Ireland - Belfast and off to the West

We left Ballyliffen after the wedding and all the partying we could muster, and headed back down to Belfast taking a side trip along the North East coast. Stopping in at one of the most hallowed sanctuaries in all of Ireland:

We also had time to stop in to Dunluce Castle and poke around for a bit:

A few days in Belfast and we left for the West. On the way we had sun, wind, rain and then out of nowhere, a snowstorm:

Caught an amazing sunset:

And settled in for the night in the small town of Bellina:


Tomorrow we continue our trip along the West coast and eventually back to Dublin. More updates if I so please.

San Francisco - Mp3 Experiment

Here is the video from our Mp3 experiment in San Fran. I hope they release another one because this one is edited pretty poorly IMHO. It doesn't do a great job of grasping how the people who were not a part of the experiment were reacting which is to me the best part of the event. Also, why no HD? the whole point of Vimeo is that they offer high quality capabilities for video. This one might as well be viewed on YouTube. Oh well, take a look and keep an eye out for giant red balloons.

Ireland - Ashbourne, Co. Meath

I arrived as scheduled, currently I am eating my second Irish breakfast in a B&B in Ashbourne. I will update at more length tonight when I get to Donegal. For now I leave you with a picture of my breakfast:


So healthy!

Now I'm off for the drive to Donegal which I have been told by at least a dozen locals is somewhere between 3 and 6 hours in length. Ha! How do they not know?

Thompology International - Northern & Southern Ireland

Thompology is going international for the first time since the creation of this site. Many of you may have read my Euro Blog or have heard my stories about my many other out of country experiences but now I can document them in this new improved venue. This time next week I will be cruising around Ireland in a Volkswagen Polo looking for adventures from the northern coast to the southern tip. While I am crossing the pond for a specific reason (cousin's wedding), I will have roughly two weeks of time to fill and very little constraint on my itinerary. I Have a very vague idea of what I want to do while I am there, Cliffs of Moher, Dublin's Stag's Head Bar, Belfast's Festival at Queens etc. but I can't speak from personal experience nor recommendation about any of those things.

My question to you all is essentially, where should I go? What are the must see hikes, trails, bars, ruins, cities, and events in Ireland? I spent most of my last trip to Ireland drinking in Belfast and learning about what has been going on there for the past few hundred years. This trip I am starting off in Dublin, heading North to Donegal, back down through Belfast, and return to Dublin. After returning to Dublin I hope to travel around the southern end, maybe hit Cork and try to get over Doolin.
Whatever I end up doing I will post pictures and videos of my explorations as always, I appreciate any suggestions on where to go and what to do. Until then, Sláinte!

S.F. Love Fest.. if you love underage girls and naked old men.

After attending the MP3 Experiment, we happened upon a small festival in the heart of San Francisco known as the LoveFest. A celebration of morals and dignified individuals expressing their thoughts about society's direction and the betterment of mankind. More realistically it was a bunch of teens on any drug they could find in their parents medicine cabinet and a collection of 70 something men who finally found an excuse to be naked around those teens. Don't get me wrong here, I enjoy scantily clad women as much as the next guy, I just want the Hanna Montana's of the world to get a couple more years under their belts before they go all Spearsville on us. I had a pretty good "I feel old" moment when a buch of these kids jumped on the BART with us and the only thought that shot through my head was "I hope I never have a daughter." The event was a fairly good size as noted by the birds eye view on the LoveFest homepage. Aside from the "I can't wait until I'm old enough to be a trashy whore" crowd and the "MegansLaw.ca.gov All Stars", also in attendance were Optimus Prime, A group dressed like a garden lattice, and a woman peddling pre-braided and dyed human hair. We did not know about, nor plan on attending the LoveFest and one lap around the square was enough for us so we headed out to more familiar pastures.
A few shots from the 'Fest', tastefully I avoided any shots of children and naked old men. It oddly felt like the whole thing was one giant Dateline bust. I guess that's S.F. for you though. Sheesh.

Next year you can bet I will be avoiding this event. I'm all about trying new things, but there is something to be said for just a little moderation.

Improv Everywhere, only in select cities.

This weekend I, along with KORe and JustinLL, attended my first (and California's first) Improv Everywhere social experiment. It required a trip down to San Francisco's Dolores Park. If you are familiar with the Improv Everywhere crowd then you have some idea what is involved in being an "agent" in an I.E. "mission". For everyone else here is the breakdown. According to the I.E. site,

"Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 70 missions involving thousands of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City."

The I.E. group has pulled off stunts such as hundreds of people freezing at once in Grand Central Station, slow motion Home Depot shopping, and pants off subway rides. The fun part about these social scenes is the reaction of the bystanders who are not involved, and have no idea what is going on.
This brings us to the event this past weekend. The experiment was mp3 based. Agents downloaded a 45 minute mp3 track ahead of time and loaded it on to their portable mp3 player of choice. An Atomic clock was posted to allow everyone to synchronize watches and at 2pm we all press play. What happened next was a flurry of shouting, thumb wrestling, approaching strangers, hugging inanimate objects, on the run geometry, jumping, high-fives, umbrella spinning, and one Epic Battle fought with balloons. Its very hard to explain what went on in those 45 minutes, the surrounding crowd told me they thought it was amazing to watch, the rest of you will have to wait for the video, due to be compiled in a couple weeks.
For now, here is a few shots of the event.

The social aspect of this event was a little odd because at the same time you are interacting with so many people, you are not really interacting at all, just following directions of a voice that you all seem to hear. I suppose that is the plight of a single piece of a much bigger machine. JustinLL remarked, "The problem with taking part in someone else's thing is that it makes it really hard for me to be the center of attention."

The Big Fat Loser Challenge

So fellow blogger and close friend JustinLL entered an office competitive weight loss program to see who in his office can lose the most weight between now and Thanksgiving break (because no one wants to try to lose weight during thanksgiving). In my natural spirit of competition I have decided to compete as well. Now I don't work at his office, or any office for that matter, so my competition will be on the side and with no reward for the winner but bragging rights and flocks of women throwing themselves at his chiseled feet. Can you even have chiseled feet? I think that is beside the point.
This is at a good time for me because I have been laid up with an injury and am just getting back into the kind of shape I was pre-injury (Last Dec.) So as of about 5 minutes ago I weighed in @ 224.2 lbs and I am going to shoot for -15 lbs by the cut off date. JustinLL says he will match that -15 lbs as a goal so now the competition begins. I think I have the upper hand in this competition because I plan to start listening to Weezer and voting for democrats to help me become frail and decrepit. If things get desperate I will dawn fake reading glasses and spend the last two weeks sitting in a coffee house staring blankly into a MacBook Pro.
Also, this is in no way a closed competition now that I have opened it up. I challenge all of you reading to join in and see how you do.