René's old blog

Month: November 2007

  • Back in Denmark

    Back in Denmark

    —

    by

    René Seindal
    in

    I’m back in Denmark now. I started Thursday morning from the motel north of Würzburg, with frost on the motorcycle. Fortunately, it started promptly, but it was a cold start of the day. When I started the thermometer on the dashboard showed 0° C, but as I moved northward it became milder, and most of…

  • Cold and slow

    Cold and slow

    —

    by

    René Seindal
    in

    I’m on my way back to Denmark. I started Monday from Rome and made it to Venice, where I had to wait for the next day to pick up my bag, and send a few things back to Palermo. Tuesday afternoon at 17:30 I was back on the motorway heading home. The first part of…

  • Motorway day

    Motorway day

    —

    by

    René Seindal
    in

    I’m sitting in a very cheap hotel room, clean though, in Mestre. I’m here to pick up the stuff Wendy and I left here when we departed for Sardinia in September. Back them we expected to return on our way back north after a successful journey, but a capricious Fortuna wanted it otherwise. Tomorrow I…

  • Dig and you will find

    —

    by

    René Seindal

    Whenever people put a shovel in the ground in Rome they’ll hit something ancient. It is not restricted to the centre of the city. Here in the surroundings of Grottaferrata, some 25 km outside Rome, the same thing happens too. Shortly before I arrived, a stretch of ancient Roman road was unearthed just a few…

  • Mass upload to WordPress

    —

    by

    René Seindal
    in

    I often make photo entries on my other non-technical blog, and it is such a pain having to upload photo after photo in two sizes. Yesterday I discovered the Upload Unzipper which implements uploads of zip-files which are then unpacked on the server and treated as individual uploads. Fantastic time saver.

  • Comment spam

    Comment spam

    —

    by

    René Seindal
    in

    I just went through the comment moderation queue on this blog, and there were four (4) valid comments out of 385 comments. Spam is such a pain that I can’t even imagine how it would be without comment moderation activated.

  • Lupercale

    Lupercale

    —

    by

    René Seindal
    in

    It was all over the news here in Italy last night. Apparently archaeologists in Rome have found the Lupercale on the Palatine hill. This is incredible news for anybody interested in ancient history. The Lupercale is legendary in more than one way. For the ancient Romans it was the cave under the Palatine hill where…

  • Homeward bound

    Homeward bound

    —

    by

    René Seindal

    I’m on my way north now. I left Palermo Sunday evening with the ferry to Naples, from where I went by motorbike to Rome. The crossing was eventless, the ferry mostly empty. The ferry arrived in Naples early, around 6:30, and I was on the motorway before seven, as the sun rose over the Appenines.…

  • A day in Palermo

    A day in Palermo

    —

    by

    René Seindal

    A few days ago I went for a walk here in Palermo, and I took some photos along the way. The road was from Piazza Don Bosco towards Piazza Noce and back. A funny bending fence A nice calm sidewalk without parked cars This is where mafiosi shot down Cesare Terranova and his driver Lenin…

  • Italian Commercial Neologisms

    Italian Commercial Neologisms

    —

    by

    René Seindal
    in

    Italian shops are often called something ending in “-eria”. A bookshop is a libreria, from libro which means book. A pizzeria makes and sell pizze (plural of pizza), a gelateria sells gelato, icecream, and so on. An osteria sells hospitality, literally a “hostery” like in “host” 🙂 Since the scheme is very simple, it is…