It’s a Holiday!

Big whoop.

With the exception of the stores being closed,  and having to make sure we had enough grub on hand for today,  my life isn’t that much different.  

There doesn’t seem to be any consistency when it comes to who gets what in the way of holidays in Europe either,  as parts of Germany are off today but, some regions aren’t.    I haven’t even bothered to figure out the rest of the countries.  Not really important. 

It does suck though if you’re a tourist and wander into town,  thinking you might do a little shopping on just any Wednesday,  only to discover that everything is closed.  The cafes are open,  if that’s any consolation.

Travelling Companion knew it was a holiday,  although she managed to briefly forget and plan a conference call for this afternoon.  No biggie,  as that’s something that can be done from home,  even though it’s a pain to use the Crackberry instead of the landline.  

Turns out one of her work associates managed to forget that it was a holiday,  and planned a little trip up to Denmark.  Seems there was some rumblings from the home front.  Been there.  Done that.  Just one of those things.  Something that most spouses don’t really ever get used to though.  They have these things called “calendars”,  you know? 

 

Anyway,  I’ve probably mentioned from time to time that we don’t seem to have a huge amount of bugs here in Wienerland,  although I have heard that there are plenty of mosquitoes out in the nether regions,  we’re reasonably immune here.

 

Then yesterday afternoon I discovered this guy.

 

Right,  no bugs eh?

 

 

Slightly larger version.   Some kind of hopper.  Grass or otherwise.  Hopefully not a sign of things to come.

Kinda cool I suppose,  if you’re into that kind of thing.   Travelling Companion most definitely isn’t,  and she had just called to say she was on her way home.  This is protocol by the way,  which gives me fair warning to start supper.  I had to get rid of my new friend,  but needed a picture first.   Thought it was worth the effort.

So I was struggling to take a decent photo,  and thought I’d haul out my auxiliary flash.   That should work,  right?

Well,  one of the first things they tell you when you’re a young doe-eyed photographer is,  make sure you take out the batteries from your flash if you’re not going to be using it for a while.

 

There’s a reason for this.  

I have no photo evidence,  since it would be too upsetting.  It’s not like there’s even that much corrosion,  but that sucker doesn’t work.

Amazingly,  (or perhaps it’s really not,  since we are living in the internet age)  I found a great “how-to”  on line to help with the disassembly.    Didn’t matter,  since I still couldn’t get to the actual area where the batteries go,  and I had no luck trying to resurrect the thing.   Sad and painful.   Or painfully sad.   Slightly mad,  with myself. 

It was a perfectly good working flash too.   

If you’re remotely interested,  you can see the guts of the how-to article here:  Very cool and almost helpful tutorial that I wish I didn't need.

 

So that was the “highlight”  of my day.  Hopefully yours was better.

 

Sure would be nice to wear things out before breaking them.  Just saying.

 

Thanks for stopping by.    Oh,  and thanks for the Anniversary wishes.   Duly noted and much appreciated.

 

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