Planet Limerick

These are side-effects from a little experiment I tried, which I'll probably blog about tomorrow.







You had better be swooning in anticipation!

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Swoon!

Swoon, I say!

NEW DETAILS
(adds knives found)
A murder investigation is expected to be launched after a 16 year old boy was stabbed to death in Corbally Saturday night.

The young teenager, believed to be Latvian, was found lying on the footpath at Carrig Midhe around 11pm suffering two stab wounds to his chest. He was rushed to the Limerick Regional Hospital however following cardiac arrest, he died on arrival. Another teenager, believed to be from Limerick, is in a stable condition in hospital following the incident.

Gardai have arrested a teenager, who is also 16 years old, in relation to the death. He is being held a Mayorstone Garda station under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act. He was arrested early this morning.

The scene of the incident has been preserved for technical examination.The arrested teen is from the Limerick City area.

NEW DETAILS
::RTE news reports that Gardai are investigating the possibility that the death occurred following a row at the entrance to the housing estate that escalated very quickly. A conflicting report on the nationality of the deceased indicates he was from Ukraine.

::The victim has been named as Roman Vysochan of Ashley Close, Westbury, Co Clare.

::"This afternoon search teams discovered two knives on waste ground near the Carrig Midhe estate and they have been sent for forensic analysis."
Via Limerick Leader

::Gardai have confirmed they are seeking another teenage suspect in relation to the killing.
(Picture: RTENews)

                                      

Can't talk, too busy getting a tan so I can look like an Italian:) Just a quick salad recipe for this lovely weather we are having, I love this salad with fish or meat or simply on it's own with some crusty bread!!!

what you need:

 - fine green beans I used a 250g pack from Superquinn (surprise, surprise)

 - 3 hard boiled eggs

 - 2 boiled potatoes cut into cubes

 - sea salt and black pepper

 - 8 tbsp olive oil

 - 3 tbsp red wine vinegar

what to do:

 - bring a pot of water to the boil, add salt and cook your beans until tender. Drain and rinse under cold water and leave to cool down.

 - cut your eggs into quarters and scatter over the beans.

 - add your potatoes, season and dress with olive oil and vinegar.

 - serve and enjoy the sunshine!!!!:)

                                   

buon appetito!!!

p.s I got my new camera last week and it's still in the box, I haven't even used it yet it's been so busy:(

p.p.s. the princess is with the grandparents so mama and papa' are off on the town - yahooooooo!!! Bring on the hangover!!

Ciao!!

Gardai are investigating following the discovery of the body of a woman at her home in Coonagh today.

They say they are treating as suspicious, the death of the 77 year old who was found with suspected head injuries.

Gardai are now preserving the scene for examination by the state pathologist’s office.

NEW DETAILS
Gardai are no longer treating the death as suspicious and say it was a tragic accident

A second death is being investigated by Gardai after a 16 year old Ukrainian national was stabbed in Westbury, County Clare.

The alarm was raised at 2300 hrs last night when the teenager was found lying on a footpath outside the Carrig Midhe estate with a chest wound.

He was rushed to the Midwest Regional hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

A second teenager has since been arrested by Gardai investigating the death and he is currently being held at Mayorstone Garda Station.

UPDATE: Another teenager who was also ingured in this incident is being treated at the Mid Western Regional Hospital. His condition is said to be stable.

The teenager in custody at Mayorstone is said to be from Limerick.

Post mortem examinations on the victim have determined that his death was caused by an inury from a sharp impliment.

UPDATE: A 16 year old currently being questioned by Gardai has had his period of detention extended by a further six hours.

He was arrested at 0800 hrs this morning and without an extension, he would have had to be released at 2000 hrs this evening.

UPDATE: The victim has been named as Roman Vysochan (16) of Ashley Close, Westbury

It’s not as though we have so many true kindred spirits in our lives that we can afford to lose them, and so it was that I waited yesterday with a mixture of hope and apprehension.

I didn’t know if there would be anything to talk about after all this time, but hope won.

There was too much to say and not enough hours in the day.

My old soulmate lifted my heart and I can’t explain, even to myself, how I could possibly have left it so long.

bockdigiprint

Not much is known about this at this time, so there should be more details later today.

Gardai are reported to be treating as suspicious, the death of a 77 year old woman at her home in Coonagh, County Limerick.

RTE news reports that the house has been sealed off for a technical examination and the office of the state pathologist has been contacted.

The woman has not yet been named.

Related link from RTE news.

UPDATE: A post mortem is due to be carried out today.

UPDATE: Following their investigations, Gardai are now treating this death as a tragic accident.

Decided to try something different. The photo was exported from Lightroom without any changes made, then processed in GIMP image editor. First I ran the 'old photo' script, then painted on some scratches and whatnot using Prowlers grunge brushes. I picked different brushes, and clicked around the image, changing the brush and the opacity all the time until I ended up with something I liked. That's about it!

I just want to share a few things I have picked up from the wonderful Strobist blog. Mainly in the hope that they'll sink in to my head a bit better if I explain them to a third party - even if it is just the ether of the internets.

Strobist is a website dedicated to teaching people how to use off-camera lighting to make better pictures. I won't attempt to explain it fully, the website does it much better than I ever could - which is understandable, considering everything I've learned comes from there... Seriously, if you have any interest in off-camera lighting, go there and start reading. Even if you don't have an interest, you probably will after reading a couple of posts.

Anyway, one cool technique that I have been messing about with is using off-camera flash outdoors in broad daylight to supplement the sun. Why do this? Well, there are several reasons: to get rid of harsh shadows being the main one. I, however, wanted to use off-camera lighting in the bright light to make my photos 'pop' a little more, and also give some more interesting textures and shadow to my main subject. These first two pictures, while not exactly prize-winning material, have a pleasing '3d' type effect as a result of lighting them with an off-camera flash which has a home-made softbox attached, and at the same time underexposing the background to allow the main subject to stand out. Hopefully seeing the pictures will explain things a bit better:



Using off-camera lighting outdoors also allows me to keep detail in the sky and on my subject at the same time. Without it in this next picture, the sky would probably have been pure white, if I wanted the flowers to be properly exposed:





Lastly, meet my new model, Buddha. Unlike my usual models (friends and family), Buddha doesn't complain if I ask him to to be constantly photographed for twenty minutes. In fact, he spent the entire photo-shoot in a state of transcendental happiness, which did wonders for my self-esteem. Using off-camera light here also allowed Buddha to pop out from the background - I know it's a bit of a dull photo, but it's a cool technique.



Anyway, I know I haven't explained the how at all, but hopefully I've made a bit of a case for why. To summarise: Off-camera lighting is cool, go read Strobist.

Social Welfare payments being paid out to suspected members of Limerick’s criminal gangs have been suspended while the Criminal Assets bureau examine how some people have been able to acquire expensive cars, houses and electronic equipment.

As part of Operation Platinum, a number of individuals were given questionaires to complete. If they do not satisfy the CAB as to how they gained such wealth, they will not have their payments restored.

Barry Duggan has more in the independent.

"Paint the town Red"

Munster fans who did not obtain tickets for the Heineken Cup Final will be able to follow the action in the next best place as it was confirmed today that two screens will be erected in Limerick City centre on the big day.

The two screens will be set up in the city centre at the junctions of O'Connell Street and Glentworth Street and O'Connell Street and Shannon Street on May 24th for the game against Toulouse .

Fran O'Donnell, of Futurama Productions told the Limerick Leader this evening,

“We wouldn't be surprised to see over 25,000 fans come in this year. Everything about the last day left a good taste in the mouth of everyone that was there. The policing of the event was exceptional and of course the win ensured the day would last long in the memory. I know that some of the player's parents aren't going over this year and they will be coming into the big screen for the final"

Thousands of fans jammed into O' Connell Street in 2006 to watch Munster winning their first Heineken Cup. Pictures of the scene on O' Connell Street were beamed into the Millennium stadium’s giant screens during the match.

Because this seems to be What One Does On A Friday.

I read an obsessive amount of blog posts. I have, at last count, 236 RSS subscriptions, and I read about 30 or 40 posts a day. Here is some cool stuff I've found over the past couple of weeks. A lot of it is through secondary sources, but I don't really care:

A review of PicLens. I've tried it out, it's incredibly cool. It is a really nice graphical way of viewing pictures on a web page. You should probably download it. Try it out on a couple of Flickr explore pages once you have.

A story about Pascal Dangin, the 'Master Retoucher'. Be warned: it's very long, but very good.

A story about a miniatures photographer.

A video tutorial to make a contact trigger for a flash, with McGuiver-esque levels of primitive equipment (except for the BB gun) This allows you to do precise, high-speed photography. I really want to make one!

A Camera hack for Canon point and shoot cameras, giving them Raw capabilities amongst other things.

A good way to find nice colour combinations for Lightroom web galleries, or anything else which can have a colour combination.

Lastly, a couple more of my photos of the rapeseed field from last Monday:





Have a nice weekend!