Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Ireland / memories / photo / Rowan / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
24
Mar 26

Back to campus

Back to school today. Last week was spring break for the students and we’re all now trying to figure out how much enthusiasm everyone still has for the rest of the term. There’s a bit of rah-rah involved in that, but the weather is warming up, sporadically, and the days are getting longer and summer is calling.

Today in Rituals and Traditions we talked about sport as spectacle. This would be the aural expressions, the songs and chants, the visual displays, the stadium choreography and performances. This is about how seating works, fireworks, the music that’s played for us, the fancy digital court that we’re seeing in some college basketball tournaments, and so on.

In Criticism we talked about MLB labor: How fight over salary cap will shape negotiations:

There was something about the four-year, $72 million contract given to left-hander Tanner Scott in January that infuriated fan bases in every market outside of Los Angeles — even the only one that dwarfs it.

“It’s difficult for most of us owners to be able to do the kinds of things they’re doing,” New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner told the YES Network a week after the Scott deal.

That the Yankees — the most valuable franchise in baseball, the game’s foremost revenue machine, owners of the highest payroll each of the first 14 years this century — had joined the chorus typically reserved for smaller-market teams questioning the game’s fairness was no accident. Even if formal discussions about Major League Baseball’s next collective bargaining agreement are half a year away, the campaign to capture the hearts and minds of the paying consumers has already begun.

And also this story, Watershed moment as Russia’s sporting exile ends. These are both explainers, the latter is like a richly done FAQ, and so it worked out well that the class picked these two stories to discuss this week. Sometimes the stars lineup, where we can discuss complimentary themes.

At home, the sun is coming in through the back door. It’s just a plastic cat toy, but I like that we have enough attention to detail to see it casting a shadow.

Poseidon is fascinated by light, shimmering and reflecting light. If I ever need to move him in the evening a shadow puppet always does the trick. But they never notice long shadows in those parts of the day.

I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?

This was from Silverstrand Beach.

adventures / Ireland / Monday / photo — Comments Off
23
Mar 26

We made it back

We are back in the United States. What you’ve missed since last I wrote. I drove us the 180 or so miles from Malin Head, the northernmost point in Ireland, back to Dublin, which is situated in the southwestern part of the country. Our GPS sent us through Northern Ireland, which was fine but for the detour, the rush hour gridlock and the slower speed zones. When we finally got back into the countryside the roads opened up, and so did the speed limits. Somehow I kept losing time to the GPS, and I’m still not sure how that was happening, but there I was, driving that rental like I stole it, in the dark, in a car I don’t know all that well, on roads I knew not at all, and driving on the left. I drove that car hard because we had a deadline for returning the car.

We just made it to the airport hotel in time, but had difficulty getting there and getting in. We dumped the luggage and then had to get the car to the airport. The Irishman talking about American politics in the elevator thought I was getting agitated with him, but I was twitchy because of the clock. And if the parking lot in the hotel was tough, the drop off at the airport was worse. We were 15 minutes late. It was nothing.

We took an Uber back to hotel, had dinner at the closing restaurant off the lobby and then went upstairs for the evening. I had the sleep that didn’t feel like it, and then it was a shuttle to the airport. The Dublin airport is large, but the process works efficiently there — which is more than you can say in some American airports at the moment.

A funny thing happened at the airport, though. Just as I passed through security I tore a great big hole in my jeans. Just moments before I had submitted all of my clothes in my checked bag. So now I have two planes, three airports and the best part of a full day in three different countries trying to not cause a scene, shall we say.

We flew into the Amsterdam airport, which is the size of a medium city. Some 71 million passengers go through Schiphol a year. They say 67,000 people work there. Almost 500 alone work on snow clearing in the wintertime. We dined in an underwhelming, but crowded, lounge. We walked and shuttled several miles to our next plane and flew back to New York. And there’s nothing that just moans “Welcome to the USA” like the JFK airport. And nothing says “Get out of here!” like the inherent structural inability to physically get out of there. This was complicated by our pickup driver’s complete inability to find us. So we walked to two or three different spots, dodging the cars and the rain and the hundreds or thousands of people also desperate to be there no longer. Finally we linked up with the old man, who was kind and courtesy and apologetic and praising God for every little thing, and driving like he was intent on meeting him that night. Getting out of that car, at my in-laws an hour later was a great relief that is difficult to describe.

Look who was excited to see us.

We have a little bed at my in-laws, and the kitties were intent on dominating it. And here they are, doing the same thing, freaking me out.

We drove home today. Classes tomorrow. Back to the grind, making up time and picking up speed in the back half of the semester. It’ll be a hugely busy two-plus months.

Despite having published 178 photos and a handful of video montages from the trip there’s still a lot to show off. So I’ll be doing that here for the next however long. I’ll put them at the end of the posts, with the Wild Atlantic Way logo. It’ll be a lot of fun. Here’s a panorama, the ninth one I shot. This is from Malin Head, where we looked north of Ireland. If you could somehow see just 700 miles into the distance you could look into the Arctic Circle.

But if you can’t do that, just click to open the image in another browser window. And keep coming back for more of the scenic videos.

adventures / Ireland / maps / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
21
Mar 26

Northernmost Ireland

This is still at Malin Head, and this was our last visit before pointing south, to Dublin. There’s a place tomorrow morning with our name on it … well, two seats … metaphorically speaking. Unless Delta has started seat embroidery in these last few days. Anyway, that’s tomorrow. There’s a long drive this evening, but, first, this.

When you come to Malin Head you go to Hells Hole about 450 meters in one direction, and to this spot some 215 meters the other way. And, up here, you are at the northernmost point of Ireland. If you could see about 109 miles into the sea you’d see an island off the west coast of Scotland. If you could see another 700 miles beyond that, it’s the Arctic Circle.

And that’s our trip. It’s been an incredible one.

If you want to reproduce it, and obviously you should, the route looks roughly something like this.

Slán go fóill.

adventures / Ireland / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
21
Mar 26

Malin Head

This was our last stop before heading back to Dublin. And so, of course, I’m going to turn this into two posts. And, of course, I’ll stretch this trip out into the days or weeks ahead with extra material. When you allow a place as beautiful as this into your thoughts, your thoughts never leave the place. People probably say that more eloquently. You go home and always return to your dreams. You always come back to the place you never leave.

Or something.

We’ve come to Malin Head for our last stop. It was a great choice.

The waters here are treacherous. It’s a graveyard for shipping, U-boats prowled these waters, there are mermaids — at least legends about them — and giant, beautiful, basking sharks. It was here that people lit bonfires as one last farewell to people sailing for North America. And here the Titanic exchanged signals with the wireless station during sea trials in 1912. Both of them wonders of their time. (Marconi sent the first ever wireless communication over the open sea just 15 years earlier.)

Imagine sailing by here, seeing this.

Photos, of course, can’t do something such as this justice. Here’s a two-minute video that also doesn’t do it justice.

Beauty comes in a lot of forms, of course, and there’s no sense in arguing subjectivity, but if I could build a back porch anywhere I wanted, this is on the short list for a place to put two comfortable chairs.

We stood there for more than hour, and then we dragged ourselves away.

I spent my time there trying to catch the best crashing waves, watching her watch the waves, and inching a little bit closer, to see more of the dramatic action.

My lovely bride planned another great trip, and it’s a shame it has to come to an end.

The places you love you never leave; they never leave you.

adventures / Ireland / photo / weekend — Comments Off
21
Mar 26

Scenic sheep

Just a few more shots of some of the roadside sheep we encountered today.

It’s hard to imagine this becoming a novelty.

But they’ve seen enough cars and people that they aren’t impressed in the slightest bit.

And, yes, they have the absolute right of way on the roads.

Don’t get between the livestock and their lunch.