Inside View from Ireland

Cocky Irish Swagger on Limited Release

Bernie Goldbach in Bray | Image from Niall Carson/PA

THE 2012 OLYMPICS have shown the Irish box above their weight. It's something I first learned in in 1990 with a raucous group in a German Gasthaus who cheered the Irish soccer team.

There are civic receptions, open top bus tours and mainstream interviews with Olympians to reinforce Irish success on the global stage. For a ten year period starting in the mid-90s when I first landed in Ireland, I watched success walk through training venues where I taught and I shared its vibe on the streets where I lived and worked. I saw energy and a focus with scant mention of the term "entitlement." They worked hard, delivered results and got paid for their effort.

The 2012 Olympics are much the same. Hard work of athletes, often instead of enjoying good craic with mates. Dedication on  the qualifying route to get an Olympic berth. And for the best, a medal to wear as testimony to their achievements.

Tracing Foul Air

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Image from Honeywell  

FOUL AIR has me investigating sensors that should help document a case against a defective sewerage system.

Honeywell's C7110A1010 Room Air Quality Sensor measures air quality in rooms, offices, and production bays. It should be able to detect whether we're getting foul air from sewage blowing back under our pavements and into our storm drains. I've seen mixed gas sensors used to control ventilation plants in aircraft maintenance facilities during a previous career in the Air Force. Some of those facilities were involved in spraying deicing fluid, paint removing solvents and mixing distillates. We need a device that can detect those kinds of industrial smells because the same technology displays readings in poor quality air.

Poor quality air affects several unfinished estates around Ireland. As explained by the Irish Times, residents of the Gleann Riada housing estate in County Longford have their case in front of Minister for the Environment and some top-notch consultants because authorities have been monitoring gas levels since a suspected gas explosion occurred at one of the houses in March. We don't want that in our estate, hence the air sensor as a first step.

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Bernie Goldbach has links to DIY jobs.

Absolute Foursquare Coffee

Bernie Goldbach in Limerick | Photo of Absolute Coffee 

THERE ARE SEVERAL "local social" tactics that go underutilized in my Favourite haunts and I hope coffee chats around the Absolute Bar and Grill get a better result.

The first concerns Foursquare, a location-based service that fewer than 20 of my friends have used for more than a year. As I explain in my Audioboo, I extract a lot of value from Foursquare but local merchants don't see the point. I think it is a viable customer loyalty mechanism and wonder why venue managers don't play to its strengths.

The second idea concerns pinch-to-zoom menus. I think more restaurants should set up directories on their websites called "menu" and put 300 dpi menus stretching 6" across. I could see all the main courses that way and Google would present the menus as one of the first restaurant results for the city being searched.

I'm eager to read results of a survey that Gabriela Avram might share in these areas. They're certainly worth a coffee chat.

About Foursquare

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Photo snapped at Limerick OpenCoffee and annotated with Over on my iTouch. Bernie Goldbach curates LBS ideas.

Our Widening Wealth Gap

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Photo of the squeezed generation

WHILE POPULIST OPINION in Ireland lays blame for the current deep recession on bankers, generational theorist Neil Howe cites the "greed, shortsightedness, and blind partisanship" of people in my generation for having "brought the global economy to its knees."

Median net worth of my twenty something daughters fell 37% during 2005 and 2010. This puts the wealth gap today between younger and older Americans at the widest on record.

Even though I live in another country, I benefited from a robust housing market and few believe those glory days will return.

Paying Your Horse a Daily Wage

Bernie Goldbach in Dublin | Dray Horse in Wolverampton  

SIXTY YEARS AGO, a man's working horse could earn a living wage as a dray horse. Your horse might pull a milk dray on a well-worn route through town.

Dray horses were common sights every morning through South County Dublin through the 1950s. Milkmen got paid enough to feed and care for their horsepower.

I grew up with Irish-American roots a continent away with milk men but not with working horses. In Ireland, the roundsmen raced from house to house, arms laden with milk bottles, while the horses ambled steadily forwards. The horses knew where to stop. We had a milk man with the most under-powered truck I ever heard.

Those dray horses were quieter than the delivery vans that race past our front door every weekday. I can't help but think that the horses could keep the pace of deliveries happening faster than driving, stopping and walking products to the front door. 

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Bernie Goldbach saves links about heritage.

Planning to get a new cup holder

Bernie Goldbach in Morrison Mini | Image from BMW-i

WE NEED A CUP HOLDER in our car so I stopped in a local showroom for ideas. I came away with a video of BMW's i3.

Electric cars accelerate faster than anything I've driven without an afterburner. Super-strong carbon fibre construction take BMW's electric concept cars into new spaces of shape and functionality. Plus, they come with cup holders (see photo).

The i3 is looks spacious for an urban car. The bottom half of the car is made mostly of lightweight aluminum while the passenger compartment is built from carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). The car weighs in at 2750 pounds (compared to a Nissan Leaf's 3366 pounds).

The Born Electric Story

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Bernie Goldbach has started collecting links about driving.

My Third Summer of Boos

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Photo shot while recording  

IT'S MY THIRD SUMMER of using Audioboo and I'm thinking about setting aside time to create a daily audio blog because several avid Boosters have fostered a very nice community solely through audio.

And therein lies the rub--it takes time to write an extended description on an Audioboo. You need the text (with links) if there's to be any hope of being found by people who don't know you're blogging. That's a major discovery I've made while recording Sunday newsrounds like in the photo at left.

Most of the people who have found me on Audioboo have listening to mainstream things I've recorded like Solomon Burke on my most-listened Audioboo in the clip below. More than 15,000 have heard Solomon's big hit on my Audioboo stream. Truth be told, I also like listening to tracks shared by other on Audioboo, especially seasonal ones.

Everbody Needs Somebody

Dropping into the Olympics and Other News

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Spectrum Image from Sunday Times

MOST OF THE IRISH news centres around the London Olympics and loyal supporters of busted billionaire Sean Quinn.

I made a short video below the fold to recap leading Sunday news items, mainly for friends on holidays who want a distilled version of what happened when they found the sun outside the country.

Jumping into Olympics