10 Questions About…

Sunday we went to Dundrum Shopping Center with Patrick’s mom and Uncle Fearghal. We had lunch at MAO, which is a restaurant that we usually like. I don’t know that Irish Grandma will be their best new customer – it’s Asian food.

Then we trekked about the Dundrum mall. It’s new and nice. We got a few things.

Today has been a long but good day. I’m tempted to put it in order of highlights lowlights, as it’s been one of those days.

Lowlights:

• Aine cut her hair. It’s not quite as bad as the time Lily cut her hair when she was three and a half – but she did more than trim.
• Aine left her jacket in town. (Special thanks to Patrick who walked back into town to get the jacket from the place we thought it might be while the rest of us caught a bus home.)
• The fruit and veg market Patrick wanted to visit was closed.
• It’s Lent so all of us would kill or die for a treat.
• My boots are cute but not very comfortable – especially after a day walking in town.

Highlights

• We went to the Chinese New Years celebration in Smithfield today. (Smithfield is in town – but on the North side of the Liffey.) It wasn’t as big as I thought it would be but it was fun. We saw some martial arts demonstrations, ate some spring rolls and drank Chinese drinks. (Well the girls were adventurous; I has a Diet Coke.)
• Lily was asked to pose for a picture with two police officers and a girl who was possibly Chinese. The photographer is a freelancer who will try to sell the picture to the local papers. So, we’ll keep an eye out.
• We saw the old Jameson Distillery (outside, not in). We walked around the shops on Henry Street.
• We found a cheap place for haircuts and had Aine fixed up and got Lily’s bangs/fringe cut. The young, helpful Turkish women in the barbers suggested that we keep Aine away from the scissors.
• Spring has sprung and there were fun. Good buskers in Grafton Street again.
• Eddie Rockets serves Diet Coke in a big glass!

The videos below do not include us – that may be a bonus! One is from the Chinese New Year event; the other is from Grafton Street.

Thursday night we went back to our new favorite place, the Science Gallery at Trinity. There was a panel discussion on innovation called Bright Ideas.

Here’s the description from the program:

David Edwards, Terry McGuire & John Herlihy
What are the factors and conditions that contribute to innovation? How are important problems found and solved? How can insights from the arts, science and creative industries be leveraged by business to develop an innovation environment?

The Science Gallery presents a unique opportunity to discuss the next generation of idea-environments with
David Edwards, founder of Paris’s Le Laboratoire and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Harvard University, John Herlihy, European Director of Online Sales & Operations at Google and leading Irish American venture capitalist Terry Maguire and facilitated by Irish Times technology columnist, Karlin Lillington. The talk coincides with the launch of David Edwards’ new book ArtScience: Creativity and the post-Google Generation (Harvard University Press 2008). The talk will be followed by a book signing.

I found it so interesting that I thought I’d write up my notes for the interested minority: Continue reading →

After our super busy day, Patrick called a friend from school who was meeting at a pub with Joyceans (James Joyce fans) who had been at a James Joyce conference celebrating Joyce’s birthday. (While I was with the kids at the Hugh Lane Gallery earlier in the day, Patrick was at the conference.)

So we met up with them. We met at the Davenport hotel, which was pretty empty. The group was funny in the way that any group who is really into something is funny. At one point they joked about playing James Joyce charades. At which point I realized that I no longer had to apologize for any party where the punch lines are in UNIX.

So it was pretty sedate. Luckily I was sitting by someone’s girlfriend, who had just attended the conference because her boyfriend was giving a paper. She had never even read Ulysses, so I can only imagine how interesting the conference would have been for her. She was a doctor and very nice.

Most of the crew left so we went with Patrick’s friend to meet up with his girlfriend and her sister at a night club.

Patrick’s friend is a couple years younger than we are, his girlfriend is a couple of years younger than he is, her sister was younger yet. So yes, once again I found myself at the end of the night (way too late at night) with someone who much younger. I’m thinking she was 20 – maybe. But it was fun to talk to her. She’s from Lincolnshire, she lives in a hostel, she works a temp job, and was trying to persuade Patrick to join the Socialist party.

I realized that I’d rather be in my shoes than working a temp job and living in a hostel – although she seemed to enjoy it – as both were opportunities to meet lots of people.

We loved the Science Gallery so much on Friday that we went back on Saturday with the kids.

We were able to see everything we saw the day before – except free beer. The girls got a chance to make electronic jewelry. It took an hour but they move enjoyed it. They had little light bulbs with transistors. They had to twist wires together and then solder them. It was very involved but they did have some cool bracelets in the end.

I got to run around with Aine they worked. We learned that a lot of the exhibits that appear to be hands on are really not hands on for 3 year olds. Apparently no one wants a 3 year old touching up the fiber optics. But they were pretty nice about it – after all some stuff was hands on and some wasn’t and there was no way for us to know which was which.

We also went into the daylight room – which is a room that is very bright and entirely bright. There are big bean bad chairs in the room. Aine got in there and decided that she needed to get her book and then sit down and read it.

And we got a chance to try out the drawing with lights thing. I hope it makes sense on video. It was cool:

We finally got on a bus home about 8:00 at night.

On Saturday morning the girls and I went to the Hugh Lane Gallery where they were having a crafts day for kids to make ornaments for Chinese New Years.

One random very fun thing – we walked the length of O’Connell Street – which is a big street just north of the Liffey. They have a new art installment of computerized walkers leading to the Hugh Lane Gallery.

I had seen one or two of these walkers but I hadn’t seen them all – since I rarely head that far north and we rarely go to the Hugh Lane. I have included videos of a couple of the walkers below. I had to be the walker friend since the girls (even Aine!) were too cool to do it. (Aine is not too cool to lick the bus every time we’re on it – but too cool to do me one little favor of walking with the electronic walker.) By the way – I’m wearing two jackets – that’s why I look so pudgy. 🙂

Anyways the girls enjoyed the craft project of cutting out rats to prepare to celebrate the Year of the Rat. We’ll definitely be heading back there. While they were working, I saw some Monet and Degas, so that’s fun too.

Patrick met up with us at the gallery and we headed to the Science Gallery, which I’ll put into the next post. I took some pictures of O’Connell Street and the Spire while we were out. The Spire is a big public art piece.

After a long and cold, too-much-work week, Patrick and I went to the grand opening of the Science Gallery at Trinity College on Friday night. It was so cool. We loved it!!

The Gallery is having events all week to celebrate light. Some of the events are outdoors so we had just planned to get a sneak preview before bringing the girls on Saturday. But we caught the usually slow, but tonight lucky, bus that drove right by the Gallery –where they were having a reception.

So, despite being in jeans and lots of coats (it was still cold and we were going to the outdoor things) we chanced getting through the door of the reception and scored! (OK probably it was open to everyone but it felt like a score and we each got a free beer – so it was kind of like being cool.)

Anyways – the place is very modern and a lot like an art gallery. Here are quick descriptions of the different parts:

Lightmobile – a very cool Oldsmobile covered with light bulbs

Light Drops – light and silky threads drop from a ceiling. Some drop around crystals, some near fiber optics that light up, one near a mirror, which on Saturday sadly Aine ran right into not realizing that it was a mirror

Light Tracer – an interactive system that uses a variety of light sources to allow you to create images in real physical space. I tried to take a video of the girls doing this because it’s hard to explain. I’ll post that in a few minutes.

De Pong Game – remember Atari? Well they have set up a pong game with the controls near a window – the player and the bals that you have to bounce up appear on the building across the street – it’s super cool

OK I think that was it. I’ll post the pictures and the video from tomorrow which is hopefully catch what we missed.

As part of the opening week they have exhibitions around town, so we walked down to Grand Canal Square, which is a whole new part of the city. It’s kind of down the Liffey towards the sea. It’s an area that they are building up. It’s kind of part old, part new and part needs to be built.

The exhibit they had lit up a square that I’m sure will be a super hot spot in a few years. It was fun to see a part of town that is so new.

Then we walked about 20 minutes to my favorite French restaurant, where we amazingly got in and had a great meal. We were home by midnight.

All in all a good night!