Chapter 5 in the can

I've realized why I don't write too much on this blog - well aside from the fact that I'm really not that interesting and don't have a lot to say unless prompted. I've been busting my ass on this dissertation since I got back from Ireland last summer. And it seems as though all my hard work has paid off. I finished the first draft of chapter 5 today. That is the final chapter of my dissertation. I still need to write the introduction and conclusion, but I already know what I need to do for the former and the latter won't be written until, well, I'm done (or very close to it). All told, I've written 193 pages since September. Now I don't want to toot my own horn, but I think that's pretty impressive. Granted everything is still pretty rough and they're only first drafts of everything, but I now have a really solid base to work off of during the coming school year. Since I'll be making my first foray into teaching in the fall it's probably pretty good that I've got the bulk of this done now.

Go Wings

Game 7 and I have to work. I think that's ok. I'm kind of scared to watch the game anyway. I just hope we get an Original Six Western Conference Finals with both Detroit and Chicago.

The beat goes on

I've made some good progress on Chapter 5 this so far this week. I've got about 8 pages already in about 2.5 days of work. Not too bad if I do say so myself. It's amazing how helpful a little outlining can be.

The most challenging thing as of late is trying to find some work for the summer. I managed to find a gig for the first 3 weeks of May proctoring law school exams at John Marshall and Loyola. Once that's done I've got contacts at two different temp agencies so hopefully one of those will provide something for the remainder of the summer. One of the agencies set up the proctoring gig and the other was a contact through one of my buddies.

The most important development of late has been, of course, the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Wings made short work of Columbus in the first round, but every series has been good so far. The Caps/Rangers series has been amazing. I'm looking forward to game 7 tonight. After Ovechkin's goal in game 5 I'm hoping for some more Russian fireworks. Out west the Ducks/Sharks series was a real surprise, simply because the Sharks were so terrible. The Ducks' forecheck and backcheck were too much for the Sharks to handle. I'm a little worried about facing Jonas Hiller in the next round, but at the same time the Ducks have been playing at such a high level for about 6 weeks now I don't know how long they can keep up that pace - especially with only 2-3 days rest between series. I'm looking forward to the next round and hoping that Lord Stanley makes its way back to hockeytown.

Chapter 4... redux

I just wrapped up my first draft of chapter four. It's by far the most disconnected draft I've written thus far, but at the same time it's a complex time in the chronology of my dissertation. One element of commemoration is on the decline and is being replaced by another, different type. At this point I think it's best to set it aside for a while and come back to it with fresh eyes in a few months. That means I only have one more body chapter to draft out, chapter five, which covers the time period 1987-present. Things to discuss in chapter 5:

The Enniskillen bombing in 1987 as a watershed
The revival of interest in the Great War in Ireland as it pertains to:
Government involvement - especially the refurbishment and opening of Islandbridge
Local advocacy groups
Wrap up the ISSLT stuff (quickly)
Easing of North/South relations, e.g. Sinn Fein mayor of Belfast and R.D. ceremonies
Opening of the Somme Centre in the North
Rise of historical scholarship on the subject
Relative "boom" in using the Great War in Irish literature

Now that I write all of that out, perhaps chapter 5 will be just as disjointed as chapter 4 when I finish the first draft. I guess that's all part of the process. Nevertheless, it's nice to be moving on and I'm even keeping to my original timetable for completion (for the most part). After I get these 5 body drafts done I think I'll write the introduction, which I have yet to do, but I pretty much know everything that's going to go in there.

Two nights of DTB = heaven

The Derek Trucks Band played two nights at the Park West this week. I was able to go to both shows. I sent out setlists and reviews to the Derek email listserv which I'll also post here.



Park West, Chicago, IL
4/8/09

Down In The Flood
Down Don't Bother Me
Days Is Almost Gone
Rastaman Chant
Get What You Deserve
I'll Find My Way
Meet Me At The Bottom
Already Free
Leavin' Trunk
Afro Blue
Get Out Of My Life >
Who Knows >
Get Out Of My Life
Up Above My Head

Encore:
Done Got Over
We're A Winner
Sweet Inspiration

The band came on just after 8:45pm and played one long set finishing up at about 10:45pm. The venue was pretty full for a Wednesday night (I saw Tea Leaf Green at Park West a few weeks ago and the crowd was quite paltry) and it might have even been a sell out - I know tomorrow's show is sold out. The band played with a horn section at tonight's show, which added some nice touches to most of the songs. I'm not a huge fan of horns in "rock" music, but a nice horn triad can add a lot when not over used - tonight's show was a great example of that. The sax player took some nice solos at a few points during the night as well. As per usual, the band played a really solid set. It was evident when they hit their groove though. From Leavin' Trunk through the rest of the show the band was in 5th gear. The version of Leavin' Trunk was one of the best I've heard. Furthermore, not only did the play Rastaman, which was a treat and a surprise, but they played the one song I was really jonesing for - Afro Blue. Suffice it to say the band didn't let me down. Kofi and Derek were on fire, as per usual. I was really struck by Derek's straight playing during Afro Blue tonight. The Count and the sax player took a nice solo each in the song as well. The only disappoint was that I did not see any tapers (again, for a city the size of Chicago with so many tapers not one?). I sincerely hope that I'm wrong because the band was ON and people need to hear this version of Afro Blue. I'll be at tomorrow night's show and report back to the list.



Park West, Chicago, IL
4/9/09

I Know
Get What You Deserve
Sailing On
Miss Me When I'm Gone
Rastaman Chant
Key To The Highway
Days Is Almost Gone
Leavin' Trunk
Already Free
Get Out Of My Life Woman >
Who Knows >
Get Out Of My Life Woman
My Favorite Things
Any Day

Encore:
Down In The Flood
Sweet Inspiration*

*with Billy Branch on harmonica

To me, the mark of a good live band is when their performance transcends time; when you look at your watch and realize, "holy shit, it's been an hour and fifteen minutes already." Fortunately, this happens virtually every time I see the DTB and tonight was no exception. The band took the stage at about 8:50pm tonight and played another solid two hour set. (I love how the band eschews the whole rock and roll ethos in their own attitudes and mannerisms as well as a band. They respect their fans and go on when they should, which allows us fans to get home and to bed for work the next day. Now that's class.) The horn section from the previous night was back and they all seemed a bit more comfortable with the tunes this time around. "Sailing On" stood out early in the set. The horns sounded great and there was an incredible upbeat, funky vibe to the song that really got the crowd moving. Kofi was on all night and Todd did a really nice job of holding the down the bottom end while still adding flourishes of color (as a bass player I notice his playing more than most, probably). Surprisingly, or perhaps not, given the previous night's performance, "Leavin' Trunk" really cooked. The whole band was on - Derek and Kofi doing their thing as per usual and an extended jamming period that saw solos from the trombone player, Kofi's clavinet, the sax player, and the Count. They brought it down a bit with "Already Free" but there was still plenty of tasteful playing. I think "Already Free" is one of my favorite on the new album (that and "Something To Make You Happy" - what can I say, I can't get enough Paul Pena) and what the band does with it live simply builds on an already great song. The band stepped the funk back up with "Get Out Of My Life Woman." Several times during the night I looked over at Bobby Tis at the board and he had a big SEG (shit eating grin) on his face. You know the band is hitting their stride when you see that kind of reaction from the crew. "My Favorite Things" stuck out tonight as well. Having followed this band almost religiously for the better part of a decade, Derek's slide fireworks come as no surprise (that's not to diminish his chops though) but what I really paid attention to tonight (and a bit last night) was Derek's straight playing. He didn't even touch the slide during "My Favorite Things" and just blew me away with some of his work on the fretboard. Throughout the night I tried to focus on his rhythm work as well, which I think is very under-rated. He manages to add a lot of color to his rhythm parts and keep the song moving and interesting while staying true to the arrangement. One thing I noticed during "Down In The Flood" - the guitar change between Derek and Bobby is so fluid it's almost one swift motion. For the "Sweet Inspiration" encore, Billy Branch from the opening band came out and blew some harp. I must say that the combination of the DTB, the horn section, and the harp may have just resulted in the best version of that song yet. The major surprise for me was that I didn't see any taping rigs again tonight. Perhaps I missed them again, but I'm kind of shocked that they weren't more apparent if they were there. Both of these shows were so good it would be a shame not to have them available to the whole community. Who knows, perhaps Marty and company were pulling multi-track tonight (do they do that every night?) for a future release. Trust me, there were enough highlights from both nights to have a pretty amazing live album (of course I'd love it if they released both nights in their entirety, but hey, that's me). One other little funny moment, during the intros Derek introduced Mike as being from Northwestern (when he really went to Harvard) and both night's the Count was introduced as being from Gary, Indiana. I was listening to the House of Blues tape from 4/2/09 and they introduced the Count as being from a town in MA, so I assumed they're just messing around, which I found humorous. I made sure to give Marty a thumbs up and a "good work tonight" on the way out of the building. Everyone earned their paycheck at the Park West gigs this week. It's nice that the DTB finally did more than one night in Chicago, and I hope it's a trend that will continue in the future.

Honeymoon - recap and reflections

Tuesday, March 17th
Fortunately, Katie was forward thinking and scheduled a car to pick us up and drive us to the airport. Our flight was at 5:35am and we got picked up at 3am. Needless to say it was a long day. We landed in Houston, and since our plane got in a little late, we had less than our scheduled 45 min lay-over. By the time we got to the gate for our next flight, I realized I had left my coat on the other plane at the other end of the airport. To make a long story short, the airline did nothing to help me out and I lost my coat before we even got out of the country.

We landed in San Jose and met up with our driver. It took about 90 minutes to get to our first stop of the trip - Hotel Villa Blanca in the Los Angeles Cloud Forest just north of San Ramon. We had our own little "casita" - basically a stand-alone apartment - at the hotel. We had a great view of the surrounding mountains and the hotel's grounds from our terrace. We made sure to take in happy hour our first night there and had a really nice dinner.

Wednesday, March 18th
The next day we woke up early and had breakfast. The hotel had a working dairy farm on the premises and guests were able to milk the cows. The two milk cows were named Britney and Madonna. I had the opportunity to milk Madonna (somehow I have a feeling I'm not the first person to make such a claim), which Katie found very entertaining since I don't like cows (except to eat) and had never milked one before.

We spent the morning walking around the hotel's grounds, relaxing, and reading. In the afternoon we had a couple's massage at the hotel's spa. I think it goes without saying that it was pretty awesome. After basking in post-massage glow for a while we had another nice dinner. Since the hotel was in the middle of no-where there wasn't a whole lot to do in the evening, although there was a game room with a pool table, cards, and other stuff, as well as a movie theater there. Our goal was to take it easy and relax, which is exactly what we did. The hotel offered a wide variety of tours, either half or full day, and if we get the opportunity to go back I would definitely do some of those.

Thursday, March 19th
Another great breakfast at Villa Blanca. Then we just bummed around until our driver picked us up at 1pm. This was when we met Randall, the coolest driver we had on the entire trip. He was a very friendly and personable guy. He pointed out all kinds of neat stuff during our driver to Arenal and even stopped at the grocery store so that we could buy some beer! Score for Randall!

We got to our next stop, the Arenal Observatory Lodge, in the late afternoon. We were staying there for 3 nights, but because of other reservations were were in one room for 2 nights and then we had to move to another room for one night. Both rooms had great views of the volcano and we even saw a bit of lava on our first night. The hotel was a bit "rustic" and they had some hiking trails as well as a pool and jacuzzi. We had a mediocre dinner and then retired to drink some of our beer before it got warm (the refrigerator in our room didn't work).

Friday, March 20th
We got up and had breakfast, and then we got ready for our excursion for the day, which was horseback riding. We got picked up and driven to the stable. After everyone had arrived and assembled, we mounted up and took to the fields. We rode our horses about 5 kilometers to the La Fortuna waterfall. My horse was a bit cranky, which made for an interesting ride, but by the time we came back I was a bit more comfortable. Anyway, we were able to spend about an hour swimming in the waterfall, which was really impressive and an amazing experience. Then we got back on our horses and rode back to the stables. Unfortunately, I apparently inadvertently washed off the sunblock I had put on my hands and both of them got pretty sunburned - especially my left since that was the one holding the reins.

By this time it was the afternoon and we went back to the hotel to find that our refrigerator had been replaced (yay! cold beer) and took a swim in the pool. After another bad dinner - the food there was way overpriced and reminded me of the food at a college dorm cafeteria - we took it easy for the remainder of the evening. At this point some of the allergens in the area started to bother Katie and she wasn't feeling well. To make matters worse our room was right next door to the kitchen so it was loud. Even worse, there was a back door to the kitchen that was left unlatched and when the wind blew the door would slam against its frame. This happened throughout the night and Katie didn't sleep very well, to say the least.

Saturday, March 21st
Since we had to switch rooms and Katie wasn't feeling well, we decided to stay close to the lodge and explore the hiking trails they had. We spent the morning on the trails, got caught out in the rain for a bit, and checked out another, smaller waterfall nearby. When we got back our new room was ready and fortunately, it was very far from the kitchen. In the afternoon we hit up the pool again and Katie started to teach me how to do flipturns. Apparently my wild flailing was humorous and I think she almost soiled herself laughing so hard.

Sunday, March 22nd
Instead of driving from Arenal to our next destination, Manuel Antonio, which was a 5-7 hour drive depending on how many times you got lost, we elected to fly there. We had to take two puddle jumpers, one from La Fortuna to San Jose, and another from San Jose to Quepos. To say the La Fortuna "airport" was nothing more than a strip of pavement and an open air building would be true, but at least there was a bar as well. Since Katie doesn't like flying it was good to get a beer or two before the flight. These were definitely the smallest plane I've ever been on, 19 passenger jobbers. The flights were pretty uneventful. Upon landing in San Jose, they literally paraded us in one door, check our IDs, walked to the other side of the building (about 30 yards), got our IDs checked again, and walked right back out to the plane we had just gotten off of. The "airport" at Quepos was just as small as La Fortuna, if not smaller. The entire trip took about an hour, so we saved a lot of time by flying.

Manuel Antonio was on the Pacific Coast and it was really warm, a nice change from our previous two stops which were in the mountains and more temperate. Our hotel, Si Como No, was run by the same company that ran Villa Blanca, and had really nice rooms, great restaurants, two pools, and spectacular views. After we arrived we went straight to the adult pool and I was introduced to one of my favorite new things - the swim up bar. Over the next three nights we did plenty of business at the swim up bar. One of the other benefits of Si Como No was the return to good food. So we had a good dinner at one of the two restaurants on site.

Monday, March 23rd
Our outdoor adventure for the day was a canopy zip line tour. I must say that I hate heights, but I had a great time. It was pretty much an all day affair. We left the hotel a little after 10am and got back around 4pm. In that time we drove out to the zip line course, which was in the middle of nowhere. The guides at least made the ride interesting by pointing out different trees and things that Costa Rica produced. Once we got to the place we got a quick safety tutorial and started the hike up the mountain. There were 9 zip lines, 2 rappels, a tarzan swing, and a suspension bridge. The rappels were by far the most frightening for me. The first one was bad enough but at the second, which was the very last thing we did, the guide made me go down an alternative way than what they had showed us at the safety tutorial. Basically, the guy made me do a free fall, which scared the shit out of me. I was the first one in the group to go down and the guide gave everyone else the option of going down the original way or the free fall. Thanks buddy.

After we got back to the main camp, we were provided a typical Costa Rican meal. This consisted of chicken in some sort of delicious sauce, rice, black beans, tortillas, and, for me, plenty of tabasco. I had two heaping plates full of the stuff. It was awesome. When we got back to the hotel it was back to the adult pool and swim up bar (2 for 1 happy hour drinks!). After a dip we went to dinner at the fancy restaurant at the resort Claro Que Si. We both got seafood, since that was the specialty, and it was delicious - as was the dessert.

Tuesday, March 24th
Our outdoor activity for the day was kayaking, but it wasn't scheduled until the afternoon. So after breakfast we walked from the hotel down to the beach. Katie's a beach bum, so she went into the Pacific Ocean. I just waded in and took pictures. I'm a pool guy. Especially when there is a swim up bar involved. We went back to the hotel and went to the kid pool, which lacked kids at the time and familiarized ourselves with the water slide.

Around noon we got picked up for our kayaking tour. We originally thought we were going to go kayaking on the ocean, but realized that we were signed up for the other kayaking tour the company offered, which took place in a river estuary in a protected wetland. Apparently, there was no one else signed up for this particular tour that day so we had the guide all to ourselves. He spent the next few hours taking us around the river system and explaining the ecosystem and various flora and fauna to us. It wasn't what we were expecting, but it was a fun experience nonetheless. When we got back to the launch site, they provided us with fresh pineapple and green tea. The pineapple was SO good. I ate a ton of it. Despite putting on two coats of SPF 30 I still managed to get a bit of sunburn on my shoulders and upper back, but the burns weren't too bad so that was good, especially since I burn so easily.

Upon our return to the hotel, you guessed it, adult pool and swim up bar. Another dinner at the Rico Tico Bar and Grill followed and we packed out gear for our flight home the next day.

Wednesday, March 25th
The worst travel day ever. We flew from Quepos to San Jose on another little puddle jumper. The plane was late arriving at Quepos, but we got into San Jose alright. One of the airport workers told me that our driver had called to say he was running a bit late, but since we were late too it worked out fine. As we entered the little airport, again, who did we see was our driver? Randall! We were so pumped to see him that we were almost to the car when we remembered that we still needed to get our checked bags. Randall got us to the big airport in San Jose where you have to pay a departure tax. It's about $26 per person. Seriously? I have to pay to leave the country? That's bootleg. The airport was pretty small and there wasn't anything good to eat there. We settle for Cinnabon and waited several hours until our flight took off.

We landed in Houston on time, but we only had 65 minutes before our plane left. In that time we had to clear immigration, claim our bags, re-check them, clear security again, and get to our gate. Of course, the lines for everything were ridiculously long and people are idiots who don't know how to go through security. I ended up literally sprinting through the airport in order to make our flight on time. One of the gentlemen on the plane told us that they had even begun boarding early in the hopes of getting out earlier (bad weather was on its way into town). Well the cluster#()$ at the airport apparently affected the pilot who decided to keep the doors open until 7pm (we were scheduled to leave at 6:45). Had he followed through with his original plan we would have gotten out without a problem. By 7:30pm, the doors were still open and people were still boarding the plane. Long story short, again, we spent 3 hours on the run way, ended up going back to the gate so some people could get off, and finally, got back in the queue and out of Houston. We landed at O'Hare at about 12:45am, over 3 hours later than we were supposed to land. So the return travel day definitely left something to be desired (never fly Continental Airlines and avoid the Houston airport, one of their hubs, like the plague). Of course, I'm not easy to travel with in those conditions - tired, hungry, and grouchy. But Katie was a trooper and managed to survive the ordeal. It could have been worse though - my brother could have been there too. I can only imagine what he would have done. (I did write a lengthy letter of complaint to Continental Airlines upon my return.)

So those are the details of our honeymoon. It was a great time and we were really sad to see it end, but we were really glad we had the opportunity to go to Costa Rica. Hopefully we can get back there at some point and do more cool stuff, but that's probably way down the line. Fortunately we have plenty of pictures from our honeymoon to tide us over!