These are all the things I should be blogging, to clear the virtual backlog as it were:

1) The rest of the Ireland trip. More specifically, the stroll through an old monastery and an older glacial valley in Glendalough. I can’t get over how quaint-gorgeous-inspiring-calming this experience was and that I need more days like that in this life of mine, but GAH the time and will to write a proper post with pictures. It is not to be had.

2) All these thoughts about the imploding American physical and educational infrastructure: misplaced priorities, lack of meaningful consequences, the wrong conversations on rebuilding New Orleans and America and the death of the apprentice. Not to mention close encounters of the Mama Grizzly Buckeye kind.

3) An Evening With Anthony Bourdain in Columbus over a year ago and meeting him after the show. I’d let it go but how can phrases like “felching Mrs. Butterworth” and “throwing up on a plane when 6-foot-4 not be immortalized on this here blog in full context?

4) Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson in Cleveland and his funny-thoughtful lecture on science through the ages and American science literacy.

5) All the books I didn’t read this year. The ones I did like Charlie Stross‘s delicious Atrocity Archives (“squamous and rugose” FTW) and Why We Suck by one Dr. Denis Leary. The one I am in the middle of and need to review before the science in it is moth-eaten. (As an aside: “antediluvian” no longer exists in my vocabulary because Which Flood?)

Welcome to Seasonal Affective Disorder combined with the mountain of Real Work (TM) I have to plow through by the end of the year.

But, I’m never above cheat-posting with a pretty picture. So, for your trouble: What you see at the top of this post is a chevron-folded schist (note relatively straight limbs) along the Green Road Walk in the Glendalough region. 2€ coin for scale. Note how cool it is that the lichens follow foliation.

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Update: Help me out here. Pick one of these five topics. What do you want to hear about? And I’ll write that up as best as I can.

We interrupt our twee Irish broadcast to talk about American college sports fans. Not that the Irish don’t love their soccer and (awesome) rugby, but this needs addressing right now. In the name of SCIENCE.

Jen took PhD Comics’ recent Grad School Spirit Pop Quiz and scored 2 points. Her excuse: “I am a graduate student [at the University of Washington]!” Girlfriend. We need to get you out of that lab more often.

Science graduate school at the University of Wisconsin was (and still is) all about doing research AND attending football, basketball AND hockey games, AND knowing the fight song and special rituals and incantations for all said sports.

Let’s take Wisconsin football, for instance, and show you how we jump around in Camp Randall. Here goes:

1. What is your school mascot’s name? Buckingham U. Badger

2. What are the team colors? CARDINAL and white

3. What is the school fight song? On Wisconsin!

4. What NCAA division and conference does your school play in? Division I – Big 10

5. Who is the school’s main rival? Officially – Minnesota. Really – we hate Michigan.

6. What’s the name of the head coach? Bret Bielema

7. Bonus: 2 points if you’ve ever been in the stadium. How about 5 bonus points for not just having been in the stadium but working and living in its shadow every single day for five years?

Score: You did your undergrad in the same school, didn’t you? No, I did my undergrad at Illinois. Besides the Chicago Cubs, I’ve never been a fan of any Illinois sports teams. Also, the team-fan relationship in Wisconsin is legendary and special, you really get it when you get it and there’s no going back.

Scientists who are sports fans are not an anomaly, and I don’t really get the (need to prop up the) stereotypical nerd-sportshead divide. Geek-jocks for life!

Do you want me to start in on the hockey team next? Sieve sieve sieve sieve sieve!

* Just so you know, Kanye West ruined the phrase “school spirit” for me in that I can no longer think/utter those words without immediately following up with, “I feel a woo coming on, cuz.”

At the Guinness Brewery “Water” exhibit. This was the look on Domingo’s face before he turned and asked, “Do you have to pee yet?” Wicked man.

The exhibits and layout of the Guinness Brewery tour have changed since we were there last six years ago. Each ingredient is highlighted appropriately and the walk is a lot more logical. I approve

Here’s a collage of some pictures I took on the tour. Starting from the bottom left and running clockwise: the mix of barley, hops, yeast and water is mixed, fermented, heated, distilled, barreled, advertised and then enjoyed the world over.

As you learn on the tour, “the eight million litres of water that flow into the Guinness brewery every day come from the Wicklow Mountains near Dublin.” Once you get to the Gravity Bar at the very top of the storehouse, the first thing you see is the schist-and-granite Wicklows to the south. We visited these mountains the following day – lots more to come in following posts. See, there’s that whole geology-civilization-beer connection again. Without rocks, we’d have nothing. You remember that.

“Enough of your rocks and camera already. Can we have our Guinness now?”

More Guinness brewery and Jameson distillery photos in this Flickr photo slideshow.