Celtic fest will resume in two weeks.

Remarkably the Saw Doctors will take part in Celtic Fest in a few days, and they are going to play a gig in a high school (secondary school). We were lucky enough to see them last year at Musikfest in what was a fantastic show under a tent in the spilling rain of a thunderstorm, and they will be raising hell again on October 13th. They have been booked as part of the Celtic Fest and for us this will be a real highlight, they are a very good live act and you can really see that they enjoy the shows immensely. I hope to have an extensive post in reference to that night, watch this space.

A weekend of kilts, music and haggis.

Celtic fest was a resounding success, offering a misikfest type feel to the weekend since it is staged in the same town. However there was a complete difference in the atmosphere between each event. Musikfest is always busy with lots and lots of people filing single file-busy but workable, however and maybe this is a uniquely celtic thing, this time it was not so crowded but everyone just stood in place and if you had to walk by you almost had to go through them.
Despite this it was a great weekend with some good music and bands with a distinct celtic sound utilising every native instrument found in Scotland/Ireland/Wales or Northern France. Enter the Haggis were an exciting sound and everybody seemed to have a good time. We went saturday aswell and on sunday we went along at about 8pm only to sadly find a distinctly american atmosphere-close everything down at 8pm!!!!. Who had ever heard of such a thing. So being extremely nervified (see first post) ed., we had to spend in a rush our remaining tickets on such culinary delights as candied apples, cookies (biscuits) and funnel cake. Our eyebrows were most definitely up!!!!.

Its 5 o'clock somewhere.

Very true to say that it is 5 o'clock somewhere, and right now its 5 right here. Off to celtic fest this weekend more on that very soon. Watch this space.

The Strohlein file.

From time to time I will pull out some old memories of old friends. Marc Strohlein for me is a life long friend, one that you know will be with you no matter what happens. I only have a hand full of good friends - I believe in quality not quantity. The first time I saw Marc Strohlein was in the summer of 1991, I was an Irish student who had somewhat luckily figured out what I was going to do that summer in between college years. Very quickly I got the money together and went on an adventure to work for the summer in Germany, since my friends went to Nurnberg that was where I followed them to. Settled in to accomodation and got paperwork to allow us to work...tried very hard not to pay the catholic church tax by claiming we were not catholic (a common claim at the time amongst Irish students) but the clerk was having none of it claiming "I know for a fact that 99.9% of you Irish are catholic. And so I arrived at Stockl -bookbinding factory!!!. It was one of those things where I got the feeling that this guy was "spot on" and a nice person. When I first saw him he was cleaning up a bit in order to set up one of the machines for whatever processes the line required and we were quickly introduced. There were other Irish there too and it was like a home away from home having lunch breaks and taking the piss as you do.
Marc Strohlein could have kept to himself and done his job and went home and everyday done the same thing but and maybe this is what the Irish bring a sense of getting to know people and embracing different ways and different cultures after a few days and weeks Marc mingled with everyone and was very friendly...maybe being the same age as the rest of us helped, that is for sure as after all young people all over the world have the same outlook on life and the same aspirations. During that summer Marc would even mingle with us in the various pubs and clubs and it was a great summer. For me it was a summer to remember and the one after that as I returned to Nurnberg and Stockl bookbinding company. It was a summer in which I gained a very true friend, one that I know I can call a life long friend.
Now as we get older we are going through the same path in life finding our way in life, getting married and starting a family, Marc is doing that right now he has just gotten married to Melli and has a daughter named Miriam...as he has said before its the MM&M. Congratulations!!! Happy days indeed and more to come my friend!!!.

Be a pirate for just one day.

Today is talk like a pirate day...go on you know you really do want to. Aarrrr!!!

Introducing the missus.

This is Jill, my better half and of course my best friend and partner in this journey of life. We have just completed 3 years of marriage, 3 great years. All I have to say is that she puts up with me so she must be an angel.

Believe it or not!!!....I'm in trouble again.

I can think of a lot of people who have been waiting to see me in captivity like this, in a very tricky situation. Actually this was part of the exhibits in "ripleys believe it or not". But I will allow all of you to fill in a caption of what I may be thinking or saying. Answers below.

I have been busy...yes I have.

Well lets see... I know a lot has happened since I posted last, so allow me to fill in the intervening time for you. On the first day of this month (September 1st) we had planned to drive down to Ocean City Maryland but Ernesto (hurricane or tropical storm) put a stop to that...with the possibility of facing flooding or just being stuck in a car late at night. We departed saturday morning and the effects of Ernesto's presence clear to see with sand all over the boardwalk and duned up against small walls and premises, in fact some of the houses had their exterior damaged or peeled away by the 80 miles per hour winds which had passed through. However the rest of the weekend was very pleasant as the sun came out and it was reasonably warm.

We played many attraction type games one in particular was a lot of fun, with a crate full of wiffel balls and an area of holes for the wiffel balls to fall down but some areas had no holes and the balls would rest there in certain colours blue/red and yellow. Blue being a minor prize we (Marc and I) got 4 of them, red being a medium sized prize we got 2 of them and yellow being a large prize we got one of them. All these combined enabled us to win a super hero Bart Simpson. We celebrated our win superbly.

Baby nephew Adam.

Some may know and some may not know that last February 10th I became an uncle, yes this means my sister had a baby boy. I still feel the same though, I wondered beforehand would this event change me totally and unrecognisably and I have to say that while I am still the same, now I'm an uncle and its a responsibility. Now what do uncles do? Well my uncles looked out for me and gave me presents on birthdays and at christmas time. So that is what I will do...and maybe some other things that I havent quite thought through yet but Adam watch out!!! Uncle Ray is on the job. He's now over 6 months and while I dont see him every day I'm told he is getting big...well starting out at 9 pounds 12 ounces he had a head start on most newborns. This picture was taken on my visit back home in April and Adam was becoming aware of people and surroundings, so what do yu think he was thinking when this picture was being taken?