Fintan Murphy

So we were planning on a nice cheap lino floor for the little fella’s room.  Lets face it he is probably just going to paint it or colour it in at some stage.  So why do I have a picture of a lovely new laminate wood flooring that is clearly in his room, I am glad you asked.
It was New Years Day…we were a little worse for wear from all the DIYing during the week (and we got home at 5am!).  All that said we were determined to finish his room.  So I went in search of lino.  Not surprisingly everywhere was shit except Woodies DIY, which don’t sell lino but I went in anyway.  The nice salesman convinced me to look at lino flooring somehow!  I was muttering to myself, why am I wasting my time I am not going to spend a load of money on flooring that is just going to get wrecked.

“They are on sale” he said

“How much?” I asked with a sigh, expecting the usual 10% discount.

” 1 euro” he replied smuggley, knowing full well I was uninterested.

“What! 1 euro a piece!?” I exclaimed

“No a box” he said calmly.

I made some quick calculations based on the square footage quoted on the side of the box, I would only need three or at the most four boxes!  Well the rest as they say is history.  In the end it took less than three boxes.  The cheapest floor in the house!

It was our first real Halloween with Ruairi this year. Last year he was in a little Pumpkin outfit and had absolutely no idea what was going on. This year we attempted to put him into a spider costume but that ended in tears. So he joined his Daddy as a gangster (see below).

Daddy lookin gangster!

The Crew

Its our first proper family holiday since the little fella graced us with his presence.  We have decided to stay within Irish territory.  Mainly so we can bring the other members of our little family namely Cooper n Mojo…see below. They have been enjoying the beach, mountains and sun.

It was a long journey down…6 hours!  But we all took turns, Ruairi even drove for a little while.

We had an exciting first day, we found a cafe with a Enchanted Garden, a diver at the Bell tower, drove up a mountain to admire the Valentia views (car almost didn’t make it).   We even found a secluded little beach where Ruairi discovered sand and the cold sea for the first time.  Exciting times and more to come this holiday.

The Enchanted Garden

The first adventure into the sea…not too happy

Sand…interesting substance

Dave the Diver…random

The Blue Lagoon

Lesleys Birthday Cake

So this weekend was Lesleys 25th birthday.  The quarter century club.  Myself and Sarah Jane took it upon ourselves to organise a surprise birthday party.  These are alot more stressful than one might think.  Organising an event is hard enough without having to keep it a secret from someone.  Problems arouse right from the beginning when Lesley asked ” Who are you texting”  to which I replied “Eh,emmm…eh…Sarah?!”  Got away with that one by saying we were discussing her birthday present.  Score!  During the week there was  closed party shops,  people telling her about the party while at another party tho Les has no recollection of this and on the day in question I actually bump into her at Tesco’s while I was buying party supplies!! FUCK!  Talked my way out of that one with “Bread, we needed bread!”

Alas none of this lead Lesley to believe there was indeed a surprise party in her honor being schemed right under her nose.  No she was oblivious to it all, oblivious that is until I moved the clothes horse!  That my friends was a step too far.  It was not the cleaning of the house, the power-hosing of the back yard hours before we had to go out, no I tidied away the clothes horse.  Mistake numbero uno!  Why did he do that Lesley thought to herself.  She settled on “He must really hate those clothes horse”.

At 7pm on Friday I took her out for our meal and she was still blissfully unaware of the many people no doubt en route to our house.  The meal went on a bit longer than we had planned, Sarah had a few minor mishaps (eg Fin left money lying around the house and couldn’t remember where) but in the end we pulled it off.

As we rounded the corner of Lealand Grove Lesley was greeted with great Surprise to all of her friends standing outside our house with a large banner wishing her a Happy Birthday.

She was very surprised and we all had an amazing night.  I am very grateful to everyone who came and especially to Sarah Jane, my partner in crime who helped organise everyone.  Despite the trauma of keeping secrets from the wonderful Lesley for a  few weeks it was all worth it just to see the smile on her face when she saw everyone was there just for her.

With all the bad surprises Ireland has had in 2009 I think 2010 should be the year of surprise parties, celebrating all that is awesome in our lives.  If you can think of a reason to party then go right ahead and if your friend doesn’t want one…well that’s a surprise waiting to happen isn’t it!

So this Sunday despite the week we all had thanks to the snow we decided to not heed the warnings about “unnecessary” journeys.  We all gathered at the hill at Tymon Park in Greenhills for a spot of sledding.  It turned out we were not the only ones with the idea.  There were people with tea trays, politician posters (best use for them), black sacks, inflatable chairs, surf boards and anything else that would even remotely slide, glide or skim along the snow and ice.

We had amongst our arsenal an actual toboggan (thanks to Cillian), black sacks (thanks to Dan) and several types of surfing/boogie boards.  I provided the camera and below is some of our mishaps, adventures and near misses.  We started out rather un-adventurous but by the end we were piling people on, breaking distances records and even surfing down (well some of the way).

First we have Cillian and Colm attempting a duo, they manage to hit some children along the way too.

As my courage grew from each attempt I finally decided to try Surfing…while standing.  It did not go quite according to plan

Next up we have the ladies who attempted 3 on a board (impressive).

Finally the lads tried to top that with 4 on board and in case you miss me saying it in the video…I wasn’t ready!

In conclusion although the snow has probably cost the country millions, made us sit in traffic for many many many hours and caused damage to our cars and homes, don’t worry about it.  Every cloud has a silver lining and this one you can slide down!  So grab the shiniest tea tray you can find…and join in the fun!

This is a talk by Talks Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology. It is a must watch for anyone. you don’t have to be interested in technology to be amazed by this video. if ya get board skip to the end and watch the demos.

It will be exciting to see this technology being integrated into commercial products. It will change the way we interact with computers forever.

This is a really interesting talk on Education by Ken Robinson at a TED conference.   TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.  It was started in 1984  as a conference bringing different sectors together.  Today thanks to technology they record and broadcast talks from people such as Bill Clinton, Alain de Button, Bill Gates to name but a few.

In this talk Ken Robinson discuss’s how are education systems around the world are structured and what it means for future generations.  He has some interesting thoughts on how we might do things differently

Fins Graduation

I was never big into the idea of college. I liked it and I always knew I’d give it a go but deep down from the age of 5 my greatest desire was to own and run my own business.   So after a year at UCD that’s exactly what I did, took a “year out” and setup Damson, best thing I ever did. Education didn’t seem important until one day when we decided to go on a training course “Growing Your Business” run by Dublin County Enterprise Board.  It was 8 weeks long and told us all we needed to know about business, finance, marketing, sales etc.

The course had two affects, the first was for us to rethink the strategy and plan for our business.  It gave us the knowledge we needed to bring about the changes necessary to move our business to the next level.  The second affect it had was on ourselves.  We realised that education was key to our success and as they say knowledge is power.  So a new area of the Damson business plan was born, education.

So what has happened since then, well we have done alot more training:  from business training to Business Analysis to technology.  All have benefited ourselves and our organisation. Donal has been studying hard through Open University to complete a degree.  I went to the National College of Ireland and completed my Diploma in Business Analysis and Consultancy.

So now almost a year later we attended my Graduation, it was exciting to finally have a piece of paper to my name and the sense of achievement was great.

I think overall this year has been eventful between finishing my diploma and getting used to being a parent it has been tough but rewarding.

I really enjoyed my short time at the National College of Ireland, the facilities were world class and the staff go above and beyond to ensure you have the best educational experience possible. I would recommend the NCI to anyone considering further education.

I now believe in life long learning and although this is my first academic achievement at third level I can say without hesitation it will not be my last

I recall a friend once saying as we were growing up, that we were running out of firsts. By that he meant everything from your first step as a baby to your first kiss as a teenager.  At the time I thought he was probably right as I left my teenage years behind and we were becoming adults I thought yeah soon we’ll have just done everything…right?

I know what your thinking, of course he wasn’t right but we were young.  I guess it all depends on what you do with your life whether you stop experiencing firsts.  If you get one job, never go on holidays, have kids or possibly leave your house then your unlikely to experiencing anything new but not only is that unlikely it is almost impossible.

I think the most amazing firsts happen when we are kids.  There is something wonderful about discovery, the first time you see an amazing view or watch a fireworks display.  As I watch my son experience all of his firsts (which happen almost everyday) I think to myself it must be amazing to see such wonder in the simplest things. Whether its the taste of broccoli (yuck) or seeing a dog for the first time.  To him everything is an experience to be immersed in.  However, he is not the only one having first times, because its my first time being a parent.  So I get to see him experience all these amazing little adventures for the first time too.

It does something else too, it pushes me to do more, to experience all there is out there.  Whether its being a parent or going parachuting it doesn’t matter, if its a first then its exciting.

I suppose the truth is no matter how old, wise or worldly we get there is always something we haven’t done. Something that will be a first for us. So this is just a thanks to Ruairi for not letting me forget about how amazing and terrifying it can feel to do something you’ve never done before.

You only get one life, live it!

A few weeks ago Deirdre O’Donoghue emailed me about herself and several of the staff at Educate Together running in the Flora Mini marathon to raise money for E.T.

I am a huge supporter of Educate Together having gone through their education system and come out the other side a better person for it.  Educate Together offers a real alternative to parents who do not wish to send their children to a religious school.  My days at ET were spent learning about many religions, cultures and ethical backgrounds.  My classmates were Christians, protestants, Quakers, Hindus, humanists and much more.  It was here I learnt to accept people for who they were.  It was a school where bullying didn’t happen, parents were actively involved and we called all the teachers by their first name. In short it was a school that respected you even though you were a kid and because of that simple fact I respected my school.

So this is to all past pupils of ANY Educate Together School, any ET supporters, please give generously to these brave women who will be fighting the cold hard tarmac of Dublin for their cause.

All Proceeds go towards the “Learn Together” Ethical Curriculum Training.

http://short.ie/floramini

http://short.ie/learntogether
—”Learn together to live together” Educate Together—