grey grey grey

A Bored Bird on the Beach

Considering the strong beak, I guess this one likes shellfish. But I am not sure.

I am however sure that (s)he was bored at the time, and that the wind was coming from the left.

PS: I looked it up, this appears to be a crested tern of some sort. As such it would eat fish, not shellfish. Only problem is that they are supposed to migrate to South America in the winter, and these ones (there were a lot of them) were in North America in february. The bird had no comment on this.

Under Siege

Ok "Under Siege" was a really bad movie, I won't link to credits in case they want to sue me. But here is another conspiracy:

I live in that little house.


Yesterday, some official looking people dug trenches along the whole block, it was hard to leave the place.

Today they show up with these spools of stuff, they are as tall as half the house. Maybe it is electronic equipment to listen to what I publish? Oh wait, what I publish is public.

This stuff is just piping for more cables, brought to you by Bell Canada. It just looks funny in front of the little house.

just plain silly

You thought the Roman Empire was dead?

Evidently they are trying to come back.

If you don't know German, the politician (you figured this out, right) is asking to give him your first vote. In Germany, you have 2 votes, the first for a particular candidate, the second for a political party.

I don't know if Cajus was elected.

enough with the cold stuff

Here is what could be a picture of a UFO, except ...

First the alien spacecraft explanation:


Clearly this shows a cylindrical spacecraft, descending towards the left of the picture. It is using a very unusual drag-chute to slow it down. American and Russian spacecraft don't use this kind of chute, so it is probably an alien design.


But there are some things wrong with that explanation:

(a) "Clearly" - the picture is actually clear and in pretty good focus. This just doesn't happen with normal UFO pictures.

(U) It's not unidentified, I know what it is.

(F) It's not flying in the sense of descending towards the left under some sort of control.

(O) Ok, it is an object.

Of course it is a kite. A very interesting one at that.

If you look closely, you can see the strings that control it on the lower right. The wind was blowing from right to left. The cylindrical part is the tail of the kite.

OK, due to the criticism I now have found an improved picture of the descending (crashing?) alien spacecraft.


This one is obviously a night vision camera picture, you notice the greenish hue and the blurriness. Typical for the night vision cameras. As you can see the spacecraft it in a steep decline, and it crashed soon after.

brrrr

A beautiful and really cold day. Damn near killed myself taking this pic.

I was walking on a frozen pier, the scenery was so pretty, I broke through the ice 2 or 3 times, bruised my ankles pretty good. I slipped on the ice 2 or 3 other times. Could have fallen in the water, drifted out into the lake in 5 minutes. And nobody knew that I was there.

But I didn't fall in the water, and I got this view, it was worth it.

For those from warm climates, the roundish things at the bottom are not plastic things. those are rocks covered by ice.

bad weather

Some years ago (not that many), there was a bad storm where I lived. And I mean bad, more than 200 km/h wind speed, very suddenly. Trees falling down, trees twisted off.

At my house, one tree fell down, and some of the neighbors's trees too. Nobody got hurt.

Apparently one of our dogs was confused by this - was it her fault?

smoke on the water

"Smoke on the water" is an oldish rock song, by Deep Purple.

This picture is steam on the water, the Ottawa river. Some time ago I visited a friend of mine in Ottawa, and as my good timing should have it, I was there on the coldest day of the year.

Hence all the ice and also the steaming river.

So this pic is, in part, for my friends who only know cold from their freezers.

As always, you can download a big version of this one.

slowing down

This is a train station. In particular it is the train station inside the Frankfurt airport.

It is the place where you wait for your train, after you fly into Frankfurt. Usually I get there in the late morning. The blue sky above the glass roof is unusual, normally it is rainy there. Or maybe the glass is colored, I'm not sure.

Why do I call this "slowing down"? Well, the speed of the trains is somewhat slower than the airplane that you arrived on. Ok, some of those trains go 300 km/h, but not for very long.

Of course, a trans-atlantic trip basically consists of waiting. You wait for the transportation to the airport. At the airport you wait to get on the plane. In the plane, you wait for takeoff. After takeoff you wait for landing, while watching the ocean and the sky. After landing, you wait for immigration and customs. After that, you wait for the train. On the high speed train, you check out the landscape, and wait for arrival.

That is high speed transportation for you. Have to be patient.

But in any case, the architecture of this top level of the train station is pretty well done.