Winter and architecture

We've had winter turned on and off recently; here it's the area heating plant next to river Salzach, in the background Gaisberg in biting frost …

Prize winning architecture, most locals hate it for all the raw concrete.

St. Blasius & Mönchsbergwand

A room with a view

The observation tower of prize winning Salzburg shopping mall Europark as seen from a friendly restaurant that will pass any Elk Test.

New job, more time for oneself; time to shop for new Billy shelves at Ikea.

Slowly by slowly wemo is recovering from his 'overwork' at the former limo service company and enjoying his new job as a 'simple' Funktaxi-driver in a one-car company with one of his best friends as his boss, and a connection with the biggest taxi switchboard in Salzburg city.

Funky taxi, funky town for the for the cabbie out of passion!

Hello to the funky ladies of Lipps Inc!

Winter returning

Residenzplatz, before

... and after

Train station blues, remembered

Well, wemo's not been able to record the progress of Salzburg's biggest construction site, the main train station rebuilding. One view still looks just the same: the exterior of the main hall (while inside everything is changing), and the light column in front of it.

Still a beautiful sight.

It's too darn hot

so let it rain …

Winter road

Lucky moment: an unusually empty Pinzgauer Bundesstraße on the way to a pickup in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, and a dramatic sky, time for a photograph while driving …

Train station blues

True blue?

The blogwart would have said, hey, you gotta take some of that blue out of this picture. Well, Photoshop Elements are somewhere ready to be used. But: this is snow under a blue sky just before sunrise on the shady slopes of the valley. It is so blue, only what our brain does when we're there, is to correct the snow into what we think should be white. Does a photographer need to do so? I don't think so.

Photoshop Elements still unused.

Season's greetings

Once again, it was not a white Christmas in Salzburg city, but it was not as bad as this: heavy rain on New Year's Eve 2007. Today it's slightly freezing, and sunshine to be expected during daytime.

Off season

Maybe there's something wrong with that photograph selector? Outside I hear people shoveling snow, it's the shortest day of the year – and what comes up here? An August sunset, shot at 19:42:47, just for the record.

Fog and freezing

The fog at Intercont Berchtesgaden was in June, now it's freezing cold down here, -8.3° C, and probably -15° up there (1,000m or 3,000ft. above sea level), around one foot of snow, and a bright blue sky to be expected once sun comes up.

Beautiful place to have a hotel built, yet if it were not for the dark past, see below, this is just in the middle of nowhere. Just mountains around and great views, plus the documentation centre at Obersalzberg, and – from May through October – the bus departure to the Eagle's Nest on top of Kehlstein mountain.

Obersalzberg documentation (reportedly the largest permanent exhibition on the Nazi period, and a very good one), in the background Untersberg.

In 1928, when Hitler first rented a chalet not far from here, one of his reasons was the view of Untersberg, a myth-laden mountain. Legend has it that in one of the huge caves of this limestone mountain there is eather emperor Charlemagne or Frederick I, Hohenstaufen emperor in the 12th century, sitting at a stone table in a death-like sleep. Only when the ravens quit circling the mountain and his beard has grown seven times around the stone table the emperor will awake, gather his army and in a huge battle at Walserfeld (a plain in the area around Salzburg airport) will erect a realm of Christ on earth.

A myth that goes back to the late middle ages when Christians were still awaiting a return of Christ and a 1000 year empire on earth before doomsday. It was not a dangerous one before the Nazis grabbed hold of it to legitimate their own "Thousand year empire".

Nie sollst du mich befragen

... why on earth I shot this photograph; anyway, Salzburg cathedral being re-roofed, taxis regaining access to upper Festungsgasse and Mönchsberg … progress happens.

Evening rain & sun

"Geht's noch?"

"Hit the road, Jack"

Yours truly has earned himself an unusual reputation as a professional driver: no speeding, no matter what, no honking of the horn, no matter what, no risky overtaking etc.

His colleagues sometimes get to ask him curious questions, such as: heast deppata, kannst du net schnella, oda wüsd net?! The answer is quite easy in all of those cases; it's the latter.

Still even I get to hit, not the road, but the curb with one of the hand brushed light alloy rims with a low-section tire on a company car, just about once every 180,000 miles driven on the job. And I hate it.

My boss has one routine question in such cases: "Well, I know, s*** happens, but all those drivers never seem to hit their private cars' wheels, just the company cars'. How come?"

The answer is quite easy: nobody drives even half as much in his private car as he regularly does on the job.

And in my case it's even more easy: I don't have a private car. – You sure, dude? – Yup, and I don't own a TV either. – Ah, where you from? The moon? Belarus? The monastery of a weird sect that's refusing regular consuming habits? – Nope ;–).

I have met people who seem quite ordinary blokes otherwise who don't own a car or a TV. And I even have a friend who also has neither of both.

Still both of us would refuse to accept any personal responsibility for the current economic crisis. Sorry.

Darkness and vision

Is it money that I want?

Euros dancing in the street?

Street painting man?

More songs about buildings & food?

Can I get a witness?

Bring on the juice!

Thanks to various performing artists for the material to this piece of 'concrete poetry' ;–)

Recommended soundtrack: James Brown, Funky drummer, from:

In the Jungle Groove. Dig it!

Seattle, Washington

Received some LYNX last night, found them connected to Seattle, Washington, home of so much great music, even long before Grunge became ready for the top forty – which annoyed some high-brow listeners to 'independent' music like myself ... Well, remembering that great movie, Last Days, let's not be arrogant, let's simply listen.

And here's my hello to Seattle, Washington, where I imagine there may be great, cold winters ;–). Here it was late in spring, on the way back from rainy Venice, and yours truly just did not want to take those long tunnels from Carinthia back to Salzburg province. So, it's about 1,650m/ 5,000 ft. above sea level close to the ski resort of Obertauern, a cigarette break on a long transfer.

Camouflage?

Now, are we meant to look or what?

Isn't that matt black used for military planes to help make them undetectable by radar? – Ah, maybe this is the idea with the Lamborghini ...

Dark clouds