Several people have asked me what my plans are for the holidays, which in itself is mildly humorous (plan?), and in response I would hedge and say something like, “I’ll probably just hole up and get some work done, or maybe I’ll go somewhere warm.”

Of course, when someone else does the planning, I’m happy to ride along. Thus when fuego asked if I was interested in Venice for New Year’s Eve, I was all over it. Later, when the plan changed to Ireland, I rolled right along with it. So it seems that I will be spending a couple of weeks on the Emerald Isle, and much of the time I will be in the corner of the island that the recent tech boom managed to avoid. It is also, from what I can make out, the stormiest part of Ireland, and me without a raincoat. (No major worries on that count, one of my favorite memories of that country is being caught in a downpour several miles from home while bicycling around with Jesse, hollering out blues riffs. That was the day we learned just what it means to be a “soggy bunny”. (Although, that was summer; it would be less of a good memory in winter, I suspect.) )

I’m Ireland bound, where the only point of etiquette is that you converse with the people around you. A culture like that is certainly worthy of admiration. It’s fortunate that some of them speak a language similar to mine.

I have no idea how often I’ll be able to get online, so posts here may be infrequent, or come in bursts. Any disruption of routine is likely to lead to new things to write about, so if history is any guide there will be pauses of several days followed by several long posts that prove to be too much to read, with the best one way at the bottom where everyone will miss it. It’s a system I’ve honed with care over the years.

Following my trip to reacquaint myself with top-fermented beers I will be invading the western hemisphere. After getting car, insurance, and renewed driver’s license sorted out I will be puttering around the western US for a week or three. I strongly suspect this three weeks will be much closer to actually being three weeks, since I will have a return ticket. (For those new to these pages, the last time I drove around for “about three weeks” it took 7 1/2 months, and established “Muddled Ramblings and Half-Baked Ideas” as a way of life, and not just a writing style. What a great time that was…)