Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in ebel's LiveJournal:

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Monday, November 16th, 2009
10:31 pm	On gloves Riding a motorbike is mostly a pleasure to me. Sometimes after a long, frustrating day at work, I call it a day and head home. The feeling of riding my bike home lifts my spirits and I enjoy myself. By the time I get home I feel refreshed and unstressed. It's quite a physical sensation, and can be influnced by lots of sensations. Recently I was driving home from work. I was wearing new gloves, and didn't have them tight enough, so my fingers felt clumsy, I had just picked up the bike from the garage, so it felt like things were off, I was just back from 1 week with Tom, so I had a weeks worth of clothes and stuff weighing me down. It just didn't feel right. I had left work with a decent attitude and riding the bike home totally soured me. Nothing felt right. When I got home, I dumped all the stuff in my bag, leaving just my laptop, and put on my old gloves. I rode down to the hackerspace. This ride (5 minutes later) was completely different. I was much more free, I was in control, I was in a good mood, I was flying. It was a wonderful feeling and totally improved my mood for the rest of the evening. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
8:54 am	In which I fail another driving test & Funeral So two weeks ago I had my car driving test, and failed. Last Tuesday I had my motorbike test, and failed aswell. :( I got a similar result to the car test. 1 grade 3 error and 10 grade 2's. Once again the grade 3 was from a bad right turn. I got lots of grade 2's from the 'failure to progress'. Most likely me being a bit too cautious at junctions and not going as soon as I possibly could. Oh well. I should re-apply for that test. The day before the test, I had 3 hours of pre-test lessons. I have a Honda Varadero 125cc. If I did my test on that bike I would only get an A1 licence, whereas if I did it on a larger bike I'd get a full A licence. With an A1 licence you can only drive 125cc bikes, max. [more info] I did the lessons and the test on a Honda CBF250, which technically is twice as powerful as my 125, but it was physically much smaller than my bike. I felt all crouched up and small on it. After doing 3 hours of pre-test lessons on it my arms were aching from riding it. When I returned it and rode home on my bike, my bike felt strange and unusual. It felt large, and heavy. It felt like I was driving a truck. The CBF250 was small and light, so it was easy to move around and turn. My bike felt big and heavy. However after I rode it home, picked up my laptop, I had to ride it into work. However this time my bike felt much more familiar. It was a much more pleasurable ride. My bike felt tough and strong. The little CBF250 felt like a frail fragile little bike. It felt like everything was some sort of delicate spindly antenna. My bike felt like a touch tank. Like you didn't have to worry about it getting damaged while using it normally. Yesterday was Leu's funeral. :( He was a friend of Tom's from university. I'd met him a few times. The ceremony was a humanist, non-religious ceremony in a creamtorium. It was nice, and sad, as funerals always are. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
4:49 pm	Driving test :( I had my car driving test yesterday. I failed. :( I almost passed. I got 10 grade 2 errors, and 1 grade 1 error. Max your allowed to have is 8 grade 2 and 0 grade 3. Oh well. I haven't re-applied yet. I did it in Rathgar, Someone told me that Chruchtown has a higher passing rate. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
3:24 am	Rory has been drinking again, Whenever I've been drinking (ie now, look at the time this was posted), I fondly remembering good memories and experiences, I suppose this is a good thing. Of course half the time that makes me think I should quit my job and move to africa for a while. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
10:14 pm	What I'm going to be doing for the next few weeks. Last few weeks have been tiring. I've been working lots.. I started a new job recently. Got my car driving test next week, and my motorbike test at the end of the month. I'm going to be speaking at the next OSSBarCamp in a few weeks. I really need a few weeks off. Current Mood: tired (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
9:59 pm	Blackberries picked and musing on bike riding Today after work I went and picked blackberries at a nice spot I discovered recently. I then dropped them off to fractal_rainbow. Hopefully I should get some tasty treats. :) Today at work I bought some shopping, and took them home in my backpack on my motorbike. My bag was quite full and heavy, which caused a strange change to my riding. I had my bag straps quite tight, and hence it made my sit up quite straight, I couldn't lean or crouch forward. The bag was able to rest on my pillion seat, so it wasn't a weight. But it felt like I was more rigid, as if the base of my spine was fused to the bike. This changed how I rode. I seemed to go slower, but also be less stressed while riding. I also had to make the whole bike lean, as opposed to moving just myself around the bike. It was quite a pleasurable and relaxing way to ride. Right now I'm reading Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon. Riding like that makes me feel like I'm on one of those long tours, with my bike laden down with gear and not a care in the world. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009
1:17 am	Pig Death Damn. So Tom was supposed to be coming over this weekend. However he has the flu. The NHS's pig death site said he had swine flu. :/ I'm gonna miss him this weekend. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
3:07 am	I have lots of memories. I feel old. I have lots of memories and my life keeps changing in lots of different ways (partially my own doing). And I'm only 25. I feel like a lot has happened in the last 3 years. I hope life keeps being this interesting for the next 30 years. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
10:03 pm	Not going to Africa this year Regular readers to this blog might have noticed, I've been silent on one topic recently. Africa. Usually by now I've mentioned where I'm going in Africa. However I'm not going away with Camara to Africa this year. Not that there's any bad blood there, I'm just taking a break. I've done it 3 years in a row, I'm having a summer at home this time. However I've been reading things like White African (twitter) and Hackers for Charity, and it makes me want to go back to africa! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
3:53 pm	London Pride London pride was on last weekend. I flew over on the Friday night, and had to get up early in order to drive oodles of miles most of the way into London. I got to go on the 6 lane M25. It's big. I suppose. We found kelemvor's house much quicker than syniqal thought. And after seeing Kelemvor's house, I feel much better about how cluttered I think my room is. After getting some coffee in the sleepy Illarane, we got the train to Marble Arch. It wasn't hard to spot the gang. Got to meet jamiethegrey (metamoof's boy) for the first time, who I'm sure (judging my the amount of clothes he had on) was glad at how hot it was. After some waiting around for Tom and Richard to appear, we headed towards the parade. We stopped roughly near the start. One can hear the drums from a distance. Some randomer asked if we knew what the event was. You'd think the pink union jacks would give you a hint. The parade itself was different from the Dublin one. It was much more offical. At the start of the parade was the Army and Navy people marching in a rigid formation. (As one of the lads said, you can guarentee everyone of them will pull tonight). There also was lots of floats from various government departments. It was cool that the state was so supportive of things. But it made you feel like you weren't as much a part of it. Perhaps that's just cause I didn't actually march, I only looked. But it was different from the Irish Pride. Walked aaages in the heat through hyde park. Meet up with some friends of friends. Sat around for about 6 hours in the lovely hot sun drinking and having a picnic. In the UK you are allowed to drink in public, unlike Ireland. That was kinda cool. Briefly went back to Retro, a funky little gay bar. Think Pantibar feel, but with a bit more of an antique feel to it. However Kelemvor had returned from big journey across the wilds, so we went back to ~Kelemvor after 2 pints. Few drinks and then early to bed. Turns out the blow up bed he bought didn't include a pump. But Tom and I were able to improvise a bed with some cushions and quilts, so everything was fine in the end. I'd seen the UK news and heard about the heatwave, but this was unreal. Myself and Tom slept with both windows open and a fan on permanently, and I was still waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. As a result I didn't sleep very well. Next day we (me, Tom, Kelemvor and Illarane) went to a swimming pool. It was nice. It was great to get into the pool on such a nice day. It was quite empty and it was fun to splash around in the pool. I got a new laptop (which I'm typing this on now), but it was delivered to Tom and was back in his flat, so we had to drive all the way back to Cheltenham from London to get it, and then drive back to Bristol, where my flight was from. That's basically a big triangle. My flight was later than normal, so I didn't get back to my house till 1am. Tired Rory was Tired. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
11:24 pm	I ordered a new laptop over the weekend. It's being shipped to the UK. It was the 3rd one I looked at and cost €450. I hate shopping for laptops, so i decieded to make it brief and simple. Last few weeks have been weird. I used to use my work laptop, but had to give that back when I changed jobs a few weeks ago. For a while i had no net connection, I only got my eeepc working properly. Which is a sort of laptop. As a result I haven't been spending much time online. And I'm a bit happier in general for it. I have a habit of spending too long on line, I need to listen to my body and go to bed when I'm tired! I should not spend 8 hours online in a stretch! One or two should be enough! This evening I went down to Tog - the Hackerspace in Dublin. I hadn;t been down in a while, One thing I want to get out of a hackerspace is to try to recreate the college computer lab feel and community. Paul who I was away with last year in Kenya with Camara was down there. It's nice to be able to meet up with people. Otherwise one loses touch, I used to blog every time I went out on my bike. Now I don't. I drive into work on the bike, and I'm getting much better at urban driving. I confidetaly split lanes and overtake about 25 cars in a go. Motorbikes are so handy for urban areas. I went into Tog on my bike. It only took 5 minutes, which was cool. Riding in today was fun though. However I need to get a more powerful bike. A 125 is fine when you're starting off, but now I want something bigger. I'm tempted to get a licence in the UK that way I can do direct access and not have to wait about 6 months for a driving test. Current Mood: accomplished (Comment on this)
11:28 am	Dublin Gay Pride 2009 Dublin Pride was last weekend. It was also myself and Tom's 1 year anniversary. :) The Parade was fun. The weather was absolutly great. Last year there was a christian guy with a sign outside Christchurch. He was there again this year! Myself and Tom got cheers from the croud for making out in front of him. The parade was quite popular, however there didn't seem to be as many vehicles, and the route was a little bit shorter. Afterwards was just hanging around with fractal_rainbow and English Dave & Angela. I did manage to find out that the Porterhouse sells Dutch Heineken. :) Me and Tom didn't stay out too late. Didn't meet many of the normal pride peoples which was a bit of a shame. I'll have to catch up sometime again. The photos will be here when I upload them Next saturday: London Pride! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
1:06 pm	Bike Trip - Day 3. Day 3 of myself and Tom's bike trip around Ireland. This was one of the best days in terms of scenery and seing new things. We went from Glengarrif to Tralee, via the Ring of Kerry. ( Day 3 - The Ring of Kerry ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
11:01 am	Some proud weeks Next few weeks will be busy. Next weekend is Dublin Pride. Tom is over for it. Then I'm going to London Pride the weekend after, on the 4th July. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 12th, 2009
3:46 pm	Motorbike trip around Ireland! Myself and Tom went around Ireland recently, partially by motorbikes, partially in car. ( Disaster strikes before we leave ) ( Day 1 - Blasting down to Waterford ) ( Day 2 - Waterford to West Cork ) Photos of the trip (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 23rd, 2009
1:08 pm	We'll session through the recession! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 15th, 2009
10:07 am	Little bike trip and a bit of a meet up with some camara people Yesterday after a tiring day at work, I went out on my bike to the see if the local bike shop had a disk lock. However they were closed, so I just rode around for a bit. It was a nice ride. I didn’t go on any dual carraigeways, they still sometimes freak me out. Afterwards it was down to Sin É to meet up with Colin and some of Camara volunteers from ‘07. It was mostly Team Kenya (’07). It was great to see some people who I hadn’t seen in a while. The whole crowd of volunteers who went away in 2007 were great craic. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
2:12 pm	Nice and Monaco Myself and Tom were in in Nice and Monaco for a long weekend. ( Getting to Nice ) ( Walking around Monaco ) ( Pink Palace ) ( Walk around Monaco and Lunch ) ( Train to Nice ) That covers about 2 days around Monaco, I’ll update more about the holiday in Nice shortly. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 8th, 2009
10:50 am	Nice & Monaco I‘m off to Nice in a few hours. Myself and Tom are spending the weekend in Nice and Monaco. Tom’s finishing up a job there, so I thought I’d pop over and we’d make a weekend out of it. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
1:25 pm	Deflation - One of the benefits of this recession So Ireland is going through a pretty harsh recession at the moment. Job losses and job cuts. However one of the benefits of it is that a lot more places are doing special offers and deals. Today I got a chicken fillet roll and finches orange for €3 in Spar on Abbey Street. It’s quite common to see shops doing offers for rolls at around €3. I still wanna get out of this country before it going completly down the tubes. (1 Comment |Comment on this)