update

Hello,

Back in Dublin after a nice vacation back to Canada. We saw most friends and family but there just wasn't enough time to see everyone.

After Canada, we went straight to the UK where we spent 1 day in Oxford and 2 days in London. It was an interesting trip for sure. UK is very expensive but quite nice. Oxford seemed to be the definition of a "sleepy little English town". We saw Oxford University where Julie aspires to get her PhD at and we pretty much walked the whole town in 1 day. After Oxford, we did a whirlwind tour of London. Just saw all the major sites & museums. I really enjoyed the science & tech museum and I could have spent a whole day there, but it closed before I could finish it.

Julie & I are planning a big Asian trip next year just after xmas time. We are thinking about 3 weeks in south east Asia obviously spending a fair bit of time in Taiwan to see my brother Tom. As of now, the tentetive plan is Thailand beaches and Bangkok, countryside of Vietnam, Tokyo, and lots of Taiwan. Those plans are almost definately going to change of the next 12 months. We need to do a lot of homework and I am hoping Tom can help us do some of that homework.

Julie & I also have a very quick trip planned to a very small village in Germany called Emmendingem (click link to see map). Julie needs to access some of the German archives there for her final paper this year. I am hoping to go with her but it depends a bit on timing and work.

On the subject of work, things are going well. The people who will be made redundent are still working until Friday this week. It's only a tiny bit awkward at this point as everyone has basically come to terms with it. So far mac and games are staying pretty much separate and I imagine it will stay that way for a few months, but eventually there will be some crossover of work. Anyhow, as it stands now, I am taking on about 33% more workload because of the people we are losing. So I will be working very hard over the next few months for sure.

Dublin had an interesting cold snap that lasted a bit over 2 weeks. It caused about an inch and a half of snow and many days below freezing. To Canadians that sounds like just another day, but it was fucking chaos. Traffic was a nightmare during the snow, my coworker spent 5 hours getting home (a 10 km journey). Everyone had crazy traffic stories of abandoning their cars. I just thought it was hilarious that 1.5 inches of snow can shut a city down. But as I thought about it, there are 5 critical differences that Canadians have:

1. Plows with salt & sand (Dublin has all of about 2 plows)
2. Driver skill to drive in snow
3. snow tires
4. percentage of 4x4 vehicles
5. wide roads (dublin's roads are narrow)

All of those things add up to make a huge difference.

Another interesting thing that happened during the 2 week cold snap (which the media dubbed "The big freeze"), was that some of the water mains froze and the pipes burst. This leaked enormous amounts of water. As a result the entire city had (and still has) a water shortage. The reservoirs dropped to critical levels and several parts of the city were completely shut off. Luckily, we had water for the whole time, but our friends were without water for a full week. Even now, everyone in Dublin is told to conserve water for the next 3 months before reservoir levels get back up to safe levels.

That's all. I hope to have more regular posts again from now on.
--Ben