DIT, FAS, ADOBE,illustrator

It has been a few months since my last blog. I’m afraid nothing much has changed and I still haven’t found a job. As normal, I do check the job sites every morning and I also check to see if there is a course that will suit me on my quest to find a work. 

In fact I have done a short college course DIT http://www.dit.ie which I learned how to use Adobe illustrator and other programs. It was brilliant to get the opportunity to learn illustrator as it is one of those programs that I have wanted to learn for so long. In fact you may remember me writing about trying to get into a FAS course so I could learn illustrator and how I did an assessment that made it clear that I needed to know how to use it before you could get into the course to learn how to use illustrator. MAD OR WHAT!

Here are a few pictures of the character designs I came up with while doing the course in DIT.

Please bear in mind that the course was only a few days long and it involved other products as well. The aim of the course was the development of a computer game for the apps market and to come up with characters and a concept for a game. My game concept was designed for the edutainment market, for children between 3 to 6 years old. The game was to be called “Rooster Rescue” with the hero “Roscoe Rooster”. I also designed a concept for a game logo or brand called “Rocky Dog Games”. As you can see, a lot more development is needed to finish these concepts, but as the course was very short, it would be impossible to get it all finished. However it seems I did very well according to the feedback I got and I received 10 ECTS credits at level 8.

I know it may look like there was little to the course, but believe me, there was a huge amount of work and research involved and although the course was only a few days, it was over a three week span. I can tell you, I had a few late nights, trying to get a lot of the work done. I have to say I am very happy with what I have learned and great full to DIT for giving me the opportunity.

At the moment I am doing an “occupational first aid” course with FAS. This is two nights a week over the next 5 weeks or so and it is for a FETAC cert. I have done “occupational first aid” before, but as it was over three years ago, I had to re do the whole thing as the cert only lasts for two years. It is a good cert to have and a big plus on any CV. I just hope I never need to use it.

OH another thing I have done is to finish that poem I was trying to write and I have even written another poem. I will post these, the next time. 

CUT FINGERS AND BOILED POTATOES

A few days ago I was about to cut something with a brand new super sharp, Stanley type blade, that I just took out of the packaging. I had the blade in my right hand, while holding the item to be cut (mounting board) with my left hand. Just as I was about to cut, Rocky (my boxer dog) came into the room and decided that it was time to play. So he ran up and nudged me (Ok he pushed me) and I ended up slashing a 1 1/4" deep gash along the side of my index finger. When I say a deep cut, I could see the inside of my finger before the blood started to pour. The best thing at the time would have been to go to the doctor or hospital so they could stitch my finger back together. However, as I just did not have the money to get a taxi to the hospital and pay the hospital fee. I ended up treating the cut myself. Just so you know, if it happened to anyone else, I would advise them to go to hospital.

Anyway, I grabbed my first aid kit and taped the gash closed and then made a splint from a pencil before bandaging it up. I have to say I did a really good job and now, five days later my finger is well on the way to healing. I have now taken the splint off and after cleaning and redressing the wound, my finger seems fine. The only thing is, if I bend my finger, I am fairly sure the wound will reopen and I will be back to square one. Ok it is a bit awkward as I have to wear a rubber glove when washing, but the worst thing about my injury is, it looks like I'm permanently pointing at things with my left index finger. In a week or so I am hoping my finger will be ok and I will be able to take my bandage off for good.

When I was cabinetmaking, getting cuts on my fingers, was almost a daily thing as I would be using sharp blades or getting splinters and also cuts from sharp edges of the raw materials that we were using at the time. However, the most common cut of all was when we were hand sanding and the skin on your fingers would just get worn away after a few hours. As you need to use your sense of touch while working on fine finishing, on a peace, it was impractical to wear protective gloves. We all used to end up, wrapping masking tape around each finger as the skin wears away, so you could still use your sense of touch with your remaining fingers. As most woods have antiseptic properties, most, if not all cuts would be healed within a day or so and by the time you had your weekend and are back to work on Monday, your hands would be back to square one for another week of cuts and grazes.

So if you ever buy a handmade piece of high quality furniture, you can be sure that real blood, sweat and tears have gone into it's construction. Don't let that put you off as there would not be any blood on the furniture by the time the finishing sanding was done and it was ready for polishing. I miss doing that kind of work.

I have always found I strange that people tend to look down on the guy that works with their hands. They assume that if someone works with there hands, it must be down to a lack of both intelligence and education. They dont seem to concider how creative and inventive this kind of job can be. I have seen this a few times when I worked in an office environment, and have heard work colleagues make remarks regarding people doing physical jobs rather than sedentary jobs like sitting on your arse all day in an office. I used to put this down as pure stupidity as some of the dumbest people I have ever known, worked in the office with me. Well in fairness I can't really say they were dumb, I think to be truthful, they just lacked the life experience to know any better or more commonly, they just had an opinion about themselves. In truth I have only came upon this once or twice and what made me remember this more was the fact they were upper class twits, who had everything handed to them from the day they were born. OMG, I really better stop as I am starting to sound bitter LOL. 

The hardest work I ever did in my life was when I was still living at home in Donegal (still at school) and it was helping a local farmer to pick potatoes. On our days off from school, I would have to get to the field with a gang of others, at 7.30am and we would spend the whole day bent down, gathering potatoes till about 6 or 7 that evening. I can tell you, this is really hard work and your hands would be in bits by the end of the day. The worst thing was the pain in your fingers as the soil would push up between the nail and the finger all day. But to be honest, it was the pure numb ness of being bent over and gathering spuds into large baskets before filling the spuds into sacks. You would just about be finished before the farmer would open up a fresh drill with the potatoes spinner on the back of the tractor. The combs of the spinner would rotate like blades of a propeller that hits the drill and throws the soil and potatoes out, five or six feet. As the tractor passes, you are expected to gather them into baskets as fast as possible, before the whole cycle starts again. As hard as the day's work was, it was always a great feeling at the end of the day and the farmer pays you for your time. 

I remember going home and trying to wash the soil from under my nails before tucking into a dinner and supping a nice hot cup of tea. Some of my friends would skip school to join a digging gang for the autumn and by the time they went back after a few weeks, they would have earned a small fortune. I wasn't allowed to miss school so I couldn't join.  It would have been nice to earn money back then.

Now of course, most farmers have potato harvesting machines that will do most of the work, so it seems that the days of potato picking is over for most of us in Donegal. It's strange how I look at this with nostalgia, when at the time it was really hard painful work that had to be done in all weathers, wind, rain and even sleet. I wish I was 17 again although I would only be for the physical fitness of youth.

Now after all that, I'm going off now to make a dinner with some Donegal grown potatoes and a nice cup of tea.

The trials and tribulations of my Archos 101

An Archos internet tablet.

How lucky am I?

Last year I wanted to get one of those internet tablets, so I put away €5 a week and stopped buying junk for a few months.

So after I was so impressed with my brothers new Achos MP3 player and his new Archos ebook that shows films and also doubles up as an internet tablet, last October 19th, I headed down to PowerCity and bought an Archos 101 which I found to be fantastic for €199 reduced from €349. (PowerCity is an Irish retail electrical store.)
It also plays films and music, I can get email and internet and I can even play games on it as well as look at my photos. What else could I ask for?

That lasted for a few weeks and then after beating my high score on Angry Birds,  the Archos shut down, telling me it needed to be recharged. After recharging the Archos over night, I could not get the dam thing to turn again. I tried recharging and restarting, but I had no luck and with me after getting hooked on Angry Birds, I  was forced to bring my beloved Archos 101 back to PowerCity as it was under guarantee. BUT GET THIS, they say they would only exchange it within the first 28 days and after that, Archos take up the warranty. As you can imagine my nose was a wee bit out of joint that PowerCity would not take responsibility for the warranty (consumer law says different) but to a degree I understand as Dunne’s Stores (Dunne's Stores is an Irish retail store that sells food and clothing throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland) started selling the Archos 101 with double the memory for the same price and I suspect customers were trying to cheat Powercity by bringing the one they bought there, back and demanding a refund so they can get the 16gb Archos 101 from Dunne’s Stores instead.

Anyways, Powercity advised me that I had to contact Archos as they would be able to resolve any issue with the product. So I rang Archos and they ran me through a few fixes, but to no avail. The only thing for it was to send it back to them and they would fix or replace it under warranty, but the catch is I had to pay for the postage at €12. So in mid-November I posted it back to Archos and within a few days I got an email saying “product has arrived”.  So I patiently kept an eye on my online Archos account and emails to see what would happen and as it was getting near to Christmas I understood that it may take a while for them to resolve the issue.  I’m normally a very patient guy so it didn’t bother me that much as I had other things on my mind at the time.

So came the 10th of January 2012 and the email I waited for stated that Archos have shipped a brand new Archos 101 8 GB out to me.  I was a little disappointed that they didn’t upgrade it to the 16gb model taking into account the inconvenience and extra cost to me, however, I was glad that this was resolved (although I wished I hadn’t wasted my money and just paid my bills instead).        Well after getting the confirmation that a new item was sent out to me, I ended up having to wait another nine days for it to arrive from the UK. Nine days, I mean?  

 Anyway, after receiving my new Archos 101 8 GB, I checked everything and it all seemed to be working perfectly, just like my first one when I turned it on.  Now, as I was well used to this product and to a large degree, the novelty had worn off, I just charged it and made the recommended firmware update and left it like that. THEN, two weeks ago, I eventually went to use my brand new replacement Archos 101 and turned it on. It worked fine for a few minutes and then out of the blue, it shut down, stating that it needed to be recharged (or words to that affect). Now after recharging the unit, no matter what I do. I cannot get the dam thing to work again and it seems to be the exact issue I had with the old internet tablet. Because I didn’t want the hassle of sending it back again, I instead did a bit of research and went on to loads of web forums and internet discussion groups, just to find out if there was any solution other than contacting Archos again.

I found that there were a few customers that had the same issue as me and they had no choice but to send it back to Archos. However I also found customers that were able to get their Archos 101 to restart after doing a few things. So I followed some of their advice (apart from the guy who said I should sacrifice a chicken on a full moon, while dancing the tango with a 100 year old virgin) Well I tried almost everything from holding the on button for anything from 10 seconds to 10 minutes and tapping the on button ten times before recharging it and I was almost driven to hopping on one leg while blowing up a balloon and wearing high heels, before recharging the device. Let me tell you now folks, that does not work, plus it takes its toll on a guy’s ankles if they’re not used to wearing high heels, or so I would imagine.

So after all that rigmarole, my brand new Archos 101 still won’t work.  So I finally gave in and with my ankles bandaged up (OH that was because I hurt them playing football, Yeah that’s It! I was playing football) I just had to ring the Archos help line once again and inevitably, they advise me to post the product back to them once again and at my expense of around €12 post and packaging.  So that will be an extra €24 that I had to pay for my Archos that was supposed to be such a good deal.  Funny in a way as I thought I was getting a real bargain when I bought it. Now I know why it came down in price so much.

So now I have to hobble off to the post office and send the blasted thing back to Archos. I just hope this is going to be the last time I do this.

The lesson this year is to pay my bills and not buy anything that I can’t afford. Well at least until I find a job, that is. I suppose I didn’t buy that much last year when I consider that I have stopped going out (apart from my date with Slingback girl) and all I bought last year was my Sony laptop, rechargeable battery for my Pure One radio, and that fekin Archos 101 8 GB. What a bummer.

Please leave a comment if you wish.

 Oh! I also bought a small plot of land in the highlands of Scotland that comes with a title which entitles me to be called Lord instead of Mr. 

 But hay, that’s another story.

Will be starting a new course in January.

   Over the last year, I have made more applications for jobs, internships, college courses and Fas courses, than I could ever imagine doing in a lifetime. I have even applied for internships as a cabinetmaker or I have applied for placements that were looking for improvers or third year apprentice’s, (I’m a fully qualified cabinetmaker for Krypes sake) just so I could get back to cabinetmaking. I’ve applied to get into Art College (although I do have to admit my portfolio was very weak as I didn’t put enough work into it) I have even applied for an internship as an archaeological draughtsman. Every morning I get up and check the job sites and my emails, in case there is something out there for me. For every few applications I make, I will either get an email or letter stating that they are considering my application or they are sorry as my application is unsuccessful. How I don’t feel down in the dumps is beyond me at this stage.

   Well I have a bit of good news for a change. I received an email the other day that started “Congratulations - Your application has been accepted”. Now my first thoughts were a new Viagra campaign, Russian brides or maybe the Spanish lottery again (although they normally send you a letter by post.). No none of these. Wasn’t even a spam or spoof email. It seems I have been accepted into a course in DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology). So as you can imagine, I was over the moon with this good news. I ended up texting everyone that I know, telling them all my good news. For once, I thought, things are starting to go my way. Mind you, if I had put the work into my portfolio, I would have had a chance. So in fairness, it is only my fault that I didn’t get to do animation or illustration. ANYWAY, as I was saying, things seem to be going my way again to a degree.

   The course in DIT is only a very short one that will last only four weeks. But hopefully in them four weeks I will learn or at least begin to learn Photoshop and illustrator. These are the programs I have wanted to learn, but as they are so expensive, I just didn’t have access to them at all. In fact, these are the programs I wanted to learn with Fas earlier on in the year and I even went for an assessment to get into the class, but did not get I as it seems, you need to know how to use the programs before you can learn to use the programs. I wrote about this in May under the title “Sorry for not posting a blog” and I wasn’t very happy about it. But now I will get the chance to learn how to use these programs. Now if I could only afford them as they are very expensive to buy.  

   So once I do the course in mid-January, I will be back making job applications once again. I just hope that things will be better next year.

Christmas in Donegal

Well it’s nearly two weeks till Christmas. The time of year that you would look forward to when we were kids. Christmas decorations, lights and music all over the place. You go into any shop and you just can’t escape the fact that Christmas is round the corner.

In fairness to the shops, the Christmas season represents almost two thirds of the yearly turnover, depending on what type of products that they sell of course. The other shopping seasons are Easter which comes third and believe it or not Halloween which is the second biggest shopping season for of the year. I know most of us tend to think of the shops being greedy and all they want is profit. Well this is true to a degree although when you find out how much rent and rates they pay, it is easy to understand why. I just wonder how profits will go this Christmas season as most people just don’t have the disposable income and like me, they may not even have a job. To say things are bad I Ireland at the moment is putting it lightly.

It’s strange as we normally get really mild winters in Ireland, and it has only snowed a few times over that last 20 years or so. That’s not to say we don’t get snow as we may have it for a day or so. But it is rare that we get snow for any longer than a three or four days. Mind you I do remember not being able to go to school for a few weeks back in the 1980’s. This was more to do with the school bus not risking driving down our road due to the frost and snow. I always remember it was brilliant as we didn’t have to go to school and there was a real sense of freedom about that. Funny as you get older, snow and ice is nothing but a pain and all I want is for it to go away. Last year was the same, we had snow that lasted a few weeks and the country more or less came to a standstill. I hope it doesn’t snow this Christmas although I’m sure we will have a wee fall. Here is a photo that I took of Ramelton Co.Donegal in the year 2000. I took it with a digital camera and it looks ok as it was taken in auto as there were very little controls with the camera. It would make a good Christmas card, although it is a bit boring. I can’t believe I only took one photo as I would not have had the same limits as if I had a film camera.

In some ways I am lucky that I am still single and don’t have any kids or a partner to worry about. But then again I really envy my friends that have a family or even if they don’t they have a partner to share Christmas with. My nearest chance of a partner was going out with Slingback girl this year and in fairness, in a way I think it would be better than being single. But then again, maybe not.

I will be going home to Donegal this year for Christmas as I normally do except for last year as I was snowed in and could not get up to Donegal. It was my first Christmas away from home which kind of means I have finally grown up, which is about time as I am over 40.

My mum always goes out of her way to make it a good Christmas, with turkey and ham and all the trimmings. She really does make a brilliant Christmas dinner despite me telling you all in a past post, that she wasn’t a very good cook. She always buys a big turkey despite the fact she doesn’t like turkey or chicken for that matter.

Not sure how Christmas will go this year as my poor mum was sick with shingles and it will take her a few month to get over this horrible sickness. If you haven’t heard of shingles, well it is caused by the same virus as chicken pox. So if you have ever had chicken pox, what happens is the virus hibernates and maybe 50 or 60 years later will reactivate into shingles. My poor mother was sick for a few weeks and she was unable to sleep. It was only after she didn’t sleep for over a week that the doctor gave her sleeping tablets and even with these, she can only sleep a few hours. It must be pure torture. I only found out she was so sick when my dad rang me and it takes a lot for my dad to use a phone. I hadn’t been home for months and was planning to drive home that week when my dad rang me to say mum was so sick. I’m glad I found out as it would have been unfair of me to go up as all my mum needed was peace and quiet. If I had of gone home, I would have been an unnecessary bother to them.  I just hope she is well enough for Christmas as it could take anything up to six months for her to recover fully. Just have to make sure she gets a hassle free Christmas as much as possible.

Anyway, to everyone out there, I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a prosperous and happy new year. Hopefully we will have a better year in 2012 and maybe I will be able to find a job and a girlfriend as well. Girls with slingbacks need not apply.

To my good friend Jimmy, I hope you will not have to weight to long for your new hip replacement. I’m sure once you get this done you will be like a spring chicken and I expect you to be running the Dublin city marathon next year. Hope you and Monica as well as the rest of your family, have a brilliant Christmas and an even better new year. God bless to everyone out there and that means you as well “Sound Auld head”  

I will take my camera up with me and take loads of photos. Who knows, we may even have a wee bit of snow in them.

Apple iPods? Don’t think so.

My brother John bought a new MP3 player and I have to say it is fantastic. He bought an Archos MP3 player and it only cost him €30-€40. John actually said it cost him €29.99 but I don’t believe him. The sound quality of his MP3 player is way better than my Apple iPod, and it also has a built in radio. I asked him if I could get a lend of it as I wanted to see if it was as good as I heard. I also wanted to see how much video it would take. I told john that more than likely I would delete all his music, but it would be easy to put back on again.

          So I deleted all his music files (not before backing them up on my p.c.) and started loading on all the videos from my laptop. There was about 10 or 12 videos, which included an hour long documentary from the BBC about 6 degrees of separation. There were a few short animations from BCFE student work and also three Daves School videos. Six episodes of Tom Arnold’s Overkill and 6 or 7 episodes of robot Chicken and I’m sure there was others videos as well. OMG that way more than 10 or 12 videos. Think I need to learn to count.  ANYWAY After adding all these videos on to the MP3 player, I then added back all his music and then about 10 albums of my own. OMG it took all that data, no bother and there was space left over as well. Absolutely fantastic wee MP3 player and way better than my Apple iPod classic that I bought a few years ago. Mind you my iPod is over 4 years old. €29.99 for the Archos MP3 player is absolutely brilliant, even the headphone would cost around €20, if not more. It also doubles up as a camera, how fab is that. 

 

Sorry this is a bit of a review, but I’m really pissed of about a job I have been trying to apply for, and I’m not ready to blog about it yet as it is peeing me off big time. Will post about it next time.

Weekend dinner

One thing I really miss is the Sunday roast beef with lashings of gravy and Yorkshire puddings, Yum Yum! I know I have blogged about this subject before, but I haven’t been home to Donegal in a while, so I haven’t had my mums Sunday roast. I can’t go home for a few weeks as my parents are away in the UK visiting relations, so I will just have to write about the Sunday dinner. Yes I know I can go down to the butcher and buy a roast for tomorrow, or even go out to one of them gastro pubs for Sunday lunch. But to be honest, it’s just not the same as mums cooking.

 I can’t believe I’m talking about my mums cooking as she is legendary for NOT BEING A VERY GOOD COOK. I know what you are all thinking, but I have to be honest and say that it is true. In case you are reading this mum, I’m talking about another Mum that one of my friends heard about (I think I will get away with it) ANYWAY as I was saying, My mum, or I mean, a mum that one of my friends heard of, isn’t a very good cook. I know this sounds unfair and in a way it is, as the food she cooks is quite good with her Sunday dinner and maybe the odd homemade apple pie. Her food, although not bad, seems to taste the same. One example of this is when she was staying with me for a week. I was still working and I came home and there was a dinner ready for me. Ok this is a good thing, but I didn’t expect her to make dinner at all. I was going straight home to make a nice dinner for the both of us, but she beat me to it. Know I don’t remember what she made, but I do remember how amazed I was (although I did not say to her) that the food somehow had a uniform taste that I, to this day, cannot figure out how she managed. When I make a dinner, normally every component has its own taste. For example, peas will taste of peas and potatoes will taste of potatoes. It’s a simple as that. Another time was when we caught some fresh marcel in Lough Swilly, and mum cooked them for dinner. I did not say, but they had little or no taste to them, which I could not believe. Normally fresh marcel is one of the tastiest fish you can eat, but not in my mum’s kitchen.

 Now it’s not just the uniform taste, or even the lack of taste that is so different in my mums cooking, it’s also the strange combinations that she will serve. My sister in-law has said this before as well, and she has talked about the food combinations such as frozen pizza served with lasagne and baked beans for tea and salad with tinned salmon served with oven chips and waffles. Also her home made custard that is made from sugar, corn flour and milk and nothing else. I mean, even if there was something in the custard that would make it look the traditional yellow it would be some improvement. My brother Arren (sounds like Arren but starts with a D) loves my mums cooking even though his wife is a great cook. I kind of think his pallet would be more educated seeing as he hasn’t lived back home in Donegal for 15 years or so. Don’t know how my sister in-law puts up with the competition as she herself is a brilliant cook.

Another odd thing is (my uncle Joe told me about this one) when mum and dad go to a restaurant, they always seem to pick the same thing each and every time. If they get a steak for example, they will both ask for it to be well done with onions. My aunty Angela went on holiday with them for two weeks last year, and she was saying, she never came across two people that will eat the same dishes each and every time and it never seems to be a conscious decision either, as they may be sitting at different ends of the table. So much for freedom of choice.

Anyway, I’m going off now to make a dinner. It won’t be roast beef with all the trimmings, but if I can make everything with a uniform taste, I can just shut my eyes and pretend that I am eating my mums Sunday roast dinner.