Weekly Happenings

We got a king sized mattress. Can't remember where, but it is most nifty. We need to get the bed frame though.

Much cleaning and studying this weekend. Monday Mom, Skip, Grandma and I droomed up to Augusta to help shuffle stuff back, like a pump organ. Pump Organ=The Heavy but it was fun :)

Sunday we all went up to visit wisdomgirl/sadsog and Todd and it was most keenerific. We rewatched the incredibles. I like that movie.

We also saw Indiana IV. I liked it but for 30 seconds at the end where they showed something they shouldn't. Still worth seeing though.

Novel 2 is done. Mom and Ken will be reading and I'll post updates as I go. Anyone else wants to review an early copy and make suggestions, ping me.

Photos

Here are the photos from our vacation

http://picasaweb.google.com/golddame5.5/2ndHoneymoonBirthdayVacation?authkey=-s1dt1ym34o

Photos from the wedding.

http://picasaweb.google.com/golddame5.5/OurWedding?authkey=anoGjTCrgBo

I'll be removing the link in a week or so.

Dueling Morons is Done

The independent film I was working on is finally done. Julie did an absolutely fantastic job editing it, but the sound and camera are still just too primitive to submit it to film festivals. Still, I learned a lot from this, and should have the hardware to put something much better together later this year.

I'm chalking it up as a learning experience.

At any rate, here is the film. You'll probably want to turn your sound up.

Happenings this week

We saw 'Speed Racer' over the weekend. I can understand why some critics didn't like it, but we both did. I personally felt about 5-6 minutes could have been edited out of it, but for the most part it was the right tone and pace and depth. Its one of those movies that you'll either love or you'll hate. But it certainly doesn't look like it is going to go well.

We hung out with Mom, Skip and Grandma Lawson last night. Jennifer had the idea of getting them massages for Mother's Day and they were very appreciative. The power went out so we had fun lighting candles and the like. No one wanted to play 'So I'm Going on An Expedition to Africa'...I wonder why. :)

Writing is going well. Nearly done with the second novel. I spent a good chunk of Saturday playing Eve Online and made a rather nice cargo run through ridiculously dangerous space. Last Tuesday night we finished a D&D game based on the movie '300' that we'd been playing for a year. It went quite well.

And we're back

Saturday night we saw "The Dublin City Working Man's Band" at Slatterly's Tavern. It was pretty cool. We bought two CD's and I might see if I can do the music thing and put up a few of their songs on here, assuming I don't get shot by the RIAA for doing so.

Sunday we came back. We saw "Jumper" on the plane ('bleh'). The flight went well. The hour we spent in the airport whilst the monkey's figured out what to do to get the baggage carosel unstuck was not. Understand, it is not the fact that it broke down that I found annoying but the fact that they kept 'fixing' it then walking away for ten minutes because they thought it was working again until they came back and 'fixed' it again.

We spent part of Sunday and part of Monday coming home. It is very good to be back. :) The Dog was certainly good to see us (we picked him up from some friends who were seeing him).

Our Journey Continues

The beaty museum was pretty cool. It had a lot of ancient scriptures and the like in it. I found the Buddhist stuff particularly interesting, though they had a wide variety of all of all religions except Judaism because apparently it was fairly difficult for the millionare who donated them to Ireland to collect.

The Book of Kells is an ancient illustrated representation of the gospels which is often thought of the epitome of Irish Celtic art, and also as the paragon of medieval art. It certainly is impressive. I think the thing the thing that impressed me the most was the fact that the Lapulis Lazuli was imported from a single mine all the way from Afghanistan. The idea that these extensive trade networks back then is pretty amazing.

Iron Man was good. The plot was a bit thin, but it was still enjoyable. It had a healthy amount of explosions. There were a few fascinating things about seeing a movie in Ireland. One, you can buy beer and spirits at the movie theater and drink it there. Not amazingly surprising. However, what was interesting was the fact that their movie seats are assigned, just like our seat whilst going to a play was assigned. There were no 'pre movie slides'. There were also, so far as I saw, no ads for Irish movies before Iron Man, and only a small handful in the entire theater. They were almost all American movies.

Today we spent most of the day in the Irish National Museum. They had an impressive display of all kinds of Irish historical artifacts, including ancient ones, viking ones, and of course Celtic. The most impressive items on display are four virtually perfectly preserved partial human corpses that were found in a bog. You could even see the fingerprints on the skin or the hair. Indeed, with two of the four, the hair was better preserved better than some items. They also had a rather large celtic dug out canoe.

Galway to Dublin

Wednesday we took the train to Dublin and got a hotel at a lovely bed and breakfast called the Leesom Inn. If they'd had any rooms left we would definitely have stayed there but there is a banking holiday this weekend, so all of the cheaper rooms are booked up. Still, we got a pretty good deal with the Jury's Inn at Christchurch (where we will be staying until we leave). That was the same place we stayed in Galway and it turns out there is a chain of them.

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Hill of Tara and several of the local sites around Dublin. Our tour guide was quite knowledgable and told us quite a bit of useful information. There was an old book shop that was next to the visitor's center for the Hill where I bought a book of poems and short stories from 1835. It looks moderately interesting though to be honest the main reason I bought it was because it was just old and I liked the idea of owning something that old. Short of a rock someone gave me from the valley of Armageddon, that is by far the oldest thing that I own.

Yesterday was Jennifer's birthday. After the tour (which Jennifer has been wanting to do her whole life and is the main reason we came) we went to the Abbey theater to see "Buriel at Thebes" which is a very cool modern reinterpreation of "Antigone". We enjoyed it a great deal. We also stopped by a local pub and saw some traditional irish dancing and stuff. Then we went home.

Today we plan to see the Chester Beatty Museum, the Book of Kells and a few other things. We are also going to see Iron Man tonight. Yes, we could see it in the states, but A)We want to see it B)Everything except pub crawling and more dancing is going to be closed at that time tonight anyway.

All for now.