Did you know you've probably used scissors from Finland? That's right, chances are pretty good that at some point in your life you've used a pair of Fiskars scissors. You may not have noticed, unless you're some kind of scissor aficionado, but you probably recognize the iconic orange handled scissors in the picture below. Well,... Continue Reading →
A Fascinating Day Touring West Belfast and the Titanic Experience
Though "The Troubles", a common term for the three decades of violence in Northern Ireland that began in the late sixties, continued well into my lifetime, they have always felt like something that happened long ago and far away. Even arriving in Belfast and walking around the city centre there are few signs of the... Continue Reading →
Busting a Move in a 15th Century Castle
Today was our first day with no travel. So, what did we decide to do...well, travel to the nearby town of Blarney. I'll give you one guess as to what we went there to see. There are a few options for getting to Blarney from Cork but we decided on just taking the public bus,... Continue Reading →
Lovely Day for a Guinness
What's the first thing you do as tourists in Dublin with a toddler? Why a brewery, of course. More specifically the Guinness Storehouse. Having arrived in Dublin before 6:00 am local time and around 1:00am Eastern, our first priority was sleep, both for us and for Ella. None of us had any trouble getting to... Continue Reading →
Why we decided to travel to Malta
"Malta?? Why Malta?" That was a pretty typical response when we told anyone we were gong to Malta. I would never have expected so much surprise and confusion about our choice of Malta as a travel destination. Pretty much anyone who hadn't been there before or didn't know someone Maltese seemed to think it was... Continue Reading →
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here's an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 50 trips to carry that many people. Click here to see the... Continue Reading →
Four things I learned by breaking my collarbone.
Earlier this summer I was out for a pretty normal bike ride in the morning before work. As I rode along a paved trail in the early morning quiet, I broke my collarbone. Actually, that's not entirely true...The ride was interrupted by "something", then panic, then flight (which was surprisingly peaceful), then landing. I'm pretty... Continue Reading →
South Sudan officially joins UN – one more reason
Thursday was an exciting day for Southern Sudan. Less than a week after the Republic of South Sudan became an independent state, it was welcomed into the UN and officially acclaimed the 193rd member state of the United Nations. Here's the official UN news release. Hopefully, despite the fact that it is still undoubtedly a troubled region, independence... Continue Reading →
Is it possible that renewing your passport in Canada got slower?
I had a bit of a sad day recently, I had to renew my passport. You see, I'm pretty proud of my passport. It's a record of all of the exciting places that I've managed to visit in the last few years and whenever I get it out, I know there's a good chance I'll... Continue Reading →
Last day, time for a masssaaa.
It's the last day of our trip and, as usual, it's gone by far too quickly. We've packed a lot into the last two and a half weeks, but it still feels like we just left. Our 7:00 pm flight from Krabi to Bangkok meant we had to leave for the airport around 4:00. While... Continue Reading →
192 Reasons 