The web we weave Not long ago I started getting Yahoo Daily News stories selected "especially" for me. I never asked to receive this daily e-mail, just like I never asked for most of the stuff I get in my inbox and mailbox. Because my studies can be fairly tedious, I am
Lovin' Lanyon I know I've posted a lot of photos of my favorite building, but these are Queen's photos [http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/StudyatQueens/UndergraduateStudents/Over160YearsofHeritage/] , which are better. They showed up on my Facebook page, so I thought I'd share them. 3-19
Four Phases of Kitchen The only "before" photo I have of the kitchen is from the sales brochure. If you click on this link [http://www.templetonrobinson.co.uk/images/property/179/TRHTRH72690/TRHTRH72690-1.pdf] and scroll until you see two rows of pine cupboards, you are in the kitchen. Here'
Competition So I know you are all dying to hear what I'll be studying during the second half of my second semester. Here's what I'm reading right now: "The Multiple Personalities of EU Competition Law: Time For a Comprehensive Debate on its Objective."
Boo-racracy Apologies for my lame attempts at writing clever headlines. A downside of living in Ulster is the bureacracy. In the U.S. they'd probably talk of a nanny state. Two pertinent examples. Every year, you have to have an MOT inspection (I believe that is Ministry of Transport)
Ta-Da Not a great photo, but this gives some idea of the chosen color. Above the picture rail are the color samples as I try to pick a second color. This photo didn't turn out well but it is of the next project: painting three rows of molding all
5.3 vs. 2.3 We went to a fancy Indian restaurant last night as part of a Meet Up event. There were 18 people there, allowing us to use those social skills that are at risk of atrophying if we don't get out occasionally. I spoke to a woman who--like many women
Decisions... Picking a color is HARD. I live in a linear world that imposes order on everything I do. To select a color for the master bedroom, I first must decide what rug will go in that room (the pastel or the raspberry?). Once that's decided, I then must
Irony Sometimes I'll go back and read something and be amused by my lack of awareness around the contradictions in what I've written (a nicer way of saying sometimes I realize what a hypocrit I am :-). Like yesterday I wrote that it would be a pain
Cats and tweets Last night I facilitated a climate change discussion, acting as Ban Ki Moon. The teacher earlier required us to set up a twitter account (those of us not already tweeting away). What this meant was that I was tweeting comments about the exercise rather than being present during the exercise.
bus stop My Belfast bus stop is next to city hall, which is in the middle of a big green rectangle and is surrounded by lovely old buildings. The bus-stop side of city hall (not the front): Across from the square is what was once the department store Robinson Cleaver: It now
Comber Greenway Our morning walk with Maysie has been citified, just like our commute. The Comber Greenway used to be a rail line and is now reserved for cyclists, dog walkers, runners and strollers. It is a short walk from the house. I'm appalled by how many people don'
Slowgress That's what you get when progress is slow. After three coats of stain on the master bedroom floor, the plan was to furnish it, set up the bed, organize our dressers, and live a bit more normally. Then we decided we should paint the wall behind where the
Michael & Faye Here's a photo of our back garden. We didn't realise the property came with two goldfish, but it did. The heron is keeping an eye on them. The camelia bush has been blooming for a few weeks, as have the rhododendron bushes. I see my friends&
David & Stuart When they had us over for dinner last weekend, David offered to come by to trim our rose bushes. He is a keen gardener and loves roses. So they came by this afternoon and I gave them a tour of our disheveled house. After which David went after our five
Billionare's club Last night I went to a Q&A with Denis O'Brien, founder and majority owner of Digicel: "Digicel Group is a leading global communications provider with operations in 33 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Asia Pacific. After 13 years of operation, total investment to
Chester, PA Monday night I had the surreal experience of sitting in a classroom in Belfast during my environmental justice class, while skyping with someone in Hawaii who is an expert on environmental degradation in Chester, Pa. Our class read an academic piece on grassroots activism in Chester in the 1990s. Each
City life There's a lot that's different about daily life in Belfast vs. Crawforsburn. Biggest is the commute. I used to drive three minutes to Helen's Bay train station, take the train for 30 minutes to Botanic station, walk seven minutes to Queen's (and
Camp Casey After I got two coats of stain on the future office floor, we set up trundle beds like so: Notice the amount of floor space given over to her highness (i.e. round bed is hers). Despite which she had to join David on his bed this morning: While workmen
Bless this mess The living and dining rooms used to be full of tool boxes, piles of rubbish, lumber, buckets of plaster and grout and so on. Now they're full of luggage, kennels, bags, shoes, etc. That's my backpack vacuum in the foreground. We're using the rattan
Moving day, part two Today I got on very familiar terms with my new vacuum. If vacuuming were an Olympic sport, I would be a multiple gold winner. In America, I had a commercial grade backpack vacuum (think Ghostbusters). Having a dog and two cats and a dusty old house means you really have
Moving day David honestly thought we could move everything from Crawfordsburn to Cherryvalley in one day, clean the Crawfordsburn townhouse and set up pets and beds and clean plaster dust in Cherryvalley. I didn't argue with him on this because I knew he would come round, and he did. In
Staining, day 2 This is my future office. The stained section represents an hour of (backbreaking) work. This and the master bedroom have a single coat of stain. We now have to decide if they are getting a second coat of stain and whether or not to polyurethane. Partly this is a decision
Mop up I left our "new" house around noon Monday, while the electrician was just getting warmed up. When I returned today after a down day yesterday, all the lights were hung. I was like a kid, running around flipping switches. The lights look great, although I'd like