Weekend at the lake

Last weekend, we went to a lake 60km from Vilnius, a hidden paradise in the middle of a wood. It was an amazing first time for Dora who had never seen a forest in her life. But she fell quickly at ease in the green. On saturday morning, around 5 o clock, I took Dora for a walk and I took my camera as well as the sunset on the lake was amazing.


This is Dora and the "third man", my camera tripod...


Here is a funny picture, Dora rocketing out one of the tent where she introduced herself to lick everybody's face. Camera was set on high speed shooting and I could take her while in the air.


Maybe for lithuanian, such landscape is normal, but for a westerner, It is an amazing view and surely a heaven for fishermen. Dora is still impressed a lot by the water so she is very carefully approching the shore.



(to be continued...)

Please meet Dora...

Dora is a 3.5 months old female Beagle. We thought that if captain Archer's famous Beagle named Porthos is able to live on the Starship Enterprise, then Dora will also be able to live easily in our flat with us.


She is a very friendly dog, great with children, adventurous and packed with energy. When we saw her in the middle of the others dogs, we could not resist long...

Pictures taken around Trakai

Here is some pictures of the lakes around the castle of Trakai. The clear water of the lakes and peacefull landscape make of this place a paradise for photographers. They managed to keep the direct surrounding of the castle clear from harsh urbanism. Coffee and restarant as well as shops for tourists remains discret but well placed. On the last pix, you can see the castle of Trakai between the trees. These images has been edited in sepia color with Photoshop.

Vilnius Latte Benchmarking

If you live or come to Vilnius, here is something interesting for you. I have to say, I discovered the smoothness of the Cafe latte in Vilnius, and not in Italy or in some loosy Starbucks Coffee selling "Coffee Ersatz" a bit everywhere in the world. The idea rulling in this post is that the quality of the Latte produced in a place reflects rather well the overall quality (food and service) of the establishment.
That is why this post is called the Vilnius Latte benchmarking, which is the first benchmarking of its kind ever made in the whole world. (I looked on Google). I encourage all bloggers to do the same in their city and report it in their blogs.

Since I have arrived in Vilnius, Daiva and I have been wandering in many pubs, cafes, restaurants in the city. I have to say the quality of the Latte can change a lot from one place to an other, this lead me to consider other aspects in the visited places and I eventually came to this conclusion: The better the Latte, the better the place.
I noticed also that Lithuania has a definite advantage over Latte drinker countries: its milk is of excellent quality, which really helps a lot.

Cafe Solero on Traku Street serves so far the best Latte in town. I gave this establishment a note of 4.5 out of 5. The caffe Latte is served in high transparent glass allowing you to see the 3 layers: 2/3 milk, 1/3 espresso and the thin layer of milk foam. The coffee beans used has a good quality, and you will get your caffein kick for your bucks. Reflecting this high score, the Solero is a great place to meet friends or to organize relax professional meeting. The Solero has 3 rooms of medium size (some of them slightly below ground level), well designed, equipped with rather large tables and confortable sofas. The service is perfect nevertheless a bit slow: it takes time to produce quality. The standard is well kept. The dishes served succulent and very well presented. The groovy but relaxing music is sometimes a bit to loud, but you can ask the staff to reduce the volume. I definitly recommend this place.

Double Coffee, a Lithuanian coffee company, a copycat of the Starbucks Coffee, provides an excellent Latte. You can find many stores across the city, the two sites I have tested for you are located on Gedimino prospektas. I am giving a note of 4 out of 5. The Latte, served in a high glass allows you to see the layered composition. The milk is at the right temperature, and you may drink it fast. The service is quick as well. Double Coffee has a large panel of hot and cold beverages, alcoholic drinks and hot dishes. The Double Coffee interior design are quite similar from one store to an other and on the dark tones, the stores visited lacked of windows, therefore, appart from the sexy waitresses and other customers, there is not much to look at. One of the good thing at Double Caffee is that they give "drink on the house" vouchers. This attractive offer is definitly a plus for them.

The Pica 25 is located at the last floor of the shopping centre CUP. I will give a note of 3.5 out of 5. The Latte served there is a normal Latte. It has absolutely nothing special to say about it: it tastes coffee, it has a correct proportion of milk, espresso shots and foam, served in a transparent glass. It remains a good Latte, far better than any Latte served in any Starbucks. This establishment is a pizzeria serving italian dishes arranged to the taste of lithuanian people. Their hot dishes have no extra stuff, but it is tasty, and served quickly by the two members of staff working there. It is a small place with a big view. This small pizzeria has big windows bay from which you have a view on Vilnius. Not a fantastic view in fact, a view on the black waters of the Neris and the grey building accross, with many people crossing the pedestrian white bridge. I recommend to go there for sunset and order there a pizza and a latte. Simple combination. No better place to threat yourself after work.

The Presto is a coffee company like Double Coffee and you can find many of their stores well located accross the city. The stores I have tested are located in Europa and on Trakai street. I would give a maybe fair note of 1.5 out of 5. The latte is served in a small white cup. It taste coffee but disappointed me a lot. It seems they use skimmed milk to make their latte and it tastes very much like water. The fact that it is served with a little coffee bean does not smoothened my unsatisfaction. The place itself are not particulary attractive. It is small without being cosy and it is noisy. Bad experience really and we could not wait to leave the place really.

The Mambopizza is located on Gedimino prospektas which is Vilnius main street, but not on the most passing section. It has a covered terrace advancing on the pavement which is quite pleasant in summer. However, I gave this establishment a harsh note of 1.5 out of 5.
The Latte macchiato served there has definitly lost its capital letter. The milk was burned, the shots were burned too or they maybe use a low quality of coffee, the beverage did not taste like a latte, actually it tastes anything particular. The place is far too dark, they failed to create a cosy atmosphere. Even air seems to be lacking there. The pathway is none existant: When you enter, tables are right in the path and you have to squizze yourself against the wall to make your way to the long bar. The armchairs are not particularly confortable and the tables are too high. They offer hot and cold beverages, pretty much all tastless and alcoholic drinks. The Mambopizza offers an average selection of italian dishes arranged to the lithuanien taste, but even the traditional lithuanian cold soup made with beetroot looked not fresh and untasty. They are trying without much effort, consequence of that: they are not convincing, therefore they desserve their note..

I will continue my Latte benchmarking throughout spring and summer in Vilnius, and surely in other towns of Lithuania. After all, this calm country has a lot to offer.
Our next target will be Fortas, and other independant coffee shops.

Don't mess with the crows

One of Vilnius symbols could be the crow. There are a big number of them flying and croaking above the capitale. Beware, the crows are always watching you...

Vilnius: 1st day of spring!

Today, we could really feel spring coming. We went for a long walk along the Neris, then climbed to the castle. Here is a general view of the Vilnius upper castle, built during the 14th century. This time, bricks were used instead of wood too easily burned by the enemy: The Teutonic Order.

Below, a close-up of the Gedimino castle. Inside, you will find a museum. It was much higher before, but you can still catch a superb view of Vilnius from its top.

Then, we went down hill and reached the cathedral square: The cathedral tower is our "little Pise"


A few step away from here, the passing Pilies gatve (Castle street), with all its small craft shops and welcoming cafe.



(Love is in the air...)

The Slaves of Dubai

I should have done this a long time ago as it is not new. Dubai is the richest of the emirats of the UAE. The city of Dubai is famous for its luxurious hotel and its wealthy economy based on petrol ressources. Dubai is trying to diversify its economy by developping tourism and becoming a business pole in the region. New developments are emerging everywhere in the city: Amongst them, skyscrappers lodging offices, 5 to 7 stars hotels and apartments, but also sports palace, artificial islands, private residence etc etc...

A couple of months ago, I watched on TV5 Monde a french documentary about the building site workers in Dubai. Today, I read on BBC news that those workers have started a strike to complain about their working conditions and salaries. Please visit the BBC website.

Dubai: One of the richest place in the world is underpaying those who build it. They are so rich, everybody is closing their eyes on all their slavery activities.

This Emirat is importing labour forces mainly from China, India and Pakistan, attracting them with good contracts, the building companies are even advancing the money for their trip to Dubai. These offers are hard to refuse for those poor people who lives with less than a dollar a day. Some hope to come back after a couple of years with their savings for a fresh start in their native country; Other dont have enough money to support their family, they also accept to go to work in Dubai.

Their dreams dont last long. At their arrival in Dubai, their passeport is immediately confiscated. The new contracts they are forced to sign at their arrivals have changed. Less money, more working hours, no over time paid. They have only the right to shut up. The labourers can't go back as their employers only advanced the money for a single trip, the return ticket is too expensive for them to pay. Stuck, they are forced to work in awfull working conditions. A minimum of 12 working hours per day but it is often more, under extremly high temperatures. Living conditions are mot acceptable either. The workers are packed into prefab building and camps outside the city If a worker injures himself on the building site, companies are not responsible for their medical cares. If a worker dies on the building site...these companies are wiping their hands too. When a worker commit suicide, he is accused of being alcoholic or junky. It is impossible to track records of all the casualities as the figures are hidden or modified to an acceptable but untrue rates.

Example of salaries paid by companies implanted in Dubai, mainly run by locals but also by foreign companies.
Skilled carpenter: from US$7.60 per day.
Labourers: $4 per day.
Millions of labourers have migrated to the Dubai emirat.
(Source are BBC news)

Those facts and others are ignored by most of us in the western world. Going to Dubai, or promoting it is the same as supporting a state which violates daily human rights. Boycott Dubay!
Feel free to check the links below. Thanks for reading my blog.

Links:
The wikipedia: Dubai
Human trafficking and modern-day slavery
BCC: Migrants' woes in Dubai worker camps
BCC: Strike halts work at Dubai tower

Short Snow Storm in Vilnius

It's when you think the spring is coming soon, and you are just about to celebrate that the winter strikes back hard. For an hour, the snow, carried by raging guts of wind, fell on the city. Fortunately, we were not outside but keeping ourselves busy in our cosy flat. Locals are maybe used to such weather, nevertheless it was an impressive snow storm. At some point, we saw a electric flash in the sky followed by a cracking noise: First time ever I witnessed a lightning during a snow fall. This pix was taken from the balcony of our appartement tonight. A surreal atmosphere, that was.

Eurovision 2006: The Lithuanian Submission

Love it or hate it, after a tough competition (as you can imagine in Lithuania) between contestants for the Eurovision 2006, the band LT United will go to Eurovision to sing (shout) their " We are the winner" song. The band has been created a few days only before the contest, they thought the whole thing as a joke and never expected to be selected. Surprisingly, they still got chosen by the Lithuanians people. According to the Eurovision website, the song has received 32699 votes, but many other sources mentioned 8061 votes only. Anyway, whatever the figures are, they won by far the national contest.
The lyrics badly written in english, countain even a few words in french, but no lithuanian which is known as the oldest language in Europe. The song itself could be easily sung in a football stadium, or maybe more in a basketball hall, as Lithuanians are more fond of the orange bouncing ball. It has received some harsh critics and William Butt , a.k.a. "Billy", bitterly descriebes the song as "probably one of the worst and most crazy songs from the history of the Eurovision Song Contest." He, in fact, is the writer of the last lithuanian entry for Eurovision 2005 "Little by little", a song that finished at the last place of the semi final... Will LT United do better? Far from uniting lithuanians, they've definitly left their shyness in the drawer, showing a more ambitious way of doing things.

LT UniteD: "We are the winner of the Eurovision."
Lyrics

We are the winners
We are the winners
(We are, we are)
We are the winners
(We are, we are)
Go

We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)
We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)

So you gotta vote (vote), vote (vote)
Vote for the winners
Vote (vote), vote (vote)
Vote for the winners
Oh...

We are the winners of Eurovision
De Vilnius et ici à Paris, LT united see
We are the winners of Eurovision
Chanson, la meilleure chanson, yeah
'Cause we got it going on

Everyday, you hear us on the radio (Radio)
And everyday, you see us on the news (That's right)
It doesn't matter, in mono or in stereo (It's better in stereo)
'Cause we are here to represent the truth

We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)
We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)

We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)
We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)

We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are the winners of Eurovision)
We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are the winners of Eurovision)

So you gotta vote (vote), vote (vote)
Vote for the winners
Vote (vote), vote (vote)
Vote for the winners

'Cause we are the winners of Eurovision
Vote!

You can watch their performance here and have your say: http://www.keithm.utvinternet.ie/videos/Lithuania06.wmv

LT United has also bought a web domain name but the site has still to be built (Thanks to Ana for the info):
http://www.winnerofeurovision.com/

A simplified "Spore-like": Flow (Flash)

This morning, I spent some time to play this little Flash Animation game called Flow.
You will incarnate a micro organism living in a liquid environment. You can control its direction and its speed by left clicking. Make him grow and evolve by eating all what's floating around. Other creatures are evolving too and are becoming as big as you. A really interesting concept, very similar to Spore, the game currently being developped by Will Wright.

You start like this:

After a while, you become this...

Make your own experience, the link is below. Enjoy.
http://jenovachen.com/flowingames/implementations/flowing/core.html

Lithuanian trolleybus(as)

Lithuanian trolleybuses are usually old and slow. In winter, the ice often covers the windows inside, appart from the front window obviously. Its a bit like sitting in a fridge or in the cave of an iceberg. As you can't see outside, its sometimes hard to locate yourself, you have to scratch the ice until you create a small patch of clear area and peek out, or wait for the vehicule to stop and open its doors.
The best place is on the right side of the trolley, 2nd seat behind the middle door. Why? because there is a little electric heater on the floor which, when it works (rarely actually), keeps your legs warm. It can be as cold inside as outside, especially when the driver forgets to close the doors when driving which happens often on the line 13.

This pix has been taken today, on my way back from work. Yeah, its old, but has its charms...You can also notice that I am sitting at the best place, just above the heater. Each stop is announced by a recorded women voice: Kita stotele...Saltinielis.... The first time I heard this voice, I nearly jumped wondering what it was. First, You dont expect these old trolleybuses to have such system, and second, the strange voice seems to be coming from "outerspace", like if suddenly you were in an old sci fi movie.
There is now a new model of trolleybus running as well, much faster, but they are not many and they do break down as often as the old ones. Here is below an outside view of an old model:

You may have noticed the electric cables hanging above the street, (top left), and the yellow "antennas" sticking out of the roof. When the trolleybus turns and get too far from this cable, the antennas get detached from them, and the vehicule simply stops where it is, then the driver has to get out and play with some ropes at the back to reposition the sticks. And beleive me, nobody is happy when it happens.

Yes, if you ever come to Vilnius, you will quickly see one of these fat and slow bugs. You will also find normal buses, slightly faster but as old as the trolleybuses, and the minibus, very fast, but using them to commute is at your own risks, they crash a lot.

Time to relax, Vilnius, Lithuania, -10 C outside. 10 cm of snow.

After an other very boring day at work (that's me speaking), Daiva and I went to the Intro visiting our friend and local DJ Jonathan. That evening, he was playing some reggae to a buzzing audience. I have to say this kind of music is not really my cup of tea as I am more fond of Heavy Metal. However the atmosphere was relax and welcoming, which confirms that the Lithuanian University students are not so scary after all ;-). Also important to say about the Intro: the beer, despite it is served in plastic cups, is fresh and tasty.
Jonathan keeps on repeating that Lithuania is the best place to live in the world...(and he travels a lot). If the beer remains always nice, I will believe in him.

Note: Today was also the Women's day...Hey, here is a cute one passing by! Meet Daiva, my beloved girl friend. Sweet and wild creature to meet when the moon is full, isn't she?

Daiva and I cannot wait to see the longer and warmer days coming back. We are in march (time flies here), but the Neris is still covered with a thick layer of ice and snow. It seems that the Winter wants to mark deeply the land and the people before withdrawing reluctantly.

Google Page creator

Lucky you, gmail account owners, you can now create your website without knowing what html, css, layers or div tags mean. Google Page Creator is a simple and neat online WYSISWYG. Not only Google helps you to build your site but it is also hosting it for free: 100 meg of space, no advertisement whatsoever. Exactly like like the blogger website actually. What would be the difference between blogger.com and googlepages.com knowing that you could organise your blog like a website and vice versa? Google page interface allows you to upload your own design. This could be heaven for many webdesigner hobbyist or pro, and small companies wanting their own websites. After all, who needs a .com or .net? It has a cost to keep a domain name and it is now free with Google:
http://yourgmailaccountname.googlepages.com, 100 meg of space and no traffic limits either (not yet).

This is of course a bad news for the small to medium web hosting companies. To attract customers, some of them have free contracts with forced banner ads (ie:bravehost.com), or no ads but a 200ko data limit per page (ie: atspace.com). You will get none of these limits or embarassement like having a silly "flirt for free" banner on your serious website with Google. The only real limitation with Google is that it only supports html/javascript . No MySQL databases, Perl & PHP, SSL, SSH & SSI, POP3/IMAP and SMTP with Google. It remains a good opportunity for many as not all business/people need these features in their website.

What else to say about this new google page creator? First, how to get it? Just type "google page creator" on the Google search engine, or if you are lazy, simply click here.

Here is also the website where was (*) explained how to upload your files using the Google page creator: http://westoncampbell.googlepages.com/googlehosting

Never mind, here is an inside view of how the google page creator looks like:

Second: With all the debate going on on the .com domain registration, it would be good idea to create your gmail account at the name of your company/chosen domain because your website will keep the name of your gmail account.

* This page does not exist anymore unfortunately...But you may visit: http://westoncampbell.googlepages.com/

Long live the blog (and hopefully mine too)

Hello Blog...and Bloggers.

Sunday, the 26th of february 2006 (after the closure of the winter Olympic game precisly), it was about the time to have a blog. It seems to me that everybody got one now. Fashion or need? "In the early 21st century, blogging has quickly emerged as a popular and important means of communication, affecting public opinion and mass media around the world." I do not have this pretention but I have now become a part of this mass phenomena.

Blog: What a strange name... "The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log" .
Not to be confused with Blob (The blob, movie,1988), this kind of extra terrestrial shapeless fast moving gelee coming from outerspace, swallowing all human being and digesting them completely.
I am now a blogger too. Is blogger a profession too? Blog are getting so much read nowadays that journalists start to worry a bit, and create their own blogs.
When was the first blog ever created? In my honest opinion, I believe the Blog was born in Star Trek - Actually, there are a lot of stuffs we daily use nowadays which have been inspired from the old star trek series - Do you remember the famous "Kirk's captain log" at the beginning of each episode? It was more than a simple diary because we, TV audience, could listen to it. It was the closest thing to the blog as I know it now. If you find something similar anterior to Star Trek, let me know.

How did we evolve to obtain the blog? I believe this is the right order: Mirc chatrooms -> forum -> web ring -> blog. This last has kept the characteristic of all its predecessor.
If the first blog on the net has been spotted in 1995 only, the word "Blog" itself appeared in 1999 and from there it totally boomed.
The next evolution of the blog is the "Vlog", the video-log, which is allowed by 2 technical improvments: digital video camera and faster connection and also the explosion of number of the space on the servers around the world.
If like me, you have decided to create your blog, be sure to take the time to make it well because it will be readen and the blog mania has long years to live .

ps: all the sentences in italic are taken from the wikipedia