On Friday night we went to see U2 play at Croke Park here in Dublin. I'd say it would be tough to argue there is a bigger rock band in the world and the endurance of their music speaks for itself. They put on an amazing live show on a weird War of the Worlds type stage. It is great to see all their energy and excitement even now in their 50's. Getting to see them in Dublin certainly goes down as a highlight of the time we've been here.
Here are some pics from the show.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
New shirt
While we were in Bergen we noticed a T-shirt shop that had some funny sayings. One was in my slide show regarding their taste for whale meat. I picked this one up and wore it yesterday. I'm sure it was shocking for people to know there was an evil capitalist among them.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Norway
We arrived back from Norway on Tuesday both having seen one of the most beautiful countries in Europe and having closed on our new house. What a day!! Dana has a nice slideshow on her blog of the new casa. It's very exciting to be back in the rhelm of home ownership. Now if we could only live in it.
Norway was beautiful. Here are the pictures. They start in Oslo which was a very modern clean city. We visited a sculpture park which had over 100 nude sculptures that were...strange. We also went to a viking museum and the Kon-Tiki museum, which has boats constructed in "old world" styles and used to cross the Atlantic and Pacific to show it was possible for cultures to interact long before Columbus or any other European adventure. We then boarded a train for the West coast. The train ride took us through some beautiful countryside. When we arrived in a town called Flam we got on a boat that took us through Sandefjord and down the coast to Bergen. Bergan was another amazing city. It was more what I expected Norway to look like with peaked roofs and colorful buildings. All together is was a very enjoyable trip even though it was really expensive. They have a 25% tax on everything and even more on alcohol and tabacco. It was strange that during Norway's high tourist season it was not very busy which I suppose is partly due to the expense.
Norway was beautiful. Here are the pictures. They start in Oslo which was a very modern clean city. We visited a sculpture park which had over 100 nude sculptures that were...strange. We also went to a viking museum and the Kon-Tiki museum, which has boats constructed in "old world" styles and used to cross the Atlantic and Pacific to show it was possible for cultures to interact long before Columbus or any other European adventure. We then boarded a train for the West coast. The train ride took us through some beautiful countryside. When we arrived in a town called Flam we got on a boat that took us through Sandefjord and down the coast to Bergen. Bergan was another amazing city. It was more what I expected Norway to look like with peaked roofs and colorful buildings. All together is was a very enjoyable trip even though it was really expensive. They have a 25% tax on everything and even more on alcohol and tabacco. It was strange that during Norway's high tourist season it was not very busy which I suppose is partly due to the expense.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Climate continued...
I've just read an addition to the continuing and growing climate change debate which has shown it is really a showdown between observational science vs. consensus science. Under President Bush there was an outcry by libs and greens that he was censoring those in his administration who spoke out in favor of man-made global warming. This came mainly from Jim Hanson, a NASA scientist, who while being "censored" by President Bush, managed to give several hundred speeches on the topic. It became such a hot topic that when Obama was elected he vowed that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." His new EPA director picked up the mantra and promised to base policies on science and provide overwhelming transparency.
Enter Alan Carlin. Mr. Carlin works in the EPA's Environmental Economics division and wrote an analysis questioning the EPA's science of man-made global warming in response to the Obama attempt to circumvent congress on the issue by declaring carbon (that element which is the scientific definition of whether something is "organic") a pollutant thereby giving the EPA the power to regulate it. The response to Mr. Carlin's report was what could best be described as a gag order by is superiors. The plight of Mr. Carlin has been picked up by Republicans who want an investigation. The EPA has now switched its efforts to discrediting Mr. Carlin as a "denier" and "only an economist" (though he does hold a degree in physics from a little place called CalTech!).
I can see all this playing out in some sci-fi movie where we all have to pay fines for being polluters because we exhale too much CO2 or perhaps some justification for Chinese-esk population control to protect the "mother earth" from all of us "unnatural beings."
Enter Alan Carlin. Mr. Carlin works in the EPA's Environmental Economics division and wrote an analysis questioning the EPA's science of man-made global warming in response to the Obama attempt to circumvent congress on the issue by declaring carbon (that element which is the scientific definition of whether something is "organic") a pollutant thereby giving the EPA the power to regulate it. The response to Mr. Carlin's report was what could best be described as a gag order by is superiors. The plight of Mr. Carlin has been picked up by Republicans who want an investigation. The EPA has now switched its efforts to discrediting Mr. Carlin as a "denier" and "only an economist" (though he does hold a degree in physics from a little place called CalTech!).
I can see all this playing out in some sci-fi movie where we all have to pay fines for being polluters because we exhale too much CO2 or perhaps some justification for Chinese-esk population control to protect the "mother earth" from all of us "unnatural beings."
Friday, July 03, 2009
Travelling on
Many of you know that we are going to Norway next weekend and visiting Oslo and taking a train through Sognefjord. It looks really beautiful and I'm very excited to go. We just booked our next really big trip that will be our most exotic trip to date. We're heading to Egypt and Jordan in September for a 9 day tour. It looks like it'll be an amazing adventure. We'll probably have more info as we get closer to the date but for now here is the tour description.
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