Eunoia
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--> Most recent Blog Comments Policy DSGVO Impressum Maths trivia Search this site RSS Feed Eunoia, who is a grumpy, overeducated, facetious, multilingual ex-pat Scot, blatantly opinionated, old (1944-vintage), amateur cryptologist, computer consultant, atheist, flying instructor, bulldog-lover, Beetle-driver, textbook-writer, long-distance biker, geocacher and blogger living in the foothills south of the northern German plains. Not too shy to reveal his true name or even whereabouts, he blogs his opinions, and humour and rants irregularly. Stubbornly he clings to his beliefs, e.g. that Faith does not give answers, it only prevents you doing any goddamn questioning. You are as atheist as he is. When you understand why you don't believe in all the other gods, you will know why he does not believe in yours. Oh, and after the death of his old dog, Kosmo, he also has a new bulldog puppy, Clara, since September 2018 :-)
Some of my bikes
My Crypto Pages
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Tuesday, May 31, 2022
BooksOver in her blog, Cop Car found in the web a list of 100 Books Everyone Should Read and highlighted those she has read. Bogie sent her a list of those she (Bogie) had read and I sent her the sublist of those 100 which I have read. About 50% of the 100er list, which was presumably assembled by an English major in the intervals between flipping burgers ;-)Now everyone has different tastes in reading; if I like an author, I'll often buy all of their works, so we have wall to wall bookshelves in many rooms of this house. Several thousand in total. For example, I have everything written by Terry Pratchett, everything written by Richard Bach, and of course the collected works of Goethe and of William Shakespeare. Did you know that many of the phrases we still use today we owe to William Shakespeare? Not only do I read lots of books, I've also written several (see right sidebar), mostly textbooks, but also a (crappy) novel which was much harder to do. I used to write e.g. short stories too, but mostly in German, 20-40 years ago. BTW, Frank Fleming wrote an interesting article in 2020 on Why do people write fiction?, the comments were interesting too. A friend who built his own sailboat and sailed up the swedish coast and down the finnish coast kept a photo-diary and turned that into a book. Another friend who rode his motorcycle up to the North Cape of Norway is turning his working-holiday diary into a book too. Personally I just write up my travel diaries in my blog, saving paper ;-) What have you written? Comments (2) Our destination though was the yacht harbour, to see the historic sailing ships. There were a few motorised yachts, the russian oligarchs' ones presumably confiscated.
No military ships, they have a separate harbour to the west, in Wilhelmshafen. This photo shows the yacht harbour as seen from Lloyd's beer garden, where we had lunch (spare ribs barbecue).
Quite a forest of tall masts and their rigging obstructing the view :-)
One of the older ships there was this well-restored Kogge. They were the medieval coastal trading ships, plying between the Hansa towns from
St. Petersberg in Russia down to harbours in France like Le Havre. Single mast with a lookout's basket (crows' nest) near the top,
simply rigged. Waterproofed with black tar. Coats of arms of the Hansa towns on display, I guess to avoid custom's duties there ;-)
Six story apartment block behind is for scale.
By far the most impressive sailing ship in the harbour was the training ship Deutschland (=Germany), built around 1900 AD. She is a three-master,
previously used by the navy. Now she has been retired, but you can visit her for a guided tour (Covid masks below deck),
stay overnight in bunks or hammocks, get married on board, hold company events on board, etc etc.
They have a webpage of photos and videos,
text only in German though, but worth looking at.
Comments (1)
We stayed in this well-renovated old fisherman's cottage; room for four/five at most.
Just 2 miles from the next village where there were two excellent fish restaurants, the 3 holiday homes were right behind the dyke (levee) which was 10/12 meters high.
So we had a 180° view out across the sea grass and tidal mud flats, a national park area.
On the way there we avoided taking the tunnel under the river Weser, instead we took the Weser ferry. The Weser here is about 800 meters/yards wide; near where we live it is about 8
meters at the ferry at Polle which we often use. Photo for width comparison.
The 2 restaurants I mentioned served excellent fresh fish; this shot shows an example. It is tiny North Sea shrimp on a sole, with 3 fried eggs, gherkins and salad.
Only there for a week, so we didn't get to sample all the fish on the menue:-(
An interesting local custom is to recycle your Xmas tree, putting it on top of the maypole erected at the start of the month. Lots and lots of cyclist tourists,
the roads there are just wide enough for one car (or tractor) next to the tourist's bike (unless they wobble).
Out in the haze over the sea you can see the small island of Neuwerk about 3 or 4 miles away. This photo was taken at high tide, when Neuwerk really is an island.
At low tide you can (just) walk across the mud flats to get there. Or you can take a horse-drawn taxi across the estuary, the safe route is marked by little bushes
planted for that purpose. This photo taken by our friend Marion, to whom thanks.
The day we tried it was too stormy, the horses were chest deep at times, so we cancelled for safety reasons as I no longer swim well.
I used to be able to swim across Lake Constance when I lived near Germany's southern border back in 1969/70.
Glad we missed that. No Paderborn friends hurt. Vacation photos to follow next.
Comments (1)
The usual tornado damage occurred : trees blown down, roof tiles torn off, trucks tipped over, trains derailed, cars blown around, complete flat roofs ripped off
from industrial buildings and pieces airborne, livestock airborne, etc etc.
There were 43 people injured, over 30 seriously. Some had been outdoors despite official warnings to stay indoors.
Some had stupidly stood at the windows to watch this rare destruction, so when the tornado blew out their windows
they were struck by shards of flying glass (aka curiosity killed the cat).
Here is a 50-sec video from the local TV station, a collation of amateur clips :-
Glad we missed that. No Paderborn friends hurt. Vacation photos to follow next.
Comments (2) Yesterday was Mothers' Day. Most moms get a card and a box of chocs. Some get a "Thankyou Mom!" ad, naming and praising them, in the local paper, always nice to read.
But there was one anonymous ad there which was unusual to say the least; I found it hilarious. I translate :-
"Well I'm 80 now, so it's time to say thankyou to all the not-moms today.
To those 40-odd ladies who shared my bed or let me share theirs over the past 64 years.
We always had safe-sex, using contraception, so none of you were a mom (by me), nor did anyone get an STD.
An example for today's generation. I remember almost all of you (except for those 3 one-night stands) and would like to say thankyou on this not-a-mom day :-)
You know who you are :-)"
I was surprised that the local (Catholic) paper let this through; Great fun!
Thanks to Sir Isaac Newton, first lord applehead and chief minter, we know
so we could say May your Ma be with you. That'd help all the teenage geeks who still need help from their moms ;-)
Personally, I'll be celebrating tomorrow : May a fifth be with you. For those more used to the metric system,
a fifth (of a US gallon) is about 750 milliliters, a regular wine bottle size in Yurp.
Comments (3) This time he will be hiking along the ridges,
not through the glens as he did last time. All the way across Scotland. When he did so last time, I was in Vaduz
(capital of the Principality of Lichtenstein) one day, thinking that I couldn't even walk across
Lichtenstein (which is about 4 miles across) nowadays :-(
Mike always takes great photos on his hikes so I'm providing y'all with a link to
the blog of Mike's hike so you can follow him too. He starts on the tenth of may from
the Shiel Bridge area, shown below, and then hikes east.
Comments (1)
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