View From The Living Room Window At 4:00

A Sunday Stroll

Now that Winter has finally arrived and the gray, drizzle has gone back Seattle where it belongs (sorry Mike and Pete), we now have a proper January day. It's nice, -5 (23F), calm and clear. The pine forest begins about a 10-minute walk from home and it's soothing to the soul in any season. This monument, about 6 meters tall, is in the WWII cemetary here in Cesis. There are more than 300 names engraved in granite. This from a town of less than 10,000 people at that time. It is a place to ruminate and remember.

The Tagger Needs A Spell Checkeker...

I saw this today walking down an alley in the center of town. The guy on the right is Einars Repse, former Prime Minister and now a guy who ran over and killed a drunk on the highway. Oh, he also used to be the head of the Latvian Central Bank. 
 

Smokey Sunrise

The price of natural gas went up 30% last week (the Russians have us by the...), so now even more wood is being burned to keep warm, even though it was only 33F this morning. That's almost warm.

Nope, Not Yet...

Today we walked home from town through the park as 
we often do, and you can see it looks more like early April 
than almost mid January. We stopped and spoke with our 
neighbor, Nina, or actually Inga spoke with her. I don't 
speak Russian. She has lived in Latvia since the War when 
she was sent here by the Soviets as a teenager. She's seen 
plenty. 

Still Not Winter

Amazing as it seems to everyone here, we're still not 
experiencing anything like a normal winter. To me it 
feels like the Pacific Northwest where I grew up in 
Washington State. 

Then And Now

The top foto is what Winter usually looks like around here. Then there is today. Hard to believe, but it feels like Spring.
 

What Can You See In A Raindrop?

The weather here has been unseasonably mild. Today seemed more like April. It was the first time we'd had any sustained sunshine in weeks.  Lots of people were out walking with bemused looks on their faces. Pretty nice for 57 latitude in December.

 

Clouds On A Summer Day

Time for some more sunshine views to cheer us up here in the December gloom. Someday the sun will return and I can show you what a white winter looks like around here. It can be quite beautiful.

Time For Some Sun

It's been pretty much endless gray days here in Latvia as northern Europe continues its mildest weather in years. The bears are confused about hibernating, the birds are confused about flying, and the bushes are confused about budding. This is Seattle weather for December. We're usually blanketed in snow for the duration by now. I much prefer the white, sunny world to this damp, gray one. With less than eight hours of daylight right now we need all the help we can get keeping our spirits up. So, it's pleasing to look at pictures from last summer to remember what sunshine and flowers look like.

President Bush was in Riga earlier this week for the NATO summit. It was a holiday here and all the Old Town core streets were restricted. I think the President likes Latvia. It's one of the few countries that still welcomes him. The Cold War didn't end that long ago here. Now with the poisoning of Litvenenko in London, the world is getting a taste of the Russian approach to perceived international threats that the Latvians know only too well.

Post-Pub Picture

Here's St. John's Church on the walk home from visiting a Brit friend at the "Uguntina" pub last Saturday night. I balanced the camera on my wife's head and pushed the 2-second timer. We were a bit buzzed. A combination of the sacred and the profane?

An Unlucky Number?

Thanks to Stephen Brown, who has the same name as my best friend when I was a kid.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 13 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Sunrise

I know this is probably hard to believe, I could hardly believe it myself when I looked out the window this morning, but these were the actual colors, not enhanced in post-processing, only resized and sharpened a bit. The top one got a little treatment in NoiseNinja. I really like the little Fuji F30.

The Things You Can Buy These Days...

 One of life's necessities - and a little something more...

I Think Winter Started Today

Still, I like this better than a gloomy gray raining-sideways day.

"Things Are Getting Better All The Time..."

The food in the local restaurants is getting 
more interesting with each passing year. 

It's a Dog's Life...

Wind, Now and Then...

 

Mushrooms!

These look like pancakes.

Are these edible?

On the left side there's a smiling, jumping little man. Can you see him?