Magic Jewball

And now, where I am going. As an aside, I made this using the iPad app Skitch which I regularly use with my students in just this fashion, that is, grabbing an image from a map and annotating it. Recently, this app has become the latest thing to take sexay pictures of oneself and mark them up for the object of one’s affection with what one would like done to oneself. This has made it very difficult to use in an educational context with children while still keeping a straight face. Curses on you, amorous lovers!

So there’s the itinerary up there. I’ll spend half the time in Belfast because, well, it’s the major city and natural place to go. Then I’ll be filling my need for rugged coastal beauty with some time in Portrush and surroundings. I may go off from there to Derry, which seems to have a lot of history to it and I love history. I find it a little uncomfortable to be a “conflict tourist” but there has been a big conflict there so it would also be weird to not spend some time absorbing aspects of that. But if the coast has enough to do and the weather is fine, I may spend my two days in Portrush actually seeing the sites and meandering in natural beauty. Or “gallivanting” as my boss puts it.

I did speak on the phone to the owner of the Portrush B&B and as much as I could understand her, she said the weather had been good lately and she hoped it would continue for my visit. Both this B&B and the one in Belfast are centrally located and near the top of the listings at Tripadvisor, so I am relieved and feel set. I just have to work out the transport (those are the eight tabs I still have open in Chrome) and whether I should exchange some money before I leave. You see, I will need some cash in Dublin for the train and maybe a snack. Just kidding; of course a snack! But to have to get a second currency just for a transfer seems crazy. (I of course usually use the local ATM but I hate getting off a plane cashless so I exchange a few dollars at the bank here before I leave.) I’ll ponder that.

Tomorrow, a few words about my other trip next week, which I’m actually equally excited about.

And now, the happy thought of the day:

Oh yeah.

Photo from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_White_Rocks,_Portrush_-_geograph.org.uk_-_222351.jpg
Attribution:Kenneth Allen [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

There is a story to this song. One of my favorite co-workers is a hilarious assistant teacher and we were chatting about “the album that changed your life.” Mine, of course, was Girlfriend. Hers was Weezer’s Blue Album. I love that record and had it on heavy rotation for months in 1994, my first year in the music business. I really would like a post that I could title “My Name is Jonas,” but it hasn’t happened in the six years of this blog. I still have hope, though.

Title comes from:
Weezer – Holiday

This post is not about baking.

Happy song of the day:

St. Patrick’s themed outfits and stage set unintentional. Also, this is not the still I would have chosen. Oh, YouTube.

Writing this post makes a great change from what I’ve been writing all evening, which is, “Hi, do you have a room available for the nights of [reverse month and day]?” Because I forget that booking at a B&B run by Maura and Patrick Friendly isn’t the same as filling out the online form at the Marriott. And this is an advance from the way I used to have to just make phone calls at odd hours. That was right before I walked ten miles in the snow to the airport to take the autogyro.

Also, the reviews at Tripadvisor are decidedly different from the usual “room was dirty” and “unhelpful staff” you usually get. They mostly focus on how awesome or how awful Maura and Patrick really are. There’s one B&B I’d like to stay at just to find out if the proprietress really does march you to your room like you’re going to your cell. And people in Northern Ireland know! Well, maybe not. But now I get to wait till I wake up to find out if any of these are available. And the hotels all seem to be booked in the town I chose for my weekend visit. If I actually get a room, I’ll reveal what it is. Otherwise, I believe in the possibility of jinxing things and I just don’t have the luck of the Irish.

I keep writing hoping a happy thought occurs.

Well, I got my “Rick Steve’s Northern Ireland” for 20% off at Barnes & Noble because I’m a teacher. That was happy. Actually, the Educator Discount Card is supposed to be for things you will use in the classroom but I did read a whole bunch of it in my classroom, so I feel that technically, that was true.

By the way, besides Rick, I also have 23 tabs open in my browser. My computer is wheezing right now.

So right, the happy thought. The happy thought.

The happy thought is: sea view. Because there are really no two words in the world other than “Depeche concert” that will make me feel happier.

I hope I didn’t just jinx myself.

Nine Inch Nails – La Mer

This one is a hard one because although I’m in the midst of a happy thoughts marathon, I’m feeling sad about something. So I will just leave it with a couple of happy sports things that happened today (for me) (and for these athletes). First, I finally managed to catch a pre-season baseball game and even Mariano’s first outing of the season. And the Yankees won! Although it means nothing, woot! More meaningfully, David Nalbandian won his second round match today at Indian Wells, where the Deases are, and in usual Nalbifashion, that is, in all tiebreaks. But hey, the result is what counts, or so they tell me. That makes me feel wistful about deciding to go to the UK rather than the Sony Ericsson Tournament in Miami, since he will be there, too. But due to laws of space, time, and money, I can only choose one place to vacation.

Speaking of, I’ve sort of decided on Northern Ireland and must get cracking on hotels since it is (gulp) now a bit over a week away. If you feel like planning my vacation for me, please apply in the comments section.

No song today, I’m Derry sorry. Ha, better jokes to come, I hope.

I was on my way home from work/supermarket, riding home on the bus, thinking unhappily that I had no happy thoughts and had run through all possible videos this week. But then I saw this on Twitter, retweeted by the Johns Hopkins Twitter account:

[blackbirdpie id=”178148192448282624″]

First off, wow, Hopkins has a Reddit site? Huh. But anyway, if you follow that link, you get to:

Pretty neat. I could have used that while I was there. Although it’s fine now, too. But even more importantly, you. You’re awesome. Thanks for sharing the blogging happy project with me.

Pearl Jam – You Are