René's old blog

René's old blog

Whatever I feel like posting, whenever

This site goes back some twenty-five years, so it is bound to be full of stale links and irrelevant information. It is, at best, updated irregularly.

  • Kokatat will be using a photograph I took in Sardinia last year in an ad in the May issues of Paddler Magazine and Wavelength Magazine. The photograph is taken in the morning as we were rounding the granite formations of…

  • I’m preparing the last leg of my circumnavigation of Sardinia, which I plan to do in April. The route is about 320km (circa 200 miles) from Fertilia down the western coast of Sardinia to Cagliari. I still don’t know if…

  • Ever thought about going paddling in Venice? Paddling down the Canale Grande, under the Rialto Bridge, through all the small obscure little canals, dodging gondolas along the way? Just come along on our adventure. Marco Ballarin and myself are running…

  • I found this in my mail today. The idea is to associate the colour orange with a protest against the human rights abuses in China. Seems like an interesting way of getting an unwelcome message through the censorship, but it…

  • My wife Valentina has found a new job. She’s been working in the other end of the country, some 350km away, so she had an apartment there and we’d only see each other in the weekends. Now she’ll be working…

  • Sometimes two persons can share an experience and walk away with two completely different recollections of it, as if they didn’t share a thing. Apparently, it can also happen that two persons share an experience and walk away with almost…

  • David Johnston at PaddlingInstructor.com has put up a video of a Danish wind turbine blowing up in the wind. Direct youtube link here. Aeolian energy is huge here in Denmark and we get a significant part of our electricity from…

  • My good friend Francesco Muntoni who runs Cardedu Kayak in Sardinia, has started uploading photos from his home island to flickr. A month from now I will be down there again, to visit Francesco and to paddle the magnificent coast.…

  • An extraordinary low tide left parts of the old town almost blocked yesterday, with canals dried out, gondolas stuck in the mud, and public transportation in difficulties. An ordinary low tide in Venice is between -40cm and -30cm but this…

  • I just ran into a site that required Microsoft® Silverlight, but I cannot install it: thought it provides “Compelling Cross-Platform User Experiences” Apparently “cross-platform” is a rather restricted concept at Microsoft, meaning “works somewhat on a Mac too”

  • It seems spring is on its way around here. Flowers in the forest New leaves My beagle Jamil is taking a mud bath Look how beautiful he has become 🙂 Not everything is beautiful in the forest. Somebody is preparing…

  • I sure hope this is a joke or, if not, that they call of the trip. Don’t miss out on their section of “Why” and “Dangers”.