I'm Rory Parle, an Irish software engineer living in London.
A brief list of interesting things, culled from the items I shared in Google Reader in the last week:
Living in London allows you to do some things that were never really available at home. For example, I now have the realistic prospect of participating in a TV game show. One of the ones that you watch with incredulity while sitting at home with man flu, perplexed by the incompetence of the participants. Who hasn’t dreamed of laying the intellectual smack-down on the contestants of Wheel of Fortune?
I also now have the ability to order beer in quantities smaller than a pint and not get a look of deepest suspicion. That was never an option at home.
Something I’m more immediately interested in than either the game show or the girl’s drink is to watch a TV recording. I’ve done this at home (where “home” refers to Dublin here; I’m still adjusting), but back there you’re limited to a handful of middling quality shows.
London, on the other hand, is the home of the BBC, and is the location where many of the best shows in the world are recorded. It would be a boon to be able to know when tickets for these shows—which are invariably free—become available.
Good thing this listing has an RSS feed then. It’s just one more reason to love the BBC, and the Internet.
I can’t remember the last significant blog post I wrote—in fact I’ve been pretty thoroughly out-posted by one of my more prolific WordPress plug-ins recently—but in the time I’ve been away one thing stands out as the major change in my life. One experience that is entirely new to me. One thing that has changed my perspective on things. One adventure that I had never dreamed of embarking on. One effort that took months to complete, but is finally done.
I’ve grown a new thumbnail on my right hand.
It’s a little lumpy in places because the old nail was still there during much of the new one’s growth, and it’s still uneven at the free edge. But when I look at it I still get that sense of pride in one’s own achievement. It may be crap, but I made it myself. From scratch.
There is not much to tell about the time in which I grew the nail. I damaged its predecessor around the time that the closure of Google Dublin’s software engineering section was announced. My infected thumb gave me all the motivation I needed to skip out on most of the group therapy sessions that ensued from that news. Instead I spent my time waiting in doctors’ offices while swigging from a bottle of children’s strength painkillers.
Once the whole process had kicked off I pretty much relegated the nail growth to a background task. Given the anguish that accompanied the original injury, the bulk of the recovery was surprisingly easy. Even the protrusion of my injured appendage predicted by adage failed to occur. This sore thumb remained resolutely in place.
In the weeks that followed I made plans for the future—plans which confidently assumed the presence of a full complement of digits. I met new colleagues and awkwardly shook their right hands with my left. I bid farewell to the friends and colleagues who had helped—or at least failed to actively hinder me—with my recovery.
Last week I packed up my possessions in the manner of one who has been reduced to a single useful opposable digit. All of it was boxed up and stashed in my parents house to await the movers—people who, as professional relocators, are presumably in prime shape to use all of their thumbs.
Then, only seven days ago, I flew to London to start my new life with my new thumbnail.
A brief list of interesting things, culled from the items I shared in Google Reader in the last week:
A brief list of interesting things, culled from the items I shared in Google Reader in the last week:
A brief list of interesting things, culled from the items I shared in Google Reader in the last week: