Quit complaining, it builds character!

So if you've read Amanda's blog, you know that we spent the first six nights camping in Ireland. Of these nights, it rained six nights (that's every night for the numerically challenged). It was not the best camping, but it was a very long way from the worst camping. The tent was (for the most part) dry. It dripped in during the absolutely heaviest rain, and even then, it was just an occasional drop. Mostly from a seam in the fly that doesn't seem to be quite water tight (have to hit it with seam sealer).

Regardless, I think the kids will fondly remember this for the rest of their lives. What with all memories seeming better over time. For example, I'll probably start a PhD after we return. The memory of my Master's Thesis doesn't seem so bad anymore.

My absolute favorite campsite was the Glen of Aherlow. It was more peaceful, more remote, better views, and free showers. That's a pretty good combination. Still not anything as good as a state park in The States. Camping here is all private and business, not the nature feel you get at a park in the US.

Ireland itself was beautiful. All the pictures are up now on Flickr (along with Scotland, London, and Roche Abbey). Take a look and see what we saw. Nothing is tagged, so aplogies for that. Maybe I'll get around to dividing them up into finer sets instead of simply "Ireland". The coast was fantastic. I really wanted to get out there and try surfing, but didn't have the time. I think in October we'll try to get over to Irish sea side of the UK and I'll do some surfing then. We saw some amazing ruins from several different centuries.

An anecdote from the trip. Amanda had bought this low res map of the stone circles between Cork and Kilarney. It's the highest concentration of stone-age ruins in Europe. She really wanted to find one. I pointed out that the map would be useless as it wasn't to scale, and only gave a vague indication of where they were. I would be like trying to find a particular stone in an entire farmer's field. Actually, exactly like trying to find a particular stone in a farmer's field since all the land is privately owned. But, because I love my wife, we stopped at a book store and bought a proper OS map with a scale of 1:50000 and all the topographic features and ruins marked.

After a nice lunch at a local cafe, and corelating the tourist map with the OS map, we set out to find a stone circle marked near a road (little hiking) and with a decent drawing on the tourist map. It took about a half an hour of backtracking to find the approximate location to park. The map was not waterproof, and it was raining, so while Amanda and the kids sat in the car I studied the map, jumped out of the car, hopped the farmers' fences and looked for the relic in the rain. Retreat to the car, relic still hidden. Study the map some more, try again. No luck. We were close. I should have been able to find it, but in the summer, the brush was grown in quite well hiding anything low to the ground. Without the map in hand, I had to go by memory, and there were builders nearby working on a new house and I didn't want to get kicked off the property. Anyway, it ended in no luck, muddy pants, and a tired Phil from running around trying not to get noticed.

There is a nice stone circle near our flat in England, and I know exactly where it is (theres a picture of it on Flickr with The Girl climbing on one of the stones). I'll take Amanda to that one this weekend if she's up for it.

I'm working on the Google Earth track of our trip. As soon as it's done, I'll post a link.

This weekend, I did some bike riding on Saturday. I rode up to the highest point in South Yorkshire. When I say I rode, what I mean is I rode, then pushed, then rode, then pushed, then tossed the bike to the side of the trail and walked. Beautiful views.

On Monday (holiday here) I did some bouldering with The Boy. I bought a bouldering guide for the peak district and found that there was some decent (read easy) boulders at Burbage South. The Boy kept mocking me for not taking the easy way up. I kept thinking I couldn't climb because the best I could do was a 4, equivalent to something between about a V0 and a V1! I think that not having a crash pad was making me too nervous to try anything harder. Also, my shoes suck for bouldering. Yeah, that's it, it's the shoe's fault.

Finally, in response to Mike's post on Flash games I want to point out one that a friend sent me. Bloxorz is a very clever puzzle game. Took me about 2:30 to finish all 33 levels, so you won't feel like your wasting your life if you do start it. You can finish it in one or two sittings.

NO MORE TRAVEL (sort of)

I haven't posted in a while because I've been traveling like mad lately. The first part of August I went with my parents and family to London. I'm glad I went and I had a great time. I've seen London, but I think others who knew it a decade ago are right, it is just another world city these days and the local charm of "London" is gone. I didn't ever feel like I was in a foreign country. It felt only slightly different than the few hours I spent in New York years ago. Anyway, I've been to London now.

After that, I had a trip back to the States briefly for the second interview in my job/career track thing. I thought it went well, and I will find out the end result on September 5th. I'm anxious, but confident that I passed. While in St. Louis, I did a ton of work. The hours were long and I was basically eating, sleeping, or working. I did get to have dinner one night with some friends and that was special. Thanks to Merl for a fantastic spread!

Then, when I got back to the UK, I rested on Sunday, worked on Monday, and then headed off for my actual family vacation to Ireland! Nine days and eight nights, six of which we were camping. Amanda brought her computer, and wrote blog entries every night. She will be posting them shortly. I will write my impressions of the trip this weekend. Basically, Ireland has rain. Rain is wet, but it makes things green. Green is very pretty.

So between London, Amanda's trip to Scotland, and Ireland we've got over 500 photos to go through and put up on Flickr. It will take me a while to get them all up and organized. Just to give you all an idea, about 1/2- 2/3 of the photos get put up on Flickr, the others are poorly exposed or crap or whatnot. Most of them are duplicates from exposure bracketing or playing with aperture and shutter and I judiciously try to pick the best one to put on Flickr. I haven't even looked to see what is on The Girl's camera lately.

So, except for a probable trip to Maryland in the near future, I'm done with travel for a while. Back to work in the UK!