Belfast and the Universe🧵 My wife and two boys have now lived in Northern Ireland for a year. We’re settled and forging roots to last a lifetime. We face all the normal family struggles, but we’re happy. People often ask me why I live in Belfast when the sun and seemingly everything else seems to be back in California, where I was born and raised. And there’s no simple answer to that. A bit of adventure. Affordable housing was a big draw. There was a mystical experience at a pub in San Francisco’s Richmond district. Lots of reasons. I can’t explain it. We’re just here.

Has anyone done the Lough Derg three-day retreat in Donegal? Sounds tough but awesome - no eating or sleeping for 24 hrs? Not sure I’m strung enough for it! 🤣

Coffee with the lads is basically an Italian expression of masculinity:

Ádh mór Róis-Máire! Who becomes the THIRD Irish-speaking Lord Mayor. Niall Ó Donnghaile 2011 - 2012 Máirtín Ó Muilleoir 2013 - 2014

I tripped on a political live-wire with the below! A few folks pointing out that these Sitka pines, a North American species introduced for commercial forestry, gobble up native biodiversity. There is ferocious opposition to this tree across Ireland. Interesting.

I moved my family from London to Belfast primarily to fill my children’s childhood with memories like this. You can get in the car and ten minutes later walk through what the boys call the “misty forest.” Simple joys in natural beauty.

How great is it to have test cricket in Belfast?! Here’s Tickner bowling to Tucker. Stormont really is a magnificent venue for cricket. Next week, New Zealand will play at Lord’s in front of 30k.

The Irish mindset is accepting that the sun will soon go away and the rain will return. Which is why, when it comes to nice weather, it’s a real carpe diem kind of culture! I’ve grilled on the bbq the last four nights knowing it may be months before I grill again.

Wow - that fire in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter is emitting a lot of smoke. What building? Do we know?

Many media narratives will tomorrow cast Magnifica Humanitas in moralistic terms that focus on the tech: Pope condemns, Pope warns, etc. But its deeper purpose is to tell a story about what it means to be a human in this time. Get that right, and the moral choices become clear.

I know I’m a naive Californian and all, but it feels significant that the Irish President met King Charles and then he posts about the Fleadh. I recently met the founder of east Belfast’s Hearth session. His whole mission is to make trad everyone’s music. Awesome to live right next door. Here’s to a sunny, joyful, wonderful Fleadh and summer in Belfast!

Cool Northern Irish connection. James Martin from Crossgar, County Down co-founded Martin-Baker and invented the ejection seat after Baker died in a crash. Their company’s seats saved the pilots in yesterday’s Growler crash. @RedBSierra

Vile weather here in east Belfast, but good craic was had at Stormont for the @redbull Soapbox race. Well done to the engineers and racers!

Los Angeles is just on a different level. Sun is blazing. It’s 30c (86 Fahrenheit). And there’s a tap-dancing jazz band at the coffee shop. At NINE IN THE MORNING!

When the sun comes out, people just get moving earlier. I’m in a Los Angeles coffee shop with university students, pensioners, laptop workers, and… a LIVE jazz band. It’s 9 AM on a Monday.

The debate is rapidly shifting on nuclear energy in Ireland. Denmark is similarly reevaluating a decades-long ban.

Seeing your street transformed by the Belfast Marathon is class. Well done runners!