Feistier than ever

Upgraded today to Kubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.
The upgrade took a whole night but it worked without a single glitch. Wow! :-O
Somehow I managed to empty 2 Gigs on my hard drive because I read on the internet that upgrade needs approximately 1.3 Gigs of space. Well it's true. After the upgrade I was left with ~500 MB of free space. After I checked that everything works and nothing was broken during the upgrade I wished I could clean Edgy Eft's remains. I opened a Konsole window and entered:
sudo apt-get clean
and to be sure:
sudo apt-get autoclean
and then I checked how much space was left on a hard drive.
The result: 2 Gigs.
Bling! :-)

Birthday

A pleasant surprise happened to me today. :-)
Yesterday I uploaded my 2 versions of 'Powered by Kubuntu' stickers to KDE-look. Today I checked the website to find a comment for one of my stickers by Richard Johnson - an author of the original 'Powered by...' stickers for System76. He wrote that he likes my design and I made a good job. It's a nice feeling to know that your work is appreciated. :-)

I have to admit I haven't been in a good mood for the most of the day. It's my 30th birthday today and I can feel my life seeping through my fingers faster and faster. :-|

Lucy has her birthday tomorrow so we agreed on joining forces and making one-for-all party at her house. At 6 p.m. I arrived at Lucy's&Peter's house and fortunately my foul mood changed into a fairly pleasant one. When all the guests arrived we started with the party. I had a really hard time with choosing a birthday present for Lucy. I didn't want to buy her another cup, vase or a sculpture. I didn't want to buy her cosmetics (Peter suggested that) 'cause I don't want to see her wrinkled within next 10 years. I wanted something of a utility. Hmm.. I decided to buy her a set of jams (not ordinary jams of course - these were damn expensive for a jam :-/), a plaque saying: 'A home is not a home without a cat' (I liked it so much, I bought it in the same second I saw it) and a DIY mascot cat (material, threads, strings). I wonder if she liked my presents. Those jams looked delicious... ;-)

I have to admit I was really surprised with presents I received. First came a birthday cake. Peter and Lucy were supposed to buy it. I thought it would be a standard cake but I couldn't be mistaken more. Geez.. It was a custom made birthday cake (was delicious by the way) with a dedication - Happy 30 Birthday Emil! That was very nice - thank you - but I was bothered with one thought. It was also a cake for Lucy's birthday and there wasn't any dedication for her? I felt a little uncomfortable with it...
As for the rest of the presents I received - a brand new SHIMANO XT REAR DERAILLEUR, PANARACER CINDER 2.1 TYRE (foldable version of course) WATER BOTTLE and BIKING SHORTS. :-D
Thank you again! In my wildest dreams I never expected such great presents!

Ok. Enough about the presents. We all sat in the living room and had a real good fun. Around 10.p.m. we decided that it's time to hit some clubs to stretch our legs a little. Half an hour later we landed close to St. Stephen's Green. The first club we visited was Dandelion. Large club but music wasn't very good so we left after ~20 minutes. We went to Sinnots and we stayed there till the club was closed. Sinnots was pretty crowded but we danced a lot and had a good time overall. Thanks everyone for a very nice birthday party!

Friday night

I'm spending Friday evening at home.
I'm tired and I don't know the reason. :-|

Today Lili made a cheesecake for me. I love cheesecake and she knows it.
She said that it's my birthday present. :-)
She's such a lovely girl...

Upgrade to version 3.0 soon

On Saturday I'll have a birthday.
I do not really feel like celebrating but it was decided (for me) that we're gonna hit a disco in the City Center. Probably we're gonna land at Sinnots or Break for the Border. I hope we'll have a good time!
I told my friends that I don't want any birthday presents and I was totally disregarded.
So let it be the way they want it to be...
The best present I can think of will come on 19th of April. It's a release date for Ubuntu 7.04 aka Feisty Fawn. :-D
(I'm a pathetic nerd - am I not?)

Another thing:
Yesterday I learned about the availability of a 'Powered by Ubuntu' sticker that can be ordered for free from System76 and placed on your computer. I really liked the idea, so I made a Kubuntu variant of this sticker. Here it is (beautiful isn't it?):Now... Is there anybody that can print a few for me? ;-)

Bad news

Karine called me today while in the job.
She said that our letting agent James contacted her and told her that we have to move out of the house in 35 days (that would be 23 of May).
That's not good news for me. I end my work at Creative on 18 of May. It seems that soon after I'll be unemployed and homeless.
Shit... :-(

I've been thinking...

...that my blog's formula doesn't really please me.
I need to change a few things.
Two main points:
1. WHAT I write,
2. HOW I write.

I'll try to work on these points in a near future.
I'm curious of the results.

Sun-day

It's 10:30 a.m. As usual I woke up at 7 a.m. and it seems I wasted a lot of time in the morning (but at least I updated yesterday's blog).
Well...
I'm already after breakfast and shaving.
The plan for today - I want to visit the Gallery of Photography in Temple Bar.
There's exhibition there called: "Another Day in My Kingdom".
I'll better be on my way then...
Edit:
I took a bike and rode to Phoenix Park where I sat on the grass in the Peoples' Garden. During my ride there Peter called me and said that he and Lucy would gladly come with me to the exhibition. They would be in the City Center around 3:30 PM. I said fine, why not?. Since I had few hours of time now, the golden sun was high in the sky and the grass in the Garden was soft and green - I took the book from my backpack and started reading. :-)
The book was another chapter of Terry Pratchett's Discworld saga called Reaper Man. As always I enjoyed it - Terry you are a god! C:-)
At 3:50 PM Peter called me again saying that they're in the City Center now so I quickly packed the book into the backpack and jumped on the bike. Around 10 minutes later I was in Temple Bar where the gallery was placed.
We visited the gallery. It was a mistake (I won't be torturing you with the details) because the "exhibition" was pathetic. Fortunately there wasn't any entrance fee so I didn't have to hold anyone's neck and scream: "Give my back my money you filthy bastard!". ;-)
We visited Secret Bistro (a restaurant) where we ate a dinner. Then we headed back to Temple Bar where I jumped on a bike and Peter and Lucy jumped into their car. Two means of transport, one destination - Blanchardstown.

Hiking in Wicklow

Yesterday evening I've got an idea. The idea was what to do on Saturday.
The weather would still be sunny and warm so there was only one choice - outdoor activity! :-)
On the Saturday morning I received a message from Peter saying that he, Lucy and Lili plan to jump on bikes and enjoy a little ride. Knowing how their usual weekend day looks like - sleeping till midday and then breakfast, packing and then moving out - I decided against. I also suspected that their Saturday ride will be another oh-no-not-Phoenix-Park-again thing (I was right). Geez.. when we have a whole day to enjoy why do we have to waste time going to Phoenix Park? I can ride in Phoenix Park when I have a little time, 1-2 hours, so it doesn't make sense to ride further. When I have a whole day of a free time - it's simply a waste for me...
By the way - for a short period of time I'm fed up with the bike so I decided for a little hike in Wicklow.
The way to Glencullen (where I started my hike) was a little rough.
I took the first bus from Blanchardstown to City Center. The second bus (14) took me from the City Center to Dundrum. For the third bus I had to wait over 90 minutes.. :-( The bus (44B)took me from Dundrum to Glencullen. This whole bus adventure took me almost 3,5 hours.
One sentence summary --> public transport in Dublin sucks like a vacuum cleaner. :-|
Finally I arrived at Glencullen. (Yipeeee! ;-)
I checked a map, fired up my GPS receiver and headed west. I needed to get to The Wicklow Way because I had a plan to follow it and at the end land again in Dundrum. The weather was soooo good. :-) Warm sun, blue skies and slight gusts of wind made my soul want to sing. ;-) It was so warm that as soon as I left the road and entered the "wilderness" I took off my shirt to catch some sun.
I had all day, there was no haste involved so I enjoyed my time to maximum. I paced slowly, taking photos and marveling at bright sunlight and sweet air, scented with resin. I walked off the designated path once - I took a quick sally to Two Rock Mountain. Just to take a few photos and to check a landmark nearby... ;-) Standing on the top of the mountain I also auto-calibrated an altimeter in my GPS receiver. The height calculated from satellite readings was 536m above sea level. I checked a map - Two Rock Mountain - height - 536 meters. Wow! I was simply astonished - that was a very good performance from my Vista C. Kudos Garmin!
I followed the track further in a general direction of Dublin. I met a few people along the way so my trip was peaceful and undisturbed.
After a few hours I reached a car park near the Stackstown Golf Course that heralded the end of the "wild" part of the trip.
Regretably I missed an opportunity to conquer Kilmashogue Mountain. Maybe another time...
I headed to Dundrum to get on a bus home. This part of the trip was a little less pleasant because of traffic and urban noise but I still enjoyed it. I was never before in Dundrum so it was an opportunity to see something new. I have to admit I like what I saw. Judging from the looks - Dundrum is a nice place to live.
Took a bus and got back to the City Center. When I tried to get on the 39 bus I had a little "issue". I was out of coins ( I spent around 10E for buses today) but I had a 5E banknote. I thought that there wouldn't be any problem with banknotes. There was.
The bus driver told me that he doesn't accept 'notes...
So...
I was standing on a pavement with 5 Euros in a hand and watching the back of the bus disappearing around the corner. Let me tell you - I was VERY pissed off! :-E
Few minutes have passed and I succeeded not to explode. I was tired with a whole day trip and I wanted to get home ASAP. It obviously didn't work.
When I cooled down a little bit I moved in the direction of Connoly Station. I have waited 20 minutes for train to arrive. And after another 30 minutes I landed at home.
Despite the incident with the last bus I was generally happy with the trip.
It was a fine day! :-)

Biking in a middle of a week

Hello!
I just took a shower, made my beloved Lipton Caribbean tea and sat down to keyboard.
I woke up fresh. Hmm... Those ~10 hours of sleep seemed to work. ;-)
When I came to work a security girl informed me that the case with a gym isn't definitely closed. Theoretically the gym is for Creative employees only but since there are only 4 contractors working in Creative at the moment an exception might be possible. She informed me that some-guy-which-name-I-do-not-remember is considering granting an allowance. That would be good. :-)
At work - nothing new.
Those Poles returned. More questions. More photos.
At 3 p.m. I got an idea. The weather was very good so I thought about biking in the evening. I called Peter and he welcomed the idea with enthusiasm.
As soon as I got home I prepared a dinner and rode to Peter's place(TM). Few minutes later we hit the road. We took a route through Coolmine, Clonsilla, Lucan, Palmerston, Chapelizod and Castleknock. It was a fast ride! A few times I thought I'll soon start to breathe with my ears. ;-)
When I reached home my bike's computer told me that I made 40 km with average speed near 30 km/h. Hmm.. considering the route, my sore-with-yesterday's-running-legs and a moderately strong wind that wasn't bad at all!

Hmmm..
I just finished my tea so it's time to finish writing.

Oh...
I learned that I need to change my wireless network encryption. It's WEP encrypted and it looks like this kind of encryption can be broken within few minutes. Article here. I need to change the encryption to WPA in a near time in a future. I wonder how does the configuration of WPA encryption looks like on my Kubuntu. I've got a WiFi card with a Ralink chipset and there is no GUI tool to configure the connection. Hmmm.. It looks like I'll be messing with a text editor again...
On second thought..
I think I'll wait till I upgrade to Feisty Fawn. Maybe the configuration of Ralink equipped cards will be simpler there (two mouse clicks?).

Exhaustion

Hi..
It's been a long time since I wrote anything here.
Explanation is simple - I haven't got time...
...really...

At work it was a typical SSDD - Same Shit Different Day.
There wasn't much to do.
As the CL's RMA Department where I work will be shortly outsourced to Poland - there were three Poles wandering on the floor. They asked some questions about RMA process, took few photos and were gone. Mark said they will appear again tomorrow.
When I was leaving I asked a security girl if I can use a gym (there's a gym in the warehouse and it looks like nobody uses it). She allowed me to take a look - it's a small gym but it's got all I need to work on my pectoralis major. Unfortunately the gym is available only for Creative's employees and I'm a contractor. Damn... :-(
When I got back home I made a dinner - some rice with vegetables and chicken pieces. Soon after the dinner I hit Lidl where I bought some food and tempted by a low price I bought jogging shoes for 11E. Well we'll see how long will they survive... ;-)
As soon I got back home I was tempted again to test those shoes. I went upstairs, changed clothes, took my mp3 player, wore shoes and started running (after a short warm-up of course). I was a little too ambitious so I took a long route which was shortly modified into even a longer route. I run near Tesco, through Clonsilla Road and through Waterville (I wanted to say 'hello' to Peter and Lucy). Hmm.. they weren't at home so I bounced off the door handle and headed home.
A crisis got me at Clonsilla Road near a Chinese Takeaway. Geez.. I got stitch and I couldn't breathe. And it did hurt too.. Ouch... :-( After 2 minutes of deep breathing I felt a little better so I started running again. I was trying to take deep breaths while running but I got another stitch ~500 m later. Ouch x2.. :-(
Struggling I reached home - as always last 50 meters trying to run as fast as I could. The result was as always. I reached the front door barely alive. I crawled upstairs to my room, changed clothes and went to bathroom. I have to admit - I was very tired - exhausted and my legs were sore. I wanted to have a hot bath in a bath tub. Regretably water was already cold. Well... so I took a bath in a cold water then. I was so tired I was laying in a bath tub for 15 minutes. After surviving the bath I went to my room and almost immediately fell asleep. It's was ~9 p.m.
Yep!

I'm alive

I'm busy and I'm not in a mood to write anything of value.

I paid a short visit to Poland, am no longer with my girlfriend, had fine Easter holidays (great photos from Powerscourt by the way).

I'll write something longer when I'll have some more time.