James E. O'Brien

I lived in Seaside Oregon for a couple of years in the mid 90′s, and never have I lived anywhere that felt more like home. I lived in a small studio apartment just across the street from the Pacific ocean. Around sunset, I could usually be found walking along the surf line watching fantastic sunsets . While I am happy to be back living in the Northwest, my heart still longs for the day I move back to Seaside Oregon for good. In the meantime, I try to get down to Seaside once or twice a year just to walk the beach and smell the ocean air.

I also found a private webcam that was generously made available to the public to log into and even control. you can pan and zoom the camera along the surf and even zoom in for a view of Seaside from the waterfront. I don’t know who the person is that set up the webcam, but they have my gratitude. I’ve also seen this webcam embedded on a Seaside Realty website.

Most people call their mother or send her a card or present on her Birthday. That’s not an option for me, as my mother and I severed ties between us when I was 14 years old. Since then, my mother and I have communicated briefly maybe five times.

Still, I think about her from time to time, especially today, March 27, her Birthday. I hope that she is doing OK, and hope she has finally found peace in her life. Where ever she is, and whatever she is doing in life, I hope that today, she is having a happy birthday.

Happy Birthday Yolanda Ruwald (Lijewski)

They silenced his voice, but they could not silence his message. That message states that all men are created equal in the eyes of God, they should be treated equal in the hearts and societies of man. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. would be 83 on January 15, 2012, had he not been taken from us. He was shot because some people didn’t like his message, nor that it was spreading all over the United States. Dr. King preached for racial equality for all people, tolerances for all people, and peace and for justice for all people.

I’m glad to see that the dream does live on. Maybe not every body shares that dream, that’s their choice. I share that dream, as do many others. We have made great strides in reaching racial equality, but we still have a long way to go. I believe we will get there one day. They took the Reverend from us, thinking they could shut him up. But the Reverend’s spirit is too strong and has touched too many lives for his message to fade into the night. The reverend’s message is strong today, lest we forget.

I Have a Dream Footage

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination. The speech, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.

I Have a Dream Transcription

Reverend Martin Luther King speaking:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

From time to time, the company I work for will send me out on projects for our clients. Up to now, all the locations I have been sent to have been in the state of Washington. This time however, I was asked to drive down to Oregon to pick up some equipment and take it to southern California.

To me, it sounded like a perfect opportunity to take some pictures, so I happily accepted. One thing I always bring with me on these assignments is my camera kit, a Sony DSLR and a few nice  lenses that I got for developing a website for a photographer in Seattle. I’m not a very good photographer, artistically speaking, more functional really. But I do love taking pictures of interesting scenery.

I’ve picked out a few pictures here to showcase. If you want to see the complete gallery, Click Here

 Please click on these pictures to view a larger version.

Grants Pass, Oregon

Pyramid Dam, California

Redondo Beach, California

Redondo Beach, California

If you want to see the complete gallery, Click Here

This being October, the month of one of my favorite holidays, I thought I’d share a little Photoshop magic with you. Most everyone pretty much knows what Photoshop is; a mainstream program used by graphic designers to create and manipulate images. I use Photoshop extensively for retouching pictures and creating my own graphics. I also use Photoshop to create a variety of graphics and do photo restorations, but that’s an article for another day.

In this article, I would like to showcase my infamous vampire pictures that seem to get mixed reviews from people who see it. Some people think it’s cool photoshopping, and I thank them, and others think it’s down right creepy, and I thank them too. So how is it done? Well, you first start off with a photograph. For my vampire, I used a simple picture that my daughter Laurel took of me at the Kubota Gardens in Seattle a couple of summers ago. It’s hard to get a regular, straight picture of me, as was the case in this picture.

(Click on the images to see a larger image)

When I saw the picture Laurel took of me, I thought “hmm, I wonder how I’d look with fangs?” So, I went to my Photoshop, and created fangs. I use layers when I work in Photoshop so I can have complete control of what ever element I am working with. After I made my fangs, I created a couple other layers. One to remove all but the black and white tones from my skin, one for my eyes, and one for my mouth. When I was done, this is what I had.

Cool, but why stop there? A few more layers, and I have snake eyes, bloody gums, a new background, and some shading to intensify my inner evil self.  I’m just kidding about the inner evil self part, or am I?

Alternative Graphic Editors

As you can see, Photoshop gives the ability to create just about anything the imagination can conceive. The only drawback to Photoshop is that it is an expensive piece of software, and it is a complex program to learn to use. If you are interested in trying your hand at creating graphics or retouching photographs, there are free alternatives, that will give you enough capabilities to explore your creative side.

Gimp – This open source Photoshop alternative can do most of what Photoshop can do, such as working with layers and masks, and creating special effects. Like Photoshop, Gimp requires some time and dedication to learn, but it is free, and there are great forums on the web with tons of how-to tutorials to help you get going.

Paint.net – This is one of the best free programs for beginners. Paint.net offers a huge selection of special effects and it is fairly easy to use.

Of course, if you’d rather not spend your time and resources learning how to create your own photographic retouches, you can always drop me a line. My rates are reasonable and my work is guaranteed to satisfy.

It started out with a co-worker and I deciding to go skydiving, and quickly became a company picnic with ten of us, including the president of Puget Systems, going skydiving. For each of us, it was our first time actually jumping out of an airplane. Albeit, we all jumped in tandem, with instructors strapped to our backs, it was still the most thrilling event I have ever partaken in.

July 13, 2007

Blue Sky Skydiving, Bremerton Washington

We chose Blue Sky Skydiving because of its location and reputation. Bremerton provides an excellent view of the Puget Sound at 13,500 feet. Just 911 feet short of the top of Mount Rainier, the view is breath-taking.

July 13, 2007 was a cloudy morning, which threatened our plans to skydive. You need to have a ceiling of at least 10,000 feet of clear sky to skydive. We kept watch on a radio tower on a nearby hilltop. When we could see the top of that tower clearly, we had 10,000 feet.

While we waited for the skies to clear, we all went through the tandem class, which basically was a safety lecture and video, and signing the legal release that put all responsibility of injury or death upon ourselves, a standard practice.

Twenty or so people from Puget Systems came out to the event. The ten of us that signed up to jump focused on preparing for the jump by asking questions of the experienced jumpers and instructors, and observing how the parachutes were packed and how the harnesses were rigged, the rest of us worked on preparing the picnic and enjoying the festivities.

Finally, the sky cleared, and we were given the go ahead to suit-up and get ready to jump. Daniel Brown and I were the first to go up, which was fitting since Daniel and I were the original instigators of this adventure. Our instructors strapped us securely into our tandem harnesses and explained how the process of getting into position and jumping from the airplane was going to work. The instructor’s harness has 4 or 5 heavy clasps that fasted to the back of the tandem harness, but that connection is not made until you board the plane. Let me tell you about the harness; there is no way that a human being is going to break out of that harness. You are in there very snug and it makes you walk like a Sumo wrestler.

As we got ready to board the plane, I turned to my instructor and told him that there are two things I did not want to hear him say. The first was anything that sounded like “Oh shit!”. the second was “nice ass”, I have an odd sense of humor. My instructor had a great sense of humor, and he just laughed and promised me a good ride. He came through on that promise.

We boarded the plane, a turbo propeller something-or-other, with four other experienced jumpers. We waved goodbye to our fellow employees on the ground, hoping quietly that we would be seeing them soon, and then the plane took off. At about 10,000 feet, the air started feeling a bit thin. No problem, you just breathe slow and deep. When we reached 13,500 feet, we leveled off and circled around to the drop zone. The excitement was mounting with each passing minute, until finally, the pilot declared that we were over the drop zone.

Two of the experienced skydivers jumped first. Let me tell you, it was strange and yet interesting to see people sitting outside the airplane with their clothes and hair flapping furiously in the wind, and then just suddenly disappear from sight without a sound. Daniel and I just looked at each other, gauging each other’s reaction, secretly wondering if the other was going to chicken out. I knew I was going to jump, and Daniel showed no signs of backing out either.

I was next, so shuffled my way to the open side door, with my instructor securely fastened to my harness. I hope I never forget the view and sensation of sitting with my body completely outside of the airplane as we sped along at 13,500 feet. Looking down, I had no clue where the drop zone was. It was just a tiny little dot somewhere on the ground that seemed too far away to fathom. Looking out, I could see the curvature of the earth and Mount Rainier’s majestic presence in the horizon. The Navy’s aircraft carriers and battleships  in Bremerton looked smaller than the pieces of a Battleship game.

Finally, my instructor gave me the signal to tuck and get ready to roll. He tapped my shoulder three times, and we were gone, airborne, free-falling. The first thing I saw as I rolled upside down, was the airplane about twenty feet from me, leaving me quickly behind as my horizontal speed decreased and my vertical drop increased. A moment later, he had us flipped facing the earth, and that was when I knew that this was the most thrilling  experience of my life.

With my arms extended, it was easy to point myself north, east, west, or south simply by using my hands like airplane rudders. The wind roared in my ears and pressed my goggles hard into my face. I could feel my cheeks rippling in the wind, and sure enough, when I opened my mouth, my cheeks filled up like an old-time horn player. It was amazing to watch the earth slowly rise up to meet me. As we got closer to the earth, I could start to make out details, and I found the drop zone.

Another tap on my shoulder told me to get ready for the chute to be deployed. This was a moment that I was not looking forward too. The harness I wore already had my legs feeling like they might never fit quite right in my pelvic sockets, I didn’t want to imaging what it was going to feel like when I suddenly stopped free-falling. I heard the rustling sounds behind me as the chute started to deploy, and a few moments later, I felt the inertia as my free fall suddenly became a resistive force against the open canopy some sixty feet above my head, and my body was suddenly pulled from a horizontal free fall to suddenly being vertical. The jolt really wasn’t that bad, it was actually kind of smooth.

Suddenly it was very quiet. The wind no longer tore through my clothes, or distorted my face, and I could clearly hear my instructor talking to me. He told me to get ready as he pulled one of the lines he had in his hands to control our decent. As he pulled the line, our parachute started doing circles, and so did we. If you have ever seen a parachutist spinning gently under his shoot, let me tell you, there is nothing gentle about it. The G-force pulled me so hard into my harness, I was sure my legs were going to pop out of their sockets. I didn’t say anything about it to my instructor though, I just hung on for the ride.

We circled around as we approached the landing zone, and as we got within a few hundred feet, I started to feel like we were approaching the ground a little too fast. But, I was wrong, we came into a slide landing as smooth as you could ever want. I was suddenly sad to see my great adventure come to an end. I knew that from that moment on, my perspective on life would never be quite the same. I had just jumped out of an airplane at 13,500 feet, and survived without injury, minus the slight soreness in my hips, which was quickly forgotten. What could possibly top that?

Ten of us signed up to jump that day, and ten of us did jump. It was the greatest company picnic I have ever experienced, and it is now a fond memory. Thank you for letting me share it with you. If you haven’t ever skydived, you should. Put your fears aside and just do it. I promise you that you will not be disappointed.

Pictures are available here

Years ago, before my Uncle Rick passed away, he gave me a picture of our family coat of arms, the original image on the left. I rebuilt the image element by element in Photoshop until I completely redesigned the crest.  I think I am going to take my design and have it made in a 3 dimensional metal wall plaque.

(Click on an image for a larger view)

The O'Brien Family Coat of Arms (My recreation)

The O'Brien Family Coat of Arms (Original Image)

History of the O’Brien Surname

O’Brien is a surname of Irish origins meaning descendant of Brien (the Brien in this case being Brian Boru). O’Brien is in Irish Ó Briain, from the personal name Brian.

The meaning of this is problematic. It may come from bran, meaning “raven”, or, more likely, from Brion, a borrowing from the Celtic ancestor of the Welsh which contains the element bre-, meaning “hill” or “high place”. By association, the name would then mean “lofty’ or “eminent”. Whatever the initial meaning of the word, the historic origin of the surname containing it is clear. It simply denotes a descendant of Brian Boramha Boru, “Brian of the Tributes”, High King of Ireland in 1002, and victor at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.

Brian was member of the relatively obscure Ui Toirdealbhaigh, part of the Dal gCais tribal grouping based in the Clare/Limerick area. The O’Brien name will be forever linked with the town of Killaloe because it was there that Brian Boru had his palace of Kincora, “Ceann Cora’dh”. He was the grandson of Lorcan and the son of MacCinneide (Kennedy and his wife Bebinn). Their home was near the mountain called Slieve Beragh, where the guardian spirit of his tribe, the banshee Arval was said to watch over them from her lofty brooding crag.. Lough Derg was nearby as was the River Shannon. He was educated at Clonmacois. In 959, his father was crowned king on the Rock of Cashel.

The traditional inauguration site of the, O’Briens is outside the village of Quin at a place called Magh Adhair. All that remains is a large mound of earth but to the discerning eye of the historian or genealogist traces of former glory can still be seen.

Having secured control of the Dal gCais in 976, Brian defeated and killed the Eoghanacht king of Munster two years later, and proceeded to wage deadly war against the kingdoms of Connacht, Meath, Leinster and Breifne. Eventually he secured submission (and tributes) from all but the northern Ui Neill, the Leinsterman and the Vikings. His victory at Clontarf united all of Ireland, nominally at least, under a single leader, though Brian himself was slain. The first individual clearly to use O’Brien as a genuinely hereditary surname was Donogh Cairbre O’Brien, son of the king of Munster, Donal Mor. His descendants split into a number of branches, including the O’Briens of Aherlow, the O’Briens of Waterford, the O’Briens of Arra in north Tipperary, and the O’Briens of Limerick, where the surname is perpetuated in the name of the barony of Pubblebrien.

Sometime between 1206 and 1216 Donnchadha Cairbreach O’Brien established his capital in Ennis – now the principal town in Clare. In 1247 this same O’Brien gave shelter to some wandering friars and they proceeded over the years to build the magnificent Ennis Abbey (now a ruin).
The Inchiquin Tomb here houses the bodies of King Turlough O’Brien who died in 1306, Murrough who died in 1551 and the later Barons of Inchiquin. In 1460 Bishop Donnchadha O’Brien of Killaloe (now the cathedral town of Clare) was killed here by Brian O’Brien.

The O’Briens were of the clan of Dal gCais as were many other powerful Claremen. Originally to be a Dalcassian meant that you came from the area around the border of Clare and Tipperary but nowadays it is used to cover all of County Clare.

The O’Brien name is also famous for its association with Maire Rua McMahon who first married a Neylon of Dysert O’Dea and on his death married Conor O’Brien who was killed by Parliamentary forces in 1651. This Maire Rua O’Brien is the stuff of legends as she is remembered in the countryside for her outstanding courage and also for her temper. She is reputed to have hung her maidservants by the hair and her menservants by the neck from the corbels of her castle. She always rode a black stallion who objected to anyone else on his back. Legend says that Maria Rua used to get rid of unwanted suitors by letting them ride the horse at great speed to the 700 foot high Cliffs of Moher, here the horse would stop suddenly and you can guess the rest. Maria Rua’s ghost is supposed to be imprisoned in a hollow tree on the avenue of Carnelly House in Clarecastle. Visit there on a windy night if you dare!

From the “Annals of the Four Masters”

Source: www.geni.com