Dark Side Of The Moon

Browsing, reading, commenting, listening, reading again... So here I am listening to the Dark Side Of The Moon (DSOTM).

I wasn't lucky enough to be able to buy a ticket to any show of Pink Floyd. Well, at least I could say that I was way too lucky to have a ticket to Roger Waters' show/concert back in 2007. It was performed at Papp Laszlo Sportarena in Budapest, Hungary.

My words are useless, but my photos are eloquent, so watch them while listening to the music! Just click play!

In order not to misinterpret [my] "words are useless", here's an interesting article (1,500 weeks in Billboard Top 200!): Floyd's 'Dark Side' Celebrates Chart Milestone.

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Get your own

Swiss RoomBox

Some industries developped together with the automotives one. Recently I've found on the web some sort of "kaizen in the trunk of your car". My mind goes to the ones who like to travel from one place to another and want to be "booking" independent, without the lack of comfort. The Swiss from Swiss Room Box have the solution.

The next video is relevant:

From Drobeta Turnu Severin to Dubova

Recently, Tripadvisor has published my review about a one day trip between Drobeta Turnu Severin and Dubova Bay.
I am posting it here in order to add some more information.

Starting by car from Drobeta Turnu Severin, you can follow E70 towards Timisoara.

After 15 km you can stop at Iron Gates 1 Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), in order to visit its museum. After chronologically arranged artifacts from the area, starting stone age, continuing with bronze, iron, Roman period, and Otoman/Turkish one, you will have a visual description of the construction and the hydro power units of the Romanian side of the HPP. You will also have a glimpse of the machine hall (approx. 220 m long, 25 m tall), descending by an elevator.

Iron Gates 1, dam and hydroelectric power plant

After visiting the power plant, continuing towards Timisoara on the Romanian shore of the lake formed by the Danube River behind Iron Gates 1 dam. There are more than 30 viaducts and bridges over many golfs formed by the Danube. You are already in the Iron Gates Natural Park, so obey the specific rules.

After driving 5 km, you will see a road sign to the right, indicating 1 km to Vodita Monastery. Worth a visit!

Vodita Monastery

Continuing 5 more km on E70 you will reach Orsova (now you will leave E70, continuing on DN57), the city rebuilt after the level of the lake raised 30 meters! You will enjoy a walk on the Danube's shore, and in the evening take a break near the ship yard or the train station in order to take some photos of the city lights reflected on the water. In Orsova you can rent a ship and take a cruise on the Danube!
Before leaving Orsova towards Eselnita, go to St. Ana Monastery.

Orsova - Dragalina Park, and a cruise ship in background

So you are about to leave Orsova, and after 15 km you will reach Mraconia bay, the place where a sculpture of Decebal is carved into the mountain.

Decebalus Rex - Dragan fecit

I think that you've had many stops and you are already hungry or at least thirsty, so continue 3 more km to Pensiunea Melba, located on the shore of Dubova bay. "Papanasii" (home made donuts) are my favorite desert there!

Pensiunea Melba: Reflections first...

Bon apetit!

Delicious! Siting at the table, enjoying your meal... can you see where the Danube is entering the gulf? There is its narrowest and its deepest point!

Dubova bay (up and down)

Well, this is a 100 km tour, and enough places to visit for a day!

Travel safe!

Google Art Project

A good thing deserves to be known.
Google Art Project is more than just a good thing!
Are you interested in: acrylic, bronze, ceramic, chalk, clay, cloth, copper, etching, glass, gold, ink, ivory, limestone, lithograph, marble, oil painting, pastel, pencil, photographs, plaster, porcelain, pottery, silk...?
I was amazed! Have a look, no matter how you prefer to do it:
- by collection,
- by artist,
- by artwork,
- by museum (world map)...
You can also have a virtual tour (Google street view alike) of the museums around the world!


Google Art Project

Pain, Effort, Struggling...

Listening lately to Chet Baker, some of his words spoken as an intro to "I'm a Fool to Want You" have drawn my attention:

I don't think life is really worth all the pain, and effort, and struggling if you don't have somebody that you love very much...

To the above quote, I have to add the words of a friend:

... and who loves you back!

I hope you'll enjoy his song!

Let's Get Lost

JAZZ...
Trumpet...
Chet Baker...
Documentary...
Bruce Weber...

Enough said! Just watch, listen and enjoy!

The Dubliners - 50 Years

One of the most influential Ireland's traditional folk band is calles The Dubliners.

Initially called "The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group", and formed back in 1962 by

• Ronnie Drew (vocals and guitar),
• Luke Kelly (vocals and five-string banjo),
• Ciarán Bourke (vocals, guitar, tin whistle, and harmonica)and
• Barney McKenna (tenor banjo, mandolin, melodeon, and vocals),

in 2012 they are celebrating 50 years of career!

Happy Anniversary!

Jazz Trumpet

Homeland TV series was recommended to me by a dear friend, so here I am watching it!
The title of this blog is not apparently related to movies, but to music. Two or three times during the first episode my ear captured a few trumpet notes. Jazz trumpet notes to be more precise. Some like in Englishman in New York, a great song performed by Sting.

A simple search using "jazz trumpet" as keywords on Google have lead me to Jon Faddis. He is a great trumpeter, but it wasn't the kind of jazz I was looking for. So I was added one more simple word: smooth. The keywords for the new search are now "smooth jazz trumpet".

Well, if you simply want to lay down, to close your eyes and then fly over the world... over the great cities around the world, during the night, with no plans, with no worries, without any target, with no direction at all... well then... this is what you might like to hear: EDolutionary!

Edmund Sobczak - trumpeter, composer originally from Poland where he studied trumpet performance at the University of Music in Poznan - one of the best Universities in the country. For the last 6 years he's lived in Oxford (UK). After 18 years of playing the trumpet and being involved in countless music projects, in 2008 he decided to start his own solo career.
- from EDolutionary.com

The Mechanic

The Mechanic was planned for tonight. Quite an action, and quite a movie. Jason Statham is a calm, yet fast moving and powerful character (Arthur Bishop) in this movie.
The following line drawn my attention, so I was checking for it on the web (why not?):

Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

I've found that it belongs to Jim Horning, a computer scientist "hooked on computing since 1959".

Also, on a gun which belongs to Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland), it was written:

Amat Victoria Curam
Victory Loves Preparation

So perhaps this is one of the ideas of this movie.

May all travellers...

My favorite quote from Seven Years in Tibet (starring Brad Pitt and David Thewlis):

May all travellers find happiness wherever they go. Without any effort may they accomplish whatever they set out to do. And have a safely return to the shore. May they joyfully reunited with their relatives. -- His Holiness Dalai Lama 

Shangri-La

For quite a long time a novel failed to captivate me as "Shangri-La. Cross in Antarctica" did. The author exploits a flaw information to the end of the Second World War (or one of its storage labeled "top secret"), explaining some events of contemporary history seen from another perspective: we do not walk on water because we know that we will sink, but because we were taught so! Murillo manages to assemble and to reveal a stunning puzzle about the characters that appear to lead the destiny of this planet, members of The Last Thule organization. Because sometimes the action takes place against the clock (one of the protagonists receives the suggestion to change his Swiss watch just because it remained behind), but some of the characters are former participants of lesser-known events from end of the last World War, Julio Murillo takes us from Germany to the United States, from France to Spain and from Britain to Antarctica. He manages to keep the reader breathless and, when things seem to be heading on a normal track, new twists require new revelations, new information to complete the puzzle that is becoming more complicated, but nevertheless better outlined. Is it humanity on the way to a new world war, one for energy resources or just one for water? The ending of the book seems happy... but Murillo is not a Hollywood director, but a Prize for Historical Novel Alfonso X laureate!

Julio Murillo Llerda - Shangri-La

UP IN THE AIR

After the Company Men (link to my Romanian blog post), Up in the Air seems to bring some of the unemployment issues to the big screen.

There are many other aspects of our lives in this movie, either we are single (George Clooney) or not (Vera Farmiga). The trailer gives you a clue about what is it about.

For some, flying ("miles and more") is a dream, for others it is just a way of life!

The Pioneers

THE COWARDS

NEVER STARTED

----------------------------

THE WEAK

DIED ON THE WAY

----------------------------

ONLY THE STRONG

ARRIVED

----------------------------

THEY WERE

THE PIONEERS

----------------------------

The above quote that draw my attention appear in a movie called "About Schmidt", starring Jack Nicholson. It says quite a lot even nowadays, although it was meant for the pioneers of the West.

An interesting link you might consider for your future navigation on the web, or on site - at Kearney, Nebraska - is Great Platte River Road Archway. This is the history museum that displays the plate.

Described by the Miami Herald as a “splashy, brassy history museum that uses film, computer graphics, light and sound, life-size dioramas, re-enactors and classic cars to document over 150 years of transportation and communication across America.” The Archway brings the westward migration to life.

http://www.archway.org/

Pink Floyd - The Colours

A while ago I posted somewhere on the web a "theory" about PINK colour. The original post was about a pink lizard.

So I thought that in Pink Floyd's name we find the colour PINK.

Pink is a combination of red and white. The main colors are red, yellow and blue. By the combination of the other two colours, yellow and blue, we obtain green, so "Green Is The Colour". Corporal Clegg had a coloured medal:

Corporal Clegg had a medal too

In orange, red, and blue 

He found it in the zoo.

In Stay, "A yellow moon is growing cold" (from the album Obscured by Clouds).

Pink is the only colour that we will not find in the rainbow. The rainbow reminds us about their album: Dark Side Of The Moon. See you on the dark side of the moon!

Any Colour You Like is another great song!

Blue... Good Bye Blue Sky!

Us And Them, black and blue...

So: PINK is quite a colour, and PINK FLOYD quite a band!

Google 3D Warehouse

A while ago Google released another useful online tool named Building Maker. It is the software used in order to create 3D models of the building to be eventually displayed in Google Earth. There is also an offline version named Google SketchUp:

SketchUp is the finest (and most innovative) tool available for anyone designing anything from coffee pots to skyscrapers."
– McCall & Associates

So, I was curious about this new free tool, and I've started to use it. I've created at first a few simple models, which, to my surprise, were accepted! Being somehow pleased with the results, I've continued to improve my technique. So far I've uploaded 28 accepted models of buildings in Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Among these models, I consider the following building one of the most interesting:

This is a model which is still under "construction":

In order to see it in 3D or in Google Earth, click here, or follow this link:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=92e6b167723e0a1eb6261ff4537f8c6a

Google has some wonderful apps, only that some of them are very well "kept", and I do not know why...