Author: kenritley

It’s hard to take good photos of big cathedrals

kenritley

MetzCathedral

This photo of the Saint-Étienne de Metz cathedral in Metz isn’t too bad – but it’s not great either. It’s just darned hard to take good photos of big buildings using mobile phones. I wonder if this is something modern architects are aware of and try to account for in their designs?

Of all the cathedrals in Europe, I think this is one of the most impressive I’ve seen. They all have flying buttresses and ornate features, but this one – and others like it in the region – are all made of a very light-colored stone that comes from this part of France. Apparently, the yellow color is due to a high iron content in the stone.

Another pretty view of Metz

kenritley

MetzFountain

When it’s summer and the sun is shining, it is hard to find prettier villages than those in Europe.  But as you’ll probably see in a few months, when it’s cold and rainy, those same views become quite dreary and depressing.

Thionville – normal city, tourists need not apply

kenritley

Thionville

Thionville (pronounced “tee-own-vee”) is a French village along the Moselle river and just on the border with Belgium. It’s a small village, and because there are no tourist attractions, you’re not likely to find any tourists here. There was some heavy fighting and a lot of casualties during WWII, so there are a lot of historical markers everywhere – but that’s it.

Is it just me, or do other people also enjoy spending time in normal places, without any tourist attractions, where everyday people grow up and spend their lives?

You can find more information about Thionville in Wikipedia – but it’s so boring, even Google won’t return this link on the first page when you search for it!

Metz – Birthplace of the Gregorian chant

kenritley

Metz

Metz (pronounced “mess”) is a wonderful old city in the northeast corner of France, in the part of France known as Lorraine. It was here that, in the 8th century, the famous religious chanting of the monks – known as Gregorian Chant  – was developed.

One thing I find so wonderful about this magnificent city is that the only tourists you will find here are French tourists. It’s generally off-the-beaten-path for world travelers, so the only people you’ll see enjoying the sights are likely to be other people from France.

Another thing I find so wonderful are the buses, which I think are among the most unusual buses in the world. They are very long and composed of many cars and they look just like trains, but they move on rubber wheels.

You can find more information about Metz in Wikipedia.

Amazing coincidence!

kenritley

Scientists will tell you there is nothing special about coincidences. As we live our lives we experience a continuous stream of sensory inputs – so it’s only natural and expected that from time to time that our internal pattern recognition systems will alert us that some random event triggers a meaningful response.

But still and all . . . I find the following story almost too incredible to be true.

Hiranandani

Just a few weeks ago I was was in Mumbai. With well over 15 million inhabitants it’s slated to become the world’s largest mega-city by the year 2020.  And on one evening I was enjoying the warm weather, walking down a street in the posh district of Hiranandani, when I accidentally ran into a friend and previous colleague of mine, Sandhya!  The last time we had seen each other was in 2007 – when she and I were both in Bangalore, a city some 500 km to the south of Mumbai.  I had no idea she moved to Mumbai, and she had no idea I was there on business.

Is this an amazing coincidence?!

We agreed to meet a few days later for coffee. At the time, back in the day, she was the best software engineer I knew. (At a very young age she absolutely mastered a very complex document management system, Documentum.) And I was both impressed and thrilled that she continued in her career, now a senior project manager leading huge international projects with dozens of people for the Indian company Cognizant!  Way to go, Sandhya!

 

My first few hours with WordPress

kenritley

A few days ago I installed WordPress, because I wanted to create a new personal homepage and start blogging. And to showcase some of my writing and my music.

WordPress is fairly self-explanatory so I didn’t need a manual. And after finding the Radiate theme I quickly got the “parallax” effect I always wanted to have – not the best parallax I’ve seen (no pun), but better than the old static web-pages.  But I quickly hit a limit: I could find no easy and straightforward way to create a photo album I was happy with. The only solution seemed to be to download and use various freeware plug-ins, most of which overloaded my system with spam messages inviting me to upgrade to their “pro” version.

So I took a timeout, investigated a few other CMS systems, even installed Drupal – and after another hour gave up in frustration and returned to WordPress.

So far, WordPress seems to be a fine product. But it also seems to be a home for “bait-and-switch” theme and plug-in developers, promising you much but delivering next-to-nothing in their freeware version.  And so far, I am seeing a few signs that my web-hoster might also be playing bait-and-switch, trying to get me to upgrade to the “high performance” version.