You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby

One of the interesting buildings I came across in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. September 2009.

During one weekend we spent in the Netherlands, my buddy Freddy and I paid 45 Euros for nine hours at a regular car park in Amsterdam, and we spent 50 Euros on a parking ticket which we got for half an hour in a no parking zone in Rotterdam. That's just way over the top, if you ask me.

I just came back from the city; of course I watched the football match England vs. Germany with some buddies from university. I said before the match that I'm gonna support whoever wins and there's no doubt the German side deserved to reach the quarter finals.

Now I'm back to doing stuff for uni... the semester's end is coming soon.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

- Dom

Rambling Man

I'm done looking once again through my photographs from the U.S. - that means it's about time to have a second look at the pictures taken in the Netherlands a month and a half after coming back to Europe. There's a much brighter exposure of the following shot on my website (which is still not updated, we haven't had enough time to do so), but I think I will substitute it for this one...

Kinderdijk, the Netherlands. September 2009.

"Rambling Man", a beautiful song by one of the greatest new British talents, Laura Marling.

I guess I should continue preparing my next presentation (which goes along with an essay) about treetrunk coffins. Not exactly the most interesting topic to write about. Not the worst either, though.

Have a great week.

- Dom

Hold On

They hung a sign up in our town

"If you live it up, you won't live it down"

With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips

She went and took that California trip

Well the moon was gold, her hair like wind

Well your old hometown is so far away

But inside your head there's a record 

That's playing a song called "Hold On"

(Tom Waits)

Have a great week!

- Dom

This Land Is Your Land

As I went walking I saw a sign there and on the sign it said No Trespassing but on the other side it didn't say nothing, well, that side was made for you and me.

(Woody Guthrie)

The North Rim, Grand Canyon, Arizona.

After a forest fire, pioneer species such as this blue one are the first plants to grow again. Picture taken near Grand Canyon.

I'm off to the German coastal city Wilhelmshaven tomorrow. Gonna take part in a weekend course about export and import trade on the North Sea coast in the first millenium A.D. - hope it's gonna be interesting, because it's a 210 kilometre drive, one way. I'm sharing my car with four friends and fellow students of mine so I won't stop to take too many pictures, I guess. However, I'll be back for another weekend at the end of July. 

Concerning the plans for this summer, I can only say this much:

Excavation from the 19th of July - 6th of August. It's a Saxon burial ground. I'm looking forward to it because working in the field is what I'm studying archaeology for. I'm not interested in studying books all day long. You only get tired from doing hard work. When you're studying or writing for hours, you drink too much Coke or coffee and after a while you turn into an insomniac. Can't remember the last time I slept nine hours.

Road Trip around Denmark, Norway, and Sweden at the end of August / early September.

Probably going to a concert or two at Tonder Festival in Denmark, before heading across the Baltic Sea to Malmö (Sweden).

I won't be visiting Israel, although I did consider it. I'm not coming back to England either. I had to decide between visiting a familiar place and one I haven't been to before, so Scandinavia is where I'll be going.

Have a nice weekend.


- Dom

Prove It All Night

Everybody's got a hunger

A hunger they can't resist

There's so much that you want

You deserve much more than this

But if dreams came true, well wouldn't that be nice

Girl, you want it, you take it, you pay the price

You hear the voices telling you not to go

They made their choices and they'll never know

("Prove It All Night", Bruce Springsteen)

Roy's Motel & Cafe, Amboy, California.

Picture taken almost a year ago.

I pasted the colour version over a sepia version of the picture to get the results seen above.

I think I've mentioned in another blogpost that Cormac McCarthy is one of my favourite authors of all time (along with Harper Lee). Well, I just received four books in the mail two weeks ago that I ordered on Amazon. Hadn't read them before and I ain't got much time to read books anyways because I'm reading so many scientific publications for university already. Still, I'm racing through the pages because he writes so well. None of my friends that I mentioned the author to had ever heard of him; I wonder how come.

Here's an excerpt from "The Crossing", the second part of the Border Trilogy - All The Pretty Horses being the first, and my favourite book.

They were running on the plain harrying the antelope and the antelope moved like phantoms in the snow and circled and wheeled and the dry powder blew about them in the cold moonlight and their breath smoked palely in the cold as if they burned with some inner fire and the wolves twisted and turned and leapt in a silence such that they seemed of another world entire. They moved down the valley and turned and moved far out on the plain until they were the smallest of figures in that dim whiteness and then they disappeared.

What I like about McCarthy's style is his frequent use of polysyndeton (as evident in the quotation above). I also like McCarthy because he's not using semicolons - on account of that the pages in his books aren't... sort of, congested with unnecessary stuff. 

My English and German teachers would protest heavily against me saying something like that, but one thing I remember from five years of Latin is that the ancient Romans didn't have quotation marks neither.

Here's a great article & interview on / with him.



Have a great weekend y'all!


- Dom

What Difference Does It Make

Yak To The Future - "Yak"? What the fuck? Allright, enough with the puns and wordplays, or as my former English teacher Mrs. Avenell would've said (or rather, screamed): "CUT IT OUT!", leading even my rugby playin' buddy Maxwell to duck his head instinctively.

Anyway, Yak To The Future is the name of one of the teams taking part in this year's Mongol Rally; the route leads from my old hometown London all the way to Ulaanbaatar, which happens to be the capital of Mongolia. What route? It's up to you which one you pick. Everybody can take part, if they don't end up on an endless waiting list and unless they fail to rack up at least one thousand bucks which are gonna be donated to charity. So you're taking part in a huge adventure and raising money for a good cause.

I found out about the Mongol Rally too late to participate this year, so I'm gonna sign up for 2011. The reason why I'm putting up a link to the website of these six guys is that they'd probably be the kind of guys I'd want to ride with if I hadn't already chosen my favourite co-driver who's equally adventurous as yours truly, and so happens to be the only person I know that this applies to.

They've collected a lot of money already but I figured, the more the better. If they're just a tad more responsible than me old lad Patty, they shall arrive at this faraway destination instead of getting busted for driving under the influence after a visit to the pub.

  

"Where we're going, we don't need roads..."

Of course I'll keep you updated and let you know if (and when) I've progressed beyond the waiting list (sometime around September, I think) and how everything will be coming along. After my American road trip last year, this summer's tour of Scandinavia will be another chance to put my endurance to the test.

Now before I get back to writing that essay for uni, let me post an archive shot... it's from last year and I came across it today.

Have a great week.

- Dom