Brandon O'Brien

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 @ 3:15 PM in Miscellaneous

The garden in my front yard has been hit or miss the last few years due to the amount of sun I get (hint: it's a lot). Rather than have another year of poor return from my garden I decided to build a sun shade out of 3/4" PVC pipe and some screen.

The cost of the materials was pretty cheap and it only took about a half hour to get it all put together. I also put some chicken wire around the garden to keep small animals out. This year rather than planting a big mix of vegetables I stuck with 6 Big Jim Green Chile plants. I'm really hoping that this fall I can roast a batch of my own green chile.

Teaser photos:

Shade box

Garden

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Tags: garden, green chile

Posted from: United States

Monday, June 10, 2013 @ 7:27 PM in 2013 Europe

In preparation for my trip abroad I created a spreadsheet where I made a list of all the cities / countries I wanted to visit and then estimated how much time I might want to spend there. Then today I learned about the Schengen Zone. This is a group of 26 European countries that have opened their borders to each other to make it easier to travel around. Travelers from the USA can show up and stay in the Schengen zone for up to 90 days in a span of 180 days (3 months within a 6 month period). Looking at my spreadsheet I currently have 98 days estimated within the Schengen zone. That means I have to re-evaluate some of my plans but that shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Ireland and the UK are all outside the Schengen Zone so at least the start of my trip will be in the clear. Morocco is also outside the zone so that's in the clear too. I just have roughly an additional 50 days to burn outside the zone so if anyone finds any cheap flights to SE Asia or South Africa, let me know!

Anyway, glad I figured this all out now before getting into trouble by overstaying the 90 day period there. If anyone else is planning on visiting Europe for a long period of time, it's something to keep in mind before planning everything out!

Posted from: United States

Monday, June 10, 2013 @ 9:53 AM in 2013 Europe

It's only 16 days before I jump on a jet for Dublin, Ireland so I decided it was time to lay all my gear out and take some photos. This was the first time I laid everything out to see what I'm taking and then to try and pack it all into my backpack. 40 liters sounds like quite a bit of room until you start laying everything out and then look at how much stuff you have. The stuff that takes up the most room by far is my clothes. My DSLR is a little awkward to fit just because of the shape.

You can see a full list of everything I packed by visiting the Preparation link at the top of the page. The last photo also has everything identified with numbers.

I'm getting really excited now. These last couple weeks are going to blow by!

Teaser photos:

Everything unpacked

Starting to consolidate

Everything in the pack

Detailed list of what I'm bringing

Tags: preparation,

Posted from: United States

Friday, June 10, 2011 @ 11:45 PM in 2011 London

Today was a long day. We started out by heading to the Victoria station to catch our tour bus. The tour took us to Leeds Castle, Canterbury Cathedral and Dover. At Leeds Castle, it started raining as we got off the bus and ended up getting stuck behind several huge groups of French schoolchildren. We finally got passed them and were able to see the castle itself. After walking through the castle we were able to walk around the grounds where they had some gardens and a bird park. Fortunately it had stopped raining by the time we got out. The castle itself is surrounded by a moat several meters deep.

Next was Canterbury and Canterbury Cathedral. Again, it was raining when we got off the bus. We headed to lunch at a place called Panteli's Cafe Bar Restaurant where I had chicken and chips and a cider. They served everyone some tea at lunch and then gave us some apple pie afterwards. After eating, we were on our own for a while to explore the cathedral and the town. The cathedral was impressive on the inside. It was extremely large and the architecture was amazing. After the rain let up a bit we walked around the cathedral and got to see some of the gardens and outlying areas.

After that we got back on the bus and headed out to Dover. When we were leaving the rain finally stopped and it cleared up. We got to the coast and it was so clear that we could actually see the coast of France from the shore. We got out of the bus and were able to walk around on the beach and see some of the cliffs and a big entry port for ships from the rest of Europe. We only spent about 15 minutes here, but that's all we really needed to see everything. There was a castle up on top of some of the cliffs that would have been cool to explore if we had a few hours.

We got back into London and headed to Shepherd's bush where we ate at Gourmet Burger Kitchen again and I got a new 2012 Olympics sweatshirt. We got a text from Eric's cousin's friend again asking if we wanted to meet up, so we met up with them again around the Hammersmith station and went to a bar called Blue Anchor. We had a few ciders before they called last call, which is only around 11 here. We came home and went to bed so we could get up for our tour of the Cotswolds tomorrow.

Teaser photos:

Leeds Castle

Canterbury

Canterbury

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Tags: london, england

Posted from: England