April update

The strangest times.

I'm glad I went out almost every weekend from the work party on 20th December 2019 to Itzacon Valentine's weekend 2020. I was preparing for that period which include Christmas, New Year's and my birthday for ages haha. I knew I would be taking time off from going out afterward, with only really Paddy's day and some stuff in April to look forward to. Little did I know I'd be essentially house-bound from March onward!

I had my birthday in Dublin; I went up and stayed with Royce, Pelle and Sean in Phibsborough and had an incredible night out. I went up on Saturday and was home on Sunday evening; that suited me as I had the Monday off anyway.

Itzacon was good, as usual I didn't go to any events but went to the college bar on Friday and caught up with a good few people. Had a great time out in the smoking area with people old and new. We migrated to Sally's later. The Saturday nigth was even better, went to the Salthouse for a friend's birthday and was pleasantly surprised to see the Itzacon crew show up later. We even had a lock in of sorts. A very nice night indeed.

There weren't too many other milestones; I was in the process of arranging a trip to Prague around the Easter weekend, to make full use of that bank holiday Monday. Glad I didn't arrange anything now as each evening I went in the flu got worse and worse in Europe. Finally 12th March -ish when they closed the schools things got real. I had a big night out that Friday the 13th planned that was changed to a house party and eventually I decided against it. Looking back it would probably have been fine but can't take any chances and sure only 7 people went in the end.

Oh yes and my driver's license arrived in February but I never got around to doing anything with it. I had hoped to start around April or May at the latest but all that will have to wait.

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I am unusually suited to this whole situation. Just look at the title of the blog. I'm at home with my parents and younger sister and we're all managing fine. I was going to work the whole time, Monday to Friday, which was only a 500m walk from my house anyway. I was evening shift and on account of the pandemic my hours were changed for the millionth time to the old 5pm to 2am ones we started with way back in September. This would give the day guys time to clear out. As of 3rd April 2020 I'm finished there.

Evening shift was ended, start of September 2019 to the end of March 2020. It was a great six months really, it allowed me to get away from the troubles of day shift and while I was stressed and anxious about the evening shift as so much of it fell on me it was also a huge success and I must take most of the credit.

With the exception of our incredible manufacturing engineer who was on call for any problem I had, it was essentially me on my own doing every support role as the evening shift grew from 2 operators and 2 trainers to 15 operators, 1 manufacturing technician and 1 quality technician. I requested help in late 2019 and my bosses recruited a supervisor who was incredible, she was a real shot in the arm to everyone and could handle the discipline side of things etc allowing me to focus and making everything run smoothly. She was so good they had her on days for a while full time and split shift and she transformed them as well. At one point evening shift was 45% more efficient than the day shift, which had twice the amount of people and an entire team of support staff.

As the pandemic escalated my supervisor who was a line lead over in the ventilator factory across town was recalled along with the big boss of our plant. Two weeks ago they took her, him and about half the evening shift operators to go make ventilators. The last week of evening shift it was me and one other trying to keep the whole line running while the other 4 ops who were trained on only 1 or 2 things just got by. They took all them across to the ventilator place on 27th March, leaving me to go back to days.

I had got a call asking me to be a line lead on the new night shift over in the ventilator place, working under my supervisor who was now a supervisor for good. I was delighted but was asked to stay in my old place for a while. It was a weird week, not least because I had to somehow adapt from waking up at 11 or 12 in the day to around 7 in the morning. Monday was bad due to maybe 3-4 hours sleep but everyone was really, really nice and I had some nice jobs to do. The rest of the week was grand and on Wednesday afternoon I finally got the go ahead to leave my old place and start in the ventilator place on the 6th of April.

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Theo turned 8 on Monday the 30th of March. I was wrecked tired that day so instead of calling around 5 after work when he was born I called around noon. Theo is over at Cathy's for the last few weeks, it isn't easy but they are doing pretty well over there. He has come along leaps and bounds and is even reading, which I'm delighted with. Cathy is doing a really good job over there and is lucky to have K and her son L over there as well, who is a year younger than Theo so they can keep each other busy.

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So I'm cotinuing my weightlifting routine which I started in late July / early August 2019 and have progressed immensely. I went for my run on Wednesday 18th March but the track was closed down. I should have expected this. I was up to around 10km or 11km and feeling fine. The new plan is to either walk or cycle over to Mervue to work so this should cover that.

As for the weights and whatnot, it's going really really well. Push ups, bike crunches, dips and planks followed by seven dumb bell exercises and finally barbell - upright row and curls. Huge props to bike crunches and planks for changing my body the most and alleviating the back pain I got from sit ups, I found I just couldn't do them any more without pain. MVP is possible the upright row, about to lift 50kg starting tomorrow and I think it has helped my back pain the most.

Nutrition has been fun; my sweet tooth was much dimished following the events of 2018 so that helped. I've been taking sweetened, caffeinated pre workouts since October which have been a bit easier than coffee to take and fun to incorporate.
 I was eating creatine pills mid workout but they were these horrific sweetened ones which were vile. I eventually finished them and ordered unsweetened creatine powder instead. Of all the stuff, I'm least sure what this does but what the heck.
 Finally, protein powder with my meal after workout. I got a giant tub of natural whey with a slight vanilla flavour. It's the best thing of the three. I made sure to get an unsweetend, 'natural'-seeming powder as I feared getting a super tasty vanilla powder.
 Oh and for months now I've been sampling protein bars with my lunches at work and the best are Fulfil which I believe are Irish. I get everything off Hp Nutrition based in Ireland.

The end goal is to reach August 2020 in the best possible shape and see from there; it's a first for me but has been really good and exciting. I guess if I can lift 75kg comfortably enough that would be cool. That's a modest goal and I'm 2/3rd of the way there. My goal from August 2020 to 2021 could be to double that, that or mix it up with different exercises. Might even expand into yoga which I've been dying to try.

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I still have my old Dell Inspiron 15 laptop 7000 series with a i7 processor and I think either side of 1000 nvidia graphics card. I got it in August 2017 with my emergency tax refund. I now have it set up so it's level with my neck as I sit in my new chair I put together a few weeks ago before the flu kicked off. It's a great chair. I bought a Hyper X keyboard that lights up and whatnot for about 50 quid but it's not teh best for typing I find, or else I'm just not used to it.

It's a nice set up for now but am looking into getting a desktop. Partially because I'm saving quite a bit not getting 1-2 takeaways a week and not going out once a week. Also gotta celebrate new job somehow and have been very frugal by and large the last few years. I've still saved a lot in my credit union.

I'm looking at getting the highest i7 I can get, an nvidia graphics card around the 2000 mark and franly too much storage in the hdd (2-4TB is insanity, I have 1 now) and once again, an SSD. I had one in my last two laptops (old dead bluey and weak but reliable Samsung) but this current one had two main weaknesses when I picked it up and I knew it: no SSD and no disc drive. The latter didn't matter and I returned a USB one I got as I just didn't need it any longer. The former was missed from the start and is starting to show. Desktop will also need a monitor and some other peripherals I'm sure but all in all I'm looking at somewhere from 2000 to 3000 euro. That's while putting it together myself! However upon further research I'm seeing a lot of pre-built towers that are matching my specs and are working out cheaper AND no need to assemble. I would die if I spent 2500 euro on something and wired it incorrectly or had to send it back and forth to the shop. Maybe next time in future.

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Anyway that's enough rambling. Hoping this all ends soon and things go back to relative normality.