DjMagra’s stuff ‘n’ stuff

That’s it, all the packing and sorting and organising is now done. I’ve said my goodbyes, and I’m sitting airside at the airport having a beer and feeling very happy for myself. The past few weeks have been a blur, until about Thursday, when all of a sudden this all started feeling very, very real. I am so excited about the coming days, weeks, months and years! I can’t wait to get over to London and get started at my life on the road, exploring the world and seeing all that their is to see. Mike says that it frustrates him because he already knows he’s not going to get to see and do all that he wants to do before he dies, but, damit I’m going to fit as much in till that day as possible!

Keep popping back on occasion to see how I’m getting on, and I can’t wait to tell you all about just how much I’m enjoying London life over the coming weeks and months!

Oooh, this is exciting! The butterfly’s are really starting to kick in now, and I’m so excited about the move over to London. Most of my stuff is packed and boxed away ready for the removals to arrive tomorrow and take it away:

I finish up work tomorrow afternoon, looking forward to that Friday afternoon walking out the door never to return feeling! Thinking that I’m just going to have a quiet one tomorrow, lots of people wanting to go out, but, meh! I’ve no dount that I’ll forget lots, good job Barry’s coming over next week, he can be my courier for the stuff I forget. He may also be going back with a full bag of stuff that I can’t fit into the new apartment. It’s unreal, I had imagined bringing 4 boxes max, its now looking like its going to be 7….where does all this stuff come from?! Still, I guess it’s better than moving house after 20 years!

Not a whole lot else going on, I haven’t found a buyer for the car yet, but, we’ll just sit that out for a while and see what happens. I’m enjoying wandering around flickr and finding shots such as this though, showing my new home, and the Reuters data centre next door and Canada Square behind it!

Picture by elbisreverri

I’ve got a few tickets on the go, at face value, for Damien Rice in Marlay Park this August, if anyone’s interested, just drop me a line!

I’ve long wanted to be able to sync my Google Calendar with Apple’s iCal on my mac, but, courtesy of Google’s unwillingness to allow two way syncing of Google Calendar this has been impossible. Yes, you have been able to one-way sync from Google Calendar into iCal, but, that’s not entirely useful.

Introducing Spanning Sync, a neat, third party app that provides two-way synchronization between Google Calendar and Apple iCal. If it works (and they provide a 15 day trial) then I will gladly pay up the $25 annual fee (hoping that Google may get their act together sometime within the next 12 months). I set things up to sync today, and all appears to be working really neat so far!

If you’ve been looking for a way to sync your Google Calendar and iCal, then, I think quite possibly that this may be the tool that you need!

Wow, it’s flying in now! I can’t believe that there’s only four days to go until I move to London!! That’s kinda flown by! Things are moving along nicely, I have my apartment in Ontario Tower sorted, and I’m so chuffed with that. All along I’ve wanted to live out in the docklands near Canary Wharf, and, now I am. The fact that I’m on the 18th floor of a brand new and highly sought after development is a bonus, and a very nice one at that!

I’ve got most of my stuff packed, and ready to ship over. Not that I have a massive amount of worldly posessions to take, my iMac, Hi Fi, Books, Clothes and a few other bits and pieces. They should be leaving for London in the next day or two. My flight is booked also. All that’s left really is to sell my car, but that’s a bit of a waiting game that’s out of my hands (more details below) . I’m starting to get impatient, and just want to be there right now, but, I guess I’ll survive and just enjoy my last few days here in Ireland.

Moving to London is such a good thing, I really can’t wait, and I’m so so excited about everything involved in the move, except for one thing!! I’ve got to sell my MINI! I’m really bummed about that. Ok, so I don’t have to sell it, I could take it over, but, it just doesn’t make sense to be honest.

So, here she is, my beloved MINI, now for sale. If anyone is interested in buying her, please drop me a line to mini@daraghmcg.org

Some details on her for you:

• 2003 MINI Cooper
• Chilli Pack (Alloys, Sports Suspension, Half Leather Interior)
• Panoramic Sunroof
• 57,000 miles
• BMW / MINI Service History
• Recently replaced tyres and brake disks / pads
• Asking price EUR 18,500

Also on carzone.ie

Ok, the past few weeks have just been so completely hectic, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. There’s been so much going on to keep me busy and my feet have hardly touched the ground.

A large part of this has been due to the fact that I am very shortly (less than 4 weeks to go!) relocating myself from home to London. To say that I am excited about this is a massive understatement. I’ve always marked this year as the year that I was going to leave Ireland and start my travels around the world. I’m not going too far from home for a number of reasons: my girlfriend lives in London, it’s just about one of the coolest cities in the world, and I’ve landed one of the coolest jobs that I could ever have hoped for over there.

As of August 1st this year, I am going to be working as a Network Engineer for LINX - The London Internet Exchange. For those not familiar, LINX is a not-for-profit organisation, operating for the Good of the Internet. They provide a means for their members, Internet Service Providers, Large Corporations etc to interconnect their networks and move traffic cheaply and efficiently throughout the internet. LINX is the 2nd largest Internet Exchange (IX) in the world, and around 90% of all UK internet traffic traverses their network. So, to say that I’m excited about going to work there would be putting it lightly!

So, the process of getting my life together, throwing out everything and anything that I don’t need, thinking about what I want to bring with me, selling my car, finding somewhere to live etc is well underway. I never thought that there was so much that I would have to do, but I suppose I’ll get there in the end. I’ll be posting details about my car, pricing etc on here over the next few days for anyone who is interested, but, to quickly summarise, if anyone is interested in a Green 03 MINI Cooper Chili Pack with 56k miles and a full BMW / MINI Service History do please get in contact. As soon as I’ve researched market prices I’ll be able to let you know the price too, but, you can use this as your guideline for pricing.

Finding a place to live in London is going to be the sticking point for me. Trying to decide where I want to live, as well as trying to find the right sites / agencies to go looking for property is more difficult than I had imagined. Oh for a daft.ie or myhome.ie type service for London. If anyone can offer any pointers there, please let me know. I’m not especially fussed where I live, once I get to be somewhere within about 30 minutes tube ride from Borough tube station I’m happy with that!

Hopefully when I get moving, the blog will become a little more utilised as a place for people to keep up with what I’m getting up to over there for those who are interested. I know everytime I promise to start using the blog again, I always end up neglecting it again for weeks on end, but meh, I can always try!

London, my soon to be new home!!

Wow, this is just way to cool. Mark Ronson and Lily Allen covering the Kaiser Cheif’s ‘Oh My God’. It’s not cool for the cover though (which is actually rather good!), but, for the video, which sees Lily taking Jessica Rabbit’s place in a remake of a scene from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (go check it out).