Hijacked!

Aug 27, 2012 |

I was inspired by Grannymar’s comment and so today I have hijacked Darragh’s blog. It’s about time that you all got to hear things from my side.

Well firstly, I think I need to defend myself! Darragh keeps posting about things I say prior to 7am in the morning! 7am – what level of English does he want? By that stage I’ve gotten up and ready for work and am at the bus station. That in itself is impressive! My poor brain is usually still fighting for more sleep!

So payback time! Hmmmmmm where to start.

I think I will start with Saturday. Well we were out on the road early to bring the tandem to the bike shop before doing wedding stuff in Dundalk. Well seemingly I was not breaking enough! Me? I think it was the early hour. Just because the back wheel of the bike (that Mr. Digital is nearest to) was skidding back and forth across the road! Its not like it was the front one!

Well skip forward a few hours and we are on the bike (with new skid free tyres and lovely clothes that in fairness he did purchase for me) on a long cycle (long for me anyway, this whole biking thing is pretty new to me) Cycle went great. We had a great time. Lovely views out by Baltray. (Note to self bring a camera) Well right until the last hill to the house (downside of Drogheda being built around a river valley). We hadn’t even gotten the bike into the garage and he wanted to cycle to Tescos. Over 18km we were just after completing! Let’s just say that was one I won (there are benefits to being the steerer!)

Sunday we decided to go on another cycle. Now I wanted to go a different way and Mr. Digital told me he wanted this one to be over 20km (don’t listen to him if he denies it I don’t think he even listens to himself sometimes!) so out comes the trusty iPad and the Google maps and I punch in the first faraway but still nearish place I can think of into it and decide on a route. I keep telling him that it’s not like the gym – wherever we cycle to my legs still have to be able to cycle back from!

Off we set out the coast road to Bettystown. We stopped for an oblatory ice-cream in Bettystown (more for me than him) and were on our way back a different route (much easier to cycle a circular route on a tandem than turn the thing!)

So I couldn’t remember if we had another turn coming up and we had to stop. Now people please agree with me that this is wrong. He used his shoe to break. His SHOE! And the noise nearly gave me a heart attack. Two passersby thought it was hilarious but then when we were passing them next he shouted to them about the abuse I give him! Well I never, just cause I was concerned about his shoe!

So we pedal along pretty fast (we are getting better at the togetherness of the pedalling) and a bug hits me…hard in the arm… a major downfall of being the one in front let me tell you! Mr. Digital thinks it’s so funny if I get a bug in my mouth (shudders) So a minute or two later we are flying passed 2 people out for a stroll and he roars at them to watch out for the kamikaze bugs! Really like where am I supposed to hide on the front of a bike!

I won’t even go into the fact he thinks its ok to pretend (well I hope its pretend anyway) to have a little nap on my back during a cycle!

Today he thinks we might be doing a 90km cycle in a months time. In 3-4 hours. I’m not sure what planet he’s on but I think I will need new legs with some Li-ion battery backs! Anyone any good spares out there? Preferably in a thin, toned and nicely tanned model… we do have a wedding coming up you know!

On a non-cycling note am I the only one that gets this when I ask a simple a or b question? Yes. Would you like a Bulmers or a glass of wine… Yes. Yes! grrrrrrrr. To be fair Mr. Digital sometimes says no, but it’s not exactly any more helpful in getting a good answer!

I better not say any more. I still want there to be a wedding!

Oh no. I better go. I can hear him coming! Here’s hoping he doesn’t see this for a while!

Double negatives.

Aug 27, 2012 |

Emma thinks it’s mean that I write this but I think it would be mean to deprive the rest of the world of knowing about some of the things that she says. I call her language Emmish. It has to be a language because it’s rarely English!

Take this morning for example. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was trying to say and for that matter, I’m not sure if she knew what she was trying to say either.

You can’t not get the bus from here.

After a few moments of deliberation, she translated this to partial English for my benefit. She’s very nice like that. 🙂
What she actually meant to say was:

You actually have to get the bus from here.

No. She didn’t say it like that either. However I’ve become quite good at translating from Emmish to English. She said:

Ah You know what I meant It was a double negative. Ya Have ta get the bus from here.

I’m only teasing her of course. In fairness to her, we have cycled over 40KM this weekend. We also got more suits fitted for the wedding, we booked the bridal car and we had a lot of other normal life things to do that usually get left until the weekend because we never have time to do them during the week. So, I won’t blame her for being a little tired today.

RIP Freddie.

Aug 15, 2012 | ,

I can’t explain how utterly upsetting it is to write this. Today, while I rubbed Freddie’s ear, we put him to sleep. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet. I wanted to write sooner rather than later because it’s very important to me that I say thank you. Thank you to everyone who commented on this post. Thank you to Freddie’s puppy walker. Thanks to Irish guide dogs for giving me a guide dog that is simply one of a kind. Thank you most of all to the family who took him during his retirement. I know it only lasted two years but wow he had an amazing two years. I seriously can’t express enough how grateful I am for the way they treated Freddie. It was actually my father who really confirmed it last week when he got to see Freddie for the first time in his new home. He said that the best decision I could have made was sending him to that particular family. It is simply amazing how much they cared for him. I could never have asked for anything more. The more I visited Freddie the more I noticed their attachment grow.

For me, and I know for everyone with a guide dog, one of the hardest things is that day when you hand over the dog. It’s not like turning off a light switch. You have taken care of the dog and equally, the dog has taken care of you. That bond isn’t one that’s easily broken. That was actually very evident tonight. Even though Freddie could hardly move, he still found the energy to look up at me for assurance when the vet was shaving his paw. When Mark told me, in a funny way I knew that I was meant to be there. Not being there for the end would have been simply wrong.

That’s really the only reason I wanted to write. I just wanted to thank everyone. I am finding it a great comfort to recognise that Freddie has been incredibly lucky. Just think about it. He had a brilliant puppy walker, Ok, he had to put up with me but still, he travelled a lot and experienced a lot more than any other dog I have encountered. Then to top it all off, he lived with a fantastic family in a lovely area. I couldn’t ask for any more. When it was his turn to move on, he did it just like he did everything else in life. With speed. Within a very short space of time he rapidly declined. I think that’s much better than a prolonged illness. It meant that up to two weeks ago, he still had his normal character.

The post I wrote on the day of Freddie’s retirement to say thanks is here.

Window Eyes verses Jaws?

Aug 14, 2012 | , ,

It’s that time again.
Do I spend €445 on a Jaws upgrade and another SMA or do I move to a rival screen reader. Really, Window Eyes is the only application that comes close to competing with Jaws in my experience so it is the only one I am considering. Hal by Dolphin is just so far behind that I haven’t given it a second thought. This is just my opinion though. If your going through a similar decision then I encourage you to keep all of your options open.

I’ve downloaded a demo of Window eyes and I’m currently running it through it’s paces. I’ll have to blog about this in more detail but right away, I miss some of the more advanced features of Jaws that don’t just make applications accessible, they make applications more intuitive and more efficient. When I talk about access, I don’t just need the basic screen reading functionality, I need an application to assist me in accessing data as quickly as possible.

I like some features of Window eyes though. For example, the open scripting framework allows for standard development languages to be used. This is a major selling point.

I’ll write about this in a little more detail over the next few days I hope.

20 weeks and counting.

Aug 13, 2012 |

Hopefully this is all just completely natural. Maybe it’s because I’m still not sure that it’s happening to me? I have to keep reminding myself that in a very short time I can no longer check the box that says unmarried. Yep. In twenty weeks time on this day I’ll be waking up in my parents house with the big day looming directly ahead.

Yes. I’m thrilled, nervous, delighted, terrified and thrilled all at the same time.

Now that all the preparation is almost done and everything is starting to fit into place for the day it’s starting to sink in. I know I asked! I know that I had no doubt that she’d say yes and I knew this part was inevitable but I didn’t expect it at the same time? Does that make sense? I don’t mean any of this in a bad way. Of course, I can’t wait. I couldn’t be happier and it’s definitely the right thing to do but it wouldn’t be like me to just leave it like that. 🙂

So. 20 weeks and counting. Doesn’t seem that far away does it?

Next stop: The stag! You coming?

Bose OE2i headphones.

Aug 12, 2012 |

I bought Emma a pair of Bose OE2i headphones last Christmas and I was immediately jealous.

Their very comfortable. They have memory foam pads and they fold up nice and small for throwing in a bag.

I finally got around to buying a pair on friday and I’m loving them. I was in need of a new pair of head phones. I have another lovely pair that a friend generously bought me for Christmas but I likE using them at work because the cable is nice and long and I can comfortably stretch them across different computers.

The bose are nice and bays but they don’t try to overdrive the base ranges like the beats headphones. I had thought of buying a beats pair but the comfort of the bose wine out in the end.

With the bose I can enjoy all the richness of Willy clancy’s piping or I can turn up the volume when listening to snow patrol.

I know some reviews of headphones go into a lot of detail. I’m not going to do that because I’m lazy. What I will say is that I’m very picky. I know what I like and these check all the boxes. Their easy to throw in a bag, they sound fantastic and their the most comfortable on-ear headphones I’ve tried in years.

I’m marrying a temporal expert.

Aug 9, 2012 |

Who’d have thunk it!

Emma is actually an expert in temporal definitions. The rest of the world measure time in micro seconds, nano seconds, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years etc. However, Emma has decided to add another method to measure time units. It is known as a Smeh. This is an undetermined period of time that falls between a few seconds and one minute.

Yes. She was half a sleep at the time, yes she’s a sleep beside me on the bus at the moment and yes. She’s possibly going to kill me when she reads this. With any luck she’ll be in work at the time so I’ll have a head start when running away.

If this is the last blog post I ever write I expect you, my loyal readers to avenge my death.
Thanks.

More really huge changes for DigitalDarragh.

Aug 8, 2012 | ,

Change is finally here!

People who have read this blog for a long time will remember that over the past few years I’ve mentioned the idea of breaking up the website into two or even maybe three parts. Although it could be potentially difficult to keep all three parts up to date, people could focus on the parts that most interested them. Well, about six months ago I really started to give this some serious thought.

I approached a few design companies and I spoke to some leaders in the online media and social media areas. All agreed that breaking up the sites would strengthen my online brands and optimise the targeting of blog posts to interested audiences.
What this boils down to is money unfortunately. DigitalDarragh.com is a great hobby but it doesn’t make money. It possibly could if I added advertisements to the site but that’s not a route I’d like to go down. Basically, my online activity can be broken into three different parts:

  • Firstly, there’s the technology part that aims to promote me as an experienced technician and system administrator. I have had a company for the last while called Computer Support Services. I do business under this company name so it makes sense to push it’s brand more openly online.
  • The second part is music. I am a busy musician with a huge interest in Irish traditional music. It is time that I push the Darragh Ó Héiligh name on the web as being a musician ready to entertain and teach.
  • Finally, the DigitalDarragh part is where I get to relax and play around with new stuff. Therefore, it’s unlikely that this website will change much at all. It will continue to be my main blogging platform and my main online presents on social media sites such as Twitter will continue to be recognised by this name. The name and hey, lets face it, the brand of DigitalDarragh is valuable so it will remain the core of other websites that I run. For this reason, on other sites such as Computer Support Services and Darragh Ó Héiligh the DigitalDarragh.com site will always feature somewhere.

So, for technology or music, you know where to go now.

Achil island and Scoil Acla. My thought’s.

Aug 8, 2012 | ,

This post is written for The DarraghOHeiligh.ie website and blog. This site is focused on the Irish traditional music that Darragh plays with the aim of highlighting and promoting his music. More information regarding this site will be available shortly.

I’m just back after a really fantastic week in Achil. I attended the 26th Scoil Acla. It’s similar in a lot of ways to the willy Clancy week. A number of master musicians give up their time to teach tunes and technique to other musicians of varying degrees of experience. Someone like myself gets the opportunity to focus on learning new tunes and tightening up on technique and the beginners get the opportunity to play music with other people of the same level in a very friendly and helpful environment.

Scoil Acla is more focused on learning and music than other festivals I’ve been to of this type. This is probably due to the fact that Achil island is very rural. You really need a car to travel between the different venues and you are very lucky if you find a foot path.

Classes last about three hours with a half an hour break in the middle. There are classes for every Irish instrument you can think of I think.

When I got to Achil I was very worried at this remoteness because as I don’t drive for obvious reasons, it would mean that I had no choice but to rely on the people I was with. Fortunately, they couldn’t have been nicer so it wasn’t a problem. Still, people who know me will understand that I hate relying on people to get around. It took a while to get use to.

There were a few other things that took some time to get use to as well. I don’t want to seem big headed but I was well above the standard of the pipe classes in my opinion. It took me a few days to realise that I could still get something out of them. It was actually one of the friends I was traveling with who changed my outlook on the entire week with one simple statement. “It is what it is”. Yes. That simple. I decided after some thinking to make the best of it and from then on my outlook completely changed. I hovered around different classes for the rest of the week recording as many tunes as possible so I could learn them in my own time and I sat in on a class with my original Uilleann pipe teacher, Mick O’Brian. This was the best thing I could have done. He was very critical of my playing. That’s not to say it was bad, he just picked up on every possible thing that I could improve on. This is exactly what I wanted. He didn’t let me away with a thing! This meant that new tunes I learned were played exactly as he wanted with the technique he so expertly plays. It was really nice to push my playing and to find fault with the technique I have developed in the past twelve or thirteen years since my last lesson.

One thing I was surprised at was the lack of sessions in the afternoon. This was for two reasons. Firstly, because of the distance between each pub it was harder for sessions to start spontaniously. The second reason was that to my amusement, people were actually working on the tunes that they had learned in the morning. I was amused because at most other festivals people spend the morning learning and the afternoon meeting other people, playing music and socialising. I kind of admired the culture that has built up at Scoil Acla. Again, I think it is very related to the type of environment it is hosted in.

I met some lovely people over there. So many of the up and coming Irish musicians that I met were from other countries! France, Italy and even Japan had great representation. It’s so funny to introduce yourself to a lovely fiddle player or harpist at the end of a set of tunes to hear a foreign accent respond to your greeting.

I don’t think I’ll be back at Scoil Acla next year but I really enjoyed it this year! I really think every musician should be willing to go back for a lesson about every ten years. It’s a surprisingly rewarding experience to have new ideas to incorporate. No matter how good we think we are, there’s always someone who does something better. Someone asked me why I was bothering to take a class. My response was simple. The day I stop learning is the day I stop playing. No matter how experienced you are or no matter long your playing there’s always something new to try.

Uilleann pipes – Made in Japan.

Aug 6, 2012 | ,

It use to be a joke among musicians that it was only a matter of time that if you looked at a set of Uilleann pipes, sooner or alter you’d see a sticker saying made in Japan. well, that time has come! But it’s not what you think. A maker by the name of Makoto is making some of the nicest pipes I’ve ever played. Their such a comfortable set and they sound so nice that I knew I was going to come home and write a quick blog post as soon as I could. Go visit Makoto’s site and see for yourself.

A nice piper, a nice pipe maker and seriously, he slaggs as good as any Irish person. 🙂