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Pharewell Photos
The long awaited photos from May/June, and the long long LONG awaited photos from Easter are now up here. It's been a long and crazy road, but the whole website journey may finally be at an end... unless something terribly urgent comes up, like I need to remind all you crazy Americans to vote ABB in November. (Anybody But BUSH!) Thank you all... oh who am I kidding? Thank you BOTH for checking in to read about what I've been getting up to and making my labour seem worthwhile. I'll miss having a creative outlet much more than you'll miss my creativity.
KungFuJoe696
Check out Joe's photos here. We're off to London tonight!
Stop the presses!
A mere matter of hours after making yesterday's update Bertie was sold to begin a new life as a newspaper delivery van! I wish him all the best for the future in this new career, and look forward to receiving a fistful of dollars, since there's still no sign of Dave paying me!
Suspend your disbelief!
Do not adjust your set, er, I mean, monitor. This is not an apparition. No, it is in fact a real live update to this forlorn and forgotten blog! Rather than just let it fade out, as it was threatening to do, the plan was always to give it some "closure", so this is the beginning of a winding down process towards that goal. I have of course tonnes of photos to put up, stretching back as far as Easter, so don't hold your breath for all of those. It'll take hours to sort all those out, and hours are one thing I don't have a lot of just at the mo. Anyway, yes I'm back in Belfast and it's good to be back for the summer. Actually I've been back a good while. Since 13 June I think, having sold the lie to everyone back here that I wasn't back 'til a few days after that. I hope it was a pleasant surprise rather than an unpleasant one. The June travels are becoming a distant memory, so rather than try to fill you in here I'll just make some comments alongside the photos. (Yeah, right.) So, down to business:
Bigfoot seems to be behaving itself again so please resume communication via peter.carson@bigfoot.com, if you haven't already done so. Cheers. I've got Broadband in the house now too, which is great!
Donard
Since coming home I have slayed one of my demons, put one of my ghosts to bed, if you will, and other such phrases reminiscent of Stuart Pearce's successful penalty in Euro '96. Yes, I finally got around to climbing Slieve Donard, Northern Ireland's highest mountain. It was just unfortunate that some serious low cloud meant that you could barely see your finger in front of you, never mind the spectacular views!
Bertie
Bertie is still, as far as I know, in Andrew's capable hands, awaiting a buyer. I got a letter from some guy representing some residents' association in the area where Andrew lives, telling me that a car regiistered in my name was illegally parked there. There's just no end to the trouble caused by Bertie! Anyway, he's been moved to private property I think so it's all good.
Artistry
Since being home I've been privilaged to see two of the world's greats in action. Firstly, Brian Lara, playing in a one-day international for the West Indies against Ireland at Stormont. He made a fantastic hundred... I'm told, having arrived too late to see it! (Incidentally, the Windies won that match but lost the second of a two match series the next day!) Secondly I went to see Bob Dylan top the bill at the Odyssey arena for my birthday. Most of the set was, well, good. Die hard fans of a previous vintage will tell you that he was far from at his best, but the encore was just beautiful. I mean, you just can't complain about getting Don't think twice it's alright, Like a rolling stone and All along the watchtower. However, that wasn't the best gig I've been to since I got home. Our very own Dave McNair put in the performance of his life at the Summer Madness festival at the wonderfully intimate Sale Ring venue. I particularly enjoyed his rendition of Radiohead's heart-wrenching True Love Waits as well as his own all new song, Summer of '99. It was just beautiful. Don't get me wrong, Dave's gigs are normally great. But this was beautiful.
Working for the man
Speaking of Dave, he's put me to work. When he's not playing gigs or recording albums with the rock stars of the future, or entertaining kids at a church summer scheme, or generally just sciving, he pretends to be "working" on his PhD. Well, somebody has been working on it anyway. He needed the help and I needed the money, so it works out. Well, actually, Dave, I still need the money... from JULY.
Weddings
Johney and Rhiannon tied the knot on Saturday, and I thoroughly enjoyed my day as best man. Managed not to lose the rings and what have you. Mercifully they got great weather for it. I really enjoyed the chance to catch up with people I haven't seen for a long time. Look out for photos. Hope they are enjoying their honeymoon in Mallorca, and once again I reiterate my best wishes for the future. Likewise to Clarkey and Lissy, whose wedding I will unfortunately miss due to it being in Berkeley, CA. Sorry if the wedding present from me turned out to be something stupid like 12 saucers but no cups - they didn't have the glasses in stock I ordered so apparently they sent you something else of the same value.
Joe
Lastly for now, but by no means least (or leastly?), the inimitable Mr. Joseph Orlando Jr. will be arriving on these shores on Tuesday (specifically in Dublin at 7:45 in the pissin' morning!) for a whirlwind tour of Ireland and London. I'm looking forward to seeing him immensely and to being a tourist in my own country, or indeed, countries. No doubt he will keep me well occuppied for two and a half weeks. Or maybe he's just here on business and I'll not see him at all. Maybe it's just a cover up for his deal brokering between Cleveland's Mafia and the IRA...?
Tid-bits from the road
OK, I'll try to fill you in quickly on a little bit of what happened over the last four weeks.
Seattle/Vancouver - "Come in, your landing gear is down... eventually." I almost died for starters. Seriously though. We were coming in to land in Seattle when suddenly I felt a surge of power and we began to take off again. Uh-oh, I thought, maybe the runway wasn't clear or the landing gear wouldn't come down or something. So after half an hour of circling round in ignorance they finally informed us that yes, the landing gear on the right hand side was not working and that in a few minutes they would be prepapring to make an emergency landing. "Zoikes!" Anyway, needless to say that did wonders for my prayer life... which proved fruitful; somehow they managed to fix the problem and land safely.
Anyway, it wasn't all bad. In fact, from then on in it's been rather good. I hired a car in Seattle and drove up to Vancouver to meet Gav the next day. (Even when I leave the van behind I still manage to drive almost 800 miles in a week!) Canada is great, but rather difficult to navigate. Their road signage could be better, but maybe that's just to annoy silly American tourists, and I'd respect that. On the plus side they have Tim Horton's coffee. And weed. We got offered weed twice in three days there which was quite humorous. Anyway, this is all incidental stuff. Gav and I took a drive up to Whistler where the 2010 Winter Olympics are being held. The road was something of a rollercoaster, not made any more safe by the quite breathtaking views on all sides. Whistler itslef was nice and I imagfine a snowboarder/skier's paradise, but a little too touristy for me.
Then we went back to Seattle for a few days and did some tourist stuff, including the Space Needle. We also met a guy with a Provos tattoo, which was a bit random. He seemed to think that that meant we'd be best buds for life. Guess again. I also had the privilage of meeting some of the Northern Ireland/Seattle possee, who seemed like a good bunch. Other Seattle stuff included going to Kurt Cobain's house and Jimi Hendrix's high-school, patronising the first ever Starbuck's, indulging in Dick's fast food (and some other fish'n'chip place whose name escapes me) and trawling a cool independent record store. I picked up a nice selection of northwestern stuff - Modest Mouse, Heatrmiser and Death Cab for Cuite. They also had a huge Snow Patrol poster on the outside wall. Ah, what could have been. We also crashed one night with Mr & Mrs Dave Scott. It was good to catch up with him. He had inside info about where to watch the F.A. Cup Final. K.O. 7am Pacific Time!
Denver, CO - OK, so far this has been far from brief. I was only planning to write a couple of lines about each leg of the trip. So maybe I'll have to finish another day. But Denver, yes, landing in Denver was traumatic in it's own, less severe, way. Looking out the window it seemed completely flat and I was like, 'This is Colorado, right? Not Iowa!' Turns out someone drew a line down the middle of Colorado and said everything to the left would be mountainous and everything to the right would be flat. Oh, and during the flight I also started reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Randomly enough the first few chapters were about a guy hitch-hiking from New York to Denver. Weird. So yes, I met Krystal in Denver and we were fortunate enough to be able to stay with people (Kami, Leslie... and almost Mark too) she'd met just a week or so earlier at a retreat. Denver itself was kind-of, well, OK. We saw Ron Sexsmith play (to a reeeallly small crowd) which was good. But I was there to see the Rockies, so we did a bit of hiking too, while our more adventurous hosts did some spring skiing. We also went up to the Boulder area for a couple of days, with our tour guide Jan, who, continuing with the random theme, just happened to be in the area. Boulder wasn't like anywhere I'd been before. It didn't seem like a real place that could actually exist, except in some idealistic architect's head. Driving through the Flatirons and Rocky Mountain National Park was just unbelievable. Listening to Bruce Springsteen just completed the perfect picture of an American Dream. Anyway, time has beaten me so I will leave you in the knowledge that I also successfully negotiated Boston and Montreal and am now somewhere outside Toronto.
Re-writing Genesis?
Against all the odds, and contrary to traditional Judeo-Christian theology, it looks like, at least for now, Adam is not going to partake of the forbidden fruit but instead roam the garden in perfect harmony with the Lord. (See earlier post if you are completely baffled.)
Long-overdue proper-update
Sorry for the little tid-bits of updates you've been getting lately. What with exams and travel planning and preparing to move out of the dorms and a million other things it's been hard finding time for it. Not that I really have time now - with an exam tomorrow and another three on Thursday - but I'm calling it a "study break". I'll try to make it a good one since it might be my last update for a very long time.
"The Wanderer"
Anyway, where to start? How about with those aforementioned travel plans. On Friday I have to move out of the dorms so the plan is to go and stay that night with Joe before taking off on Saturday for Seattle. On Sunday Mr. Hamilton is flying into Vancouver so I'm renting a car and driving it up there to get him. After a week in the Pacific north-west I'm bound for Denver to meet up with Krystal and hopefully Jan too. I can't wait to see Colorado. Everyone says it is so beautiful, and, as much as I love visiting cities, I think it is time for a little "natural wonder" appreciation. After Denver the plan is to fly back east to Boston to meet up with Grainne and Annette for a few days. Then it gets kinda hazy; at some point I plan to get the Greyhound up to Montreal, meet up with old Summerserve friend Natasha, and then likewise "at some point" get another bus to Toronto to see Rich and Eryn again. Then, finally, I'll be bussing (busing?) it back to Cleveland to get my head showered for a few days before flying home on 17/18 June. I look forward to seeing you all then immensely! A lot of the plans are still somewhat tentative and up in the air, so wish me luck. Should be a good time.
"The suspect, Mr. Carson, of no permanent address..."
You may have inferred from the above that you'll have trouble contacting me after Friday, certainly by phone or post anyway. You can always try email though.
Trust no-one...
...not even a church; they backed out on buying Bertie. If I was unkind I could reasonably say they screwed me, but I prefer to think of it as a communications misunderstanding. However, it did have serious implications for my stress levels. I'd taken down all my advertising materials and told other potential buyers that it was sold, and I don't have a lot of time this week to go running around looking for a buyer. It now looks very much like I will have to leave Bertie in the capable hands of Andrew to sell in my absence.
The fall of man?
In the Garden of Eden there was a tree of, let's say, information, rather than knowledge. It was called the apple tree and it bore a most tempting fruit called the iPod. Rather than being lured to eat from the tree by a serpent or a woman, man was tempted by a rather favourable exchange rate. Time will tell if man makes it back to Cleveland with enough money to succumb to this temptation, or if, by virtue of being financially impoverished, he becomes morally enriched...
And finally...
Thanks to everyone at John Carroll, and of course the BEI team, for an awesome year! I can't believe it is over already. Keep in touch, and I look forward to seeing some of you back in Belfast some day.
Peet's Top Tip for the Day:
Don't lock yourself out of your room when you go to take a shower.
Actually I just thought of another one: Don't waste your money going to see Van Helsing.
I seem to be having some difficulty receiving messages via bigfoot at the minute so if you could send stuff to me directly at peter_neil_carson@hotmail.com I would appreciate it. Ta.
Weird weather
Tuesday - snow.
Today - 78° F.
Go figure.
Bye bye Bertie
We've agreed sale of Bertie to the church I was telling you about. Apparently it's a small fellowship, kind of like a family. We'll be parting company on Friday. I think we got a decent price, but I don't think we're ripping anyone off. I'd hate to think otherwise. The pastor works at a Ford plant so he should know about cars. He looked it over and seemed satisfied. I think they are going to replace the front left panel and give him a paint job.
I also got another offer for the full asking price, but it sounded like too much hassle, not to mention downright weird. Here's an email I got. What do you think, apart from the fact that he is obviously illiterate!? (Or maybe it was one of you funny buggers trying to be funny...?)
How are you doing ? I live in the Dublin (UK). I will be buying purchasing the car with the help of a shipping agent who is based in US but will pay you directly with a certified American Cashiers Cheque. The cheque will be overdrafted to cover for the shipping and agent fees however the agent will come for the car after the payment. The agent will sign and collect all the documents on my behalf so do not worry about it.
I will need your full name and address of which the cheque will made out and sent via FeDEx, then your cell number of which i can use to reach you anytime to notify you when the package is coming. I look forward to hearing from you soonest. Have a nice day.
Sad News
Sincere condolances to my friend Ashley and the whole Bittel family after her father died last week. I was privileged to meet him back in January. He seemed like a great, very likeable guy.
Irish Invasion
Last night I went to one of those strange gigs (at the Odeon) where you're really more interested in the support act than the headline, namely The Frames rather than Damien Rice. Not that I have anything against Mr. Rice of course, but I'd seen him before and I'd heard that The Frames are incredible live. And they did not disappoint. The singer guy, what's-his-name, was pretty funny and seemed really genuine too, which was nice. I could easily have been in the Mandela Hall, with words like 'eejit' being bandied about. A very Irish evening. Damien was good too of course, but I think he needs to grow back his beard and hair. He looked decidedly ill without them. He persists in going off on crazy tangential jams, which can get a bit tedious, but as before, recovered well with clever use of Jeff Buckley, this time Last Goodbye. Evenings like this are one of the things I'm looking forward to getting home to.
More violent movies
Everyone knows about Kill Bill Vol. 2 so suffice to say that I thought it was great too. Not necessarily better than the first one, but that is by no means a criticism. On the other hand, you might not have heard much about Denzel Washington's new flick, Man on Fire. I was fully expecting it to be very good, but it greatly exceeded all my expectations. It was a very intense, gripping movie of the kind that you get swept up in and don't notice two and a half hours race by. It also successfully incorporated a very dark streak of humour which, while very amusing, didn't distract you from the seriousness of the content. I don't know how they pulled that one off! Anyway, enough rambling. I'm not a movie critic, I'm a blogger. Hmm. Actually rambling is all that most bloggers seem to do, but there you go. Time for me to (b)log-off.
The economics of Bertie
Autotrader.com wasn't proving too fruitful, but just a few days after posting this flier up around campus I have at least three potential buyers, one of whom is a pastor who wants to encourage Bertie into ministry. (Take people back and forth to church and such.) That way I'd know he'd be going to a good home, but I'd feel bad if he broke down again, which if we're honest, isn't beyond the realms of possibilty! But sshhh! about that!
Anyway, now to my perfectly inelastic supply curve I can add a demand curve. Unfortunately, inelastic supply means I have to sell at whatever the highest bidder offers, be that a dollar or a grand!
All this talk of selling Bertie etc makes me realise how quickly the end of the year is creeping up on me. After this week I only have two more weeks of class and then one of exams before finishing at JCU! (I have a few weeks travel planned after that, but more about that later.)
Cash
I neglected to mention that when I was in Chicago I managed to pick up something very cool, namely Johnny Cash's Unearthed box set. Justin's dad found it by the side of a highway (that really happens?!) and very kindly made me a gift of it. I started listening to some of it this morning and it sounds good, plus the track list includes a lot of interesting sounding covers. This morning I put on the disc called Redemption Songs in lieu of going to church, after being out a bit late last night. (Don't worry, it's the first time I've skipped church in ages.)
Miss Saigon
Last night I went to see Miss Saigon at the Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron. (Isn't it strange how you don't go to Akron all year and then you go two days in a row? (Rob flew out of Akron airport.)) Anyway, Joe knows people who know people and hooked us up with some really well-priced tickets for dinner and the show. It was an interesting concept to sit at tables instead of in rows at the theatre, and one that I was not familiar with before. It was a good night out, although I have to confess that musical theatre really isn't my thing. It seemed like a moving story, but I think a film might have told it better. Still, varietry is the spice of life and all that.
Pictures
Maybe I do miss my pictures after all, when I remember some of the cool ones that are gone. I think at first it didn't quite sink in that they are really gone and not coming back. Oh well, I still did what I did and saw what I saw. Now I just can't make you all jealous/bored (*delete as appropriate) by showing them all to you.
Operating System still Not Found
Unfortunately my hard drive has gone the way of the Dodo, which means I've lost all my pictures, except of course for those I have on the website here and all the ones since the start of Spring Break. You'd think I'd be really upset, but actually I'm not overly concerned. Maybe it's a symptom of digital photographitis. (Inflammation of the digital camera?) I guess we have less emotional attachment to a .jpg file than to a piece of paper. If I'd lost the Business Ethics paper I'd been working on, on the other hand, I might have cried like a girl! (It was causing me enough stress without having to go back and start it again.)
Easter in Chicago
On a lighter note, I had a great time with Rob over Easter. We stayed with my friend Justin in Wheaton, a suburb of Chicago. And by suburb, I mean 30 miles away. That's like calling Lurgan a suburb of Belfast! So yeah it's a big city and traffic makes commuting quite time-consuming. We did all the normal tourist stuff- Navy Pier, the Sears Tower, the Art Institute, which was coming down with Monets and Renoirs and Picassos, and we went to the Field Museum. And believe it or not it really is a windy city. We also caught some quality entertainment too. Chicago is (apparently) famous for a show called the Blue Man Group. It was very good. Think bald guys painted totally blue doing percussion with drain pipes and paint, totally dead-pan. Bizarre. We also caught a comedy/theatre thing called Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. They basically had to try to perform 30 short sketches in an hour, and how much you paid to get in depended on what number you rolled on a die. Interesting. The highlight for me was this one girl's impression of Renee Zellweger. She stuffed gum or cotton wool or something in her cheeks and squinted and the resemblance was uncanny. It was all very left-field and theatre-ish and so spawned one of the words of the weekend - "Pretentious". After that we went to a jazz bar called the Green Mill, if memory serves, that Al Capone reputedly patronised.
Finally, I had another one of those weird coincidence moments. It seems that after Witnness 2002 when I stayed in Dublin for a couple of nights Justin's sister Heather was staying in the same hostel at the same time! The chances of winning the lottery seem almost a certainty by comparison!
Operating System Not Found
...not a message most people want to get from their computers. I think most of my important documents are on the network drive anyway so they are safe, but the same is not true of my pictures. I know it would have been smart to keep backups, but maybe I'm just not that smart. Plus I didn't have a CD-writer so it would have been kind of awkward. Anyway, hopefully Information Services will be able to retrieve the situation in my absence; I'm off to Chicago tomorrow. "Now there's a temporary solution!" If I don't update again between now and then, Happy Easter!
"He's a brick"
Sorry for my petulent outburst the other day. The Ben Folds concert was indeed pretty good. He played a good enough smattering of older stuff that I recognised to keep me content. Plus it was only $10 and I only had to walk across the street to get there. However, I am inclined to think that he plays too many notes. ("I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order!") I also managed to score a free ticket to the Cavs game last night (thanks Darice) so I've been somewhat pacified.
What's with all the sport updates?
I know, anyone would think I was Jonny Hooper or something. (Speaking of whom, I think I forgot to add Gilnahirk Crusaders to my links page. The site looks pretty slick.) Anyway, I'll try to keep it brief. Congratulations to Manchester United on reaching their first FA Cup Final for a while. Maybe we'll be able to salvage something from our season after all. As for the Premiership... go Chelsea!
I was also pleased to see the England cricket team win their first test series in the West Indies since 1968. Why I, and many others, love English cricket but yet despise English rugby is a delicate and complex matter. In the unusually wise words of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, "If you have to ask, you'll never know."
DMC; Musician, academic... photographer?
Do the man's talents know no bounds? Judge for yourself by checking out his photos I added to the Spring Break gallery.
"I'm a slave 4 Ticketmaster"
Damnit. After a hard day's study and an accounting test I'd really been looking forward to getting the chance to actually add some photos to Gallery #4. (You know what I mean.) But I got an email like 30 minutes before the show was due to start saying that it got cancelled due to illness or some crap like that. Getting rescheduled to 29 June doesn't help me out much. Tickemaster better not try to screw me by not refunding the ridiculous $6.50 per ticket service charge or there will be hell to pay. Perhaps it will serve the greater good of maintaining my moral fortitude, such as it is. But I'm not in a bigger picture kind of mood.
Ben Folds tomorrow night had better be damned good.
April showers... snow showers!
I wish this was an April Fool. I really do. But no, it has actually now snowed in Cleveland during each of the last six months.
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