Wrote off the Car!

I was in Galway last week (first mistake). Visited a pub in Galway on Thursday night. Great trad. music session was going strong and then Sharon Shannon joined them impromptu. That was good.

Left Galway on Friday to go to Armagh (second mistake) via Athlone. The guard at the Dublin Road advised me to detour to Gort, Loughrea and on to Athlone. I took his advice (third mistake).

Gort was flooded and I was detoured around it. Got to Loughrea after driving through a small flood. Headed on for Athlone through Portumna. The guards signaled the drivers to go through a deeper flood. I as in a long line of traffic so I kept going (fourth mistake).

Car cut out in the middle of the flood. It started again. I got through and then - BANG! Car wrote off.

Stranded in Portumna for the night. Settled down in Hotel room and relaxed. Got back to Galway on Saturday and stayed with friends another night. Got back to Louisburgh on Sunday after being a passenger in a car that went through 4 or 5 small floods.

It is amazing what water can and will do.

One mistake I did NOT make was to settle for 3rd party insurance. Fully comprehensive will cover value of car. Will always have fully comp. insurance on my car in future. And will not drive through floods again - just because "they" are.

T.

Mayo Science Fair: www.bladair.com

We launced www.bladair.com yesterday at the Mayo Science Fair in The Traveller's Friend Hotel in Castlebar.

The Mayo Education Centre launched one of it's recent projects yesterday as a part of the Mayo Science Fair. I was invited to be a part of the event and therefore I introduced many young budding bloggers to the world of blogging as Gaeilge (through the language of Irish).

The blog is live at www.bladair.com and it is a very easy step-by-step process.

The idea is to engage the language in a fun way that is not "academically" emphasised on the surface but is obviously educational covertly. (There may be a contradiction there - but y'know what I mean).

Each month until next march there will be two prizes of 50E awarded for good (the best) blogs.

So there you go. New technology plus economic prizes, being used to encourage our youth to engage with new technology through the medium of the Irish language.

Now, how else can we use new technology for other positive humanistic projects?

Got to sit as a facilitator/educator for a couple of hours.

As part of the Science Fair in Mayo, a competition is being held for students from the ages of 12-18. They must create a video by capturing the raw footage on a mobile phone, and then the completed product must be between 30 sec.s and 2 min.s long.

The Mayo Education Centre, in conjunction with the County Council has provided the facilities for the editing/uploading etc. of these projects at it's state-of-the-art building in Castlebar.

I have been given the opportunity to advise the students in this setting.

The youth of West Mayo are computer savvy, visually creative and efficient. They are also polite, well mannered and a pleasure to advise.

It's good to be back!