Brautigan

Apple and Jobs break into consumer sector industries that take their eye off of value and service in favor of profits and control: music, video, games, telephone, and eventually banking—money being the ultimate content stream. Greed creates gaps. Unless the plutocrats wake up, it's a fruit flavored future. I am reminded of Richard Brautigan's wonderfully ironical poem, "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace."

America bikes

Following a link a friend sent, I found this map of the US with the national bike routes shown, many of which go through the Winona area. It's the "bikeway" for both north-south routes involving the Mississippi River and for northern tier east-west routes.

OSX finder trick 2

Today I wanted a simple tool for organizing my bookmarks—one that would simply sort them by frequency of use. Not asking much. I couldn't find one. But I did find a free cool tool that allows me to bookmark anything—tunes, messages, files, sites—and keep them handy at the top menubar. Hallon. Take a look. Great for creating project resource lists for the day's work.

OSX Mail app trick 3

As you can see, Mail will add a web link to a message either either using the "mail link..." command or, better, dragging the link into a message. Dragging the link embeds it within the site name. Much more useful.

OSX stupid finder trick 1

Quick Look is a cool feature that displays documents by hitting the space bar after selecting some files. It works particularly well with fonts. Take a look.

European vacation '08

If you have a couple minutes, here's the short-form slide show.

Museum Schnütgen, Cologne

While in Cologne, we visited the Schnütgen Museum. It seemed a quaint, out of the way sight, but in researching now, it is apparently quite prestigious. Makes sense. According to Frommer's,

this is Cologne's best collection of religious art and sculpture. It's all displayed in an original setting, St. Cecilia's Church (Cäcilienkirche), which is a fine example of Rhenish-Romanic architecture. The works displayed include several medieval ivories, woodwork, and tapestries, including one showing rosy-cheeked Magi bringing gifts to the Christ Child (1470). There are also many Madonnas, of all sizes and descriptions, carved in stone, wood, and metal. LINK

The Schnutgen was the find of the trip for us and a favorite of Chris's. Some of the wood sculptures were astonishing and affecting. The connection with the figure as art and with the character of the person depicted and with the artist—it all was immediate and powerful.

We could shoot without a flash; video shooting was a good as it got.

Yosemite shot

Just thought I would put this up. Nice warm, sunny day. Big tree.

Düss at night

Köln

Food

Aachen

Spring in Düss

Kaffee und Kuchen

Postcard

Barb and I have had a couple fine walks along the Rhine and through the city park. We have been lucky re: weather, both here and in France—tho' last night I slept through a storm that woke everyone else.