My second 2nd dose of the Pfizer vaccine is scheduled for this morning at the Aviva Stadium. Surprisingly, there isn’t a direct bus there, so I decide to take a taxi just to make sure I’m on time. The driver is chatty… he mentions he has a large family (seven children!), and talks about the UEFA Euro 2020 football championship games and how much he can’t wait to see a...
This morning I get up in anticipation of my weekly SuperValu grocery delivery, which I’ve moved from Fridays to Saturdays. While I’m waiting I have a quick breakfast and start cleaning around the apartment. The groceries show up in the earlier half of the 2-hour delivery window. It’s one of the regular delivery people, a man probably around my age or slightly younger who has...
The good weather finally gave way to more grey skies and some rain starting mid-week. I’ve been staying in for the most part, trying to keep on track with my studies for my second accounting exam on July 14. It feels like my energy and attention has been spread thinly over a variety of pending projects and concerns. As the last full week of June comes to a close, marking 9 months since...
It’s been more good weather here in Dublin for the summer solstice today, despite forecasts for rain that have been postponed until later in the week. This morning an IT person from Jigsaw stopped by to pick up the unopened laptop and cell phone that had been delivered a couple of weeks ago. Still no word from University College Dublin yet. I ran a few errands in the afternoon to make...
It’s been a quiet Sunday. Since I’m caught up on my CMA exam studies and in a holding pattern with the job situation, I’ve been spending most of the day doing some initial work on migrating this blog to a new platform. When I first started The Ireland Dispatch, I chose the most easiest-to-use, off-the-shelf and free platform available, i.e., Blogger, which was originally...
Job update – still waiting on UCD I had hoped I might hear back from University College Dublin yesterday (Friday), but I’m still waiting to receive the formal offer from them… hopefully I will get it first thing next week. In the meantime, I spoke with the HR person at Jigsaw and rescinded my acceptance of the position with them. They had already been more than patient with me, and I...
I’ve been taking a break for a couple of days from my CMA studies, but I’ll have to pick it up again soon… there’s less than a month to go before exam #2. So far I’ve been able to keep up with the accelerated pace. The good weather has continued, although this morning we had some rain and it’s been slightly cooler. Later in the day, the sunny / partly cloudy...
It’s been an interesting past few days. Tomorrow (Monday) was supposed to be my first day of work at Jigsaw, but there was an unexpected turn of events on Friday. Previously I had interviewed for two positions at University College Dublin (UCD) but was not selected for either of those jobs. However, a third opening at UCD in their Research Finance Office came up after my initial...
It’s been a relatively warm and humid week. Today’s high crept into the low 70s F / low 20s C, with more good weather ahead. Yesterday the humidity shot up in the 80% range after some rain, which made the air feel much heavier than normal. I’ve been keeping the windows open and using my bedroom fan in the living room to keep the apartment a comfortable, cool temperature. I have...
It appears that while my post from last Friday was published publicly on the blog webpage, it was never sent out via email to any subscribers… this was due to user (my) error. At some point I’ll need to migrate the blog over to WordPress because Google is shutting down Blogger.com’s subscriber email function, but I’m sticking with this for now. Today outdoor hospitality...