I know, I know. 6 months.
Where the hell have I been? Not playing poker - that’s for sure. I’d need some sort of 50 sit n go bender to get back to rusty. Bloggs and others have nudged me recently, so I’ll do my best to catch up and maybe it will start the regular update ball rolling. Just don’t expect too much poker.
Instead, I’ve been focused on work and travel.
Work is work. I’ve got my head down, trying my best to make my little corner of the pokery machine work as smoothly as possible. Those of you playing on the site don’t usually see the results of my work directly, but when customer service comes through with a correct answer on your cashout, or finally bans the chat of the idiot who said nasty things about your mom after you busted him… I may have had a small hand in helping some of those things happen. By the way, if hey screw up your cashout, that is not me. :)
As my team starts talking about the next generation of our applications, I’ve been spending much of my free time diving a little deeper into the technology stack - researching the latest in .NET, WCF, WWF, the new MS MVC for ASP.NET, Nhibernate, Rhino Mocks, Castle Windsor, etc. Not my usual territory in this space, which is one reason for the silence around here. Frankly, if I were to write what is on my mind, I’d be writing about these topics frequently.
The opportunity to travel was one of the big reasons we made the move to Dublin last year. Facty and the children and I have been trying to see as much of Europe as possible. A quick summary of our trips from earlier in the year…
Going way back to March, we went to Venice, Italy. An incredible, unique city. The gondolas in the canals, the Doge’s Palace, the Guggenheim, the Bridge of Sighs. All amazing. we had a Bellini at Harry’s bar ala Hemingway, bought carnival masks for the kids, ate as much great italian food as possible and were just tourists. Oh, and the boy danced with the pigeons in the piazza. Venice flickr set.
In April we went to Paris. Facty booked an lovely apartment on the Isle de San Luis, just a 5 minute walk from Notre Dame. Paris is overwhelming. there is just too much to see. we dragged the kids through enough museums that by the end of the trip, we had to take them out to Euro Disney to make up for it. The Louvre (big) and Eiffel Tower (really big) were as advertised, but the Musee D’Orsay and the Centre Pompidou were inspiring. Birdy enjoyed frogs legs at a small restaurant near the apartment. At the end of five days, we knew that we were coming back to Paris someday. Paris flickr set.
April also saw us train it up with a good sized FTP contingent to rainy Belfast to catch a colleague and once-famous poker blogger play American football. Belfast is an interesting city in transition. While dublin has been relatively peaceful and has thrived since the establishment of the European Union, Belfast has only recently seen the end of ‘the troubles’. The city is rebuilding and modernizing furiously, though many of its wounds still feel fresh. Belfast flickr set. I have much more, including more of Ireland, Spain, more France and much more Italy. These are more fresh in my mind and I’d rather spend more time on them, so i’ll save them. Next week, we head to Scotland - first to Edinburgh and then into the Highlands. As there is a tartan for our name, Facty is threatening to buy me one of these. Sporty.
