Jun 28, 2010 by Will Mernagh
So Orla and I headed to Montreal this past weekend for the GP and it was such a good time. We stayed with my awesome cousin Heather and her better half Eric. It was a great weekend to be there with the GP on and the World Cup starting.
After the GP we headed straight to the casino to watch the games.
Heather got us some great tickets for the GP. We were sitting at turn one and got to see a lot of action.
May 28, 2010 by Will Mernagh
So we finally did it!!!
Now we will have weekends free :)
Mar 22, 2010 by Will Mernagh
Instapaper started out as a simple idea. A site to store articles for reading at a later time. Basically you bookmark articles on their site, then go there when you have some free time and catch up. There is a handy bookmarklet you can add to you browsers bookmark bar. When you are on any webpage of interest just click the “Read Later” bookmark and it saves the site for future reading.
I used to keep sites I wanted to read later in a folder in my bookmarks. I rarely removed articles from there so this grew large and messy in no time. Instapaper actually removes the articles you have read after you read them. If you want to keep interesting ones then you can just “Star” them too. This is a much better way of staying organized.
Why use it? Well I know I have a problem when online where I’ll be reading something on Wikipedia or another site and before I know it I have moved 10 sites deep from links.
Wiki → World Cup 2010 → Beckam Injures Leg → Scandinavian Therapies → Scandinavian Women.Some of the pages along the way are interesting and I always mean to go back someday. Or else I find myself actually spending hours online reading each page. This is very unproductive. Enter Instapaper. I can just click the link hit “read later” and know I will get to it at some stage.
This is especially handy at work when you are looking for a good book/tutorial on some new technology but get distracted along the way by an interesting blog post.
Now where does my Kindle come into this you may be asking. Well Instapaper has the ability to email a Kindle formatted version of all the articles you marked as to read over the last week. The file works like a newspaper with each page you marked as “Read Later” an article. So you can skip to the next article simply. You can also go to Instapaper and have them send you the file at any time. Now since sending the files to your Kindle costs a few cents there is even an option to not send the file if it contains less than a set number of articles. You can also download it for transfer via USB.
It is really great. You may even use it to read the newspaper based on the online version. Spend a few minutes clicking on the online editions articles of interest, add them to Instapaper, email them to your Kindle and hay presto.
I also use Instapaper with Tweetie on my iPhone. When I see an interesting tweet with a link I can hit the built in “Read Later” button and it adds it to my Instapaper. It asks you for you password the first time and then remembers it. So I can now get a good tweet at work and not get distracted.
Mar 18, 2010 by Will Mernagh
So I am finally getting around to posting some more photos to this site. Here are our Acadia photo from last year. Acadia was really cool. I had heard a lot of good things about it but it is hard to appreciate it until you are there. A lot of the scenery reminds me of Ireland.
There are great hiking trails for all abilities and plenty of activities. The Park Rangers are all very helpful. One informed us on how to find a really great place to jump into Jordan Pond off of a high cliff. It was a little bit of a hike in but worth it. And the water was very refreshing!
The National Park is actually an island, although you would hardly know it since it is connected by bridge, and really close to the main land. Bar Harbor is situated just out side the park and is a really nice little town. We were up there for Independence Day so it was really hopping. We even got to enjoy a Pancake Breakfast put on by the town to raise money for charities. There is a shuttle bus that runs from the camping grounds to the town which is really convenient.
The Maine coastline is amazing and there are many nice towns dotted along it. On our way home we took the scenic route (US 1) and stopped in Camden for lunch. It is another of Maine’s gems and we hope to get back there some day soon!
Thanks to Kristin and Jay for organizing the trip and taking us along. We wish you were still in MA to be our guides…
Jan 05, 2010 by Will Mernagh
We decided to escape the cold of Boston for the Christmas/New Year’s break so we headed to Cancun for a very relaxing vacation. We were there for 5 days and it was so nice. We pretty much just stayed on the beach or by the pool for all of it.
The people there were really friendly. We were surprised by the price of restaurants and bars though. We thought that Mexico would be cheeper but I guess it is a tourist trap.
The hotel we stayed at was pretty great. Really nice pools and right on the beach (private).
I would definitely recommend it.
