Here’s a couple of short videos I made. Nothing special, probably boring but I’ll share anyway.
[MEDIA=37] [MEDIA=38]Fun and Games Dept
Magical Day.
Today was the reason we came to Ireland for this little trip. Today Earl and I were witnesses to Rick and Helen getting married.
We started out the day by heading to Limerick, where Rick and Helen exchanged their vows in a very brief civil ceremony. The ceremony lasted no more than 10 minutes. While quite nice, I felt like I was watching a wedding at high speed. i don’t think Las Vegas wedding ceremonies are even this brief.
After Limerick, we headed to Gregan’s Castle Hotel, located near Ballyvaughan. This hotel is a beautiful spot tucked away in the Irish countryside. While it has amenities found in your normal four-star hotel, it’s a quaint little place with a decidedly bed and breakfast feel. It is quite comfortable.
We readied ourselves and dressed in kilts of the county colours and headed to the Cliffs of Moher for the blessing. We were joined by Dara, a local monk who performed a pagan wedding ceremony.
Here’s Earl and I waiting for the bride to arrive. Rick was kind enough to snap the photo.
The ceremony was held at O’Brien Tower at the Cliffs of Moher.
The cliffs had a mystical shroud of fog. It added to the ambience.
The crew at the Cliffs were kind enough to provide buggy service for the bride and groom. Earl and I walked the 800 m from the car to the site of the ceremony. We were the subject of numerous tourist photos and had to stop several times as requests were made in several languages.
After the service, we headed back to Gregan’s Castle Hotel. Along the way we stopped along the coast for more photos. I think this snapshot captures the magic that was in the air. I loved Helen’s dress and pagan-esque cape.
After we got settled back into the suite, Earl was kind enough to snap a photo of me in my wedding-witness attire.
Afterwards we all settled in to the hotel for the night, we had a delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant and a nightcap before calling it a night.
Today has been a truly blessed, magical day.
Not Baloney.
Earl and I and Rick and Helen took the day and headed south toward Cork, as we went to tour Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone. The weather was beautiful today, with sunny skies and the temperature around 17 degrees (62 fahrenheit).
The drive was only two hours or so and was quite enjoyable. Only a short section was along dual carriageway (freeway/expressway), the rest was along two lane roads through the countryside. I really like the way Ireland marks the roadways; the signs are simple to follow and you always know where you’re headed. I hope it’s a trend that continues throughout the entire country. We also stopped at a fast food restaurant much like McDonalds for a quick bite to eat, it’s called SuperMac’s.
Blarney Castle is about a five minute walk from the entrance to the grounds.
We found the castle to be quite impressive. The grounds are beautiful and the castle itself is beautiful. Unlike Runbatty Castle we were in yesterday, there’s no furnishings at all in Blarney Castle. This gives the touring experience a more “raw” feel.
Here’s Earl standing next to the watch tower, found along the walk to the castle.
After a climb up a very narrow, very steep spiral staircase, we made it to the top of the castle, where the Blarney Stone is found. Here we are on the roof.
The line for the honour of kissing the Blarney Stone was short. There was little debate amongst the four of us. I ended up being the only one in the group to actually kiss the Blarney Stone. Make a tick mark next to one more thing accomplished in my life. I have a souvenir photo of my actual kiss, Earl snapped this photo after I was being brought back up to the surface.
For those unaware, you just don’t lean over and give this stone a kiss. A man sits there as you lie on your back and spidey your way a little bit down the wall, where the ground is a distant site many stories away, and then you give this stone in the wall a peck. Another older gentleman snaps your photo and you’re given a ticket with your file number. Grand things are to happen as you’re bestowed the gift of gab from kissing the stone. Earl said I was gabby enough. Apparently I now have extra gab.
After Blarney Castle we did some touring around the City of Cork a bit, which is a very nice city, before heading back to Ennis for supper and hanging out before calling it a night.
There are more pictures on my flickr page, just click one of the photos about to get there.
County Clare, Ireland.
So today has been our first full day in Ireland. In all actuality, aside from a short nap this afternoon it has been a continuation of yesterday, but with the time difference and wildly scheduled meals, I’ve hardly noticed the marathon day aside from the slight dizziness and buzzing in my ears.
We are having a great time. The first order of business was to drive to Limerick to try on our tuxes/kilts for the wedding on Wednesday. Here we are, complete with rental tags.
After we confirmed everything fit properly and we also navigated the mechanics of a kilt, we did some touring of Limerick. Afterwards we headed back up N18 toward our current homebase of Ennis.
I drive like a native of this beautiful land.
On the way through, we stopped Bunratty Castle for some touring.
Since we don’t have buildings nearly this old in the United States, I have to admit that I was quite intrigued by the castle and it’s grounds. I was very impressed with some of the rooms, including this one with it’s lavish furnishings.
This evening went to a local pub for some dinner and drinks and did some touring around the town center of Ennis. It has been a great start to our vacation.
Ennis, County Clare, Ireland.
Earl and I, along with Rick and Helen, are in Ennis, County Clare, Ireland. I think that’s how you’re suppose to write that. The flight was a smooth as glass, though we didn’t really get any sleep on the red-eye that was extra short due to the time difference.
I love the laid back feel of Aer Lingus. I’ve always found the flight attendants to be quite cranky on U S Airways, their counterparts on Aer Lingus have this laid back thing going on that is quite enjoyable.
It’s 8:30 a.m. and we are getting ready to head to breakfast and do some sight-seeing. My body is screaming for sleep, but I’m trying not to sleep until the natural time to do so per this time zone, it’ll help me adjust to the time difference and circumvent jet lag. I hope.
One more highlight of the trip so far: I totally love driving on the left side of the road from the right side of the vehicle. It’s fun for all, including the manual transmission!
Foley.
Earl and I spent the evening in the Capital city of Albany for the Albany River Rats hockey game. I’m not much of a hockey fan, but I always enjoy going to a game for several reasons, the least of which is the actual game itself. It’s not that I don’t enjoy watching the game, but I’m always so fascinated by the people at the game.
First of all, hockey stands out in my head because it’s the only team sport I can think of that encourages unsportsmanlike behavior. (That cringing you hear is my sister’s boyfriend, a professional hockey player. They call him The Instigator.) The crowd goes wild when two or more hockey players start throwing down their equipment and beat the hell out of each other. What’s up with that?
One of my favorite activities at a game is to make as many odd noises as possible. The Jumbotron and the announcer both encourage everyone to get loud, so I go through a whole selection of loud noises, including the traditional sportsfan chants, bear-like ‘woofs’, Xena war cries and blood curling screams. If the encouragement for noise continues through this selection, I then resort to yelling “kitty” as if I was beckoning the cat from 50 acres away.
The neighboring fans just love me.
When our team makes a goal, I like to hold my popcorn and jump up in the air so that I send a shower of popcorn to celebrate. I feel it’s a fan thing to do.
Tonight’s game was a bit of a bummer, in that we had to go through various overtime exercises before finally losing the game, but what I found more disturbing was the rendition of “God Bless America” and our National Anthem. A bunch of elementary school kids were herded out onto the ice (on carpet pieces), where the music teacher grabbed the mic and croaked out some weird verse of the former that I had never heard of. To keep it interesting, she consistently ignored the key and avoided any sort of tempo. Her students then joined in behind her. Since she was playing random with the pitch, the students had no hope of keeping up with her and it was, in my opinion, probably the worst rendition of “God Bless America” I have heard in my 39 years on this planet.
But they had spirit.
This was quickly followed up with a junior high chorus, also herded out on the ice, who promptly sang our National Anthem, again in random keys that changed throughout the song. Deciding enough was enough, I joined a drunk man several rows back by singing the National Anthem as strongly as I could and I chose to remain in the key that the group was in when I decided to join them. If I’m going to be proud of this country, I’m going to do it out loud.
Now you’re probably thinking I’m throwing some cheap shots out and let’s see me do any better. Tell you what, I’ve sang the National Anthem in sports arenas on several occasions (solo and a cappella) so I feel like I can be a bit of a critique on the subject. I’m just saying. I would welcome the chance to do it again.
All in all it was a fun night.
BFF.
So Earl and I spent last night in Buffalo. It was their annual bear run, fittingly called “Bear Trap” and it had been nearly a year since we were in Buffalo last.
It’s amazing how time flies when you’re not even thinking about it.
Having arrived too late to join the crowd of bears for the dinner at Century Grill, we opted to go it alone at the Pearl Street Grill and Brewery. Earl had been there before and knew that the place was right up my alley and he was absolutely right. I have to admit that I had a few fleeting moments of worry as we were driving to the restaurant, as I have recently decided to give up drinking alcohol completely. I’ve never been much of a drinker, in fact, I really only started drinking beer and such when I started at the telephone company a couple of years ago. However, the experience of going back and reading a couple of blog entries I had written while drunk and a conversation that Earl and I had while driving home from a dinner in which I was going to be the designated driver, and then ended up drinking, persuaded me that I definitely don’t need to incorporate alcohol into my future social plans. All the heavy stuff aside, the Pearl Street Grill and Brewery is a great place to go if you’re in the Buffalo area. Like so many other buildings in Downtown Buffalo, it’s an old brick building with that feeling of the industrial revolution of the early 20th century. So many cities have opted to tear these places down and build something in stunning concrete in their place; I admire when a business takes an existing space and turns it into something special. I wish more places would learn to do this.
The food is great too.
After dinner we freshened up a bit at the hotel and headed to the Town Ballroom for the evening’s festivities. All of the Buffalo Bears were gracious as always as we shared many hugs and kisses with those we hadn’t seen in so long. Earl and I both got a little tearful when we saw the two guys we consider to be our closest friends walk into the club. Here’s a picture from a camping excursion from a couple years ago of our friends Tim and Steve.
We used to see Tim and Steve quite a bit when Earl was traveling to Buffalo on a weekly basis, but now that his work locations have moved around, coupled with my school responsibilities and general life chaos, it’s been entirely too long since we’ve seen these guys. God bless them both, it was like we had seen them just yesterday.
The Buffalo Bears traditionally held all of their events at a local club, first Buddies and then it’s successor Buddies II. However, Buddies II recently closed so they were forced to the Town Ballroom, which is an absolutely fabulous space. It has had several incarnations; a casino, a dinner club (think Ricky Ricardo), a gay bar and now an entertainment venue. The Bears utilized a couple of the rooms well; one room was the dance floor (and Karl the DJ [skabear] played the extended disco mix of the theme from “Wonder Woman”!), the “Leopard Lounge” was used as a quieter space for conversation and in the middle lobby was a huge circular bar. Again, this is another old space in Buffalo that they continue to breathe life in.
Afterwards we went to the after hours party where we stayed until the closing of the room at 4 a.m. There was a lot of giggling in the hallway; it’s a good thing that we had the whole floor of the hotel.
This morning we joined our friends for brunch before heading out. Again, more tears and hugs as we made our way to the door.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend in many ways for us, and it was great to reconnect with our friends. We’ve always found the boys in Buffalo to be quite hospitable and this weekend was no exception. We look forward to going out there again soon.
Climb Ev’ry Mountain.
Earl and I went for a ride today. That in itself is not unusual. He took the afternoon off from work and I had no scholarly obligations, so we went for a ride into the beautiful Adirondacks.
What makes this ride into the Adirondacks special is that it is relatively close to 11 years since we made a similar journey. On October 13, 1996, Earl and I climbed what we thought was Bald Mountain (turns out it’s Rocky Mountain) near Inlet. At the top of the that mountain, overlooking the Fulton Chain of Lakes and in front of 30 or so other mountain climbing enthusiasts, I got down on my knee and proposed to Earl.
We haven’t been to the top of that mountain since. Today we climbed it again. At nearly 2300 feet above sea level (impressive for this part of the country) and near the peak of leaf peeping season, the scenery was impressive. The trail is around a 1/2 mile long and fairly steep. It was a pretty good workout getting to where we had stood over a decade ago. The scenery along the trail was beautiful.
Once at Rocky Point, we sat down on a rock together, reminisced about our life together, cried a bit, laughed a lot, made a little video and took lots of pictures. Previous visitors had left a discarded Triscuit, so a chipmunk joined us and ate the one hor d’oeurve we had to celebrate the occasion. The sky was a brilliant blue, the lakes were beautiful and the leaves are turning all sorts of autumn colors in magnificent brilliance.
[MEDIA=35]Just for the heck of it, I put photos from our two climbs side by side. I think we’re holding up pretty well.
Sunday Night Internet Cafe Stop.
Earl and I are at the local Panera, having a little bite to eat and doing to Mac surfing in public. It seems like a fitting way to wrap up the weekend, as it’s seemingly been all about relaxation, being in public and eating.
Last night was Bear Night in Albany and it was rather enjoyable. I liked seeing our friends from the Capital District and meeting new folks as well, but the club was JAMMED packed with people. The “Bear Den”, which is in the basement of the club, has a typical cellar low-ceiling and little to no ventilation. While I find the smell of a “natural man” quite intoxicating, sometimes a cub needs a breath of fresh air. So Earl and I had a hot and sweaty time and we weren’t even doing anything leud. Well, nothing out of the ordinary.
On the main floor of the club is good-sized dance floor. It was somewhat cooler up on that floor, but still relatively hot. The DJ was playing great music last night, at least from what we heard. He had this habit of mixing in the middle of a musical phrase, for example halfway through a verse of in the middle of the chorus. The boys would be jamming to “How Will I Know” by Whitney Houston and before one could find out if he really loves me (or yell “Bobby!”) we were suddenly in the midst of Conga, which was then promptly interrupted by Bad Girls. Before we were bad, bad girls, we were then into some cha-cha song. It was then that I gave up on trying to dance for the night.
Even though the clubs in that part of the state are open until 4 a.m., Earl and I decided to call it a night and head back to Motel 6 around 1:30. They left the light on for us. I went straight to bed, as apparently I’m getting old or something, but Earl roamed the motel looking for the afterhours party. He came back to the room about half of an hour later, so assumedly there wasn’t much going on.
This morning I sent a text message to Sean and Jeffrey to see if we could get together for breakfast. Jeffrey was still in bed, but Sean and his friend Andrew were on their way to the Gateway Diner and they invited us to join them. What a lovely breakfast. It was good to relax and just hang with friends this morning, so it made the whole Albany experience worthwhile.
This afternoon, I decided to get a little exercise (see previous entry) and then attempted to mow the lawn, where I promptly lost interest and decided I’d finish tomorrow. So now we’re here at Panera. Homework awaits before bedtime.
And there’s the life of two bears on a weekend in the middle of September.
Social Whirlwind.
The social whirlwind continues, as Earl and I have installed ourselves in the capital city of Albany, New York. We started with a diner-iffic lunch at the Metro 20 diner and then stopped at the behemoth Crossgates Mall for an obligatory Apple store excursion. I really wanted a case for the new iPhone, so I picked up a rubber case made by InCase. I’m loving it.
Tonight is bear night and Earl and I will be hanging out with friends and growling and woofing in various directions. It’s always a good time.
