Well, I'm swell!

So, I'm living in Ireland! This is pretty great, I must say. I am so thankful for everything that has happened in recent past, as I have an ideal situation employment-wise for transitioning myself to a new country, a really supportive family (thanks much to all my family for your help, love, and support through the last year and a half, especially considering the rough patches I've been through), a really supportive, beautiful, sweet, and cool girlfriend, and lots of new things to see and experience. Christmas was wonderful, and I have had the pleasure of seeing commonalities between my own past Christmases and childhood, life in general, and the subtle, interesting, and ultimately, insofar as human relationships are concerned, unimportant cultural differences between Cara's and my life to this point. I welcome the challenges involved in my visa acquisition, job hunt, etc. as simply waves to be ridden and learned from.


At any rate, I'm really excited to show images of my experience to people, and I'm excited by the artistic inspiration that I'll get from being in a new place. I'm also excited by the prospect of getting a computer and/or film/TV related job in Dublin, my new home.


So far, I've been here for just over a week, and have gotten try riding in cars driven on the left side of the road, eaten Irish sausages, white puddings, plum pudding (and in lieu of flaming brandy, flaming whiskey on top), Irish bacon, and had hot port to drink, among other things. And I love all of it! I feel very at home here. Cara has done loads to make me feel welcome, as has her family, all of whom are very nice and interesting people. As a result of all of this, and as a natural byproduct of it being the Christmas season as well, I have a number of pictures that I'll be putting up on Flickr, for all to see, and I'll be adding posts here, hopefully on at least a semi-regular basis, as I think about culture, art, programming, life, and politics (American, Irish, and international).


At any rate, I hope anyone reading this finds my posts interesting, but at the least, they will be a creative outlet for me, which will be healthy for me, and I hope for anyone else reading as well!


Last but not least, for now, here's a pic of Bono that I took at the races at Leopardstown racetrack on St. Stephen's Day (day after Christmas, though most Irish people so far refer to it simply as "Stephen's Day") for any U2 fans reading this. More photos will be on Flickr, but I thought I'd throw this one in for fun on the blog, as I'll be doing the Flickr thing later.