The Royce Files

Back at the old Net haunt - West Acres. After a hiatus of over a month I decided I need to catch up on the Net dragons. So far none have been slane. What a shame (or sham perhaps). Now for another bit from my Ireland trip. Aer Lingus brought me to Dublin. I had a great seat. Just behind 1st class on the right hand side. So much more room! I have to say Aer Lingus does have some good looking employees. I never really hit it off with any however. As a side note BMI has the best uniforms. Thinking I would be getting something really good I ordered the Kosher meal. For the life of me I never knew what I was eating and I know Kosher. It seemed like something with matzo meal. Anyways I get to Dublin and go to the city centre. I spend hours just walking around and seeking sourvenirs, which I realized I needed to appease the people back in the states. Went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College and did not even know I had seen it. I thought I was looking at another illumintated text. So...

Returned from Emerald Isle on Monday last. I took approximately 24 hours after awaking at 4AM Ireland time to step back on the soil of Dakota. What was even more bizzare was that the temperature was something like 75 degrees! People ask me how the trip was and I hesitate a moment and say "Good." Of course that does not begin to break the ground of what encompass my 2 weeks abroad in Maigh Eo. Good is just polite way to say I did not die and I am back with all my limbs attached. It does not even give a hint of the passion I went through. The ups and downs. The highs of feeling near to God and the lows of loneliness and melancholy. It was absolutely...normal. I felt at home even though those fears of being spit out of Ireland like a wad of dull chewing gum knawed at me. I kept up my running regime and even daily spent some splendid time of prayer. Put a guitar in my hands or any instrument for that matter and I would come alive. Dissapointed? No way. Would I do it again? Yes. ...

Just hours away from departing for Eire...err I mean the Republic of Ireland. Once I was feeling pretty depressed about going but now I am in good spirits. However I still need to get packing. I am sorely behind on that. Plus I am only bringing a well packed carry on. It will be an adventure I expect. Not sure if it will be like coming home but I suspect I will find a kinship. There is some of my history on the island someplace. I'll be out west in Mayo and in Sligo. I hope I get to go north. I've been brushing up on Gaelic for a while just in case. Slainte to all you faithful ones. Stay tuned for more adventures.

Phile and I were celebrating the feast of St. Patrick the other day and the topic of what goes with beer arose. Eating ice cream, I suggested ice cream would be a fine compliment to a glass of pilsner. The thought crossed my mind that beer flavored ice cream would bring men and women together as no other food has done before. Phil then proffered an earnest proverb: Beer is good with ice cream but beer with beer is better . An astute observation methinks.

I get to celbrate St. Patrick's feast twice. Yep, I celebrated last night and this evening I will be going to Gethsemane Cathedral's St. Patrick's Day feast. Hopefully Phil will have more quotable moments. Last nights festivities included in addition to food and stout, trivia, music, and a movie. I was the music. I still am not very good at playing those Irish ditties. I need to practice more. Our Irish film for the evening was Angela's Ashes . It was based on the Frank McCourt book of the same title. I never read the book but had read a synopsis summary of it once. Actually I almost bought it at the second hand store once. Anyways the book being a memoir of sorts, the movie is rather episodic. One event after another that shapes Frank. Quite an eery look at poverty in Ireland in the days leading up to WWII. You just hope the family can escape it. Eventually he gets the money (somewhat dubiously) and returns to the United States. And by the way there is nudity and sex....

I have friend in town. He a fairly laid back guy and the kind of guy able to sneak through airport security with toenail clippers kind of sly. If he had not gotten married I'd suspect he form a vigilante anti-terrorist brigade that's only purpose was to sit around and drink beer (not the domestic junk) and discuss means they could use to track down Osama's minions. He bought a whole gross of nutrition bars recently (and gross can describe them: think soft cardboard with flour, wheat germ and chocolate) that I had interest in obtaining a few from him. He brings some over to my place and to my chagrin the were of the female specific type. I was bit dismayed and did not want people to think I am becoming woman. Phil responded with one of his trademark bits of wisdom: "Nutrition knows no gender." I have not eaten any of the bars yet so we will see if this is true.

So you can actully lose your job because you blog. In the case of 2 individuals, their blogs cost them their jobs. Read about it here . This begs the question what is protected speech now. Obviously their blogs must of violated company policy in the sense that as individuals they represent the company to the public. Additionally, speech is not necessarily protected in the sphere of the private world (only in relation to incidences of discrimination, whistleblowing, or in union organizing. Ones are employed at will as I recall from my professional ethics class and thus the private corpus (body) can do what it wants. I am not sure many even realize employers have this "right." Now then what can one blog without violating the company line? Here are my suggestions: Movies. As long you don't work for Miramax or Paramount I am sure the discussion of movie culture can be discussed and dissented with freely. (i.e. I dispised Al Pacino's role in Meet the Fokkers.) Look n...