Well, it’s been, oh, I dunno, maybe a month or something since I last raved about how wonderful skype is. It really is you know!! hehe – my friend Barry just pointed me to jyve.com which is a plugin for skype – amongst other things it can be used to show whether a skype user is online..

So .. on the right hand side of the page you will see this: icon. If it’s green, it means I’m online on skype, red means offline. If you have skype installed on your PC you can click the icon – and my PC will ring (like a phone) and we can talk. It’s that simple. Free phone calls anywhere in the world. Magic.

Other than that.. frickin’ twisted my back or something (well, my back) at squash last night.. quite annoying as I’ve been beaten consistently by my mate Fraser in work – and I was *hoping* to snatch the last match before I left NZ.. looks unlikely now. Ahh well.

Yay, my camera turned up again.. quite the relief really.. really wasn’t looking forward to buying a new one. Ok, that’s a slight lie, I was looking forward to having a new digital, but not to paying for it. I think I would have gone for a PowerShot SD500. I’ve decided that I want a smaller camera that I can easily bring hiking etc. with me.. but I’ll wait until my one dies before buying a new one.

Anyway, here’s a pic of my cousin Hannah with James on her lap – and Aunt Mary with Bridgit (the 6 month old arrival).

Also headed out with my friend Sarah for a mountain bike ride. This is something I have to get into when I come back.. there’s a place called Bottle Lake. Named because there’s absolutely no lake anywhere near the place!. Well, actually, that’s not the real reason (funnily enough), but I’ve no idea why it’s called that… anyone know?

But anyway – mountain biking, lots of fun.. might well get my own bike when I come back.

lovely time in Palmerston North hanging out with the family.. didn’t get to set up the wireless network as some of the hardware had been faulty – and had been returned.

no pictures unfortunately.. y’know the way when you leave your camera under a plane seat you just know you’re going to forget it?

Well, this time I did.. went back 15 mins later.. plane was sealed up.. I figured they’d totally find it when they opened it up.. but it’s gone. This is slightly annoying. Good excuse to buy a new camera – but I was quite attached to that one (plus all the extra memory Lorcan had just brought over…)

Flew up to Wellington this morning.. got there eventually even though the pilot decided they wanted 2 attempts at the runway (something about wind..)

So for the last year or so I’ve been developing web based systems for the contact centre.. Mostly around logging calls and raising requests and managing them in a structured manner. It’s been fun, mostly!, and now seeing as I’m off for 6 months we need to get another group to take it all over.

That’s where this trip to Wellington comes in.. I was meeting with some in house (within the ministry) developers who may take over from me. I was happy, and surprised I guess, that they seemed pretty happy with how I’d developed things, and the architecture I’d used to make things work.

Happily.. I’ve been able to take tomorrow off (really, it’s my last day off work!) and I’m going to catch a bus up to Palmerston North and spend a couple of days with my family. Because I love them? Well, I do, but the real reason they want me up there is to install a wireless network. Or die trying. Still… should be fun.

For a while now I’ve not put this link up – but I’ve decided to now, seeing as mum and dad are getting their act together (in a blogging sense!)

A week before I left Ireland, my parents set off for Uganda – to an area called the Mountains of the Moon. Dad’s job was to set up a university. From scratch. They have made simply amazing progress, which has been very hard at times. Mum – while initially with no project to work on (like that was ever going to last) has been trying to find funding to create an IV Fluid production plant. Tens of thousands (at least) die all the time from an inadequate amount of IV fluids (e.g. patent gets sick from malaria – but dies because they do not have the fluids to keep them alive). So far she has raised, I think, about half ($150,000US) and needs the same again. She is investigating some avenues of funding, but, if anyone out there does know of any places which are worth checking out – please pass them on.

Anyway, that’s what they’re up to. I find it amazing – and I hope that when I am 60 odd that I will be able to do the same sort of thing. It’s really never too late is it?

If you’re interested, their weblog (which is basic – I haven’t made time to really swish it up yet) is : http://mountainsofthemoon.blogspot.com.