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Randy Pausch was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, and shortly after being asked to give a lecture in a series run by the university called "The last lecture" he found out that he was expected to live for no more than 6 months, due to a massive cancer spread to his liver after he had surgery for pancreatic cancer. He had 10 tumors in his liver, and so he set about his final days.

With 3 children under 5 (5, 2, and 1) and a 41 year old wife of his dreams, he began to take care of the practical issues which would ease the burden on his family after his inevitable death. The idea of really, really giving what would be the epitomy of a last lecture, stuck with him, and although his wife did not want him to take this on, especially as she wanted as much of his time as possible before he died - they reached a compromise. He would do the lecture, and wanted it recorded so that down the line his children could learn a little about their father- and he could pass on some invaluable advice to them.

This is his last lecture - and its entitled "Achieving your childhood dreams". It is long - but it is worth listening to when we think that our own world is crumbling around us. It certainly inspired me.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo


The lecture itself is good, but the book gives more insight into the mans frame of mind. A must give gift for someone this christmas - look out for it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/northern_ireland/gaelic_games/7716682.stm

From BBC.

Cavanagh named new GPA secretary 

Sean Cavanagh helped Tyrone to their All-Ireland SFC triumph
Tyrone star Sean Cavanagh will take over from Kildare manager Kieran McGeeney as secretary of the Gaelic Players Association.

The 25-year-old from Moy, who captained Ireland to an International Rules series win over Australia, is the 2008 Footballer of the Year.

GPA chief Dessie Farrell made his annual address on Friday.

"The time has come for the GAA to grasp the opportunity to move relations with players on to a new level," he said.

Some of y'all might have seen this before, but its worth another look.


http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un_PjRXV5l8

Some might have gotten this on email - but its very funny.

fix the following sentence.......

dad will leave you the tools wood and nails

I enjoyed the word association thread - so here is the new one - Picture association. Do your worst.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7572643.stm


Surprised there isnt a thread on this awful tragedy to hit the same city in a few years.

God rest all of them.


More than 140 people are feared dead after a passenger plane swerved off the runway at Madrid's Barajas airport.

A spokesman for the Spanish emergency services, Herbigio Corral, said only 28 people survived the crash.

The Spanair flight had just taken off for the Canary Islands, at about 1430 local time (1230 GMT). It is thought that the left engine caught fire.

Helicopters were called in to dump water on to the plane, and dozens of ambulances went to the scene.

TV footage later showed several people being carried away on stretchers.

See satellite image of airport
The BBC's Steve Kingstone, in Madrid, says planes have begun to take off from the airport, but a grim line of emergency vehicles obscured the view of the crash scene.

 
>


In pictures: Plane crash
Eyewitness account
Earlier, BBC journalist Stephanie McGovern, who is at the airport, said she had seen more than 70 ambulances leaving the scene.

Spanish journalist Manuel Moleno, who was near the area when the accident happened, said the plane appeared to have "crashed into pieces".

"We heard a big crash. So we stopped and we saw a lot of smoke," he said.

Mr Moleno said he had seen as many as 20 people walking away from the wreckage.

'Good safety record'

The plane, which was destined for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, came down during or shortly after take-off from Terminal Four at Barajas.

TV footage showed that the plane had come to rest in fields near the airport.

Spanair issued a statement saying that flight number JK 5022 had been involved in an accident at 1445 local time. The airline's parent company, Scandinavian firm SAS, later said the accident happened at 1423.

SPAIN'S WORST CRASHES
27 March 1977
583 people die in Los Rodeos, Tenerife, after two Boeing 747s collide - one Pan Am, one KLM.
23 April 1980
146 people die near Los Rodeos, Tenerife, as a Dan Air Boeing 727 crashes while attempting to land.
27 November 1983
181 people die, 11 survive, as an Avianca Boeing 747 crashes in the village of Mejorada del Campo, near Madrid, on its way to Barajas aiport.
19 February 1985
148 die when an Iberia Boeing 727 crashes into a TV mast near Bilbao.
According to Spain's airport authority, Aena, the plane had been due to take off at 1300 local time.

No details of the nationalities of the passengers on board have yet been released.

But the plane was a codeshare flight with German airline Lufthansa, which said it was investigating whether German passengers were on the flight.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero was on his way to the scene after cutting short his holiday, his office said.

The aircraft was a MD82, a plane commonly used on short trips around Europe, aviation expert Chris Yates told the BBC. He said Spanair had a very good safety record.

Reports say it was the first crash at Barajas airport, some 13km (8 miles) from central Madrid, since 1983.

[You can travel the world over at the highest level of luxury. You can devour exotic dishes of all the other cultures. You can have fillet steak and Peking Duck and Italian Pastas and goulashes and curries and stir fries, banquets of Beef Wellington, fifteen course dinners of all the savouries and sweet concoctions of all the nations famed for their cuisine. You can have caviar and birds' nest soup and alligator steaks, Cajun suckling pig and shark's fins and yet, if you have any iota of Irish blood in you at all, nothing will ever quite reach into the deep marrow of your soul's content as a good feed of Bacon and Cabbage.]

I just blatantly stole this off the web page posted by spectator in the Rosscommon live longer thread. Great article by this fella that Id never heard of called Cormac McConnell. Think the exiles will particularly enjoy this one while the mouths water...


I know this is a cruel thing to do to those of you who are far away from Ireland's kitchens so, if you have a craving for bacon and spuds and cabbage upon you at this moment, then stop reading here and scroll elsewhere. PLEASE GO NOW.....I WILL BE BACK NEXT WEEK.........

Those of you who are still here, accordingly, should be informed that of all the foods and gastronomic delights of all the cultures of the world nothing, in its time and season, compares with the total experience of Irish Spuds and Irish Collar Bacon and Irish Cabbage all combined together for what we call a "good feed". Those who have departed from us, dear remaining readers, have departed because they are in farflung corners of this complex world and know that it would break their hearts to be reminded, in all the detail I am about to give, of the sheer sensual joy of the kind of plates of Bacon and Cabbage that their mothers and grandmothers used place before them as a matter of course.

You can travel the world over at the highest level of luxury. You can devour exotic dishes of all the other cultures. You can have fillet steak and Peking Duck and Italian Pastas and goulashes and curries and stir fries, banquets of Beef Wellington, fifteen course dinners of all the savouries and sweet concoctions of all the nations famed for their cuisine. You can have caviar and birds' nest soup and alligator steaks, Cajun suckling pig and shark's fins and yet, if you have any iota of Irish blood in you at all, nothing will ever quite reach into the deep marrow of your soul's content as a good feed of Bacon and Cabbage.
The mood came upon me yesterday. When that mood descends upon the top of your head, as it did with me quite suddenly, then it links immediately with the pit of the stomach and you instantly know what it feels like to be addicted to cocaine or substances of that nature. You must have your fix. Inside five minutes I was inside the splendid Corofin establishment of Tom Hogan Junior and Senior and it was Tom Junior who was behind the counter.

I need, says I, the Feed. Young Tom is wise beyond his years. I did not need to say anything further. One speedy sortie through Tom's emporium and he laid before me a small sack of Golden Wonder spuds, the very finest spuds in the world, together with a lovely wedge of Munster Collar Bacon lightly smoked, and as fine a head of cabbage as I've ever clapped an eye on. This head of cabbage was green on the outside and white on the inside and as solidly constructed as the poll of an elder of Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian church. The cost was minimal. It was less than the cost of one tiny thigh of a smoked quail I'd paid for in Galway just one week earlier.

I went home. The Dutch Nation, whom I love, does not yet understand the workings of Bacon and Cabbage so I did the cooking my own self, growing ever more feverishly famished by the minute. The big saucepan was produced and the head of cabbage, thoroughly washed, was chopped and put down in clear cold water surrounding the smoked collar of Bacon. The lid was replaced and the heat set for a long slow boiling process that would cook the beautiful Bacon in a way that would spread its smokey slightly saltified juices though the concurrently cooking green and white cabbage beneath an aromaticating froth. This froth, burbling happily away under the lid of the saucepan, slowly but subtly began to spread its olfactorification and glorification right throughout the kitchen and beyond. Soon, standing at the sink washing the Golden Wonders, I became almost giddy with a combination of expectation and sheer animal hunger.

Golden Wonder spuds are the princesses of their species. They are pear-shaped beauties whose skin, paradoxically, feels coarse and gritty to the touch but is quite remarkably delicate at the same time. They are the perfect spuds to travel alongside Bacon and Cabbage because, when properly cooked, they have an outstanding flavour and a finely floury consistency. But they need to be perfectly cooked because, given one minute too long in the boiling water, they will burst open. The Dutch Nation watched me with amused amazement as I fussed over my two saucepans like an old hen, constantly licking my lips. It was a matter of perfect timing you see to ensure that the Golden Wonders were drained and steaming away towards their ultimate perfection just as the Bacon and Cabbage were at the same stage, the Bacon joint removed from the draining Cabbage for the last three or four minutes, its steam forming a perfect halo inside another halo as I sharpened my knife and readied my plates.

I enjoy a glass of wine with every other dinner. But not with Bacon and Cabbage. With Bacon and Cabbage there is no drink to touch a glass of ice cold milk. And you must also have real butter....for the spuds....and you must have fresh English mustard. (The really only good thing about the English is their mustard!)

Two large willow-pattern plates and all the other elements were assembled together and, finally, about two hours after my initial hunger, the Dutch Nation and I sat down at the table, the evening sun garnishing the cottage window, the fire crackling hungrily in the background. And the first mouthful of that Feed was akin to the doorstep of Paradise.

Ahhhhhh!

The Americans have Corned Beef and Cabbage. It is not the same thing. In Europe it is possible to put together some kind of bacon, some kind of potatoes and some kind of cabbage. But it is not the same. The Dutch Nation is now no longer even a token vegetarian. I am sated for a week or so. If you have never been to Ireland and if you like food then it is worth coming just for that reason alone. In its time and season Bacon and Cabbage....and Golden Wonders....puts Killarney into the shade altogether. And that's a fact.



http://old.emigrant.ie/cormac/1feb25.htm

Something Id never thought about before, but with the arrival of wee puck, and the looks that the wife keeps giving me, Ive begun to think about investing in a life insurance policy over here in the US. I have absolutely no financial know how, and no idea what to look for, where to start and so on.

Any one well versed in this sort of thing?

My outlook date is set for today as Saturday 12th July. I cannot find a setting to fix the date - currently all present emails are in the "three weeks from today" folder.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Just finished off a nice dinner there with some fruit and some nice cheese. The inlaws are very into cheese (usually very unhealthy ones) and sent over a nice fresh cambozola. Its a cross between gorgonzola and camembert. Nice and creamy and really works on stopping the blood from just coursing through the veins.

Going to try and work my way around some of the nicest (and smelliest) cheeses in the world.


So - what do you got?

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U

Turn off the sound - unless you like whitney houston.

This may not be news to some of our elder brethern - but this is the true story of two australian fellas living in London in 1969. Bored with all the free sex, or possibly worried due to the re-emergence of the bra, these fellas dandered into harrods one day and bought a 35lb lion cub. They raised it until it got too big and then it dawned on them that they needed to relocate the beast to the african wild.

This video is their reunion story. I think its kinda cool. Except for the whitney houston over dub.

Does anyone still say the rosary? Its still said in full kneeling on the concrete floor in me grandmothers house every night and on every car trip thats more than 30 minutes long. Seems like we're never done saying the rosary in our house.

Just recieved an email from hallmark saying someone had sent me one of those e'card things. You know the type - birthdays and so on. Anyways, I didnt trust it and it turns out it was a trojan virus.

Beware.

Got the car smog checked today, and Ive had a funky acting check engine light for a while. Car is a '98 jetta, and every now and then the check engine light comes on. Lasts a day, maybe two or three and then goes off again. The car passed the smog check, and is running fine, which tells me the light isnt a big deal. The mechanic ran the diagnostics, and got this code.

Code #1582. I looked it up online here and it says:

Idle adaptation at limit.

1. What is this?
2. Is it a big deal?

Any help appreciated.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5866865.html


Smalll breakdown of the case.

1. In texas
2. man hears breaking glass in his neighbours house
3. calls police and explains that he is going outside with his shot gun
4. police dispatcher tells him 13 times not to go outside
5. joe horn goes outside, telling the officer he is cocking the shot gun
6. kills two men as they run away from him.
7. texas grand jury lets him away scott free.





WHAT HORN SAID

On the 12-gauge shotgun Horn retrieved from his car: "The gun saved my life. It took two lives but it saved mine. How do you evaluate that? Yes, it's awful but it saved my life"

Contrary to what can be heard on the 911 tape, Horn insists his plan was to go outside to see if he could get a better description to give police: "My plan was very simple. Nothing was going to get me out that door without a plan. As far as shooting a shotgun goes, I knew I wasn't going to shoot anybody. There was no danger to any of the bad guys or police officers"

His attorney and friend, Tom Lambright , was the first to tell him he had been cleared: "It felt like a huge weight had just been removed from me. I immediately called my daughter at work. She squealed. She was just ecstatic. There was a lot of emotion. It was a huge relief"

For seven months, Horn thought he would be indicted largely on account of the 911 conversation: "How was I ever going to try to explain that? The manner in which I talked was just not me"

Horn became even more frightened when he lost sight of the alleged burglars: "It was bad enough when I was upstairs and looking at them. But I could see them. When they disappeared and I went downstairs, the fear was magnified tenfold because now I can't see them and they could come into my house. There is the unknown that was terrifying. I thought it was bad but it got worse"

On looking back at the life he had before the shootings: "I want it back so bad. I'm scared I won't get it back. I hope this is the beginning of better times for me"
The voice of Joe Horn on the infamous 911 tape, the one telling police he wasn't going to let the men burglarizing his neighbors' house get away, that he was "gonna shoot" them, is not the voice of the real Joe Horn, he told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday.

Nor is the man who grabbed his shotgun, left his house against a 911 operator's orders, pumped a shell into the chamber and shot the men down after shouting "move, you're dead," the real Joe Horn.

The real Joe Horn, he insisted in an exclusive interview the day after he was cleared by a Harris County grand jury in the deaths of Diego Ortiz and Hernando Riascos Torres, is just a boring retired engineer.

And a 61-year-old Pasadena grandfather who, energized by fear that afternoon last Nov. 14, made a decision that has haunted him since, a decision he would take back if he could.

"I would never advocate anyone doing what I did," Horn said from his attorney's west Houston home. "We are not geared for that."

Gunning down the two unemployed illegal immigrants from Colombia rocketed Horn from his suburban obscurity into a deeply divided vortex of public scrutiny. He has been hailed on the one side as a hero, as a neighbor anyone would want; and on the other as nothing more than a vigilante taking the law into his own hands.

In a calm, soft voice, Horn said Tuesday he was neither — not a man worthy of praise, nor one who merits scorn.

"I know what a hero is, and that's not me," he said. "I'm a human being that was in a situation that I'd never been in before, and I didn't want to die."


'You lose track of time'
Horn's account of the events leading up to the shootings differs sharply in parts with what can be heard on the tape of the call he made to 911 shortly after seeing the men allegedly breaking into his neighbors' house.

He said he was upstairs in his gameroom, tinkering with a computer, when the quiet of the Village Grove East subdivision was shattered by the sound of breaking glass. He instinctively blamed the family cat, Horn said, before realizing that the noise had come from outside.

He looked out the window and saw two men, both dressed in dark green T-shirts, blue jeans and tennis shoes, breaking into his neighbors' home through a block glass window.

He called 911 on his cell phone.

He said he began to feel scared. He didn't know who the men were, nor if his neighbors were home and were in danger. Was his home the next target?

He went to his car to get a 12-gauge shotgun he kept in a leather case on the floorboard.

"All I was thinking was, 'Oh my God,' " he said. "You lose track of time. You don't ever think about that. You start thinking about all kinds of things. ... I was feeling helpless."

From his upstairs window, Horn said he saw the men leave his neighbors' home and walk around the back of the house where he couldn't see them.

While still on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, he said he went downstairs with the goal of getting a description of the men to give police.

But, according to the transcript, he provided the dispatcher a far different motive:

Operator: Mr. Horn, do not go out the house.

Horn: I'm sorry. This ain't right, buddy.

Operator: You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with that gun. I don't care what you think. Stay in the house.

Horn: You wanna make a bet? I'm gonna kill 'em.

As he was going downstairs, Horn said the fear and adrenaline rush was intense.

"I'm thinking if they go out the front door, I can't see them at all," he said. His plan was to look out the front door window to get a better view of his neighbor's house. Seeing nothing, he ventured outside.

He said he took one step off his front porch and saw nothing. "I felt great. I was so relieved that I didn't see anything. I thought, 'It's over with.' "

Then he saw the men come around the corner and head into his front yard. Horn had his cell phone in his front shirt pocket while he handled the shotgun.


'No fear in their eyes'

"It went from 'I'm glad it's all over' to instant fear," he said.

He shouted the words he now regrets: "Move, you're dead." The men — about 10 feet and 13 feet from him — stopped immediately. They looked at one another and said nothing.

"There was no fear in their eyes," Horn said.

One of the men, believed to be Torres, started to charge him, Horn said. He fired.

"There was no time to aim," Horn said. "To this day, I still don't know where I shot."

Horn said he turned slightly to the right and fired toward the second man, Ortiz, who ran at a fast pace back in the direction of his neighbor's house. Torres remained in his yard and was walking back toward Horn. He fired a third shot.

Horn didn't think his shots struck either man.

"I went inside because the guy (Ortiz) disappeared," he said. "I thought he was behind the house. ... I was desperate for the police to get there."

A police car screeched to a halt in front of his house. An officer drew his gun and ordered him "on the ground."

Horn, who still had his cell phone to his ear, dropped face-first and was handcuffed.

He was eventually allowed to sit up and saw one of the men across the street, lying prone. "I thought I scared him enough to fall to the ground."

It wasn't until he overheard one officer tell another that "there were two burglars and this man just killed them" that he realized both men were dead.

The moment was surreal.

"It was like nothing I've ever felt," Horn said. "It was like it wasn't really happening. Just numb."

Ive a couple of american friends touring ireland that week and Im wondering are there any high profile games in croker that would give them a great day out in dublin?
Also  - would they be able to get tickets online?

Any help welcome.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/foyle_and_west/7454911.stm

God rest him.


Spectator dies in rally accident 
 
A teenage spectator has been killed at the Donegal International Rally.

It is understood the 18-year-old boy was knocked down by a competing vehicle during the Carnhill stage of the event at about 1530 BST on Saturday.

It happened in the Ballyarr area of Ramelton, about four miles from Letterkenny. The teenager was pronounced dead at the scene.

The accident happened on the second day of the three-day annual event, which attracts up to 50,000 spectators.

Racing was immediately suspended following the collision, and it is thought Sunday's racing will be cancelled as a mark of respect.

Gardaí have appealed for witnesses to contact them.

It is not the first time that tragedy has struck at the rally, which is one of the biggest events in the county's sporting calendar.

In 2002, two race marshalls were killed when a rally car left the road and struck a crowd of spectators at Cloghan, six miles from Ballybofey.

Feel like Ive royally fcuked up my hamstring today. Heavy pain, and it feels like my muscle is just hanging loose in the back of my leg.

Any tips on how to get this cleared up as successfully and quickly as possible?

sorry for the new thread, but can anyone find the link to the circle game that was posted on here a while back. The one with the three ovals that had to be used to cover up the circle?