think that was because the awards were held so soon after St. Patrick’s day and they were up in the north so money had to be first exchanged into Sterling so it would put some people off going

As usual Rick O’Shay was the MC for the night. Rick has a fantastic voice for that kind of thing and a very quick wit that keeps people very entertained. He seems perfect for that kind of job.

I met up with some people that I was looking forward to seeing but unfortunately there were a lot who didn’t attend the awards. Thanks to people like Emma, Darren and Ellie I was reintroduced to bloggers that I had met last year and introduced to new bloggers who were only starting. It was also nice that I was able to actually find people that I wanted to speak to this year. Because the music was so loud after last year’s awards I couldn’t find a single person so actually left less than an hour afterword. This year we didn’t finish up until 2AM and the only reason we left that early is the bar stopped serving.

Would you believe it, my post didn’t win? Let me say that I’m not at all big headed. Well, I hope I’m not anyway but genuinely, I thought that I had a really good chance of winning in the best post category on Saturday night. Not because of any strange confidence in my writing skills but because of the sheer number of people who had contacted me on twitter, comments on this website, Email and even by text message before and during the awards to say that they hoped I’d win. I was even approached by one of the judges in my category who expressed disbelief that I didn’t win it. This is not a disparaging comment against the post that won it. It was great! The author June obviously has a fantastic writing style. It just wasn’t particularly my thing. I actually thought if someone else was going to win it it would have been White Rabbit NI for her post but I was completely wrong. Don’t tell anyone but I’m actually also secretly relieved that I didn’t win it. My reasons for this are utterly silly. Hay, I’m just remembering, this time five years ago at this train station my laptop died never to boot again. Something dodgy and unexplainable happened and it had to be sent back to Acer. Interestingly enough, that was the last Acer I ever owned. I’ve had a combination of Dell’s and HP’s since. Ok. Back to the awards. Yes, I was secretly hoping I wouldn’t win. I had been trying to listen to other award winners go up to the stage but while they were walking the crowd were applauding so I couldn’t hear the stage or how they got up on to it. I had hoped that I’d be able to hear approximately where they walked up onto the stage and prompt the dog to find the steps in that direction if it was our turn to walk up. Yes, I told you it was silly didn’t I? My other reason for not wanting to win was equally as silly. I didn’t want to have to talk. Yes. For someone who’s in front of a mike almost every week, I didn’t want to be in front of one this weekend. Yes. You may now laugh. Go ahead. I don’t mind!

Just a quick final note about the Europa. That hotel is really nice! It’s probably the second nicest hotel I’ve stayed in while in Belfast. I have been up and down to Belfast quite a bit so I’ve had the opportunity to try out a lot of their hotels. There are a few pictures of it at the end of this post. The one thing I have to say though is its prices do not reflect the situation the entire country finds it’s self in. €120 for a night excluding breakfast seems very harsh in my experience. Yes, it’s a four star hotel and yes it’s a very nice place but they have to give value for money as well. I genuinely don’t think we got that on Saturday. Breakfast was a further €20 per person. Again, that’s an outrageous amount of money to charge for a breakfast. Although it was very comfortable I would never consider staying there again and in fact I would also suggest that family and / or friends do not stay there either for that reason. Of course, that’s my opinion but I think its Important now more than ever to give value for money no matter what business you’re in. Even drink in the hotel was overly expensive. Vodka and Coke and a pint of Bulmer’s were just under £10. That’s about 12 or €13! Across the road we bought a round for four people and it didn’t even come to £10. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fantastic night and I really enjoyed it and I’m probably one of the more fortunate in this country that the recession hasn’t it me as much as it has most people however regardless, I still need to be as careful as the next person when it comes to the amount of money I spend on luxuries.

The room in The Europa hotel. Ike is peeking round the corner

View from the window into the room The door into the bathroom is made from frausted glass.

Looking at the room from a different angle.

View from 9th floor window of the europa

Looking onto the street far below.

People are absaling off the front of the Europa hotel.

Imagine waking up, opening your curtains and seeing one of these people outside your window when your on the nineth floor? Ha!

Pictures from the Irish Blog Awards 2011

Mar 20, 2011 | ,

I’ll write more about the blog awards tomorrow however for the moment, have a look at these pictures.

Damien Mulley and Rick O'Shay at podium. These are the two main men behind the blog awards.

The main men. Damien and Rick.

This shows Damien with the rest of the team that help to make the Irish Blog awards such a success.

Damien with the rest of the IBA team.

Damien with a specially made giant cupcake.

The Damien Cupcake.

Emma and Grannymar play the air guitar.

I don't think Emma would have gone up to the stage if she had known what she was going to be asked to do. Sounds like she had a great time with it though. 🙂

Darren Byrne robbing a cupcake from the tiers of cupcakes

It was nice to see a few of the regulars there too.

Grannymar gives Ike a rub. Ike's loving it.

Grannymar meets Ike.

Grannymar giving Ike a rub while he relaxes on the floor

Ike takes everything lieing down.

I have a few more pictures to add showing the lovely Uropa hotel in Belfast but it’s getting late and I have to be up in about 6 hours so I’ll hopefully do it on the way to workin the morning.

Thanks to everyone who was part of making the Irish Blog Awards yet another great one.

Oh. Thanks for all the direct messages, Emails and text messages. The thanks Freddie post unfortunately didn’t win. Again, more about that tomorrow.

Using the WordPress app on the iPhone.

Mar 18, 2011 | ,

Isn’t this kind of cool? I’m sitting here on the train composing a blog post. Granted, it’s not going to be very interesting because I’m only writing a but still. From where I’m sitting, that’s pritty damn impressive.

You know what’s more impressive though? I’m writing this on the Focus 40 Blue. I’ll blog about this fantastic device shortly but I’ll start you off by simply saying that this Braille display is amazing.

That’s all folks.

Are you going to the blog awards?

Mar 18, 2011 | ,

Tomorrow, Ike and I will be heading up to Belfast to visit the Europa hotel for the annual Irish blog awards. Are you coming?

The post I wrote last year titled Thanks Freddie has been finalized in the best blog post category. At that alone I’m thrilled. I’d absolutely love it if that post won in that category but there are five other posts equally as good if not better. Take a look:

You’ll see me there. I’ll be the guy standing around with a big hairy golden retriever beside him. Come over and say hello please? It’s a funny thing about being Blind. You’ll see me a long time before I see you. It would be nice to put a few voices to all these names I’ve been reading about all year. People I have to meet again this year are: White rabbit… Not actually sure what her name is, Twenty major, Grandad from head rambles, Grannymar, Darren Byrne, The Chris D, Ellie, Marie and of course, Damien, the man who puts this entire thing together.

Getting Token and RealName modules to work properly in Drupal 7

Mar 15, 2011 |

It’s probably worth noting that in Drupal 7, the RealName module doesn’t quite work as you might expect with the token module as it currently stands.

The problem is best explained in This bug report. Take a look at comment 92. It provides a patch that can be added to the token module to fix it’s functionality.

Simply download this patch and run it within the /sites/all/modules/token/ directory as follows:

patch < 691078-token-field-tokens-v2.patch

When you look at the settings for the RealName module you will notice that the fields you have added to the user profile will be available.

What else would I be doing on a Saturday night?

Mar 12, 2011 |

I’m sitting here in the lavish surroundings of house in Carlow. I’m down here in a friends house for a few nights. We played at a wedding in Tiparary today.

There are a few reasons why I had to write this post. I didn’t want to forget because the message that I have for you is very important.

It is as follows:
Never. I repeat Never try to write a twitter status update after a few pints in a noisy pub with prodictive text turned on. The message that is actually sent might be very different to the one you intended to send. Words can get completely changed around and you’ll just end up looking like a very drunk idiot. Never mind the fact that I probably was a drunk idiot. that’s beside the point.

Ike after six weeks. – Progress report.

Mar 10, 2011 | ,

It’s quite amazing when you think about it.

Ike is now almost at the end of his sixth week out of the training centre for Irish guide dogs in Cork. Already he has done a lot even though I’ve been taking it very easy and I have been trying to keep his routine very stagnant. Look at some of the routes he’s been guide me through.

From home to work. That’s a combination of very narrow paths, rounded kerbs, main roads and controlled and uncontrolled crossings. He does this twice a day every day from Monday to Friday and I think he could do it in his sleep at this stage.

From Pearce street station to work. It’s less than a ten minute walk but he has controlled and uncontrolled crossings, massive crowds going in every direction and some really tight turns.

From work to Stephens green. This is less than a ten minute walk as well but parts of it are really crowded and there is a high volume of traffic on one of the uncontrolled crossings. There are also some very narrow paths and he has to walk past a place where people eat outside so it can’t be easy on him. Because there’s so much going on he seems to love this route.

That’s the Monday to Friday routes out of the way. The other things he’s learning are:

From home into the centre of town in Drogheda.

From Home to my parents house.

From home to the local Pub….. What can I say…
From home to the bus station.

I have tried not to work him more than I absolutely have to outside his normal routes so I haven’t walked to any friends houses in the area because he has a hell of a lot to learn and take in. Giving him too much too soon would do a lot more harm than good. At the moment he’s enjoying the Monday to Friday routes. The other places we go to are more to give Ike the idea that we don’t always go to the same place over and over again and we’ll regularly go places that he won’t have been to before and he’ll have to take his directions from me.

For example, last week we had to go to a specific gate in Dublin castle. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going but I had a good idea. I used the GPS to get turn by turn instructions and although we actually ended up at the gate after the one I had intended to stop at, Ike took the instructions I gave to him perfectly.

We’ve also been to buildings around this area, into crampt basements and really noisy server rooms but Ike has taken it all in his stride. So much so that he now knows that he’s better off just sitting beside the room UPS’s because it’s nice and warm in that part of the room so I can go into the adjoining server room to do whatever I need to do. When I come out he’s usually a sleep so I have to spend a minute waking him up. Seriously! I don’t mean to sound bad but this dog is the laziest animal I have ever come across in my life! When he’s a sleep it takes a rocket up his behind to get him moving again! I’m not bothered though. It’s nice that he relaxes so easily.

Ike has also travelled with me to Carlow, he’s sat through two long days in a recording studio and he’s already worked through six different train stations. Are you keeping in mind that I’m taking it easy at the moment? I haven’t even given him a quarter of what he’ll be expected to do every day yet. I’m only doing the essentials with him but he’s very easy going and doesn’t mind when I throw something new his direction.

Because his ability to work through crowds and safely find paths between people I’ve also done a few walks through Grafton Street at lunch times. I generally only do one walk through there a week but it’s been a great way of helping him understand what I want from him. I’m not in any hurry so I can give him time to find the comfortable way through it. I can also stop and reassure him and give loads of praise when he needs it. As a result, he now does exactly what I want. He understands when I point towards the right then he should walk that way so I’m along the shop fronts on the right or if I point left then we should walk down that side of the road. This makes it nice and easy when I’m trying to find a specific shop. It’s pointless letting him walk down the right if the shop I want to find isn’t there. When I got him first he only wanted to walk down the left and even when I crossed over to the other side he wasn’t completely happy. Oh. He also kept trying to pull me into Stephens green shopping centre. I wonder if his puppy walker took him in there? He seems to know that area a little. For example he has taken me up to the crossing at the Stephens green end of Grafton Street without me giving him a clear command or a clear direction. In fact, I had been disorientated at the time by people collecting somewhere because they were generating a lot of noise, there wasn’t much traffic on the road at the time and there was a very large crowd of people moving in every direction. Given a few minutes I’m sure I would have figured it out but it was nice that Ike was able to confidently take over.

I was asked this morning from 0 to 100 how I rank Ike’s work. I had to say 98. Considering we have only been working together for just under two months that’s incredible!

There is one lingering issue though that is driving me crazy and it simply has to stop. He is continuing to relieve himself while working. This is something I have asked the centre about and in fairness to them they are actively giving me advice and they have had discussions among the trainers however I’m still encountering this problem almost every day. It’s horrible when sometimes you just don’t want to go out because you know your dog is going to embarrass you by taking a dump on the foot path.

Irish blog awards finalists.

Mar 9, 2011 | ,

My Thanks Freddie blog post has made it to the finalists of the Irish blog awards under the best post category. I’m seriously delighted to get that far. I origionally wrote the post for my own contomplation of the entire transition because I wanted to mark it in some way so I could look back to remember how hard the entire thing was but to also remember how much Freddie meant and still means to me. It was actually just an added bonus that others got to see the good and bad of having and retiring a guide dog.

After getting a few comments though my thinking changed. I now see that post as a testament to Freddie and the more people that read it the more will understand how fantastic freddie was. That post isn’t a reflection of my writing, my website or my blog. It’s a tribute to Freddie. Any good comment on that post is an acknowledgement of that in my view.

Thanks to the organizers of the Irish blog awards for spreading the awareness of the post around the country.

Of course, I couldn’t write this post without recognising and mentioning Ike.. He’s got pritty big shoes to fill but he’s doing a great job.

Just a few tunes.

Mar 8, 2011 | ,

I’ll be back in the studio soon with the Willin’ fools but before I go in I wanted to have a few options recorded so I could listen back to check their suitability.

Here are about eight of the tracks I recorded.

The following tunes are recorded with no editing or corrections.

Small things can make such a big difference.

Mar 4, 2011 | , ,

This is seriously amazing.
I spend a hell of a lot of money on any set of ear phones I buy. This pair cost me about a hundred and fifty Euro and I’ve had them for almost a year now. They came with silicone tips and the sound is very reasonable. They’ve never really blown me away though and considering the cost of them that’s a little disappointing. Still, they were worth it because the sound was always very clear and never distorted. Last night, Emma baught a new pair of ear phones. She of course wouldn’t have the same reasons to spend as much as I do on them but the set she got were very good none the less. They came with these memory foam tips that can be used instead of the silicone inserts. I was surprised at the quality of sound she got from her ear phones when she used these so I gave them a go. When I say that they make a massive and unbelieveable difference I’d be understating it. It is just incredible! She got a spare set of these memory foam tips so I am using them on my ear phones at the moment. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the silicone alternatives.

If you have a set of ear phones that use the silicone tips may I strongly suggest you give this a go. the memory foam tips are really cheap and the site that I’ll point you to can do them in any size to suit almost every kind of ear phone / headset.

Do it right now. You’ll never look back. The site you should visit is at http://www.complyfoam.com/foam-replacement-tips/