Gremlin’s Fireside Chat

I have finally shaken what is commonly referred to as “the post holiday blues” and back in the harness of research and development. The memory of days baked in sunshine amongst fantastic mountain views are now but fond memories – although I am far from missing the swarm of mosquito’s who took me as a nice source of food.

Maeve progress has been sustained and steady. New words she understands are coming out thick and fast – yesterday it was “night, night” when she went to bed; and “mine”, “no way” and “go away” are in everyday use. Maeve is an independently spirited girl who loves to do things for herself. For example its almost impossible to put her in her travel seat and strap her in. You have to let her climb into the car and into the seat before she will allow you to strap her in.

Maeve tantrums have increased as expected – especially if she does not get her way.. hopefully the terrible twos won’t last for long. Things have improved somewhat by ensuring that she maintains her old routine by getting to bed by 9pm so she can get a good nights sleep before she awakes at 6am.

According to this article on the BBC 25% of all Europeans have never used a PC. Even my mother (non tech as you get) has used a PC at least once. I am gobsmacked!!!

Today is Bill day – the day I go through all the bills that need to be paid and pay them.

One of this months was a domain renewal “bill” from Domain Renewal Group for “riomhaire.org” for 28-85 Euro. It took a few seconds for me to realize that I DON’T HAVE ANY DOMAINS REGISTERED WITH this group. Interested I went to their website typed in the requested domain “riomhaire.org” and “its up for renewal” – in December 2009 a bit earlier than I would expect from a domain manager.

To cut a story short – it’s a scam, not illegal in that they will prob transfer your domain from whom its currently with to them when the domain expired, but unethical (from my perspective) business behavior never-the-less; I won’t mention that their rates are high and anyone sending a solicitation for business that looks like a bonifides bill deserves filing in the round bin (or rectangular shredder in this case).

Its easy to be confused, but if you have many domains and/or the one who manages your domains is not the one who receives the bill. But if you get a regular snail-mail from Domain Renewal Group just walk away. Also KNOW and record which company manages the DNS entries for your company.

The post holiday blues have kicked in after arriving home from a 12 excellent days with the Family in Bavaria Germany. Will post more when i have gone through 982 email messages and uploaded my holiday snaps.

We started our family Bavarian holiday by flying out on the Dublin on Wednesday morning at 07:20 and after a couple of hours flight we arrived in Munich. Hiring a VW car from Hertz took an hour and the next time we come we will not use hertz since all the other providers had no queues. We are based in beautiful Bavarian town of Murnau.

Today we visited Neuschwanstein Castle and the beautiful rococo church at wieskirche. The castle is beautiful with fabulous views but is smaller than I expected but the whole thing is a tourist trap. The church is in the middle of no-where, a UNESCO heritage site and absolutely draw dropping.

Maeve is having a great time. One new skill Maeve has learnt is to ‘chink her beaker’ in a toast when our we offer. Civilized is what our daughter has become.