Blinded with Science

So, Ireland. I've been here for the better part of a week now, and I have to say that I haven't done much. After being run off my feet on a ridiculously fast-paced schedule for five days in Italy, having some time to just relax and chill at my brother's appartment has been bliss. Internet access? Couch? Free bathrooms? Bliss.

Not to say that I've seen nothing. I've been places. I've done things. I've seen the fair city of Cork. I've drank some genuine Irish pints. I nearly dislocated my spine kissing the Blarney stone (it was incredibly un-clean.) Yet of all these things, the best happened today. Today, my brother took me to the place where science happens.

See, my brother is a certified rocket scientist, and when he asked me today if I wanted to come to see the place where he is working on what will be powering our computers in ten years, I couldn't sign myself up fast enough. For a geek like me, it was heaven. Let me put it this way: have you ever seen those high-tech places where people have to wear full-body hair-nets and goggles? That's where I was. There were so many people of brilliance just hanging around that I felt smarter for just having been there.

They have hundreds of dollars worth of solar pannels just stacked up in a corner by a filing cabinet, and apparently nobody knows why they're there. They had slabs of silicon bigger than my head just laying around, and let me tell you, I have one big head.

Sometimes it makes me think I'm in the wrong business. Sure my skills are better suited to government, but the budgets are so much better in science.