So apparently Broncos fans are all redneck hillbilly ranchers who can’t drive to save their life.  Thanks, NFL.

At least that commercial got one thing right – you’d have to go to a bar to watch the game, as chances are you don’t get NFL Network at home.

Read: Why Coldplay and Adele Aren’t Bringing New Albums to Spotify

If you haven’t used a streaming music service like Spotify or Rdio yet, you’re missing out on where music consumption is heading. The industry is shifting, just like it did at the turn of the century when recording artists had to come to grips with the fact that people weren’t buying complete albums and getting singles – either through Napster and eventually through more legitimate channels like iTunes.

Now a decade into the digital music age, people are moving away from the “ownership paradigm”, where instead of being limited to the songs on your iPod, you can just pay a flat fee or stream whatever you want.  When Pandora first came around, people became happy with having new music to stream – now with services like Spotify you can go a step further and choose a specific song or album.   Personally I’ve come around to this.  Those who know me personally can attest to the level of effort I’ve put towards developing my personal collection, but even I find the appeal in the ability to have any song stream straight to my phone any time I want.

Just like a decade ago, when we had artists who refused to join us in the 21st century (Metallica), you know have artists that are kicking and screaming their way into the streaming era: Coldplay and Adele, who feel that their new albums are too good to simply be streamed.  They can hide behind the notion that their album should be experienced in a certain format or fidelity, but this boils down to one of two things: greed or ignorance.  They think that people should pay more for new music – not unlike how the movie industry is delusional enough to think people are happy to pay full price for a new release rather than rent it.  For their sake, I hope they’re just being ignorant about where the music industry is going and won’t deal with the vitriol people still hold for Metallica.

Adele and Coldplay are kidding themselves if they think the purchase model is competing with streaming models.  The people who don’t purchase their music will do one of two things: steal it or worse – not even listen to it.  In terms of music discovery, people will continue to turn away from the radio and use these streaming services to find something new.  Musicians need to temporarily take themselves out of the “artist” shoes and place their feet in the entrepreneurial shoes.  More and more, recorded music is transitioning from being a product and more towards being a marketing tool to get fans further engaged.  As an entrepreneur, you need to be where your consumers are – and if you’re consciously choosing not to be where people are, they’ll either resent you or ignore you.

“I Hate Tim Tebow”

I Twittered those words last night, sitting in a rain-soaked Mile High Stadium finally fed up with the 18th series of boo’s coming down and the 10th chants of Tebow that started no sooner than halfway through the 2nd quarter of the first game of the 2011 season.  So I posted the following to Twitter:

I hate Tim Tebow – and it’s because of all you jackasses at this game that chant his name. What about him drives you to boo your own team?

So I rang that bell – and I can’t un-ring it. Since then I’ve engaged in some Twitter discussion with Tebow supporters – some of them friends & family – about my comments and what spurred them.  While I can’t put this toothpaste back in the tube, I feel like I need more than 140 characters to explain what I said, and why I wrote what I did:

“I Hate* Tim Tebow**”

* ”Hate” is a strong word, but it’s important to understand Sports Hate vs. Real Hate.  Because of the affiliation nature of sports, you have the ability to hate a player for what they do on the field, or you hate that they’re on a team that you rival.  You don’t hate the person personally, or want anything bad to happen to them or their family – you just don’t want to see them do great in sports at that moment.

** In the case of Tim Tebow, I don’t have a problem with Tim as a player or as a guy. He’s a charismatic athlete who has found success in a conventional game through unconventional ways – it’s easy to understand why people gravitate to him and root passionately for him.  At the same time, Tebow has (unintentionally) bred an aura of mal-content and distrust amongst Broncos fans against the coaches, management and team in general.  Over the years as we have watched the team suffer some fallbacks, it seems that fandom has taken a turn for the worse.  Once unconditional supporters, Broncos fans have now become fickle, ready to turn on their team with a series of boo’s after every bad play.

This is nails on a chalk-board for me.  There are very few exceptions, but generally you should never boo your own team at home! Last night when the game started, I commented to my wife that there was a great sense of energy in the stadium that hasn’t been felt for some time – that all lasted all of 1.5 quarters, when the boo’s rang down amongst the stands after an interception was thrown.  A steady stream of boo’s persisted for the rest of the game, much like the rain that fell throughout the night.  The boo’s then degenerated into chants of “Te-bow, Te-bow” throughout the third and fourth quarter.  In the storied South Stands, fans started to turn on each other, with one fan profanely ripping into a guy for saying Orton should get the benefit of the doubt.

I hate to say it, but last night the Raider fans showed more class towards their team.  It was no surprise that they egged on Broncos fans that chanted for Tebow.  Why not root for the continued fracturing of fanbase of your rival?

I realize Tebow didn’t ask for this (at least not directly – Tebow has no shortage of endorsements, public appearances, and has written memoires at the age of 23).  Tebow didn’t ask to be drafted in the first round. Tebow didn’t ask to play for John Fox and John Elway.  Tebow didn’t ask to sit on the bench while his team is struggling – I get all that.  What I don’t think Tebow fans get though is that putting him in isn’t going to solve all of your problems.  John Fox and his staff have forgotten more about football than most fans know.  As fans we have a right to second-guess the coaches, but in the first game in the first season: the coaches deserve the benefit of the doubt. They feel Tebow isn’t the right guy to play in this situation, we should accept that.  If you don’t agree with that – fine, then don’t cheer Orton – but to boo the guys that put their health on the line to ultimately entertain you – that’s classless.

The problem I have with Tebow is that his presence is turning a segment of Broncos fans into Tebow fans, who couldn’t care less about the state of the team.  All that matters to them is to see their guy play. Nevermind the other 44 players on the team. Nevermind that Tebow is currently the 3rd-string QB after a training camp where he seems to have regressed in his performance.

Orton shares in some of the blame for last night’s loss, but there’s plenty of it to go around. Orton didn’t make the running backs anemic in their 38 yard performance. Orton didn’t commit 6 holding penalties on the offensive line.  Orton didn’t drop passes.  Orton didn’t let the Raiders rush for nearly 200 years last night.  Tebow is not going to make all of this better.

I realize that I’m extremely fortunate to be able to attend home games, and that there are people far more deserving than I that don’t get to go, but it’s not fun going to the games anymore – not because we’re losing, but because being completely infatuated with a single player, the fans have lost sight in what it means to support their team.

Unfortunately, like that Indie band that you’ve passionately followed, they became big and were never quite the same. In Digsby’s case, it was acquired by a company called Tagged back in April. In their blog post, Digsby claimed they were going to continue to support Digsby and they were going to determine the long-term plans for Digsby. Over three months later, with virtually no communication from their blog, in their forum or through their Twitter account – let alone any changes to their app – the long-term plans are all too apparent: there are none!

To be fair, they’ve made small bug-fixes whenever MSN changed their protocols, but the straw that’s breaking my fact is that on July 1st Twitter changed their authentication model, which broke the way Direct Messages are retrieved. I’ve submitted a bug and scoured the forums to no avail.  In fact, the only topic that is getting traction on the forum is the “Digsby Dead” topic, where other fans are concluding that Digsby has in fact died.

So Rest In Peace Digsby. You were a great product which I loved, but I’m not going to continue to use a product which is no longer supported.  At least there’s on take-away: you guys gave Trillian a swift kick in the pants and now they’re passing you by. In related news: I am now using Trillian again.

Please, prove me wrong. I’d be happy to come back.

Old Town Fort Collins bars plan to launch ID scanners

You need to read the story, but in a nutshell an initiative called “Downtown After Dark” wants every establishment in downtown Fort Collins to install drivers license scanners, as well as photograph everyone that enters a bar in Fort Collins at night.  They want to build a database of all patrons so that they can easily identify trouble-makers.

They say “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, but I’m not even sure if these intentions are that good. I can appreciate the intention of wanting to curb bar fights and disorderly conduct, but is giving the police a database on everyone that goes out the way to do this? Talk about “guilty until proven innocent.”

If we’ve learned anything by the internet: building a database of personal information will surely get hacked. It’s like what Steve Buscemi said in Armageddon, you’re going to put your trust into something that was built by the lowest bidder? They said that the ID system is being targeted by the small minority of disrupters, but it’s the vast majority that’s going to be impacted when some identity thief gets into that data. Moreover, if you have open access to employees in these establishments, how hard is it for a seedy worker to go in and get the address of woman he’s decided to stalk?

You then have the issue of what’s considered “unruly behavior”. I’m sure the law enforcement in Fort Collins do a fine job, but this system becomes all too easy to track the whereabouts of anyone out to have a good time in Fort Collins. What happens when someone who has unpaid parking tickets shows up at the bar?  What happens if a private investigation firm gets access to this DB. All of the sudden your employer can now find out whether you were drinking the night before you called in sick?

Each one of these systems costs $1800 – multiply that by the number of bars in Old Town and watch those costs sky-rocket.  Those machines need to be paid for by someone – whether it’s the owners hiking the prices of drinks, or the tax-payer when this measure is put on a ballot.

This all boils down to the fact that some bars in Old Town have a problem over-serving people. Instead of cracking down on the patrons who are having a good time, not causing any trouble and pumping money into the local economy, why don’t we crack down on the bartenders who aren’t cutting people off when they need to be? There are bars in Old Town which constantly have these incidents, why not crack down on the owners of these places to beef up their own security before tracking anyone who goes out in Fort Collins?

It does scare me a bit that we’re starting to look back at things in the 90′s – the era of my teenage years – with the same patronization as we are with the 80′s. Does this mean I’m getting old?

I’ll try to describe it, but you really just need to go see if for your self: Imagine having a listening party. You sit in a circle with 4 other people and go around and each pick out the next song you’re going to play. Meanwhile, there could be a room full of people listening to the music you’re picking out. If they like the song you get brownie points, if they hate the song it gets skipped. That’s essentially Turntable.fm. In an era where people walk around with ear buds, this is a great way to socially experience music and discover new songs.

You can simply go to listen and vote, and for many it’s a human-Pandora streaming experience.  Different rooms have different genres, but the ones I’ve loved the best are the “anything as long as it’s good” rooms. Secretly I think many of believe ourselves to be music connoisseurs and experience joy in sharing new music with friends. There’s also joy in invoking great music memories by playing a classic song. At the same time you don’t want to disrupt the musical flow.  I don’t like listening to the radio, but I still desire the discovery of new bands and songs – this site gives a great social element to doing just that.

Simply said: you need to try out this site. Come join me! If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ll see when I’m logged in and we can DJ together! Fair warning though: you’re going to lose hours and nights to this site!

At this point you’ve probably heard of Google+, their latest foray into Facebook’s territory. "Heard" is probably the key word, because so far very few people have even seen it. The invites have been slim, and after more than a week of being unmasked, I only personally know one person who has received an invite.

As expected though, all of the tech journalists and pundits have received their invites, and since there have been numerous articles, videos and podcasts touting the new service. People have devoted their entire shows to covering the new features and whether Google is a game-changer in the social networking space. I don’t blame the tech journalists for covering this and discussing this – it’s their job.

At the same time, I think that many of the pundits are failing to notice the disparity between themselves and the people they are supposed to inform. I understand the intention of wanting to give people a good perspective of Google+, but hearing these people get caught up in the excitement is only serving to remind me that the pundits are the cool kids, and we are not. They’re inside raving about the meal, while the rest of us are standing outside with our noses pressed against the glass.

Maybe Google may be thinking they’re carefully cranking the "hype" dials, giving the loudest voices the first access, but Google is walking a thin line right now. While people now seem excited about getting a glimpse, their excitement may turn into resentment as people’s patience wears thin.  One can only go so long only hearing about something without any chance of a glimpse.

My hope is one of two things happens: Google starts to open the flood gates on invites, so more of us "common folk" can starts to play with Plus, or that the pundits stop drinking the Google Kool-Aid and let the hype calm down.  Hopefully all of you that want invites will get them soon!

Update: It looks like Google is starting to open up the invite process. I was actually able to get in this morning.  Who else is in?

I grew up a Marvel guy while dabbling a bit in the Batman books, but I never really got into Green Lantern until the Kyle Rayner era.  I grew to really like Rayner, to the point that I despised the decision to bring Hal Jordan back as the main Green Lantern – so I have a had time with this character to begin with. That said, the writing going on in the Green Lantern books is amongst the best in comics right now, and I’m really enjoying the storyline.

Caution: Spoilers Ahead

I went into this movie with pretty low expectations. I think it was one of the few movies where each time I saw the previews I wanted to see it less. I’m not a big Ryan Reynolds fan, but I don’t dislike him – and I know my wife likes seeing him in movies. I was pretty leery of the CGI-suit, as well as how all of the aliens would be portrayed in the movie.

Walking out of the movie, it about lived up to my quasi-low expectations.  I didn’t hate it, but on the heels of seeing X-men First Class – which had a pretty adult storyline – Green Lantern really came off cheesy.  The dialog was pretty poor, there were a lot of mischaracterizations and characters who were pretty rich in the comics became very one-dimensional.  This movie is almost like a meal where you have all of the right ingredients, but screw up the amounts so that you’re tasting the wrong things in your dish – that was Green Lantern.

I loved seeing Oa (the Green Lantern planet) and loved the training sequences, but felt like that whole movie was way to short.  I wanted them to spend more time with the Corp, more time with some of the other strong and developed characters (namely Sinestro).  The storyline was inconsistent how they painted the picture of the Green Lantern Corp, but when it came time to take on Parallax, all of the Lanterns were conspicuously missing.

The worst part was at the end (after the credits), when they had Sinestro putting on the yellow ring. Here was a character, while very well developed off-screen (and partially from my comic knowledge), had no real attachment with the audience and yet was somehow supposed to draw a surprise reaction by putting on this yellow ring. I felt like the director at that point was like “Crap, I don’t think we’re going to get a sequel on merit alone, we better put in some kind of tease.”

One thing that came to mind while reflecting on this movie: what if I’m not the target audience.  More and more we saw Super Hero movies that have very adult themes: like The Dark Night and X-men First Class. However, what happens when you see this movie through the eyes of a young teenager or tween?  All of the sudden the dialog doesn’t seem as cheesy.  Given that aside from some freaky scientist mutations, there really wasn’t a lot of adult content, and the love interest between Hal Jordan and Blake Lively’s character didn’t really get too steamy or complicated. Maybe this movie, similar to Star Wars, was targeted towards a younger audience.

Right now this movie would probably fit at the bottom of the “2011 Super Hero Summer” list, below Thor and X-men First Class.  I’m anxious for Captain America to come out later this month, at which point would be a good time to update the Top 10 Superhero Movie list I wrote in 2005.

What did you think of Green Lantern?

In case you didn’t know: I’m a comic geek, and the X-men – my first love – extends to our cat named Logan. Unfortunately the last chapter of the X-men movie really ruined that franchise, to the point to where they couldn’t make any more sequels.  I’m not quite sure how X-men First Class fits into all of this. Is it a prequel, or is it a franchise reboot. Nonetheless it rectifies the monstrosity that was X-men 3 and brings this franchise somewhat back.

[Warning: Possible Spoilers Ahead]

Of all of the comic movies,X-men has the ability to venture into some political and philosophical discussion – how do people deal with persecution and prejudice. The battle between the ideals of Xavier and Magneto have always been intriguing, and I love how this movie explored their friendship, their commonalities, and how their falling out occurred. I love that the movie used the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis as the foundation of this movie.  The Missile Crisis is one of the few times in our history when we humanity (from a US point-of-view) was genuinely threatened, and it gave the X-men a plausible way to save the world. I love how the US and Soviets – enemies that only minutes ago tried to destroy each other – agreed that mutants were so threatening that they had to band together to take the mutants out.

Other things I loved about First Class:

• One of the best training montages in a super hero movie.  One could make an argument for Batman Begins, but I love how Xavier helped each one of the students develop their powers and learn how to grow their abilities.
• The performances by James McAvoy as Professor X and Michael Fassbender as Magneto. These guys did a wonderful job playing young versions of these characters without trying to look like caricatures of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan.
• Young Nazi-killer Magneto was badass
• During the movie, my wife Bethany pointed out that Michael Fassbender looked like a younger Jon Hamm.
• I loved the imagery that was used with the “Magneto” helmet.  It of course had the very practical use of blocking telepathy, but I loved how it served as the mantle of the leader of the mutant superiority movement. That moment with Magneto put on the helmet had a Darth Vader-like approach of embracing the villainy
• I really liked Kevin Bacon’s acting in this movie, he made a pretty good villain
• That cameo with Wolverine was fantastic

Things That Bothered Me About First Class:

• I didn’t like how Mystique turned out at the end. The dots that brought her to Magneto’s side didn’t connect, and especially the timing of her turning was bizarre. Somehow we were expected to believe that she would walk over the crippled body of (essentially) her brother over to the guy who caused the incident. I don’t know if the writers felt compelled to have her switch sides by the end of the movie, but I felt like people would have accepted a switch in the sequel or even off-screen.
• The Hellfire Club was a little misused and came across a little one-dimensional. In the comics they were originally this secret society, but the movie portrayed them as this hodge-podge group of super villains.
• Some of the choices they made for characters were a little strange. There are definitely better mutants out there that could have been used rather than Angel and Darwin (who ultimately were really one-dimensional).  This comes down to whether this was a prequel or a reboot. I wish it would have been a reboot, because then you could have gotten away with using some characters that were used in other movies.

It’ll be interesting to see where the X-men franchise goes from here. Part of me wishes they didn’t pack so much into this movie and reserved it for a sequel. My guess is that this movie has been acclaimed enough and has made enough money to continue down this story, so now the question is “Where do they go here from now?”. Do they introduce new characters, and do they introduce the ones we know?  How does this tie into the previous movie canon and the Wolverine movie?  I would love them to take the “Reboot” route that was done with Star Trek, then they could introduce some of the stronger characters that we grew to love in previous movies.

What do you think of this movie?  Where do you think it compares with the other movies? Not counting the Wolverine movie, I would say that this movie probably is second to X2, beating out the first first movie (all of which are miles above X3).

6. The Hospitality

When we were on our Music Pub Crawl, the host joked that “Irish people aren’t friendly, they’re nosy.”, saying that they reason they make conversation is to figure out where you came from and when you’re going to leave – but the people here couldn’t be more hospitable. In a region with countries that are notorious for not taking kindly to Americans, there was never a moment where we didn’t feel welcome.  I had even had perfect strangers saying hello to me in the bathroom.  People were always happy to answer our questions and make conversation with us. The Irish have definitely earned their reputation for friendliness and warmth.

5. The Accents

Irish accents have to be one of the coolest accents around.  They are always so soothing and rhythmic. I could go on listening to people with that accent for hours. Even them reading the daily lunch specials sounded like a beautiful poem. I’m going to miss the joy in just hearing the way the Irish talk.

4. The Heritage

As a student of history, when we go to the East Coast, I marvel at the heritage that exists in some of our 300 year old buildings, but there’s something to be said to be inside structures that are nearly 1,000 years old.  There’s something to be said with the way Europe is able to preserve their history. I think unfortunately, much of the pre-US history has been lost by our sins against the Native Americans, as well as our culture propensity to tear down and rebuild aged structures. One of the things I enjoyed was standing in these old places and putting myself in the thoughts of the people who built it and who used these structures each day. 

3. The Green

The weather in Ireland would equate best to Seattle. It rains pretty much every day and with it everything is green and lively. There is vegetation growing all over the place, covering buildings, creating tunnels around roads and creating a beautiful pallet of color for the country.

2. Teach Ai Bhrian

As you typically do on vacation, we ate dinner at restaurants pretty much each night, and instead of taking opportunities to try new places, we chose to come back to this place two more times – the food was just that amazing. We stumbled on this place accidentally, as we wanted to try the pub in the closest town to us. When we walked into that place it turned out they didn’t serve food, but recommended this place 5 minutes down the road. We had no idea what to expect walking in, but were blown away. Each time we went back and tried something differently and it was better than the last. If we ever make it back to Ireland, we’re definitely going to mix in some meals back at this place.

1. Guinness.

Anyone who has had Guinness in Ireland will tell you that it’s just not the same in the States. Before I came here, I was not a big Guinness drinker, but something about drinking this beer in Ireland – whether it’s the scenery, the freshness, the fact that you’re on vacation – it’s just different here.  Guinness in Ireland tastes great, but it’s even better when you’re drinking it in Dublin, and especially from that fresh tap at the Brewery.  In terms of national brand and a love affair with a drink, we have nothing like that in the States. People don’t have the large-scale affinity for Budweiser the same way they do Guinness.  For the record I did try a few other beers while out here, but I kept going back to Guinness. I know it’s funny to put a beer at the top of my list, but I think that experience around enjoying a good beer – being with friends, not having anything to worry about – is what really makes the experience.

Given that the four of us had our four large suitcases (plus all the tech crap I take on trips that inflates my backpack), we didn’t want to drive far, so we stayed in County Clare and by Shannon (our airport city).  We started our day in Limerick, in hopes that we could do some shopping. While LImerick is really pretty, the streets we walked consisted mainly of shops that would be found back at home, offering us little that was unique.  After about an hour in Limerick we headed over to Bunratty Castle for the afternoon.

Located about 10 minutes from Limerick, Bunratty Castle was originally built in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 15th century in it’s restored form.  It ended up getting restored into a museum/exhibit of sorts. There’s the castle itself, but there is also a surrounding mock village, that has been restored to show what the village would be like. I think the best comparison in the US would be a renaissance festival with no people or merchants – more authentic. There were many groups of kids that were on field trips, as well as tourists all over the place.

The castle itself was neat. It was like the Blarney Castle, but with more restoration (and thus seemed more modern), but wasn’t as modern as the Kilkenny Castle (which if you remember disappointed us for this reason).  They allowed photography in the castle, but you were not permitted to use a flash, which is why some of these pictures are dark.

There were the circular stone stairways, like Blarney Castle, but Bunratty had put in some better railing.

You could climb the stairs to the various rooms around the castle, or go to the top, which I think was about 6 stories tall.

I was just amazed at the vast size of the place. When you first went in, you climbed what seemed like 2 stories, only to walk into this vast room that sat inside the castle. Look at this room below and then imagine this sitting on top of another room that was equally big (I took this picture from a little window in one of the surrounding rooms in the castle).

In the surrounding “village” there were various replica homes of people who lived in that time. They had a home for farmers, fishermen, and land-less servants.  In one home, I loved how they still had little lofts, making the best use of their small space.

I also love this early version of the hide-a-bed. It makes you wonder if they were ever comfortable to sleep in.

Bunratty also had this little recreation of the village as well, showing off some of the stores that may have existed in that era. We of course checked out the bar, as well as the schoolhouse.

Bunratty also had some of the various animals as well. Our favorite ones were the little miniature pony. I found a baby miniature pony, which was really cute.

One of our favorite spots was by the old Mill House, which had a nice miniature waterfall right next to it. We found an opportunity for another nice picture moment, squeezed in between the times when kids were playing next to it.

Overall Bunratty was a great final day activity. It definitely was not my favorite castle on the trip, but after seeing fantastic ruins like Blarney and The Rock of Cashel, this was a really nice middle-of-the-road attraction.  In the end we spent nearly four hours at Bunratty.

We ended up checking into our hotel and then having our last meal in Ireland at a place called Gallagher’s. The food was fantastic, as I took my last opportunity to enjoy fresh fish and fresh Guinness. Our hotel in Shannon was really nice, although the anticipation of the plane trip home made it difficult to sleep.    We got to our flight back to New York with no problems, as I am actually writing this blog post on the plane.

Our day started by driving through Adare, which was a pretty sleepy little town on our way to the Ring. We walked around and explored the town, and stumbled on The Old Creamery Company building, which has been turned into a store which is like weird love-child of Fort Collins’ Perennial Gardner with a random toystore and a Christmas store.  It made for some interesting pictures, and we walked away with a box of fudge.

Bethany modeling a hat in the Creamery Company

This store had everything, including some evil-looking nome dolls

In the middle of Adare was a really pretty Town Park, which had some lovely views of greenery, including a nice arch that made for some great pictures.

After Adare we headed up into the Ring, heading into Killarney National Park. To be honest, if you live in Colorado, this isn’t anything you haven’t seen before.  The sights, while pretty, did seem pretty similar to other mountain and valley ranges that you’ve seen. Nonetheless, the pictures were nice.

We stopped and ate lunch at a viewing point called Ladies View.

We went onto the first stop in the Ring, a town called Kenmare. Again, it is a smaller typical Irish town, but did make for some nice shopping and sightseeing.  At that point we had learned that the next stretch of the Ring, while only 15 kilometers long, would take about 90 minutes to drive. We figured that would be a nice opportunity to turn around and see the Torc Waterfall.

Arriving at the falls, we really thought that we had been had by our Colorado expectations, seeing a small dropping in the creek that appeared to be the falls.

However, we walked a little further up and saw the real falls, which made the short diversion worth it.

After a day full of driving we made a guilty pleasure and stopped at what’s become our favorite restaurant: Teach Ai Bhrain, which we were told translated is “House of O’Brian”. We stopped there for the first time a few nights ago, and the food was so amazing that we’ve looked for any excuse to go back. The food was fantastic, but eating out for dinner every night is taking its toll, I’m ready for the gym when we head back.

Tonight is our last night at the East Clare Golf Village. We will be staying at a hotel closer to the airport in Shannon tomorrow night, as we leave on Wednesday morning.  Right now the plan for Tuesday is to explore Limerick a little more and perhaps some of the surrounding area, but mainly to prepare for the trip home.  I’ll try to make a post tomorrow night if time allows, but it may be short.

Driving into the Cashel, you can see the fixtures on the Rock towering over the town. It became apparent why they chose this site all those centuries ago.

At the Rock you had the opportunity to walk around as you wished, but there were also some guided tours available.  We managed to jump into one that just started, and it turned out to be the most rewarding experience.  Had we not done the tour, I think that we would have taken pictures for 15 minutes and left, but with the context that the tour guides provided, it made everything so fascinating.

First off, the structure that’s there today is actually not the original structure.  Originally there were castles there that were constructed out of wood and occupied by kings of Munster.  Later on to improve their standing with the Church, the Rock was given to the Archbishop which then built a Cathedral on the grounds – in the 12th & 13th centuries! I thought it was funny because the satirical cynical side of me would say, “I guess these 900 year old structures will have to do.”

One of the names for the Rock of Cashel is “St. Patrick’s Rock”. It gained this name by being the site that St. Patrick journeyed to baptize King Munster.  We were told by the guide that during his baptism St. Patrick accidentally drove his staff through the bottom of King Munster’s foot, but Munster thought it was simply part of the baptism and kept his composure.

This is a replica of St. Patrick’s Rock that sits at the original site. The actual St. Patrick’s rock was moved in doors for preservation, as it was constructed by sandstone.

One of the fascinating stories of the Rock was told in the Hall of Vicars, where laymen where appointed by the Archbishop to direct the chants at the Cathedral.  They also were provided housing and the Archbishop took care of their living expenses.  The picture below is the Seal of the Vicars, which was given to each one of the member.  The Vicars could use their seal to place on the bottom of receipts when they bought things from town, then at the end of the year a bill was sent to the Archbishop – basically a 15th century corporate credit card!  Apparently the Vicars started to create seals for their family members who then racked up the bill, which brought this perk to an end.  As a church choir member, I could appreciate the church putting up living quarters and paying for expenses of their musicians. Too bad the Vicars ruined it for the rest of us.

The interior of the Cathedral, while in ruin, remained impressive. It was amazing to see just how how big it was back then, and all the assorted rooms and corners that were part of the Cathedral. Inside the Cathedral was a series of tunnels that allowed the clergy to move about the upper part of the Cathedral.

The Cathedral was decadent with various carvings that have held up quite well over the centuries.

One of my favorite parts was the Cormac’s Chapel, which second to the tower, is the oldest structure on the Rock. Inside you would see that the ceilings and walls were once painted with murals, which were later covered up by plaster when the Protestants took over the Rock in the later centuries. However you can see the plaster now pulling back and revealing parts of the murals. The chapel itself is currently surrounded by scaffolding, which is being used to preserve the chapel.  The chapel was made of sandstone, and apparently the years of the elements have damaged the structure. In order to preserve it, the scaffolding is being used to support a structure that is helping dry out the chapel for the next three years, at which point they will put on a protective exterior shell to prevent the chapel from being further damaged by rain.

Outside of the Cathedral the views were as breathtaking as they were indoors. You could see why the Rock was constructed where it was, as it gave the dwellers an arching view over the lands. We were told by the guide that you can see five counties from the Rock.

One of my favorite pictures was of the Scully Cross, which is actually now that spire in the background of this picture. It used to be a giant famous cross, but during a storm in 1976 it was struck by lightning and the top part of the cross was destroyed.

In the end the Rock was definitely worth the drive up, and is probably on my Mt. Rushmore of favorite sights we’ve seen in Ireland.

We made the walk back down into Cashel and had some lunch at a nearby pub. The town of Cashel itself is pretty similar to the other towns that we’ve seen in Ireland.  Because it was Sunday, many of the shops were closed, so we didn’t get the chance to explore the town as much as we would have liked.

We then drove home and relaxed a bit before heading out to Peppers, a pub in Feakle (and yes, we’ve been making bad pun jokes all along), for dinner.  There was music playing there, which made it an enjoyable backdrop to eat some fish and drink some Guinness.