Author: Willem

This is a library cabinet from a store called Crate& Barrel that I bought and that was delivered today.  It’s solid walnut (read : not cheap) with traditional Chinese joinery – interlocking joinery without any screws or nails.  The two glass-paned doors open to three fixed shelves, with glass paned sides opening up the view.  No sooner had it landed, when I stuffed it full of items!.. I will rearrange them in good time.  The uploaded picture is actually very large.  Click on it once, and then one more time to take a closer look at the items inside the cabinet : ).

Is Frankenstein afraid of the spider, or is he too big to stand up straight on the porch?   The picture is of a house a few blocks from mine that I took on a walk tonight when there was a break in the rain.   It was chilly enough for me to wear my scarf!  Soon I will have to dig up my gloves as well.

(The picture was taken Sunday morning.  Saturday morning the deck was dry and clean as a whistle).   I will have to scrub the deck soon .. there’s black moss on it that makes it slippery when it’s wet.  And as I looked at the deck this morning, it reminded me of the Three Worlds lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher (see http://www.mcescher.com) which was first printed in December, 1955.  Of course, the three worlds are the one for the fish in the water, the one that is the surface on which the leaves float, and the one outside with the trees.

Hansel and Gretel is the name of the beer I had last night at The Elysian Brewhouse.  It is of course a Brothers Grimm fairy tale as well, with Hansel and Gretel left in the woods by their parents that could not care for them, after which they arrive at the witch’s house built from bread and with a cake roof.

Knupper, knapper, kneischen, wer knuppert an meinem Häuschen? (who is knocking on my house?) asks the witch.

The pictures are from a German version of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale book I bought in Vienna two years ago.   I had to buy it : I still remember many of the watercolor pictures (done by Janusz Grabianski – is that a Polish name?)  vividly from when I started reading !

I like to save articles from magazines or newspapers with interesting pictures or graphics .. this one is from a TIME magazine earlier this year and shows some statistics about the finances of the US federal government.  (Click the picture to make it bigger).

P.S. Typhoon Megi went north into mainland China, away from Hong Kong and Daya Bay.

It was another beautiful day in Seattle.   But on the other side of the world super typhoon Megi is approaching Hong Kong – the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane and is packing maximum sustained winds of 185 kmh (115 mph), according to the Hong Kong observatory.  This one does look like it will hit Hong Kong dead on in the next day or two, says my colleagues out in Daya Bay.  (They will stay away from going to work tomorrow).

There it goes – my ballot for the 2010 Washington State Mid-term Elections – into the security envelope and into the mailing envelope.  It’s a paper ballot* and the marks get counted by an optical scanner.   *In spite of it being the year 2010.  Paper ballots will only go away when paper money goes away, I believe.

We will see if Washington State gets a State Income Tax (we’re one of 7 hold-out states in the union).  The net income from the tax is intended for education (70%) and health care (30%) .. it’s just that state legislatures are notorious for applying funds raised this way for different purposes.

We will also see on Nov 2 if California voters pass Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana!  (But it may be a storm in a teacup since there is still a federal law in place that makes owning it illegal, and federal law trumps state law per the US Constitution).

A colleague alerted me to this picture posted on the Bryan Bros.’* website.  His wife happened to bring their baby in for a routine check-up to the hospital in Shanghai, and ran into them.  I love the giant tennis ball.

*Twin brothers Robert Charles Bryan (Bob) and Michael Carl Bryan (Mike) are American professional tennis players.   At one point they were the World No. 1 doubles team for 201 weeks.   Between 2005 and 2006, they set an Open Era record by competing in seven consecutive men’s doubles Grand Slam finals, three of which they won.   On February 26, 2010, they recorded their Open Era record 600th match win by defeating Taylor Dent and Ryan Harrison in the semi-finals of the Delray Beach ATP 250 tournament.

It’s the second Monday in October and therefore Columbus Day in the USA.   Columbus ‘discovered’ the Americas around this time in 1492 (the indigenous people had been here LONG before that, of course).  And he didn’t really discover what is today the USA. Wikipedia put it like this : Christopher Columbus (c. 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer from the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy, whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. Spain and the other Americas celebrate Columbus Day as well – but not Canada.

The voyages of Columbus [Source: Wikipedia].

That’s a date reference (yes, I’m cheating a little since the year is 2010 but oh well).  It is also the birthday of Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger and affectionately known as Uncle Paul (Dutch: “Oom Paul”).   He was State President of the erstwhile South African Republic (Transvaal).   He gained international renown as the face of Boer resistance against the British during the South African or Second Boer War (1899–1902).

The Krugerrand is a South African gold coin, first minted in 1967 to help market South African gold.  It is produced by the South African Mint Company.   It is minted from gold alloy that is 91.67% pure (22 karats), so the coin contains one troy ounce (31.1035 g) of gold.    The second picture shows the rise of the gold price since 2000.   Friday it closed at US$1,318.95  on the New York Stock Exchange.  Is it headed even higher?

Google honored John Lennon’s 70th birthday today with a ‘doodle’ video .. the picture is from the video.   I love the words from ‘Imagine’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one