Saturday, 5 August 2017
During our boat tour focused on the architecture along the Chicago River a month ago, we passed several bascule bridges. This one carried two sets of rails, but is now…offline. Bascule bridges have a big counterweight, and on this one it sits/hangs above the tracks when the bridge is down.
The first bridge across the Chicago River was a pedestrian bridge in approximately this location.
Tuesday, 13 June 2017
Today’s two excitements are not on the same plane. First, the gardenias have reached full scent. And that is some glorious plant-perfume.
The other excitement is the brand-new iPad, the brand-new model that shipped today. It is fast and commodious (inside, at least that’s what I hear), and has a wider gamut than any of our other screens. At least, I have that on good authority.
The delivery of the new device had its own drama. Brown promised it by 7pm—and it was no-show on that schedule. I was hungry, and debated a bit, then dropped the pasta in the boiling water, figuring that, in the way of these things, would get it to show up. Yup. Right at 7:15.
Dinner and an iPad.
Friday, 9 June 2017
(Translation from the IKEA lingo = ) A half-dozen inexpensive steak knives. Meaning they saw a bit more than slice. Which can be workable, but, better that a steak knife cuts.
Didn’t serve beef-steak this evening, but pork tenderloin medallions with sautéed mushrooms. Mmmm.
An independent evaluator might rule that I’m skipping the day’s household headline: GooFiber arrived! We now are speedy-fast! The speed metric increased from 20ish to over 900! That’s acceleration! Pad your neck and avoid whiplash!
Saturday, 20 May 2017
We spent most of the day at a 170-acre living history village-and-rural-area that is paired with an indoor museum of transportation. We began in the rural area. At least a half-dozen stone cottages in different styles and dates offer the opportunity to think about heating/cooking with coal or peat turves and living in close proximity to farm animals. One cottage (no photo) even had a byre at one end and family space at the other—with no wall in between; maybe it was only used seasonally, however.
We enjoyed a long chat with a spade-smith; he makes spades, not shovels (shovels are for loose materials). This is his water-powered trip hammer. 3K pounds of pressure per smack. No water flowing to make it trip today….
And this is a shot from a 1940 news-reel/documentary about spade and shovel making in the town of Monard, County Cork. With water power and coal-fired forges. Laborers worked six days a week. On the seventh they went to church, played gambling games, and played music and danced. Ireland had a great diversity of spade and shovel types. Over a hundred, and then many different sizes of each. Diversity.
John tried a bullfighter move with these geese. No horns involved, thankfully, just hissing.
Me, I had a chat with this horse (we think in a field next to the museum property).
And we both had a moment with this donkey. One lady looked around for grass-not-nettles and fed her a small handful. Happy day for the donkey.
This wall is cut-away and labeled to highlight the crucks—those curving beams that go up from the ground and support the roof beams. I think folks used ropes to bend trees to make the needed shapes. Crucks were also used in ship-building.
Here’s the fireplace in one apartment in a row of village/urban row-homes with this small room downstairs, two teensy bedrooms upstairs, and a tiny yard out back with a water closet and coal bin, and a bit more room for washing laundry, etc. I thought this is the kind of place where TB would have spread quickly.
Look at the rows of tools etc. in this carpenter’s shop.
Next we went across the highway to the Transport Museum. Of course, we started with trains. This is the shamrock detail on the County Donegal Railways seal.
Here’s the third-class area on a train carriage. They had to pass a law in Ireland to make the railways put roofs and sidewalls on third-class spaces. They used to be like riding in a cart—just relatively low side walls, with riders fully exposed to the weather.
Loved this stylized image of Giant’s Causeway and the cliffs that frame it even today. I think I read that this began to be a travelers’ destination in the 1700s. !!
Cars, too! An MGB Roadster, 1975 model.
Droney made two short runs, and the Guru captured the lovely shadow from this long railroad bridge during the first one.
Wednesday, 19 April 2017
The buds and petals are long gone…and we now have this cascade of glossy dogwood leaves.
We also caught the sunset light (sunset above the trees, anyway) from The Heights. Here’s the almost-landed moment, when Droney and its shadow look like a grey crab.
Sunday, 9 April 2017
Today’s techno-rumblings were situated in the past. You can tell by how spaced out the solderings are on the mother-board. If in fact this is a mother-board.
Saturday, 1 April 2017
The Guru took Droney out for a sunset run, and we’ll have to start a bit earlier next time. The camera makes it darker that it seemed to me, but. This was the return leg. No, Droney was not chased home by a vee of geese….
Sunday, 26 February 2017
Sometimes I find a photo subject, maybe backlit like this hyacinth. I kneel, I try several angles, and I feel that I do okay, but maybe could do more….
And then, with the macro-lens, I get very close, and the same subject becomes totally different. Or mostly different.
Thursday, 16 February 2017
A ride-through car wash is a rather unsettling experience. However, I don’t yearn for the economy of Oaxaca when we lived there years ago, and (incredibly cheap—to me—and off-street) downtown parking included a car wash as enticement for your business—totally done by hand by men/boys with buckets of scarce water and rags.
I know garbanzos are beans and beans have pods, but garbanzos in pods still catch my eye as a curiosity.
Monday, 13 February 2017
We had alternate coffee this morning, not the regular drip but instead moka-pot-style espresso. The process results in a coffee-puck after the water passes through the grounds. And the top of the puck has little dots or holes from the passage of the steam-hot water.
Extra caffeine, I think….