ghana, libya and italy

Because of the two days work I have just done here at K.I.S.C. I need to update the list of counties of people I have worked with and add three more!!

Here is a complete list:

America
Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Colombia
Denmark
Finland
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Great Britain
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Kenya
Korea
Latvia
Libya
Macedonia
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Poland
Romania
Serbia & Montenegro
Slovak Republic
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Turkey

mini reunion

Ok, its a very small one, but it was still a little reunion!!
Last night, we met Sandor in Ski Bar where we had a full 2004 Catering Reunion with Dan and Eliane and everything!! It was great to see him again!!


After that he followed us back to Des Alps where we had a smaller Summer 2003 reunion with Rachel. Its a pitty Max wasn't there, but he was probably up at the hutt eating ice-cream!

It was great to see them all again, and good to catch up with everyone!!

a leprechaun

I spent the night in Zurich catching up with Elisabeth! And this morning I saw a bit of the City. Nice place. The lake was lovely! Then I headed on my way towards to Kandersteg!

On my way I was met by no other than an Irish leprechaun!! Diarmuid is inter-railing across Europe at the moment and he was with a Yank called (DAMN IT.... Whats her name... begins with D) Anyway, they are going to stay a few days with me and see what it is that has me talking about Switzerland so much!

invincible strikes again

World Exclusive, the first images of Team Invincible together on an Adventure! This was taken on Inch Beach... where we decided to do a few donuts in the sand!! Twas class!
It was on our way home from the Caravan in Castlegregory where we spend a wet weekend chatting, swimming, playing beach tennis and battleships!! Sandy was supposed to do her Project for college but "accidently" left everything behind... yeah right.

I'm looking forward to my holiday now... I'm off to CH for 10 days on Thursday!! Flying into Basel via Stansted and then train to Zürich where I'm meeting up with Elisabeth (Spring04) and the next day heading towards the centre!!

Only 2 more days of Work!! yip yip yip

avoid this pub

So I was in the Corner House on Tuesday night (yes, its the pub on the corner of the road) with a few friends. We actually went in for about 20 minutes coz one of my friends had to make an appearance for her sisters Birthday.

I went up and ordered 3 pints of water from the bar, I asked the birthday girl if she wanted anything, but she had enough. I came back down and sat next to my other 2 friends and the 3 of us drank up and waited until we could leave again. We were sitting next to a big enough group of people all enjoying themselves, all there for the Birthday.

Next thing the manager, who only a minute ago served me the 3 pints of water, came over to us.

"Lads, you can't just sit here drinking tap water, this place isn't somewhere you go far a chat, if I was in your house I wouldn't do anything like this, there is no such thing as a free dinner"
To which we replied: "We are just here for a few minutes, we are with this Birthday party just over there next to us"
And he just said: "Drink up and get out."

He was very annoyed with us, and we were not happy with that, a tall a tall!! Once the Birthday girl found out, she wanted to get everyone to walk out. But we couldn't do that to her on her Birthday. We ended up not leaving at all! The manager having just left after giving out to us, the rest of the bar staff didn't mind us being there.

I won't be drinking in that pub again!

hello out there

From today my Blog is been transmitted into outter space. I'm not sure which direction or anything, but i'm going to believe what the website told me and say hello to all the new readers!!

just made an enemy

Earlier tonight we were playing with very good value, 99c water balloons from Tesco! And Sandy decided to throw a few on the trampoline while Conor was on it, bouncing! He didn't like that a tall!!
So a little fight started between them, and as Sandy was bending over to get a few more balloons, I decided to put, just 1, down the back of her pants. It didn't burst. Until she realised what I did, reached around and burst it herself!



Ha!

team invincible

Just had the best weekend ever with:
Team Unbelievable Invincible!

Sandy, Footsie and myself all went back to Castlegregory on Saturday after Sandy finished work. We did some surfing that evening and then we stayed up all night discussing love, life and laundry!

Then today we just hung out in the Caravan and after lunch we went surfing some more!! Twas Class!

I don't watch Finding Nemo enough. DUDE!!!

a hellybopter!

So we are all busy minding our own business in work when the loud noise wakes up all up!! (well it is Friday Evening!!) We looked out the window only to see a helicopter landing in the Car Park next door! (yup that's the car park on the right of the big white building!!
Then the woman wearing the baseball cap jumped out and ran over to the other two guys waiting... After that we all just watched the helicopter take off and fly away!!

It really broke up the afternoon and added a bit of excitement into our work!! I wonder why she was so important tho...

moments

I think I'm going through an identity crisis with this whole blog thing. Trying to figure out why I'm doing it, or where I want to be with it in 1, 2, 5, 10 or more years. Will I have a series of different ones, or just this 1 huge one.

Why haven't I started one before, I was online since late 1995, that's nearly 10 years. Considering the concept didn't even exist back then I don't think anyone would be too bothered if they had a blog dating back that far. (maybe the have a diary that they have put online) but then again, why would you write a diary and write it in a way other people would see it, i.e. blog form. Now I'm rambling, and I need to edit that blurb of text.

Life just hit me, its a series of moments! What is a moment?

a particular point in time
an indefinitely short time
here and now: at this time
consequence: having important effects or influence
the moment of a couple is the product of its force and the distance between its opposing forces
the n-th moment of a distribution is the expected value of the n-th power of the deviations from a fixed value.

Exactly! Well maybe not the last two.

Why is there Sand in my Socks? I put them on this morning and they were supposed to be clean ones!?

psst

sussshhh, don't tell anyone but i'm a closet past-blogger...

location of castlegregory

So people have been asking me where is Castlegregory, now you know! Its in Kerry, and as you can see, it has a beautiful long beach!

Just looking at that pic again, from this angle, it kinda looks like some kind of animal!!

everybody go surfing

What a weekend!! We has a class time, and I mean class time in Castlegregory!! What a place! The beach goes on for miles in either direction, the water is as clear as crystal, just walking up and down it, I could of sworn I was back in Gran Scon'be'ya!

We had loads of fun in the sand dunes, in the caravan, in the water and in the cars!! I tried my hand at surfing, and I can't get the hang of it, as expected, but I make a very good photographer of those guys surfing!!

Hopefully next weekend we can go back again. And what really made it was this weather, it was lovely!!And so far, its staying good this week too. Today is the hottest day of the year so far!

what a world

What a world we live in eh? Some of the most powerful men meeting on one side of the UK, and terrorists attacking the other side. Strange that they are all men. Strange there there is more than 8 in the 'Group of Eight'. But then i remembered there was a woman there once, at least that i know of, good old Maggie Thatcher, throw her up and catch her...
As for the attacks, i'm amazed at all the emergency service guys, and how well they all dealed with it. Very professional.

This weekend the Scouts are off to Skib for their Summer Camp for a week. And for the 3rd year in a row i wont be there, the last 2 because i was in CH. I'm not going out there for the weekend coz i have a hot date planned in Kerry with everyone else. Their plan is go to surfing a lot, but i'm not into that sort of thing, i think i'll sit it out with a few of the others. Hopefully it will be good fun, but i really need a sleep in. I haven't had one in AGES!! It might be making me cranky...

This day 3 weeks i will be back in that strange little village in the middle of the Swiss mountains! YAY!

Oh and the 9th member of G8 is the European Union:

The current G8 leaders are:
Canada — Prime Minister Paul Martin
France — President Jacques Chirac
Germany — Chancellor Gerhard Schröder
Italy — Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
Japan — Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
Russia — President Vladimir Putin
United Kingdom — Prime Minister Tony Blair
United States of America — President George W. Bush
European Union — President of the European Council,
President of the European Commission
and President of the European Parliament

the hair

This is what Conors Hair looked liked Saturday morning in Clon... Ha! I think he was going for the Taidy or Big Dave look... but failed miseribly!!

the stick

This is the stick that Footsie and Mike found on their late night drunken adventure in clon over the weekend!

What a Stick!!

define: blog

define: blog

A weblog, web log or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic posts on a common webpage. These posts are often but not necessarily in reverse chronological order. Such a website would typically be accessible to any Internet user. The term "blog" came into common use as a way of avoiding confusion with the term server log.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

(good old wikipedia!!)
If you press the button at the top of this page NEXT BLOG >> It will bring you onto a new blog. I've been surfing through these and there are a few different types.

1. Just started I have no entries Blog
2. A Love Blog
3. Spam Blog
4. Foreign Language Blog
5. WAY too much Text Blog
6. Picture Blog
7. I'm an Idiot Blog
8. I'm too good to be Blogging Blog

You get the idea after a while. Now i must try and work on my new found knowlege to make my Blog something that doesn't fall into these catorgies.

Basicially when someone stumbles across this, the 1st entry (so all entries) need to be eye catching, or else they are going to hit that NEXT BLOG >> button again!

I had a class time in Clon last weekend. Next weekend i'm off to Castlegregory for some Surfing!

time in relation to speed

Yeah, I'm pretty sure time is speeding up. This week flew, as did last week, all flying by. And I'm not liking it at tall at tall!!

Last week Summer officially began as all the Summer Staff started work after graduation. It feels like it was only a few short months ago when I was out there for the first time, being collected by Tom and going to my home away from home in the back of one of the oldest van's I've ever been in. Now my home away from home has changed into something else. As I think about my holidays out there this year (to help over August 1st, or Aug1st as I like to call it coz it quicker) I wonder what its going to be like, being back as a guest, well I'm a helper, but I'm not staff.

I was reading some of my previous posts there about Summer 2003, and it fails to bring back some amazing memories that I had of the place. Its amazing how a simple few lines onto a permanent form can have a lasting impressing on yourself.

I asked a friend a few weeks ago if he had a blog. He said he does keep track of his life in written form, but he doesn't make it available to the public. Currently, this blog is only known by a hand full of people, and I don't go around telling people to look at it. I did have the Summer 2003 well documented but when I moved to here I haven't told anyone about these posts!

You would wonder why, I go to all the trouble in writing and editing posts and the site, when no one reads it. Well for a start, your reading it now! I have a permanent record of my thoughts, available and can be updated anywhere in the world. And I'm sure, when the time comes when I'll want to tell the world about my rambling, I'll have a good head start!!

weblog survey

google earth

HOLY CRAP!!

http://earth.google.com/

Download it now, it has to be one of the most amazing, interesting and fun programs I've seen in the last 2 years at least, if not EVER!!
It's like google maps, and keyhole, but it combines everything together and throws in Local and directions for good measure as well!!
I'm not bothered explaining it now, just get it!!

And to accompany that, try http://www.googlesightseeing.com/

deep thoughts

http://snl.jt.org/deep/
I came across this website today... well actually I came across a few of them in a email and I was going to post them all here, you know, pretend that it was all my own work!? I then realized that if I was able to find the originals so easy, I don't want to be found out, so best thing was to just post the link!
I'm also trying to update this page at the moment, you know, the links and stuff down the side, but its hard to get your head around all the html code that links up with different types of posts and everything else, but I'll suffer on!

to the beach!

Today we were at the beach, and I think this picture sums up everything. Its of Seb getting jumped on, on his nuts! Quite humorous!! That will learn him for allowing us to bury him in the sand!!

google blog

Ok, I'm a google fan, a google head or whatever they are calling us these days, and I keep a regular eye on the (less frequently updated) Google blog. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
But this isn't as good as it used to be. Instead of hearing about cool things Google do, you get a load of posts about products that they have already released. So it got me looking to other places where I can find more news about what Google is up to. I found this website: The Unofficial Google Weblog and I think its pretty good.
Talk a look and see for yourself. http://google.weblogsinc.com/

new phone

I got myself a new phone!! I'd had an N-Gage since December 2003 when I won it playing the nokiagame! So I decided to treat myself to a new one. Not ever having a camera phone I really wanted one, and a sucker for new and shiny technology, I went for a Nokia 6630 which I got for a nice price from the Vodafone Website. And so far I like it. The 3G side of it is great, with free Big Brother and GAA Downloads and excellent quality!

alton towers map

A map put together from pieces of the map the official website: alton-towers.co.uk/themepark/

alton towers

So this weekend we went to Alton Towers. The 3 of us (myself, mike and Conor) who can't go to America for the summer decided to have our own adventure and it was great!!

We got cheap bmiBaby flight from Cork to Birmingham on the Friday evening after work, where we hired a car (with the help of my grandparents credit card at the last minute) and drive to Alton! We arrived and checked into our B&B/Pub for a good nights rest before our amazing dat ahead of us!!

Waking nice and early the next day to a Full English (I do miss the Full Irish...) breakfast and then it was off to the park!! If you ever go to Alton Towers, you have to get used to 1 thing, and that is queuing!! They love it there!! They queue for everything from parking your car, to going on the mono-rail, to getting your tickets to the park, to getting in, to getting on rides, to pretty much everything!! The longest we queued for was for Rita (their new ride) and that lasted about an hour. After that we decided that it wasn't worth wasting that much time again. We got on all the big rides, Nemesis, Air, Oblivion, Ripsaw a good few times, using the fast-track tickets and the single rides queues. 'We are 3 single riders who would like to get on the ride... Together..'
Oh I nearly forgot one of the best rides. Duel is their old haunted house that they re-kited with quazar type guns in the carriages and you go around and shoot the ghosts!! Its great as you get points for everything you hit and you can compare with everyone else!! Brilliant Day!

That evening we went on an adventure to a near by town called Uttoxeter where we had a nice Bangladeshi meal a.k.a. an Indian! Following that it was straight home to bed!! Next morning we checked out and headed straight to the park, where we got in all the rides we liked the most the previous day and a lot of shopping. We finished up on Spinball Wizard and was quite surprised at how good it was, and we were not expecting it to be that good. We headed straight up to Manchester Airport where we caught our flight home!!

A brilliant weekend was had by all, maybe except Mikes face on the plane, but he'll be prepared next time!!

Next mission: Oak Wood in a day!

idiocy level

Idiocy Level
That reminds me of a class extention you can get for firefox. It shows you the current level the US is at, but dumbs it down. Currently its yellow, "scared".

green blue yellow orange red

Citizen Guidance on the Homeland Security Advisory System
This is quite amusing. It sounds like its repeating its self a lot. Damn Americans and their Colour Codes!

That reminds me of American Dad. The creators of Family Guy. I can't wait to see it as it looks really good. And from what I hear from people from america its Funny as well!!
http://www.fox.com/americandad/

connecting xbox to pc

Ok, I forgot how to do it, but eventually remembered/found out how to do it.
This is how to connect your PC to your Xbox.

For my PC I used:
IP address: 192.168.0.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

For my Xbox:
I used an Avalaunch dashboard, and doubled checked the setting in Evox.
DCHP: Disabled
IP address: 192.168.0.3
Gateway: 0.0.0.0
DNS1: 0.0.0.0
DNS2: 0.0.0.0
Proxy: Enabled
Port: 8080
Username: xbox
Password: xbox

And in the FTP program on the PC I used:
IP Address: 192.168.0.3
Site: Xbox
Username: xbox
Password: xbox

EASY!

mostly harmless...

Mostly Harmless...

The Blog from one half of the current 2FM breakfast Show! Intresting reading (sometimes!!)

summer time

So summer has started. I've put up the usual "band is gone away for the summer" post on the isinglas website. Everyone is getting ready to go to America for the summer J1'ing. That just leaves me and 2 other work experience guys that have to stay and work for the summer back at home. There is also a few others hanging around, but I bet it's going to be a quite enough summer.
I'm working in Musgrave's as part of my course in college. Conor (right in the master chief pic from gamecon) is working in banta and mike another guy doing applied physics and instrumentation is working in Lilly or something.
Our plan is to have as must fun as those feckers in America. And we plan to do this by completing missions! And our first one is to get to Alton Towers for the weekend without missing any work!

over a month!

Personal update!
So much for keeping everything up to date!! I've been so busy with Work!!
Just done over 1 of my 6 months on work placement and i'm really enjoying it.
My laptop also went in for a service so i was computer'less for a few weeks. Thankfully everything is back to normal now and i can start putting everything back onto it again.
Until next time...

look at the time!!

Todays number is brought to you by the number 5!

post secret

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

A nice website a came across that makes you think. Some of the secrets are very humourous and some bring you back down to earth. These are real secrets that people share.

I'm sure i'd have a few postcards that i could send in...

sweet

Oh yeah!

not too bad

Well with the 1st week over and another 25 to go its not as bad as it seems!! I made more money in that last week than I have all year, so that's a positive side to it!!

Really, I can't complain, all the people in Musgraves are great, and they are helping us find our feet. There is 3 of us who have started in the IT dept so at least I'm not on my own!!

So far... Thumbs up!

6 months starts tomorrow

So tomorrow I start my 6 months work placement!! 6 months of work, 9-5, 5 days a week, for 26 week, or 6 months. I've worked last summer in Kandersteg doing the early and late shifts, you know, starting at 6:30am (sometimes 5:30am!) and working till 8pm (and sometimes 9pm!) but I didn't mind it, I never saw it as work, it was fun! I was among friends and I had a great time. The last time I had to do something like this was back in secondary school. (9-4) but then again that was school, so I didn't mind it!! Well I just hope it all does ok and I enjoy it, and its not too much hard work!! Only time will tell!

gamecon

So Easter weekend myself, Conor and Footsie headed up to Dublin, with the car full of XBOX's, TV's and food for 24 hours of gaming!!
It was from 9am on Saturday morning until 10am on Easter Sunday Morning!! There were guys on PC's on one side of the room and on XBOX's on the other side. It was all linked up to one huge network and it was CLASS!!
There was also competitions and prizes, but were way too bad to win anything... altho we did win out first game of Halo2... 100 to 1! No lie!
Besides that, i'm up to nothing this week, my exams finished last Thurday, and i start work next Monday! Looking forward to it i must say...

example of gamecon

Kinda like what gamecon was like... except less topless men!!

our hero

Me and Conor and Footsie at Gamecon with the one and only Master Chief!!

paddys day

Its St. Patricks Day!

I was going to send out a email to everyone wishing them a Happy St. Patricks Day, but i couldnt find anything worth while to send! I did find some intresting facts about St. Patricks Day tho!

School children have started a little tradition of their own. They pinch classmates who don't wear green on this holiday. Wearing green is strictly a U.S. custom, as the color green is not popular in Ireland. Green is connected to the old green flag and a time when Ireland was not free. Green is also a color connected with hope and nature.

Many people will be eating Irish food such as Irish Stew and Corned Beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day. Corned Beef is not an Irish dish. It is what Americans think the Irish eat. A more traditional meal would be ham and cabbage or bacon and cabbage. Some say that in Ireland on St. Patrick's Day the traditional green beer is prominent. However, in Ireland, many years ago, St. Patrick's Day is considered a holy day and Pubs were not open for business. There were no parades, no drinking or wearing green. Green was considered an unlucky color.

Leprechauns are little make-believe fairies from Ireland. They are the little old men who are shoemakers for the fairies. They usually stand about 2 feet tall. Treasure hunters can often track down a leprechaun by the sound of his shoemaker's hammer. The legend is that if you catch one you can force him to tell you where he hides his gold.

As you may guess, its an American website!

the real start

This is where it all really began on this site! I have signed up for this blog for ages, but never used it! So lets start now!!
I hope to put all my log KISC logs up here soon and some pictures. I also want to put up a load of pictures from ski trips, last summer and other general things that I feel the world needs to know and see!
Enjoy it you crazy person for looking at this!
P.S. Don't let anyone know this is where it starts :oP

views of the centre

I found these two photos on the Summer CD, they are pictures of Kandersteg International Scout Centre and surrounding areas from the air. Really impressive!!

bire and kandersteg

Two nice pictures of Bire taken from the ground. Lovely view on a clear day!



Nice photos of the Kandersteg village... Class!

staff day out

Our Staff Day Out - Summer 2005 - in Photos.
The view from Mount Titlis.
Sole, a honorary Corkonian!
Panoramic view from the top of Mount Titlis.

From deep inside the mountain!
You can rent those little bikes to whizz down the mountain road from half way up Mount Titlis. Amazingly Scary!
A sign in the Hotel where we had our Big S.D.O. Meal!
One of the courses for our meal. Traditionally Swiss, I forget what its called!
The L.T.S. Table back in Ski bar!
And some S.T.S. at their table!!
Ali and her Boot. We told her it was a bit too much for one person, but she didn't listen!

summer christmas

spirit of the games

To get into the spirit of the Olympic Games we had our Campfire themed! With a lighting by a native (South African) dressed in a traditional Greek costume!!

badge buddies

Getting ready for my first Graduation on the other side!!

lts 2005

The LTS Team '05 (less Nancy who hadn't Graduated yet!)
Best LTS Team EVER!!

Lötschenpass

Lötschenpass 2690m

the veiw from 2690m

Pretty impressive!!

glacier walking

Nearly there...

Team Lötschenpass!!

Kasia and I, with some of the STS during staff training!

to the hutt

On our way up to spend the night in the Upper Hutt during training. I was honored in taking charge of the dogs, but Lucy was also there...

d-day

Here are (most of) the Recruits... aka Summer Staff 2004!

swim in oeschinensee

The Proof I have swum in Ocschinensee Lake! Its a bloddy cold glacier lake! Also present, Brick, Simon, Sole and Kasia!

rafting

During their stay, Brick and Simon went rafting! Good fun, and there was a guy with a camera in the raft infront taking pic's for them! Then gave them a CD at the end!

lts dinner

Some of the LTS at our Dinner before the Crazy Summer Season Starts! Don't we all look so Happy?! If only the food was ready...

mini reunion

The General Assembaly was last weekend and besides setteling in to the new job and working our asses off!, we had a Mini Reunion with Bart visiting!!

back in pink

Back to work in Pink again.... It feels soo GREAT!

thats all folks

Well I never got to do that update from Kandersteg. I’ve just arrived home and everything went well. The bad thing is that I’m home and already I miss everyone and everything. It really was a sad day.
Happy Birthday to Mezer, see you in a few days when I recover!
I’ll work on a revamp on the website and work on my report to be submitted to my International Commissioner (if there still is one).
If you’ve being reading these while I’ve being over there, I hope you enjoyed it. If you’ve stumbled across this website, please read my entries, you hopefully will get a good feel of that it was like for me to volunteer my summer in Switzerland.
I’d recommend it to anyone, Thank you K.I.S.C. for my summer!
Slán,
Darran.

tiko tiko tiko tiko

My teammate to the end! TIKO!

window cleaning!

What!

last time :*o(

Hey Hey,
Were nearly at the end of the season. 3 months came and went so fast it’s hard to believe that this time next week I'll be in college! But before we leave we have a few things left to do. On Thursday is our Staff Day Out, and what a day is planned... it’s going to be good fun, really good!! Looking forward to that, and then there is the packing, which is always fun! We also had our Departmental Dinner last week, which was a really nice night. And there is a few other things planned for us, but if you want to know, you will have to come on staff to find out!
A big shout out, as they say on the Radio, or Happy Birthday to Mary who is 17 today. Hope you have a good day!
I have my tickets ready and everything for my trip home. I'll leave Kandersteg on the 11:34 train, and my flight in Frankfurt is at 19:50. So I should be arriving into Dublin around 21:00. It will be a long day, with a lot of good byes in the morning; I figure I'll be at the train station on the hour every hour from very early in the morning!
I hope to put up one more update before I leave, but if I don't get a chance I'll be updating the website some time next week and tell you how everything went!
G'luck
Darran.

house!

The House Manager... and the House Manager to be... Oh! and the Green Monster!!