Here we go with the
Long-Awaited Giant Update!
Flew back to England at the end of May for Dad's surprise 60th birthday party at Burnley Cricket Club. The intricate deception plan paid off pretty well... a true surprise!
Dad had four pints!
Next day the whole family set off for what turned out to be an excellent week in south-west Ireland. Maybe it's because I'm living in America now, but I was really knocked out by what seemed like an incredible proliferation of well-preserved castles, monasteries etc - there seemed to be something round every corner. We flew Ryanair from Manchester to Dublin and spent the first night at New Bridge, Co. Kildare near the Curragh racecourse. Next day, on the drive to Kilkenny, we visited the Dunmore Caves where a guide (who could have stepped right out of Father Ted) showed us round. As well as the usual stalagmites and stalagtites, these caves have a bit of human history - the Vikings massacred "hundreds" of people there in approx 928AD. In 1999 one of the guides found a hoard of 10th century coins and other bits & pieces that I later saw in the National Museum in Dublin.
We looked round Kilkenny Castle which despite being 12th century in origin was a bit dull due to a poor guide and having been completely gentrified. We were cheered up in the evening by a good feed, ceilidh band and some Guinness in a local pub. Spent the night in Kilkenny. Next day on the drive to Waterford we stopped to see Kells Priory. I think the signwriter ran out of space...
This was the only sign we saw at Kells Priory, but despite the lack of interpretation it was a great place to visit and there was enough information in the Rough Guide to make some sense of it. Founded in 1193 it is an incredibly well preserved and unspoiled medieval Priory. (No connection to the Book of Kells, by the way, although I did later go and see the Book of Kells at Trinity College in Dublin).
Daniel was wearing his "Beefy" Botham t-shirt.
A few miles down the road from Kells Priory was Jerpoint Abbey, another well preserved monastic site. There were some really beautiful carvings on the gravestones. These three reminded me of Geddy, Alex & Neil.
Sorry no photos of Waterford where we looked round their Museum which won Museum of the Year a couple of years back. I was a bit disappointed with lack of artifacts from their famed excavations of the Viking & medieval city, but there was one outstanding item, a complete 13th Century longbow that looked like it had been made yesterday. We neither visited nor bought Waterford Crystal... nice work team! On the drive from Waterford to Glendalough we stopped at Hook Head lighthouse which is reputed to have been founded in the 6th century. Most of what stands today was built in the 13th century... that's an old lighthouse by anyone's standards.
All these "photos" are stills pulled off the video camera, by the way. I have forgotten to get some of our next stop - Glendalough. We stayed in a beautful old hotel which had a real sense of old Victorian hotel grandeur about it (Prince Albert stayed there once). Glendalough is in a gorgeous valley complete with yet another monastery. The next day we drove up to the hugely impressive Newgrange complex of prehistoric tombs and monuments. There's a lot of information (and much better photos than mine) here if you're interested.
The main passage tomb:
Carved entrance stone.
Standing stones
Illicit shot taken inside the passage tomb.
We finished our week in Ireland with a couple of days in Dublin, where the main excitement was Gerry Adams walking into our hotel bar late on the first night. Mum saw him at breakfast the next day and said he had a nice smile.... Other highlights were seeing the Book of Kells and the National Museum of Ireland (which is 10 times better than the Museum of Scotland in telling the history of the nation and has 100 times better artifacts on display). We went to see "Troy" which despite having Brad Pitt in it was OK. The biggest and best feed of the whole trip was in a Dublin fish & chip shop. Ending this holiday report on a food theme is quite appropriate because despite vague intentions to eat less, I stuffed myself every single day with full Irish breakfasts, & restaurant meals.
Work news - I'll cover with links:
Flying news - I've put quite a few hours on the Citabria recently and started aerobatics lessons with Bill Bruns who is a true professional, excellent to learn from.
Sports news - "All the best" to Steve Cotterill as new Burnley manager, he's got his work cut out, starting with no money to spend and only half a team. The cricketers did well beating New Zealand 3-0 in fine style. Euro 2004 has come and gone from England's perspective, me following it by internet radio and 10 minutes of highlights of each game in the evening after it was played. It won't be long before we get live TV over the internet for the major championships (I hope). I've started playing football in the summer league which is a good thing as I am embarrassingly un-fit. Too much food, too much ale & too little exercise is catching up with me. We lost the first game and our goalkeeper broke his ankle. We drew the second game and one of the opposition broke their ankle. We lost the third game and no-one broke their ankle.
Music News - On June 7th I went with Gregg Deimer, Tim Johnson and Jeff Propson to see Rush at the Marcus Ampitheater in Milwaukee. As expected, the boys did the business once again!! Three almost impossibly talented musicians, on stage for a glorious 3 hours. Every one of them on completely top form and not a note wrong all night. Alex has lost a few pounds since the last tour. Seats were pretty good, close enough to have a reasonable sight of the band but far enough to get a really good sound mix and see the lights & screens. It was 90 degrees so the Millers were going down fast all around - indeed the bars were posting the "sold out" notices at 10pm. There is something about the amphitheatre venue that is quite special. You have the true outdoor feel with the sun going down on the crowd etc but the sound is way better. As the light fades during the first set the smoke & lights start punching off the stage. etc I can't provide any commentary on the setlist because Daniel says he doesn't want me to spoil the surprise in September.
I have been listening to Evanescence a fair bit and my great recent music find has been Sharing The Groove from which I have now downloaded about 10 bootleg concerts from various bands, all of which have been high quality. You need BitTorrent.
Last Thursday, depressed by England getting knocked out of Euro 2004, I decided to cheer myself up by flying the Citabria down to see The Darkness play at Summerfest in Milwaukee. Janet came along to suffer my bad landings and we stayed overnight in an airport hotel. It was a good gig. The Wildhearts were in support and very impressive, and The Darkness were on good form again. Only complaints are watery beer $4 for a small plastic cup, and silly benches that you had to stand on to see the bands, and were dangerous. Great free fireworks show.
Computer games news: Spending way too much time on www.playforyourclub.com and stick cricket. I did get Burnley's high score of 159,900 on pfyc two leagues ago. Have made it to World 7 on Super Mario Brothers 3 on the Game Boy and am still sulking about the outstanding EA Sports Cricket 2004 not being released on Playstation 2 in the USA. However, PC version is ordered.
And that's quite enough for now!!!
9:05:20 PM 
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