A gorgeous autumn day in Hamburg

Our trip to Kaiserslautern last weekend to attend a friend’s birthday party turned out to be equally as memorable for the two days of walking through a beech forest in all its autumn brilliance.

A Hamburg October can be as dreary as anything Vancouver can throw at you, but the day we left for the weekend was stunning.  I’d been waiting for two weeks waiting for the sun to come out, hoping I’d get a chance to take a few photos before all the leaves were gone.

I managed to squeeze in an hour of cycling with the camera.  Though it was my day off, I went to work – though not inside the office – to take these shots of the maples just outside our window.

One of them had bunches of spikey seed coverings, kind of like chestnuts only smaller with longer thorns.  Can anyone tell me what kind of tree that is?

The last part of that outing I spent just around the corner from our place admiring the curling advance of flame on the black slate facing of an office building.   They knew what they were doing when they planted those vines.  The effect of the turning colours on the massive charcoal grey background is stunning.  It’s difficult to convey the effect in a photo of just one part.

yuppie scum go home

Believe me, there are times this yuppie scum really wishes he could go home.  Leave Germany for good.

But you know, I’ve signed up for too many things here to just chuck it all away and start over again for the fifth time in 25 years.

Things like a family, a job, friends, a life.

The job!  Isn’t that funny?  Do you know how much income tax my wife and I pay each year?  Probably more than 15-thousand euro, enough to buy a containerload of spray cans, I’m sure.

Or looking at it another way, each time you spray yuppie scum go home, at least three droplets get sucked out of my paycheck into your welfare account so you can waste it on shit like this.

You make a lot of assumptions about us when you spray on our property and call us yuppies, so now I’m going to make a few assumptions about you.

I guess you hate us because we have money.  Or is it because we used that money to buy an apartment off-plan on a junked-out and abandoned industrial site that had sat idle for more than a half-century?  Either way, you have to admit we made the right move.  Because money, a job and a home are what lie at the other end of that long and difficult chain when you start to realise the world doesn’t owe you a living, Princess, when you decide to suck it up, get over yourself, grow up and think about what you’re going to do with the rest of your life instead of where the next bottle of booze or hit is coming from.

Damn, that is so cliché, but some things have been true forever.

You may call us yuppie scum, but I’m sure you’ve got a friend or relative somewhere who’s glad we gentrified your shitty little hole in the wall.  Maybe he’s a plumber, stonemason, hotel clerk or waiter, any one of the hundreds of people who worked to build something out of this place and maintain it over the past decade instead of sitting around on some chunk of downtown pavement trying to scrounge a few pennies out of selling used CDs and comic books while your slobbering, flea-bitten excuses for dogs get into fights and make a stinking mess everywhere.

It’s such a pleasure seeing your artwork, too.  You really leave a lasting impression when you deface the only patch of greenspace for miles around where I can spend a few precious minutes a week with my daughter teaching her how to throw a frisbee, kick a soccer ball or catch a real football.  You know, the pointy kind.

But if you want to make a real impression, why don’t you get off your asses, grab some balls and burn some vehicles while you’re at it?  Just steal some barbecue starter or lighter fluid – dead easy!  I’m sure there are a few Porsches, Beamers, and Mercedes parked out on the street just waiting for you to come along.

What’s that you say?  Oh right – you’ve already torched more than 30 in Hamburg since the start of the year.  How lame.  In Berlin they’ve set hundreds alight.  Good thing there are those you can still look up to.

I would go on and on, but I’ve got to get to work.  Late shift again.

Power kiting in Hamburg fun til the cops show up

On a sunny and warm summer afternoon the other day I discovered that power kiting is LOTS of fun. With nothing more than a few square yards of lightweight fabric, ultra-thin yet strong cord and a bit of wind, you can have a blast.

A friend of mine has been taking a set of kites of different sizes to Hamburg’s Stadtpark for the last three years. When the wind is strong and steady enough, he’ll strap on a harness and fly a six-square-metre kite that gathers enough wind to pull him along the grass on what looks like a fat-wheeled skateboard.

I was hoping we’d get to see him ride it when I showed up for the first time to watch how it’s done, but the wind wasn’t blowing hard enough, and was never very steady.

But we had a great time anyway. It’s easy to learn and a lot of fun.

That is, it was fun until the cops showed up.

“I think they’re not here to offer us tips on how it’s done,” I said as they got out of their van and strolled toward us.

They were friendly enough about it, but firm.

“You can’t fly a steerable kite in the Stadtpark,” they told us. “You’re only allowed to fly kites that have only one string, not two.”

Hmmm… if we can steer them, isn’t that better than if we can’t?

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that we were right under a runway approach to the Hamburg airport, and they’re afraid one of us might trip, fall and drop not one but both handles while the winds suddenly gust up at that precise moment to rocket the kite about 1000 metres skyward to be violently sucked into a passing jet’s engine, resulting in the agonizing deaths of hundreds of people as they’re consumed in a flaming ball of fire in the ensuing crash over a populated area?

I bet it does.

So we stood around for a while, threw the frisbee back and forth for a bit, packed up the kites, and headed off to grab a pizza and beer.

My friend in the meantime has done a bit of research. Apparently, if your kite weighs less than one kilo and has no metal parts, you can fly it in the Stadtpark.

So there, cops. See you next time it’s sunny and windy.

Boy hitting the bricks

Sometimes it’s only after you get home that you notice the shot.  Just setting up a long telephoto down some stairs, framing the photo when suddenly this kid pops into view.

Click.

I like how his clothes match the railing and the bricks, how he’s caught startled by something and whirling around, and how the lens seems to place him on an impossibly uphill slope.

Maybe it’s better in black and white?

I don’t know.  What do you think?