Willem's Planet – Page 146 – a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010

May 18, 2016May 18, 2016

Tuesday/ another blue sky day

Here are pictures from my day in San Francisco outside of working at the office.

IMG_5194 sm — I’m a little late running out for lunch : the clock tower on the Ferry Building shows a quarter to one. The unofficial lunch time for office grunts like me is 12 noon to one.

IMG_5219 sm — This is around 7.00 pm, and Street Car 1040 is going to take me from the Ferry Building to Fisherman’s Wharf where my hotel is. [From Wikipedia} This is a special streetcar in several ways. No. 1040 is the very last of almost 5,000 PCC streetcars manufactured in North America. It was delivered to Muni in 1952, completing an order of 25 PCCs from the venerable St. Louis Car Company. Of all the single-end PCCs in Muni’s current active fleet, it is the only one that has worked in San Francisco its entire life.

IMG_5225 sm — This is a sunset scene around 8 pm at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, located next to the Fisherman’s Wharf.

IMG_5239 sm — And Ghirardelli Square is right there as well. In 1893, Italy-born Domingo Ghirardelli purchased the entire city block in order to make it into the headquarters of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. The block houses some 40 specialty shops and restaurants, and parts of it were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

May 17, 2016May 17, 2016

Monday/ in San Francisco

IMG_5175 sm — I took the streetcar on the F line that runs along the Embarcadero, to my hotel in the San Francisco Waterfront.

I’m in San Francisco .. a small team has started on a new follow-up project at the same gas company.

I traveled in this morning, spent the day at the our office in Three Embarcadero Center, and then made my way to the hotel in the Waterfront. It was a scramble to get out of the house this morning, and then for some reason the Uber app canceled my trip as soon as I got into the Uber driver’s car (maybe I inadvertently pressed a button on the phone, I’m not sure). So anyway .. let’s just go! I said, I will pay you in cash, which is what he did.

IMG_5159 sm — A 787 Dreamliner of Southern China Airlines at the gate in San Francisco .. these 787s are still a fairly rare sight at US airports (or at least in my experience).

IMG_5171 sm — Here’s the street car on the F line that took me to my hotel. It was built in 1946! They are all very different, the street cars that run the same route. The ones we have in Seattle are all new, and look the same, even though they have different colors.

IMG_5176 sm — More about my street car and its history ..

IMG_5177 sm — .. and here is the rest of the plaque, inside the streetcar.

May 15, 2016

Saturday errands

I drove out to the South Lake Union on Saturday to 1. take my old camera to Glazer’s Camera (got a $300 exchange voucher for it, not bad), and 2. to finally hand in the modem that my internet service provider has been charging me $10 a month for. (More a matter of principle than a matter of saving money. I’m not paying $10 monthly ‘rent’ for an item that costs $80 outright!).

IMG_5144 sm — Here is the view from 2200 Westlake towards downtown Seattle. The streetcar is waiting for the light. The black triangular building to its right was given a new outside just last year. And the Amazon biospheres and new headquarters are visible, further back. I believe the new construction on top of the grey building on the left is an office block, not condos or apartments.

May 14, 2016May 14, 2016

Friday/ the Nordic flags

How well do you know the Nordic countries’ flags? Check them out on the cool dessert from Friday night’s state dinner hosted by the Obamas in Washington DC!

Gty_nordic_white_house_1_er_160512_4x3_992 — Dessert offered to guests at Friday night’s combined ‘Nordic’ State dinner in the Capitol for the heads of state from (flags on the ship mast from left to right after the US flag : Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden).

P. S. Friday marked the end of a dizzying week in which there had been revelations on a daily basis in the national media about Republican presidential candidate Trump. Here is a sample. 1. His tax returns are ‘none of your business’ he snapped back at George Stephanopoulos (former White House communications director, now ABC news anchor). Presidential candidates have released their tax returns since Richard Nixon had done that in. 2012 Presidential candidate Mitt Romney calls this ‘disqualifying’ for a candidate running for president. 2. The Washington Post revealed that/ reminded voters that in 1991 Trump would call up reporters, posing as his own ‘PR man’ as ‘John Miller’ or ‘John Barron’, discussing his divorce proceedings, and how he should be portrayed in the media, and that he is ‘starting to do really well financially’. Here’s the thing. Pressed about it on Friday morning on the Today show, Trump now he denies outright that it was him. ‘No, that doesn’t sound like me. Wasn’t me’. 3. His crude objectifying of women on Howard Stern’s radio shows from those days got more air again, this week. 4. Mr Trump seemed to back away from his controversial statements on the campaign trail such as the ban on Muslims entering the USA, saying all his positions are merely ‘suggestions’ and that everything is ‘negotiable’. 5. Still no endorsement from Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, after the much hyped-up meeting on Thursday.

May 13, 2016May 13, 2016

Thursday/ warm weather

IMG_5133 sm — Bright little red flowers from my walk Thursday night .. not sure what these are, but they do look like little carnations.

We have had the warmest April on record, and some unseasonably warm weather here in Seattle for May so far as well. Some 20 degrees above average/ 11 degrees Celsius. So we will have to wait and see how high the peaks of the summer days will be, and if we are going to reach up into the 90s or even 100. (The hottest temperature recorded here ever, was in the summer of 2009, on July 29, when the mercury hit 103 °F/ 39.4 °C).

May 12, 2016

Wednesday/ a bandit did it

I thought the report of a power outage of many thousands of Seattle area homes early this morning was odd – given the perfect sunny weather we had today here. It turned out it caused by a raccoon breaking into a substation, creating several system circuit outages. The raccoon did not survive.

5-11-2016 11-03-10 PM — Here is a short report in the on-line edition of The Guardian, with a picture of a raccoon aka a ‘masked bandit’.

May 11, 2016May 11, 2016

Tuesday/ West Virginia

I’ve known about West Virginia since I was very young, thanks to John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ .. but I’ve never been there, actually. So with yesterday’s Presidential primary elections there, I had to take a look at the map. West Virginia is coal country, and candidate Clinton got in hot water for being too candid about the prospects of the coal mines, and jobs in the coal industry. (It is probably one of the reasons that Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton there).

Those coal mining jobs have been disappearing for many years – for decades – and they will not come back. The US government has put a freeze on issuing new leases for coal mining on public lands this January. There are cheaper and cleaner alternatives such as natural gas, available. And finally, the coal industry itself has been mechanizing the mining of coal, so an entire mountain top can be mined with a handful of operators.

But never mind all this : a few days ago Donald Trump had a big ostentatious rally with coal miner hard hat and all, pantomiming a coal miner shoveling coal, and declaring : we will get those jobs back. And this tweet : Obama’s war on coal is killing American jobs, making us more energy dependent on our enemies & creating a great business disadvantage. Well. If only the world were that simple.

IMG_5123 sm — The highlights of West Virginia, from my handy school book I bought at an office supplies store.

May 10, 2016May 10, 2016

Monday/ Mercury’s traversal

Technically speaking, there was a solar eclipse of sorts going on today .. but since Mercury is just a dot when seen against the sun, it is called a traversal of Mercury across the sun. Since I did not have a special telescope with a dark lens, it was good enough for me to check the accelerated video clip from NASA. For me, the sun is the amazing thing in the clip. Such a giant ball of hydrogen fusion – has been at it for 4.5 billion years, and will be around for another estimated 6 billion years. Will Earth still have humans on, then? And hopefully the humans would have found another Earth to inhabit by then, because the sun will become a red giant, cast off its lighter elements in a planetary nebula, and end up as a white dwarf.

May 8, 2016

Sunday/ Happy Mother’s Day!

A happy Mother’s Day to all the moms!

IMG_3961 sm — My mom and I during my visit in South Africa this April.

May 7, 2016May 8, 2016

Friday/ biosphere progress

16041079 sm — I love these outdoor metal shapes. This is outside the new Amazon headquarters across from where the biospheres are. I wouldn’t mind having some of these for my back yard!

Below is a pictures that I took today of Amazon’s biospheres, showing the progress that has been made in their construction. Here are more pictures and a report from the Seattle Times.

16041088 sm — The outer frames that form the so-called Catalan repeating pattern on the dome surfaces, are in, and some of the panels as well. The white is a molding that goes onto the steel frame, and I believe the panels are actually glass (and not a special kind of plastic or resin).

May 7, 2016

Thursday/ Tokyo in the rain

Here is a picture from the Flickr photo stream of Masashi Wakui .. I wish I could take pictures like these ! Sharp detail, amazing colors, rain-in-the-city-at-night atmosphere.

May 5, 2016

Wednesday/ paying for parking (the old way)

We went to Columbia City on Wednesday night for a beer and a bite, and lucked out with the last parking spot in the lot across from our regular ‘watering hole’. I love that lot’s parking fee ‘machine’ .. hanging in there, defiant, retro and analog, with no such fancy tech as accepting payment by mobile phone or debit card. Paper money and coins, stuffed into a slot !

IMG_5103 sm — The instructions may be fading, but they are still legible! The pay box comes complete with a tool attached to stuff any old folded banknotes into the matching slot for your parking bay .. and if you ran out of numbers down by #60 because you are parked in bay #61, #62 or #63, go back up and use #1, #2 or #3.

May 4, 2016May 4, 2016

Tuesday/ so .. it’s Trump

So it’s official (per Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus) : the Republican Party will nominate Donald Trump as their party’s candidate for the 2016 US Presidential Election. Trump won the Indiana Republican Primary Election easily today, forcing main rival Ted Cruz to drop out of the race. The result : we have an egotistical-billionaire-reality-TV host, with no political experience whatsoever, who is really not even a Republican, as the Republican Party’s nominee! That’s why the New York Daily News cover of Wednesday announces that the Republican Party as we have known it thus far, is dead. Also check out this analysis that Ezra Klein from explain-the-news web site vox.com offers.

May 3, 2016May 3, 2016

Monday/ good times in Leicester City

5-2-2016 9-26-35 PM — I had to put Leicester City on a Google Map to see exactly where it is (exactly at the center of gravity of the UK, it seems!).

5-2-2016 9-23-05 PM — Pub-goers celebrate the moment it became clear that their team had won the Premier League. Look at those faces :).

I don’t follow any of the soccer leagues closely, but there were several articles in the news lately, describing the against-all-odds run of the Leicester* City soccer team in the Premier League this past season. (They have just won it, with the outcome of a match between Tottenham and Chelsea making Leicester City end at the top of the league, and by a wide margin).

Sports commentators describe it as the greatest season in sports history. The full story in the New York Times reports that the Leicester team’s payroll is roughly a quarter of Chelsea’s when it won the 2014-15 title, and that they finished 14th last season, and that their escape from relegation is a story (and a soccer miracle) all its own.

*Say LESS-ter

May 2, 2016

Saturday/ tunnel update

The elevated stretch of waterfront highway called the Alaskan Way Viaduct closed on Thursday night, for two weeks. It is as a precaution for the digging of the new tunnel for State Route 99 that goes under the Viaduct at this point. (When the tunnel has been completed, the Alaskan Way Viaduct will be demolished). On a typical weekday some 90,000 drivers used the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and for the next two weeks there will be a lot of extra traffic using the downtown Seattle streets. For those that can : use the bus, use the light rail, bike, walk. Driving around in a car in downtown Seattle should only be done if there is no other option.

ChOPugbUgAAWIVU — This picture called ‘Viadoom’ was tweeted by an artist Gabi Campanarion from his Twitter account @Seattlesketcher.

April 29, 2016April 29, 2016

Friday/ Copenhagen mementos

Here are some of my mementos from my trip. I love foreign coins and banknotes, and foreign stamps as well.

IMG_5071 sm — Danish krone coins from left to right : one, two, five, ten, twenty. Exchange rate is 6.5 DKK to 1 USD. The 5 Kronor coin on top is from Sweden. Something tells me we will never, ever put holes in our coins in the USA – but I believe the holes are practical, to help blind people distinguish the ones, twos and fives from the tens and twenties.

16040730 sm — This is the entrance of ‘Danmarks Nationalbank’ on Havnegade 5, Copenhagen. It took me awhile to find it. Inside, it is like a World War II bunker, but with greenery and orchids in glass cases. This is where I bought a set of Danish proof coins.

IMG_5074 sm — And here is a collection of Danish bank notes. There is a 1,000 DKK note as well, but these are not in general circulation, and a little hefty at $US 153 equivalent to hold on to as a souvenir.

IMG_5072 sm — Here’s my Copenhagen Card, good for any public transport for 72 hrs. It was a little pricey at DKK 629/ US$ 96, but very convenient. It gives discounts to places like museums and the zoo, but I ended up not going to any of those. The stamps are all the nicest ones that the convenience store had to sell me. That’s Margrethe II of Denmark on the first one.

April 29, 2016May 2, 2016

Thursday/ arrival in Seattle

I’m home! The travelers from Frankfurt arrived into Seattle shortly after noon Pacific Time. I sat next to the window, and looked out at just the right time to see a beautiful view of the Columbia river as we crossed it in Canada, right after the British Columbia border.

Columbiarivermap sm — The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada.

IMG_5057 sm — This is a view from 33,000 ft up of Kinbasket Lake. Look for it on the map up high, near the British Columbia border with Alberta province.

IMG_5063 sm — And a little later there was this view of a sea of mist with the snow-capped mountain tops as the islands in it.

April 28, 2016May 2, 2016

Thursday/ arrival at Frankfurt airport

I made it to Frankfurt .. Next stop Seattle.

IMG_5016 sm — Here’s our arrival into Frankfurt airport, from Hamburg. In the distance a Boeing 747 is just being pushed into the hangar (for some maintenance, I’m sure).

IMG_5018 sm — And I stopped by this mean machine on the way to my gate for the flight to Seattle, the BMW i8. Competition for the Tesla? Maybe.

April 28, 2016March 2, 2018

Wednesday/ Hamburg

[From Wikipedia] Hamburg, a major port city in northern Germany, is connected to the North Sea by the Elbe River. It’s crossed by hundreds of canals, and also contains large areas of parkland. Its central Jungfernstieg boulevard connects the Altstadt (old town) and the Neustadt, passing Binnenalster lake, dotted with boats and surrounded by cafes and restaurants. Oysters and traditional Aalsuppe (soup) are local specialties.

I did the best I could with the day-and-a-half and rain/ freezing rain at times in Hamburg! I will have to try to come back in summer some time, when the weather is warmer. The HafenCity* area’s development continues, even after 15 years since it had started, and I would love to spend more time there when it had been completed.

*HafenCity is an urban center with many shops, restaurants, hotels and cultural venues as well as rising visitor numbers. More than 2,000 people now live in HafenCity as a whole; there are more than 5,000 students at the various academic institutions; upwards of 10,000 employees work in more than 500 businesses. It aspires to generate and use clean energy and be a model for the new cities that will have to be built around the world this century.

16040868 sm — The Rathaus (Town Hall) of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg is a spectacular work of art, inside and out. It was inaugurated in 1897.

16040874 sm — The inside of the main entrance hall in the Rathaus.

16040935 sm — This is the Alte Elbe Tunnel (the old Elbe tunnel), a tunnel that was completed by 1911 that runs under the Elbe river. It is still in use to this day : by pedestrians, bicyclists, and even the occasional car or taxi !

16040943 sm — Here is a car that had driven through the tunnel, and is entering the car elevator to get it up to street level. That HALT makes me think of the Berlin Wall and the World Wars!

16040909 sm — The U-bahn (and walking) was pretty much my only mode of transportation in Hamburg. In Copenhagen I used the bus much more, since there was a convenient bus stop right by the hotel. This is the train station at Ganzemarkt, on the U2 line.

16040953 sm — This is close by the Elbe Tunnel, stone construction on the river bank.

16040968 sm — An entrance to St Pauli U-bahn station, and by the Plante-en-Blumen Park. It was too darn cold, with an icy wind in the park! and so I spent very little time there.

16040999 sm — The U4 route goes to HafenCity Universitat, and the line and stations are much newer than the others. This green overhead light and color on the station changes to blue and purple .. and I would probably have seen more colors, if I stayed longer.

16041011 sm — A brand new truss bridge for cars and pedestrians at HafenCity.

16041043 sm — There are lots of stylish new office buildings and apartment complexes in HafenCity, such as this one.

16041022 sm — This building belongs to Anglo-Dutch multinational consumer goods company Unilever.

16041023 sm — Right next to the Unilever building, in HafenCity .. I think this is an apartment tower.

IMG_4986 sm — The entrance to one of the two new U-bahn stations at HafenCity, called Überseequartier.

IMG_4988 sm — No, it’s not a work of art (but it could be) .. lots of reflections on the way down to the U-bahn platforms of the Überseequartier station.

April 26, 2016April 27, 2016

Tuesday/ train to Hamburg

4-26-2016 10-36-11 PM — The train route from Copenhagen to Hamburg took a little under 5 hrs. That segment across the water between Denmark and Germany is where the train sits on the ferry! Amazing.

I learned on Monday night that Wednesday – the day of my scheduled departure from Frankfurt to Seattle – is going to be an ugly day at Frankfurt airport. A massive service workers’ union strike forced Lufthansa to cancel 350 flights at Frankfurt, including the one I had to get there for the Frankfurt to Seattle flight. So I pushed out my return by a day .. and thought to squeeze in one more train trip : one from Copenhagen to Hamburg. (I plan to fly early Thursday from Hamburg to Frankfurt). The train ride was quite something. When Deutsche Bahn engineers design and build tracks for their trains, they stop at almost nothing. The train track runs across bridges to cross rivers and narrow channels, and into tunnels to go through hills, or underground. And for a ferry crossing, such as the one between Denmark and Germany that crosses the Fehmarn Belt Strait, they built a train track right on the ferry’s deck, to ferry the whole freaking train across the strait. Or at least half the train. At our final station in Denmark (Roedby), the front four cars were disconnected from the rest of the train. As we reached the ferry, the train cars were run onto the ferry, passengers and all. Then we were shooed off the train (the train is locked for the ferry crossing) to go onto the ferry itself during the crossing, and we boarded the train again before the ferry docked. And the train ran off the ferry onto the track and into Puttgarden station. ‘Welcome to Germany’ announced the conductor.

IMG_4581 sm — Our stop at Naestved, the third of ten stops, on the way to Hamburg.

Here is a sequence of stills at the moment when the train runs onto the ferry (slowly, of course). 1. Approaching the ferry dec k. 2 &3. A large transportation truck drives by, also going onto the ferry. 4. My train car about to enter into the ferry. 5. Almost inside; an attendant is keeping an eye on the train. 6. Inside the ferry. 7. A tour bus has entered as well. 8. Almost done. 9. Coming to a stop.

IMG_4660 sm — I’m standing on just outside the train and took a panorama shot of the train & heavy vehicle deck. There is a car deck above us, and the on the top decks is where the passengers hang out and shop and dine and enjoy the views while the ferry crosses.

16040848 sm — Here is what our ferry looks like. This is one crossing to the other side.

16040853 sm — Approaching the German side of the crossing. I had to go downstairs and board the train immediately after I took the picture.

16040894 sm — This is the inside of Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (main train station) some time after our arrival. My train was a white Intercity Express train, and had left already.

16040897 sm — And here is a view of the outside of Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. It opened in 1906. It handles some 480,000 passengers a day, making the station the busiest in Germany and after the Gare du Nord in Paris, the second busiest in Europe.