To Be Frank …

Well, it’s gotta be better than that cheesy Tom Hanks film !

Sleeplessness is catching up with me alright … Michael has been doing great until the hour changed … he’d sleep until about 0630 or so, when I’d be getting up anyway! But the hour-change into summer-time has upset his rhythm a little, and he’s now waking up at about 5am … meaning I get less sleep, cos I end up burping him after Sinéad feeds him, leaving me with a half-hour of snooze-time before the alarm goes off …

Oh well …

In other news, he’s regained his birth-weight, and is generally doing well … (especially in the lungs department !!)

You will be !

How to land a 747.
OK, so you’re a frequent flier like me. You need to be prepared for that occasional instance when there’s an accident and you need to land the plane. Simply commit the following to memory and fly with confidence!

Main checklist

1. Get on the radio, and tell whoever’s listening that you have a problem and don’t know exactly what to do.

2. Engage a single channel of the autopilot — light one of the buttons labeled “CMD.” Point the heading indicator in the direction indicated to keep the plane straight and level.

3. Find the checklists in the side pocket of the pilot’s and copilot’s seat. If the plane turns out to be a 747-400, you’re in luck: just engage the Automatic Landing System (ALS). If it isn’t a 747-400, see below under “No ALS.”

4. If you can’t find the checklists, use these:

   1. Before descent.

      1. EO’s system check completed.
      2. Pressurization set.
      3. All a/c packs on. Set the airfield altitude so the plane is depressurized on landing.
      4. Humidifier off.
      5. HSIs: Radio. Switch horizontal situation indicators to radio navigation mode.
      6. Approach briefing: understood. This is where you get a full briefing by the landing pilot, but since that’s you, you might as well skip this step.
      7. Auto brakes: set. Hopefully the brakes start working when you touch down.

   2. call: “Cabin crew 15 minutes to landing.”
   3. Cabin signs and exit lights: on.
   4. Ignition: on. This sets the engine igniters for landing.
   5. Fuel system: set for landing.
   6. Fuel heat: check/off
   7. QNH: Set. So the altimeters read the airfield altitude on touchdown.

5. : handle down, handle in, light green.
6. Speedbrake: armed. So you don’t bounce.
7. Hydraulics: checked.
8. Landing flap: set at 25 degrees.
9. SCCM’s report: received. The cabins are secure for landing.
10. Find the Jeppeson charts. A big notebook of maps and landing approaches for every airport in the world. Locate the radio frequency.
11. Find the flight management system. Buttons on the glareshield marked LNAV and VNAV.
12. Put the Jeppeson map on a 100 mile scale using the EFIS control panel on the front panel. You’ll get a yellow FMC message on the middle screen when it’s time to land.
13. On the control display unit between the pilots’ seats, twist the knob until the little numbers go down to 100 ft. above field elevation in the Jeppeson notebook.
14. Get the aircraft set to land: press the LOC and G/S buttons on the glareshield. All three CMD lights will go on, and the system will automatically tune to the right ILS frequency.
15. Turn on the autobrakes when the plane starts descending. You’re done.

No ALS?
You probably won’t make it, but hey — might as well try.

1. Retard the throttle. Four levers for four engines.
2. Keep the nose up, and descend to 20,000 feet. When you get there, bring the throttles back up. You’ll still be going 300 knots or so.
3. You have to drop below 250 knots when you descend to 9,000 feet. Keep the nose up and throttle down.
4. When the tower brings you down to 5,000 feet.You need those flaps out so you can fly slow.
5. Drop airspeed by setting flaps to 5, then 15, when you’re down to 4,000 feet.
6. As you start descending to the runway, you want flaps 20, then 30. Keep them there.
7. When you reach 50 feet or so, the radar altimeter will start talking.
8. When it says, “30,” bring the throttle back to idle.
9. At 10 feet, raise the nose to slow down.
10. Lower the nose, reverse throttles, and apply the brakes. Cake.
    

    ---

Merde!, That’s not Osama !
A Frenchman has been convicted for trying to run over a pedestrian he mistook for Osama bin Laden – which could have earned him a $7 million bounty.

*sigh*

Ever thought about having children but arent sure.
Follow the test and see if you are ready for it

Follow these 15 simple tests before you decide to have children…

Test 1
Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months remove 10% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for paternity, go to local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself.
Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they
might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3
To discover how the nights will feel …
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4-6kg, with a radio tuned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am 4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off
10. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Test 4
Dressing small children is not as easy at it seems.
1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this – all morning.

Test 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door saloon. And don’t think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and shining. Family Cars don’t look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a coin. Insert it in the cassette player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate biscuits, mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. . perfect!

Test 6
Get ready to go out.
1. Wait
2. Go out the front door.
3. Come in again.
4. Go out.
5. Come back in.
6. Go out again.
7. Walk down the front path/driveway.
8. Walk back up it.
9. Walk down it again.
10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps.
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Test 8
Go the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your weeks groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9
Hollow out a melon.
1. Make a small hole in the side.
2. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it from side to side
3. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an aeroplane.
4. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
5. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.
You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old child.

Test 10
Learn the names of every character from the Fimbles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.

Test 11
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?

Test 12
Make a recording of Janet Street-Porter shouting “Mummy” repeatedly. Important: No more than a four second delay between each “Mummy ” – occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continuously tug on your skirt hem/shirt sleeve/elbow while playing the “Mummy” Tape made from Test 12 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14
Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:
1. Take a cup of cream, and put 1 cup lemon juice in it.
2. Stir.
3. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture.
4. Attempt to clean your shirt with the saturated towel.
5. Do NOT change. You have no time.
6. Go directly to work.

Test 15
Go for a drive, but first…
1. Find one large tomcat and six pit bulls.
2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.
3. Put the pit bulls in the front seat of your car.
4. While holding something fragile or delicate, strap the cat into the
child seat.
5. For the really adventurous…… Run some errands, remove and replace the cat at each stop.

You are now ready to have kids.

It’s strange being called Daddy … even stranger to be one … but it’s worth everything !

Took this one while he was still in the incubator – he’s only about 45 mins old here.

Weighing in at 8lb 7oz, Michael Colm Walsh.
Born yesterday morning at 0930 in Holles St. All doing well.
I have to say I’m on a right high !

More when I calm down and get time !!!

It’s hard to imagine that it’s only 10 years since the first SPAM was posted to Usenet, in the intervening years we’ve since been sent everything from offers of Green Cards, University Diplomas, Get Rich Quick schemes, Viagra, Debt consolidation, and more recently various viruses.

It’s a sad reflection that every method of communication is now smothered in advertisements from random companies (both legitimate and otherwise) trying to peddle their wares on the general public.

Spams tenth birthday

No sign of TIFKAB[0] yet … three days late so far, although it’s not unusual for first children to go two weeks overdue. The suspense is killing me, as indeed is the lack of sleep !

[0] The Infant Formerly Known As ‘Bump’