Give us a chance, will ya? You posted the picture at 11:44 PM (my time yesterday), and then posted the follow-up at ... drumroll ... 11:44 PM. So I was probably asleep. A message board like this isn't like Facebook etc., where you can post a picture and get instant likes etc. On a message board, you post a message and then wait. Maybe someone will like it, maybe not. (I quite liked it, although I'm an Aussie, so I don't get to see NFL often, and I'm wondering who Lake Travis is). Just keep at it and you'll get likes, I'm sure. Just post pictures you enjoy, and -- here's the kicker -- tell us why. (For instance, I don't know who Lake Travis is. Does the picture of him mean something special to you -- for instance, is he one of your sporting heroes, maybe, or a distant cousin etc.? Let us know and give us a chance to read it).
To me, this looks like a man-made tower covered with nature's work, and reminds me of the passing of empires and the transience and impermanence of all things. "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!" etc. Looking at it again, I wonder who built this tower, and for what. Was it once part of a great city wall, built by a tiny people to protect their city from invading armies of other tiny people? Or was it nothing to do with a city, and was simply a wall built to protect a windy, sandy desert from the encroaching greenery (as a reversal of the walls that early humans built to protect their gardens from the sands of the desert, after they created said gardens in the middle of said deserts, as -- for examples -- the Babylonians and Persians did)? Or maybe I think too much.
Lake Travis is a part of a beautiful, highly affluent suburb of Austin, Texas. Their HS football team, Lake Travis, was extremely good for a long time. They won an unprecedented 5 straight championships from 2007-2011 and won another in 2016. Their 2008 team was among their best teams, and their QB, Garrett Gilbert (pictured), set many records and is probably the best player in their storied history. I happened to see the team play live in 2008 against my alma mater (in which LT won in a dominant fashion). Before 2004, Lake Travis football was garbage until a wealthy donor came along and built practice facilities that rival universities. I am a collector of hand-grippers but moreover I train my grip as serious as a powerlifter programs and trains with weights. I want to certify on the Captains of Crush #4 gripper (a grip feat done by maybe 10 people, ever - it’s yet to be seen if I even have the genetics to accomplish such a feat).
Sunrise from Frederick's Hill, near Madison WI. Indian grave mounds atop the hill date from around 500 A.D. Think of all the sunrises over those graves over the millenium plus, all the generations of trees and life that those souls, if sentient, have witnessed. It's always a somber experience up there.
The city of Chania from up in the sky. I captured it with my DJI drone. It's one of the three major cities in Crete. The other is Rethymnon and then Heraklion, which is the capital.
Nice! It looks like about a three-story city (meaning I don't see any buildings more than three stories tall)—unless maybe there's a downtown area with taller buildings that isn't shown. That's about like the town I live in, though at the center of town the courthouse is like 4 or 5 stories. The only thing taller would be a few church steeples and maybe a few flagpoles on the tops of buildings.
I took this from the outskirts. There are definitely taller buildings within the city. My grandmother's house was a sea-facing apartment on a complex that was five stories total. Still not very tall though. You could see the roof from below very easily. We can't have very tall buildings here because of the earthquakes. Everything we build needs to be carefully designed to withstand the strong tremors that can happen at any moment. It's really not that surprising for us to get a 6.5 magnitude one. When buildings aren't designed properly? Well... you saw what happened in Turkey not so long ago. The strongest earthquake in Crete happened in 365. It was 8.5 in magnitude and it wiped most towns. Earthquakes are a real concern here. One day, a similar one could happen and everything as I know it could be wiped out. But thankfully, something that atrocious is unlikely to happen.
It is a beautiful and very modern looking city. For some reason I expect Crete to look like this: And I'll bet parts of it do. Also parts of Greece look like very modern cities too.
Crete is a little bit different from the rest of Greece. For one, it wasn't even part of Greece until relatively recently. But the natives do speak Greek and are definitely Greeks. Just slightly different. Different enough to speak a variant of Greek known as "Κρητηκα" (Creteish? I dunno what the English equivalant is.) That's to say that our buildings look different too. In fact, before the Ottoman Empire occupied the island and enslaved its natives, the Venetians had it under their rule. And they were behind the big three cities, I think, so they influenced its architecture quite a bit. One part of Chania is the Venetian Harbour. If you go there, it's genuinely like a mini Italy or Rome. I went there this summer and was amazed. I loved it. Even more interestingly, the city of Chania is built on top of another city that the Minoans built. We're founded in history! And it does happen that builders will discover ancient city remains when they dig the city ground to make a new building. In that case, the local government bars further work and protects the site. The Minoans built the first known civilization here, by the way. ...I best not go on. I'll talk all day about Crete.
That's OK, ps102. We like hearing about Crete. The only things I know about Crete relate to its ancient past - like the archaeological digs that revealed parts of Minos's palace and his ancient city, the fact that the story of the Minotaur (and his birth, and his mum Pasiphae) hails from Crete ... and that the Minotaur was named Asterion, and roamed its labyrinth until a politically cunning sword-swinger called Theseus, son of Aegeus, king of Athens, came over to slay it. But he couldn't, so he relied on the king's daughter, Ariadne, who helped him on condition that he took her with him -- but he abandoned her on the island of Naxos. (The swine!) Also, I know that in Roman times, the Cretans were well-known for being exceptionally good with slings and stones. They were so good that the Romans recruited them into their armies, and allowed them to be commanded by Cretan officers. But beyond that, I know very little about Crete ... except for the Linear A and Linear B scripts from Minoan times ... and that Linear B is completely deciphered, which is very exciting, but we still don't understand Linear A, which is much older ... and who knows what secrets it holds? Oops, now I've been talking too much. Sorry! *blush*
I tried to upload a photo I took with my phone and got the message that the image was too large to upload. Is there a way around this?
Yes. Upload on Imgur and then copy the link. After that, go to your toolbar here in the textbox and click on the little picture icon next to the smile icon. A thin textbox will appear. Paste your link there and click insert. The image will be inserted It might take a while to appear because of the current issues so wait a little bit until it loads. I also just accidentally found out that if you paste the Imgur link in the text box directly and hit post, it converts it to an image on its own. Neat! The server has an upload limit so it is what you have to do. That, or you have to do compress the image or make it smaller in its resolution. If it's a PNG file, you can also try to convert to JPG. JPG files are much smaller. That way, you don't have to go through Imgur. If none of the above makes sense to you, just go to the Imgur route.
Thank you so much! I was not familiar with the Imgur site, but it looks like something I want to explore.
