Now that my bosses at work are informed I can officially proclaim to the world that I am immigrating to Ireland - Dublin!!!!

A self proclaimed 3 cheers for me.

"This is chemical burn," Tyler says, "and it will hurt worse than you've ever been burned. Worse than a hundred cigarettes."

The kiss shines on the back of my hand.

"You'll have a scar," Tyler says.

"With enough soap, " Tyler says, "you could blow up the whole world. Now remember your promise."

And Tyler pours the lye.

...

Combined with water, lye heats to over two hundred degrees, and as it heats it burns into the back of my hand, and Tyler places his fingers on one hand over my fingers, our hands spread on the lap of my bloodstained pants, and Tyler says to pay attention because this is the greatest moment of my life.

"Because everything up to now is a story," Tyler says, "and everything after now is a story."

This is the greatest moment of our life.

...

"Open your eyes," Tyler says, and his face is shining with tears.

"Congratulations, " Tyler says. "You're a step closer to hitting bottom."

I just created what I think will be a godly mp3 cd that will keep me company for the next couple of weeks. If you recognise more than half of the bands here then you see that link up there called contact - use it!!

1. Canaan - The unsaid words
2. Forsaken - Dominaeon
3. My dying bride - Songs of darkness, words of light
4. Nazca - Non grata
5. Opeth - Ghost Reveries
6. Solitude Aeturnus - Adagio
7. The equinox of the gods - Images of forgotten memories

Editors

Notepad2 and Notepad2

Page Layout, Main Menu and CSS Coding

Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide

Logo's inspiration

photosig, biorust, diviesign

Color scheme inspirations

The Return of Design

Leaf Design for travel

More Eric Meyer on CSS

Tutorials Used or Tried out:

• CSS Rounded corners (Sitepoint)
• Creating rounded boxes and bullet arrow in photoshop (Photoshop Tower)
• Creating a Camouflage Background (Biorust)
• Centered tabs with CSS (24 ways)

Before: After:

I've have now split the blog into three different parts.

1. Personal Blog
2. Technology Section
3. Travel Section

This means that from now on the main blog isn't going to have any rants on how I spent my break squashing XHTML bugs or what a beautiful country Ecuador is. There are two boxes on the left hand side that show the latest posts in these respective categories so those inclined can still visit them.

I've moved these two sections out of the main section to increase the individuality of the distinct parts. I don't know whether this idea is going to work out for the long term but at least for the time being I'm going to try this experiment. If you have any feedback then it's more than welcome.

Revised the kiwi pattern to create version 1.01. This version includes the following changes.

• Amended base template to validate against XHTML Transitional and ISO-8859-1
• Modified some stylesheet styles
• Created a print stylesheet to print out blog correctly
• Created a full thread page to browse individual entries and replies in blog
• Included blog reply template or login / signup when viewing a message. (Avoiding an extra click to reply)
• Added BoundedMessage Template to make bounded message appear aligned properly. Might need to set Preferences ? Web Server ? Appearance ? Bound URL Template
• Update message editing to pick any custom field used for weblog category.
• Added metadata to template
• Documentation Update

Pattern File: Kiwi Pattern File Version 1.01

Documentation: Kiwi Pattern File Version 1.01

Kiwi Pattern Version 1

Phew, I just finished the site update!!! Comments on the new design are welcome.

Thanks to the new pattern functionality of conversant I've managed to change over the site in record time, just importing the pattern and updating some messages. At the moment I'm too tired to write about the pattern but I'm going to upload it and some quick documentation. Hopefully I'll refine a bit tomorrow.

Pattern File: Kiwi Pattern File Version 1.0

Documentation: Kiwi Pattern File Version 1.0

Now that I'm about to radically change my life I've started an exercise called "Dissect your personality" where I'm sort of making an in-depth self study. This afternoon I spent my last hour at work reading my blog hoping to learn a bit more about myself. I didn't get too far though cause I ended up reading all my first posts when I used to blog everyday. That was really cool, I think I should start doing it again, adding some more rubbish to the web. As far as the self study goes I remembered that I like origami and that I was once unhappy at work (mmm ... ok I still am but this is going to end soon). I realised that across the months I've become much more conscious on what to blog and not, I think I should remove my inhibitions and start writing about everything again. After all I'll have many things to write about soon.

If you arrived here in this post you shouldn't have cared less about then I'll give you a small reward. Read this joke.

p.s. did you by any chance note that I'm really eager for something to happen :)

This is what happens when I'm in a 'creative' (read programming) mode. A complete mess.

This week was not a heavy work (as in office work) week cause I had a cold. Apart from having the license to wake up after 10am everyday I also had some free time (in between curling games ... lol) to revise CSS, learn tableless positioning and update the blog layout. The plan is to divide the blog in three 1) general blog 2) technology section 3) travel section. Till now section 1 and 3 have been designed but I think I have enough momentum to design the last one by end of week.

Yes I want to be cynical ...

Source: Be my anti-valentine

Last Saturday I went for what probably is my last Saturday afternoon shopping with her highness. Throughout these last shopping sprees I've been collecting some very unscientific evidence on the behaviour of men out shopping with their partners. I noticed the following types:-

• The star gazer - his motor functions suggest that he's looking at the cloths but his mind is wandering far away.
• The pet - The one who absently follows his partners scent and nods or yeses for each question
• The interested - although a rare specimen this type actively interests himself in the perennial decision whether this skirt was destined to live in her closet or not
• Still in the beginning of the relationship - These are easy to spot. They have all the characteristics of the average I-couldn't-care-less type but are evidently making an effort to appear supportive, maybe tonight they'll get rewarded and get the chance to tear away the goods just purchased.
• The watcher - The people around are more interesting than the clothes on display.
• The Texter - Shopping is the perfect excuse for texting everybody in the address book.
• The Teen - Every rag is fine as long as he gets a chance to get in changing cubicle.

I posed the question to myself and concluded that in my case it's a mix of having the pleasure of good company, an opportunity to scornfully criticise unwearable cloths (and there are plenty out there), do some good-old-people-watching and imagine that I have a say in her choice of clothes. What about you?

I have to rethink myself on what I know about job offers. A few days ago I was very amused at a job description that offered massage as a perk only to realise today that the mighty Google them self also offer onsite massage in their employment package. Source: Wired - Benefits and Perks of the top seven ivy-league employers

Software Quality Assurance Testing Articles - Articles, white papers, and more on important software testing topics.

"... unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

The only positive thing out of a 2 hour flight delay was that I finished reading Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Maruki Murkami. If you've never read anything by this author this description by amazon.com's editorial reviewer paints the perfect picture of him:-

The story is about the journey of Toru Okada who's in search for his 'lost' wife and missing cat. Along his search for Kumiko his wife and his cat Mr. Okada meets a variety of beautifully described and eccentric characters all of which have a particular distinctive character. I think the portrayal of Murakami's characters is one of the most appealing aspects of his novels, yet his symbolism teasingly befuddles me beyond comprehension till the end of the book and some time after that. This was the third book I read by the same author and I think it's the best one so far.

If you watched fight club then check out this version of the trailer - Fight Club Romantic Trailer. Make sure you've got your speakers on.

I'm back from my covert scouting trip to Dublin. I will not go into much detail at this point considering the voice of the web is can reach far but let's say it was an enlightening experience. Travelling alone makes me more perceptive of the new environment so I thought I'd write down some observations that might be helpful for the first time visitor.

• Don't assume everyone is Irish. There are about 100,000 polish nationals alone working here the likelihood of being served by a non-Irish is high.
• You can't pay a bus with paper money. Unless you want to make a fool of yourself asking people on the bus to change a 5 Euro note make sure you have at least a 2 Euro coin with you (most bus rides cost me 1.80Euro)
• You will not get coin change from the bus driver. If say the fare is 95c and you have a 2 Euro COIN you'll get a refund ticket for 1.05 Euro which you need to redeem in the Dublin bus office in O'Connell Street.
Yes, you have to put the coins in the strange looking box besides the driver.
• "The Spire" is not the name of a pub but a tall pointed (pointless ?!) modern art in O'Connell street. Avoid asking where it is unless you've got a glass bottomed spectacles to support you blindness claim.
• A hot dog 'meal' can cost serious money in Dublin - 12 Euros to be more precise.
• If you're a man drink a pint not a glass (that's how name of the smaller sized glass)
• In Dublin Airport I've seen the first airport pub complete with lots of Guinness and a filthy floor.
• Soccer figures nowhere as high as rugby in the list of favourite sports.
• [Personal Note applicable to all travel destinations]: Try to remember to take your hair brush with you especially if you have long hair (and due for a very important meeting).