When 5am rolled around, Joe woke up and I went off to find out more about the bus. I found which bus we would be getting on, but the driver wasn’t there, as expected. We knew it would leave shortly after 6, so we decided to head out the bus around 5:30. It seems like the second we got out to the bus, it started raining a little more than the sprinkles that had been coming down. At around 5:50, the bus driver opened the door to the bus. I guess he had been sleeping in the back for a little bit or something. Joe went on, paid the driver for his ticket, then I went on, handed the driver money… and he handed it back and said I was okay. I just figured maybe Joe had paid for my ticket or something… so I went and sat down and said “I didn’t know you were going to pay for my ticket.” and he said “I didn’t.” … So I guess I got to ride for free. Maybe the bus driver was scared of me, maybe he was jealous of my beard… or maybe he just knew how awesome I was. We rolled through Ireland quite smoothly for a bus. The ride for me was a matter of getting about 10 minutes of sleep and waking up when the bus was rocking from the roundabouts, taking note of where we were and going back to sleep if it wasn’t where we were supposed to stop. Eventually I knew we were getting close so I just stayed awake, and sure enough, within 15 minutes I saw the sign for Oranmore. The bus stopped just outside a small shopping center, (small by our standards, at least) and Joe and I stopped off inside and called the number we got from Mom before we left. I was really nervous because I had never heard Laim or Diedre’s voice and they had never heard mine… were we in the right place? I’d hoped we hadn’t gotten off too early or too late. I don’t think I could pull off another free bus ride if we were in the wrong place. We were kinda confused at first because we had a like… 13 digit phone number, and in the end we only had to dial the last 6 digits. That was sorta weird, but we got through, and Deirdre said she would pick us up in about 20 minutes.

Soon thereafter, we got to Liam and Dierdre’s house. Deidre had to go to a meeting in Gallaway for a little bit, so we just chilled out at their place for a little while. We both got showers since we hadn’t done so since we left Dublin for Scotland, and we warmed up by the fire they had burning. We loved the smell. They actually burn small “bricks” of the compacted materials in their bogs. Since the bogs contain no oxygen, whatever falls in and sinks doesn’t really decompose. The smell that these burning bricks of bog give off is a real earthly sort of incense. Joe and I actually ended up ordering some when we got back to the States. Around 5:30 or so, Liam got home and he started to prepare dinner while Mom, Dad, and myself talked with him about all sorts of things. Shortly after that, Eoghan (pronounced like “Owen”) came home. He stays at school during the week, but comes home most weekends because his girlfriend lives in town still. I started dozing off a bit because I was up so late, but at some point Deidre got home, and Phillip arrived with his girlfriend Mary Rose. We weren’t going to get to meet their other two children, Niamh (who lives in Dublin) and Dairmaid (Who lives in Boston).
In a very short time we were sitting down for dinner, which was very, very, good. The conversation was very lively, entertaining, and made me feel all around very welcome. Eoghan left shortly after dinner, which I can’t say I blame him for, because we had really never met him and he didn’t know us, and he was probably itching to see his girlfriend. After dinner, we took some pictures to mark the occasion, and then Phillip took us out to one of the local pubs. Mary Rose dropped us off, and we stayed for about 3 hours and had what else, but about 5 pints of Guinness. We stopped off at a “Supermac’s” (the Irish equivlent of McDonald’s, even though McDonald’s is over there) and had a quick bite before calling a hackney, which is a sort of non-official taxi service. He dropped us off at the McGregor’s place and we chatted for a brief moment with Phillip, and then Phillip left to go back to his house.

I woke up just a few minutes before Dad came in to wake me up. We had a simple but delicious breakfast of Scones (which is similar to a buttermilk biscuit). Deirdre told me that the best way to “enjoy a proper scone” was with butter, Jam AND fresh cream… I was hesitant thinking it would be too much, but it was absolutely delicious, and I can imagine myself keeping some handy now and then, although I have yet to do so. She suggested we visit the “Aran Islands” (or at least the largest of the islands) for our final day. So we hung around until about 10am, and then left for Gallaway to catch a bus and Ferry out to the island. The bus ride to the ferry was long. I was expecting a 20 minute drive at worst, but it ended up being almost 45 minutes. I’m kinda glad we took the bus, because the roads sucked, and I could imagine us getting lost or run off the road quite easily. The ferry ride was also pretty boring. It took about 40 minutes, too. I used some of that time to download the pictures from my camera to my laptop and clear off space for the hundred or so pictures I took at the Islands and to keep my mind off the possibility of getting seasick.

The Largest Island was incredible to see. The entire island is covered in rocks, and in order to build, farm, and do the things they need to do, the people living on the island used all the rocks to build walls. The guide we had on the island said that there are about 7000 miles of walls built, and I have every reason to believe him. The feel of the island is quite primitive. There isn’t much besides, roads, small houses mostly between 30 and 50 years old, and like I said, lots of rock walls, sectioning off the island in about 1000 square foot sections, some smaller, some bigger. We stopped to get something to drink after getting off of the ferry, and picked up a tour guide as soon as we walked out. About a dozen of the locals have vans parked outside of the ferry dock waiting to take people on tours of the island. It’s so peaceful and beautiful on the island that it made it a great place to spend the day. Unfortunately, we had a scheduled ferry ride off the island, so around 5 o’clock we made our way back to the docks to depart. The bus ride back took even longer, partially because the driver was about 45 minutes late, and partially because the idiot kept stopping along the way to talk to people and make unscheduled stops.

The final stop for the bus was right next to the garage where the car was parked in Gallaway, so we hopped off and went on our way closer to Shannon, which would be our last stop on the trip. The drive from Gallway to Shannon wasn’t so fun. It took quite a bit longer than we expected, and unfortunately we ended up bickering a lot. We were told to give a bar called “Dirty Nellie’s” a try, but by the time we got there nobody wanted anymore than a quick drink because we were all sort of pissed at each other. I have to admit, I’m finishing up typing this nearly 4 months after the trip because I put it off for so long, but I can’t even remember if there WAS a reason we were all crabby. We left Dirty Nellie’s, and once again, since there are no real names to the streets in Ireland, it took us another hour or so to find the Bed and Breakfast we had reserved for the night. I think we got there around 11pm, we got some showers and cleaned ourselves up so we didn’t look like hell when we got home, and spent an hour or two packing all of our goodies in our suitcases and such, since we really couldn’t take them on the plane in the gift bags. I was out like a light as soon as I climbed in to bed, and in only a few hours I was woken up to get ready to leave.

We were on our way to Shannon while it was still pitch dark outside. I don’t think we were that far from the airport, but getting there in the dark was sort of bother. After all, when we first arrived, the sun was already up and we were too focused on figuring out the roadways. We eventually made it to the car rental place to drop off the POS they stuck us with and took the shuttle to the airport. We got there, checked in and got our boarding passes and still had a few hours to spare before our flight, as we figured it would take us some time to get through security and customs and such. We grabbed a bite to eat in the cafeteria, which was actually pretty good, albeit pricey, but it was a good opportunity to unload some foreign money. After passing through the security checkpoint, we stopped in the duty free shop. They really didn’t have anything of interest other than the same tourist money-takers that we had seen all over the country… but they did have a damn good price on Jameson, so I bought the maximum 2 liters I was allowed to bring back for a whole 20 euro, which was (after the conversion) about 10-15 dollars cheaper than it would be over here. Truth be told, you CAN tell a difference in the stuff bought here and the stuff bought there, and the stuff I brought back is much better. Just wish I could have brought back a barrel of Guinness, because it’s so so good over there.

We realized a little bit later than we should have that the line for customs was growing FAST, so we hurried up and hopped in line. It took us about an hour to get through that line, and it seems like everyone in the line was getting on the same plane as us because we all lined up again outside of our gate. We had to wait another 20 minutes or so in that line, but once we were on the plane we really didn’t have to sit there for more than 15 minutes before they started wrapping things up to get moving. We were in the air actually a few minutes before our scheduled departure time and we were over the ocean with no land in sight in about 10 minutes. About 30 minutes in to the flight, they started the movie “Poseidon”… which wasn’t that good, but was amusing enough to take our minds off of the airplane’s tight environment. After a quick meal, I fell asleep for a little bit, and woke up just in time to watch their second movie, “Nacho Libre”. It wasn’t that good, but again, was entertaining enough. When it finished, it kind of sucked to think that we still had about 4 hours of a flight ahead of us… but we were definitely over a portion of Canada by that point, I believe. I slept off and on for the remainder of the flight. Upon arrival in Atlanta, we went through more customs, grabbed another bite to eat, and sat trying to occupy ourselves for our 3 hour layover. Joe finally got to talk to Kristen for a while and Mom and Dad checked in with the relatives that were awaiting word of our safe arrival. I spent the time wishing that airport wireless internet was free.

We boarded our plane for Cincinnati shortly after 4, and once again, we were in the air a few minutes before our scheduled time. Unlike the flight to Ireland from Atlanta, we didn’t have to wait 30 minutes in line for our turn to take off. There was a rough storm on the way to Cincinnati, so we actually had to fly up to Columbus then back down around the the back of the storm to Cincinnati, but by that point I had fallen asleep again. I definitely recommend a pair of noise-canceling headphones for a peaceful flight! Even if there was no music playing, I couldn’t even hear the sound of the engines!

We arrived in Cincy shortly before 6pm, I think. Mom and Dad dropped Joe and I off at our house and concluded the journey. It was all still pretty surreal at that point. It was the first time in my life that I had been out the country, and at one hand I STILL couldn’t believe it, while on the opposite hand it seemed like I had been over there forever. I can’t thank Mom and Dad enough for giving Joe and I the opportunity to go and everyone along the way who made the trip so fantastic.

I don’t work in a crappy iron foundry anymore. That’s a certainty. My last day was Friday. I’m so happy. It’s going to be weird being able to hang out with my friends and not working at night. For the past year, the entire time I’ve been living in Cincinnati, I’ve been on third shift.

But I got back from vacation and had an email asking my contact from a place called “RPI” to call him. I’ve been talking with RPI for about 3 or 4 months now, and pretty much the demeanor was that they were going to hire me, it was just a matter of when they would have the workload to justify hiring me.

So I visited them the same day, and they told me they were ready to roll. All I had to do was to take a pre-employment physical and drug screen. No problem there. I went Tuesday to take that, and I’m expecting a call back from RPI telling me that everything checked out and I can start work the next day.

HOTNESS.

I already quit Cast-Fab, so I may have a few days where I can say I’m unemployed, but I’m fine with that, seeing as I’ve been constantly employed since I was 18 and I have enough money to last me at least a few weeks before I should worry.

It was my plan to not update until I had something more to talk about than hating my job and not getting enough time to do things, so I guess that’s why you’re finally reading something new.

Also, if you recall, my trip to Ireland happened a couple weeks ago. It was awesome to say the least, and I’m finishing up a complete travel journal and sorting through the pictures before I upload it all, so be on the lookout for that. I’m certain the whole 4 people who read this will get a message to me about it anyway.

Check ya later, suckers!

I got the call today that everything came out nice and dandy on my physical and drug screen. So I’m going to be starting bright and early Monday morning.

I’m so excited.

As for now, I still got 2 days this week to get everything done that I’ve been wanting to do for months upon months. Nice.

One week down at the new job and I love it. Everyone at RPI is so friendly and welcoming, and I already feel like I’m at home. Granted, it’s probably because I’m coming from a third shift factory job that I hated every day of, but either way, things are good now.

The E Men had a party this past weekend to celebrate one year at “la casa de E”. It went over pretty well. We still have about 1/2 to 1/3 of a keg to finish off, but I don’t think that will be a problem. As best I can tell, nobody died and nothing got broken. I think Joe had a good time up until things went sour for him sometime after midnight. Haha. But we had plenty of people turn out (except, as usual, for all of the people I invited… but that’s another story.) and I don’t think anyone there DIDN’T have a good time, so… great!

The following morning Aunt Maria and Uncle Brett held the second annual “Straty-fest” Chili Cook-off. This year, they also added a cornbread and dessert competition. That was really fun. Mike, Doug, Jason, Brett and of course Kristen came along to enjoy some football, chili, cornbread, desserts and a fun atmosphere. I made my soon-to-be-famous chili again this year, which came in second place last year. I was sure I was going to win this year, but I ended up not doing so well, apparently. I guess all those suckers don’t know what good chili is. Once again this year, I had an empty crock pot at the end of the day, and Aunt Maria was the only other person that can make the same claim. Contrary to belief, I’m not bitter about it. But also, the Bengals lost, I got hit in the back of the head with a football, and the house is still a bit of a mess from the party. Hah.

I guess that’s all that’s worth telling about.

I’ve actually had some time lately to get some work done on the site, doing some coding changes and stuff… I screwed up and uploaded an old version of the “about” page, totally wrecking all the changes I made to it a few months ago. So now it still says I live in Franklin. Guess I’ll have to re-write that now.

I’m still working on the gallery script to show my pictures from Ireland, but I’m thinking about just breaking down and using someone else’s script because writing one is turning out to be a huge pain in the ass. The original goal of writing one was to make it easier to make galleries, but I don’t see the point in a “do lots more work to make the work easier” sort of deal. Oh well.

I’m out.

See ya.

PS: Safari is a crappy web browser and for some reason all text has roll-over effect that turns it blue. Works fine in every other browser, though.

This weekend brought in some sort of halloween party for everyone, and the E-Men were no exception. We’ve been planning a group costume for a month and we knew we would be a big hit at whatever party we went to.

Varner, a friend of Kristen’s, invited us over to his house for his halloween party towards the beginning of the month, so that’s when we decided to get started. Of course, we decided that, but none of us really did anything until I got started on my part the weekend of our party (on the 14th).

I began construction of my costume with some cardboard boxes and tape. I gave it the general shape I needed, and although time was short, I figured with all the tape and unlevelness of the costume, I should probably paper mache it. So last Tuesday, I got started on that. Paper mache is kind of a pain in the ass. Mostly because it takes so long, and partially because it’s a freaking mess (even though it’s easy to clean up.)

So after about a layer and a half of paper mache, I laid a coat of paint down on Thursday. I was excited. My costume looked like it was going to be perfect. The shape was exactly what I was hoping for and it was pretty solid, which was one of my big concerns. My other concern was that I wasn’t going to have enough time to lay the other colors of paint down and decorate it.

I didn’t get to work on it at all on Friday, so Saturday I had to get up early and get to work. I spent the better portion of my day working on the costume or contemplating what I had time to do still. It actually wore me out to the point where I was falling asleep on the couch before we left for the party!

We had to wait a little bit for Doug to get home from work, but once he got home and got into costume, we were on our way. Christi Gambill, a friend from high school, came along to go to the party. She called Brownie earlier in the day and Brownie invited her along, and she was definately welcomed company.

We arrived at Varner’s… or rather we passed his place and drove a quarter mile down the street to find a place to park… and then THE A-TEAM VAN (Me!) DROVE RIGHT THROUGH THE DOOR… Guns blazing, Mr. T. (Joe) throwing people through walls, Murdock (Mikey) and Face (Brownie) sucker punching the nearest suckers, and when the dust cleared, Hannibal (Dougie) said “I love it when a plan comes together.”

We rocked. People loved our costumes, but it took them a moment to catch on. I guessed that some people weren’t old enough to be drinking because they didn’t recognize us. After we were there for a little bit, we were informed there was actually a costume contest, and the winner got a pair of Bengals tickets for next day’s game! BONUS!

So when the judging rolled around, we were certain we’d run away with it all… because quite frankly, there were some good costumes, but nothing came close to us. They had us walk down stairs where everyone at the party waited to cheer for their favorite costumes. There were about 10 people entering, if you count us as one. We went last. We went down the stairs, humming out the A-Team theme, and the cheers were fantastic. They decided on three finalists, and it was us, versus Daisy Duke (Emily) and a white guy dressed as a member of the Black Panther Party (some guy I didn’t know.). So when the cheers came around again, we blew them both away. I mean, come on, we had a white guy dressed and painted as a black guy and then some! It was obvious that we had one, but one of the guys who lived there who was the judge of the audience applause, declared the Black Panther as the winner… and I then found out it was his friend. What a load of crap.

I built a freaking van outfit, and this guy wears a leather jacket, some pins, and wears a bunch of skin bronzer and he wins? It wasn’t soon after that we just decided to scram. The kegs were empty, and people were actually wondering how the hell we didn’t win. It was obvious to us that we had the better costumes. Oh well. We didn’t go in expecting a prize, so my attitude is that I can’t be upset we didn’t win a prize. Just like Stratyfest, I didn’t need to win to know I did better.

So we left, I dropped everyone off at the bar, and went home, then when they stumbled in drunk as hell I was cool enough to get Goldstar Chili for them. They all passed out or went to bed shortly after.

We later found out that there was actually some drama at the party, and that one of the other guys (who I didn’t know, but was pretty cool.) started a big argument over why we didn’t win and such. He was Howie Mandell from “Deal or No Deal”… complete with a girl carrying a briefcase. He did a pretty damn good job.

So yeah. Neat. Now the A-Team Van is sitting in our foyer, kinda busted from having to wade through hallways and crowds and I gotta figure out what to do with it. Maybe I’ll blow it up. Seems like a fitting end for the A-Team van. Or maybe I’ll just stick it in the basement until we move out. Whatever.

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures soon. I took my camera, but I couldn’t get it out of my pocket too easily, and I kept needing a free hand to hold the van up. So maybe people will send me some pictures.

See ya.

Man oh man I can’t believe that December is only a day away! Maybe it’s the fact that it’s been 60 some degrees out this week, or that I just enjoy my new job THAT much, but it seems like the whole month of December was just a quick little blip on the radar. I guess it’s like this most years this time of year, but for as fast as things have gone by, the summer and Ireland seem like they were ages ago!

Anyhow, although the realization is a bit hard, the Christmas lights are up at the E-house, I’ve already started my shopping, and the company Christmas party is this weekend! Okay, I guess I just can’t get over it.

Not all too much has happened though. Uhh… I voted… happy that the smoking ban passed. Thanksgiving was very Thanksgiving like. Lots of yummy food and all. Again, not much to report. Maybe that’s why it’s gone by so fast.

For lack of anything better to talk about… I’m out.

See ya.

…has been strangely exhausting. I worked on some brochures and other materials for some Pharmaceuticals all day Friday, Monday and Tuesday. It gave me the awesome pleasure of staring at pictures of people’s dysfunctional colons for 3 days. If that can’t scare a person into using this medication, I don’t know what will! Immediately after finishing that stuff up, the email for UDF giving their monthly signage came in, and I had to get started on that right away.

Getting the signage together for UDF isn’t that bad. In fact, it’s really easy because most of it is just recycling old signs. The part that sucks is that once you have the signs all made up, you have to deal with getting the shipping orders together. Certain stores get certain signs based on region and stuff, and for some reason the person making the signs gets stuck with figuring that all out. Whatever. It mostly just sucks because I only finished up December’s signage a week and a half ago. If I can get this done ASAP, I’ll have about 3 weeks of not seeing UDF.

Last night I was really tired. Mike and I were supposed to go to “The World’s Largest Office Party” but I didn’t really want to go. I didn’t figure that going there would be all that entertaining, and the tired thing sealed the deal. Then later on Mike decided to go to some event at the Art Museum, and that sounded more entertaining than attempting to socialize with a bunch of boring people I don’t know.

So we went to the art museum and met up with one of Joe’s former interns, Molly (Who informed me that I don’t update my site enough… … … hence the update.) They had a British themed party going on, complete with samplings of popular British cuisine. It was fun, but we didn’t get there until about 8:50, and they were closing up at 10. So we talked with Molly a bit, grabbed some food samples, then checked out a couple of the galleries. I would have liked to spend more time in the galleries, but oh well.

After we left I pretty much did nothing the rest of the night. I know, I’m thrilling.

Tonight I was planning on going to see a movie premier for Earagon because Joe asked me if I would want to take our Cousins Jake and Kaitlyn to it… he originally told me it was this week, but I found out yesterday that it is next week… so that just sort of opened my night up. Now it looks like I’m just going to be home alone. Guess I’ll just end up playing video games and catching up on some sleep.

See ya.

This is, quite possibly, the only bad week I’ve had at RPI thus far. Monday was alright. Since then things have sorta gone downhill. I’ve been working with a nameless customer and it’s been very frustrating trying to get things exactly as they want them.

For starters, I’ve gotten 3 emails that tell me to change something, then less than 24 hours later I get emails telling me to change it to the way I had it. I don’t understand why. Secondly, the terminology they are using is very poor, and the details of what needs to be changed is lacking. I spent 10 minutes reading the stuff over in my head before I (think I) understand what they want. Then, I was told to change something to match another piece, changed it and told it was wrong. Then I had to figure out 24 hours later that we were working from different copies of the piece that is supposed to be the example. Now I’m told we’re being pressed for time on all of it and that’s the worst part… had the communication from them been clear and detailed, it would have been done already. And I wouldn’t be crabby about it. And I wouldn’t be frustrated.

Tonight I have to take my cousins to see the movie that I thought was supposed to be last week. I kinda wish I could go home and be lazy or finish up my Christmas shopping, but oh well. I know they’ll appreciate it.

This past weekend was pretty fun, but went by way too quick. Friday after work a bunch of people from work went to Maloney’s Pub and had a grand old time. I brought my camera and the results of that can be seen in the pictures section. I didn’t quite intend to stay until 1am… but I had no clue what time it was because I forgot my phone that day. Oh well.

Saturday was sort of a bore. I spent most of the day just looking for something to do because I was home alone. Big surprise that I ended up just sitting around playing video games. I hung out with the roommates for a little bit downstairs, but ended up going to be sort of early because I was beat.

Sunday I woke up and was on my way right away. I had to take Doug and Kate over to her place because they had taken a cab home the previous night. Then as soon as I pulled in to our driveway I had to leave to go babysit for Aunt Maria and Uncle Brett with Joe and Kristen. They were going to Bengals game, so Joe said he would watch the kids, and dragged me in to it (Not that I didn’t want to, just sort of a last minute thing.) Kristen’s company party was the night before, and as a result Joe was beyond hungover.

Monday night we apparently had to have a “house meeting”. I thought it was sort of a waste of 2 hours. We (not exactly me.) just sat around complaining about all of the obvious bad habits we have and how we should start a money pot to buy things for the house. Nothing that couldn’t have been done in 20 minutes, but of course things had to get long winded and debated as if it was the most vital information ever. I hate to have such a sour outlook on it, but I’ll be honest and say it seemed mostly like Mike and Joe talking (or implyng) that they do more than me and Doug. Yeah, they’re probably going to read this at some point and get pissed, but so be it. Things have worked just fine in our house for 14 months and when I brought up the same ideas a month before we moved in, nobody gave a rat’s ass or people just started getting ridiculous with the suggestions. The only conclusion that could be drawn from 2 hours of my life is that we all have different opinions, with the exception of the fact that we can all agree we need to clean up more. My policy has always been that I put in as much effort as anyone. I know how we are though, and I know we wasted two hours because since Monday night, nothing has really been done that we’ve talked about doing. Oh well. We’ll be moving out by the time people change.

So yeah. My venting is done for the week, I guess. Let’s just hope we can finish the week on a high note somehow.

See ya.