Conor's Bandon Blog

Running, Food and Local stuff from a blow-in

Unfit, cough, moi? Wheeze. What was the question again?

The war on weight continues and I am debating whether to start a weekly post on the Bloggers Belly Bulkometer. Half a stone in a week is not bad going. Those couple of bottles of wine and cans of Becks each week were obviously contributing _slightly _to the inexorable move towards Rick Waller territory. Tonight will be a major trial. Curry with brown rice, no naans and no booze in the house on my own.

First camera phone test post to wordpress

Testing, testing.

Test e-mail Blogging

Last attempt did not work

The coolest place on the planet to work - IDEO

Way back in 1999, I was on a week long training course in Stanford which had been arranged by Enterprise Ireland. It was a fabulous week and I learned a hell of a lot about entrepreneurship, the mindset of Silicon Valley and what the hell VC was all about. But the best bits of the trip were the site visits to various companies. Some were rubbish; Cisco sent in their Software Configuration Manager to tell us about version control.

Possibly the most important news of the year

Not only was my idea for a WD-40 straw retainer commercialised by someone else, now this: WD-40 Now with Smart Straw I’m booking my flight to Vegas as I type. [tags]wd40, wd-40, vegas[/tags]

Sweeeeettttttttt Caroline

I raced back to Bandon from Ballymaloe, jumped into the interview suit, thanked Mary and Claire for risking their mental health by minding our four for two days and shot off with wife riding shotgun to Killarney. The Cork-Killarney road is now my most hated road in the country. 30 mph from Crookstown to a few miles outside Ballyvourney. We arrived about 30 minutes before the meal was due to start.

Hugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Conor

The long awaited day finally arrived last saturday. For my Christmas present last year, the world’s best wife got me a place at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “Pig in A Day” course in Ballymaloe Cookery School. I hared it over to Shanagarry early on Saturday and arrived just in time. In my gormless naivete, I thought it would be an up-close-and-personal session with maybe 6-10 people. It never struck me that this was not financially feasible.

Ein Klein Nacht-Essen

I’m really hitting the limit of my thirty words of German. Until recently, my experience of German cuisine has been limited to halbe-hanchen mit frites, Curry Wurst and Kartoffelklösse. And ya know, when booze is involved, there is nothing better. But as I mentioned in my recent review, Otto has changed my view of German cooking forever. Last weekend caused me to add several inches to my girth when the parents took me out on Friday and then they baby-sat on Saturday so myself and Catherine could go out.

Repentent ex-Citroëniste

Bless me father for I have sinned. It has been four years since my last Citroën. My first car was a Citroën BX which I bought off my sister for £2000 in about 1992. A complete and utter piece of crap. God I loved that car. A month after I bought it, I discovered the front sub-frame was rusted through and needed to be replaced. That cost over a grand and after that the car sat pointing towards the sky.

Harness Racing not just for Dublin Skangers

Two weeks ago I spotted a sign near our house for “All Ireland Harness Racing” in Barryroe, about 10 miles down towards the coast. I had missed a lot of the local events in the latter part of the summer, so I figured this might be a bit of fun for us all to check out. We headed down with C&T following in their car. Just as we were about to fall into the Atlantic, we turned into a huge field which, according to my map, is very near the townland of Turkeyland.