SK and I have been looking for a good computer desk for a while. Good desks have the following characteristics:

they are at least three quarters of a meter deep.

they are at least a meter wide.

they do not have any silly features in them, like ergonomic “curves” and those stupid low keyboard placing shelves.

they do not require height adjustable chairs to make them comfy.

they will allow you to work on them on activities such as letter writing without having to take your computer and all the rest of your crap off them. better yet, if necessary two people could work at the desk temporarily.

they remove the necessity of using the dining room table for “household” matters such as placing bills that need to be paid etc on them.

they do not cost the earth.

essentially,they are like the nice large desk you had at work, but not quite as ugly, in order to be not as ugly, they could be like your nice dining room table, except the dining room table is for eating together at and not for dumping crap on and sitting at looking at household bills and writing cheques and letters.

our search was proving to be fruitless. such desks did not seem to exist. my parents were in posession of such a desk (large size), but, since they had bought it, all the shops in the world ceased to stock them. we had seen some nice ones in ikea, but ikea do not have a branch in ireland. in limerick this weekend, we finally found our desk. hurrah. our search was over. we are now the proud owners of a glass topped seventy five centimeter by one hundred and twenty meter table, which was being marketed as a dining room table. i spotted it initially. loving the glass, easy to keep clean top, i gestured frantically at sk for fear that before we got a chance to but it, it would disappear, or the last one in stock would be sold. sk came over to where i was standing in the shop.

i looked at sk, sk looked at me, we both looked at the table again.

“desk!” i said.

“desk!” he said.

“ninety nine euro !!” i said.

“what?” he said (we had been semi considering dining room tables costing eight hundred euro and upwards (imaginary money spending semi considering))

“ninety nine euro ! !” i said

“i have a problem!” he said

“what problem? we are not walking out of this shop with another voucher unspent!”. (since are wedding almost a year ago, we still have vouchers we are struggling to spend.)

“we’ll need a mouse mat!”

“a mouse mat?”

“yes. our mouse is optical”

“so we’ll buy a mousemat. or use one that we have?”

“ok. i’ll go and order one now.”

two hours later, we picked up our new dining room table that we prefer to use as a desk from instore. instore is my home computer desk hero.

i’m no meterologist. i have no great understanding of the weather other than low pressure, high pressure, isobars, wind direction, pretty basic stuff.

blue in the face from being frustrated by weather forecasts, (rain that never appears) i have started looking at met eireann’s satellite images. i particulary like the north atlantic images.

i don’t claim to know the timing of how long it will take a front to develop, but if i see lots of dark rather than white over Ireland, I know there is little cloud. If the dark extends from the West Coast to the East Coast when I check the images, I know it is likely to be a sunny day, all day, in Dublin. Provided there are westerly winds, if the winds are easterly, then you need to check the forecasted satellite imagery over the UK. I check in the morning and again at lunch time and again broadband permitting, in the afternoon, provided i am not elsewhere.

Life gives you satellite imagery. Make your own forecast.

I mean no disrespect to our meterologists, but, it is sort of fun trying to figure it out yourself and seeing wheter you are right or wrong in the general scheme of things.

So far, my forecasts satisfy my needs. Bear in mind i look at additonal data, like windspeeds, wind direction etc.

As an aside to met eireann’s data, i recently discovered that their Valentia weather station is not located on Valentia Island. It is located on the mainland, near Cahirciveen in Co. Kerry. I was most dissapointed to learn this, as was SK . Mind you, Met Eireann are totally upfront about this, I just always assumed it was on the island.

Further proof of this adage: never assume, never presume, prove to yourself that what you think you know is actually correct.

Is there an alternative to management companies? People often say their management company is terrible and would voice some dis-satisfaction with them. My limited experience of them is that, yes, they are absolutely terrible. They apply a one size fits all attitude and are never around to fix problems or oversee maintenance appropriately. In a brand new development, this is not immediately obvious, because everything is new and shiny looking, but, given time, things can start to go down hill and maintenance drops in standard.

Residents, collectively, surely are within their rights to sack management companies. Once the directors have been appointed from the residents of a development, then the management company can be sacked, or a motion to do so can be tabled at a management company meeting. I hear stories of management companies being the ones chairing management meetings. As the person who tells me the stories of management company meetings asked, Who appointed them the chair? People may be taking it for granted that they are the ones in charge, in authority, when in reality, they are only an agent, with no say what so ever. They are the ones to be told what to do by the residents.

My alternative to all that nonsense and headache is is co-operatives. Run by residents. I some times wonder, why the co-op movement has not taken off in Ireland. It occured to me that a very good way to get a management company out of your hair is to set up a co-op. It is a very successful practice in New York. (Co-ops, not management companies).

Market rate co-ops allow members to sell their share in the co-op when ever they like, for what the market will bear. Members in the co-op are the ones who own the property collectively. Each share holder in the co-op is granted shares reflecting their equity in the co-op. So, not so different to what you would be doing anyway. There are also not for profit co-ops which seem like a good way to manage affordable housing schemes, but that is another matter entirely.

The development I live in seems like the perfect place to set up a market rate co-op as a test case. Of course, it would take willing residents to participate in the day to day management and you’d want to be pretty confident in the person managing the financial side of things. But as the co-op would be a company, the company could hire professionals to carry out these various tasks, i.e. maintenance, landscaping, accounting, cleaning e.t.c.
Wikipedia has more on co-ops. As does ICOS, where they out line the steps in developing a co-op. Once a co-op is incorportated, it is a limited liability, so, not all that different to companies required for managing residential buildings.

Or, if anyone knows of property co-ops in Ireland, perhaps they could let me know via a comment.