Monday, October 07, 2002

ColorMatch 5K. This utility will help you select a matching 6-color palette for your website. Define a single color that you like. Matching colors will be calculated. Click a color in the palette to promote it to the primary color. More >... [vowe dot net] 9:43:04 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Boston Freedom Trail & US food. News from Boston: Great weather around! We had a perfect day for our planned walk today. Katja and I started around noon, went downtown by underground and had breakfast in the city (Starbucks!). Minutes later, we could be found on a taxi ride back to our hotel because I've forgotten to take my Microdrive out of my laptop the day before. Hey, I don't photograph because I'm on vacation - I'm on vacation because I want to take photos. So, after a USD 35.- taxi fare we finally started to walk the freedom trail at around 2:00 pm. The trail starts in Boston Common, continues to the State House, to the city's first burying grounds, the Old South Meeting House ("This is the place where the Boston Tea Party started ..."). It continues through the financial district on to the Old State House and through the beautiful Boston North End. After crossing the Charles River to Charlestown, the trail ends at the Bunker Hill Monument and U.S.S. Constitution. Did you know that you can go up the monument and look out of the windows on top of it? 294 stairs lead up to a really great view of Boston. (Unfortunately, the windows aren't clean so you can't really take any great photos up there). Ok, now for something completely different: Things I Particularily Like About Eating In the US * Service. Service is just so much better in the US than it is in Europe. In Austria, it could happen that you enter a restaurant, seat yourself at a table and wait for 30 minutes until the waiter finally notices you. Waiters normally get a flat payment in Austria so they don't really care about how the customer perceives their service; they just don't depend on tip or such. * Free soda refills. Ok, that's it. In Austria, in Restaurants you'll pay about USD 2.5 for a single small glass (200 ml or 0.05 gallons or 0.21 quarts or 6.8 fl oz, whichever unit suits you best ;)) of Coke. You want another one? Fine, that's USD 2.5. * Different kinds of food. Apart from the service, the US also really rocks in terms of different kinds of food. US, Thai, Indian, Greek, Italian, ... everything's there. On the same street. Right next door to each other. US Food/Drink I Can Live Without * US Coffee. Sorry folks, that's just not how it's supposed to be. I live on espressos and normally start my day with a triple one and I can tell you: coffee's supposed to be black, not near-transparent. But let me put this in the right context: Starbucks rules! They saved my life or something like this. (But hey, did you know that you can get a triple espresso and not just a double one at Starbucks in Europe? ;-) ) Summary: Katja and I really like it around here. Too bad that it's just two more days of hanging around in Boston before the conferences start ... I already get used to doing nothing ;). On the other hand, I'm also really looking forward to meeting y'all! [Ingo Rammer's DotNetCentric] 9:30:17 PM    trackback []     Articulate []