Remember the days before we had cell phones? I’ve used public phones a few times, always with the fear that I might accidentally touch the mouth piece with my lips, though fact is that germs are more likely passed by holding the phone then the touching the mouth piece. Still … thank god for cell phones.

Still waiting for that Master Card bill to see if I can figure out why I got charged $64 for a 30 second call from a public phone at the Munich airport to a customer in Munich using my credit (I was out of Euro coins). My credit card’s ‘fraud detection center’ alerted me to this once I got home. They actually seem to have their act together.

Driving to a customer site in Italy I spotted a couple of odd shapes on the high tension power wiring in the distance crossing the autostrada. As we got closer I realized those two shapes were actually men, attached to the wires with harnesses. I can only assume they were doing some sort of maintenance inspection. Were the wires live? I suspect not. Even if what appears to be a safety rope connecting them to each other were perfectly insulated, you always have to worry about surface effects were the electricity can run along a ’skin’ formed of moisture (from humidity) and dust particles. But then who knows.

BTW this shot was taken from a moving car as we passed underneath the wires. Lucky I got it.

Jerry Maren, one of the dozen or so surviving Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz, at an appearance in the Columbia Heights theater. He was one of the three Lederhosen (sorta) guys (in the center) that sang ‘We represent … the Lollipop guild … the Lollipop guild … the Lollipop guild …‘. in front of Dorothy after she landed on the wicked witch’s house and the good witch showed up.

This is the main section of the DOM. There are wide hallways on either side just as tall and long as the center section, lined with statues. Shooting inside the Dom was difficult because unlike this lightened photo suggests, it was very very dark. Don’t let the lights on either side fool you. I don’t know why they keep the place so dim. Maybe to save energy, maybe to create a mood of solemnness.

I started by taking a few shots in one of the hallways using a tripod, but was quickly approached by a stern old man asking me if I had a permit. Not having one I was told I could only take pictures with the camera hand held. When a stern german tells you to not do something, you don’t.

The exposure time on this one is 1/2 second, how about that Mitchster? :) Check the EXIF. Ok I admit I was sitting one some steps (leading up to a cordoned off section behind me even larger than the far end of the cathedral), elbows braced on my knees, used mirror lookup, exhaled and held my breath, and squeezed the trigger very gently.

This is the cathedral (or ‘Dom’ in german) located in the old section of Mainz, Germany, near the Rhine river. The Mainzer Dom was built over 1,000 years ago, and expanded througout the centuries to become what it is today. Mainz was heavily bombed during WW2 with over 80% of the city destroyed, and the Dom suffered some collateral damage, but was repaired. Fortunately the allies avoided the direct bombing of historic structures, a common practice by civilized nations even in times of war . Contrast that to the Taliban, who purposely blew up the two largest Buddhist statues in the world, over 1,500 years old, when they came to power. Nough said.

As an avid skywatcher, I found this setting unusual in that there was a setting sun behind me, ominous looking clouds in front, but no wind, rain, lightning, or thunder. In fact it was quite serene, almost a bit eerie.

One thing you see a lot of in the older sections of Italian towns is what you might call creative wiring. No two jobs look even remotely the same.  Quite picturesque