A new sport - Bike Polo

Bike polo
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

While I was travelling through the Phoenix Park last weekend I saw a sign announcing the international bike polo competition. I went along to have a look and it looks like an interesting sport - basically horse polo played on a bike.

The crowd was not exactly huge for an international tournament. The supporters were outnumbered by the players. But I suppose every sport must start out small.

Dixie Chick goes on her first trip of 2009

Dixie Chick at rest in her "Winter Residence" at Shannon Harbour
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

The weather in Ireland was lovely this weekend so I decided to bring Dixie Chick on her first trip of the year.

I did not take her out of the water this winter and so I was pleasantly surprised to see that she was not too badly shaken by the experience. The engine started after about 3 attempts and then we took her for a short trip down to Banagher and back.

I tried out the Sports Tracker application on my Nokia phone. It seemed to work a treat and I was able to produce the little map below showing where exactly we went.


View Dixie Chick's Maiden Voyage of 2009 in a larger map

There is a slight mis-match between the Google Map and the coordinated from my GPS which make it seem that we travelled across dry land for a while, but overall I think you can get the idea. I must use this feature more often.

Phoenix Park Race last week

Coming over the finish line
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

I just got confirmation of my finishing time in the Phoenix Park 10km race. This year I finished in 54 minutes and 21 seconds which is an improvement on my time from last year of 57 minutes and 3 seconds.

Overall my race position was #3,144 which is not bad considering that there were over 11,000 competitors in total. What makes it sound even better was that I was in position #142 for my age group (although I don't know exactly how wide they make the age group or how many people in my age group competed).

Is Skype finally opening up

Skype is a hugely popular VOIP service. In fact according to some reports, they now have passed out AT&T as the largest carried of international voice calls.

The main reason that Skype is popular is because it is really easy to use. However, until recently the Skype platform was very closed. There is a Skype API, but this only allows you to manipulate the Skype client running on your machine and does not allow you to do anything really interesting like connect Skype to/from another network.

This might be about to change because Skype have recently announced a Beta program of their SIP support. This would open a lot of interesting possibilities ...

Right now it is a closed Beta with limits on who can participate, so I will have to wait some time to try it out.

Great sport results continue

It continues to be a good year for sports results from my point of vire.

Last weekend, Ireland won the Rugby Grand Slam and after the third series of matches Galway United remained top of the Premier Division of the League of Ireland

Unexpected highlight of trip to Aran Islands

During a recent trip to the Aran Islands, I was delighted to get the unexpected bonus of being able to observe a simulated Helicopter rescue. I must say that, even in good weather, it was very exciting to watch coast guard guy get dropped from the Helicopter while the ferry still continued travelling at top speed. In the way back up the (empty) stretcher was bounced quite violently against the helicopter so maybe it is just as well there was no seriously ill patient on board.

Great Soccer results

I could hardly believe the news today, Galway United are top of the league of Ireland table. After just barely avoiding relegation last season, they are now top of the table after wins against St Patrick Athletic and Dundalk. I used to support this team when I was in school. Back then they were called Galway Rovers and the rarely won any matches.

The icing in the cake is that the team I train beat Maynooth by a large score.

Snow Couple

Snow Couple
Originally uploaded by Brian O'Donovan

We are currently enjoying some snow in Dublin. I say enjoying because it is so rare to cause great excitement. It is bringing out the child in all of us as we build snow men and have snowball fights.

I noticed that one of my neighbors had clearly decided that it was not fair to leave a snow man out in the cold by himself. So they kindly build a companion for their snowman.

Fingal County Council meetings enter the Digital Age

I was reading a recent email from my local library when I spotted the following text in the footer:

Watch Council Meetings at http://www.fingalcoco.public-i.tv/

I clicked on the link and I must say I was very impressed with the site which offers high quality streaming video of various council meetings. What was even more impressive was the fact that the video was indexed with the agenda items being discussed so that if you wanted to hear discussion on one agenda item you could quickly locate the relevant portion of the recording.

Unfortunately the meetings them selves were about as interesting to watch as watching paint dry :-( - but I suppose the IT department can hardly be blamed for that.

Posting directly from my mobile phone

I must admit that I haven't been a very active blogger, but I just found out that it is possible to post directly from my mobile phone. Maybe this will convince me to post more fequently.

Long detailed posts from a mobile device are not veryy practical, but I promise not to start using txt shrthnd :-)