Dublin

Since I was reminded today that I've been to Dublin by my lower pay check, I figured I should finally write about it. Even though the airline doesn't charge us, there are still fees at international airports that they don't take care of for us. Hence, my Dublin trip was paid for by a $49 deduction from my check.

Dublin was great. It wasn't real warm but it stayed dry for the most part, we stayed at a hotel that was extremely convenient to everything and I discovered a new favorite drink. Old cities tend to be more walkable with everything closer together and that was the case in Dublin. I think all the sights we saw were within a 15 minute walk of the center of the city. In another trip I would love to see the countryside but with just two days, staying in the city was really the only option. Another cool thing I did was take a tour of the old Jameson distillery. It's not where they make their whiskey any more but it was from the late 1700s until the 1970s when they built a new modern facility further south. It was really interesting and I had a free sample at the end. There was talk about what people mix their Jameson with and even though mixing it with anything was greatly frowned upon a few years back, it's been gaining acceptance. The tour guide said her favorite (mixing it with ginger ale) is popular in Britain so I gave it a shot and loved it. I guess that will be my St. Patrick's Day drink at the local Irish pub.

Here are a few pics and you can find the rest of the gallery here.

Note the date and place on the memorial from the church. Pretty sad to think that the situation remains in some ways the same.

2010

So the not quite daily is really not even quite monthly. Maybe I should make a New Year's resolution to blog more although I can tell you right now that will probably not happen. However it's kind of funny that while I spent most of 2009 unemployed I feel like I've taken on more in 2010. I hope that it's a better year for me and a lot of people out there who had a miserable past 12 months or so.
So update on me personally: In November I started a contract position at Delta, my dream job. I'm still waiting for it to turn permanent but crossing my fingers that it will be soon. So far I love my job, partially because I love the industry, well, probably mainly because of that. I have never had a job outside the airlines that I found so stimulating, challenging, maddening, interesting and exciting. It's definitely the right fit for me. Not to mention the travel perks. I've only taken advantage of them once so far with a trip that could have easily been driven but next week I hope to get out of the country for the first time since I moved back from Japan. My poor passport has been feeling sorely neglected. It's funny that I used to use it so much that I ran out of pages in less than three years and now three years later those extra pages have been used maybe once. Oh, the trip I'm hoping to take is to Dublin, Ireland. It'll only be a few days but fun to go somewhere I haven't been.
Another project that is taking some time is that I've finally started running pretty consistently again. I found a great running store here that is only about half a mile away and they have a run club once a week. I've been a pretty regular attendee so one of the staff asked me to be one of the coaches for a beginning group of women training for a 5k. It's great to have that extra commitment to get me going and so much fun to find other people to get out there with. Phidippides is the store that I run with (I know it's a strange name but that's the guy who ran the first marathon so it's appropriate.)
A few other items of note: My friend Marnie has really exciting news to share with her crafts now being sold in New York at the Museum of Modern Art. The link to her blog is on the right (Karger-Tift) so you can check them out. Way to go, girl! :)
On a completely different note, I've been completely glued to the coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. I guess I'm pretty fascinated by tragedy as anybody who knows of my fascination with New Orleans can tell you. I'm watching the telethon right now. I remember watching the one that took place after 9/11 and I think that was the first time that all the networks had gotten together to do something like this. Since then it has happened for the Asian tsunami I think as well as after Hurricane Katrina. Just a note to put the magnitude of this disaster in perspective: Death toll: 9-11 attack: 2,992, Asian tsunami:230,000, Hurricane Katrina: 1,836, earthquake in Haiti: still very uncertain but recent estimates have put it at 200,000. While this is less than the tsunami, the devastation is so much more concentrated. Haiti as a whole is smaller than the state of Maryland and has a population of less than 7 million. That's like Dallas-Ft. Worth losing 200,000 people. The other part of the tragedy is how little Haiti had to begin with. Heartbreaking. One story that particularly resonates with me is the loss of UN life. It is the single worst loss in the history of the UN. When I think of soldiers giving for their country, I also think of these UN workers who are giving not only for the sake of their nation but for all of humanity. Not fighting but keeping the peace. They are definitely heroes.

That's probably enough of my rambling until St. Patrick's Day or so.... Take care and give if you can. I would encourage people to give to The Bush Clinton Fund bushclintonhaitifund.org or Doctors without Borders doctorswithoutborders.org

Greenville and Asheville

I finally uploaded pics from this fall. Very late as these are from an October trip. The top one is from Greenville, SC. I have friends there that I met in Tokyo (the husband was studying there but they are from South Caroline and Georgia) so I was up there for a housewarming/fall get together. Some friends from here went along as well and we continued on to the Biltmore outside of Asheville, NC which is the Vanderbilt family mansion. My favorite story about it is that as there were only a few family members living there in the 1930s and this was obviously more than they needed, the local folks asked if they could open up the residence to the public hoping that it would spur tourism and bring jobs to the area. It has succeeded in that endeavor and still boasts a ton of visitors. It's an expensive admission price and they continually bragged about the fact that it is private and not a government institution but for the price of admission they should be able to pay the bills!

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

Oops, it's been a while. I have pics from visiting the Biltmore and Asheville in North Carolina and family in Savannah but I'm really glad that I visited Alabama last Saturday to look at a lot of civil rights history. A friend and I went to Selma where we the walks to Montgomery had originated in 1965. We then followed the route and saw the Civil Rights Memorial and Museum in Montgomery which is dedicated to the memory of those who died fighting for civil rights, especially during the years 1954-1968. Fortunately my cousin had visited a lot of these sites while planning a social studies curriculum for her school so I knew to look for a small, out of the way museum that I never would have found otherwise. It was the Museum of Slavery and the Civil War which was a very intense experience. We caught the end of a reenactment of several parts of the slave experience and its something that more people, actually everybody, should hear, see and feel. From the loading onto the ships to the Middle Passage to the auctions to the separation of families, they are all intense experiences that should be remembered.

The first photo is from the National Park Service's Interpretive Center which is located between Selma and Montgomery. The second is some of the people who died during the movement. This group of children died on September 15, 1963. The four girls died in the Birmingham church bombing and the boy was killed by other kids later in the day. The last is a view of the memorial which has the names of people who died etched in it. It was designed my Maya Lin, the same woman who designed the Vietnam War Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

Here is a link to the gallery of photos from the trip as well.

http://notquitedailyjen.smugmug.com/Travel/Alabama-Civil-Rights-Trip/10448136_P3mCL/1/724734691_3TDLG

Atlanta Road Trips

The past two weekends I've gone on short road trips with friends. Two weeks ago we spent Saturday in Warm Springs which is only an hour or so away from Atlanta. The main draw is "The Little White House" where Franklin Roosevelt had a home and also died in 1945. There is also a resort near Warm Springs called Callaway Gardens which has golfing, trails, a conservatory, etc. Both were nice but the history buff in me definitely liked the FDR museum and home the best.

Last weekend the trip was a bit further. Some friends from South Carolina who I knew when I lived in Japan live in Greenville, SC which is a great little city. The downtown is spectacular with a park with waterfalls and everything. It's only about 2-3 hours to Greenville where we spent the night before heading up to Asheville which is about another hour away. That is the site of Biltmore Estate, once a Vanderbilt home. In the 1930's, the locals asked them to open it to the public to bring tourists to combat the failing economy. At one point it consisted of 10s of 1000s of acres but now is about 8000 acres with a winery, gardens and America's largest home. Over 250 rooms and 43 bathrooms. That is really impressive considering that it was built in 1895 when indoor plumbing at all was rare.

Since I don't feel like posting a ton of pictures all at once, below are pictures of The Little White House. After talking about Biltmore, it is hard not to notice how small it is although I guess I didn't get many pictures of the outside. The whole house was only about 25x80 per level although I think it had two floors and we only saw one. I thought the pics of the sentry outpost were also pretty cool. There were several of these outside the house where a guard would have been stationed.

Photos

Finally a few photos: The first four are obviously the Braves/Mets game I went to. I took a few extra pictures of Luis Castillo since he's a former Twin. He has had a pretty good year although the Mets have suffered immensely from injuries and are out of playoff contention. I was rooting for them however and will always root against the Braves for a couple of reasons including the 1991 World Series as well as the Tomahawk Chop. I knew I didn't like it but it surprised me how much I hated it. Kind of a sick to my stomach feeling when it started. I would equate it to having to listen to a racist joke or something. Not a pleasant feeling at all.

In addition to not liking the Braves, it was a rainy day/night so we got wet. Ironic that everybody thinks baseball games under a roof are stupid... Lots of bugs around too.

The last pic is of the Martin Luther King/Coretta Scott King tomb with the eternal flame in the foreground.

10 Good Things About Atlanta

I went for a nice walk in Piedmont Park this evening after working out in the building's gym and was thinking how much I like this place so far so here are some things I like so far about Atlanta in no particular order. Keep in mind that this is from the perspective of somebody who's been in town approximately 10 days.

-It's so green. I thought Minneapolis was green and it really is, especially for the climate, but Atlanta has trees everywhere. You are on the middle of the freeway near downtown and can only see trees. This was unexpected because Minnesota usually ranks really high in park space but I haven't noticed Atlanta at the top of the list.

-Hills. Yes, these are both good and bad but I find a little terrain refreshing.

-Southern cooking. So far I've had sweet potato pancakes with pecans which were amazing and Chick-fil-A which was free yesterday for wearing a team shirt. Erika and I had Twins shirts on and thus were able to get free sandwiches for dinner. These same tshirts caused a discussion at the the diner in the morning regarding the 1991 World Series and the Kent Hrbek/Ron Gant episode. Funny.

-Piedmont Park and Chastain Park. Piedmont Park is very nice although small and located near Erika's apartment. Chastain Park is bigger but on the other side of town. When I look for my own place either area is definitely near the top of my list.

-Swings in the park. In addition to regular benches, there are swings at all the parks I've been at so far. By swings, I mean the big glider kind that you see on the front porch of the Walton's house. I've always been a fan of them.

-Sacred Heart. This is the Catholic church that I found. It's old and beautiful but casual and progressive. A great combination.

-Big Peach Running Company. A local running store that works hard to make sure the fit of shoes is right. My knees are still bad so I'm doing more walking than running but now I've got shoes that aren't falling apart.

-MLK memorial. This is one of the few touristy things I've done so far. The tomb of Dr, King and Coretta Scott King is especially impressive.

-Carter Center and Library. Shouldn't have this on the list as I still need to check it out but I've heard great things and hope to get there once it reopens after remodeling in October.

-Economy. Yes, the economy is bad everywhere but so far I've had more luck in the last week here than in the past several months in Minneapolis. I think that there is a more diverse set of industries so that helps. Minneapolis is strong but skewed towards some industries that I don't have experience or interest in.

Sorry. I know pictures would be nice and I'll get around to taking some of those soon. Maybe I'll get a few posted in the next few days...

Have a great evening!