Just a couple days in Philadelphia to meetup with Moses, Ben, Rocky, Dr. Barnes, family and friends…

Everyone goes to the Eiffel Tower. Everyone goes to Times Square and snaps blurry pics of their family in front of the video screens and neon. Everyone goes to Disneyland, Big Ben, the Brandenburg Gates. For me, the pleasure of traveling is finding the unexpected, usually out-of-the-way place or experience that turns into a long memory. I’ve had more than my share of these over the last few years: a foggy, otherworldly Swedish archipelago at 5a.m., a friendly hole-in-the-wall pub in an Amsterdam alley, an impromptu road trip from Malaga to Madrid, a massive, crumbling glacier in Norway.

Philadelphia gave us an early morning wander into a bustling Reading Terminal Market and a chance encounter with Mr. Moses Smucker. The big, friendly man with a big hat and a big beard struck up conversation with Facty, quickly discovered our whole Ireland story and reached for his mobile phone. Before she knew it, she was on the phone with a some friend or other of Moses’, discussing his occasional trips to Dublin. Moses is one of those people – someone who goes from stranger to old friend in mere minutes. Much like a favorite uncle of mine. Much like a poker blogging friend you may know…

Moses Getting Paid

You Gotta Have One!

We took our leave of Moses and his delicious fried egg sandwiches and headed off to get the requisite dose of U.S. history. It is Philadelphia, after all. Perhaps it was the cold weather, but Independence Hall featured a stiff tour guide and a dull crowd. The Liberty Bell was poorly lit. Christ Church was just ok. Betsy Ross’ house would have been a dud, but for the living history actress who saved things right at the end. All in all, I was underwhelmed and grumpy. A random photo walk and lunch helped, after which we found Ben Franklin’s museum. While I think a lot of the “founding father” reverence is nonsense hyperbole, Franklin is one of the few figures from this era that inspires genuine awe. An actual renaissance man. This, combined with the vintage late 60s museum displays (fonts, trimline phones) raised spirits and capped the day.

National Pull

Be not disturbed at trifles

After dinner and catching up with my long lost cousin and her family, we met up for drinks with Mr.CantHang and friends at McGillin’s Olde Ale House. A sleepy night by Al’s standards, but it was great to catch up and it dredged up many fond memories of Decembers past at the MGM and Caesar’s Palace poker rooms. Hope to get back to one of those gathering soon.

Next morning was back to business, into a taxi and out to the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion. Barnes made his fortune in gonorrhea (what?) and spent it building his own personal museum – filling it with Renoirs, Cezannes and Matisses, which he stipulated in his will were never to move. Long legal battles predictably ensued as the Foundation looks to move downtown, next to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Barnes is a key figure in Facty’s research and dissertation. I was less than thrilled with their photography policy.

A far better photography policy was to be found at that same Philadelphia Museum of Art. A very nice Pistoletto exhibit and the Duchamp pieces in the permanent collection were among the highlights. We did climb the Rocky steps, but there is no evidence of posing.

Parthenon on the Parkway

Production Economics Architecture

Venus of the Rags

Art Appreciation

Three or Four Drops of Height…

With no time to spare, it was back to the hotel for bags and off to catch the train to New York City for blizzards, liberty, Rothko, Hello Kitty and more photos….

We hit the (snowy) ground running on our first day in D.C. Facty raced to her appointment with the super secret behind-the-scenes art and archives at the Phillips Collection. It was me and the kids for a few hours and we were there to be tourists. Off to the U.S. Capitol building and Library of Congress.

Capitol Steps

Houston, we’ve had a problem here

We signed up for the group tour, watched the short film meant to stir our patriotism (I suppose) and then gathered for the guided tour given by a grizzled veteran of a tour guide. I’m guessing he came with the building – as we walked the halls and he gave his spiel, he greeted every single employee we crossed by name, including a couple of Congressman. When we reached the room that originally held the House of Representatives, he dazzled and amazed the group by demonstrating the unusual acoustics created by the semi-circle ceiling. After instructing the group to stay in a particular spot, he went over and spoke in a normal voice from across the room in a corresponding spot. If you’ve been to any children’s science museum and experienced the two half-spheres pointed at each other across a room, you understand this. The rest of our tour group was, apparently, unfamiliar with the phenomenon. When he rejoined us and asked the group how this worked, everyone stood there, baffled. I finally spoke up and gave a half-assed explanation. With confirmation from our guide, the others in the group looked at me like I was Einstein.

The Vault of Moons

Apparatus

After the tour and a trip through the tunnel to the Library of Congress, we met back up with Facty and wandered out into the snow on the National Mall and eventually to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. While a bit aged, the NASM has a charm about it. Most of the exhibits look to be from the 80′s or earlier. Plenty about the Apollo missions and moon landings. Some great old posters from the golden age of air travel, when airlines actively advertised their mini-skirted flight attendants. The world was still big. Exotic, faraway locations were still mysterious and the advertising from the old days reflected it. As the kids jockeyed for a chance to get up close to the cockpit of one old airplane or another, I realized they will likely never have the same view of a functional airplane during an actual flight, as kids used to in the old days.

Up early the next day and off towards the White House. We didn’t bother with the reservation gymnastics for a tour, but loitered out front for a while, watching the other tourists take crappy photos in the poor light of an overcast, dark December morning. Wandered about looking for brunch and stumbled into a place called the Old Ebbitt Grill, one of those 150-year-old-institution-presidents-ate-here type places. The coffee was decent and the Eggs Chesapeake was nice.

From there we hit the Smithsonian again, this time the National Museum of American History. As with the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of American History shows its age. Facty remembered some of the exhibits from her last visit – 1976. We patiently explained to the kids why Archie Bunker’s chair and Julia Child’s entire studio kitchen were both in a museum.

This Way Please

Uneeda Biscuit

Sunday started with a freezing memorial march: Lincoln, Vietnam, WWII, Washington. The scale of Lincoln’s seated statue behind the massive Doric columns is surprising and creates an appropriately solemn atmosphere. The small, early morning crowd quietly took their snapshots at Lincoln’s feet before shuffling off down the snowy steps and into the cold grey National Mall. No one took much notice of the sign near the entrance warning that guns were not allowed in the memorial. Having been in Ireland for almost five years and traveling almost exclusively in Europe during that time, the sign surprised me. Is such a sign necessary? Were people regularly waving firearms around at Lincoln or each other? Does he inspire second amendment fervor?

Welcome Mat

Enshrined Forever

Nineteenth Century Man

Lincoln’s View East

Next stop, Philadelphia…

White marble from a Cockeysville quarry

Since moving to Dublin in 2006, we’ve made the journey back to California every Christmas for a dose of family, friends and, usually, some much-needed sun. While we always look forward to these trips, they come with cost (aside from the obvious one). The two flights – Dublin to Heathrow – LAX add up to 12+ hours in the air, each way, as a part of 18+ hour days. Each year we’re faced with the choice of stuffing gifts (nothing fragile or too heavy or too big) into luggage alongside two weeks of clothes and personal effects or some combination of online purchases and mad shopping trips on arrival (always during the busiest shopping time of year). Crossing 8 hours worth of time zones hits us hard every time, particularly after the return trip. I’m lucky if it only takes me a week to recover. And on and on…

In short, the Christmas trip was getting old and we were increasingly coming away remembering the hassle and pain rather than the family time and holidays. Time for something different.

Meanwhile, the kids. The kids are growing up. Doing well in their respective Irish schools. Despite the news the rest of the world is hearing about Ireland these days, it has not hurt our small part of the education system… yet. Math(s), spelling, science, European history, European geography. Yes, a fine education thus far. And we’ve been here long enough that they have now received more of their education in Ireland than in the U.S. We have noticed, however, that they are missing out on some of the U.S. history and geography they would be getting back in the States. And we expect that someday they may need to know a bit about U.S. government, which states are where on a map and a few details of U.S. history.

Then there is my lovely wife and Cambridge University and a dissertation and a deadline. Research to do. Art to consider. Collections to visit.

And so, these three birds – the dreaded long haul Christmas flight to California, the perfectly understandable gap in our children’s education, and Facty’s art history research – needed a stone. And we came up with one.

Instead of the 8 time-zone, 2 flights (with Heathrow in the middle), 18 hour days to and from California, let’s try the 5 time-zone, one flight, Dublin – East Coast, 9 hour days. Less flying, less time zone traversal, less jet lag, no presents to pack (online only this year), new things to see. Washington D.C. for some history, government and Duncan Phillips. Philadelphia for more history, a bit of family reunion, and Dr. Barnes. New York for shopping, sightseeing, museums, and more history; and finally, Boston for some history, history and history.

Not a perfect plan, as we gave up seeing the family during the holidays and figured we’d miss out on some weather (ahem). So we made the difficult phone calls to California, penciled in a summer visit instead, and headed for Washington.

Snowy Jenkins Hill

Snow on the Mall

To the Stars

Remarkable Dimensional Tolerancing

Just to see you Smile

When I was a kid

Enshrined Forever

Bookending at the Freer

More photos here…

We followed our late summer trip to Amsterdam, Belgium and Electric Picnic with a long weekend of history, art, architecture and Christmas markets in Berlin last month. Last November, we stumbled onto a German Christmas market in Edinburgh and decided to see the real thing this year. Schnitzel and Wurst for the kids, outdoor shopping and museums for the wife, Bauhaus and more great beer for me.

As always, more on flickr.

With Facty’s parents visiting from the States, we toured Blarney, Cobh, Killarney, the Ring of Kerry, Bunratty Castle, Cliffs of Moher, and the Burren. This is detail of a stained glass window in Bunratty.

This was our second trip to some of these destinations, including Blarney Castle. I’ve still not been convinced to kiss the stone, which is at the very top of the wall on the left in this picture.

Cobh is a beautiful little port town just south of Cork, where many of the Irish immigrants through history boarded ships leaving Ireland for the last time. We happened to visit on the anniversary of the Titanic’s arrival in Cobh (then known as Queenstown), which was its last stop before sinking. This cathedral, St. Colman’s, dominates the skyline.

More photos from the trip are in the flickr set, including these last two, for Iggy.

Bonus! Poker content! We found a very popular poker player in the Ring of Kerry. He was kind enough to pose for a photo with Birdy.

Just back from four cold, snowy, windy, but ultimately great, days in and out of Copenhagen, Denmark. I’m still sorting through too many photos in search of a flickr set and trying to put together a proper recap of the trip. In the meantime, these two sit just outside Trinitatis Kirke, next to the amazing Rundetårn, or Round Tower.

Pretty happy with this effort, one of my first with the 50mm f/1.8 I picked up in London today. This was taken near Dorset Square. Click through to find a larger version.

A very late, and somewhat fuzzy trip report…

Edinburgh was on my short list of cities to visit while we are in Europe. After getting London, Paris and Rome crossed off the list (sort of – we really need to return to all three), we cracked open the maps and plotted our next adventure. Edinburgh was an easy choice due to its proximity to Dublin, 352 km – almost exactly the distance between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Exploring Edinbugh

We landed on a cold, overcast Thursday morning. If I had not been able to see our cab driver and had only heard him, I’d have sworn he was Sean Connery. He turned out to be a nice guy and gave us a tour on the way to our hotel, pointing out the national rugby stadium and other landmarks. After hearing we live in Ireland, he and I talked Guinness and he eventually recommended the popular local beer, Belhaven’s Best.

Hotel found and bags deposited, we set out to wander. Edinburgh is a vertical city. We wandered up and down streets, getting our bearings until we found the Royal Mile, the road between the Holyrood Palace and Edinburgh Castle.

Every major European city seems to have the same “hop on, hop off” double decker bus tours. We generally buy tickets for these pretty early in a trip for a number of reasons:

• 10 year old legs tire easily;
• Maps that point out landmarks, making it possible to get bearings quickly;
• An open top deck + stop and go traffic along a congested route = good photo opportunities;
• You can catch one anywhere along the route, which invariably saves us when we get lost or stuck with tired kids when wandering;
• 35+ year old legs tire easily.

Edinburgh’s version has four different routes for one low price. We braved the cold and sat up top.

The topology and architecture of the city is impressive. Castle rock and Arthur’s Seat were crags formed by glaciers that give the landscape drama. On top of this are 4500 historical, “listed” buildings featuring architectural styles from medieval to modern. St. Gile’s Cathedral, the Scottish Parliament building. Tons of statues and monuments including The Scott Monument.

Holyrood Palace is the Queen’s residence in Scotland. We took the audio tour. Facty liked that she was in a room where Princess Diana had eaten. Meh. The ruins of the adjoining 12th century abbey were more my speed.

That night, on the recommendation of the hotel, we walked to a small Italian restaurant named Frankie’s. While the boy is picky eater, we are usually fine with Italian, where he can get a pizza. Frankie’s has no pizza on the menu. What Frankie’s does have is the best service we could have asked for when faced with an overtired autistic boy who just learned there is nothing for him on the menu. Our host immediately engaged the kids, brought over markers, paper, books to keep both kids busy. Seeing the trouble with the lack of pizza, she sat down next to Jelly and negotiated something with him. She then took him behind the counter to pick his own drink. She turned a problem into a wonderful evening. Add to that great wine and well done food. Unlikely as it is, if you are ever near Bread Street in Tollcross, make sure you visit Frankie’s.

Friday, we stormed Edinburgh Castle. Our tour guide was a dramatic storyteller and kept us riveted (and laughing) and the views of the city from Castle Rock where great on the cold, crisp morning. Following the tour we went through an interesting exhibit on prisoners of war in the Castle and visited the Royal Scots museum. For weeks leading up to this trip, Jelly was worked up to go “research his ancestors.” In the gift shop of the castle, he wanted to buy everything with our family name on it. We caved and bought him a couple of touristy souvenirs.

In the afternoon, we went back to Holyrood. Across from the Palace and the Parliament building, Our Dynamic Earth is a science museum for children that takes them back millions of years to the beginnings of the earth and shows them the geological history of the planet. They have a cold room containing an SUV-sized chunk of actual glacier, and a room with a tropical rain forest simulation. Birdy enjoyed the hot chocolate.

On the way back to the hotel we found an amazing shop selling whisky, gin, vodka, liqueurs, wine, and oils – most infused with unusual flavors. All were bottled directly on the premises and everything was available to taste. I found a barrel of 14 year old single malt scotch and, after reading the description and taking a wee taste, had to bring 200ml home.

The Highlands

On Saturday, we piled into a van with about 15 others and took a tour into the Highlands. The day started in Glenturret, which claims to get Scotland’s oldest working distillery. It is also owned by the company that owns the Famous Grouse, Macallan, Highland Park, Cutty Sark, etc., so much of the tour was a long infomercial for the company. There was a tasting at the end of the tour. Note that the two American college kids on the tour, when presented with the taster, expertly pounded the shot just like they were taught at at every Friday night kegger – much to the amusement of the tour guide. Also, our guide put a drink in front of everyone, including the two kids!?! Bonus points for him as he then slid the kids drinks over to dad.

So, after 4 shots of Scotch (including the Macallan I bought after lunch) it was about 1pm and time to get back on the bus. We were headed for the little town of Aberfeldy, on the River Tay.

The town is most famous for a Robert Burns poem, The Birks of Aberfeldy. And our mission that afternoon was to hike into the Pheallaig Burn and gaze upon the birch trees and the Falls of Moness. The hike was advertised as requiring “avergage fitness”, and the tour guide dropped off one of the elderly ladies and her son in town before heading to the entrance to the Birks.

Now, it may have been the cold, damp weather. It may have been that my no-time-for-exercise, life-in-front-of-computer fitness was slightly less than “average”. I suspect that it may have had something to do with the 4 shots of Scotch I’d had 30 minutes earlier. Whatever the reason, The Birks of Aberfeldy kicked me right in the ass.

We started as a group of 15 or so. Very quickly, we were steeply ascending. Everyone walked right away from me and I was left in the company of the 65 year old Indian man who was stopping to smoke every 800 meters. Don’t get me wrong, he was very pleasant and we spoke about how he would go on much longer, more strenuous walks back home. Meanwhile, I was starting to wonder if the route was going to double back, and could I please wait here until everyone returned. But I soldiered on. The kids came back every so often to check on me. The guide stopped once or twice along the way to allow us to catch up.

The place was beautiful. I mean breathtaking. A spot along the hike is marked with a plaque marking where Burns sat on his trips in the Birks. The rain started to gently fall around the birch trees. The moss was thick on the tree trunks. It was deathly quiet, save the low roar of the waterfall.

…And the mild, under-his-breath cursing of a buzzed, slightly below-average-fitness, geek.

We eventually made it all the way back (and up, did i mention up?) to the waterfall, where we rested for a few minutes. The trip back was downhill. The winter sun sets remarkably early and it was starting to get just a little bit dark. Birdy and I held hands most of the way over the wet leaves. It started to rain a little harder, but not too hard. It was about my favorite 30 minutes of the entire trip.

We got back on the bus and headed for Dunkeld for hot chocolate and cappuccino.

Roslin

On our last day, Sunday, we caught a city bus out to Roslin, a small town 15 miles or so from the center of Edinburgh. Facty wanted to see the chapel because it had something to do with the Da Vinci Code. My expectations were not high. They were further lowered when we arrived at 10:30am to find that services were going on (oh yeah, Sunday) and the chapel was not available to tourists until noon. We wandered a bit around the chapel and found a small path that seemed to go nowhere. Following it, we worked our way down a hill and found a narrow road leading to some ruins and a house. This turned out to be Roslin Castle. It was in a beautiful glen and we spent the next 2 hours exploring the trails around the castle, chapel and cemetary. In the cemetary, Jelly and I finally found that “ancestor” he had been looking for the entire trip.

Circling back to the chapel, we went in with about 20 other Da Vinci Code fans. I’m not being fair – it was an interesting church, mostly due to the unusual symbols referencing Templar and Masonic themes. Each wall, corner and column has a strange symbol and/or accompanying story. But the real find was the castle and glen that surrounded it.

The Kilt

Yes, Facty roped me into one. Strange, but no pictures.

Where the hell have I been? Not playing poker – that’s for sure. I’d need some sort of 50 sit n go bender to get back to rusty. Bloggs and others have nudged me recently, so I’ll do my best to catch up and maybe it will start the regular update ball rolling. Just don’t expect too much poker.

Instead, I’ve been focused on work and travel.

Work is work. I’ve got my head down, trying my best to make my little corner of the pokery machine work as smoothly as possible. Those of you playing on the site don’t usually see the results of my work directly, but when customer service comes through with a correct answer on your cashout, or finally bans the chat of the idiot who said nasty things about your mom after you busted him… I may have had a small hand in helping some of those things happen. By the way, if hey screw up your cashout, that is not me. :)

As my team starts talking about the next generation of our applications, I’ve been spending much of my free time diving a little deeper into the technology stack – researching the latest in .NET, WCF, WWF, the new MS MVC for ASP.NET, Nhibernate, Rhino Mocks, Castle Windsor, etc. Not my usual territory in this space, which is one reason for the silence around here. Frankly, if I were to write what is on my mind, I’d be writing about these topics frequently.

The opportunity to travel was one of the big reasons we made the move to Dublin last year. Facty and the children and I have been trying to see as much of Europe as possible. A quick summary of our trips from earlier in the year…

Going way back to March, we went to Venice, Italy. An incredible, unique city. The gondolas in the canals, the Doge’s Palace, the Guggenheim, the Bridge of Sighs. All amazing. we had a Bellini at Harry’s bar ala Hemingway, bought carnival masks for the kids, ate as much great italian food as possible and were just tourists. Oh, and the boy danced with the pigeons in the piazza. Venice flickr set.

In April we went to Paris. Facty booked an lovely apartment on the Isle de San Luis, just a 5 minute walk from Notre Dame. Paris is overwhelming. there is just too much to see. we dragged the kids through enough museums that by the end of the trip, we had to take them out to Euro Disney to make up for it. The Louvre (big) and Eiffel Tower (really big) were as advertised, but the Musee D’Orsay and the Centre Pompidou were inspiring. Birdy enjoyed frogs legs at a small restaurant near the apartment. At the end of five days, we knew that we were coming back to Paris someday. Paris flickr set.

April also saw us train it up with a good sized FTP contingent to rainy Belfast to catch a colleague and once-famous poker blogger play American football. Belfast is an interesting city in transition. While dublin has been relatively peaceful and has thrived since the establishment of the European Union, Belfast has only recently seen the end of ‘the troubles’. The city is rebuilding and modernizing
furiously, though many of its wounds still feel fresh. Belfast flickr set.
I have much more, including more of Ireland, Spain, more France and much more Italy. These are more fresh in my mind and I’d rather spend more time on them, so i’ll save them. Next week, we head to Scotland – first to Edinburgh and then
into the Highlands. As there is a tartan for our name, Facty is threatening to buy me one of these. Sporty.