This week, we had to do endure of the most unpleasant errands undergone by world travelers: the long wait at the immigration office. Just like our first visit back in 2013 and our big day out last year, the office was jam-packed with tired, bored, and scared people waiting...waiting...waiting.
On our first visit, I'm sure our faces would have been on the scared list, hoping we had all the correct paperwork – a marriage license from the State of Iowa and the Catholic Church, in case Ireland wasn't yet recognizing non-Catholic marriages – and that our newly-issued debit card could handle the hefty fee for the privilege of living and paying taxes in Ireland.
This time around, one of the newbies would have seen us as the bored, groggy queue-shufflers that we had seen on our first day. The experienced expats; the longtime legal aliens.
Thankfully, this last visit was our shortest yet, we seemed to have had good luck with the size of the line. During peak immigration times, the office has to start turning people away by ten o'clock, having already issued service tickets to their daily limit of lost souls. As an added bonus, this being our third year in the country, we were issued two-year passes for the hassle – and high price – of one!
It won't really change my schedule or status, but it's nice to know that, come next summer, we won't have the specter of a long wait in line and a big bank bust hanging overhead, blocking out the sometimes-rare Irish sunshine.
This bureaucratic chore out of the way, it's time to enjoy the rest of our summer travel plans! By the way, did you read about our hike in Cashel over the June bank holiday? Much more like that to come!
Friday, June 19, 2015
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Summer Games
It's been a long time since I've done any video game writing here on the main blog. Now that I don't need daily content, I've been more...selective about what goes up here. That said, I have been doing a bit of game-centered writing recently that I thought I'd share.
I now have a separate Twitter account that I use specifically for game- and nerd-focused content (@Active_ate), and have been busy tweeting my progress through various old games, sometimes with self-imposed restrictions for extra challenge.
Dancing Dagger, Air Blade, Slumber Sword, and some careful death control overcome Atmos. #FF5Freelancers pic.twitter.com/G5z9U0Kf31
— Active_ate (@Active_ate) June 11, 2015
To give all this writing a home, I started another Blogger page (http://active-ate-games.blogspot.com) and have been writing about my game variants over there. If you like math and bad jokes, you'll love what you read. Here's an extra-nerdy excerpt from a Final Fantasy 5 Solo Time Mage challenge run report:
Earlier in the Ship Graveyard dungeon, a well-hidden chest contains a new kind of weapon. The Flail has some very interesting qualities: it boasts a slightly higher Attack (16) than the Dagger (14), it deals equal damage from the back row, and it cuts the enemy defense to 25% of its original value.
What's the catch? The weapon is wildly random, both in Hit% and damage dealt. Here's the formula from the Algorithms Guide:
Attack = (Weapon Attack/2) + (0..Weapon Attack)
M = (Level*Strength)/128 + 2
Defense = (Defense/4)
ATTACK: 16 HIT%: 70
The above Attack formula means that, on any given attack command, the Attack value will be anywhere from 50%–150% of the listed weapon Attack. For the Flail, that means 8–24. The Multiplier (M) will usually be the same as that with the Knife (due to the bug), and the Defense/4 property boosts damage significantly.
The Hit% of 70 means just what it says on the tin: this weapon will flat-out miss on three of every ten attacks—before calculating any enemy physical evasion, of which Siren thankfully has none. I like the narrative suggestion with this mage-only weapon: picture a frail robed wizard wildly and blindly swinging a spiked ball on a long chain with one hand while protecting his face and eyes with the other.The Final Fantasy 5 Four Job Fiesta is fast approaching, and in honor of the most wonderful time of the (retro RPG enthusiast) year, I wrote an article about it for Laser Time, one of my favorite pop culture/video game podcast networks. I was proud to share this article with the Internet gaming community, and hope it will attract a few new players to the Fiesta this year.
I also started a new sports project with an old friend, Sticky Bleachers. We hope to one day build it into a multi-writer sports blog and podcast, but for now, it's a Twitter account and some unique video content. We kicked off the YouTube channel with a simulated NBA Finals series with NBA Live '96 for Sega Genesis (that's Sega Mega Drive for you European fans) with a current rosters rom patch. This means we can see LeBron James face off with Stephen Curry in a pixelated dream world – with commentary by my friend and Yours Truly.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Balsam Bashing on the River Dodder
If I write too much about my local River Dodder, it's only because this urban stream is my nearest and dearest source of a peaceful, natural retreat from the noise of the city. A place to fish, to sit, to watch the wildlife, and enjoy the simpler things in life.
It wasn't long after we received our identification training that we were hauling out handfuls of this harmful plant. After less than an hour, our team of a dozen volunteers had nabbed buckets and bags of the stuff, leaving one small (but not insignificant) stretch of river free for the native plants to once again take hold.
Local enthusiasts gathering each spring to pull balsam have completely wiped it out on the banks of the Blackwater – another river in Southwest Ireland – and Dublin's biodiversity team hopes that such a community-led initiative can accomplish the same thing here. It is inspiring volunteer efforts like this that keep me hopeful for the future of our urban and suburban habitats. In the twenty-first century, conservation and caring are no longer just for green-minded radicals.
A new addition to my river-protecting volunteer projects is the removal of harmful invasive species from the river. Dublin recently celebrated Biodiversity Week, a time to celebrate the wide array of native plants and animals. Native being the important word, as exotic species introduced (intentionally or unintentionally) by humans pose a threat to many fragile ecosystems.
In Ireland, one such invader is the garden escapee Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera). This admittedly attractive garden plant proliferates on riverbanks, its seeds carried on the water to take root downstream. It grows quickly and drives out native Irish riverbank plants before seeding and dying out itself, leaving a bare bank prone to erosion with the winter floods.
To celebrate Biodiversity Week, Dublin City Council Biodiversity invited the community to the riverbanks for a quick lesson in balsam identification and eradication. I jumped in with other members of Dodder Action and some environmentally-minded employees of a riverside business to bash some balsam.
 |
| Our First Specimen |
It wasn't long after we received our identification training that we were hauling out handfuls of this harmful plant. After less than an hour, our team of a dozen volunteers had nabbed buckets and bags of the stuff, leaving one small (but not insignificant) stretch of river free for the native plants to once again take hold.
 |
| The Team and the Harvest |
 |
| Destined for Compost |
Local enthusiasts gathering each spring to pull balsam have completely wiped it out on the banks of the Blackwater – another river in Southwest Ireland – and Dublin's biodiversity team hopes that such a community-led initiative can accomplish the same thing here. It is inspiring volunteer efforts like this that keep me hopeful for the future of our urban and suburban habitats. In the twenty-first century, conservation and caring are no longer just for green-minded radicals.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Book Update: A Big Step
First up, the Netherlands series wraps up with Amsterdam and Haarlem over on my legit writing website. Give it a click if you care to see the urban counterpart to our rural, flowery adventure.
I've recently taken a big step in the process of writing Five Suitcases, the personal memoir of the first two years of my expat experience. Until this point, the book has been written like a series of blog posts – disparate stories in separate files that relate to each other...more or less.
I preferred to start the book this way because the short-form personal story is my most comfortable writing format. Look no further than this blog to see the 500+ vignettes I've put pounded together about water heaters, concert reviews, supermarket visits, and old video games. Thinking one massive document to be unwieldy and overwhelming, I wrote the various stories of the book like very long blog posts, making references and connections when convenient.
But no longer! I have now created one long document in which to do the rest of the writing and editing of the book. Currently weighing in at 80,000 words – a bit more than twice the length of The Frugal Guide: Dublin, which is still available for free at all fine eBook distributors – this book has all the bulk it will ever need. Any new stories I tell (and I want to tell more!) will most likely replace sidebars, exaggerations, and analogies that must be left on the proverbial cutting room floor. Reading through everything I've written over the past six months, said floor looks like it will be quite messy. Does the finished book really need a long reflection about the value of a Midwest American basement? Probably not.
I was surprised to see this word count staring back at me as I pasted the final chapter into my now-massive document. All those weeks of hitting my 5000 word quota had seemed to pay off, and all the individual documents in my Five Suitcases folder had really added up to something significant.
I'm excited to have reached this stage, although I know this will be the hardest part of the project. Taking a series of (hopefully) funny stories and turning them into a cohesive product that will be read (again hopefully) in longer sessions, cover-to-cover, looks to be a laborious process. Jokes about Gareth...er...Garth Brooks and Irish Water are great, but how do they relate to the Barry's/Lyons tea battle or the struggle to understand a roller coaster accent through a tiny disposable phone speaker?
Happily, things are right on track for my nebulous "Late 2015" self-publishing deadline. Later this summer, be on the lookout for a chance to preview the book and provide feedback. All volunteers get secret access to this early e-publisher's proof, a free copy of the final e-book when it is released, and the chance to be forever e-immortalized in the acknowledgements of all editions of the final book. That's much better than money, right?
I've recently taken a big step in the process of writing Five Suitcases, the personal memoir of the first two years of my expat experience. Until this point, the book has been written like a series of blog posts – disparate stories in separate files that relate to each other...more or less.
I preferred to start the book this way because the short-form personal story is my most comfortable writing format. Look no further than this blog to see the 500+ vignettes I've put pounded together about water heaters, concert reviews, supermarket visits, and old video games. Thinking one massive document to be unwieldy and overwhelming, I wrote the various stories of the book like very long blog posts, making references and connections when convenient.
But no longer! I have now created one long document in which to do the rest of the writing and editing of the book. Currently weighing in at 80,000 words – a bit more than twice the length of The Frugal Guide: Dublin, which is still available for free at all fine eBook distributors – this book has all the bulk it will ever need. Any new stories I tell (and I want to tell more!) will most likely replace sidebars, exaggerations, and analogies that must be left on the proverbial cutting room floor. Reading through everything I've written over the past six months, said floor looks like it will be quite messy. Does the finished book really need a long reflection about the value of a Midwest American basement? Probably not.
I was surprised to see this word count staring back at me as I pasted the final chapter into my now-massive document. All those weeks of hitting my 5000 word quota had seemed to pay off, and all the individual documents in my Five Suitcases folder had really added up to something significant.
I'm excited to have reached this stage, although I know this will be the hardest part of the project. Taking a series of (hopefully) funny stories and turning them into a cohesive product that will be read (again hopefully) in longer sessions, cover-to-cover, looks to be a laborious process. Jokes about Gareth...er...Garth Brooks and Irish Water are great, but how do they relate to the Barry's/Lyons tea battle or the struggle to understand a roller coaster accent through a tiny disposable phone speaker?
Happily, things are right on track for my nebulous "Late 2015" self-publishing deadline. Later this summer, be on the lookout for a chance to preview the book and provide feedback. All volunteers get secret access to this early e-publisher's proof, a free copy of the final e-book when it is released, and the chance to be forever e-immortalized in the acknowledgements of all editions of the final book. That's much better than money, right?
Friday, May 15, 2015
Finally!
A long time ago, WAY back in 2013, we were struggling to figure out the ins and outs of our new Irish apartment. What is this strange washer in the kitchen? Why do all of the power sockets have switches...and why is there just a weird "shavers only" plug on the bathroom light? Are these Irish things or just big city things? Does every Irish home use an immersion water heater? Why does the water from that heater come out of our separate hot and cold water taps at skin-melting temperatures?
This week, Sara showed me a video that quickly explains why many of our apartment oddities (or normalities, depending on who is doing the asking) are the way they are. This video – from the Anglophenia series, which humorously explains British culture to Americans – is a good primer for anyone in the States to see what one might expect in an English home.
Yes, the video series is about England, not Ireland, and the Irish would be after me if I ever compared Ireland to the UK in any way. But there's simply no denying that the English left a pretty strong cultural impression when they finally let (most of) Ireland have independence. Left-side driving on the roads, blood sausage and curry sauce, rugby, and, of course, the English language.
Onward! In the video, our host explains the dual-use washer/dryer in the kitchen – although she leaves out the part about clothing not being dry after a two-hour drying cycle. She goes on to explain why there aren't any power sockets in the bathroom – so that's why we can't listen to the radio while we're in the shower? And hot and cold water taps are still separate...just because? I've been burning my fingers for nothing!
Interestingly, the last thing she shows us is the window – as she demonstrates that there isn't central heating or air conditioning in the mild climate of the British Isles – and she cracks that leaving the window open will lead to a room full of pigeons. Canny Americans will wonder, "How are birds getting in through the screen?"
How indeed? Not being plagued by sky-blocking swarms of mosquitoes, homes in the UK and Ireland usually don't need screens blocking the few precious rays of direct sunlight that filter through the clouds to their homes.
So there you are, American friends. If you've ever wondered what terrible hardships we suffer in our day-to-day lives, this video is a good start. A bathroom with no counter space? A washer and dryer that doesn't do either very well? Electrical outlets (and very few of them, mind) with switches? Believe it or not, it's possible to survive in such circumstances...somehow.
This week, Sara showed me a video that quickly explains why many of our apartment oddities (or normalities, depending on who is doing the asking) are the way they are. This video – from the Anglophenia series, which humorously explains British culture to Americans – is a good primer for anyone in the States to see what one might expect in an English home.
Yes, the video series is about England, not Ireland, and the Irish would be after me if I ever compared Ireland to the UK in any way. But there's simply no denying that the English left a pretty strong cultural impression when they finally let (most of) Ireland have independence. Left-side driving on the roads, blood sausage and curry sauce, rugby, and, of course, the English language.
Onward! In the video, our host explains the dual-use washer/dryer in the kitchen – although she leaves out the part about clothing not being dry after a two-hour drying cycle. She goes on to explain why there aren't any power sockets in the bathroom – so that's why we can't listen to the radio while we're in the shower? And hot and cold water taps are still separate...just because? I've been burning my fingers for nothing!
How indeed? Not being plagued by sky-blocking swarms of mosquitoes, homes in the UK and Ireland usually don't need screens blocking the few precious rays of direct sunlight that filter through the clouds to their homes.
So there you are, American friends. If you've ever wondered what terrible hardships we suffer in our day-to-day lives, this video is a good start. A bathroom with no counter space? A washer and dryer that doesn't do either very well? Electrical outlets (and very few of them, mind) with switches? Believe it or not, it's possible to survive in such circumstances...somehow.
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