Hold on to yer hat!

This will sound silly,  and I know it doesn’t work that way,  but it’s almost as if we’re getting the tail end of the winds they had in parts of California over the last couple days. 

I took Travelling Companion to work this morning, since I have a couple errands to run,  and there was no wind when we went out the door,  but as we got half way to our destination it sure picked up.   They’re calling for gusts up to 80 kph.  I realise that’s no where near the 80 mph winds of California,  but you know,  it’s California,  they can’t be outdone.

To quote an oft used down east expression,  “The wind is just pickin’ things”.

We won’t get into just how grammatically incorrect that is,  too hard to explain. It’s that whole “transitive/intransitive” thing.?

 

Managed to drop €25,50 on postage this morning for Christmas cards,  and we haven’t quite wrapped up the Christmas card program just yet either.  Those were just T.C.’s half of things.   She does her family,  and I do mine.  That’s the deal.  Of course,  I end up doing all of my/our “Pub Buddies”,  which isn’t quite right,  since her handwriting is considerably better than mine.  Somehow I don’t think that would be a convincing ploy to try and get out of it though. 

Since the traffic was extra heavy coming back into the city this morning,  I took a shot of the heating plant on the way in. 

I sit in traffic.  I get bored.

(um ya,  there were a couple more,  but they kinda suck)

This is a site where household waste is incinerated and then the the heat generated (hot water in this case) is piped out to roughly a quarter million customers,  both residential and commercial.

Bit of an odd looking thing, what?  I’ll not repeat the word we use when we refer to this particular landmark.  It’s a family blog.

The building was designed by Hundertwasser.  That link takes you to a wiki article,  but suffice to say he was NOT an architect,  but more of an artist.  Other than that I have no opinion. 

All the articles are in German of course,  but I did find this nifty little diagram,  it might help:

 

I did find this video on Youtube that’s only about a minute and a half long..

 

 

Thanks there “Manfred”.   Nice and short.

As you can see,  Hundertwasser had a unique take on building design.  The scuttle butt is that, the “Hundertwasserhaus”,  which is a housing/office project a little farther down along the Danube canal,  is having some structural issues since well,  this guy wasn’t an architect.   Didn’t I just say that? 

On a positive note though,  I do tend to admire the guy,  since he figured that even though a family might have to live in “public housing”,  that shouldn’t mean living in some cinderblock jail cell.

Now let me just say this about that.  In our extended family,  we have a couple architects.   Comes in handy,  I might add.  One of these days I dig up some pictures of our shed back home.  It ain’t too shabby.  Not designed by me by any stretch of the imagination,  but by one of my brothers-in-law,  who just happens to be an architect.

But here’s the thing,  architects can some times come up with some really nifty ideas,  that builders have a shit of a job building.  One of the aforementioned architects has bounced ideas off me on more than one occasion,  just to get the point of view from somebody who has swung a hammer from time to time.  I’m about as creative as a post,  but I can tell you within a couple minutes of looking at your design,  whether there’s any way in hell it can be built.  Well,  and not fall down.   And don’t get me wrong,  I mostly don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground,  but sometimes just asking questions can lead to solutions.  And besides,  it’s fun to be asked.

 

Speaking of holding on to your hat,  did you see the size of that bomb they defused yesterday up in Germany?   Holy crap!   It was the size of a forty gallon hot water heater,  weighing in at 1.8 tonnes!    It was called a “Blockbuster”,  since it was big enough to take out an entire city block.  Gah!

It’s something that we do tend to take for granted in Europe,  but when you host a war,  there’s going to be some left over crap.  It’s surprising to see the amount of ordinance that gets unearthed every year.  The war ended some 65 years ago. 

 

I’ll leave you to chew on that for a bit.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

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