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thatsbrookie · 4 years

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October 2020

Heh heh... so... you wanna just ignore how long it’s been since I’ve posted...? Yeeeahhhh... let’s ignore how long it’s been since I’ve posted. Lol jk, I think my Tumblr days are coming to an end. No particular reason why.. but I’ve just gradually become less and less interested in posting here. It’s crazy to think about how long I’ve been using Tumblr as my own little private diary. My very first post on here was in February of 2013. Well over 7 years ago.. Tumblr has always been good to me. It’s always been super beneficial for me to write out my feelings and emotions, goals and heartaches... All good things come to an end, though. I suppose. Maybe I’ll get an actual physical journal and start doing that.. Anywhooooo.. lets do a life update! I literally can’t remember the last thing I posted on here.. so, I apologize if I repeat myself.. Greg and I were moving around a lot. Louisiana, Texas, Iowa, Minnesota. I might be wrong, but the last I remember posting a life update was in Iowa. We were living in Mason City, Iowa. For a little over a year. But I swear, that year was one of the most insane years of my life. Mainly because of CAVU.. Like.. fuck, man. You have no idea.. but I can’t get into all that right now. I won’t stop. Also in Iowa, Rosalie got very seriously sick. She’s an older pup, 10 years old. So illness is taken seriously.. And this was BAD. THANKFULLY, she made a full recovery. That was SO scary

Anywayyyys, we are noooow in St Paul, Minnesota! And I know what you’re thinking, “Omg, y’all move so much. I can’t even keep track anymore” We know we’ve moved around a lot and we got sick of it. Moving frequently can be fun because you get a lot of interesting experiences, but we’d been wanting a place to call ‘home’ for some time. We both agreed that we wanted to settle in a larger city somewhere in the north (we love colder weather) and we’ve always liked the idea of Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota (Greg is from the area). Then Greg got a job offer and a good promotion to move to the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area for a senior manager position and we felt like it was fate. So we decided to lay some roots and buy a house here in Saint Paul rather than renting. And leemmeeee teeelll yooouuu, buying a house FOR THE FIRST TIME, in a DIFFERENT STATE, during a GLOBAL PANDEMIC.... that was an EXPERIENCE. Plus, just a couple days after we officially moved here is when all the riots started happening. Just a few miles from our home!! It was truly one of the most chaotic times of our lives!! But we are both SO pleased with our lil home. It was worth it! It’s older and on the smaller side, but it is beautiful. On a more personal note, I have been struggling a lot mentally and emotionally. We moved here the very end of May and is now it’s the beginning of October. I’ve been actively trying to find a job since around July/August with no luck.. It’s been getting really hard to stay positive and motivated. Lately I’ve just felt like I lack purpose and just existing instead of actually living, ya know? I cry to Greg about it, he’s so supportive and he keeps telling me to be patient. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic.. The culinary industry is taking a huge hit because of that. Most restaurants, if they’ve even been able to stay open, are only doing take out/delivery or operating at only 30%-50% capacity for dine-in. Majority of places aren’t hiring right now.. They’re barely able to keep they’re own staff employed.” I know he’s right. But it’s still really getting to me.. I just feel useless Plus, I’ve been so lonely. I’ve been trying to take Covid seriously (As EVERYONE should be. If you’re not, FUCK YOU), taking extra precautions when I have to leave the house. So because of that, I’m alone at home ALL THE TIME. I mean, I have Greg, but he works very long hours. And by the time he gets home, most of the time he’s exhausted and just falls asleep. I miss friends. I miss my family so much.. I haven’t seen my dad in like a year and a half! Greg and I talked about it, and I’ve started to see a doctor for help with anxiety and depression. I’ve tried out a few different medications, but nothing seems to be working super well for me so far. I have another appointment in a week to change up my meds again, hopefully something that will help me more. My doctor has been urging me to get back into therapy. I’d love to, but I just can’t afford that right now. Since I still don’t have a job, money is tight. Greg is obviously still making money, but the cost of living here in Saint Paul i waayyyy higher than all the other places we’ve lived. So we don’t have as much extra moolah as we used to. Plus, I’ve gained like 10-15 pounds. Damn quarantine.. I’ve been eating and drinking WAY too much. The weather is starting to get colder here, so I was going through my warmer pants. They all still zip/button but they are hella tight now! I got super super sad about that too. Oh, also. I cut all my hair off. I always loved my super long, red hair. I got compliments all the time. It was beautiful. But I have been wanting to cut my hair short for a long time. Like short short. For years. I figured, ‘New city, new hair’ and got it all chopped off! I got my hair cut the first time and pretty much immediately unhappy with it. About a week later I went back and got it tweaked. I was way happier with it then. A month or so later, it was starting to get too long and super poofy. I went back and got it cut EVEN SHORTER, thinned out (I have super thick hair) and a different style shape. This cut is by far my favorite!! It’s exactly the short cut I had envisioned on myself since the start!! Third time’s the charm, I suppose. My hair is actually short than Greg’s hair currently! Lol I have been absolutely loving my new short hair! I feel like it suits me and my personality SO much more!! However, even though I feel so great with it, I haven’t taken a single picture I feel 100% confident in. I’ve tried to take many pictures, but I feel like I look stupid in every single one of them. It’s so confusing.. In person: Wow! Super cute! In pictures: *projectile vomit* Something wild and unexpected... dad and Cynthia got divorced! He called me the middle of last month and told me that he and Cynthia literally just got done finishing up the paperwork. I was extremely shocked. He told me that they have actually been arguing and fighting like CRAZY for a very very long time. Finally they decided to get a divorce, but didn’t tell anyone. They wanted it to be finalized first. Then tell people. I was so surprised.. I didn’t even know what to say. But he assured me that this is a VERY GOOD thing. He was planning a celebration that night. Lol! It’s crazy, they were only married for 2 years!

Hmmm.. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else worth mentioning... Like I said, my life has been pretty dull lately.. Well. It’s getting late. I’m going to start getting ready for bed. I’m actually kind of tired. Lately I’ve had a really hard time falling asleep.. maybe tonight is my lucky night and I’ll actually be able to fall asleep quickly. *knock on wood* Goodnight, Tumblr!

#life update #fuck 2020

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occasionalgypsies · 5 years

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After going to Rockport and Port A in South Texas in Jan/Feb to try and outrun the cold (ahem, it was pretty cool and rainy most days but still, better than the weather in Dallas), our next adventure, just as Texas started to warm right up to comfy poolside temps, was to head off to Santa Fe, NM for all of April!

In a nutshell I have to say Santa Fe and all of NM really are: hauntingly beautiful with lots of light variations and distant mountain ranges in shades of blue/black; wonderfully dry so colds aren’t too cold and hots aren’t too hot; amazingly bug free allowing for open windows; quiet, even in the busiest of places because it only has maybe 2 million people IN THE ENTIRE STATE; full of some friendly people; brown (everyone seems to have signed a pact to build only earth tone adobe houses which while beautiful and well designed to blend, can be very monotonous); and loaded with Santa Fe cuisine (lots of red and hatch green chili sauces and stacked enchiladas, packing some heat).

We’ve really loved it. We have the good fortune to be house sitting through Trusted Housesitters, and have a lovely place up in the hills from Santa Fe a few miles. We hear Robert Redford lives right down the road but Stanley and I have yet to see him on our walks up his way. Here’s Stanley, our delightful little Schih Tzu for the month.

Anyway, following are a few of the highlights from our trip that to me, you shouldn’t miss.

Bar Z Winery near Palo Duro Canyon

Palo Duro Canyon

Our abode for the night in Palo Duro

Cadillac Ranch!

On our way from TX, we decided to check one item off of Jim’s bucket list, and spend the night at the bottom of Palo Duro Canyon. Did you know that it’s the second largest in the US, after the ol’ Grand? I didn’t. Don’t ask me based on what, I just read that somewhere. It was pretty amazing (upon driving past the first spot where you could kinda see it, Jim exclaimed, “Look at that, it’s almost like a…” and then he looked at the expression on my face, and stopped talking, because, ya know yes, it’s kind of like a canyon over there, like the one we put in our GPS maybe!) We spent the night in a decently comfy bed/cabin, no heat or air necessary due to it being early April in TX., and we had just a lovely time. FYI, I suggest a stop at Bar Z winery nearby, nice wines and amazing views of part of the Canyon. And you HAVE to check out Cadillac Ranch and spray paint something there. Pro tip: don’t buy any spray paint unless you are really picky, there’s plenty there for the taking.

Palo Duro Canyon

Bar Z Winery near Palo Duro Canyon

Our abode for the night in Palo Duro

Cadillac Ranch!

So after that overnight stay, we were off to Santa Fe! The scenery rather abruptly changed at one point, from flat grassland to scrubby, hilly desert. And then at one point, I realized, holy cow, I haven’t seen a person or a building or a cow or ANYTHING for a looooong time. Texans like to think we have wide open spaces but wow, even on the major highways you might see nothing here for an hour. Pretty cool, I have to say. Except don’t come here if you are addicted to your interwebs on your tele-device. Cell services is more like an occasional surprise than a reliable utility. Get used to it!

If you can, spend some time on Route 66 here. Lots of kitsch of the charming kind. We went through Tucumcari, partly because I like saying it and partly because it said it had some of the best art around. As you can see, it has some mighty fine stuff! I didn’t post the wall crawling with cockroaches because while it was cool, it really creeps me out.

OK, just kidding, here it is.

Anyhoo, we arrived, and all was beautiful if a bit chilly. The mornings were often in the 30s, but again, didn’t really feel too cold and it warmed up fast. Temps in the 60s are pretty mild here, being high altitude, sunny and low humidity. 70s feel great. 80s, you’re going to get hot and thirsty if you are out for long.

One of the first things we did was take a drive to check out the Rio Grande Gorge. It was pretty spectacular, even if the little phone box telling you not to lose hope freaked me out a bit. Smart, but still.

The scenery was awesome. Best part was we found a road that led to the bottom of the Gorge, where just a few people were hanging out fishing or relaxing. We like finding out of the way spots like that. On a warmer day, I could have hung out there all day, reading and swimming.

Rio Grande River Gorge

The crisis hotline at the gorge bridge

Jim at the bottom of the Rio Grande River Gorge, via a remote little dirt road

Another day we decided to take the high road to Taos (they actually call it that, we weren’t being especially virtuous or anything), a drive known for its beauty. There’s a faster way, but don’t do it. We also sort of accidentally took some kind of big circle around the mountaintop called the Enchanted Circle, also known for its scenery, mainly because I also wanted to see Red River where I spent some truly special time as a kid (Community House, you seem a sad shell of your former self, I hope I’m wrong, but prob you don’t have square dancing and hand jive lessons any more, sniffle) and because I wanted to drive through Angel Fire which I had never seen (we didn’t look too hard but it was just OK).

Next, we visited Bandelier National Monument, took a long hike and saw some great petroglyphs. You can also climb up ladders to see inside the old caves the Native Americans carved out of the little mini-caves in the cliff face. Saw some cool deer. Also took a drive to Jemez Springs and saw Soda Falls (below) along the way. Super cool, the river rushes through a small opening, lots of dripping mineral formations and a random hot spring on the side of the road. Also, Jemez Springs seemed fun and nicely isolated although we didn’t stop.

Bandelier Deer

Gophers on the roadside maybe?

Bandelier

Deer everywhere at Bandelier

Soda Springs

Soda Falls

Then, our friends came to visit! Super fast, we did a lot of stuff. We went to some Breaking Bad locations in Albuquerque, went to the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe (totally worth it, and then in honor of her I took a very O’Keefe photo of the sky over the buildings outside), we experienced snow shaped like tiny little snowballs, we drove up to the Santa Fe ski area and saw snow-covered trees, we got caught in a crazy snowstorm that made us feel like we were Han Solo hyperdriving through space, and we geeked out on a roadside attraction full of those funny little plywood art thingies that you put your head in for photos. That was in the most adorable town of all around here, Madrid (pronounced like Bad-rid, accent on the first syllable). Some great restaurants, shops and live music, don’t say we didn’t tell you to stop there because we did.

Go see the Key Frances Band at the Mine Shaft Cantina in Madrid. You won’t be sorry. Especially on a beautiful day. (Ugh, didn’t write down the name of the band, sorry).

Also, if you like mysteries or funky art, go to Meow Wolf. Just go. It’s unique, although I highly recommend going when kids are in school if you don’t want to be overrun. And if you don’t want to work on solving the puzzles, you still might like it but you might not think it’s worth the $25 admission fee. We stayed 6 hours so, it was worth it to us, even if I think they need to work on shorter clues for the next rendition!

Jim through the wormhole

“They” are always watching

My fav, the 3D art (glasses required)

Lovely quote: When in doubt, just doubt your doubt.

For our final (up to now) adventure, we took the tram up to Sandia Peak, which was breathtaking. It has the longest cable span in the US (world?), so they say. If you are afraid of heights, I’d advise against it though! And last but definitely not least, we availed ourselves of the iconic spa here, 10,000 Waves. Very Japanese, very relaxing, expensive but not crazy so unless you do what we did and get the Shiatsu 80 minute massage, the head/neck massage, the foot/leg massage, the facial and a regular mini-massage. That’s a bit pricey, but it was a celebration and so, we splurged. Don’t forget to build in time for the baths, the sauna, etc. I hear you can even go to the dining room in your spa robe!

That’s it for now. I guess that’s enough. I’ll have one more post from our weekend bonanza of cramming in all the sights we’ve missed so far, plus our drive home through Roswell and Carlsbad Caverns. So long for now!

Top of Sandia Peak

One of the big towers for the Sandia Peak Tram

Ah…10,000 Waves

So, logically, next we went to a cool place… After going to Rockport and Port A in South Texas in Jan/Feb to try and outrun the cold (ahem, it was pretty cool and rainy most days but still, better than the weather in Dallas), our next adventure, just as Texas started to warm right up to comfy poolside temps, was to head off to Santa Fe, NM for all of April!

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rememberthattime · 7 years

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Chapter 23. Ireland

Not that long ago…

In a country not far far away…

Two travelers from the bustling Planet London heard tales of the nearby land of Eire, a wild, rugged, and beautiful world known to be home of the Last Jedi. …For almost two years though, the travelers had resisted the Eire’s gravity, generally opting for warmer planets with better food.

Then, with only a few months left in London, the neighboring planet’s pull became too strong. The travelers had no choice but to follow the Eire’s adventurous call.

After all the Game of Thrones references in the Croatia post, I have to reiterate that Chelsay and I have not planned our trips based on filming locations. …Proof of that should actually come from the fact that these trips were so late in our rotation. We’d held off for almost two years, but you can only resist Ireland’s charm for so long. For one of our final adventures, Chelsay and I set out on a four-day road trip through the wild landscapes of West Ireland, from Shannon on the Atlantic coast down to Cork on the country’s southern tip.

Our first stop of the journey was just a short drive from Shannon Airport: the Cliffs of Moher.

Before visiting, I was worried our recent weekend in Cornwall might steal some of Ireland’s “wow” factor. I thought they’d have similar landscapes, so maybe the Irish coastline would just feel like a repeat of a vacation we’d already taken.

That worry was immediately put to rest. Whereas Cornwall’s beach-y shoreline gently descends into the sea (e.g. St Ives or St Michael’s Mount), Ireland’s coast is a 45 degree field rising up 700 feet before an absolutely vertical drop down to the battering Atlantic Ocean. It looked like a chart of GBP value after Brexit.

Although the forecast read sun, the clear skies hadn’t quite arrived. I’m actually convinced the weather app works on a relative basis - that is, a “rainy day” in Texas and “sunny day” in Ireland are the same thing to the app. Regardless, the dark clouds and heavy winds added to the cliffside’s rugged mood.

Our next stop was just an hour further south: the Bridges of Ross, a land bridges spanning across a small sea cove. The drive would have been faster, but we hit some traffic.

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The Bridges of Ross are known for their natural land bridge, but what Chelsay and I found more interesting was the jagged, rocky coastline. It’s probably similar to most of the Irish coast, but it really reminded me of Shapes Beach in Iceland: an alien shore marked by unique black rock formations, pink-hued tide pools, and bizarre species (star fish, strange anenomies, Chelsay, etc).

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Also similar to Shapes Beach in Iceland, our next stop was a lighthouse located high atop a nearby cliffside. In Iceland, we referred to the mysterious lighthouse hidden in the fog as Shutter Island… The sun had come out in Ireland though, so Paradise Falls from Up felt like a more fitting reference.

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We spent that evening in a town called Ballybunion, Though this town is home to just a few thousand people, it was noteworthy for a few reasons.

First, there was a gorgeous sunset.

Second, there is a seemingly random statue of Bill Clinton sitting in the middle of Ballybunnion. Was the town just a big fan of the former President? I took a closer look at the statue and realized it shows him about to tee off - we were later told that the town is home to his favorite golf course, which ranks among the Top 10 in the world. How we were told is actually a very authentic Irish experience.

It’s common knowledge that the Irish have three traditions: potatoes, singing in pubs, and the gift of gab. Chelsay and I experienced all three that evening. The potatoes point is a given: they’re served with every meal. I’ll get to point two about the singing later, but point three, the gift of gab, is how we learned about the Bill Clinton thing.

There is a stereotype that the Irish like to talk, and I have a theory on where this comes from. Lore would say that kissing the Blarney Stone gave the Irish this gift. Historians would say that this stereotype arose from generations of early Irish passing stories only through spoken word, rather than in writing. My theory is that the Irish “gift of gab” is a relative statement based on who was judging… the English! It makes perfect sense. Imagine a prim, proper, and private Brit: the same type that avoids small talk and eye contact on the tube. Imagine him crossing the small channel before stumbling into a society that, unlike his own, actually speaks to one another. Annoyed but in the most civil manner, the Brit tuts and sarcastically pronounces that the Irish “must have been given the gift of gab.” This is definitely what happened. I’ve solved it.

Anyway, our experience with this “gift” came when we were grabbing an Irish whisky and pint of Guinness from Ballybunnion’s pub: McMunn’s. As we were sitting there, an Irish couple pulled their chairs up and unsolicitedly started filling us in on the Bill Clinton thing. They were nice and seemed to be fun, but I could not understand a single word they were saying. I smiled and laughed when it felt appropriate, but had no idea what we were talking about… Chelsay (who speaks non-American) later shared that they were asking if I was deaf.

Through the couple, Chelsay learned that a legendary Irish singer, Mickey McConnell, lived in Ballybunnion and often stopped at the pub to play a few songs. His fame was launched by one song, Only Our Rivers Run Free, which became an anthem for the Northern Irish civil rights fight in the 1960s (a time simply known as “The Troubles” over here).

We were lucky that night because Mickey indeed came to play, and included his famous song on the set list. Again, I couldn’t understand a word as the bar sang along with him.

The next morning, we set out to drive around Dingle Peninsula, regarded as one of the prettiest and most dramatic regions in Ireland. We’d heard of two scenic drives: Connor Pass, which provided the best panoramic views of Dingle, and then Slea Head, which wraps around the peninsula’s Atlantic coastline.

We started with the Pass, which I nearly referred to as a mountain. This really isn’t much of a mountain though: at 1,500 ft, it’s only about 1/3 the height of Mt. Si. That said, from the top of this tall-ish hill, we took in a pretty view of the green glen below.

We then descended through Connor Pass into Dingle Town (where Chelsay and I stopped at the famous Murphy’s Ice Cream), before heading into the Slea Head drive.

The views along the coastline were as advertised, but I have trouble taking in these landscapes from behind a windshield. I prefer taking in these dramatic views in the elements, but it’s difficult to decide where to pull off. You can’t just pull over every mile, and you also aren’t sure whether the most stunning views are just around the bend. A similar thing happened in Norway, where we hadn’t really researched at all prior to arrival. We just showed up, grabbed a car, and drove the fjords. Don’t get me wrong: the views along each of these drives are stunning, but I need a destination, whether that’s a hiking trail, viewing platform, etc.

I’d actually spent some time researching where to hike along the Dingle Peninsula but found that most treks were all-day commitments. It seemed the drive itself was the destination for most.

After a few hours on the road though, that Norway feeling started to creep in: where should we be pulling over? We also realized Chels had left her jacket at the last hotel (too many Guinnesses at McMunn’s), so we decided it was time to break for lunch.

We’d seen a path off the side of the road just a bit earlier, but in the split second we’re driving by, it’s tough to commit to a potentially long hike when you don’t know the destination. We’re only in Dingle for a day so we can’t afford an hour long trek without a payoff. As we ate, and taking advantage of recent changes to roaming laws in the EU, we pulled out Google Maps. Tracing the path’s route, we found it led to a point called “The Devil’s Horns”. Sold.

We parked just near the path’s entrance, which led across a barbed wire fence and through an open field. As we walked along the coastline, “The Horns” came into sight and our excitement levels jumped. We climbed over rough boulders to land’s end, across spine-y rocks and beside crashing waves. Now out of the car and hiking through the wind and fog and elements, we felt the Dingle drive had been validated.

I mentioned crashing waves because, by our standards, this looked like rough waters. Although the weather app labeled off-and-on sunshine as spectacular weather in Ireland, to Chelsay and me, these sea swells were worrying because of what we’d planned for the next day.

For Day 3 of the road trip, we’d reserved a trip out to Skellig Michael, a craggy island and home to a 1,200 year old Gaelic monastary, thousands of endangered puffins, and Luke Skywalker’s hideaway in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

Given the crag’s fragile state, only a limited number of tour boats are able to make the trip each day. Tickets go on sale months in advance, and given its popularity after the Star Wars movies, they typically sell out in half an hour.

I happened to be looking for tickets in March, but didn’t see an option for on-island tours. I emailed the boat company directly and found that tickets were actually going on sale the next day! I cancelled all meetings and made sure we got those tickets… but having tickets won’t guarantee you’ll make it out to the island…

When we were standing out at The Devil’s Horns in Dingle, the obstacle was clear: the sea is rarely calm enough for boats to dock on the Skellig island. This was supposedly a peaceful day, and the swells still looked like the one from Interstellar. To give you a better idea of the odds: Boat companies only offer tickets from May to October, and even half of those days end up having to be canceled. I read that some LOCALS have tried to make the trip four or five times without success.

Well, despite blindly booking months in advance, we apparently picked the right day. The boat company emailed the night before to confirm our trip was going ahead.

We arrived at the port the next morning, and were a bit surprised to see a total of 12 boats heading out that day, holding 12 passengers each. With ~150 people on the island, the monastery drew quite the crowd, but I guess this town has to take advantage when the ocean permits. Regardless, we were stoked as we set out on the 50 minute ride to Skellig Michael.

Chels and I’s boat was the second to arrive, but we walked by most of the first group. We made it to the base of the monk’s walk, where 600 pre-historic steps led to a monastery on the island’s peak. A guide was waiting for us at the step’s base and she asked us to stop for a safety briefing. She continued past us to tell the other arrivals as well… Mischievous Mike (who I wrote about in the Vienna post) looked at Chelsay: “Should we go?” Five seconds later we were 20 steps up and out-of-sight from the large group we left behind. Much like La Mezquita outside Seville, we would be able to explore in peace. …once we made it to the top.

I won’t overdramatize the climb: as a New Zealander said to us in Dubrovnik, “Ya must be fit; ya aren’t even puffin’.” That said, it’s still incredible to think of these monks, isolated at literally the end of the world (as far as they knew), having to climb up and down 40 or 50 storeys. …I can’t even leave the couch when Chels and I need to restart the internet.

We passed the craggily green patch where Rey dramatically returned Luke Skywalker’s light saber, before continuing up to the monk’s settlement. Crouching through the especially tiny entrance way, we entered the small stone village.

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It’s incredible that this monastery still stands after 1,000 years. Skellig Michael is a rough 50 minute ride from the mainland, and that’s in a modern engine-powered boat on a calm day. Imagine that trip in a paddle boat… in the 800s. Needless to say, tansporting a crane from the mainland was not an option. Instead, the monk’s used only what was already on the island (rocks), and a primative construction method (stacking rocks) to piece together beehive shaped shelters. The corbel method, as it’s known, is the proccess of dry-stacking (without any cement) flat stone to form a gradual arch, with the collective weight of the stones ensuring structural integrity. Without any bonding agent, you’d think the structure would be too lose to hold. Evidently it worked though. Despite being on an isolated island exposed to wind, rain, powerful sea storms, and Viking attacks, the beehives still stand.

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Chelsay and I explored the settlement to ourselves before the rest of the group caught up. With the tiny village quickly filling, we descended the stairs for a picnic on a quieter perch. Our packed lunch wasn’t exactly private though, as we were joined by thousands of guests: puffins.

Puffins are now an endangered species, so seeing even one is rare. We had a chance in Iceland, but when we didn’t see any, I thought my puffin chances had past. It actually just turns out they were hanging on Skellig Michael though, because these orange-billed cuties were everywhere. I have no idea how they kept these birds out of the Star Wars filming: I’m imagining dozens of crew members frantically shoo-ing them away just off-camera.

We finished up lunch with our new friends before taking one last lap around the small island. Chelsay and I are very lucky to have seen so many incredible places over the past two years – during every trip, we take a minute to remember how fortunate we are to go on all of these adventures. So that’s why I hate myself for saying what I’m about to say, but there are only so many churches or coastlines or castles that you can visit before the excitement starts to fade. It’s the law of diminishing returns, but for travel. We’ve always found a way to avoid these diminishing returns and get the most out of our trips, but Skellig Michael stands apart. Its isolation, ruggedness, history, and fame all blended together to make one of the most unique and memorable experiences we’ve had while abroad. And the puffins were just an added bonus.

After Skellig Michael alone, Ireland had reached the “house money” stage: the point at which a trip has accomplished everything you’d hoped it could be. It’s not a break-even point, because we’ve always gotten more out of our trips than we put in. The “house money” stage is way beyond that. It’s the point where a trip has passed what you’d imagined as perfect. You’ve already ensured memories beyond any expectation, and no decision you make from there could change that. It’s like going to a casino and playing with the house’s money.

There’s a certain feeling that comes once a trip has reached house money stage. It’s a mix of elation and relief, mixed with a permanant smile. For some vacations, house money comes early in the trip (e.g. Neuschwanstein was the first place we stopped in Munich). For others, it might come later in the trip (e.g. Plitvice in Croatia). Either way, you could essentially hole up in the hotel for the remainder of the vacation and still be happy (e.g. Split, which was the place we went immediately after Plitvice).

So it was with this feeling that we completed the remaining 24 hours of our trip. After arriving back on the mainland, Chelsay and I drove the stunning Ring of Kerry, stopping in the charming Irish town of Kenmare for a house money celebratory dinner on our way to that night’s hotel.

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I think I’ve only written about our hotels once before ( <3 Effi in Crete), but I have to remember our B&B in Schull. The bed wasn’t comfortable at all, but the view and the host more than made up for it. The owner is a former creative director from Frankfurt, so she had all of the artistic musings of someone in her profession mixed with the dry bluntness of a German. Before an early bedtime that evening, we learned about her lifetime of travels while enjoying a beautiful view of the nearby bay (I imagine this looks similar to many views in the Northeast).

The next morning, our host had delicious eggs benedict and French toast ready for us (breakfast mention quota: met), but she also had a recommendation. We’d planned to visit Mizen Head, a coastal ridge we suspected might be similar to Loop Head a few days before. Instead, our host told us about a lesser-known point called Three Castle Head.

Although harder to find, Three Castle Head was certainly the better choice. After parking near a peninsula, Chelsay and I walked about 20 minutes up and down several hills. Three Castle Head hasn’t quite caught the tourist crowd yet, so signage wasn’t great. Just as we were starting to wonder whether we were heading the right direction, we reached the top of the highest hill. From our viewpoint, we could see the crumbling remains of the 800 year old Dunlough Castle, resting on the edges of an inter-peninsula lake.

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Without saying a word, Chelsay and I set off to explore. Genuinely, we didn’t even look at each other before embarking. When we eventually met back up, we talked about how strange it was that we both just took off. Anyway, splitting up actually made this experience funnier. We ended up encircling the castle and lake in different directions, but sound traveled especially clearly across the open space. While I was taking pictures of the castle from one side, I heard “Ohmpf” from the other. I turned and, from about 100 yards away, I could just make out Chelsay picking herself up before hearing her yell, “I fell!”

Luckily the tumble hadn’t phased her too badly (I later saw her running across the hills from “bugs trying to get in my hair”).

After the bug situation, Chelsay was done with Ireland… Just kidding, we had to catch a flight. Driving back to Cork Airport, we reflected on the trip that was. For almost two years, Chelsay and I held off on an Irish adventure. Whether because it might be similar to Scotland or Cornwall, or because I just wasn’t excited about the sites, expectations weren’t that high relative to our other trips. …But Ireland is a place that defies expectations. From its implausibly steep cliffsides to its unearthly shores. From its ancient monastery defying time and its rugged setting, to the SUNBURN I GOT IN IRELAND, this adventure delivered much more than expected. To borrow a line from Obi-wan: this was the trip we were looking for.

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Siren Socks: Revolutionizing Diabetes Foot Care with the Internet of Things (with Giveaway!)

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Siren Socks: Revolutionizing Diabetes Foot Care with the Internet of Things (with Giveaway!)

Got neuropathy in your feet?

We hope not, but if you do -- or suspect that you might -- you will absolutely want to know about a new company called Siren Care. It was founded by young Chinese-American entrepreneur Ran Ma, who after completing a Biomedical Engineering degree at Johns Hopkins University, freaked out her parents by spending hours holed up in her bedroom sewing socks.

She had a brilliant idea to embed tiny sensors that would connect to an app to track temperature and localized ulceration risk. It panned out big-time!

The socks she invented recently won the coveted TechCrunch "hottest new hardware" award at CES, and the 2016 Health 2.0 "best newcomer in digital health" competition. And medical experts are now saying "what they have done with embedded IoT (Internet of Things) sensors and smart materials will totally redefine how patients can self-manage complications as a routine part of their daily life." Wow!

Please join us for this chat wth Ran to learn about Siren Socks, and possibly win a set of your own!

Q&A with Ran Ma, on Siren Socks for Diabetic Foot Care

DM) Ran, pioneering ‘smart socks’ for diabetic neuropathy is a pretty unique path... Can you share a bit about how you got here?

RM) I was born in China but I grew up in Texas and then I lived in Baltimore, Chicago, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and now back to the States in San Francisco.

My background is biomedical engineering. I studied at Johns Hopkins, and then afterwards, I actually worked in the Department of Plastic Surgery at Northwestern, under Dr. Maldonado. While I was there, I worked on a project called Biomask. We actually developed a wearable mask that would regenerate your face, using stem cells, and this was targeted for burn victims and war veterans. This was right after the Iraq war and because of the research we did, I learned a lot about wound healing, wound formation, also wound prevention. My lab also worked on diabetic foot ulcers. That's just something that really stuck in my mind.

I also come from three generations of doctors -- so my grandparents, my aunts, uncles, and my parents are doctors. My father's actually a surgeon. He cuts people every day and for me, I want to dedicate my life further up in the chain of medicine, towards the side of prevention. I really want to make great tools that are easy to use, and give people the right data at the right time, so they can take control of their own health. I always say if I do my job right, I could put my parents out of a job.

Do you have a personal connection to diabetes?

No I don’t, but my co-founder Jie Fu has lots of diabetes in his family, and some of his relatives have unfortunately suffered some of the more severe consequences.

As noted, both my parents are physicians in China – my mom does hematology so mostly leukemia, and my father works on cervical and ovarian cancers, so very late-stage cancers and they lose a lot of their patients unfortunately because it is so late-stage. That's why I want to focus on prevention.

For me, it's about knowing that diabetic foot damage is a very serious problem with very severe consequences, but it's preventable and there's strong clinical research showing that temperature monitoring can make a big difference in prevention.

So you came up with this ‘crazy idea’ to embed sensors in socks?

Here I was a biomedical engineer who was going to go to medical school, and I told my parents, ‘You know what? I'm sewing socks in my room by myself.’ My parents thought I had lost my mind. I was buying components off the Internet and just sewing it together… because it's one thing to have an idea in your head, but another to put it into physical form.

So I had this sock that was all misshapen, connected to a circuit board with all these wires coming off it (and) I went to the big annual Diabetic Foot Conference DF Con two years ago and basically said, ‘Hey, podiatrists, I'm gonna make a sock, it's going to detect injuries in real-time and then it's going to connect to a phone and your patients are going to be able to wear this and it will be soft and washable.’ And they looked at me like I was crazy, basically... because the early prototype really was just crazy-looking, but we’ve come a long way.

Fill us in on your current team, headquarters and manufacturing facilities?

The company was founded in February 2015 by myself and two co-founders: Jie Fu, whose background is electrical engineering and hardware mass production, and Henk Jan, whose background is global textiles sourcing, so he worked in the textile industry and he set up one of the world's largest manufacturing groups for textiles.

So our leadership is made up of biomedical engineering (my background), electrical engineering, and textile manufacturing. We have a team of 5 and are currently expanding.

Our headquarters are in downtown San Francisco, and we’re currently doing some manufacturing in China, with final assembly in the U.S. We plan to move more of the production to the U.S., but that's still in the works right now.

Hasn’t it been common knowledge for a long time that temperature monitoring can help with foot health? If so, what’s really so revolutionary about using this technology in socks?

You're absolutely right. Temperature monitoring has been around for at least a decade or more and it's been published in Diabetes Care and other leading journals by Dr. Lavery and Dr. Armstrong. But there's been a lack of technology.

A few years ago the technology didn't exist to make a wearable device for temperature monitoring, right? In recent years sensors are getting smaller and cheaper and people are putting them in bands, like Jawbone, etc. and all of this has happened because of the emergence of IoT (Internet of Things) tech. Now sensors have gotten small enough that we can actually incorporate them into fabric.

The other thing that has happened is a revolution in design thinking. As you well know at DiabetesMine, even just a few years ago the focus was, ‘This works in clinic, great!’ but (no one was) thinking about it from the patient’s side – as in:

‘If I were living with diabetes, could I use this tool?’ Even though it works in clinics, even though my doctor can use it, does it actually make sense for me to take these bulky tools home?  

There are other solutions on the market: temperature monitoring wands like the TempTouch foot thermometer, a temperature monitoring carpet and a bathroom scale, and I think those are really great and very pioneering in the field. Our team's goal is prevention at-home prevention, empowering the user, by creating something that’s easy to use and monitors continuously, so you can have a sense of security at home. So that's why we're focused on a wearable solution.

OK, so how exactly do new ‘smart’ Siren Socks work?

They monitor six spots on your foot, based on the six most common sites of injury according to clinical trials, and we actually monitor your two feet and compare the temperature difference between the same spot on each foot.

When you have a difference of more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit or 2.2 degrees Celsius, then we know that inflammation is occurring, and that means your body is fighting off injury; that's when we give you an alert on your phone. The point is, something has happened and your body is fighting that injury, reacting with inflammation and that's followed by a rise in temperature. We pick up on that and we alert you.

And you offer the first continuous temperature monitor for feet, right?

Yes, it's very important for us to be a continuous monitor: All the other solutions mentioned are point solutions, meaning you take one measurement a day. You don’t know what happened before or afterwards -- what about the other 23 hours and 50-something minutes in the day? Since there's no reference, it’s even harder to determine why changes might occur.

Because we take so many measurements over time, we're able to filter out false positives. If it's a random spike (in foot temp), we know that's not normal. Inflammation is a sustained temperature difference averaged over time, it's a very particular signature and that's what we can pick up with our socks.

Another benefit is personalization. Maybe for you, one of your feet is just warmer because you have circulation problems or it’s just genetic. Our technology creates a baseline per user over time, so it's a lot more powerful smart tool that can learn from you over time.

Wait, if you’re targeting people already living with neuropathy or other foot conditions, how are these socks ‘preventative’?

We don't prevent neuropathy, we prevent the complications that come with neuropathy. We prevent ulcers and amputations.

What happens to people with neuropathy is they have a foot injury and don't realize it for a week, two weeks, two months even I've seen. And then you go see your doctor and the first thing they do is wheel you into the surgery room!

With our socks, if you have an injury, you might not feel it but you’ll see it with temperature and we alert you. Then you go see your doctor and he/she makes a diagnosis with the X-ray or with a physical exam and then treats you for it. Just from temperature we cannot possibly know if it's just a callous, or a blister, or Charcot foot – so you need to see your physician. But the early detection helps you avoid ulcers or even needing an amputation.

Don’t the embedded sensors, and that little anklet disc on the side, make the socks lumpy?

No, we take very tiny proprietary temperature sensors, like a grain of sand, and incorporate them into the fabric of the sock, and they send data to our companion app via Bluetooth. The anklet holds the battery and BLE chip. We've designed it to have the thinnest profile and smallest surface area possible, and we are always working to further miniaturize this component.

Back when I was hand-sewing them two years ago, you could definitely feel everything, but now… they are really good diabetic socks. The key point to making smart clothing is you have to make really good clothing first. If I gave you the socks right now, you would never know they were smart socks because you couldn't find the sensors.

Can you wash them like normal socks?

Yes, our socks are machine washable and dry-able, you don't have to charge them, and they're completely soft and flexible. They're super-absorbent have no seams on the outside or inside, and we all know that's important because diabetic socks should be seamless so you don't have any pressure points on your feet. Right?

So we're really creating a great diabetic sock to start with and then we give it intelligence, to protect your feet.

How does the Siren app work?

The basic functions are of course that you can see the current status of your feet and it's very easy to understand, color-coded green, yellow, and red. And of course we walk you through the recommendations when an injury or potential injury is detected. The app may suggest checking your feet, reducing activity or reaching out to your healthcare professional.

You can see your foot temperature over time, and your foot health over time and that helps you know, when did this inflammation begin? This is why continuous use is important. You can see for example if inflammation was caused because every day you're wearing a certain pair of shoes that are just too small. One of the main causes of diabetic foot ulcers are shoes that are too small -- because if you can't feel pain, you don't realize you're buying shoes that are too small. So our app actually helps people start looking at their habits.

Can you share the data directly with your doctor?

Right now the Siren app basically sends you alerts onyour smartphone if there are significant changes in your foot temperature – it’s alerting you to go see your doctor. The data is in the cloud and you access your account on our website or though the app, where you can easily print it or send it to your doctor in file format, but we don’t have direct data-sharing yet. That’s something for the future.

Also, at the end of the year we're going to be rolling out a solution for people living with diabetes that don't have access to a smartphone, like what we're offering but online (instead of app-based) so you can also use our smart socks without a phone.

Eventually we’d like to have a Call Center that can alert users who can’t get those alerts and alarms on a phone.

Can you add notes into the app, like about what shoes you wore or what activity you did that day?

Yes, people can add notes like, ‘Wore my new whatever-shoes,’ and then you may notice the next day after wearing this pair, you're always getting inflamed, so you can think maybe it's those shoes. It really often is the shoes you wear, and that's something you can pick up on.

In the app you can also check the battery life of your socks, track how often you wore them, which ones you're wearing, and how often you washed them. I think one of the key items is, we can tell you this week you only wore your socks 40% of the time, so maybe next week you can aim to wear them 60% of the time. The more often you the wear socks the more protected your feet are. And if you have neuropathy, you have to wear good socks anyway. That's the number one recommendation, right? We help you quantify that.

So this has big potential to help anyone with diabetes, type 2 or type 1, right?

Neuropathy can happen to anyone. It does happen to people with type 1 and type 2. It's usually a little bit older population, but I've also seen it in people in their 20's and 30's. It just happens, your nerves start dying, getting eaten away and it usually happens in your feet and hands first, because those are your longest nerves. Hands are not as dangerous because you see your hands every day, but you don't check your feet every day or look at them as closely, so damage can go unnoticed. That's why it's very important to take care of your feet.

Have you completed clinical studies on Siren Socks, showing effectiveness?

We did an initial small test and are now scaling. We’re actually recruiting patients right now with Dr. Reyzelman, a podiatric surgeon at UC San Francisco. This will be a published result, ongoing into March including 30 patients.

I'm also giving a talk at this year’s DF Con Diabetic Foot Conference, at the end of March. That’s the biggest diabetic foot conference in the U.S. and I’ll be presenting the background of temperature monitoring, the current form factors, and why it was important to bring up a smart sock to fill the technology gap right now. And hopefully we'll have some initial results that I will present at that conference. It's a huge deal for me to be a speaker there, because as noted, I went to this conference a few years ago with a VERY rudimentary prototype and I think I scared some of the physicians there. So now two years later, we've progressed so much.

What’s the situation with regard to FDA approval?

We are very firm in saying that we are a tool and not a diagnostic, and that doesn't currently fall under FDA scrutiny.

The studies we’re doing are more to test compliance and user experience. We have entry interviews and exit interviews. So we ask, ‘Do you enjoy the solution? Is it easy to use? Do you like the colors?’ Very basic questions like that are important because we already know that temperature monitoring works, there's no doubt about that. But we need to know: can people use this solution? It’s important to do field studies where you even go into people’s homes to see how they use it, how does it work for them?

Tell us about the prestigious TechCrunch award you received for Siren Socks...?

We just won the TechCrunch Hardware Battlefield competition at CES in January, and that was a huge deal, as they screen I think somewhere around 1,000 of the newest, hottest hardware companies and they narrowed it down to 12.

Twelve went on stage and did a live demo and then they narrowed it down to four, who did a final demo, and they picked one, and we were actually that one! It was a huge honor, we didn't think we would get that far because most of the other companies were one or two or three years older than us.

But I think one of the reasons that we made it so far is that we actually brought a patient on stage, Judy, who has been living with diabetes for seven years. She is 73 and has retinopathy and neuropathy – we had to help her on stage because the lights were so bright. She actually wore our socks on stage and we live-streamed her foot data, so it really made the story make sense, you know when you see these socks in action. You could see how much Judy enjoyed wearing them, she was modeling them in front of the judges and we think that’s great because it helps raise awareness that diabetes touches the lives of so many people.

And you won an influential Health 2.0 competition as well? Yes, in Fall we also won Health 2.0 Launch, which is strictly digital health, encompassing software and hardware. You know, they’ve had some really great companies that have won over the years, like Basis that was purchased by Intel, Glimpse that was a runner-up and they were recently acquired by Apple, and Castlight Health also went through there. They definitely pick winners.

That one is more bragging rights than an investment prize, but TechCrunch… really brought a lot momentum to our fundraising. We are raising our seed round right now and I must say it's going very well, especially after CES.

Wait, so you did all this pre-seed funding?

Yes exactly. We had a very small pre-seed round of about $500K last year, but most of the other companies that went on stage with us had raised $4-$5 million seed round and they were raising their A Round financing already, so they are one to two years ahead of us. We move fast.

And you got a lot of great exposure… even at home?

Funny story about my mom, who as you know is a doctor in China. I was supposed to go there to visit for Chinese New Year and she was really disappointed that I had to cancel the trip because we had all of this going and we're fundraising.

But two or three weeks ago she turned on the TV to this channel called ‘Chinese People Around the World’ she watches every day during lunch and she actually saw me there, on Chinese National TV! She was making noodles and she almost burned them all because she was running all around the room trying to find her phone so she could record it, then she was texting me all frantically, ‘Oh my God, did you know you were on TV? Can you find it online can and send me the video?’ They even translated all of our presentation to Chinese, and I had no idea.

They look for entrepreneurial Chinese people who've done cool things around the world and they report about it, so I guess they found me somehow. I have no idea where they got my Chinese name from, but it was really cool. Kudos to proud mamas around the world! So please tell us how you are reaching out to the PWD community in particular. Have you connected with any patient advocacy orgs?

We've been doing a lot of work within the podiatrist community and diabetes HCP groups to get the word out. I am also doing a few podcasts with diabetes experts, and we're coming out with a bunch of blogs (that offer) educational background on temperature monitoring, how important it is and the history of it.

We were also included in an article published in the November ADA Diabetes Forecast magazine on what makes a great diabetic sock.

As far as reaching the patient community directly, that's very important -- getting people involved and getting their feedback. So talking to you at the ‘Mine is one of our avenues…

Glad to help if we can! We see you have an introductory pre-order pricing set up. Tell us about the offer and when the socks are expected to ship?

Our socks are priced at $180 for seven pairs of socks, but right now we’re doing a pre-sale, at a $60 discount. So it’s $120 for a pack of seven, that should last you six months. There's also an option online to purchase smaller packs, of one, three, and five pairs.

Right now it’s all online ordering directly from us, and we expect the socks to ship in Summer. We’re also in talks with distributors to bring the socks into retail stores like Wal-Mart, CVS and Walgreens. But that won’t be rolling out until later this year.

You talked about design, but these socks currently only come in plain black and white versions, correct?

We're going to make our socks as attractive as possible. We have thought about different color variations, (and) we've already come up with Christmas designs, Halloween socks, summer, fashion versions, etc. for the future.

Of course, you shouldn't be wearing high-heeled or other fancy shoes if you have diabetic neuropathy. You should wear comfortable shoes that are well padded and fit your feet properly and we help you with that.

And the life expectancy of a pair of Siren Socks is six months?

Exactly, we replace all your socks every six months because that's standard in diabetic foot care -- every three to six months you need to replace all your socks to minimize spreading infection and also if there's a thin area in the sock material, that's where a foreign object can penetrate and get to your feet. The only line of defense is your socks, so you want to make sure they’re very thick and cushioned and the fabric is in the best shape possible.

And just a reminder: you don’t have to charge these socks, even though they’re outfitted with smart technology.

Finally, what’s a Twitter-style message you might want to send to the Diabetes Patient Community from your vantage point tackling foot damage?

I would say take care of your feet, and the future is here: we’ve dreamt of a world where we can have access to the right data at the right time and that future has arrived!

I don't know if that's a good Twitter message, but I’d want your readers to know there are lots of people – lots of other teams like us – working very hard to make tools easier to use and to bring science into your home in a way that addresses a problem and helps.

Thanks so much Ran -- That’s inspiring to say the least. We thank you for your ingenuity, down to our diabetic toes!

And now... for YOUR chance to win a free set of Siren Socks...!

A DMProducts Giveaway

We thank Siren Care for offering a set of free socks (7 pairs each) to TWO lucky 'Mine readers!

Please NOTE: The socks will be shipped in Summer 2017, so there's a bit of a wait. MSRP value is $180 per set.

Here's how to enter:

Just leave a comment below, and be sure to include the codeword "DMSocks" somewhere in your comment so we know you're in it to win it.

Since our comment system requires log-in, you may also email us your entry directly at [email protected], using the subject line "DMSocks".

You have until Friday, March 3, 2017, at 9pm PST to enter.

The winner will be chosen using Random.org, and announced via Facebook and Twitter on Monday, March 6, so make sure you're following us.

Please be sure to monitor your Facebook messages or email, as that's how we contact our winners.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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