Tax Day

Finished my taxes last night, as usually I was putting it off, since I knew I owed them a wad of cash. Surprising it was not as bad as I thought. I was surpised that TurboTax wanted $34 to e-file, looks like the IRS will have to pay someone much more to data entry it into their systemes. I don't understand why it is not free, cos now they will receive a check that will take a few days to clear and all that effort. Ah well, my energy will be standing in line at the Post Office, people watching....nothing better after being stuck indoors all day.

Sailing season is starting again, I have a can race Friday night and an offshore race on Saturday. The Vallejo opener starts at the beginning of May. This is the offical anniversary of meeting Jennifer. Jennifer got her hair done in preparation for the Vallejo race. So yesterday I got my hair done as well !!




Here is a photo of my new office at Autodesk. We are located on the 5th floor.


John

Big Daddy weekend

I believe global warming is truely a reality, this weekend the temperatures got up to 80 in the Bay area. I spent the weekend on the water with 3 races on Saturday and a wonderful pursuit race on Sunday. The currents in the bay were as interesting as ever. As usual the wind it not fill in until after noon, but the sun shone and the waves were excellent. There was not much time between races and we were 3rd overall. We probably could have got a second place as we were doing very well on the last race, but due to a building flood we have a collision which resulted in a 720 and any chances of a 3rd place. Sunday was excellent on the water, due to the spring forward time change, the wind filled in later and the race was crazy with approx 100 boats drifting across the start line. We decided that the pin end was quieter, motored out turned around and motored to the start, shutting off the engine at 4 mins and floated to the start line abeit a bit early, be with enough slowing down we crossed the line on time and drifted out in front of the fleet. The wind filled in around Alcatraz and then died entering the racoon straits. We came 11th out of approx 100 boats, of which only 39 finished, so not a bad result. The winner was Double Trouble who picked up an elevator and shot ahead of the fleet never to be caught.

New Job and skiing trip

Hello,
It has been a while since my last blog. I have been busy. Started a new job on Monday with a local bay area software company called Autodesk. I work in their Manufacturing consulting group specializing in Data Management. The first week has been busy getting setup in all the internal systems.

I have also been trying to ghost an image of the new Thinkpad T60p laptop, so I can support multiple hard drives, as more than likely I will face many different VPN clients at customer sites.

Last week I spend 5 days skiing in whistler. As always the two mountains kicked my butt and assumingly the older I get, the less risks I'm taking ie no high speed descends down the Dave Murray run !!! well just a little slower than usual.

This weekend is the Big Daddy regatta out of Pt Richmond which is my first time. Hopefully the weather will be good, as it is beautiful today. Jenn and I are racing on Mistral.

Look out for some pixs from the Whistler trip.

ciao

1982

Here is my 5th class in Ballinamere National School



Front Row : Patrick O'Brien, Dermot O'Flahery, Adrian Connelly, Aidan Doyle, Vincent Buckley
Middle Row : Edel Cusack, Vivienne Kiennen, Sean Boland, Alan Martin, Enda Heffernan, ME, Orla Brennan
Back Row : ????, Fiona Buggy, Marie Neary, Hilary Murtagh, Monica Scully

1975

Finally I've started to digitize my photos and this is the first photo I have as a child. I'm planning to upload some home movies from around the same time.



This was taken in June 1975 at my school in Belfast called Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School or Park Lodge. Here is a map link to my first school

It was then managed by the Christian Brothers and located on the Antrim Rd in the northern part of the city. I was there from P1 to P6. Looks like it is now a mixed school of Non Denominational religion, which can mean only a good time, as back then schools were not moixed and corporal punishment was giving freely and often.

Here is a goofy one with my older brother Mick

Two years later

It is hard to believe that around this time 2 years ago I was in New Zealand, halfway through my Global adventure. This stopover would be the longest at 4 weeks. It was a wonderful 4 weeks, especially since we were 2nd in the leg and were joint 1st over-all in the race.

In hindsight leg 2 was the most physical and challenging due to variable wind which was around 18-26 knots.This prompted continous sail changes from the yankee 1 to the 3. Unfortunately we didn't record the total number of sail changes, though I'm sure if we went through the log book, we would get a pretty close number, I suspect it was over 100.

Here are a few photos that capture the beauty of the South Island.

LA view of Hollywood

This photograph was taken with my new Nikon D80 DSLR. The detailed guide book tells you how to do stuff, though I have yet to understand what the stuff is !!!

I decided to purchase the Nikon D80 after seeing the National Geography article www.stunningnikon.com/dslr and reading the reviews on www.kenrockwell.com/tech.htm
& www.dpreview.com

I also downloaded the interaction learning suite 123di www.123di.com

I purchased the camera from a www.adorama.com
I also purchased a 5 million dollar home Crumpler camera bag from www.cravedweasel.com