Thomil's Random Ramblings

So, on Tuesday my landlord (Well, technically, she's a landlady) dropped a notice of termination of tenancy in my mailbox. Great. Fantastic. Just the kind of thing you need after a day at work that need up with my MacBook Pro being bricked (Yep, you read that right. I upgraded), and generally nothing going the way it should. A Quick check on daft.ie, Ireland's premier real estate website did nothing to lift my sprits. Trying to get anything fit for human habitation under 900€? Forget it! But what could I do?  Home, sweet home. Not for much longer... Sleep over it, that's what I did. Anything looks different after a good night's sleep. Or, in this case, a good couple of hours at least. It was enough for me. And while I generally don't really give much credence to divine influence, horoscopes, destiny, all that kind of hokum, I couldn't really shake the feeling that whatever powers hold sway up there were sending me a message. It had rained heavily overnigh...

Well, sometimes you just have to start with a bang, or in this case with a device that delivers them. This artillery piece forms the centrepiece of Barrack Square, my workplace for well over a year now, since my departure from Apple in early 2016. And let me tell you, the difference between my former workplace in the extreme northwest of Cork City, hemmed in between a social  black spot and a half abandoned industrial estate, and the small town, suburban atmosphere of Ballincollig couldn’t be any bigger. No, I haven’t completely lost my marbles, and yes this is a bit of an esoteric topic, especially for those who don’t live in the Cork metro area. Still, despite its apparent obscurity, Ballincollig has quite a bit of history on offer, both in actual historic terms, and in recent terms, especially with regards to the crippling economic crisis of 2008. What’s more, quite a bit of the history of the town is actually incorporated into the current urban landscape. So all in all, t...