Back Home!

Well, after a bit of a hiatus from work and blogging, I have returned from my trip to Ireland and the Isle of Man.  We spent most of our time on the Isle of Man and I just loved it.  I could so retire there!

Dublin was okay, but I don’t even care much for big cities in Canada, so it didn’t have much of an appeal for me.  We did do the hop on/hop off bus to see the sights though, and there is way more history there than in Canada.  We also did a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and saw some nice views on the way there and the way back.

The Isle of Man had quite a draw for me, though.  We had a lovely room facing the sea in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man.  From there, we could walk to the shops and take tours to anywhere on the island.  We hired a taxi to drive us south and the sights were amazing.  We stopped several places for a walk around and pictures:  Rushen Abbey, Castle Rushen and a lovely farm along the way too.  How beautiful it was!

I have to say that Peel Castle was my favorite.  We had a taxi drive us directly there on another day.  The original part of the castle was built in the 11^th century.  Imagine that!  Parts of it are still standing.  It was so amazing.  There were even two different churches that were part of the structure.  We stayed late that evening to get some pictures of the sunset that we were told were amazing.  We were not disappointed.

Another day, we took the electric train north, to see the east coastline and visit Ramsey.  It was a lovely little town on the coast.  But I have to say that I didn’t feel as at home as I did in Peel.

Well, one day, if I win big on the lottery, I shall buy a home there.  The Isle of Man is so lovely and steeped in history.  It would be a wonderful place to retire and spend the rest of my life writing.

Isle of Man

I have never been to the Isle of Man.  I’m heading across the pond tomorrow!

My mother-in-law is from the Isle of Man, so I am part of her family that is going over to the Isle of Man to give her one more visit.  She is 82 and except for the Alzheimer’s, she is reasonable healthy.

We leave tomorrow and everything is pretty much ready except for the packing, which shouldn’t take long.  Our house sitter / cat sitter even came by for the key yesterday, so all is under control.

I was planning to take my laptop to do a bit of work while I was away, but my boss talked me into just having a nice vacation from our day-to-day stuff, so I should be truly rested when I return.

So here’s the plan:  the eight of us fly into Dublin, where we will spend a day to try to get used to being five hours ahead of our regular time, then we take the two and a half hour ferry to the Isle of Man, where we will stay and tour for five days then we ferry back to Dublin for three days of some sightseeing there, then, of course we are back to Canada and reality.  Sounds like fun!  I’m really looking forward to it!

So, just a little history lesson:  The island's parliament, Tynwald, has been in continuous existence since 979 AD or earlier, making it the oldest continuously governing body in the world.^[32] Tynwald is a bicameral or tricameral legislature, comprising the House of Keys (directly elected by universal suffrage) and the Legislative Council (consisting of indirectly elected and ex-officio members). These two bodies meet together in joint session as Tynwald. (taken from Wikipedia!).  Interestingly enough, the Canadian parliament is based on this government, which has been in continuous existence for over 1,000 years!  Pretty amazing!

This should be a great trip, and likely means that I won’t be doing my weekly blog next weekend, but stay tuned for the following week, when I should have some fun stuff to say about the trip!

CISO Planning

I just spent several days out in beautiful Alberta, for work.  I spent about a day and a half in our Calgary office and about a day and a half in gorgeous Kananaskis country working with our Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and other leaders on our team.

The first part of the visit was to connect with folks I work with in the Calgary office.  When you work from Toronto, it is so nice to actually be in the same room with your colleagues from time-to-time.  Two guys were even up from the Houston office.

The second part of the visit was to sit with my colleagues and do a three year plan for our IT Risk team.  It was a great experience and I have to say that those guys are the greatest to work with.  The collaboration was amazing.  We managed to hammer out our vision, the mandate and the principles and strategies.  We even presented it to our Chief Information Officer (CIO) on the second day and with a few tweaks, we were all in agreement.

We  now have some work to do, of course,  Each of the six strategies were assigned to someone who is to now come up with a charter and flesh out the ideas.  This will be the busiest part!

I will lead the charge for strengthening and expanding our IT Risk Management service.  This may sound boring, but I’m quite looking forward to it!  My challenge is that we are meeting with our CISO in three weeks and I’m on vacation for more than half of it!  Yikes!

So, I guess that I have a lot of work to do and then I’ll be on the phone a bit, while vacationing in the Isle of Man.  Oh well, it needs to be done!