Past Blast: Bruges

The Bonne-Chière Windmill

An hour by high-speed train from Brussels, Bruges is a northwestern port city for Belgium. While its official city limits are quite large, its well-preserved medieval city-center draws the visitors. And while I didn't notice any hitmen on retreat, it's easy to see why Bruges is often referred to as a "Venice of the North".

Like Venice,
but less marble

Standing near a windmill, you're rewarded with a skyline-view

The medieval district is dominated by church bell towers, and it's not a bad idea to pick one in the distance and try to make your way through the winding streets and canals. There are small buildings straddling the waterways, and private gardens lining the roads. If you reach the outer edge of the district, you'll find the old textile windmills on their built-up hills, allowing them to reach the sea breeze above the mostly-2-story city.

Wired

This winter Cas and I gifted ourselves with the entire 5-season set of HBO's The Wire when it was on sale on Amazon. I had borrowed it a couple years ago from a friend [thanks Chris!] but, as most Wire-watchers do, eventually felt the need to share the love and watch it again. We're only a few episodes in so far, but there's nothing like watching some quality TV.

Lance Reddick as Cedric Daniels
[went on to LOST and Fringe]

Cas can testify that, in general, I disapprove and avoid 'police procedurals' of the CSI-ilk. Isn't it always the same story, slightly different? 1. Some crime happens. 2. Show intro-credits. 3. Early investigation points in one direction. 4. Couple of commercial breaks. 5. New evidence/police insight points at another suspect. 6. More commercials. 7. Some sort of twist! 8. Suspect caught/killed, smirky detective comments made, fade to black. This also applies to several 'medical procedurals', only replace 'suspect' with 'diagnosis'.

The Wire, while officially labeled on the back of the box as a 'police procedural', avoids the wrap-it-up-in-an-hour-every-week formula and instead has a slowly evolving investigation into a certain aspect of Baltimore city life each season. Being on HBO certainly freed it from some convention, and allowed language to be what it is. Who can forget McNulty and Bunk investigating a crime scene for 3 minutes using only the F-word? Classic Wire.

Idris Elba as Stringer Bell
[went on to The Office]

Funny, smart, serious, complicated = well written. Great acting. You'll recognize many of The Wire's actors/actresses turning up on prime-time TV after their Wire performances [a couple examples illustrated on this page]. The perfect way to keep wintertime TV from polluting your screen.

Bear-able

I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas, and is gearing up for a Happy New Year. Da Bears have been a very pleasant surprise this year, as the "z- clinched division" in the graphic above can attest. I was surprised with some bears tix for my birthday, so for 2010's last post, enjoy some photos from Soldier Field! The 38-34 victory over the N.Y. Jets was a great game to catch... here's to a few more leading into February!

Sec. 434, Row 24...

Not a bad view... and the sun came out between lake-effect snow showers

The colonnade beneath the new stands; note the floodlights!

Lunapics

The best I could manage in 2003- shots with anything else in the sky washed out the moon!

This year the winter solstice will get a bonus- a total lunar eclipse visible in the entire continental US [@ 1:40 AM Central Tuesday morning]. While the Chicago forecast is cloudy/snowy, I can't say I was planning on staying up for it. It did force me to track down some photos I took while in Rome during a total lunar eclipse in 2003. I had many blurry shots of a reddening moon, but the better pictures that evening were from the quiet streets of Roma. Enjoy, and hope you have a good Christmas Week!

The Spanish Steps- minus the typical crowds

Above Piazza del Popolo- with San Pietro distant

From Piazza del Popolo looking down the main-drag Via del Corso

Windfarming

Christmas is getting closer by the minute- which means so are a few trips driving between Chicago and Cincinnati. The ~5 hour drive [always losing an hour going east, and gaining 1 west] through practically all of Indiana has few highlights. Indianapolis, while having a couple trivia-worthy facts [most-centrally-located state capital in the USA, and the second-most populous behind Phoenix], is usually bypassed via I-465. A slew of odd, often quasi-religious billboards [probably worthy of another post sometime] make an appearance.

A windfarm worthy of Funkenschlag

The undisputed highlight of the drive is when the tall, silent wind turbines of the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm begin to creep over the horizon. I-65 cuts right through the heart of the farm, so line after line of the windmills twirl slowly by. Twice I've driven past people who have parked on the shoulder and brave the highway traffic to get some photographs. The ones gracing this page are courtesy of Cassie's passenger-seat photography.


At night the turbines continue to spin, but each tower is topped with a synchronized, flashing red light so that the entire wind farm lights up from horizon to horizon at the same time. Very, very creepy. Webcomic xkcd.com got it right. The speed that they rotate [WHOOSH... WHOOSH... WHOOSH...] is hypnotizing. Can't wait to see 'em again!

Rockin' Around

Light it up!

With yours truly's holiday-birthday, Christmas has always been kind of a big deal in the Matteson homestead. Aside from the seasonal decorations on every wall/ledge/handrail, there're usually two trees: a real pine in the family room for Santa to drop some gifts under, and an artificial tree in the front living room. The latter has our 'town'.

As any real boy should have an electric train set, I was no exception. Around my 5th birthday I got a traditional Lionel Trains starter set, and every year the collection has grown. Nowadays my younger brother is in on it as well, so the layout surrounding the tree has slowly annexed more and more living room floorspace... perhaps slightly encroaching on the dining room's capabilities to host Christmas Day Dinner.


These photos are from the past 2 years; those with keen eyes will spot the differing track layouts. Lionel puts out a new seasonal boxcar every year, and the Christmas Trains usually replace the typical freight cars after Santa drops off a new addition. Department 56-esque buildings provide a small town center, North Pole, and farm/countryside to fill in the gaps between tracks.

Long-exposure + trains running = Cool

Flurries

The Alps, near Kirchberg, Austria

On the commute this evening, the year's first flurries swarmed the area. Hello winter. Although they only managed to wet my windshield as they melted, they'll be back with more friends soon- I'm sure. Wish we had a decent ski slope around here to collect them; will have to keep dreaming of the Alps until I get back out to Denver sometime. Of course, there's always Rib Mountain up in Wausau, too...