The most civilized gas station in the World

Ah chivalry, otherwise known as Full Service Gas Stations, is not dead.

Imagine my surprise when I stopped by Ballinspittle (small town next to Kinsale) for a fillup - only to find a guy ready to pump my gas. I think he worked for the station.

Doesn't matter. Last time someone pumped by own gas was NEVER.

Kristi beats up a wine cork

Kristi, not knowing her own strength, ripped a cork from a wine bottle with such force that it broke in two. OK, so the cork was a little on the dry side, but the manhandling makes a better story.

Midleton

Can't miss an opportunity to go to Midleton Distillery with Mike and Kristi. And since we had done the tour before, we knew when to speak up to get someone on the taste test of whiskey thing.

Mike did this one - tasting an American, Scotch, and Irish Whiskey. Plus the three Irish Whiskey families that Jameson's manufactures.

While he was getting trashed on fermented barley, Kristi and I were exploring new drinks at the bar. We've decided the best new drink of 2008 is Jameson Reserve Whiskey with Ginger Ale.

Unfortunately, they don't have Madison Avenue Marketers in Midleton - so they don't have a name for the drink - but I was thinking of calling it "The O'Gilligan" - oh, think about it.

In Killarney

You know, I've decided this whole work thing has started to take a serious toll into my travel time.

Unfortunately being freshly back from Brazil and Mexico for two weeks meants that I was a tad behind on work for Kinsale - they can get so jealous. So we couldn't spend as much time as we wanted with Mike and Kristi.

No big worries though - they handled a solo trip out to Killarney pretty easily. Ok, there was a slight issue with me telling them the wrong waypoint on the GPS to get back home - but all they had to do was head south until they hit the sea.

Oh Man, I missed it!

I missed it.

Apparently Kelly's beau from summer braved the elements, air travel on a US domestic airline, and that indescribable specialness that we refer to as "My Mother" for a long visit to Indianapolis (he's from Maine).

He's still smiling, and his eyes haven't glazed over yet, so I'm thinking it was a successful visit.

Mike and Kristi Visit

Mike and Kristi came to visit us for a couple of days. If you haven't been up-to-date, Mike and Kristi moved up to Chicago about 6 months ago; so it's always good to see them.

Aren't we all cute?

Lazy Americans not wanting to walk to Charle's Fort due to inclement weather. Of course, by the time we made it to the Bulman, it was a nice sunny day.

The Kinsale Wall

On the days I'm not feeling like riding my bike (6 out of 7 days), I'm doing the run/walk thing along the road to the plant from Kinsale. Perhaps as an excuse to do more walking than running I took my camera along and snapped some photos on the "weeds" that are growing along the two foot tall wall along the water.

Granted it's Spring over here, but it'll be interesting to see through the Summer on what's in bloom and growing.

Sitting Upstairs

OK, so fast forward through some meetings about warehouse systems that will put anyone to sleep, and you eventually get to Wade flying home - well, back to London and then Cork. Remember, wherever Patrick is is home.

Since Sao Paulo basically sits equidistant from Chicago and London, the time zone difference with Ireland is only 3 hours. But the north/south difference is killer - total flying time (thanks to no jet stream advantage is a very long 11 hours (almost as bad as Chicago to India).

The one advantage to this flight was that I was on a 747, and I scammed the top deck in business class. There were only about 24 seats upstairs with two flight attendants, so service was great.

British Airways had also added the new seat pods, so the movie selection was much better than the flight to Chicago. Turns out the window seats are better than the aisle seats though, since you end up having a foot wide ledge by the window to put crap on (redefines Meg Green's version of a little nest on an airplane).

Dinner at Fogo de Chao

You would be so proud.

Wade, the vegetarian, went to Fogo de Chao. Think Ruth Chris Steakhouse on steroids - (oops, cows are already on steroids) - ok, imagine if everyone went to a Ruth Chris, ordered a steak, and then they brought out the live cow and asked which part you wanted (can you say, "Lobster Tank"?). OK, so it wasn't that bad, but you should already have a sense of my need for drama by now.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. Granted they had 20 people walking around with large skewers of meat, but the meat was definitely dead.

So I know you're all asking, what does a vegetarian eat at Fogo de Chao's? Let me tell you, they had the most amazing salad bar I've ever seen. Seriously, it probably had about 150 dishes, and not cheap things like seasame seeds or garbanzo beans, but nice buffalo mozzarella, stewed beans, etc. They actually want to make the salad bar amazing, so you eat less meat. Tricky, tricky.

Twilight Zone Moment

This is kind of an interesting story.

Walking into the hotel in Guaraja, I spotted these two cannons. To give you an idea of their size, the front cannon is about four feet long, while the back one was about six feet.

So here's the funny thing.

My grandfather had two identical models of these two exact cannons. I remember seeing them in our house when I was growing up, and as a matter of fact, I think I have them in my basement somewhere. They are probably British 18th century replicas, but I don't really know anything more than that. I was hoping there would be some connection with the Civil War (lots of Confederates fled to Brazil at the end of the War), but I think that's a long shot.

So if you're following the story - what are the odds of my grandfather 75+ years ago putting together models of two cannons that have identical copies 5000 miles away in a hotel lobby that I happen to visit - cue Twilight Zone music.