Out the Window

This post is a reaction to something I read/hear a lot. (actually a reply to my reply on a tweet set me off)

I'm always surprised, that people are surprised, when I book a window seat, and...
...
wait for it...
...
Keep the window open...
Why?
Because I want to look out the window!


I'm tired of seeing articles, social media posts, etc that go on and on about how you're supposed to close your window when you're on a plane. Why would you get a WINDOW seat if you don't have a window? I've been told that there's nothing to see from 30,000 ft (or whatever altitude). Well, I've seen all kinds of things when there is "nothing to see" - cool clouds, neat geographical features, aurora borealis, sunrises, sunsets and on and on. To top it all off, on the long international flights, my body has some clue as to what time it is, so I don't suffer jet lag. I've been told by more than one person after flying 1/2 way round the world, that I am a freak of nature...No, I keep the F%$#(ing window open so I know what "time" it is.



Mt. Hood

Ice

Snow

The Big City

Mountains

5 Things

I've been pondering this post for a while. But now that I've been back in the States for a while I think I have enough perspective to do it justice.

5 Things that the U.S.A. does better than almost anywhere else:
1. Paper products...whether it be paper napkins, facial tissue, paper plates or toilet paper, no where else in the world does paper right, and certainly not at the price point as the U.S.A.

2. Food and "stuff" everywhere. The ubiquity and availability of food (mostly processed crap, but...), fast food, just "stuff". Strip malls, regular malls, shops etc....there is just "stuff" everywhere.

3. Egalitarianism in day to day life. In general, your order will be taken etc by your place in line, not by how wealthy you look, your family connections, nor by how much lighter (or darker) your skin is than mine (and I'm talking barely discernible shades of exposure to sunlight).

4. The Interstate Highway System...but Europe's autobahn system has almost caught up.

5. Gasoline prices. Complain if you will, but most surveys put the United States at about 10th on the scale of cheap gas...out of like 190 or so countries. It cost more for a tank of gas than it did to rent the car for a week in a couple countries I've traveled to recently

5 Things that are done better outside the U.S.A. and maybe we could learn from the rest of the world:
1. Dairy products. The variety, choices, quality and cost all suck in the U.S.A. Cheese and yogurt especially so. For example, if you have two choices in feta cheese or any choices in full fat yogurt at your local grocery store, you have it great.

2. Traffic lights & road conditions. Does the U.S. know that the rest of the world has a system that times traffic lights so that if you make one and drive at the speed limit, you will make the rest on that street? Traffic is horrible because our traffic management is stupid. Road conditions are just an embarrassment for a supposedly first world country.

3. Public transportation. Except for in a handful of cities, public transportation is unusable or non-existent. Walk-ability of our cities and suburbs is pathetic too.

4. Internet & cell phones. Outside of war zones, internet in the U.S.A. is among the worst in the world when normalized for cost, speed etc. There is no excuse. Cell phones too, are extremely expensive and the contract thing along with the "locked" phones is just ridiculous. You can thank your corrupt congressmen for the U.S.A. having some of the worst telecommunications in the world.

5. Food choices in general. Our grocery stores are huge, but the vast majority of the shelf space is taken up by just a few products. The "cookie" aisle is almost entirely Oreos, cereal is almost all Cheerios etc. It reminds me of the move "Demolition Man" when all restaurants have become Taco Bell.

Update: Death Race 2011

As I'm sure many are anxious to know how Death Race 2011 ended...
Unsurprisingly, 2011 continued its domination in the 2nd half:

• 2010  - 374
• 2011  - 492

source: Kuwait Times another item of note from the same article:

• "around 70,000 traffic accidents that occurred in Kuwait"

...HOLY COW! I couldn't produce Car"cass" photos that fast if my life depended on it.
I'd tag this as "humor" but in reality, it's sad.

First Political Rant of the Season

As the political season ramps up, it is easier and easier to get me ranting...

It suddenly struck me from 5000 miles away how f(*&^d up everyone is back there...

I'm hearing corporations are people.

I'm left wondering if corporations are people, can they marry?
Apparently they can...but only other corporations, and multiple times at that!

Somehow everything in the U.S. seems stacked in the corporations' favor these days.

Gays still can't marry in most states, and I believe polygamy is outlawed in all 50 states...

Somehow I'm thinking that when the corporations get married they don't pay any more taxes (if they pay any to begin with) due to the marriage penalty...

The United States needs to re-establish The Rule of Law at home before it pushes such ideals abroad...anything else is hypocrisy...but that would begin a whole other rant.

...can corporations go to jail?

or better yet, get the death penalty?
(rare for the big guys but apparently they can, Lehman Bros must have been a minority whose public defender wasn't up to the job while AIG, Goldman Sachs, BoA and Citibank are all lily white with high priced lawyers, looks like maybe a fine here or there for them, but no hard time, much less the ultimate penalty)

I'm Famous...

or maybe obscure...

I was reading a photography forum and a reference was made to how you can use google to search for a particular image. (if interested, see http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searchbyimage.html)

The discussion centered around copyright infringement...basically stealing people's photographs posted on line and either claiming them as your own, or using them without attribution (and compensation) or the worst I guess, selling them. Being the curious type, I searched a few of my photos and was shocked...SHOCKED I tell you, to find that some of my photos have been used without attribution:

Possibly my favorite photo of all time, blogged HERE
Shows up at a travel site page about Kakadu HERE

One of my very recent photos taken while on a return visit to Sarajevo, taken from Shelby's balcony. Shows up in a thread "The Skylines in Eastern Europe"

One of my Plitvice photos shows up in a thread all in Cyrillic that I can't read.

A Lake Bled photo is linked on another travel site

And my blog entry about Sutjeska Monument has photos showing up a number of times including twice on this site.

Last, one of my earliest blogged photos is apparently "for sale" or for upload to your facebook account...it's making me rich!

The coolest part though, is how many people apparently look like an elephant....or a tombstone (see the "Visually similar images" :)

It is also cool how google tries to figure out where and what of the photo is taken.

Longwood Gardens

We visited Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania earlier this week and saw their Christmas display. We didn't have the energy to stay around late enough to see the lights once it got dark (we arrived at 10 am. and it was a pretty cold and blustery day). Walking through the grounds made me really like to see the gardens and fountains in late spring or late summer. This time, we spent most of our time inside the conservatory. It is something like 4 acres undercover and it was beautifully decorated for Christmas (and it was warm:). The various Christmas trees were especially nicely decorated.

The Longwood Gardens is one of Pierre Samuel du Pont's lasting legacies. Walking around the grounds made me wonder if any of the present day robber bankers will leave a legacy beyond their current blatant pillaging of damn near anything they can get their hands on (only with government approval of course).

Christmas Ornaments on Tree - Longwood Gardens, PA



Decorated Christmas Tree - Longwood Gardens, PA




"Silver" Plants as a Theme - Longwood Gardens, PA




Succulent in the Cactus Room - Longwood Gardens, PA

Sutjeska National Park

The most recent conflicts of the 90's as the former Yugoslavia basically left plaques of names on buildings and small fountains, graveyards and shells of stone buildings everywhere...and in the case of this particular part of the country...the "unspoiled beauty and nature" of the Sutjeska...mine signs (and presumably the mines). The park is more like what in the U.S. would be called a National Forest, little to no services, markings etc. It was a beautiful drive, so much so that we took the route both ways on our trip to Herceg Novi.

Valley - The Sutjeska, Republika Srpska, BiH




Pine - The Sutjeska, Republika Srpska, BiH




Moss - The Sutjeska, Republika Srpska, BiH

Above the Smog

I figure I'll work my way backwards through the photos from the holidays...

I took this photo a few minutes after an aborted landing Saturday in Sarajevo. We ended up landing in Zagreb and getting home a mere 9 hours later after a bus ride and all the fun that entails. The flight was diverted due to weather (fog) which in fact is not fog at all but pure pollution...it is so pure they should bottle and sell it. The air quality is always really bad this time of year due to burning low quality coal, wood and whatever else will provide heat, With temperatures in the teens (Fahrenheit), the past few weeks have been greatly aggravated by the Russian's shutting off the natural gas pipelines to Europe (and in particular Bosnia, which has no domestic production nor any storage facilities or reserves). With no gas for heat, that many more homes fired up the old coal stove...and what remains of the air is just lovely to breathe. The sun has truly been just a bright spot in the night time the past few days.

Above the Smog - SarajevoJanuary 2009

You First Read It Here

not that I take any joy in being right, or first in this case, (it is actually sad) but over the past couple days I've seen this theme repeated in the general and business press:
Bailouts: $7 trillion and rising

Almost 2 months ago, the millions of avid readers of my blog read it HERE first.

At Least It Can Make For Beautiful Sunsets...

...pollution that is :(

I was up at the Bijela Tabija (White Bastion) once again with visitors a few days back. Sky wasn't so clear this time, the smog had pretty much taken over.

Afternoon Smog - Sarajevo

More..."No Photoshop Required"

This could be funny if it wasn't about to cost each and every U.S citizen about $23,000...$7 trillion true cost of bail out divided by 300 million citizens (approximate population of U.S.) and greatly prolonging the downturn in the stock market, housing prices and general economy.

Section 503 of the bill the Senate is about to vote on:
SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.
blah
blah
blah

I'd post all the other stupid pork here (basically the entire 500, 600 and 700 sections which start at page 261 and go to the end) and some of the glaring loopholes in "taxpayer protections" (the first 261 pages:) but then I'd have to add a tag in the blog for depressing. I'd also like to encourage others to read the Senate's 451 page "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008". I can pretty much guarantee that your senator hasn't read it. I doubt the House Representative's read their version. It was light stupid summer reading of only 110 pages...it skipped the part about toy arrows :)

...even the Exxon Valdez made the bill....I thought we had our fill of that in "Waterworld".

Are You Smarter Than a...

Wall Street CEO?
My bet is that you are. Everyone I know certainly is.

Here is my argument. Would you pay two times the sticker price of something at the store?...say eggs, just because you are friends with the salesman and have known him a long time and because eggs used to be a lot more expensive? Would you pay two times the sticker price on Sunday afternoon when you knew the eggs would be going on sale for 1/2 price on Monday morning? (effectively paying 4 times the price?).

Well that is EXACTLY what Bank of America did a week ago Sunday. BoA agreed to buy Merrill Lynch for twice the price you, I or anyone else (if we had the money) could have bought it for the prior Friday afternoon. The price BoA agreed to buy Merrill Lynch for was likely 4 times or more what anyone with a pulse could have bought it for the following Monday morning (if BoA hadn't announced the plans to buy on Sunday).

That is the level of stupidity that Congress (both Democrat and Republican) and the Executive Branch (primarily Hank Paulson, Secretary of Treasury and President Bush) want to support and encourage with their latest "bailout" plan. The math, the concepts etc. really aren't as complicated as Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Barney Frank and others are trying to lead people to believe. Anyone who earns more than they spend, maybe has a loan that they make payments on, can easily grasp where these guys went awry.

I could rant about the bailouts for hours on end. Instead, I called my Representative in Congress as well as the two Senators from my state to lodge my complaint. Unless you feel that you need to be saddled with another $40,000 or so of debt, and that these idiots deserve to continue to make $50 million dollars at year at your expense, I suggest you do the same....pst "pass it on".

Members of the House of Reprehensibles (BTW...all are up for reelection in November) can be found HERE

Your State's two Seniletors can be found HERE

too bad I don't have 100,000+ hits a day like Barry does...

-end rant

The Real Miljacka River

A continuation of my earlier rant. These were taken at the same time as the photos in this earlier post and are the "comes later" photos I promised at the time....here is what most photos DON"T show.

Every visitor we've had, pretty much any foreigner I've talked to here, says something along these lines at some point..."This would be such a beautiful country except for the litter everywhere."


The Miljacka River Garbage Dump - Sarajevo



Umbrella Left for Dead - Miljacka River, Sarajevo

Out In The Country

Before the breathin' air is gone
Before the sun is just a bright spot in the nighttime

Walking around out in Kakrinje while Shelby was horseback riding (a panoramic view of Kakrinje taken a little over a month ago can be seen here), I took a few shots. It was a beautiful day and one of my favorite Three Dog Night songs came to mind. "Out in the Country"

Here goes my first "political" rant is quite a while. As anyone who has been outside the U.S/Canada, western Europe, Japan and Singapore is sure to know, the pollution and trash in other countries is overwhelming. Travel a bit and it quickly becomes apparent that labeling the U.S. as one of the world's biggest polluters is just politically inspired B.S. I've been to some single cities that I'd swear pollute more in terms of dumping raw sewage into the world's water supply then the entire U.S, Canada, and western Europe combined. Today the gross haze of dirty diesel and sulfur laden coal over Sarajevo was not apparent. and that was much appreciated. Someday I'll take pictures of the river that runs through Sarajevo, to show another side of it../end rant

Haystacks - Kakrinje, Bosnia




Cherries - Kakrinje, Bosnia




Wildflowers - Kakrinje, Bosnia