How To Cook Forty Humans

Yesterday I ate a very large amount, as did the near 20 people in the apt. Oh so much food, delicious dinner & dessert (and guacamole). I was tired when I got back to the apt at 2pm, so after a few beers and a mountain of food the tiredness forced me into a food coma.



Oh the desserts, they were epic in both amount and flavour. Much of the early conversation yesterday, esp. between Nash, Sean, Kev & myself was about how The Simpsons raised our generation (which Rory has always held to be very true) and how awful it will be when in 20 years time we are quoting the classic, amazing lines to our kids and it will fall on deaf ears, or as Kev said they will simply say "TLDR" in response. That will be a sad thing to see.



Overall dinner went very well, Kev cooked a serious amount of food and good on him for it, very impressive stuff. I know I won’t need to eat for the next week anyway. Speaking of this week, I know it is going to fly by. Wish I could get to see Odette more, miss her already. Want to just up and leave college this minute and go walk to Bray from town, or to Howth. Would love to go to Wexford soon, spending a month down there would be a very welcome change of pace.

Now to do some work, everything is setup so I can't delay any longer.

One more

I can't help missing a few, does two fludges today make up for it? Probably not,
but I have been awake for around 25mins only so far, so for me it still is sortof yesterday..I mean today >.>

Macs are a pain in the ass, too "user friendly", I want my OS hacked to crap and capable of anything. Really need to start using Linux full time and forget Windows too, just ends up being more hassle than help. This bleedin' post has taken me nearly two hours because Odette keeps getting me to read things or help her with thing. So Demanding! Had a lovely walk yesterday though, out for nearly 3 hours to Killiney beach, along it, and back.



Was a bit cold with your face into the breeze but was a very nice day for a walk otherwise. Would love more time to go for long walks and undertake the half a million projects I plan. But that's life eh? This weeks plan is to try and see family, haven't seen my mother since November if you'd believe that, what a shit son I can be eh? Anyway, here are some pictures of the view yesterday, looks a little like something from Half Life 2 I think, was out that way sometime last year and there was a thick fog out to sea, really made it look HL2-esque.




Sunset on Dalkey island, lovely pinky colour, lasted about 15 minutes and then was gone.

:Le Tit

I put pictures in a blog yesterday, aren't I just great. How about I try and only put pictures in blogs that I take myself? Much less funny chances are, but better than no pictures(? Opinions?).

Clelia did her viva talk this morning, she was dressed in a lovely business suit, was a great talk and I think everyone was impressed by her. Be sad to see her go, really need more senior people in this group. The thought that I may be looked to as I looked to her, Enrique and Tony is a very scary one, but someone thinking I'm smart or good at physics only happens when they don't know physics, so I should be safe. Haha.



This is my lab, I have put pictures up before, but I found old photographs of the lab from long ago and thought they were cool, so wanted to take more detailed ones of this lab. Don't know how that is seen by groups, is it okay to show your lab publicly? Somebody tell me if it isn't, because I don't want trouble mister. It's not very tidy at the minute, but I'm working in it, as is Gearoid and Inam is in and out using tools and such.

I'm going to try capture more of this weekend, should try bottling it up just so I don't miss any of it. I do try to enjoy my time, my complaining is just because I'm one of Those people, but I do enjoy working in the lab. Listening to Pink Floyd's Animals while working now so it can't be that bad. Had a lovely lunch with Fern, so that's good, enjoyed a good chat with her and got to talk with Tony and Gearoid this morning after Clelia's talk about the experiment aswell which is always helpful. So everything is going well, even if a little slower than it should have (like a month slower). That was very rambling, I shall stop this now and get to work.

Tit-le

Today went along the lines of my normal lab work days. Nothing worked that worked yesterday and everything that worked yesterday was either still broken or mysteriously fixed. But that's the life I've chosen to lead, for whatever reason I'd do something that silly.

I really like writing and drawing, I enjoy project planning too, my favourite part of physics at the moment is the plan, the idea and the initial design of an experiment. Writing up a plan of action, drawing schematics and preparing an expected list of results for later comparison from the theory. My Nashionary was my plan of action, record of life and journal for nearly two years, and on the 1st of January I retired it. Many good times with that little book by my side. The last time I saw Kelly she drew in it for me. I never gave it an official nod of recognition for services above and beyond the call of duty for a notebook. So here's to you Nashionary.



Had a lovely dinner today, after the spicy, Spicy dish I had yesterday I had a much milder smoky bruschetta con pollo. Turned out well, had it on some crusty baps, haha. But yes, dinner was nice. Never forget yesterday, the burn off the habanero chili was amazing, I'd love to see a few other peoples reactions to it.

Really looking forward to Saturday, haven't seen Odette all week, real pain in the face not getting to spend time together. Hopefully get nice enough weather and get a good walk in, if not then just spend time cuddles by the fire I guess :)

Lunch is over,

go now.

Had the most dull dreams last night, at some stage it involved rearranging the thumb tacks in a notice board. My day was dull enough, but dreams that deathly dull should be reserved for those in the 7th circle of hell.

Need to wake up earlier though, college drains me so much I have to learn to take full advantage of the morning time. Made a lovely omelette last night for dinner, 2 eggs, quarter pint of milk, mushrooms, onion, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, chilli flakes, salt and pepper. Fried the onions for ages on low heat, added garlic, peppers, mushrooms and chilli and turned up the heat. Then added the tomatoes and egg/milk beaten together with salt and pepper and turned up the heat again. Popped the whole thing under the grill on max until it looked good and done. Had half it with some brown bread roll Kev had got and had the other half for lunch just there.

I take ages to cook the simplest things, because I like cooking slowly and being relaxed about it. Could never work as a cook, everything would take all year.. that and I'd eat it all before it was served.

Have to get to work analysing past data, get it ready for the transfer report. Feeling totally lost about it all really, need to sit down and just work through everything. Just get out of the lab and have no new deadlines, just report work. March 28th it's due, I want it in March 21st. But so far I just have a template, haven't even thought about which font to use and we all know that takes months to decide haha.

... time to go back to the lab. À bientôt.

Heads-up

Isaac's coming this way, thought you should be warned.

Gots a headache, somehow forgot to eat.. allday. Around 1L of water is all.
Going to leave college now, spent too long in here, fecking lab will be the end of me.
Just about ready to.. I don't even know. Today has been an utter waste of time and space.

Bloody Tuesdays, Catherine was right.

Weekends,

They'll do that to you,
kept saying to myself "Oh I simply must remember to blog" (my inner voice is quite proper).
Alas the fludge has not flowed for 2 days, a failure, utterly. Today has been a lab day, realigned the entire setup, every optic, now the spot size looks better (though still not fully elliptical) and in a while I will check the spectra. So fingers crossed I may have got this one nearly in the bag, the bag is out and ready for it.

Friday evening I went out to Odette's and had dinner with her, hung out for the evening and watched some TV (Iron Maiden documentary was pretty good, mad yolks the lot of them). Saturday woke up around 11am, hung about for the morning, then went for a walk with Odette, got asked our opinions on Cowen stepping down as leader of FF for RTÉ 6pm news, had dinner in Mao and then went back to Odette's and watched TV for the evening. Sunday morning Odette had to work, I got a dart back to town, hung about the apt., washed dishes, cleaned the place a bit, watched some Star Trek:TNG and then in the evening after Kev was finished work Seb came over and the three of us played Die Siedler Von Catan. Good times all round, didn't quite seize the weekend as much as I should have, but I find I'm tired all the time, even thinking about the transfer report is making me tired.

Come 16th April, when it's all over, I will be a new man. A far less tired one I hope. Fingers crossed between this and then my hair doesn't turn totally grey and my eyes don't fall out.

Another day

..another fludge.

This looks great, so glad to see a good movie coming out, haha.
Also, on the topic of youtube, I couldn't hate the new layout more, I can hardly tell what's happening on it at all. I just want one box, not a fancy layer by layer of who uploaded what. Simplicity, that's what the big internet sites should aim for.

This is also brilliant, and this looks good, if scary, and this looks fun.

Killing time until the postgrad. seminars, have to get started on my transfer seriously today, so the plan is to sit down with Inam's and Enrique's and work through them for structure and theory. Then strip one down to the bones for structure and rebuild it into my own. Have to do a draft of future work for James for next week. Future work, does that include my plan to win the lotto?

Supposed to be meeting Clem later for tea and chats, but haven't heard from her all week, maybe she's busy. Then heading out to Odette's, going to maybe see a movie. Had planned to meet Andrew & Laurence tomorrow, but I'm not sure, will see if Odie is up for heading into town with me or not. Be nice for her to see Andrew too, ohh the good old days of drinking until we fell over and then getting up in the morning and drinking some more while making skinless sausages and rashers fried in cidar. Good times.
"Oh shit, it's the police... and I'm drinking" said Isaac the tool,
"Yes, we're the police... and you're drinking." replied the police woman from the car.
Good times.

Torpedos away.

Today was a quick day & you can't tell me otherwise, because I wont listen. I'm like that you see, I'm the kind of man that separates the saucer section while travelling at warp 9.9. Yeah. Never fight a life form that can do "all those things" haha.

Okay, so I went to UCD this morning to meet Tony regarding the lending of a deuterium lamp. Was nice to chat with Tony for the hour and a bit I was there, would be good to work with him more often but he is off to work in France soon now. Really just need a postdoc. in our group to be honest, would love to run the lab forever sometimes, keeping it running is quite fun if sometimes maddening when things aren't treated right.
Back on track though, I got the lamp and had to lug it in it's huge box to the bus and into the lab in TCD. The stuff didn't weigh much but the box really did, good work out for the forearms, also brought our power supply back in my backpack. Quite a journey, but good to get things done, going to get the pleasure of working with Tony on the calibrations in the coming days.

Really want to clean and sort the lab, would love a month or two and some money to get the lab organised and gather lists of all the equipment the group has in all four labs.

But now is relaxing time, lets not get all post atomic horror on this bad boy. T'aint the late 21st century yet. But this sure isn't a hallucination or dream either. But at least you're aquatinted with the judge.

Hungry people..

don't stay hungry for long.

Met Odette again yesterday, watched some more Community, had a dal tarka & chicken rogan josh both with pilau rice from Shan, sometimes it's nice just not to cook. Was a nice evening with her, put her on a dart just before 10pm. Went home, did the dishes, cleaned away anything out of place in the apt. as Kevin was arriving home from London at midnight, spent my time sorting movies, music videos and TV shows on my external HDDs in prep. for building a new PC. Will need to buy another external I think, or maybe just loan one from Dave. Gotta back that sh..tuff up.

Today is a pain. I can feel it, just sitting there, looking at me. With those evil eyes, all expectant. Well I can tell you here and now, I’m going to do nothing of the sort Day, nothing. You can’t make me. So many things to do, I might just write a list and show you all* tomorrow.

(*you all probably means Kev, but hey, that’s the way it goes)

Missed me

Distractions distractions,
talk about an easy mind to distract. And a headless fool with this mind indeed, walked out without my glasses this morning. Don't even know how I did that, must be going mad. Think I just need more time off, can't wait to be done with the transfer report, mostly the presentation I'm worried about, hate standing up infront of people.

My weekend flew by in a heartbeat which didn't help, and the experiment not working is still doing my head in. Had a good weekend though, Steve came over Sunday evening and we watched Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, hadn't seen it in ages. Yesterday then I had a group meeting, explained what's happened with the exp. and how I'm just going around in circles with the spectrometer. Just have to keep at it. Then Clelia did her dry run for her viva, was good, made me nervous about the transfer because I don't know the theory half as well as she does. Had a coffee with her and Inam after the talk which was nice, good to chat with them. Met Odette then after and had a lovely dinner and watched some Community episodes, Odette hadn't seen it before. It's a good show, worth a watch if you haven't already.

Bloody noise on the street meant neither of us could sleep for ages, must have woken up 20 times with different things, then the kegs being taken and delivered this morning. Enough to drive you mad. Got up and watched Sue & Giles' Good Life with sign language because we couldn't sleep, why do deaf people get stuck with insomniac times to watch TV? Seems a little pointless and unfair to me.

Anyway, have to get down the lab and get the bloody spectrometer working, going to try image a mesh onto the slit, assure the lens is imaging the right plane and doing it properly. Bloody optics, can't trust them to do anything right.

How memory chips are made, saw this sort of process line in Intel in Leixlip, crazy to think it really is ticking along 24/7/365.

Missed it,

damn.
Missed another day, spent it with Odette and woke up really late because coffee and Sin being loud meant little sleep.

This is what I should be doing when I put pictures here and the reason I haven't been? I dick around alot and find images everywhere. Watermarks are something I'd never change though, but still. Killing the internet. Sorry.

Had a really good dinner Friday night, I made it myself, a recipe of Odette's which she walked me through. Damn tasty. Yesterday was fun anyway, went to Sophie's going away thing, drank a bit, played a crazy game called Jungle Speed which gets crazy when drink is plentiful. Was a well mixed group, half knowing people makes games more fun, because cheating is so much easier when people don't know me haha.

Off to do some food shopping.

Spectrometers eh?

Can't live with them, can't afford a new one.

Fighting myself not to go and just dismantle the entire setup, whole thing. Even take up the optical rails and just redo the whole thing from absolute scratch. As I stand now, the spectra I am getting make no sense to me.

Yesterday I watched Tank Girl to numb my mind after a Long day with just me and the large chamber going mano-a-mano, well if the chamber had hands we would have been. Had half seen it before, good movie, well worth a watch if you haven't already. Give it a good 7 out of 10.

Had lega and coffee for lunch today, going to have rice for dinner in some manner or other, I have decided. Letting Cut Chemist work his magic with the speakers atm, though the noise of the vacuum pump and clicking from the laser are doing nothing to help me enjoy it. "Funk is as deep as an elephant's trunk"

But yes, the spectra make no sense, so at Clelia's suggestion I am going to verify that the ion signals are proportional about the azimuthal axis of the plasma plume, if the signals aren't I quit for this week, straight up quit.

Wish me luck, or not. Wish me out of here.

Do de do do doo

do-do-do-do
Drum and base music isn't always a help with experiments, but sometimes it is a necessity.

For some reason the laser spot has changed size on me, I did realign the system, but that was more on the spectrometer end than the laser delivery end. So I'm at a loss, and really can't think how to resolve this, one way I can't do the experiment and the other I'm not in the right magnification. Pain.

Yesterday was a decent day, watched Akira for the first time after work with Kev, he's off in London now, left in the early am. And I am here, in the lab, waiting for the chamber to pump down once more, fingers crossed I can get this run done and then do the ablation crater and then move on from this part of the exp.

Had a very nice coffee earlier from the Science Gallery, might have another if I'm stuck in here still at 5ish. Going to rock Pendulum's essential mix for the next while, then who knows. But for now it is time to get some data.

And the native species have...

today is hump day as my aunt would call it, nearly there, nearly through that perilous "working week". Have to say, I'm not feeling it. But yesterday, that went like a flash. Little bits and bobs to do at the moment in college, tons of them, but most of the short term goals are short, which is good. I met Hermia & Stephen after college for dinner, last time for 6 months on account of Stephen heading to New Zealand (also, were lacking Rory as he is already there). Always nice to see friends..
Spaced family of the 21st century
suddenly came into my head.
I think I am finished working today, to be honest I didn't get half of what I planned to do done, but I plan to work late Friday and then work Sunday, group meeting Monday and group is slowly reassembling at the moment, so best clear up some loose ends by Monday and then start a fresh sheet of aims Monday afternoon.

I need to bring my HDD to work, it has images I can use for these fludges.

I can do this.

Titles will get old, very fast.
Spending hours and hours And Hours sanding targets and half polishing them, that was the bulk of the daylight hours yesterday. Standing by a rotating grinder/polisher. Today on the other hand, a bit of data analysis, a bit of organisation, a bit of communication, some experimental setup. A tick the boxes day, file off those little bits of things that needed to be removed.. and this time not from a target surface.

http://www.ted.com/talks/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now.html

Did you know we're all cyborgs? I think this is really cool, and she has a nice way of putting things. It scares me how quickly people adapt to new tools sometimes, my little sister at around 2 years of age, picking up the phone every day and talking to voices in her head, because she thought that's what we all did, now she calls people, albeit usually the wrong people, but a 3 year old can hardly be expected to not make the mistakes that I sometimes make, very occasionally.

I don't know, anyway. I'm not full of myself, incase anyone thinks that, I hope nobody does, I take everything everyone says about me onboard and it runs in my head over and over, just like everyone else. I love my friends, even if I act like a jerk, and I'm sorry I've ever said I didn't like anyone, everyone has their merits. Anyway, something is going on in my head and I think I should stop writing and letting it out. Until tomorrow.

Already?!

Can't even do two days in a row?
Well there is a reason for that.. I forgot. Planned on writing one, had an interesting Sunday, then come 10pm I was wall falling, so I collapsed before I thought to write about the day.

My uncle Kevin, my mam's younger brother, died 13 years ago this month, he had twin little girls just before he died. Was very very sad, my mam loved him a huge amount, everyone did. I knew him well for what age I was at the time, he was quiet involved with us growing up (took me, Josh and the son of friend of his to Power Rangers in The Point), I always loved his fish tank, all the neons and guppies, he is why I got my first warm water fish tank. He was the kind of man that everyone seems to have a million and one good things to say about, so when family tell me I remind them of him I can only be happy to think I'm loved even half as much as he was. Lord rest his soul and watch after those he loved.

So myself and Josh met up yesterday morning at got a bus out to Cabra west for the 11am mass, it was a nice enough mass, a young Asian girl was being baptised ahead of her upcoming confirmation and the priest was very energetic and passionate that we should all look back on our baptisms and to our Godparents whereever they may be. Josh's Godfather was Kevin so I thought that the full circle of thought was good, even if it was a total accident that the priest was unaware of.

After the mass we went back to my nana's sisters' house for tea and cake, always fun with family, I really don't see them enough. Great to just talk to them all and know that everyone is getting on in their own way.

Went to town with my aunt and uncle after that to show them the apt. and went for dinner with them & then for a pint. Was good to hangout, lots going on as always so it's good to just take a while to reflect and at the same time have a nice pint.

Then I went back to the apt. and wasted the evening.
Well, you can't win them all can you?

(image taken off the roof of the Trinity St. car park should be here, it was nice, I will put it up later if I can remember)

Week's ending!

Short fludge every day? As a part of my be-more-involved-with-life initiative?
Can I do this?

Need to organise myself in so many ways, enjoying life though, lots.
Working in the lab all day today, not on my own experiment which is a shame, but still interesting stuff. Working with all due haste, fingers crossed I will be finished with it all before too long and I can get going home, watch some Red Dwarf and paint some WW2 model planes (1:72 scale, will put pics up if I can do them any justice).

Had a lovely lunch courtesy of the lovely Odette, left over dinner from last night. She is off up a hill/mountain somewhere in Carlow today doing an Indianette Jones day with some other adventuring archaeologists.

So yeah, short blog posts? Win or lose? You tell me.
(Now imagine an image of a bear holding a watering can and wondering how to get a drink from it, this image is what I want in this blog post. Enjoy)