A renaissance man for the twenty-first century!
Is a bad snap of a good cow even thinkable? Hardly!
I took this snap of a cow relaxing in Liechtenstein while doing the so-called Drei Schwestern-Steig, a famous hiking trail leading to a set of three magnificent peaks (well, I was doing the hike, not the cow):
And here is a nice snap of some mountain flowers that I took near the cow:
For me it would really be interesting to know if cows like to eat flowers – or if they avoid them – or even if they care one way or the other?
Quite a new church, not yet more than two centuries old:
Magnificent snap of the sun setting over the desert of Abu Dhabi,
It‘s still over 40 C in temperature, and as far as I could tell my camera is pointed at a large military installation of some kind.
Continuing the series, here is a magnificent snap of some high tech garbage compactors in Zurich:
I think if I were a used cardboard box at the end of my life, then it would be a privilege for me to be stuffed and smashed into such a nice looking and nice smelling contraption such as this!
Literally, a sign about leadership. But at the same time, one that also shows leadership.
I spotted this at the mind-blowing Mall of Dubai Mall,
It’s a map of Dubai, but with a little description next to each landmark showing when and how it was founded by some member of the royal family that owns Dubai.
And this is probably my favorite bit, down at the lower right corner,
An inspirational message showing the leader (owner?) of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, looking stoically upward. Indeed, his profile on LinkedIn has this message: “We are building a new reality for our people, a new future for our children, and a new model of development.”
I’ve seen machines like this since I was a small child – and it is definitely on my bucket list to learn how they work.
As you can see, not an artistic snap, not an interesting subject, and no crazy stories to tell.
Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.
I thought this might turn out interesting and artistic, but it most certainly did not.
I chopped it up into small pieces, added it to some carbonara sauce, and let it cook at very low temperature for about 30 minutes. The broccoli imparted a really nice flavor to the sauce.
Downtown cargo train, that is. It is quite an usual sight, but in fact cargo trains regularly plow through the center of the Swiss city of Zürich, as their are a few breweries and older industries that are still in business, even though the metropolitan city encroached around them.
This particular train has a locomotive in the rear, and the person in front is communicating with the train driver via a remote box:
I took this breathtaking snap just as the Moon was rising over Winterthur:
I’m sure the more normal types of photographers that use Adobe PhotoShop and spend lots of time enhancing their images could really make this one look great – but I post exclusively images that I capture on my little point-and-shoot camera, with no special effects or re-touching at all.
Sorry to disappoint, but this snap has nothing whatsoever to do with DevOps or Kubernetes – but it does involve containers!
Given that shipping containers can be had for less than USD 3000, how cool is this?!? And, why don’t we see more of this???
Since taking this snap I’ve realized how interesting shipping containers are. In fact, there is one author who has claimed that the development of the shipping container was one of the top 50 inventions that has revolutionized mankind.
Sadly, I don’t presently know much about these containers – but I intend to learn. In forthcoming blog entries I intend to explore this topic much more deeply.
I would have been a tad happier if the background were a bit blurrier, but I took this snap with my iPhone 8 rather than my point-and-shoot, so opportunists can’t be perfectionists!
Although most people think of Alsace when they think of storks, in fact southern Germany but also northern Switzerland has some.
Here is the Swiss village of Wiesendangen, and on top of the tower you can see a little platform for a stork:
No stork there at the moment – just a few weeks ago I spotted huge flocks of them on their yearly migration. Some of them migrate to northern Africa where they over-winter, others migrate to Spain. Some, however, seem to not migrate at all – and it is not uncommon to find a few still in Europe during the winter.
Continuing the series, I have no idea who did this?
I have no idea why they did this.
I have no idea when they did this.
But I do know that one of the main roads leading into Winterthur has been planted with plane trees, just like in Provence!
Here is a snap from Provence:
And here is a snap from Winterthur:
This is the world famous Gare de Lyon – but it is not located in the French city of Lyon, but rather Paris:
With around 90 Mio PAX per year, it’s the third busiest railway station in France!
Update on 17. October 2019: Interestingly, I just learned that the city of Lyon itself is the third largest city in France. This is quite some coincidence: the namesake of the third largest railway station in France is the third largest city in France! How cool is that?!
Interestingly, there are around 30 drawbridges that connect Manhattan to one of the other New York boroughs.
This is what they call an elevated drawbridge, because the center piece elevates. I am not sure which one this is – and I haven’t been bothered to look it up!
And this one is called a swing bridge – although if you ask me, rotating bridge is a more apt name:
Considering it was built by the Romans in the year 2 AD, this building in the southern France city of Nimes is in surprisingly good shape:
The Queensboro Bridge connects the New York borough of Manhattan with the borough of Queens:
Given that “borough” is spelled “borough” I’ve never quite understood why the Queensboro Bridge is not spelled Queensborough.
For a while I lived among the Russian mafia in a very usual neighborhood at the southern edge of the capital city of Sofia in the wonderful country of Bulgaria. The neighborhood was called Драгалевци, or Dragalevtsi.
Here is a view from Dragalevtsi looking towards downtown Sofia:
And here is another view looking down towards Sofia:
By the way, those are the Balkan Mountains off to the distance in the north.
But what does this have to do with the Russian mafia, you might ask?
Well, Bulgaria – next to Turkey – which itself is next to the Middle East – is not only infamous as Europe’s most corrupt country, but in fact infamous because it’s a major gateway into Europe for illegal things like drugs, and a major gateway out of Europe for illegal things like smuggled women.
Of course, no self-respecting Russian mafioso would spend too much time in any of the hotels in Sofia, so they all lived in massive chalets they built in the neighborhood of Dragalevtsi. This made Dragalevtsi into something of the Beverly Hills of Sofia. I don’t think any of them lived here full-time – mainly, I assume, they stayed here during business trips.
Anyway, here is a snap of one of these chalets taken from my apartment:
I always thought it would be wonderful to count a few powerful Russian mafioso’s among my friends, so since I was living next to them, I did everything I could to meet them!
Sadly, with little success.
The Russian mafia are people like anyone else, and from time to time I’d see one of them shopping in the posh local Dragalevtsi supermarket, called Супермаркет МАКС, or “Supermarket MAX.” Whereas normal supermarkets in Sofia catered to the Bulgarian locals, who on average earned around EUR 250 / month – in fact this supermarket specialized in caviar and Cuban cigars and many other things that normal Bulgarians could not afford.
The mafia were easy to spot: in the parking lot I’d see a large, armored Rolls-Royce – engine running – with the driver wearing white gloves. More often then not my mobile phone would stop working – I think they carried mobile phone jammers in their cars. And standing next to them in the supermarket would be two enormous Russian bodyguards, with the obligatory black leather trenchcoats.
I tried. And I tried and I tried and I tried. And sadly, there was only a single time I could start a conversation with one of these guys. In fact, he came up to me, and in surprisingly good English he remarked that I looked like a foreigner – I told him I worked for Hewlett-Packard as an IT guy. I was hoping he would invite me over for a cigar and brandy.
But sadly, he just shrugged and walked away.
(Interesting aside: on the weekends I’d usually rent a car from Herz, then go exploring the Bulgarian countryside. The fellow at Herz told me that the rental cars will never be stolen, because of the Herz label on the back: the rental car companies all have contracts with the mafia. But, he told me, should the car be stolen, under no circumstances should I call the police. Instead he gave me a private telephone number, and he told me the car would be returned in less than 24 hours! It was a very interesting time for me – the Bulgarians are incredible, great, passionate people. But I also have more great experiences involving corruption than I could ever tell!)
For me this is no once-in-a-lifetime breathtaking shot – it was what I saw nearly every morning when I lived in the Berner Oberland:
What I never understood then and still don‘t understand now is where these unique colors come from. These purples were the standard morning colors.
Most scientists agree that when the Mount Niesen supervolcano (shown to the right) erupts again, all life in Europe will be eliminated. As with the Yellowstone supervolcano in the U.S., fortunately no eruptions are predicted anytime soon.
Looking south on a cool summer’s day:
A beach is a beach is a beach? Not so. Padre Island National Seashore is the largest undeveloped, untouched barrier island, not just in the United States but in the world! It’s long enough and isolated enough that, after even a modest drive, you are truly on your own: no mobile telephone services, and indeed no other human beings for 30+ miles in any direction.
This is a fake version of a real apartment buildng in the Gutschick neighborhood of Winterthur:
Just for the record: the photos I post are never in any way retouched or enhanced or changed – except for cropping.
But in this series of blog posts entitled FAKE I publish some rather interesting images I have enhanced in some way.
Continuing the series, another shot of the amazing robotically-operated garbage trucks in Texas:
I have very much mixed feelings about this blog post. Sadly, Texas is the state where the largest proportion of residents have diabetes – at least count, over 60% of all Texas have diabetes. This leads to mobility problems and, ultimately for many suffers, huge numbers of people with amputated feet.
But in contrast to other countries or even other states, Texas stores do their best to enable their customers who are mobility limited.
This is no unusual sight at the entrance of any store in Texas, be it do-it-yourself store or supermarket or any other large store: a fleet of battery operated buggies:
And this is no unusual sight in any supermarket:
So you can see: it is a real tragedy that so much of the population suffer from health problems – but it is a real blessing that commercial enterprises have done their best to enable their mobility limited customers.
I can’t think of any other state than Texas that offers so many commercial opportunities via the drive-thru channel.
Here is a drive thru bank. You stay in your car, and real people (called bank tellers) pass money to you via pneumatic tubes:
America is highly segregated into areas that reflect the financial class of the residents. So here is a similar shot at a much fancier bank in a much more affluent neighborhood:
Need to hand in your cowboy boots for a good cleaning or a bit of repair, handy if you can stay in your three-axel, 6 wheel, 300 HP pickup truck to do it:
And last but not least, it does make a lot of sense that – particularly if you are sick – you stay in your automobile while you get your medication from the pharmacy:
Sadly, I don‘t have a snap to show, but some states have quite impressive drive thru liquor and beer stores. In Pennsylvania it was illegal to buy individual cans of beer – a case or 24 cans or bottles was the minimum size you could buy – so you‘d drive your car into what looked like a garage, where someone would load the beer into your car. Never seen one of these in Texas, however.