Shannon's Ceilidh O'Fun II

Come celebrate the greenest day of the year with the only person we know that grows greens this time of year. No alternative but to come or suffer being green with envy.

Ok, 'nuff green talk for now. Here's the details: This Friday is not only Shannon's birthday, but apparently it's St. Patrick's Day. So come drink beer or other stuff and celebrate. Woo hoo! "Shannon's Ceilidh O'Fun II" will begin at Leopold Bros around 9pm.

FAQs

Q: What the heck is "Ceilidh"?
A: A Ceilidh (usually pronounced "Kay-lee" with emphasis on the first syllable) can be many things. Derived from the Gaelic word meaning a visit, it can also mean a house party, a concert or the dictionary definition: an informal social gathering at which there is Irish or Scottish folk music, singing, dancing and, story telling. While there will likely be limited traditional Irish stuff at my Ceilidh (you never know) anyone wishing to contest my use of the word should consider that my name is Shannon, I was born on St. Patrick's Day, and I am part Irish.

Q: Will there be some good Craic at your Ceilidh?
A: Ah, I'm glad you brought this up. I'll put it this way, I would have used Craic in the name but I didn't want to have to explain two words to people and I didn't want the police to hear about it and come looking for the Craic house. But, yes, you will not want to miss it.

Q: Can one really have 'nuff green talk?
A: No, not really, but this post has to end at some point.

Q: So you grow greens? How greens? Why greens? Where greens? When greens? What greens?
A: The Brines Farm brines.org site should answer some of that anyway.

Q: I won't be able to make it, any other opportunities to wish you a happy birthday?
A: Well, you just missed one in this question. You could probably come over the following day, Saturday 3/18, when we plan on part II of Ceilidh II, playing some board and card games and such after 8ish.

Q: Is Brines an Irish name?
A: Yes. While I personally might be considered a mutt (although don't even think of questioning my Irish authenticity, please refer to first FAQ above) the Brines name in my family descends from a couple of Brines brothers who came to the new world in the late 1700s from Ireland. Brines is believed to be a variation of the old Gaelic surname O Briain ("descendent of Brian") with other variations including Brine, McBrine, McBrien, O'Brien, OBrine, O'Brion, O'Bryan, O'Bryen, Brian, Briand, Briant, Briens, etc... My uncle could provide much more detail. For now, go to houseofnames.com and search For Surname "Brines" to see our kicking Coat of Arms. You can do your name after that.

Q: What's the longest amount of time Andy has gone without drinking any alcohol since he started drinking alcohol?
A: I can't say exactly but it is less than 2.1158 x 10^6 seconds.

Q: What gives? There must be a story behind that number?
A: Yes. You got me. Upon first reading the previous question I was a bit offended, should I really devote valuable FAQ space to a question which did not appear to have any particular relevance to my Ceilidh. Or anything for that matter. Perhaps you thought this too dear reader. Of course, it didn't take long before I realized I should at least contact the daughter of a pro baseball pitcher to ensure that Leopolds would have enough volume of liquids for friday night. Then as I continued to think more about this, an eerie feeling came over me: there is something distinctly omnipresent about his drinking and something distinctly infinitesimally small about his, er, time gap between drinking. (Note: I also noted the correlation between time gaps to his public mentions of times he got or desired to get naked.) On a whim, I contacted some of my physics friends from a previous life. It didn't take long to get a little scared for they confessed to me that this indeed is a topic of the utmost importance that has been under secret research. Eventually I was put into contact with Dr. Claudia Sintermann of a secret wing of the extragalactic research group, a joint effort between the Max Planck Institut fur extraterrestriche Physik and the Universitaets-Sternwarte Muenchen (Europeans are always ahead on these matters). She quickly conveyed to me the unbelievably amazing situation beginning with the fact that since Andy started drinking it is theoretically impossible that he has gone more than 2.1158 x 10^6 seconds without drinking. You might ask how she could be so sure, which is indeed what I asked. "We're still here," was Dr. Sintermann's astonishing reply. As it turns out, Andy has been her soul body of research and remote observation since that fateful day he started drinking - a day that is tremendously more historic than any of us would have ever guessed. That day coincides with the first ever detection of weakly interacting massive particles by the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search detector at the Soudan Mine in Minnesota. These weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, were previously theoretical so their detection really caught a lot of attention, but there has been much more to come. Since that time more WIMPs have been detected and tracked to their source of accretion or emission: Andy's gut. Way more surprising than that according to Dr. Sintermann has been the detection and observation of one or more massive compact halo object, or MACHO, also seemingly in Andy's gut. While many are shocked and awed and at a loss to explain this woven coexistance of particles and astronomical bodies at such a minute scale, let alone here on earth (to say nothing of in a human body), Dr. Sintermann appears to be the purveyor of the leading theory. She believes that somehow that first ingestion of alcohol caused the proverbial rupture or tear in the fabric of space-time (an oft overused and cliche plotline in horrible hollywood creations and cheap sci-fi novels (although occasionally used with stellar style on exquisite blogs)). She cannot say with any certainty what caused the tear and what happened immediately following but she adamantly theorized that a black hole formed in Andy's gut, or in other words, a door to another universe was opened. What she can say with certainty about Andy's gut is that there are observable WIMPs surrounding an observable inner MACHO, which again she theorizes is likely shrouding a unique singularity or black hole. The formation of all of this was not an inherently stable situation by any stretch of the imagination she mused, noting that she was part of a camp that believed a perfect balance has been or is close to being achieved. It all comes back to the aforementioned 2.1158 x 10^6 seconds. According to Dr. Sintermann's calculations, for the forseeable future, the continued ingestion of alcohol, or dark matter (albeit generally a fairly light matter typically originating in Canada) within that timeframe supplies enough for lack of a better word to "feed" the black hole. Otherwise, it would collapse upon itself leading to a supernova or modern day big bang, in other words, irrevocably altering the universe as we know it. So, we should all be simply grateful beyond limits that Andy does indeed ingest alcohol, and do not need to meddle in the exact longest amount of time or shortest amount of time for that matter between consumption, as long as it's less than 2.1158 x 10^6 seconds of course, that we know is imperative. So cheers to Andy and cheers to you dear reader. Oh, by the way, leave a seat open next to Andy at the Ceilidh - gonna try to hook him up with Dr. Claudia Sintermann.

Q: My question is not listed here, can I ask it?
A: Yes. FAQ sections are always under construction. Ask away to sjbrines at umich dot edu.