Friday, January 4, 2008

Yay Iowa!

Well, I've got to say that I'm quite happy with the way the political landscape is shaping up for Barack Obama back in the U.S. of A. I'm really excited that he's got the lead in the Democratic Party for now anyway, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Unfortunately, the political landscape in Pakistan is uncertain, as I'm sure you are all aware by now of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and the ongoing investigation surrounding her death.

A much larger concern to me personally, though, and Cara, is the unstable political situation in Kenya. She is still, as far as we know, scheduled to travel to Nairobi, Kenya on a zoological trip for her masters degree program with Trinity College here in Dublin, in April or May. No word on whether the trip is still on has been received, but I'm worried a bit for her safety, unless the situation calms down considerably by that point, and neither of us is sure whether the tickets for said trip have been booked yet or not, etc. At any rate, I'm sure it will all work out in the end, but naturally, we're keeping an eye on the situation anyway.

I think tomorrow though, we'll be checking out the exhibit on the northwestern European bog bodies at the National History Museum in Dublin, as an interesting learning opportunity, and a hopefully cheap touristy thing for us to do.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Everyone Should

Everyone should hate cPanel as much as I do. Of course I am kidding. cPanel is not so bad, but configuring it to work with the outside world, exim, and of course, my custom server configuration is proving to be more of a pain than I thought it would be. At any rate, I hope life is treating you all as well as it is me.

I'm really enjoying it here with Cara, and today, even though she's been suffering through a cold the last day or two, we are finally getting into the swing of the new year. I'm working, she's studying, and we've moved the breakfast table near the front window of our place, so that we have a nice, well-lighted place to set up our work and laptops near the electrical sockets that we can access easily. Also, it's a good spot for our wireless broadband, as the window is much more transparent to radio waves than the wall! :)

I've been trying to learn more about Ireland's history and politics as well. Watched the tail of an interesting documentary about Ian Paisley, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, the DUP, and Sinn Fein last night right before bed. It was interesting to see how seemingly humble these men have become since The Troubles (Irish popular reference to the terrorist war between loyalists to the British Crown, and Republican fighters on the Irish Nationalist side) have mostly gone by the wayside.

As a side note, while I do appreciate the lack of commercials in TV shows here as compared to the U.S., it is a little harder to get a bathroom break, and of course if you start watching something in the middle, it's a little more difficult to see what show you're watching, as it's sometimes not really mentioned unless there's a break, or it's the end of the show.

At any rate, got a couple pieces of mail from the States today-- Chris & Leslie's Christmas letter was a much appreciated bit of Christmas cheer, as was Kenna and Bryan's nice card, with a very Snowy-like dog on the front... :D

Back to work, I suppose, but stay tuned for more posts...