Greetings from Ireland! We've just gotten back to Killarney from Cork, and taking advantage of one of the many (three or four) places offering internet access.

To date we've spent a day knocking around Killarney, were out at Tralee yesterday, and today took in Cork. We're on a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry tomorrow, with trips to Waterford, Cobh and Blarney, and a couple days in Dublin among other things planned. I can already tell I'm not getting up to Ballyhaunis or Sligo to hunt down my Coen forebears. Another task for another trip, I suppose.

The hardest thing about this trip so far? Trying to follow the Sox when there is almost no coverage of baseball here. I've had to depend on passing mentions on CNN, and didn't even know if the Sox had beaten the A's until we made an internet stop the day after game 5. I'm also passingly annoyed that the euro is up about a dime from a month ago, making things a little more pricey than hoped for. The WTO is to blame, somehow.

And even though I'm on this side of the Atlantic, there's always time for...

Apocalypse Watch The Cubs are making things difficult for national security, as they evened up the NLCS last night. Condi Rice and Colin Powell are in discussions with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to set up a missile strike should the Cubs come too close to winning it all.