St. Nick

Ever have one of those bad hair days where it looked like you were out on an all-night bender with Nick Nolte? Me too.

Writing on the walls

Wandering around Dublin before the Broken Social Scene gig, I stumbled upon this parking lot of pretty cool graffiti. I'm sure there is a more elegant way to display a few pics, but managing Flickr via a dial-up account is worse than a joke.

The placement of the rat was clever ...

Fee. Fi. Fo. Fum.

David got it in my head that it looked like the woman in the picture was a giant peering out at the man on the cherry picker. The college was installing three large banners at the college as a teaser campaign for the new branding work that is being completed. The college is one of the organisations on the Innovation By Design programme; the programme I helped create and manage at the Centre. It was nice to catch the unveiling in action. I'd love to know the student's reaction to seeing this hanging in the main lobby when she came to class.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

With compliments

Rock pools at Aughris Head

Spring blooms at Powerscourt

Two great sunsets

There was nothing unlucky about my Friday the 13th. After spending three days developing a user centered design workshop with colleagues from England and Scotland, we caught the sunset over the waves at Strandhill. Having a pint of Guinness on the wall overlooking the beach brought back fond memories of doing just the same when I was made the offer to join the Centre.

The current advertsing for Guinness is around the turbulence in the glass as it is being poured, and I couldn't help noticing the similarities to the layers of the waves on the water.

Sun salutation

A nice misty sunrise this morning.

Copycats

Welcome competition

Gabe nonchalantly asked me to clear the photos off his camera. Frankly I was a bit stunned at a few of the shots he had taken, including this honey. I'm not sure this JPG does the photo justice. The colors and light were just fabulous.

Spirit standing still?

One of my favorite quotes from a photographer is that of Minor White: "Spirit stands still for the photographer it has chosen." I stopped my car on the way to work to try and capture this amazing light. (I was tempted to remove those power lines in Photoshop, but that would be cheating, right?"

Luxembourg Gardens

Facade

Saw this fantastic facade on a building being restored. Some of the elements are actually dimensional and the overall effect drew Gabe and I down the street to have a closer look.

Winter Solstice

I first visited Ireland in 1993 and one of the most moving experiences was visiting the Boyne Valley, and in particular, Newgrange. This morning on the Solstice, a shaft of light would have crawled it's way up the main passage to illuminate a burial chamber at the back of the mound. This will continue to happen for thousands of years.

Lisa was lucky enough to have been in the passage tomb before it became such a popular tourist spot, and the Solstice an event mainly for dignitaries and those willing to be put on a waiting list.

Update: The 2006 Winter Solstice Draw took place on the 29th of September, there were 27,485 applications. Application forms are now available at the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre for the 2007 Winter Solstice Draw.

Interestingly, Sligo, as I may have mentioned before, has the largest concentration of megalithic monuments in the whole of Ireland. That is quite an accomplishment, considering the wealth of megalithic history per square inch.

The site we created as an on-line exhibition is still up, and pretty good for the web of 1996. (It's actually one of the few sites still optimised for my dial-up viewing experience!)

I was listening to an interesting radio program discussing the transition to Christian religions and how celebrations were purposefully aligned with existing pagan celebrations. Happy Solstice.

99

Well, this is my 99th post to my blog, coincidentally announcing the posting of 99 pictures from Florence.

In the Permalinks sidebar, I have also posted a link for archived photos. One day I will get the photos transfered over to Flickr. It's a shame Google didn't buy them as well as Blogger so we'd have seamless integration.

Aughris Head

On Saturday for lunch we traveled to Aughris Head and the Beach Bar. Gabe practiced his Gaelic skills on the beach and the adults lost a stunning soccer match to the children 7-5. One member of the party braved the ocean for a swim.

The highlight was a walk along the ocean wall to a view of the water, with the sun setting behind us. Here are some more pics.

Happy Halloween!