Odds n Ends

I have a report on the hurling and football matches coming up, but am once again waiting for the video clips I uploaded to YouTube to be available.

So in the meanwhile...

HOLYSMOKEMYTIMEHERE'SALMOSTATANEND!

My co-worker Justin and his brother Nathan arrive tomorrow morning. We're going to spend tomorrow and Wednesday knocking around Galway and doing a drive up through Connemara, hopefully to Westport if we have time. Thursday morning we're going to set out south for Kerry, probably staying in Dingle Thursday night and hopefully catching Eoin Duignan at An Droichead Beag. Stumbling across his regular Thursday night gig there was one of several highlights of my trip 2 years ago, and probably one of the biggest single influences in my crazy decision to try and learn the uilleann pipes.

From Dingle, I think we're going to head over to Cork and I'm going to hopefully meet up and visit with the O'Gormans for a bit while Justin and Nathan explore Blarney Castle and town. Friday night and Saturday are a bit unplanned right now, but might include another hurling match or heading over towards Waterford and Wexford, possibly stopping off to find The Magic Road in the Comeragh Mountains.

But by Saturday night, we need to be back at Shannon Airport for a hop over to Scotland for a week. We'll be spending a day or so in Edinburgh before venturing up to explore Granttown-on-Spey and the surrounding areas, plus Inverness, Loch Ness, Isle of Skye and whatever else we find time for along the way.

The following Saturday night I'll fly back to Shannon getting back here again in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

By that time, I'll be down to my last five days before I return home.

Wow. I can't really believe it. I'm excited to be home and really can not wait to see friends and family again, but I'd be lying if I said this stretch of time has not been one of, if not THE most amazing 3 months of my life, and the thought of closing the book on this particular chapter is really tough.

I need to start working out the details of Life After, but it appears that a house search in the Ann Arbor area is going to be my top priority, along with returning to work full-time (albeit remotely) for my company in Chicago. My leave of absence extends to mid-July, so I'll have a couple weeks to get acclimated and start to figure things out. I somehow doubt that'll be enough time to buy a house, close and move-in, though, so the remainder of the summer is looking to be rather interesting at this point.

So that covers the "Ends" portion of this post. For "Odds", how about a quick clip from Father Ted: