a little update ...

Well, what have I been up to... I've been back at work for 5 weeks now. Vodafone Ireland's office is located about 30mins on the bus south of town. The building is only new since September 2003. Apparently at the time, it was the most expensive deal per square meter in Ireland. The guys at work are friendly, and Emmet - my boss - is really helpful and generous (he's trying to see if I could have the use of a company car while I am here).

Now, onto what I am working on here. Well, to cut the story short, companies such as Vodafone has an Engineering Department and an IT Department - loosely. For engineers to do their jobs, they need tools / software. Their software requirements are usually met by the IT Department. But what you'll find is there tends to be a gap between the 2 departments and the tools IT develop/purchase for Engineering won't always deliver to Engineering's requirements. This can get frustrating. In comes Johnny. The main reason for me here is to first capture their requirements & then put in place a tool that delivers to those requirements. These tools can cost anywhere from $300,000 to $3,000,000+ NZD. There! hope that makes sense. It took me a while to work out how to reply to people asking what exactly is it that I do.

Apart from work, you'll know that we've started refing for indoor netball here. It should be fun. My first game is next Monday. I've had to study up on the rules a little so hopefully it'll be ok. Last time I refed Hockey, I had both teams yelling at me... hmm not a good experience.

We haven't been exploring Ireland at all since we arrived back from our Europe trip. In between finding a place to live and settling down, we are finding ourselves short on both energy and budget at the moment. However, having said that we are hoping to go down to Cork (3hrs train south) for the annual Jazz Festival in 2 weeks time which is exciting. It comes highly recommended and apparently heaps of people goto it & it totally goes off!!

Well, better stop here or my post will be as long as ahem's :-D anyway guys, see ya!