Personal

I just won a bid on an awesome ultra-mobile slick Dell laptop!

Yahoo!!! I got this featherlight, ultra thin and very powerful notebook from Ebay.
It is only 1.36kg in weight. It is only an inch thick. It's got a 12.1 inches display.

I can't wait to entirely wipe out all the load of crappy proprietary software that comes preloaded on Dell machines and install my operating system of choice!

Today marks my second year since I joined IONA.

I am sure you've all heard that Australia outlawed incandescent light bulbs.

I have to admit that the Australian government once again surprised me for its forward thinking and that every other country should take example from their smart and responsible move.

I went to the markets in Thomas Street today.

The market is on every Saturday and it is right on our doorstep.

It is my trusted and reliable source of vegetables and fruit. Gotta have my tomatoes... can't do without!

One thing I love about this market is that I can find better quality fruit and vegs than I can get in supermarkets.

It is one of those things that makes me realize how convenient our apartment is, right near the centre of town, well serviced and close to many amenities.

I realize what I am about to write will sound highly unlikely and quite hard to believe, but rest assured it is the truth I speak. And you do not have to take my word for it, I have evidence to back my claim.

So here it goes. A fine sunny day, I went skiing with a good old buddy of mine in ski resort close to Lecco, at the footsteps of the alps, in northern Italy. The resort, Piani di Bobbio, is admitedly not one of the best for either its slopes quality, beauty of scenery, abundance of snow, or ski-lifts' efficiency.

What makes a day a _great_ day?

Well, it has to start with a healthy breakfast. I always make a point of eating healthily. Since breakfast is a very important meal, this applies to breakfast too. Breakfast was great because I had some of my favourite juice, apple juice, with my favourite cereal, sultana bran. Crunchy!

Travelling to work was great because the bus arrived as soon as I stepped out of the door. The bus stop is just across the street. The pedestrian lights turned green just as the door slammed shut, so I confortably walked and got on the bus.
I normally take the train to work. On the way from the spot where I get off the bus to the station, I pass by a different bus stop serviced by three bus routes that go by my workplace. Just as I approached this bus stop, the bus came, so I decided against the train and hopped on the bus to work.

Aerlingus is under threat of being taken over by Ryanair. Ryanair launched a takeover bid of Aerlingus' shares, in an effort to acquire more than 50% of Aerlingus shares.

I strongly hope that Ryanair is not successful in its takeover manouvre, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, having two great low-cost air carriers is certainly good for customers. Customers can only benefit from competition between the two airlines. Ryanair and Aerlingus happen to compete on many airport and routes that I frequently use, with obvious advantages to my finances.

The Dublin-Milan route is serviced by both airlines, and having two companies competing with lower rates, promotional offers, and ticket sales makes flying home to see family and friends cheap and fun.

Hello, World!

What a better way to start off my brand new blog than with my own exuberant Hello World post!

I am sure that all you techies reading this will have already noticed the extra care I took in adorning the hello, world statement with capital letters and punctuation -a distinct improvement over the first and original version of the historical hello, world program -

For those of you that do not know what a hello, world program even is, welcome to my blog! Please do not run away just yet.
I promise I will not just write about computers, information technology and software engineering. And when I do, I will clearly mark those technical posts so that you, the reader, can easily filter out those posts that, let us admit, only a handful of people would actually enjoy reading.