For the last few weeks we were in Australia, teaching classes with our sister company SQLskills.com.au. After we were done with work we headed out to Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) in the remote outback of the Northern Territories for a long weekend. We'll both be posting a bunch of photos from the trip, but to start with I just uploaded a 2 minute video I took of an excellent didgeridoo player. He was playing for a group of us doing the Sounds of Silence dinner, watching the sunset at Uluru. Fantastic!

Click the image to go to the movie on Facebook (no login required).

Enjoy!

I've finally gotten around to tidying up and posting a bunch of photos from the second half of our trip to Europe trip in September. Warsaw's an excellent place (although we were repeatedly told that Krakow is better - we'll see when we go next time) with a lot of cool history to soak up. We spent a day wandering around the old town (heavily reconstructed after WWII) and the Royal Castle (totally reconstructed). We also saw some of the old 3-metre high containing wall from the Jewish ghetto during WWII - very interesting and thought-provoking.

I've uploaded two albums to Facebook (no login required):

• Tour of the Royal Castle - see http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040519&id=1293146061&l=dca686cead
• Wandering around the Old Town - see http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040630&id=1293146061&l=a8107c0aa5

 Here are a few examples: part of the enclosure wall from the Jewish ghetto, church bell tower, statue of Chronos in the Royal Castle.

And a few more: tank track from the remote-controlled German tank that destroyed the Cathedral, larger view of the room containing Chronos, Plac Zamkowy (Castle Square) with the Royal Castle on the right.

Enjoy!

Fall really is crazy travel season for us - a week after returning from our trip to Ireland and Poland and now we're in Australia for a few weeks. This evening we went for a bird-watching walk around Albert Park with our good friend, partner, and fellow MVP Greg Linwood, who's our host while we're here. We saw 20+ species of birds (of which 17 were new to me), including 3 species of cockatoo and, finally, my first glimpse of wild PENGUINS!

I've adored penguins for a very long time and it's always been a dream of mine to see them in the wild rather than a zoo. Well, today another bucket-list item was ticked off. There's a little-known colony of Little Penguins right in Melbourne itself, at the end of St. Kilda Pier (here's a website with some info).

I've uploaded a bunch of photos to Facebook, that you can view at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2040551&id=1293146061&l=f6e55ca540 (no account needed).

Here are a few examples (Eastern Rosella, Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo, Little Penguin).

How excellent - penguins!!! :-)

On the last day of our week in Dublin we headed into the city centre to check out some of the sights. One of the things I always like to do in a city is find a cathedral as that's usually one of the oldest buildings and encompasses a lot of interesting history. Dublin has two, but we only had time to visit St. Patrick's.

I've uploaded a bunch of photos to Facebook - you can view them at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039962&id=1293146061&l=227e371cc4 without needing a Facebook account.

Here are a few examples: Trinity College, pubs in Castle Market, St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Enjoy!

 

At the start of September we took a trip out to Kalaloch and Cape Flattery. I've been there quite a few times but it was the first time for Kimberly. As usual we took loads of photos and I've put three albums up on Facebook. Here's a small selection from each album.

Birds and beasts on the Olympic Peninsula (click the title for the FB album, no login required)   

Kimberly and Coco on the Olympic Peninsula (click the title for the FB album, no login required)

Stunning scenery on the Olympic Peninsula (click the title for the FB album, no login required)

Enjoy!

This week we're back down in Houston with a client and had a spare day so we decided to do the loop from Houston down to the Bolivar Peninsula and around through Galveston. You can see some photos from our previous trip here a couple of months ago in the post Bird watching on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

This time we saw a few new bird species plus some very cool beasts and boats. You can checkout the full album of 40+ photos on Facebook (no login required) here.

Here are a couple of examples.

Enjoy!

This week we're in Cleveland teaching on-site for a private client. We came a day early to recover from the journey and see some of Cleveland's sights - neither of us having been here before. Kimberly's foot is still very sore and so we decided to do something where she could sit still and not have to walk far to get to and from the 'thing'. We took the Goodtime III tour up the Cuyahoga River - if you're ever in Cleveland it's well worth the two hours to do it. Huge numbers of interesting bridges and views.

Here are some example shots:

I've uploaded 4 albums of photos to Facebook, that you can get to without being a member:

• Some stuff in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame Museum (5 photos) - see here.
• The William G. Mather maritime museum (8 photos) - see here.
• Graffiti along the river (7 photos) - see here.
• The river cruise itself (67 photos) - see here.

Enjoy!

It's been a while since I did a Where In The World Are Paul and Kimberly blog post, so here's one from a trip we did at home yesterday. We took the Bainbridge Island ferry across Puget Sound and toured the area around Sequim, WA to see the lavender farms and coastal scenery. Here's an example shot of the two-tone lavender fields at Purple Haze lavender farm.

I've uploaded the whole album to Facebook - check it out at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031434&id=1293146061&l=b050bc54c9 - no login required.

Enjoy!

This afternoon we headed down to Lake Storey in Galesburg, IL to chill out and get some sun. While the kid's were splashing about in the lake and Kimberly was soaking up rays, I went on an hour long nature ramble along the lakeside. I saw lots of cool stuff - herons, turtles, frogs, dragonflies, woodpeckers, and more.

I've put a bunch of photos up in a Facebook album - you can get to them here (no login required). Here a three examples for you.

Enjoy!

PS Should mention - camera is a Panasonic DMC-TZ5 with a LEICA 10x optical zoom. Which I'd had one our 20Ds with the 300IS lens...

On Friday we had a planned spare day in Houston after spending the week onsite with a client. It was the 3-year anniversary of our meeting for the first time at TechEd US 2006 so we decided to go on a road trip! We headed down to the Gulf Coast and along the Bolivar Pensinsula, then across the ferry to Galveston and back up to Houston, stopping at the Hard Rock Cafe (my 12th) for dinner.

The birdwatching was just stunning. We went to the Smith Oaks Bird Sanctuary (one of seven in the area owned by the Houston Audubon Society). It's home to a huge colony of Roseate Spoonbills, various Egrets, and Anhingas (look like Cormorants). Then we headed along the coast, being amazed by the damage from Hurricane Ike - gas stations, houses, and grocery stores reduced to concrete pads, and then hit Port Bolivar to take in some of the sloughs and marshes around there.

I've posted a bunch of stunning bird photos on my Facebook page - here's an example, a Great Egret with chicks - check them out on Facebook here (no login required).

Enjoy!

In this trip to India (teaching for MS again) we're in and out, with no time for sight-seeing, but there's always time for bird-watching! I got up early this morning and got some photos of some excellent birds. I've included a couple here, and the rest you can check out in the album on Facebook (anyone can access it) at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023153&id=1293146061&l=d34686d782.

(Edit: here's another album from the next day, with a *pair* of owls! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023240&id=1293146061&l=07cb46ce3e)

The bird on the left is a Spotted Owlet, and on the right is an Indian Pond Heron. Click the images for larger versions. Enjoy!

In February this year we stopped off in Bangkok on the way to and from teaching in Hyderabad. On one of the days we did some sight-seeing, including the Imperial Palace in Bangkok. I took a bunch of photos of the wall paintings in the outer courtyard and I've posted an album up on Facebook (easier than a big, bloated blog post here). You can get to the album at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020899&id=1293146061&l=5c4c559fa5 (even if you're not on Facebook).

Here's an example:

Enjoy!

In January I finally got to visit India for the first time. I've always wanted to go as my great-grandfather was in charge (I believe) of the British Royal Artillery armoury at Dum Dum, West Bengal (where the dum-dum bullet was invented) at the end of 19th century. This was Kimberly's 4th trip, but the first that we'd gone together - teaching for Microsoft.

India is a very interesting place - full of extremes in almost any dimension you care to name. Hyderabad (where all our the trips have been to) is a boom town - with a strange mixture of gleaming, brand-new high-tech buildings next to people living in make-shift tents by the side of the highway. In fact the area where the Microsoft campus is (along with WiPro and Infosys) has the nickname 'cyberabad'. Anyway, Hyderabad is around 500 years old and we explored some of the history over one of the weekend we were there. As usual I took a bunch of photos and thought I'd share some of them here. As always, click on the photo for a larger version.

The three photos below are all views from our hotel room (Marriott Hyderabad - recommended). The hotel's next to the Hussain Sagar Lake which was built by the sufi saint Hazrat Hussain Shah Wali in 1562 as a drinking water reservoir. It was pretty windless while we were there, making for some excellent reflections. The middle and right photos work better in the larger versions - it was hazy because of all the air pollution. In the right-hand photo is the 58-foot statue of the Guatan Buddha that's on an island in the middle of the lake.

The left-hand picture below is of some of the cool rock formations around the city, part of the Deccan Shield area. This link has more info from a group trying to protect the rock formations from destruction due to building work. The middle picture is one of the ubiquitous auto-rickshaws that I've seen in a bunch of Asian cities now. We rode in a similar one in Bangkok a week later and found out they're called tuk-tuks there, because of the noise they make! In the right-hand picture, you can see the one good (?!) thing about the air pollution - incredible sunsets.

The next four photos are from out wanderings around the Qutb Shahi tombs, the tombs of the Qutb Shahi the rulers of the old city of Golconda (just to the west of Hyderabad) from 1518-1687. Top-left is Kimberly along with Arjun, our driver for all the trips to India. Top right is the tomb of the fith ruler, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, who died in 1612 and founded the city of Hyderabad. Below is a view and detail of a mosque on the site.

 Next up we went to the Golconda fort, built by the Qutb Shahi, but dating back further to 1143. It's a good climb up to the top of the fort and a very large, impressive complex. There were several thousand Indian visitors to the fort that day, plus me and Kimberly, so we caused quite a sensation. The left-hand photo below is a detail close-up of one of the doors into the fort. The middle is a shot of fort from the entrance, and the left is of me trying not to be intimidated at the top of the fort by 100 uniformed school-children waiting to descend and with nothing else to do except watch me walk up and down on the phone to my parents in the UK, and laughing at me, or my baseball cap, but probably both! In the background you can see lots of construction cranes.

Just outside the top of the fort is a Hindu temple with an excellent painting of Kali, the goddess of death and destruction, of which I snuck a photo. Next to it is a typical street scene when driving along, although this is a pretty quiet street - rush-hour driving was pretty wild at times.

On the way back we stopped in Bangkok for a few days and I've got some photos of there too, but we're going back to India and Thailand again in 5 weeks so I might wait until then to blog those.

Enjoy!

The first of the long-promised photo posts (with lots of Wikipedia links) - click on photos for larger versions.

Over the holidays Kimberly and I went to St. Lucia in the Caribbean for a well-earned and highly-anticipated break - sun, relaxation, and scuba diving for a few weeks. St. Lucia is almost at the far south-eastern end of the Caribbean, so we were only a couple of hundred miles away from the coast of Venezuela. We almost didn't make it - Seattle was hit with a foot of snow the day before we were due to fly out and the airport closed 12 hours after our first-leg flight left for Charlotte. It was very hot, being only 13 degrees north of the equator - great for lying around and reading books, which was basically what we did when we weren't diving.

We stayed in a cool hotel called Jade Mountain (first picture below), which had great views of the Gros and Piti Pitons (the mountains in the second picture below - 2000+ ft high volcanic plugs). The hotel is part of the larger Anse Chastanet resort, built in the grounds of an old plantation on the north-west coast of the island, and includes a top-notch dive centre. Unfortunately the sun rose behind the hotel and went down behind a headland, but that still made for some fantastic sunrises and sunsets.

Every so often a cruise ship of some kind would come by and anchor at the nearby town, Soufrière, where Napoleon's Empress Josephine spent much of her childhood. In the last week we were there, two of the coolest ships in the world came by on the same day. The one on the top-left below is called The World, and is basically a floating set of luxury condos that cruises endlessly around the world for those wishing a nomadic lifestyle (and with lots of money!). The second ship is my favorite - it's called the Maltese Falcon, a 289-foot racing yacht owned by billionaire Tom Perkins. We saw it first in San Francisco bay last October while we were there teaching a workshop, and we were amazed to see it in St. Lucia while were there. If you click on the link, one of the features on the ship's website is Tracking - click that and it'll show you where in the world the ship currently is (at time of writing it was in English Harbour in Antigua). It's one of the most sophisticated yachts ever, with computer controlled spars and masts, all resting on giant gimbals. The sail plan is also controlled by computer and can push the yacht along at over 17 knots - an amazing hull speed for a yacht that size. The ship on the bottom-right is the 140-foot brig Unicorn, a replica of an 18th century pirate ship that was used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies - it's docked in the harbor of Soufrière.

Just outside Soufrière in the cliffs is a bat cave where the majority of the bats on the island live. The whole bay and surrounding town is part of giant volcano caldera and in the hills you can get right up into some of the active sulphur springs - the top-middle photo is boiling mud. The next four photos are flowers in the excellent botannical gardens.

For once Kimberly didn't have her monster underwater camera gear with her so I figured I was experienced enough (57 dives at the start) to cope with a camera and good buoyancy and rented one for the last 8 dives we did. So now I'm as hooked on underwater photography as Kimberly! Below are nine of the best photos I took. The first three below are (left to right) - a crinoid in a barrel sponge, an octopus that was unusually calm and playful, and a pair of banded coral shrimp in the hold of a sunken cargo ship (my first wreck dive).

The next three below are (left to right) - a largescaled scorpion fish, a very large lobster, and a sea turtle that we accidentally woke up.

The last three below are (left to right) - a spotted moray eel snatching an yellowline arrow crab, a long-spined Caribbean sea urchin, and I'm not quite sure what the last one is although she looks familiar...

As I said above, when we weren't diving we were reading. I'm a pretty voracious reader and finished 12 books while we were away, all of them very good:

• Revelation Space. Start of a very good set of sci-fi books by Alastair Reynolds - I've since bought all his other books.
• I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. Nasty, nasty book - debauched and horrifying. Hugely entertaining though!
• Basilica: The Splendour and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's. The story of the various popes and architects who replaced the 1000-year old wooden church built by the Romans, finishing in the late 1500s.
• Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade. Just as the title says.
• The Secret of Lost Things. Good debut tale by Sheridan Hay - kind of wordy but a worthwhile read. Picked it up because its about a bookshop and I love books.
• Eon. Vintage sci-fi by Greg Bear - hadn't read it in 15 years.
• Mademoiselle Boleyn. Robin Maxwell's portrayal of Anne Boleyn's early years in the French court - she's one of our favorite authors of historical fiction.
• Ghostwalk. Strange story, but lots of info about Isaac Newton's dalliances with alchemy in the 17th century - kind of a murder-mystery.
• The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas. Paul Theroux is one of my favorite travel writers - in this book he takes a series of trains from Boston down to the middle of Patagonia.
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West. Telling the story of the various battles between the Persians and the Greeks around 500 BC. Interesting descriptions of the Spartan and Athenian societies.
• Eternity. Sequel to Eon.
• Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England. Biography of the sometime wife of Edward II in and around the 1300s by Alison Weir - one of my favorite historical biographers.

Ok - so I'm a total history nut... 

All in all, a very relaxing time! Hope you enjoy the photos and be sure to check out some of the books.

As you'll have read last week, we were in Vienna all week teaching. This was Kimberly's first visit to the city (and country), I was in Vienna for a couple of weeks back in the late 1990s. We both had a lot of work to do over the weekend before heading to Barcelona for TechEd EMEA (where I'm posting this from), but on Sunday we took some time off to do some sight-seeing. The main event of the day was seeing a performance of the Lippizan stallions at the world-famous Spanish Riding School. We splurged on front-row seats which were well worth it to be right-up close as they performed. The level of control and skill of both riders and horses was amazing! The two pictures below (taken from their website) show some of the manouvers they do. These two are all the more impressive because the riders don't wear stirrups for them - superb balance!

On Monday I didn't have as much work to do as Kimberly so I left her working in the hotel and went out wandering through the city to indulge my passion for historic architecture, and ecclesiastical architecture in particular. I'm not religious at all but I love the feeling of age and antiquity you get from really old churches - and Europe is filled with ancient churches, especially Vienna. So in the space of one afternoon I managed to tour around 11 churches in central Vienna, plus the Imperial Crypt. Below I've included some photos from my wanderings, with some notes about each of the churches I visited. Click the images for larger (1024x768) versions. Enjoy!

(Ok - this turned out to be a lot longer than I first thought, but was fun to put together - Wikipedia is excellent!)

Dominikanerkirche (Dominican Church)

This church was founded by Dominican monks in 1237, and enlarged extensively through the rest of the 1200s. The present church was built in the 1630s by Antonio Canevale, including ceiling frescoes by Carpoforo Tencalla and Rauchmiller.

The images below show: the High Altar; the pipe organ; the ceiling frescoes and amazing ceiling detail.

Jesuitenkirche (Jesuit Church)

The Jesuits moved their headquarters here in 1620s and the church was redesigned by Andrea Pozzo from 1703-5. One of the most striking features are the spiral marble columns on either side of the side-chapels. The ceiling frescoes, again by Pozzo, use a clever trompe l'oeil effect (painting images that make a two-dimensional surface look three-dimensional). In this church I was able to go into the crypt, which is still in use for burials.

The images below show: the ceiling dome with the trompe l'oeil effect; the High Altar; the spiral marble columns; down in the catacombs.

Franziskanerkirche (Church of St. Jerome) 

This church was founded by Franciscan monks in 1603 on the site of a medieval convent. The interior is full-blown Baroque style. The High Altar, again by Andrea Pozzo, uses the trompe l'oeil effect - only the front of the structure is three-dimensional. The church contains the oldest pipe organ in Vienna, designed by Johann Wockerl in 1642.

The images below show: the vaulted ceiling; the High Altar centerpiece; the pipe organ.

Annakirche (Church of St. Anne)

There has been a chapel on this site since 1320, although the present church dates from 1629-1634 and was renovated by the Jesuits in the early 1700s. The ceiling frescoes are by Daniel Gran, as is the painting of St. Anne at the top of the High Altar.

The images below show: the High Altar; the ceiling frescoes.

Malteserkirche (Church of Saint John of the Täufers)

This church was founded in the early 1200s by the Knights of Malta who were invited to the city by Duke Leopold VI. The current church is from mid-1400s, and was rebuilt in 1800s in the Baroque style, although much of the Gothic interior was retained.

The image below shows the simple interior, common to the older Gothic style, with the High Altar.

Kapuzinerkirche (Church of St. Mary of the Angels)

This church is one of the youngest I visited, founded in 1617 by Capuchin friars, who traditionally look after the Kaisergruft under the church.

The image below shows the church interior looking at the High Altar. 

Kaisergruft (Imperial Crypt)

The Imperial Crypt was founded in 1619 by Emperor Matthias as the resting place for the remains of the Hapsburg family (the hereditary Holy Roman Emperors). The remains of 138 Hapsburgs are here, including Emperors, Empresses, Archdukes, Archduchesses, and many members of their families. The most recent burial here was in 2008.

The images below show: an example sarcophagus; a Death's head adornment on the sarcophagus with an Imperial crown.

Augustinerkirche (St. Augustine's Church)

This church was built in the 1300s and has the best preserved Gothic church interiors in Vienna. One of the highlights is the tomb of Archduchess Maria Christina, created by Italian Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova after her death in 1798. The tomb is of course empty as the remains are in the Kaisergruft.

The images below show: looking through the Nave to the High Altar, with the fabulous Gothic interior; Maria Christina's tomb.

Michaelerkirche (Church of St. Michael) 

The earliest parts of this church date from the 1200s, and the choir dates from 1327-40. The Neoclassical façade was added in 1792 by Ernest Koch, with the porch topped by Baroque statues by Lorenzo Mattielli from earlier in the century. The inside has some great Renaissance and 14^th-century frescoes. There's a fantastic crypt under the church which was closed when I went, unfortunately - something to do on the next trip.

The images below show: the Neoclassical exterior of the church; one of the original doorways from 1220; the High Altar with amazing sculpture; surviving frescoes from 1350.

Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral) 

I could write several pages on this one as there's so much to see inside and outside the Cathedral. There's been a Romanesque church on the site since 1147, with unsubstantiated views that there's been a church there since the 800s. The only parts left of the original 12^th-century building are the two towers and the entrance (called the Heathen Towers and Giants' Doorway, respectively). There was major period of expansion from 1359 to 1440, where a new church was build around the old one, and then the old one was dismantled. One of the highlights inside is the Pilgram's Pulpit - a Gothic pulpit, supposedly carved by Anton Pilgram, with the Four Fathers of the Church (theologians representing four physiognomic temperaments). On the north aisle, the altarpiece is the Wiener Neustädter Altar commissioned by Emperor Friedrich III in 1447 for the monastery at Wiener Nuestadt and moved to the Cathedral in 1885. The wooden panels open out to show biblical scenes. The High Altar was created by Tobias Pock in 1647. One of the things I did ten years ago was a tour of the Cathedral catacombs and I was looking forward to doing it again. The catacombs are quite extensive, with Royal burial chambers, early grave rooms where wooden coffins were stacked up to the ceiling, and mass-burial chambers from the last time the Black Death took hold of Vienna.

The images below show: the stairs on Pilgram's Pulpit; close-up of some of the Pulpit carving; two of the Four Fathers on the Pulpit; looking down the Nave and Choir to the High Altar; the Wiener Neustädter Altar.

Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church)

There has been a church here since the 1100s, but the current church is from 1700s. It was modeled on St Peter's Basilica in Rome, mostly by Gabriele Montani. The interior is amazing, packed full of Baroque carvings and frescoes - so much so as to be almost overwhelming. For me the most interesting things were two skeletons of early Christian martyrs, brought back from the catacombs in Rome in 1733 by Cardinal Kolonitz and dressed in Baroque finery. The frescoes in the dome are by Johann Rottmayr and the High Altar was designed by Antonio Galli Bibiena in the late 1600s.

The images show: one of the skeletons brought back from Rome; frescoes in the dome; looking through the oval Nave to the High Altar.

Kirche am Hof

This church was founded by Carmelite friars in the late 1300s, and I just happened to stumble upon on while making my way back to the hotel. I couldn't find much info on it in English.

The image below shows the excellent Gothic interior.