Alea iacta est

The die has been cast. It is done. What will be will be.

Obviously I won't speak to any technical detail, but I will say that if I do fail, then it was of my own merits, or lack of. They went out of their way to help me succeed. I never felt at any point that I was getting the short end, or that it was unfair. When I struggled with an answer, I was helped along. I was never cast adrift.

I have to say it's one of the fairest interview methods I've ever experienced. Whilst it may well be one of the hardest places to get into, and the interviews may be tough, in that you have to do very well to succeed, the whole process seemed geared to help the interviewee. I will definitely be taking my experience and applying it in future roles.

As for "how well did I do"? I didn't flail around, but as mentioned, it felt like it was almost impossible to "fail". So I have no idea.

If I don't get it, it wasn't for lack of trying, and only the best and brightest get in.

Location: Dublin, Ireland
Temperature: 4°C
Experience: Surreal

This is it

Today is the day.

Dublin lá dhá (Day 2)

Today is spent studying. I haven't studied this much since university. It's interesting going over past achievements and decisions as part of the management side of the study. Looking at what I did and why - I initially thought I didn't really do much, but found myself writing out  quite a few pages of what I did that improved performance, etc. (I did this as part of my own study process - I don't have to submit writing!).

Went for a quick walk today, and wandered further than just Grafton St (which I've been told is the "main" street for shopping). There definitely is a lot more, I explored a lot of streets off main roads, and found some good looking pubs that I must explore later.

Didn't have much time to do any photography as Dublin tried its hardest to make it feel wintery for me - with hail.

I recognise those doors. I'd recognise them anywhere in the world. I'm going to come back and visit them again soon. I have some fire stuff to trade :)

Oh, and my spelling, grammar, and general English ability appears to have taken a dive. I'm going to blame it on the differences in local gravitational pull. And possibly the jet lag. Looking back at the posts whilst I was travelling even I'm struggling to work out what I was trying to say. I've edited some of them, but one particular post I've elected to leave as is - it's very representative of my state of mind at the time.

Temperature: 8°C

Hail: Hurts

Mood: Tired

Dublin Day 1

These are actually street artists, they're pretty impressive.

And ending with an Irish Whiskey.

Temperature: 8°C

Mood: Happy

Whiskey: Bushmills

Ireland! How I love thee!

I have arrived! I have arrived to a wet and windy Dublin, that my taxi driver assures me is typical of Dublin at this time of year. There was some fun and games with the taxi pickup as my NZ number couldn't reach me, and I was not able to dial out. Eventually a good ol' fashion payphone sorted things.

The hotel Google has me staying at is very nice, and so far have had a great experience.

I shall go in search of iPhone charger cables, as it seems mine has gotten damaged and now drains the phone rather than charges it (I fortunately brought with me a cheap $2 iPhone cable that barely works, but at least does charge it).

Local Time: 1321h
Temperature: 6°C
Location: 53.34˚ North, 6.25˚ West.

Dubai to Dublin, pt 2

Ah the travellers dilemma. Sleep now, and not be able to sleep later, or drag out the conciousness for as long as possible. The novelty of this much flying has worn out. It actually wore out about 30,000km ago, but now it well and truely has worn out.

The first hundred million years were the worst.

Location: Somewhere between Romania and Bulgaria.

Speed: 888kph (550mph)

Altitude: 36,000ft

Heading: 300

Temperature: -52C

Distance To Destination: 3,200km

Distance From Departure: 2,733km

Dubai to Dublin

Location: Persian Gulf, just north of Barain.

Altitude:10,363m

Outside Temperature:-47C

Speed: 770kph

Sleep Status: confused

Distance to destination: 5,559km

The taxi from the terminal to the runway seemed so long as to make one wonder if we are saving money by driving part of the way.

This flight also has wifi, which is a welcome relief. It's clearly been awhile since I've flown long distance.

Dubai

Location: Dubai Airpot

Weather: Partly Cloudy

Body Clock: Missing, presumed dead.

Outside temperature: 24C

Well Dubai was a whirlwind tour, as the Sydney leg was late leaving, we of course arrived late. Fortunately ahead of time I chose to book a "transfer" service which promised, and delivered, a priority transfer service.

The lovely lady greeted me once I'd gotten off the plane with a name board, once we'd found the other wayward passengers, we were whisked across to the next terminal on one of those go cart things :) I believe it's normally a 15min walk.

Finally we were lead to the front of the line for security, and then lead from security down to the gate. I'm very sure that if not for the service, I'd have been quite stressed trying to navigate the large terminals with limited time.

Overall, a good service. It's a bit expensive, but if you have a quick connection, I think worth every dollar.

Next up; Emirates B777-300 to Dubai

Sydney to Dubai, Pt 2

Location: somewhere near Kuala Lumpur

Altitude: 36,000ft (10,972m)

Temperature:-45C

Speed: 970kph (Mach 0.86) (584mph)

Heading: 295

Distance Remaining: 4830km (6h10m)

The overriding was actually ok, slept some without too much trouble. Not much thoughts any further since my brain is still fried.

Sydney to Dubai

Location: 383km north west of Sydney, near Dubbo, Australia

Altitude: 31,984ft

Speed: 576mph

Temperature: -41C

14hrs to Dubai. This is going to take awhile. I love the inflight wifi.

Sydney Transit

Local time:2118h

Location: Sydney Airport

Weather:Dark

Temperature: 20C

Sydney transit isn't bad. It's only about an hour, but at least get to stretch legs. The inflight wifi worked very well.

The A380 has a live tail cam, looking down at the plane from the tail. It was a nice way to watch the landing, even if it was a bit dark.

In Air Wifi

I did not realise that Emirates A380 has onboard Wifi. :-D

Location: somewhere over the Tasman Sea.
Altitude 38,000ft.
Speed 785kph.
Temperature: -47C.

Takeoff

Weeeeeeeeeee! Here's to an ungodly amount of time in the air

Heading to Airport

Temperature: 24C

Weather: Sunny

It's almost time to start my journey. First up is 18,000km from here to Dublin, via Sydney and Dubai. It's 26 hours in the air, with the longest leg being 14 hours. I'm not sure if the stop in Sydney is a get up and walk, but I believe it's not... This isn't encouraging and changes the longest leg to 17hrs... That can't be right.

And I'm off

It's departure day today. A quick passenger load in Sydney, then a short transit in Dubai and by this time tomorrow I'll be arriving in Dublin, Ireland.

Big Trip Calendar

So I needed a calendar for my trip. Something where I can put notes in each day, and have a visual representation of the trip. In particular to see how many days I have free, etc. One would think that I'd just open Google Calendar, or OWA, publish an iCal, or any number of different calendar services. Unfortunately most calendars just aren't that good at visual overview of non time of day specific information (which is rather surprising). I just want a calendar that I use to hang on my wall (yes, I'm that old).

"All day" events usually just occupy a small bar at the top of the day (or even worse, with month view, just a dot indicating an all-day). The only way to have something actually fill the box in the month view is to make a fake all day appointment and fill that in with all the information you want for that day. I will admit that Google Calendar does a good job, but fails in one aspect, it doesn't wrap the text.

I'm not saying that the various calendar services are useless, or designed wrong - they are very good, and I normally live by my normal calendar. Appointments, meetings, with specific times, etc are all vital. But for the purpose of "seeing" an entire month, putting notes in for each day rather than specific appointments, the old fashion calendar hanging on the wall seems the best method. We've been doing that for quite a while.

So I went and created a calendar myself, as a spreadsheet. Turns out I'm not alone in this, in that a number of people do their month-by-month as a spreadsheet, so they have a visual display where they can put what they want in, rather than actual appointments.

So with no further adieu, my trip calendar.