I’m working on some pictures. Here are the first two, from my drive to the airport this morning:
This is something I thought would interest the boys, a form of billboard here in Austria which evades billboard laws (distance from street etc) by being attached to a stack of hay instead of mounted permanently on posts. They weren’t too impressed however.
Here is the view from the freeway a few minutes from my house. As you can see, floodwaters are receding.
I plan to post more pictures as soon as I replace the batteries in my digital camera.

Captain James T. Kirk, ruler of Liberia, immortalized on Liberian coin.

Why is Miguel posting this link, you wonder, when he is busy with guests? Because it is, first of all, the first such link ever e-mailed to me by a reader, in the history of this site and moreover, that reader is cool Dutch person Inne ten Have and thirdly, Pat, as we know, is a big admirer of things Dutch.

For two guys who’re only staying a week, Pat and Space sure packed enough stuff. I mean, Pat even brought a tape recorder, man. Not sure what we’ll do today. I was planning an initial tour of Vienna, but they’re more tired than I expected, maybe we’ll just sit around. Gotta go.

Flight OS 0094 arrives in an hour, if there were no delays. I’m off to pick up Space and Pat. More later.

[I stumbled across this old post in my archives and thought it was so absolutely brilliant I just have to share it with you again]
Shaving is such an odd thing to do. That thought occurred to me this morning while shaving. I don’t mind it, it’s just such a weird thing to do. I suppose it all started when we were cavemen, like most things, we probably shaved the whole body back then for the evolutional advantage that provided, less air friction = better hunting success etc. Then as we got busier and busier, we had less and less time and shaved less and less. By the year 2000, we’ll all have beards we’ll be so busy. And computers will be so small they’ll fit on your desk, and everyone will fly a helicopter to work.

The Praterstern area of Vienna.
Some Viennese watchmaker-cam.
View from the top of the Vienna City Hall, looking at the adjacent square.
The waterworks in southern Vienna.

Space, Pat and I will probably walk across the square by City Hall at some point, but don’t hold your breath.

Space and Pat are scheduled to arrive at Vienna’s Schwecat airport in just under 24 hours. Just in time, floodwaters are beginning to recede in this part of Austria and the first trees – plum and apricot – are starting to blossom. Hopefully we’ll be able to make an excursion to the library at the monastery in Melk, which is where Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” begins. Pat’s been looking forward to that, and so have I. Although I’ve lived here steadily for more than 10 years now, and have been in Austria off and on since 1976, I’ve never seen that library either, which is said to be grand.