My friends list is going to fill up with this in about five minutes, but I have to say something anyway. Author Iain Banks has just announced he has terminal cancer. God damn it. I *like* Iain Banks. I was very much looking forward to seeing him again at WorldCon in London. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I met Iain at MeCon in Belfast not long after moving to Ireland, but long enough that I was a guest at the convention. Dinner with Iain, his partner Adele, and several others was the…
There’s not much evidence of it in my portfolio, but my favorite kind of photography is portraits. I have a project in mind (don’t I always?) to celebrate 2016 in Ireland, with a theme/subtitle of something along the lines of “Children of the Revolution: The Ireland Michael Collins Never Imagined,” that focuses heavily (but not exclusively) on Ireland as an immigrant, rather than an emigrant, state. It would be either 100 or 200 photos, probably: half of them portrait shots, and half images of the same people ‘in context’, at…
I keep thinking, man, I need to sort everything and clean everything and get it ready to pack. Really what I should do is sort and clean as I pack, thus killing three birds with one stone. It’ll be at least three weeks before we’re in danger of moving, and possibly a couple-three months, so it’s certainly time enough, and would be by far the most sensible way to do things. All I need is someone to keep me company while I do all that work. @.@ :)
I’m pretty certain Castle Ross is down in the Killarney area, though I could be wrong and it could be up by Shannon. No, I’m right, I’ve just checked and it is Killarney. Also apparently it’s Ross Castle, not Castle Ross. Oops. :) Anyway, I believe this is one of the restored castles (well, not *this*, this is obviously boats outside of it) and that it was super cool to visit. I also believe I had the camera accidentally set to manual focus for most of this holiday and that…
We’re back from EasterCon, which was an excellent mix of meeting up with old friends and making new ones. My most excellent writer friends Kari Sperring and Juliet E. McKenna were instrumental in this year’s EasterCon, so I’m particularly happy that it was this year I finally got to *go*. All the other committee members I met were also wonderful people, and they did an absolutely fantastic job putting together a magnificently diverse and interesting program. The past few years EasterCon’s had a commitment to gender parity on the panels,…