I have to have a little rant, then maybe a little 'lie-down'

I am an American who married an Irish person, and though I had no intentions of ending up in Ireland until retirement (or just perhaps a nice cottage somewhere for summer vacations), I ended up living in Ireland 18 years ago quite suddenly. It has been 'interesting' -- often not in a good way. At any rate, about 5 years ago when economic times were better for everyone, I extorted a small house in the states (in Portland Oregon) out of my husband.

I needed a part of the states I could call home before I completely lost my mind and just left to save my sanity. Portland is where my mom lives and I love that city! I spend about 4 months through-out the year in Portland, but the rest of the time I am in Ireland.

One thing that drives me up the wall more than anything about Ireland: broadband is rare, and as I live about 5 miles from the nearest town, (17 miles from the nearest city), I don't have it. I can't get it. I have fantasies about torturing what ever politician is keeping Ireland a second world country this way (all of them probably). I am on dial-up most of the time. (can you tell I am now throwing things and screaming?)

In Portland, I have the fastest broadband outside of a commercial line, the internet is always on and it is cheaper than what I pay for my dial-up time on the internet in Ireland. (sigh) In Ireland, I give up on any website that takes too long to load if I don't know that it will be worth the wait (any page where the words aren't showing after 2 minutes and doesn't promise to be really "interesting"...bye-bye.) A 1 minute video takes 10 minutes to show the whole way through! I know I am whining and I don't care. When I say Ireland sucks, take this into consideration.

When I put up pictures or artwork, understand this is why the size or resolution isn't the best. 200 kb takes 5 minutes to attach to blogspot for some reason. On the plus side, my blog loads really quickly.

For now, that's about it. If I continue I might pop a vein or start drinking (might do the latter anyway...)