• Shared today on Twitter

    @MelissaKaulfuss I’m with you. I got a new seat for my bike and put it on last weekend, but I haven’t been able to give it a proper test. It’s time, I think.


    RT @swyx: Once a year I reflect on @whereistanya’s Being Glue:

    https://t.co/lI0Y1wkzDV

    nearly always I am doing too much glue work and tr…


    I’m excited to share we’re launching an @awscloud She Builds Tech Skills EMEA show on Tuesday! For the first ep, Julia and I are talking @AWSAmplify Studio with Solutions Architect Emilia Smółko. Register at https://t.co/jFy9xTlYFo or watch on https://t.co/Vp850qwkkl at 12 CET. https://t.co/DfEcs6WVsY


    @johnallsopp I would. I absolutely loved my years working at @Morriswool in Sydney. I physically worked a lot harder, but I found it incredibly rewarding. I only left because we got a mortgage in Sydney, and tech pays so much more than retail.


    RT @GunnarGrosch: Old school Trivial Pursuit with @web_goddess @dtraub @vedmichv and @soganmageshwar! Do you want to join us on the DevRel…



  • Shared today on Twitter

    Mom sent me some lovely birthday flowers, but they do make it rather difficult to see my breakfast companion! 💐 @ Munich, Germany https://t.co/UjL45ozEJc


    @40PercentGerman Ooh. We are thinking of going to Nürnberg next weekend. Will be following with interest.


    It had to be done. ☘️ https://t.co/pb2upiC2tD


    @094459 Never saw them play live, but did memorably see the Saw Doctors play at the Mean Fiddler in Harlesden 22 years ago…



  • Photo Post

    Mom sent me some lovely birthday flowers, but they do make it rather difficult to see my breakfast companion! 💐

    Mom sent me some lovely birthday flowers, but they do make it rather difficult to see my breakfast companion! 💐


  • Shared today on Twitter

    @charis Thank you my friend! ❤️


    The Snook made me a beautiful homemade birthday dinner – pan pizza and a pomegranate cake. He’s the best. ❤️🍕🍰 https://t.co/ccpLDs45Bu


    @gizo Thank you!


    @jennapederson He has somehow figured out how to recreate the perfect Pizza Hut Book-It personal pan pizza of the 1980’s, but like 50x better.



  • Photo Post

    The Snook made me a beautiful homemade birthday dinner – pan pizza and a pomegranate cake. He’s the best. ❤️🍕🍰

    The Snook made me a beautiful homemade birthday dinner - pan pizza and a pomegranate cake. He’s the best. ❤️🍕🍰

    The Snook made me a beautiful homemade birthday dinner - pan pizza and a pomegranate cake. He’s the best. ❤️🍕🍰

    The Snook made me a beautiful homemade birthday dinner - pan pizza and a pomegranate cake. He’s the best. ❤️🍕🍰

    The Snook made me a beautiful homemade birthday dinner - pan pizza and a pomegranate cake. He’s the best. ❤️🍕🍰

    The Snook made me a beautiful homemade birthday dinner - pan pizza and a pomegranate cake. He’s the best. ❤️🍕🍰


  • Shared today on Twitter

    @kore_sar @twistieman @developerjack @sitapati @DeveloperSteve @philnash @ceteio @JessTelford Yep. @SydTechLeaders looked into other options a while back – notably @ceteio – but we’re still on Meetup right now for discoverability. 😒


    RT @geekysteven: I was a child, I had childish things. But when I grew up, I was able to afford a lot more childish things. I have way more…


    RT @IndigenousXLtd: Tomorrow @IndigenousX celebrates its 10 year anniversary. For every donation we receive there is a chance to go in the…



  • Vienna waits for you… 🎵

    Vienna waits for you… 🎵

    As soon as we got back from Madrid, we dumped the suitcases, did a couple quick loads of laundry, and repacked everything again. 24 hours later we were on the train to Vienna. Time to continue our Habsburg week!

    Train to Vienna

    We caught the RJX 261 from Munich to Vienna, which takes about 4 hours. Since it was dinnertime, we used the train app to order food from the dining car and it was delivered to our seats. I couldn’t resist tweeting it to @_DiningCar.

    Once we arrived at Vienna, we caught a cab to our hotel and then crashed for the night. The next morning, we wandered around the corner to phil (a bookstore and cafe) for breakfast.

    phil in Vienna

    My friend Eileen calls Vienna “the Melbourne of Europe,” and yeah, I can see it. I went for the brekkie option that came with a glass of Prosecco.

    Breakfast at phil

    We were staying in the Museum Quarter of Vienna, and I spotted this graffiti nearby: “Man tötet nicht aus Liebe.” (One does not kill for love.) This saying has been used a lot in conjunction with an Austrian campaign against domestic violence.

    Man tötet nicht aus Liebe

    I also really liked this nearby intersection, with its rainbow pedestrian crossing and LGBTQI street signals. 🏳️‍🌈❤️

    Street crossing

    Our goal for the morning was to see some art, so we headed to the nearby Maria-Theresien-Platz. This public square sits between the Naturhistorisches Museum (Natural History Museum) and the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum). In the center there is a memorial statue of Empress Maria Theresa herself. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day in Wien!

    Maria-Theresien-Platz

    We bought our tickets and headed into the Art History Museum. It turns out that Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary commissioned these two museums to house the Habsburgs’ formidable art collection.

    Kunsthistorisches Museum

    The entry to the Museum leads you into the ground floor of the Rotunda with its fantastically decorated ceiling. From there you can branch off into several different galleries.

    Rotunda

    We headed to the right into the Egyptian Collection. It was pretty much exactly what you envision as a kid – hieroglyphics on the walls, huge carved sarcophagi, and mummies in their painted coffins.

    Sarcophagus

    “Do you want to get cursed?” the Snook asked as I posed for a selfie with some burial idols. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s how you get an ancient Egyptian curse.”

    Cat idols and sculptures

    I especially liked this statuette of a hippopotamus from Thebes. They’ve dated it to around 2000BC, so this little guy is like 4000 years old.

    Hippo

    Next we headed to the Greek and Roman antiquities. Hello, butts. 🍑 This is the rear view of the Torso des Speerträgers (torso of the spear-carrier).

    Bum

    The building itself is a work of art, extravagantly decorated and carved.

    Amazonian Sarcophagus

    I especially liked this Amazonian Sarcophagus showing the famous female warriors fighting against the Greeks.

    Amazonian Sarcophagus

    The collection also includes a Roman mosaic depicting the story of Theseus. His battle with the Minotaur is in the center of the labyrinth, and around the sides are scenes with Ariadne. (The museum has spotlights that periodically turn on to highlight parts of the mosaic, which is why the scenes are lit up.)

    Labyrinth Mosaic

    A statuesque Mr. Snook, posing in a room full of Roman sculpted heads.

    Roman busts and heads

    I love the stylised decoration on these Greek amphorae. This one depicts Silenus and the maenads, as well as more Amazons.

    Amphora

    Another part of the museum is the “Kunstkammer” which houses its most fabulous treasures. This is the famous gold Cellini Salt Cellar from 1543, which was stolen in a daring heist in 2003 and not recovered until three years later. It’s insured now for like $60M.

    Cellini Salt Cellar

    Time to look at paintings! We headed up the staircase, which is ridiculously over-the-top and features paintings from famous artists like Gustav Klimt.

    Staircase

    We’d been going for over three hours at this point, so I was feeling a little tired and had a rest on a bench.

    Tired Kris

    The collection includes quite a few works by Peter Paul Rubens. This one is “Haupt der Medusa” (Head of Medusa) showing the severed head of Medusa with drops of her blood turning into snakes. 😳

    The Head of Medusa

    The museum also houses a large number of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the most significant artist of the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance. Here the Snook views “The Tower of Babel.”

    The Tower of Babel

    We spent nearly five hours in the art museum, so it was definitely time to get outside and see more of Vienna. We walked along the Heldenplatz past the Hofburg Palace (where Marie Antoinette was born!), and through the archway next to the Spanish Riding School.

    Hofburg

    Our destination was St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the most important religious building in Vienna. It’s nearly 900 years old! I was not expecting the beautiful geometric designs made from glazed tiles on the roof. I’ve never seen anything like that on a church before.

    St. Stephen's Cathedral

    The interior is also stunning, with paintings, sculptures, altars, and tombs wherever you look. We walked up and down the aisles. The cathedral was nearly destroyed in 1945 by retreating German forces, but the Captain saved it by disobeying orders to reduce it to rubble.

    Inside St. Stephen's

    We walked all around the exterior of the cathedral too. The towers have many bells, and it’s said that Beethoven discovered he was deaf when he saw birds flying out of the towers but couldn’t hear the tolling.

    St. Stephen's Cathedral

    Digression: The real reason for going to Vienna was to celebrate my 45th birthday. I had been thinking for a while about getting myself a nice wristwatch. (Not a smartwatch; a real mechanical watch.) I’d bought myself a beautiful Longines watch for my 40th, but a year later I accidentally left it in a hotel room in Singapore and I never got it back. I was heartbroken at the time and, though the Snook suggested repeatedly that we could replace it, I told him that I didn’t deserve nice things if I couldn’t care for them properly. Finally, several years later, I felt like it might be time.

    As we walked through Vienna, we looked into several watch shops but I couldn’t find anything that met my requirements. I didn’t want anything too tiny or delicate, or with silly bits of diamonds stuck all over it. I wanted something simple and classic, and ideally I wanted it to be self-winding. What I really wanted was my old watch again, but even though we saw many Longines, I couldn’t find any just like it. The Snook convinced me to check out one more shop, Juweliere Ellert, a jeweler near the cathedral. The saleslady was very nice and showed me many different watches, but none of them were right. She asked me to describe my old watch, and when I did, she suddenly reached back into a cabinet and said, “Is it this one?” IT WAS. It turns out that the particular model had been retired in 2020 but they had one left, and she recognised it from my description. So I got my watch back! She even gave us a nice discount. It was the best, best birthday surprise, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

    Anyway, after that excitement we were starving so we headed to 1516 Brewing Company for dinner and craft beer.

    Dinner at 1515 Brewing Co.

    After dinner we walked back to our hotel, past the illuminated Vienna State Opera. I’d love to see a performance there someday.

    Vienna State Opera

    Back at our hotel, it was finally time to relax. We were staying at Das Tyrol, which I picked mainly because it advertised having a private spa. (We’ve gotten a bit addicted to saunas!) We’d reserved a time slot so we put on our robes and slippies and headed down to the hotel basement. And, WOW.

    Hotel spa

    It had a Finnish dry sauna, a steam bath, a big rain shower, and some couches to relax on. There was even an aquarium built into the wall! We spent an hour down there, and it was heaven. I highly recommend.

    (more…)

  • Shared today on Twitter

    @Sereeena I had the same experience, and ultimately realised I couldn’t get past it. Ruined the book for me. I guess you have to read it before it becomes a cliche.


    Departing Vienna, and walked past an area in the main train station where volunteers were welcoming arrivals and handing out water and supplies, presumably to those fleeing Ukraine. ❤️🇺🇦


    We’ve had about an hour delay so far on the RJX60 back to München, but that just gives more time for a hot schnitzel roll from the @_DiningCar! 🚞 https://t.co/FRrXTKmkRu


    @ingobousa 😂 He only offered me ketchup or mayo!


    @Grumpy_Hoosier @_DiningCar I grew up in Indiana! Definitely very similar…


    @ctford I don’t know that I could articulate the rules, but Fordo definitely sounds less correct. Maybe for one syllable names it’s -y but two syllables is -o? (Hence why my partner is Snooky.)


    Maybe it’s because I came 5th in the 1995 Indiana State Speech Tournament for Impromptu Speaking 💅, but I have *never* seen PowerPoint Karaoke done well. It’s boring. https://t.co/BeMvvynDFb


    @aussielunix They always make me think of Major from “Midnite: The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy,” who had wings like the sunrise. ❤️


    @aussielunix Rodd used to read it to me when I had insomnia. Now we quote it to each other all the time. Khat’s lines are the best. “You haven’t done a murder yet!” 😹


    @SarahMoran Jesus, I’m so sorry. It’s awful. Halfway around the world, when taxi drivers heard we were from Australia they asked about the floods. 🙁


    RT @DoubleNaeBow: pronouncing “boolean” like “jolene” is my toxic developer trait https://t.co/2lWDVNUL1n


    @DevRhiana @MelissaKaulfuss @valeriecodes There have also been several cross-stitch related talks at @linuxconfau from folks like @glasnt! Check it out: https://t.co/0C9eqVYVYK



  • Shared today on Twitter

    I haven’t seen a coffee this big since the 90’s. 😂☕️ @ Naschmarkt https://t.co/Ma4oePkEBU


    @LapTop006 Correct, and correct. 😂


    A cold and windy visit to Schönbrunn Palace, and then Wiener schnitzel for lunch with a view of the Danube. 🏰🍺 https://t.co/27LZaT89IK


    Good to remember. 🦘🚫🇦🇹 https://t.co/ArQlWFbEeI


    @abertrotzdem @CassiopeiaKnits Oh thank you! I know about the project, but I didn’t know about this exhibition. I wonder if I can squeeze in a visit…


    The Wiener Riesenrad (Giant Wheel) was for many years the tallest extant Ferris Wheel in the world, and featured notably in the films The Third Man, Scorpio, and (Rodd’s fave) The Living Daylights. We timed our ride perfectly for sunset! ❤️🌅🎡 https://t.co/8muApvlQWA


    Right before the queue to board, they have a booth where you can pose for silly photos. I couldn’t resist our “Wow!” photo. 😂 https://t.co/jqjBhx5Hyb


    @MelissaKaulfuss Yeah, part of the joy of this European stint is being able to afford all the stuff I couldn’t when I was here 20 years before! Hope you can get back someday to finally ride it. ❤️



  • Shared today on Twitter

    Brunch in Vienna (as @emd3737 put it, “the Melbourne of Europe”). 🥂☕️🥐 @ phil https://t.co/EkZqzxH7Qf


    Art in Vienna. https://t.co/0U5ANtQ2xT


    RT @MariInTokyo: @nataliexdean @istewart1919 My partner gave me this and brought me a hole puncher. I only need 9 more No’s to get an ice c…


    We discovered this morning that the hotel has a sauna and steam bath you can reserve. Perfect way to end the day… 😅 @ Boutiquehotel Das Tyrol https://t.co/P54n8eB9Vt




ABOUT

My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.

No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.


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