Settling In

It's a little crazy to think that we're fast approaching three months in Ireland! It's been a big move, and we totally miss seeing the people we're used to seeing all the time. Thankfully, with this being the internet age, we're able to video chat with people. If you'd like to hook up with us on the video chat, we're on skype and AIM. Give us a shout and we'll organize a time to meet up. It's been pretty nice to be able to chat with both Diane and my families back home. Anyways, back to point form updates (since I'm tired and it's time for bed):

• Last weekend Darse and Xan got us out of our house to go check out Kildare. The main attraction there is the Irish National Stud which is a thoroughbred horse breeding operation of apparently some fame. (I don't exactly know much about horse breeding, but I learned some). We did a guided tour of the grounds, and saw some of their stallions. The most expensive one's stud fee comands €75,000! The grounds there are actually quite lovely, and we got a chance to check out a couple of gardens -- a Japanese garden, and Saint Fiachra's Garden. I got quite a few photos that I'm actually quite happy with, and it was fun to get out of the city!
• Work has started to get busy. Lots of projects are under way now and I'm starting to get into the thick of things. There's still a few moments where I don't feel particularly useful, but on the whole it's starting to feel like I'm settling in okay. Lots of stuff to learn though, that's for sure! This week, we released a new version of the software which introduced matrix tournaments. They're a new format of poker sit and go tournaments, but you play 4 tables at once. Not only do you compete for individual prize pools on each table, but how you do at each table contributes to how you rank for the matrix tournament as a whole. I haven't had a chance to try playing one yet, but it's a pretty cool new feature.
• There's been quite a few nights spent late at the office playing games. In addition to playing poker with Chris Ferguson, he's stuck around a bit longer to play some geeky board games with us. So there's been a few late nights of Ticket to Ride, Blokus, Medici, Aquaretto, Carcassonne, and other fun board games. Chris really liked quite a few of them, so hopefully he'll be back soon to play more of them with us.
• Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated here, so we were a bit envious of the food our families were going to be enjoying this past weekend. It's a bit weird not spending thanksgiving with the folks. It was nice to be able to chat with family over the weekend though!
• The desk that we ordered from Argos came this week, so our place is getting a little bit better organized. We also got blinds several weeks ago, so our home is starting to feel a lot more like home.
• The weather here has actually been quite good for the past couple weeks. There's been some rain, but not as much as we might've been led to believe. As a result, we've had a chance to take in some rather pretty sunsets, and some beautiful weather for walking around a bit.

That's all I can think about from this update. Be sure to check out the photos from our visit to the Irish National Stud!

Morgan

Busy

I tried to get a blog post written here a few days ago, but I had to restart my computer, and while I though I had saved the draft post I had written, it appears to have disappeared. Whoops! So here's a quick update of what's transpired in the past little while.

• Our stuff arrived! Earlier this week, a truck pulled up at our place and delivered a pile of boxes that we had shipped from Canada. Some things we were missing a lot were our box of board games, the kitchen knives we got as wedding presents, and my computer. We haven't really gotten unpacked yet, but that should happen in the next few weeks.
• Last Saturday, we attended an end-of-the-world themed party. Aaron and Christine threw a really great party at their place. The original theme was based on the LHC warming up to create mini black holes, but it seems it was mistimed for that purpose as the LHC ran into trouble last week delaying the end of the world.
• Darse and Xan are moving, so Diane and I have been helping them a bit with the move. Truth be told, Diane's been much more helpful than I. All I did was help Darse with a couple of large heavy items.
• Work has been progressing well. I'm slowly getting more comfortable with parts of the codebase, although it's going to take awhile to get fully immersed. It's been fun so far, and quite a challenge, but I feel it's been pretty rewarding and I'm pretty excited about a couple of the coming projects I've got to work on.
• The weather here has been gorgeous the past few days. Lots of clear sky and sunshine. It's starting to cool off at nights though -- down to 5 degrees celcius or so at nights.

That's all I can think of for now. It feels like we've been busier than that.

I hope everyone back home is doing well!

Morgan

Changes in Blogland

We've had a few people complain to us that the blog design we started with, while pretty, was a little hard to read. So I finally got a chance to respond, and install a new theme. I'm a big fan of this design already, so I hope you like it too! While I was at it, I've been updating plugins and making minor tweaks to the sidebar. Gone now is the welcome page -- you're here to read the blog, so that's the first thing you get! The right bar now has the welcome message in a shorter form. I added the photos widget on the right as a quick way to see if there are any photos you haven't seen, and the link above them takes you to the gallery. The gallery is also fits in with the design in a less awkward fashion.

Comments are, of course, welcome. Let us know what you like and don't like about the new theme!

Morgan

Playing Catchup

Sorry for the lack of updates, folks. Diane and I have been pretty busy the last week as we get settled and acclimatized. It's late here, but I'm wired and still wide awake so I think I'll try and catch you up with what we've been up to this week. I forgot to mention in my last post that not only did we go to the Powerscourt gardens with Darse and Xan, we also climbed up Killiney hill. I hope to get photos of both the gardens and the hill soon, but that probably won't be for a day or two at least. Thankfully, that's all I've got for a backlog of photos now so I'm almost caught up!

So what's happened since then? Well we got a bank account open, and it looks like it was in time to get paid into, which is nice. We're awfully grateful for Darse and Xan's help and advice. It's helped smooth our transition into the country waaay more than we expected. It's almost been too easy on us.

We're now mostly settled in our new place, although there's been some hiccups. We had to go without hot water for a few days until we figured out the system. Apparently if the thermostat is turned off, the boiler doesn't turn on. It took us a week to figure that out. I don't know why it's done that way, but my conclusion is that the Irish don't like hot showers in the summer (when the heat isn't on in the house). Weird.

The other couple of things we're waiting for is our laundry machine doesn't appear to work, and we could really use some curtains. Our place has some pretty nice big windows, but they aren't exactly good for privacy when we want it. Other than that, we've got internet, and pretty soon we'll have a bank account with my first month's pay in it which we'll use as a time to start picking up things that our place is missing.

The week pretty much flew by. At work, I've been tossed in to start working on some features already. The codebase is huge and a little confusing, but I can tell that this job will be pretty rewarding. I feel like I'm learning at a pretty good pace, and hopefully they're satisfied with how I'm doing so far.

On Wednesday evening, there was a party at a bar one station away from our place. I left work late and met Diane there, and we hung out with a bunch of pocket kings employees, had dinner and a few drinks. It was a pretty fun night. It was trivia night, but the guy asking the questions was from the company. So that was a bit neat. As usual, I was pretty useless for any trivia knowledge, but it was fun to be a part of it.

Thursday night there was an office poker game and geeky-games night. I played in the poker tournament, but got knocked out before the money. I felt I played alright, although I think I made a few errors in a couple places. Diane came by too and played a couple of board games with Darse and some of the other pocket kings guys.

So I think that about catches you up with the activities from my point of view. At some point soon, hopefully Diane gets a chance to share her little adventures.

Before I finish off here, I just wanted to jot down some general notes about our experiences here so far:

• The weather here has been pretty good in general, although there's been a lot of rain. In fact, record amounts of rain. There was a day where we ventured out of our place and on our way to the mall we got absolutely dumped on. The streets were flooding and people were drenched through.
• The Irish are much more dependent on street markings that Canadians. It's something I never really thought of, but because of the large amount of snow in Edmonton, the street markings can't be the sole markings for major roads. But here, where snow is rare and doesn't stick around, they can afford to put the markings right on the road.
• Also, the roads here all seem in amazingly good repair. What I realized is that Dublin must not suffer from the same pothole problem that Edmonton has to deal with. Since the temperature here is so temperate, and there are days that the temperature drops below freezing, the freeze-thaw cycle that causes pot holes isn't an issue.
• The LUAS is an amazing transportation system. It is fast, reliable, and they've built a tremendous amount in a short time. It opened in 2004, and in just 5 years, it'll have networked an amazing number of stations. By this time next year or so, they'll have added another 10 or so stations -- which should take me straight to work.
• Speaking of work, I love my job. The work is good, and they treat us very well. The daily lunches are fantastic. Gourmet quality food, and tons of choice and variety every day. Lunches cost all of €0.10, and breakfasts are free. For breakfast, the kitchen bakes fresh croissants that are absolutely amazing.
• My spot in the office is a "cubicle" in the server team area, and I have a very nice view of a small duck pond, and some distant mountain. On the downside, there's a children's daycare right underneath my window, so for most of the day I can hear the screams of some very powerful little voices. It is a bit annoying, although I'm told that you stop noticing them after awhile.
• When it rains here, not only do worms wriggle out onto the sidewalks like in Edmonton, but they are joined by snails and slugs -- both of which are quite sizable in some cases. It's a bit weird!
• Everything here is done to a smaller degree it seems. When Diane and I went to the supermarket, it was a bit weird not being able to bulk-buy kleenex, and shampoo, and those sorts of things in the quantity we're used to. It's rather interesting to me. Another example is the pop cans here are 330ml instead of 355ml like in north america. Not too sure why the differenece.

That's enough for now. There'll be lots more to come as we experience new things. We're not too sure what's on for this weekend, but I'm sure we'll be up to a little bit of fun stuff.

Oh a note about pictures. The gallery link at the top of the page and on the right side of the blog are a link to a cached copy of my flickr photos. If you don't see new photos that I mention, it's because I forgot to go click the refresh cache button. You will be able to see photos I mention on my flickr photostream (also linked on the right). There's probably a better solution that that, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Morgan

Day 4: A Win! and Fremont Street

Alright, so today is the last morning where I get up early after staying up until 2am (or later). It's been a rough few days staying up late to either work or enjoy something about Vegas so I'm starting to crash pretty hard. But! Today is the last match day, so adrenaline alone will probably keep me moving. Either that, or I'll fall asleep on my feet somewhere at random. That'll be fun! Alright, so yesterday started a lot like all our other days. We got up around 8, and got ourselves setup for the next match. This time around, we were playing Mark Newhouse and IJay Palansky. IJay got the hotel room gig so he was sent up there pretty early and got started while Mark would start a bit later on. We were getting old hands at this so the setup didn't take too long and soon we were up and running. The response to our booth has been pretty good. We haven't had too many watchers that just stand and watch all day, but that's understandable since no one really wants to stand all day. But there's been a lot of interest from a lot of different people.

So anyways, this session's cards were extremely tilted in favour of the downstairs seat for the humans. Mark got totally hit in the head with the deck. It was actually quite gross to watch. Mark kept hitting straights, flushes, full houses, two pairs ... all kinds of good luck. Fortunately for us, Polaris was getting those same cards upstairs ... and this time the swing went our way. We ended up 56 small bets and won the match to tie up the series 2-2-1. This sets up the stage to play the all important tie breaking match -- and we're doing it against Hoss_TBF ... one of the best in the world. This will be a fascinating match to watch. Stay tuned to the webpage for live updates!

After the match was over, we hung around and chatted with people until the expo closed at which point we needed to find some dinner. Eventually, after not successfully getting into the Japanese restaurant, we ended up at the "World Buffet". It was ... amazing. I've never seen so much variety of food in my life. You could get just about anything there ... and most of it was *very* good. The place was just enormous. The seating area alone took a couple of minutes to cross unless you were moving very fast, and the entire back wall was food. So I overate there -- there was so many different foods to try!

After dining, Darse, Alexandra, Diane, and I all headed downtown to check out old Las Vegas -- Fremont street. We took a cab down there and my first impression when I got out of the cab was "woah ... it's like day out here". It was brighter there than NYC's Times Square, and that's saying something. There was just a huge number of lights -- white, blue, red, orange, ... it was all very overwhelming. Fremont street is covered by a large ceiling which is covered in lightbulbs. Once an hour, they show a big lightshow with music which is pretty neat. We got there in time for the 11pm show and were treated to a pretty neat show with American Pie as the music. Pretty fun.

After the show, we wandered through Binions casino to see where the world series of poker started and then wandered into the Golden Nugget. It's neat that each casino we stopped at had a slightly different theme going. We stuck around to try and catch the midnight light show only to be very disappointed in the American pride show that ended up going through. So we kind of took off before that finished and found ourselves a little microbrewery in Four Queens casino to enjoy. I had a brown beer that was quite tasty, and Diane tried the rootbeer which was delicious.

We got back to the hotel pretty late to find several of the team members still up and discussing today's match. There's lots of stuff to think about going into the last match -- what's our strategy? So apparently we had missed some good discussion.

So that's yesterday's adventures. One last day to go of the expo and man-machine poker matches. It'll really be interesting to see how things go for us. I would very much like to beat up Hoss.

Morgan