A Change

If you happen to be reading this in something other than a browser you probably can’t see the photo to the left. Hell, it’s possible you’re reading this with the HTML removed! Anyway, it’s meant to be a photo of the keys to our new house.

What a few days…

We moved on Friday. This should be good news.

Except Alice, our baby girl, got sick. Doctor late on Friday and then on Saturday spending more than a few hours in Crumlin Children’s Hospital. At the same time we’re meant to be unpacking and getting ready to go to France. Another very scary moment on Sunday when her temperature went up, she went pale and wouldn’t stay awake and so we were stuck in the Hospital till three in the morning.

But at least she’s now getting better.

Yet, my palm, my m130, my beloved note take, file carrier, handheld game device, my dairy… has gone belly up. Exposure to the cold and then warmt of the new house did it in.

And now I’m back in work, only to discover that my website was defaced by hackers. Thankfully the redbrick admins are spot on but they had to delete the frontpage and then all my artwork. I have a backup but it is going to be a while before I put them up again.

It doesn’t feel like christmass but it so Seasons Greetings and see you in the new year.

Ah crap

By now we are meant to have moved in to our new place. By now the kitchean appliances, tiles and flooring should have been delievered. By now we should have ordered the curtains…

Well, eh, we’re still living in the Tramyards. Everything is packed, ready to go. We just dont’ know when. It was stressful enough getting ready.

Due to some legal muck-up (on the builder’s solicitor’s side btw) we can’t move in yet. Well we could but legally… we’d be doing something illegal.

So we’re back to waiting.. ah crap.

In the meantime, I’ve setup the Redbrick Wiki after numerous discussions on the Redbrick forums. Some funky stuff there already if your a Redbrick member.

I’ve also written a short story over the weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve written any stories. It’s called “Don’t Drink and Drive” and, like all the work presented here, is in a first draft. Enjoy!

December 6th, 2004 at 1:20 pm
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All systems go!

We’re moving.

Or we will be moving. We sold our place about two weeks ago (yea!) and last weekend, we put down an offer on a three bedroom house in Kilcock in a new estate called Brayton Park.

It was all kind of last minute really, we got an offer of a cancellation (most of the houses in the estate are sold of plans). We could afford more because there was no stamp duty to pay. The houses were bigger and nicer than the ones we’ve seen in Lucan and it’s only an extra 15 minuties. It’d be ready in six weeks (rather than six months) because it is a cancellation.

We saw the show-house, we slept on it and the next day we wrote a cheque for four thousand euros! Sophie’s put some photos of the showhouse up here.

All very exciting.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing some work on the site. The Photos section is updated (see here if you want to install Gallery on your redbrick page) and I’ve, finally, add photos from our wedding, honeymoon and of Alice!

And Halloween is next weekend. Won’t be enjoying it as much as previous years but thats okay, looking forward to when Alice is old enough to go trick or treating!

October 19th, 2004 at 11:47 am
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All is Good!

I must apoligise for not providing an update in so long. The last news I gave was well before Alice was born and now Alice is three months old!

Things are good. Not perfect but who wants perfect?

Alice, our precious little daughter, has got wonderful red-hair, falls asleep when I read her Cat in the Hat before bed and has started to make gurgling sounds. She sleeps like an Angel at night so I guess we’re pretty lucky.

Sophie’s been doing a really good job of providing updates on Alice including tons of photos on her blog (the link is on the right but you can go from here). I’ll put some photos up here once my site is fully working again (just orgainsed “vhosting” so now everything is avaliable @ thedeadone.net).

Alice is now three months old. She keeps her eyes open and smiles, laughs and grins often. She makes the cutest gurgling sounds as if trying to speak. To know that she is also healthy and strong for her little age is blessing.

The biggest complaint we have is that we’ve lost all our spare time, where the feck did it go? We get enough sleep at night but taking care of Alice is tiring after coming home from work and Sophie is worn out from taking care of her during the day. I’ve only started now going back to Karate and gaming again. Which pretty much explains the lack of updates (well plus a three week holiday too).

I did manage to make a new release of rbFriends. Totally revamped from Beta 2 and now Beta 4 has transparent dialogs (which work okay :S). But other then that I’m pretty stretched. I’ve nearly finished Lost Heroes, soon I will be sending it out to be rejected from any publisher I can find.

The big worry on our minds is that we haven’t managed to sell our apparment yet. It’s been on the market a while now and we’ve changed estate agents once already. We’ve had about three offers which have all fallen through for one reason or another.

And on top of that, the struggle to find a decent house in an okay area that is also within our budget is tiring and wearing on both of us. Sophie spends hours on the phone with estate agents orgainsing viewings and driving around during the week with Alice in tow to see possibles when I’m in work.

Anyway, though I don’t get to the cinema anymore, life is good. Not perfect. Just good.

September 23rd, 2004 at 3:17 pm
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MTs BerkleyDB on Redbrick, DG836G and Corrupt Firmware Updates and Selling House

Sorry for the lack of news and updates. There are many reasons.

I could blame Redbrick for moving their web services from Prodigy to Deathray. I use Movable Type for my webpage and I’m using, still, BerkleyDB instead of SQL. This broke, of course, moving from the two different machines. The standard solution from MovableType manual didn’t work. But luckily I found someone else online who had similar pains to me and gave a lovely long description of the problem and how to fix it. Unfortantly it still required admin intervention. But the admins on redbrick eventually fixed it. The stupid thing is… I’m still using BerkleyDB. I should really upgrade to MySQL.

But, oh, my technology worries did not end there! I bought a rather nice piece of kit for my home. It’s a 4 Ethernet Port Router, Wireless Base Station and a ASDL modem in one from NetGear. And all the software is Linux and Opensource to boot. (The model number is DG834G if your googling for solutions). I got it all up and running in moments and was happy as larry.

Then I upgraded the firmware.

It stopped working. I checked the NetGear website, nothing. I emailed them and after 24 hours, got an automated reply. I’m still waiting for an answer. I would have called them except, the support number is UK and a premium rate. It also says on the box 24/7 support (not that I bought it for the support option)! I googled a lot and found that lots of other people had similar issues and that NetGear support was useless.

Luckly I found that NetGear did have solutions, except that most of the time they don’t know they have solutions(?). Some other users have posted the tools and steps to fix it on broadbandreports.com. The thread is here.

Now that all my technical woes are solved, there are other things in the way…

Moving House is a big one. We’ve put down an offer on a place in Lucan but we haven’t sold ours yet. We’re waiting for that buyer so if your looking for a two bed appartment, near town, near the luas… Tramyards 2 bed Appartment, Inchicore isn’t a bad bet!
And because of that, I’ve had to put all my drawing stuff away to hide the clutter so thats why there isn’t any new drawings recently.

We’ve started a new game, which you can read about here, and that webpage has been incredibly busy with comments, posts, writeups and lots of other stuff. If your into rpgs and gaming, check it out. It’s SLA Industries with is a great setting. So thats suckling my energy too.

I’m also busy working on my writing. I may post up some extracts later (after Soph kindly corrects my grammer) but don’t hold your breath I’m afraid. I’m preparing it so I can start sending drafts to publishers. I’m hoping for some interest but I have no idea what my expectations should be.

The final barrier to regular updates then is stress. With Strawberry on the way in less than 3 months, no nursery ready (because we’re moving house), so much stuff to buy (and not enought money)… ’tis a very tiring time.