Naturafit at the Cork Modern Homes Exhibition

A young visitor to the Modern Homes Exhibition in City Hall Cork flings himself enthusiastically on the very comfortable Naturafit bed covers while Naturafit representative Kurt Gamper looks on in amusement.

We bought one of those bed covers a few months back and it’s great. It helps keep the bed warm and it’s very comfortable. My wife Jacinta bought one of their pillows and she swears by it.

Disclaimer: Other than being satisfied customers we don’t have any connection with the company.

If you visit the exhibition this weekend make sure you buy some chocolate from the Fosters Chocolate stand by the entrance. It’s delicious!

There are hot spas on display too, but if you’re thinking of buying, please read about Carl Fogarty’s experiences. It might make you think twice!

Looking down from on high

Looking down on a street in San Francisco. You wouldn’t want to be afraid of heights walking around on top of a building!

We all want to see what the neighbours are up to and living in a high building is the perfect opportunity of peeping-toms everywhere. You can see all sorts of things - a parasol with lounger across the street, garden furniture, a tree; all invisible from street level.

The postman has been and delivered 100 minicards from moo.com! I ordered 100 duplicates in the order as well so I hope they’re on the way too. I got in touch with their customer service people just in case and am waiting on a reply from them now. Later - I got my reply. The duplicate cards are a separate order and were shipped separately. Should be here in a day or two!

Shel Israel in the People’s Republic of Cork

Rick Segal

Shel Israel and Rick Segal joined members of the Cork blogging and business communities for dinner in Taste of Thailand last night.

They spent the day talking to business people so I’m sure the dinner was a welcome end to the day. Pat ordered one of the banquet selections and we tucked into what I think was four courses of delicious food. I wish I knew that much food was coming out because I could barely eat my breakfast this morning I was so stuffed!

Dinner was excellent of course, and I can heartily recommend Taste of Thailand if you’re looking for a nice meal in Cork.

Tom has posted a picture and some words about the dinner last night too and reminded me that Pat should be thanked for organising it. Thanks!

Will has a write up on the night too. I must take a look at that MusicIP app Rick was going on about. He said it works in Linux too so it could be a useful experiment. I wonder what it’ll make of my varied collection of music?

Seating and the Bay Bridge

Public seating near the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.

I shot this on the first evening after getting to the city. Matt, Andy and I went for a walk down the street and I got my first sight of downtown San Francisco.

Technique: I cropped the photo to a 1×1 ratio, converted to black and white, duplicated the background layer. Set the mode of the top layer to Overlay and added noise via Filters->Noise->Scatter RGB. I adjusted the noise effect by changing the opacity of that layer.
One thing to note - when you resize an image you’ll have to add noise again because the pixels are softened up by the resize procedure.

Have bike, will travel

As you can imagine, I was quite tired by the time I got to San Francisco!

Picture above was taken just down from my Bird flying by photo. I know there are lots of awkward lines in this shot but the line of the Golden Gate Bridge is just about horizontal.
Automattic had it’s first meeting of the week a few yards from here in the glorious sunshine. Some of us suffered sunburn but it sure beat sitting around some dusty old conference table!

Bird flying by

A gull flies off after an inconsiderate photographer runs after it to shoot it. Beats having the kids do the running eh? They might fall!

This was taken in San Francisco, and that’s The Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I went through my shots from my August trip a few days ago and selected around one hundred images for processing. I’ll mix in a few shots over the next few week’s posts. There’s everything from bridges, street people and furniture, Memphis Minis and Alcatraz so plenty for all tastes.

Note to self - when traveling to a new timezone, change the time on your camera!

The black and white boat

A small boat lies upside down on the grass. Isn’t black and white great?

Lady at the lights

If looks could kill! I don’t know who she was looking at but she doesn’t look happy!

Pictured on the corner of Washington Street and Grand Parade a few days ago while we waited for the traffic lights to change. Finn’s Corner, a sports clothes shop, has been on that corner for years and St. Augustine’s Catholic Church is visible just down the road. I’ve never been in that church despite it’s central location. It’s so well integrated into the street scape that it’s easy to forget it’s there.

Pog Mo Thoin san Daingean

“Kiss my ass!” That’s what “póg mo thóin” means. This is from a shop display in Dingle, Co. Kerry. The town, also known by it’s Irish name, An Daingean, is in an Irish speaking part of the country collectively known as An Gaeltacht.

If you’re interested, you’d probably pronounce “póg mo thóin” in English as “pogue mahone”.

Interesting trivia - The Pogues got their name from this short phrase.

Both Ryan and Daragh got their free mini cards from moo.com but I’m still waiting on mine. They have been shipped so they’ll arrive soon I hope. Check out Daragh’s shot of his cards for an imaginative way of photographing them!

Points to relief

A sign points the way to the public toilets, or restroom, at Inch Strand, Co. Kerry.
This sign can be a much sought after sight on a long journey!
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
“Mom! I need to go!”
“I can’t hold it any more!”

Everyone rushes to the public convenience when they hit the beach.