July 2006 Archives

The legitmate garden variety, not the type that drops into a BlogHer panel unannounced.

her diy rhinestone crafty cell. She brushed glue on the clam shell cover and then put the rhinestones.

Fri 07.28.06 - Trip to Whole Foods for wine and cheese.

Thurs 07.27.06 - Lynne and I at the BlogHer 2006 panelist and blogger party.

Thurs 07.27.06 - On the way to the BlogHer panelist and blogger party.

Thur 07.27. 06 - Lauren, Erika, and Megan.

I am all packed to leave tomorrow morning for BlogHer. I will be flying from Dublin to LA and then driving up with Lauren, Erika, and Megan to San Jose for BlogHer, with Julie Wanda and Tink joining us later Thursday evening. I am very excited to go home to Calif for a week, to hang out with friends, see Scruffy, and go to BlogHer.

Last year's inaugural BlogHer was a one day blogging love-in and towards the end - a festival. This year is two days. In two days, how much trouble can we get into? Lots.

I will be speaking on Day Two at 3:30pm with Liz Perry and Mrs. Kennedy on "Is Your Blog a Gallery or a Canvas?"

Watch this space for photos and text for the plane trip, the road trip, and the blog trip.

On another note, last friday, I was in the MSCMM computer lab when Trinity College Computer Science Dept. networking / help wiz, Geraldine "Mary" Loftus, who came in to install some software on our machines. We got talking about BlogHer and Geraldine's blog research.

Geraldine is finishing up her Master's degree at DCU in Internet Systems and just submitted her master's thesis on Irish Blog Research. Blogs have not really taken off in Ireland and Geraldine wanted to figure out why. She also wanted to come to BlogHer this year, but it didn't work out given it was so close to her submission date. Check out Geraldine's blog and her research.

We both decided that someone, not us, needs to do research on why women are at least 50% or more of bloggers worldwide but continue to rate their IT skills as lower than men of similiar skills...

Mon 07.24.06 - Irish Skies.

Photo taken on Sun. July 16, 2006 with a Nokia N80 camera phone.

Here is how I figured out I am really homesick...

Yesterday, Saturday, I had my bags all packed and lined up in my room before noon. Yes, I am packed for this Wednesday, for the trip to LA and San Jose (BlogHer!). I packed four days early. I usually pack in a mad whirlwind 22 minutes before leaving for the airport. This flurry of pre-packing activity was both very funny and more than slightly sad.

How I hate the use of the word "partner" to indicate one's boyfriend / girlfriend / f*^k buddy / lover / husband / wife / etc.

People, people, people....

If you are doing business with someone, they are your partner.
If you have been promoted at your firm and your name is on the company title, then the other humans whose name are on the company title are your partners.
If you are a cop, then you have a partner.
If you and your dog Spot and your horse Silver and your partner Tonto need to make a decision about which road to take... well then, choose the high road not the low road.

If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, that person is your boyfriend or girlfriend, not your "partner".
If you have a lover, f*^k buddy, amore, affair, it is that, not your partner.
If you have a husband, wife, long-term live in relationship without a church / state contract, then that person is your husband, wife, common law spouse, or love of your life, not your partner.
If your relationship does not fit in a convenient term, then make up one, or use a nice love name, not partner.

Hello People, this is your love, not your bureaucratic colleague.

I frequently walk from the Luas to the Upper Rathmines Road shops via Cowper Road and there is this big beautiful place. Is it a rest home? Church institution? Anyone know?

Dave & Alexander from Vodadone Ireland's MMS group came to conduct a marketing survey on a group of the MSCMM students.

Simon wearing Shonagh's glasses during a meeting.

I need to go to bed, but if I don't write this post now, I will forget in the craziness that is tomorrow...

First off, I have the best sister ever. Really. Today, I received a care package from my sister Allison tht contained the last few weeks of Sunday comics from the LA Times. Ah, the joy of Zits...

For the meat of this post, the new word phrase I made up today whilst trying to describe the time/sound/relational pacifer phenomenon of television watching / having it on for company's sake that many folks participate in, as we drove to the Shannon Airport:

"TV is the pyscho-socio-emotional binky for extroverts."

Mon 07.17.06 - Not Ms. Jen's idea of paradise... the traffic on the N7 coming back into Dublin just before the M50, 3 lanes of trucks, no AC, and it was HOT! Agh...

Mon 07.17.06 - I really do like airports. I may be the only human on the planet who so enjoys them that I offer to drive 2.5 hours each way to take a friend to the airport just to go see an airport I haven't been to before.

The Shannon Airport in western Ireland is a great 1970s single terminal airport, with some recent additions. It reminds me of a better version of the original John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, CA.

I like the hustle and bustle of airports. I love the comings and goings. I love to see all the folks and imagine all the places they are going. At the Shannon Airport this morning, I loved the high ceilings, the old parking lot with its bright yellow NO EXIT signs, the second story restaurant with its 1960s styled wood, chrome & leather modernist tables and banquettes, and the fact that the departures were on the left (west) side of the single story, single terminal building, and the arrivals were on the right (east) side of the building. In the middle was the Best Part of the Whole Airport, a good thorough book store.

A good book store makes for a great airport. The places people will travel and the books they will read. Now there is Ms. Jen's idea of paradise...

Sun 07.16.06 - View from the Catholic Martrys Memorial Garden. What a mess. I cried.

Sun 07.16.06 - A View from the Protestant side of the "Peace Wall", Belfast.

Sat 07.15.06 - The Europa Hotel and Grand Opera House, Belfast.

Sat 07.15.06 - The new bridge over the River Boyne.

Vinod Kholsa presents Biofuels: Think Outside the Barrel at Google's EngEDU:

Tues 07.11.06 - Photos of Dublin taken today by Ms. Jen as she walked to and fro the computer lab.

Mon 07.10.06 - For our MSCMM summer project we get assigned to one computer and get admin access, my first act was to install Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and run a scan. At final count there were 863 "critical objects" on the machine assigned to me. Yikes! Dirty bird.

Mon 07.10.06 - View from the MSCMM classroom window.

Conversation in the apartment kitchen this morning:

Roommate's German Girlfriend: Oh, you are rooting for Germany!

Me: Huh??????

Me: ((thinking: Uh, yeah, if Germany is playing the Ducks at Dodger Stadium, sure I'll root for them, esp. if the Ducks get to keep their hockey sticks and play by hockey rules....))

Roommate's German Girlfriend: Well, your hair is black, red and yellow like the German flag. Did you dye it that way for today?

Me: ((completely puzzled as morning brain pre-caffeine sorts through information))

Me: Ha ha ha... no, usually the streak in my hair is purple but has faded to pink....

Me: ((uh... is she talking about soccer? uhhh... I think so... uhhh... my hair is brown, pink and blonde right now... what country's flag is brown, pink and yellow? I will root for them in underwater chess... dang, I don't have any rice dream for my millet cereal... what am I going to eat... oh, look leftover rice pasta and half a diet coke! Yeah!))

I have spent my life in a sports family, a family that plays sports not watches it. And a reading family. Books, books, and lots more books. I can sail, play volleyball, ride a horse, play soccer, play baseball, downhill ski, cross-country ski, hike, ride my bike, roller skate, ice skate, etc. I even like to go to the odd baseball game on occasion (once every 5 years), with binoculars, mostly to figure out which guy on which team has the nicest natural round butt (excellent butt watching at the cheap seats at Fenway Park).

But watch a game on the Devil's Boob-Tube? Fuck that. Boring. Why not have a grass growing channel... If one is going to be a couch potato or lying in bed sausage, it should be done with a good book or a good blog, not watching other people play sports. Go play your own sport.

So to combat my complete lack of interest in watching and following Sport(s) on TV or radio or in the paper or remembering which team is playing which sport let alone the danged stats... I have a running joke with anyone who is sport(s) obsessed, I listen intently and then make the following joke, "So, you are really excited that [Insert Name of Their Fave Team] is playing [Insert Name of a Famous Team in a Completely Different Sport] at [Insert Name of Venue/Stadium for yet a Third Sport, Preferrably in Another State or Country]?"

Rabid sports fans who know me well roll their eyes, rabid fans who don't know me are either shocked into silence by my Blasphemy or try to Correct My Evil Ways by explaining the inner, molecular details of said sport. Well then, I've been known to follow it up by requesting a drunk Brit in the vicinity to explain the rules of Cricket in 2 minutes or less...

I promise to not bore you with a long detailed discussion on the ins and outs of identifying a Black Phoebe vs. a Eastern Phoebe when bird watching, if you promise not to bore me with a long detailed discussion about the stats on your favorite [Insert Name Here] Team.

But if you want to discuss who has the best natural, not enhanced by steriods, butt amongst the lads on the team of your favorite sport, then let's talk!

Up with Nose Wiping Power!

Photo Friday : Summer

Fri. 07.07.06 - The sun is actually shining, the Trinity campus near the College Green viritually deserted, and I am off to a project meeting.

Today Jasper and I were talking about music and I played him a few videos on the Epitaph.com site, of which he liked "Dead American" by Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards.

I realized that I miss a bunch of my cds that are boxed up in my brother's garage, and due to time constraints last September, I did not have time to save each CD I love to my hard drive. Add on to that having to wipe the drive of my Dell Inspiron 8200 once or twice and back up stuff and then add The Silver Princess (12" Mac Powerbook) into my life, what music I had backed up doesn't necessarily play or even be recognized between computers let alone on my Nokia.

Right now my music is limited to Cheap Trick, White Stripes, Throw Rag, The Clash, and Loretta Lynn. Not a bad five-some, but limited. Now I want Lars, the Dropkicks, the Stumbleweeds, and many others. Thus my trip to iTunes this evening.

Ok, we won't talk about the fact that quite a bit of the music I look for is not on iTunes, but let's talk about I did find Lars Frederiksen's first CD, wanted to buy it, and Irish iTunes would not let me.

Yes folks, a large capitalist company would NOT let spend my money on them. Since my IP address is Irish, my credit card and address must also be Irish or I can't buy.

What the F*ck?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!

Right now Ireland has over 400,000 non-natives living in the Republic of Ireland and I imagine that many of them are like me, folks with bank accounts, permanent addresses and credit cards in non-Irish banks.

Hello, Apple, WAKEY UP-EY!!!!

Do you want my money or not? Sorry my bank is in California. Sorry my permanent banking address is in California. Sorry I am in Dublin. Hello do you want my money or not?

What the F*ck?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!

Sorry, Lars, I really do want to support you and the nice folk at Hellcat Records rather than trade illegal files, but Apple won't let me.

Tues. 07.04.06 - Sparklers are my favorite. While fireworks are illegal in Ireland, sparklers can be purchased at joke shops. These sparklers were purchased this afternoon.

My project team and I are currently researching the Google Map API vs. the Yahoo Map API for our summer mobile adventure. I have been looking at sites using the map APIs in various ways. To date, the most entertaining is HousingMaps.

Now how can a mash up Craiglist with the Google Map API be so fun and in some cases laugh out loud funny? Go to NYC or SF and start running searches on high end real estate. The map kindly delivers photos and clickable links for the real estate in question and then you get to laugh at the incredibly ugly housing that is be foisted off onto the overachievers of America at outrageous prices with really awful copywriting as cooked up by Coldwell Platinum or some other real estate agent.

Sun 07.02.06 - 176th Royal Hiberian Academy Annual Exhibition, May 30 - July 8, 2006.

1) Happy July and Why I like the Fourth of July : Parades, BBQs, homemade peach ice cream, good homemade fried chicken, potato salad, little kid's bikes all dressed up in crepe paper, fireworks, riding one's bike in Huntington Beach on the boardwalk and watching the world go by. And most importantly, it is the only major US holiday with no completed stressed out family dinner!

Fourth of July 1988 was the first time I was out of the country for the 4th and I was very sad. I was studying Italian in Florence and the Mormon missionaries who worked one of the Piazzas did not invite me to their BBQ (Elder Jones & Elder Bolton and I had had a few run ins previously and they were adverse to attempting to convert me after the first run in, but they did later rub in the fact that they had fried chicken and watermelon.).

Fourth of July 2002, I was at LAX and in the airplane flying to London. The post-9/11 very full Terminal 4 at LAX was eerily quiet on that particular Independence Day and my Mom worried extensively that it was a very bad day to fly. It was just quiet. No chicken, no homemade peach ice cream, and no cute kids in parades with crepe paper in their bike's spokes. Just lots of police and a very safe plane ride to London-town.

This year, I will spend the Fourth of July, not riding bikes with my sister in HB, but in meetings in Dublin for our MSCMM project. I am already sad. I suppose I should make some fried chicken, find some fireworks, and invite a few folk over... But the good news is that there will be no stressful family get together. Wahoo!

2) When I read the newspaper, I always start with the comics, move to the weather page, then opinion, and finally the front page news. My mom starts with the the front page news and then moves to the weather, and only later, if she has time, does she read the opinion section. She never reads the comics. When I read the weather page, I love the precipitation charts, the moon's comings and goings as well as global temps. My mom prefers the tidal charts and the Highs and Lows, as she is a surfer and she has her priorities as to what swell it is when.

Yesterday both the Irish Times and the LA Times online version listed the moon as rising in the 11:00am hour and under moonset listed "No Moon Set". How can the moon not set? This morning's Irish Times had the moon rising around 11:40am, so it had to set sometime yesterday.... Inquiring minds want to know what kind of astronomical / meterological laziness is this on the part of the weather page contributors????

3) Go HPV Vaccination! Thank God, it was approved. If you are female and breathing, go get vaccinated! Let's make cervical cancer history.

4) Just in time for the 4th of July, from the NY Times : 10 Days That Changed History

5) Laugh out loud funny post from Derek Powazek for the dog owners and lovers amongst us : My Dog is So Smart.