Hans Vans Shannon

Van's Shannons

Got a visit from Madame Linane Shannon last week. Great to see her and great to see her in such good form. And there's congratulations afoot aswell - Linda and Siamak are expecting! Or Linda is having a baby for Siamak. Or with Siamak. Or by Siamak. Hans, by Siamak

--> -->® So we spent hours talking about what to expect while expecting. But it's pretty pointless when you consider that we could never in out wildest dreams have expected....... this :


or........this:



We've discovered that I have a photographic memory..... in that I need photographs to remember anything. My memory is deeply dysfunctional. I never remember dreams, I can watch a movie a month after seeing it for the first time and still be surprised by the plot twists. I meet people I went to school with and don't remember their names. M asked me recently what were the favourite bits from my primary school years and I couldn't remember....... anything. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I went to national school in Caragh. I'm pretty good with music though, setlists, lyrics, what kind of guitar the guy from that band was playing for that song in Whelans etc. But it's interesting living with someone who remembers her childhood in such extraordinarily vivid detail and can relate stories about 100 acre fields and going picking mushrooms as a five or six year old and the way one of her teachers used to pick his headscabs and flick them across the classroom. Whereas I need flash cards to remind me where I went to school and who was in my class. Google can't help you restore memories. Speaking of Google and memories - be very afraid of the cloud. I recently lost a huge and very detailed To Do list stored on Google Notebook. I depend on lists because my memory is so deficient so when I dump my brain into the cloud and the cloud swallows it without trace or excuse, it's a very bad thing. After the feeling of utter panic - what do i do next? what am i supposed to be doing now? the profound stillness in my brain engulfed me and I was simultaneously terrified and relieved. I was on a PM course recently and the guy was talking about time management and more specifically about keeping your inbox clean and he suggested a method for freeing up a lot of your time which he called "Extreme Time Management". Pick out what you consider to be the 10 most important emails in your inbox and delete everything else. Anything that was important will come back to you. An interesting approach. Well I never got the chance to bargain with the cloud. Remember this: you cannot bargain with the cloud. The cloud does not have a conscience. The cloud does not have a complaints commission or an Arthur Murphy's Mailbag. You cannot "talk to Joe" if the cloud fucks you over. Jesus Saves. Nimbus does not. A big part of the reason why I semi-maintain this blog is not for the edification of the hordes of avid readers (including no doubt all of my old school friends). It's primarily a words and picture tool for me to remember stuff. Remind me to remember to back it up aswell so the if the cloud does eat my homework, I wont get in trouble with that teacher with the headscabs.

A photographic memory

We all spent last weekend in the lovely Gaillimh with Gill Graham and Ava. I've heard of mate dates and double dates. But not until my very own family came along would I ever have considered a family date. We hung out in the city, got rained on, ate all around us, went to the beach, had some surf'n'turf' and turf'n'turf, killed the music industry by swapping loads of music, went proper drinking (well, the lads did anyways) with Martini (more than 2 beers is proper drinking for me these days), met people called Gugai, Elton and Smithy and heard all about the Camino de Santiago. Then we topped it all off with the shortest ever walk on the prom in Salthill where Ava told a G4 type lady with a very obviously adopted son that her dog's tongue looked like ham. The woman asked her what age she was and Ava promptly replied, very sincerely, "A-V-A". So great crack. Preparations are well under way for the wedding of the year in Siena. I'm reliably informed that the squat test has been done on both the suit and the dress and we all cant wait to get down to the business of a week long wedding.

Work has kicked off in a big way. Loads of overtime and working weekends, the only positive being the Summer we're having weatherwise. Hence the reason why I haven't been around much. We've been given an impossible to hit deadline after over a year of doing not very much. The most bizarre project I've ever been on from a planning perspective. The current analogy of our task doing the rounds in the team is that we're building an aeroplane while we're flying from plans that are constantly changing. My catchphrase has become "My indecision is final". Not pleasant. But all experience is good experience and I'm sure we'll deliver something usable. Problem is the launch date has been set/pulled out of the air for the week we're away at Gill and Graham and Ava's wedding in Italia :| I'll really need to ensure that the squat test is also performed on the system prior to my departure.

A reminder to go walking more, when the weather clears up and when things calm down

And finally I was listening to John Walshe being interviewed and he mentioned something about one of his relatives, an old dear who listened to Val Dounican's radio show religiously and hatched a plan to knit Val a sweater with his initials on it......... Bless.

D and Aunty Linda