Perseid shower

I got my hopes up today that the forecast for "clear spells" would mean a view of the Perseid shower tonight. The forecast was wrong and it is just another cloudy evening here. On the positive side it is not raining!! It is a very long time ago since my cousins decided to camp out one night in August to see this event. Even at a young age I was interested in seeing the meteors, but not crazy enough to camp out,lol. My best sighting was by accident one night. I was, along with my father and brother, looking for some lost cattle. We found them and brought them back to their field. I was closing a gate when I saw a large fireball streak across the star lit sky. What amazed me most was the silence. It vanished like a quenced candle. A few years ago one actually landed a few miles from home. A lot of people searched for any remains and some were found. Such is the interest that a small rock of this material can be quite valuable.If I ever win the lottery one of my dreams is to have a good telescope and maybe even a small observatory. Anytime I have been abroad I try to identify the consellations in a "new" sky. I think everyone should take time to see the night sky. It was a familar sight to our ancestors for hundreds of thousands of years and we too should enjoy it's beauty.

A rare bird

Occasionally in life we get to experience something we previously only dreamed about. In the past few years providence has smiled on me in this regard. The latest event was last night at 23:30.
At 23:00 the space shuttle Endeavour took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA. A few minutes later it jettisoned the two solid rocket boosters which landed by parachute in the Atlantic to be picked up by the US navy. About 20 minutes later it dropped off the huge external fuel tank. At this stage it was in orbit and the fuel tank burned up in the atmosphere. I went outside around 23:15. I was not expecting to see anything as the weather is very bad with lots of clouds. However, as if by magic or some other power, the skies cleared just enough to see some of the brighter stars. I waited. Then like a bright diamond in the sky, it appeared. The shuttle was like a very bright star as it reflected the rays of the sun on the dark Earth below. It is a sight I have seen before a number of times. What I saw next though was truly fantastic. The external tank now separated from the shuttle was moving just behind it in the sky. The tank had a rusty brown hue. Not as bright as its companion but still very visible. It was as if the shuttle had a lantern hanging from it as it made its celestial voyage. It is a sight I thought I would never see but, thanks to the many postponements of the launch due to weather issues, now I have realised a dream. At a time when I don’t feel so great , it was like a light shining in my darkness

Rememberence

Anyone looking at news from Ireland over the past few weeks will have seen the release of a major report into the abuse of children in various institutions and schools in Ireland from about the 1930’s to the 1980’s. During that time children were put into “care” as they were deemed to be in danger. The danger varied from the parents’ poverty, having an unmarried /widowed parent or living in an “immoral” home. Some children were sent to industrial schools for stealing or missing school. Violence and brutality were common tools used to control the inmates. Shocking in itself this was not the worse aspect of the treatment dished out in these, for all practical purposes, prisons. Sexual abuse and rape also became part of daily life for many children. Boys who were removed from society for fear of their moral lives were instead forced to suffer the worse evil that men in long black gowns had the capacity to imagine. Instead of being made to face this evil most of these people were moved on and the events hushed up. It was easier for those in authority to ignore it than admit to the atrocities that were being committed.
Some of these men were members of the Christian Brothers. One in particular became more infamous than most. He was asked to leave the Brothers when he first started abusing young boys. He moved from one school to another across Ireland. Each time he would start abusing a child, he would be moved on and given an excellent reference. As soon as a parent complained about his inappropriate behaviour, he moved on. When I started secondary school, he was teaching there. He had been there for a few years. I was lucky because he was only there for my first year. I remember him as a violent man who lost his temper and hit out with his fist for little or no reason. At a time when few parents had cars, he was always available to give lifts for after school activities like GAA, drama, debates etc. He was well dressed, well groomed and “smelled” clean. A lot of kids going to school would not have a very high standard of hygiene and so his clean smell was noticeable. He left after my first year. We did not know why but were more than happy that this tyrant was gone. I recently discovered that he left due to a parent complaining about his behaviour towards a child. I also discovered that he got a glowing reference from the school head. His violent and bullying behaviour was not lost on some of the older boys in the school. They copied his example and practiced it on the younger boys. Over the years it got less endemic but it left scars that for some would never heal.
All nations have something in their history that is shameful. Perhaps this is ours. What can be learned? Maybe it is that when something is wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the duty to do so. Everyone, teachers, religious, police, judiciary, politicians and even organisations whose role was to protect children, played a part in this. Healing can only begin when all accept their role and ask forgiveness.

Wish

We'll do it all, everything, on our own
We don't need anything or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world

I don't quite know how to say how I feel
Those three words are said too much
They're not enough

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
to remind me
to find my own

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes
They're all I can see
I don't know where
Confused about how as well
I just know that these things
Will never change for us at all

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world

Sometimes i hear lyrics that match my feelings. This is one of those moments.

Initial report on Barcelona

I recently returned from a 10 day vacation in Barcelona. It was my first time in Spain. Like all Irish people the first thing I noticed was the heat. The temperature was in the low twenties and very pleasant for me. Barcelona is a city of open spaces, unusual architecture, beautiful fountains and Irish pubs! It seems nowhere escapes the march of the Irish pub :)
One negative aspect of my visit was a certain Kilimanjaro restaurant in Placa de Catalunya. It is in a major transport and tourist hub of the city. In it I found the rudest waiter I ever met, some of the worst food I ever tasted and a hefty bill at the end of it.
My favourite excursion was to Montjuic via the cable-car from Torre Jaume 1. The view was fantastic and Montjuic is also near the Olympic stadium.
Barcelona must the capital of Museums because there is one for almost everything. From chocolate to wax and from ethnology to ceramics, it would be almost impossible not to find one that would be of interest. The Zoo in Barcelona is one of the best I’ve seen and the dolphin show is amazing. Speaking of which, the aquarium is excellent also. It was the first time I saw the most unusual angel fish which looks more like a swimming head than a complete fish. The public transport system is excellent and simple, even I could figure it out :D
In many ways Barcelona could be described as Gaudi’s city. His style is stamped on the city through such buildings as the Sagrada Familia Church, Casa Batllo and Parc Guell.
Not all the architecture in Barcelona appealed to me. The Arc de Triomf for example just looks bad. The one in Bucharest is much nicer, even with the scaffolding!
A word of warning. If you are a shopaholic do not visit El Corte Ingles at the top of Placa de Catalunya. It is a multi-story temple to shopping. There is a saying that if you can’t find something in El Corte Ingles then it does not exist. I won’t name names here but I know some people who could spend a lifetime in this shop ;)
More later...

Deanta na firinne

It has been a while since I posted. It is a bit late for me and I will start working in a new place tomorrow. I will say more about recent events in a later post. For the moment I will just say that I was in Barcelona for 10 days. It is a nice city, though not as nice as some of the advertising claims. It was not as I expected, but then life never has been. Anyway time for some shut-eye. Nite.

P45

I got my P45 today. It is similar to the “pink slip” in the USA. It is the document that an Irish employer gives to an employee who leaves the company. Recently it has become a familiar document for tens of thousands of Irish workers. Luckily, for me, I am leaving for another job. After 10 years and 7 months, today’s silence was a surprise to me. I was amazed by the way people I worked for, effectively ignored this major event in my work career. In spite of the many times I burned the midnight oil to ensure targets and goals were met, today it seems to have not mattered. My work colleagues talked about it of course. I am lucky to have worked with such nice people. At the end of the day it is the people we work with than those we work for are the most important. Tomorrow I start in my new job. No rest for the wicked!!!!!