Monthly Archives: April 2014

I love San Francisco.

It’s a very nice, pleasant city. Friendly, light, with tasty seafood served in the cafes along the waterfront. The smooth surface of the bay is ploughed by giant ships carrying Chinese consumer goods, its edges are all framed with bridges. Alcatraz, is set in the midst of the watery expanse, watching everything with an invisible eye.

Beautiful! The ideal place for a leisurely stroll.

But what’s the point of discussing its splendor here? There are other things to worry about. Just pics:

Next: combining business with pleasure…

Now I’d like to write about some other places on Hawaii which I liked and which stuck in my memory.

For some reason, I took a real liking to a place called Waikoloa on the west coast of the Big Island.

It’s a small town (really more of a village) with hotels, beaches and small houses, built amidst a huge field of lava which appeared some time around the mid-19^th century. The western part of the island is dry and rocky, while the eastern part is wet, covered by jungle and swamp. On the dry west coast, the lava streams have remained bare and deserted for more than 150 years, never seeing any vegetation. But then, a man came and decided to build a garden city in this desert. No sooner said than invested and done, producing a stunning – and highly photogenic – miracle. See for yourself.

Read on: a terrifying story of captain James Cook…

The Hawaiian Islands are a chain of active and extinct volcanoes, so various manifestations of volcanic activity are abundant here, like craters, calderas, lava streams, sulfuric steam vents and other subsurface natural features. However, not a single geyser was detected, no hot springs… That’s strange given the amount of precipitation and the rivers here – there must be some springs somewhere. But there are none.

Read on: The geological origin of Hawaii is absolutely unique…

“Those born to crawl cannot fly, but sometimes the bastards crawl up to a great height,” to very loosely paraphrase a revolutionary phrase.

Open your eyes and let your jaw drop, because there is a fish on this earth of ours that sometimes flies to an altitude of 100 m or more. The O’opu lives in Hawaii’s Kolekole Stream and in the 130-meter Akaka falls.

Read on: A merciless evolution…

Aloha folks!

I’m currently cooling off after a visit to the Big Island of the Hawaiian archipelago. What an amazing place – tipping the emotions over the edge with its mixture of perfect weather, pristine oceans, vibrant volcanism, opulent jungles and overall breathtaking beauty. Aloha Hawaii, and mahalo Hawaii :).

That things aren’t as 100% American as apple pie you kinda get the idea of when on the flight approaching the USA’s 50^th state (it was the last state to join the Union, in 1959). Instead of the usual ‘thank you’ at the end of tannoyed messages, the stewardesses say ‘aloha and mahalo!’ as if heralding the fact that it isn’t quite, fully, the United States you’re approaching… It’s just different – so get ready!…

Read on: Hawaii is really quite distinct from the other states…

Aloha, droogs!

Today I’m reporting to you from Hawaii, USA. Yes, it is nice for some :).

Read on:

Hi all!

Our funky green elephant is home!

Spanish eyes, Moscow skies

Alas, I’m not in Moscow. So I couldn’t see for myself the last few strenuous and precarious meters of the journey of our emerald elephant of hope from Chelsea to our office. However, quite a few KLers were there to witness the eagle elephant landing, so I asked two to tell me their impressions. They took quite a few pix too – coming right up. Arrgh, can’t wait to get back to MOW – so I can give the newest addition to the KL team a big hug!

Read on: Here’s how the elephant got inside the building…

Electric cars are the future. They’ll conquer the world. And that’s good for the planet (so long as the electricity is produced greenly too, but that’s a topic for another day…).

Here and there parking spots with electricity recharging terminals are a common sight – at least in the larger cities. So we decided to play catch-up. We’ve installed a few electro-parking spaces in our underground parking lot at the office and painted them the obligatory green (which works out nice as of course our KL team color is green).

Read on: post and a toast!…