[ Irish KC ]
Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

As the drip feed of the 2008 Irish Blog Awards nominations turns into a waterfall, I’m off again flying from whatever country I’m in now to whatever country I was in a few weeks ago.

There’s been so many planes, trains, and buses in the last 5 months that I keep losing track of what the word “Here” means. A couple of days ago I was talking about what something might be like in America, having lost track of the fact that I was then and had been in America for 2 weeks.

Spending most of December in England I did the same there, referring to it as Ireland. I’m finding it very hard to keep up with myself - so god knows how you do it.

For those new readers today, you might be interested in the Most Popular Posts of 2007, or the likes of the previous year’s Phone Call To An Irish Mother - which you can see among the Popular Posts listed on the far sidebar. Oh yeah, and there’s a menu across the top with links to all the Differences Between Ireland and the US, the Frequently Asked Irish Questions, and the obviously true Irish Conversations.

A big thank you to the lost souls who nominated my sites in the 2008 Irish Blog Awards. I didn’t ask to be nominated, because I consider that crass, but I get over myself once nominated and then I rejoice in the traffic.

At the last count, and most longlists have now been posted, Irish KC has 3 nominations - for Best Designed Blog, Best Personal Blog, and Best Blog (overall) - and American Hell was nominated for Best Arts & Culture Blog, a stretch I grant you but I myself couldn’t see a category that fit well.

By far the most exciting category I reckon is Best Newcomer, though the lists of individual posts nominated for Best Blog Post is well worth a nose through for highlights that you might have missed of some of your favourite sites through the year. When it’s posted I imagine the Most Humorous Post list (updatte: link) will be an equally fascinating quick deep dip into the blogs of Ireland.

On a personal level I’m most especially pleased that American Hell received a nomination, not simply because I prefer it to this site but because I have treated it so badly over these 5 months of traveling backwards and forwards and sideways and arseways.

It’s early days yet, but I prefer the system this year to last year. Do you remember the 2007 winners?

Today I take my dog to Kansas City International airport. It’s called international because somebody’s Canadian cousin once passed there. Or passed wind there.

There the dog will be loaded onto a flight to Orlando. For all the concerned folk out there who worry about a dog in cargo let me tell you that the dog goes into a part of the hold which is just like the cabin i.e. temperature controlled and all the other stuff. The animals just miss out on lights, lottery tickets, and restricted leg room. Still though, I am one of those people myself who worry about a dog in the hold, but then it’s my dog.

I’m told that once the plane is loaded with baggage that the dog is taken to the plane in a van and loaded last, the heating turned on, and the doors closed. Meanwhile I go to catch a different flight. I could have got the same flight to Orlando but that was $250 so I opted for 2 flights to get me there via Atlanta for a grand total of just $59. Can you blame me?

In Florida an agent of the pet transport people who have co-ordinated so much will give my dog out of crate time. And then the dog and I, unseen of each other, board the same Aer Lingus flight to Dublin.

I’m nervous. For historical reasons the dog doesn’t like crates, and there is more paperwork than I’ve ever needed for an American tax return. Assuming no hiccups we arrive in Ireland on Friday morning.

Despite arriving in the same airport, on the same flight even, I don’t get to see the dog at Dublin Airport. Nope, the dog is collected by secret pet collecting people and taken to the national quarantine place in Swords. There the checks to the dog and its paperwork, and its European chip to establish that it is the dog the paperwork says it is, are done and I can take it home. Once I give them a couple of hundred euro of course.

And that will be that. 3 planes for me, 2 for the dog, and award nominations for everybody in the audience. I should pack.

More Meanderings of an Irish Artist:
   • Readying for Ireland on the Streets of Kansas City
   • An Irish Christmas Drinking Story
   • On Me Holidays: At Home In Ireland in England
   • An Irish Odyssey in Kansas City

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 3:28 am and is filed under 1-eolai, Travel, blogs. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.