Archive for 'daily life'
Time for New Years Resolutions
Posted on January 21, 2009, under Living in Germany, daily life.
I am not really a person for NYR (New Years Resolutions), as I believe that you can make conscious changes at any time, and it doesn’t just need to be on Jan. 1st. So here are mine, 3 weeks into Janurary.
- get in shape, well not that I am over weight, but I do think that I need to tone up a little
- have a more regular working schedule. Start at 9am and finish at 5pm or earlier.
- go to at least 3 new countries. South Africa is already planned in March, so I just need to find 2 more.
- to stop buying new domains, the plan is to develope the existing ones (about 30) before I go further.
So there I have it in writing.
P.S. The domain here is still being setup properly so do let me know if there is anything askew.
Setting some goals
Posted on January 5, 2009, under daily life.
After the month-long holiday, and doing very little excerise & drinking a lot of beer and eating well, I’ve decided I need to hit the gym and loose some weight. I’ve also decided to put it in writing so that I don’t skirt around the issue. So the aim is to loose 10 lbs, 4.4 kgs by the end of February. 
Let’s see how it goes. The final weigh in should be sometime at the end of February.
Happy New Year 09
Posted on January 1, 2009, under daily life.
Well 2008 has been great, lots of things have happened, but probably the best one is that I will be able to spend more time working for myself (As of next week I will be finishing up with the current client). So BlackDog will be wagging it’s tail into 2009. December has been a great month for me, first there was the winning of Damiens competition, a trip to Charlotte, NC, a week long beach holiday in Jamaica, Christmas in Florida and back in Munich for snow and New Years. Going from +28C to -2C took a little getting used to. It was the first Christmas I wasn’t in Ireland, and the first away from my family. 
To be honest it didn’t really feel like Chirstmas, well not Christmas as I knew it anyway. It was a mixed bunch of emotions , missing the family back home, enjoying beers in the sunshine, not seeing the normal bunch of people in Cork over Christmas, meeting some new people and catching up with the Florida clan of Savages. The holiday was a nice break from the crazy world of work, yes it’s been hectic and emotional over the last 4 or 5 months. Taking a 4 week break is probably what the doctor ordered (before I went insane). I am still catching up on emails and enquiries from December, so sit tight if you are waiting on a reply. 
So is 2009 the year I do great things ? I hope so. Best wishes to you and your families in 2009 !
And before I forget , here are some photos from last night.
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Right after this these guys started to light fireworks under cars and in the phone boxes. The Germans go crazy at New Years, it’s really quite crazy. Places like Marienplatz are supposed to be like war zones. But we decided to stay home after flying back early yesterday.
More photos to come over the next few days.
How not to get a job
Posted on November 12, 2008, under daily life.
I run a number of jobs websites and it’s funny or sad to see what comes in to the email addresses associated with them. Here is one I got earlier today:
hai this is james mailing form india i watn any job in u r contry i work with any body sponsor is the pls send the mail i am waintng for the mail it very urgent
If I was an employer I wouldn’t look twice at this. I mean there are various reasons why I wouldn’t extend my hand and try to point this guy James in the right direction.
- Poor English : Grammar / Spellings
- No reference to qualifications / background or an offer to send his CV.
And this is beside the fact that I don’t have any jobs that I could offer this lad myself !
There are even people who reply to my jobs blog posts asking me for jobs with the companies I have blogged about. Normally I don’t reply to them, if they are stupid enough to think that I, as a blogger can help them get jobs at SuperValu or a job at IKEA then they don’t diserve a reply. Sometimes people try to paste their CVs in reply to blog posts, but I delete these.
I’m all for new ways of getting jobs, but these routes highlighted here are bound to fail !
Real reviews of businesses ?
Posted on November 2, 2008, under daily life.
coffee ripoff from cork
In my epic search today for some whole coffee beans (whole coffee beans doesn’t sound right) I came across this review for Cork Coffee Roasters which in my opinion stinks of coming from someone attached to the company. It goes something like this:
It was really good value too, and a great place of breakfast. Inside the café on Bridge Street it’s quite small, but nicely warm and homey. It’s pretty popular, with lots of locals coming in for their morning take-away coffee. All the beans used in the blends here are hand roasted in Cork, and a lot of the pastries on sale are made using only organic ingredients.
Maybe I am just too sensitive to totally positive reviews. It seems like it’s too overdone, what ever you business you have you will have good reviews, and not so good reviews, but you should not try to go out and blatentally try to game these review sites. Someone will see it, and possibly call you out. When looking at Amazon reviews for books and products, you can spot when they are coming from the Authod/someone attached to be product/etc.
And as for their “really good value”, I took a look at their site, for the prices of their beans which they charge from €30 for 1kg (which I can get it for 1/2 the price in Germany), I really wonder how someone could say that it was good value.
Anyone know where one can get some reasonably priced whole coffee beans ?
Interesting Photoblogs
Posted on October 28, 2008, under daily life.
Sometimes you don’t want to read, but you do want to surf and get some stimulus. So here are 2 of my favourite visual blogs
If you have any other recommendations do let me know 
Oktoberfest Building gets underway
Posted on July 23, 2008, under Living in Germany, Theories, daily life.
Today there are just 61 days until the magical Oktoberfest 2008 starts. It’s time to drink beer and be merry with 110,000 other happily drunk people. I’ve gone for the past 5 years, and the magic is still there. In fact 2 years ago I had the great luck in meeting L there.
Here is a still from today taken from this webcam.
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