Travel on Neil Grogan

Go Bag(s)

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I follow Casey Liss’ blog and recently he had a great post about a technology “go pack”. Lifehacker has written about this over the years, and the Wirecutter has a great article I shared here on this very blog. Also Casey linked to a great post by Katie Floyd on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/KatieFloyd/status/630707145999314946

I finally took the hint / inspiration from all these posts, and I decided time was right to put together my own “go bag”. Here’s a picture of my tech go bag:

Going on Holidays? Check these Gadgets

Sat, 13 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a big Wirecutter fan and they don’t disappoint with this travel guide.

Visit to CERN

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I am currently in Switzerland on a business trip. In between work, I managed to get some time over the Swiss national holiday to visit the CERN. CERN is world famous for the invention of WWW and of course most recently, the almost certainty that the Higgs Boson (aka. “The God Particle”) - the particle that gives energy mass - exists.

The CERN tour is completely free and highly recommended. I visited the Atlas experiment with a colleague (who just so happened to have a Phd. in Physics) and questions were encouraged at every turn. What impressed me the most was the fact that there was no stupid questions. You can be a Phd weilding Physicist or a child and each question was handled the same by the staff. The guide (an active researcher at CERN) even expressed disappointment at the Higgs:

Inter-railing around Europe

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

As you read this, I have already embarked on an inter-railing trip around Europe. Some of the cities in the itinerary:

Amsterdam
Cologne
Nürburgring (Rock Am Ring festival)
Prague
Bratislava

I’ll definitely post up some pictures when I get back. I planned this trip with a few classmates to coincide with the completion of our four year honours degree in Computer Science.

FON, New Job and Commuting!

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I regularly read other Irish blogs to see whats happening and whats the latest tech thing amongst others. It seems that may have come to fruition, with FON, a community wifi project, sending me out a free router!! I am exicted about this, as I hope to convince all my neighbours eventually to get it, and maybe who knows, I may even achieve the biggest fon hotspot, if I take my campaign estate wide, to neighbours all around! I want to “eat my own dog food” as they say, so I will wait until I have recieved and used my router before I recommend it to non-technical people. I have read of long delays on FON’s forums, so I expect iot should be here within two to three weeks, maybe a little longer. Also it comes with a european plug, not a Irish/British one, which is a bit of a disappointment that I will have to root out the screwdriver to make it fit!!!

German Trip

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I recently travelled to Munich, Germany on a recent exchange (1st-9th Feb, 2006). Not knowing what to expect, I found a very different Germany from the text book one you read about (Bavarian Trad Dress, Beer-drinking, Pretzel Eating, Sausage loving etc!). Of course all of these elements were present, but I think a modern German society closely reflects American one, in a lot of ways. Germans are the largest group by ethnicity in United States, so maybe its just German culture prevalent in America?