NOTES, COMMENT AND BUZZ FROM EUGENE KASPERSKY – OFFICIAL BLOG
April 4, 2013
Aloha everybody!
Should fate ever be so mean to you as to see you dropped all of a sudden on the island of Maui of the Hawaiian archipelago – don’t feel too hard done by. You’ll find something to do there.
First, you’d need to learn a bit of the local dialect:
March 29, 2013
I’d long wanted to return to California’s oldest giant redwood park. I was first here in something like 1997, 15 years ago – and have cherished the experience ever since. And here I am again! Back in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The brain struggles to take in the size of these trees, the biggest in the world. They’re bigger than… Atlas – supporting the sky on their branches… Forgive me for getting all mythologically romantic and lyrical, but there’s no other way to convey my emotions.
As touched upon in the recent Golden State & Golden Gate post, the giant redwood– otherwise known as Sequoia sempervirens, coast redwood or Califiornia redwood – can live (with a bit of luck) for more than two thousand years! The tops of these trees are waaaay up somewhere in the sky – more than 100 meters above the ground! One of the fallen giants has been cut into cross sections and different epoch’s rings are indicated show when and where major historical events occurred.
March 28, 2013
Hi everyone!
I’d always dreamed of one day walking across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco – and recently, I’m glad to report, that that dream came true! Traversing the Bay took about an hour (with plenty of stops to soak up the views and take some photos) – from south to north (where I met my fellow frequent travel partner T.T., who was also in a rental car).
March 22, 2013
Day 6. Tales of the unexpected.
No expedition can be insured against unexpected surprises – be they unpleasant or otherwise.
And the South Island of New Zealand had quite a few in store for us. The first of these was announced to us while waiting to board the ferry at the car rental place. It turned out that getting to where we were headed and were to spend the night was totally out of the question. There’d been some torrential rain (more torrential than the norm, that is) causing villages to be washed away and a bridge brought down, while the road we needed to take was closed and was to remain so for several days. As a result we didn’t make it to the Franz Josef Glacier, which is where we were highly recommended to get to.
March 15, 2013
Day 3. Geothermality.
At last! The time has come to move onto the most interesting bit (at least, for me!) of NZ – of which there happens to be plenty.
Our route was planned thus: from underwhelm-ness, via mid-whelmness, and on to overwhelm-ness, along hundreds of miles of road surrounded on both sides by luxurious landscapes and a continuation of the inevitable – scads of sheep.
Our third day in NZ served up the following for our touristic pleasure: geysers, hot springs, cauldrons, pot holes, fumaroles, and other assorted volcanisms and geothermality – all unconditionally mandatory for visiting and studying more closely.
More: Geysers, volcanoes, a frying pan lake, and pancake rocks…
March 8, 2013
Hi all!
Here’s the main course (actually the first of five main courses, followed by the desert :), to logically follow the starter (for those who missed it – here!).
More: getting there, fighting jetlag, caves, Middle-Earth & roads…
January 22, 2013
Towards the back end of last year, a group of like-minded souls – yours truly included – suddenly decided to drop everything – well, most things – and carefully study the country that calls itself New Zealand. But why? And who are these like-minded souls? These questions, and others, will be answered right here, right now…
More: 2 x 30+ hour sets of flights, 6000+ km traveled on NZ roads, and 17 days in NZ …
December 24, 2012
People can be divided into two groups: those that use electricity (and let’s face it, that’s the vast majority of us), and those that produce electricity (a very small, select group). And that’s why I’d like to congratulate everyone on Energy Day – 22 December. I’m here on the banks of the Yenisei in the village of Cheryomushki at the Sayano–Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant.
November 29, 2012
Salam folks!
My list of the countries in the world I’ve been to has just had a +1 – Morocco. My total now comes to 72, including Antarctica. Kind of sluggish plusses of late being added to this list, but I guess that’s mathematically unavoidable the longer the list gets, and of course the list takes no account of the multiple repeat trips I make to a handful of countries…
So here I am in Morocco – in the city of Marrakesh (sometimes referred to as Marrakech, but never Marakesh/Marakech!). We had our annual European Partners’ Conference here. We normally have this somewhere on the European shores of the Mediterranean, but this year we fancied having it over the other side of that pond – on African shores. The conference was great – dynamic, fun, useful, interesting and entertaining. And an F1 replica racing car was present for the occasion.
But that’s all you’re getting re the business bit of the trip. Now for the cultural bit…
November 21, 2012
Well, what can I say? The race track was constructed very… interestingly, as I’ve mentioned; however, the first race was kinda boring. So let me simply share some visuals with you…
