Well, this is pretty cool.

I've seen a lot of Storm Trooper crap. Mpst of it involves them wearing Hawiian shirts and thet. THIS is pretty much full of win.

Look at this dog!

It is done!

At long last my secret project has come to fruition! Announcing the Mark 1 Brass Goggles. I'll be selling these things over at my website www.got-steam.com

This represents about 2 months of solid work. It was also a great learning experience. I displayed these at ChattaCon and have already sold a few pair. They are indeed pricey, but I think there is a market for a pair of high end brass goggles in the steampunk community.

Simple pleasures

I was a sign maker for years, which is why watching protesters these days both amuses and horrifies me. Here is a fine collection. Enjoy.

Things that make you go hmmm...

An interesting collection of photos of what some death row inmates had for their last meal. No significance, just a curiosity.

Cappadocia at last

Memories and experiences are piling up. I am unable to get all of them detailed here so I'll skip a few. We got to Cappadocia yesterday home of the famous fairy chimneys. This area saw great volcanic activity thousands of years ago. The different layers have different densities. Over the years the softer material has washed away, often with larger dense sections left atop them. It's impressive to say the damn least.

This is a large area that at one time supported a large monastic community who carved several chapels into the living rock. Everywhere you look there a little windows. It's surreal and beautiful.


This morning at 5:30 am we took off for a hot air balloon excursion. I took over 200 pictures, so many that I ran down my camera battery. I'll upload these later but here's one or two.





The little sliver of land you see below is where we tried to land, but wind being a fickle thing we did not. We pulled up at the last second, barely cleared a small hill and quickly landed on an even smaller sliver of land without tipping or catching the balloon on any of the many small trees that dot the landscape..

I cannot describe how awesome this trip was. We visited several scenic overlooks over the course of the day and I took many more pictures, but the experience of seeing this landscape from the air was the best. Of course, we were also subjected to several shopping excursions today. I was less angry with the carpet shop because its a working shop and it was actually very educational. We actually got to see silk cocoons being unwound to make into thread, something I have always wanted to learn about. At last came the sales pitch, but its was a very good one. They laid over every conceivable type of floor cover, from crude kilims to three award winning carpets that simply took our breath away.

Panorama of the sales pitch

In the end we gave serious though to a "dowry carpet" which wasn't even made by the shop but is instead made by women to part of their first homes furnishings. These are fairly rare and of course, pretty pricey. They put one of their best guys on us and I will say that he was good. Sure, he was the first Turk who I had yet seen with a mustache AND goatee like mine, but that didn't sway me at all... We managed to get away without spending a serious chunk of change, but it was the closest I've ever come to buying one of these.

I'd dearly love to hike around this area for a few days, but as always, time is our enemy. We depart for Ankara tomorrow.

By the Sea...

We rolled into Antalya two days ago. After so much go go go the group gets two whole nights in one place to get some wash done and catch up on sleep (must mornings start at 6am, hell there are times at home I don't go to bed until 3 or 4am).

The city is huge. It wasn't always so though. 12 years ago it was a small town with a charming old city (something rare in a country with so many earthquakes and a national obsession with modernization). Apparently the city has a kind of unspoken segregation. Russian and Eastern European tourists stay in the West part of the city, Everyone else uses the Eastern half. After hearing some horror stories of Russian tourists I am all to happy to let them have half the town.

We visit the old city, which is quaint with winding streets and some nice architecture. I would love to stay here at one of the small hotels. But the quiet days give way to raucus nights with loud bars, fights and prostitutes making it unbearable for anyone hoping to actually sleep at 3am. Too bad.

We visit the Perge museum which contains some amazing artifacts from Turkey's long history including some of the finest statues I've ever seen.



This morning we went to Aspendos, home of the most complete Roman theater in the world and it was truly a sight. Usually the elaborate backdrops are destroyed by time and material scavengers but not here. It's still in use today for operas and other large scale events.

Lots of things here are vast in scope so I took 8 pics and stitched them together.

Rossana backstage

We push on through the Taurus mountains heading inland along the ancient spice and silk trails. We stop at the grave of Rumi, the founder of the Sufi. In two days we'll get a chance to see actual dervishes (as opposed to the faux hotel shows). We shall see.


I took this picture during a brief roadside rest. It seemed to encapsulate three strong elements of Turkey. It's natural beauty, it's drive for progress in the form of the aluminum smelter and its ancient past.

Brain freeze..

There comes a point while visiting a country with vast natural and cultural beauty that your brain gets slightly overloaded. I think we reached that point yesterday.

Pammukale is not much to look at on first inspection. A shabby town in need of many civic repairs. Cheap pensions and the typical tourist stalls line the streets as you drive into town. The bus can barely make it up the narrow, rutted roads. Our hotel was comfortable enough and we turned in after a long day on the road. In the morning we drove up to the ancient city of Heiropolis in a light rain. What one sees there is another thing entirely. This was a spa town from waaaay back. And its not hard to see why. Natural hot springs deliver a mineral broth of calcium carbonate that over thousands of years has created a kind of frozen white waterfall down the side of the mountain. It is amazing to see. Pictures don't really do it much justice.


Especially mine. Hey, it was crappy weather. So take a look at some of these pics on flickr, which are much nicer.


Alas, earthquakes have shifted the natural water flow in the area. In fact, it must get 'a bath' once a week to maintain its form, and already iron is entering the system and staining some of the formations. You cannot swim or walk on the formations except for a small section.

I'd show you a cool pic of me but the net connection here is crappy and won't upload images for some reason. Just imagine it... it's pretty cool.


Hey I got it to work...


Luckily, there is an 'Antique Pool' on site which is quite nice. There you can cavort amongst fallen Roman Columns in steamy goodness amongst fat Russian Oligarchs and rude Germans.

The ruins of the ancient city are extensive, including many stone waterways that shunted the piping hot water throughout this city. There's a small museum build into an ancient bathhouse and a large necropolis outside the walls of the city. All warrant further exploration. Alas, time did not allow. We had to push through the Taurus mountains to get to Antalya. On the list of places I would expend the time and energy to return to Hieropolis is near the top.

Istanbul - Day 2

Up bright and early. Lots to see. After breakfast of yogurt, apples, cheese, bread and tea we head off to the Basilica Cistern. This amazing structure was built to supply water to the palaces and was lost for quite a while. It is eerie and beautiful, dimly lit with amber light. Fish still live in the clear water. In one corner, you can still see the head of Medusa, a piece of stone taken from a ruined temple, used as a base for a support pillar.

Note: This isn't my picture

We then hit the bazaar again, this time I found the book dealers street. Awesome. I'll be back there soon. Oddly, books are the only thing that aren't haggled over, and they can be pricy.Taking a few twists we found a street where metal workers turned out some amazing antique reproductions. I even perused a few flintlocks. Sooo tempting. But we plan on holding off on major buying until the end of the trip. Other wise we'd be hauling all our swag around for two weeks. But still... soo shiny...



Back to the Tulip for a nap. Walking this much takes it out of you. Dinner at a rooftop restaurant with an amazing view of the Haiga Sophia and the Blue Mosque. We ate as the sun sank slowly in the West and the Muezzin called the faithful to prayer.



Istanbul is quite the Metropolitan place. It is the meeting of East and West. However I did not expect "West" to mean the American West. As we walked through the park that sits atop the ancient Hippodrome today we saw a group of Native Americans performing a tribal/new age dance/concert. Really, this was THE last thing I ever expected to see in the heart of Turkey. It was a bit surreal.



After dinner I chatted with Mehmet, the young hotel manager and his friend. We showed pictures of our respective homes. Mehmets friend is Kurdish (an oppresed minority in Turkey) and his fathers home is also underground though a bit more rugged. The surrounding mountainside however is breathtaking. A polish traveller joined us and were learned of Turkeys great sporting tradition of male oil wrestling. No, it's not what you think. Look it up.

Tomorrow we move across the Bosphorus to our new hotel and will meet up with our fellow travellers in the evening. Not sure what we'll get up to in the day. This city, for all its size, is oddly relaxing. It is clean and actually smells very nice. (The Old City areas in Morroco can best be descibed as smelling "Biblical"). Here you can smell the sea, fresh bread, roasting meat and flowers in the park.

Arrival

HAVE ARRIVED SAFE IN ISTANBUL STOP
LIVING IN 8 X 9 HOSTEL ROOM BEHIND HAIGA SOFIA STOP
TOMORROW BEGINS ADVENTURE STOP

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

This was one of the more low stress trips I have taken of late. Sure, it rained on the way to the airport, then I got a call AND and an email telling me peoples websites were acting up.

Care level = Zero. It would be dealt with later.


No lines anywhere. Flight to new York is smooth. Security there quick as well. In flight there are two seats free in our aisle. Passable food and and actually trusted us with metal eating utensils. Each seat had its own personal entertainment center. Nice touch. No real sleep, it's still a plane trip and a long one at that.

On arrival a tout tried to get us to take a bus to Sultanammet. "Only 60 Turkish Lira!" (about $38) "Mush faster!"

Really? The metro and tram system took us about an hour and cost us $3 total. Nice. Outer Instanbul is much like any other city. Modern, and with many concrete buildings. Similar to Cairo but more finished looking and no farms interspersed between buildings. But once you arrive in Sultanammet you are dumped at a lovely park right between the Blue Mosque and Haiha Sophia. Using my keen "Souk Sense" I tracked down our minescule hotstel and we checked in. At this point "resting me feet" became "passed out" for several hours.

We recovered enough to get out and find a few sights. At a small park I was befriended by this fellow who lumped up on my lap and proceeded to love me with great vigor. Rossana gave him some cheese which made him quite happy. Meanwhile my own cats treat me like I beat them with a rubber hose. I tell ya I don't get no respect...


We had dinner at a small restaurant nearby where our waiter asked if we were Americans. We took a chance and said 'Yes'.

"Do you like your new president?" he asked.

"Yes, very much."

"We do too. He was here three weeks ago. I go to see him and everyone shouting Obama! Obama! I could not get close enough. So many people."

That felt good. A few years ago in Egypt I had an awkward discussion with a friendly merchant while awaiting delivery of some goods. Today I felt quite comfortable being an American abroad. Of course, the Turkish people are genuinely very friendly. After diner we strolled to the lit Blue Mosque.


Tomorrow we start exploring more on our own.

Blogging from a small town - Albino Squirrels

I ran some errands in the "Big City" today. That means Oberlin. And as I crossed the town square I ran across one of Oberlin's more odd inhabitants. A white (or albino) squirrel.



Apparently these little guys are well known. Some people have traveled from foreign lands to see these guys. They are indeed white. It seems that due to feeding by locals a trait that would normally take these little guys out of the gene pool pretty quick has allowed them to thrive. There are still plenty of brown and grey squirrels. But I bet the white guys get hit by cars a lot less. Maybe that shows that they are evolving. Blending in with the environment is not as important as not being hit by cars. Hmmm..

More proof!

Lovely...

It's been a while since I had to make a flowchart. I made quite a few in my Corporate days. Some I did in Corel Draw, others in Microsoft Powerpoint. But the process was always ugly and required a lot of work.

Well no more! There a FREE online flowchart program online called Lovely Charts. I used it to diagram the convoluted system I had to develop to get internet and VOIP phone working in my home. It takes no time to pick up how the system works and it has a lot of pre-made objects (like networking icons). I only wish they had more objects to work with, but hey, it's free.

And if you're curious what the network looks like that makes Bag End function you can see my kick-ass diagram here (click to embiggen):

The Machine....it WORKS!!!!!!!

Swiss watch found in 400-year-old tomb

Archeologists in China are baffled after finding a tiny Swiss watch in a 400-year-old tomb.

The watch ring was discovered as archeologists were making a documentary with two journalists from Shangsi town.

"When we tried to remove the soil wrapped around the coffin, a piece of rock suddenly dropped off and hit the ground with a metallic sound,? said Jiang Yanyu, former curator of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Museum.

"We picked up the object, and found it was a ring. After removing the covering soil and examining it further, we were shocked to see it was a watch."

The time was stopped at 10:06am, and on the back was engraved the word "Swiss", reports the People's Daily.

Local experts say they are confused as they believe the tomb had been undisturbed since it was created during the Ming dynasty 400 years ago.

They have suspended the dig and are waiting for experts to arrive from Beijing and help them unravel the mystery.

Street with a View

Have you ever wanted to know exactly when the google streetview guys were coming so you could be outside in a yetti costume juggling flaming hams? Sure you have. And so did some clever monkeys in Pittsburgh who worked with google to stage a kind of 360 degree art scene.

It's pretty cool. It includes a marching band, mad scientists, an escape from a window and even two Dagorhir fighters with boffer weapons. Wow.

Go check it out.

Keen

Some friend of a guy who does the Shortpacked comic strip got married and I have to admit, it's a pretty sweet looking invite.



Tough to top? Sure. But very geeky. Apparently the wedding was costume mandatory. My kind of people.

Geeks at Home

I present to you a collection of geeks, fanboys and nerds dressed in their native attire and in their home settings. This is a series of very cool photos of our kind (or my kind if you are not a nerd and/or fanboy).

There is a strange juxtaposition of seeing a sith lord in a living room with collectible dolls. On the other hand, it shows that a lot of us are just normal people who live in normal places.

I am in no way ashamed of my nerdness. I never have been. Whether it was strolling through the mall in mediaval garb, attending a swanky fundraiser in my trek uniform or going to the moviesdressed as a pirate and/or vampire.

How drab, how dull to live out ones life wearing the uniform our society and culture has stated is 'proper' and 'right'.

I've been hacked.

And to be honest, I am honored that some kid in Saudi Arabia thought enough of my site to deface it. While doing some clean up on the site I went to take a look at some OLD pics I took in Italy a few years back and found this.

I don't know how they got in and it doesn't appear that they have done any other damage. The page is safe to view, I've checked all the HTML. As a precaution I'll be changing some passwords etc.

Pretty Pictures

Safely back in the states. But there's lots to do. We're off to Marcon this weekend but I wanted to throw up a few of the more artsy pictures I took in Germany. have a look-see.

Germany - Artsy Pics

MegaCon and more

I ran into R2 at the Con. He looks good for his age but I thought he might want to try out "The Shatner" model to keep that slight gut in check.


















The very rare double headed Rhino. She's a beauty!





















THIS is what you look like after the ride that "doesn't get you very wet" according to my beloved wife.

















Two lorikeets sharing some nectar at Busch Gardens