happy new year

I wish you and your families all the best for 2010!!!

Happy New Year!

And watch out the fireworks...

happy holidays

Merry Christmas to you and your families!

Ruby Beach

Ruby Beach on the Pacific coast of the Olympic Peninsula offers beautiful views of the "peaceful sea", yet depending on the weather it is not as quiet and peaceful as its name may suggest. Great amounts of driftwood and large sea stacks (steep columns of rock in the sea near the coast) are very characteristic for the coastline in the Northern Pacific area.

First snow of the saison

This morning, winter has started in Evanston and after all we had the first snow for this year. Let's see how long it will last or if we even get some more inches over the next days.

Olympic Mountains

Sunset on the Olympic Peninsula in different variations.

Olympic National Park

Some nice views from the Olympic National Park in the State of Washington.

More rain, more forest

Some more impressions from the Hoh Rain Forest. Nowadays, this fascinating natural scenery received a huge amount of fame for being the stage for the Twilight saga. Fortunately, no vampires showed up during our stay ;-)

Hoh Rain Forest

Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula in the Pacific Northwest near Seattle is with up to 4.3 meters rain per year probably the place with the biggest annual precipitation in the United States. These outstanding climatic conditions led to the formation of a fascinating fauna. Big trees reaching up to 100 meters in height are covered with huge amount of different mosses. Somehow, these scenic beauties reminded me of the Ents in Lord of the Rings.

Halloween

It's Halloween. And most of my neighbors decorated their gardens accordingly. But maybe this is just a small training for their very big christmas decoration this year.

Hogwarts at Northwestern

Some of the Dormitories for the undergraduate students at Northwesten University just look like being directly taken from the Harry Potter Land.
Welcome to Hogwarts!

SF@night

The City of the Bay at night.

Northwestern Campus in Fall

Chinatown in SF

Yet some further impressions from San Francisco.
Local Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and most likely the largest Chinese community outside of Asia. Its unique flair makes it definitely worth a visit whenever you come to the City of the Bay.

Evanston in Fall

Days are getting shorter, temperatures are going down and leaves are falling. It's fall in the Midwest.
And alongside with a lot of rain and very cold nights there are actually some pretty nice sunny days.

Chicago Skyline

The impressive Chicago Skyline is always worth a view.

During daytime ...

... at night ...

... or even in black and white.

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Indiana only has 65 kilometers of Lake Michigan shoreline in the very south, though, these are propably one of the nicest coastal parts of the fifth greatest lake in the world. The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore runs for 35 kilometers along the southern coast of Lake Michigan and offers a beautiful arrangement of sand dunes, nice beaches and woodland forests.

And in case of clear sight, even the Chicago skyline can be sensed over 50 kilometers away.

One of the Biggest Comebacks ...

... in NHL history and we were part of it!

On Monday 10/12/09 the Chicago Blackhawks hosted the Calgary Flames at the United Center but the first period did not go well for the Hawks. After scoring five goals in only 5:29 minutes, the Flames led 5-0 after 11:43 and it seemed to become a quite disappointing night.
But than they fought back ...
... and the rest is history.

After rallying from five down and beating the Flames 6-5 just 26 seconds into overtime the Blackhawks tied the NHL record for the biggest deficit overcome and the crowd in the madhouse on Madison Avenue finally went crazy.
Eleven goals, storming atmosphere, what a remarkable game!!!

Chicago Botanic Garden

Welcome to the Chicago Botanic Garden.
This 156-hectare area of 23 display gardens and three natural habitats is a very nice place to chill around and enjoy a quite day in nature.

Coit Tower in SF

The 63m Coit Tower on top of the Telegraph Hill in San Francisco offers a beautiful panoramic view on both the city and the bay. It was erected in 1933 as a monument dedicated to the San Francisco Firemen.
The only thing I was really worried about was the elevator one has to take to reach the top. While I was waiting for my ride back down, this technological monument made sounds and movements like it was on its last operation. After my question about the age of this means of transportation, the friendly asian liftman answered with her brightest smile: "Don't worry, it's only 67 years old!! I think it's still safe."
And so I was glad to finally reach safe ground again.

Steep Streets of San Francisco

Chicago 2016

In only five days, the decisive moment for Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics will be reached when on Friday October 2nd, the IOC is going to announce the host of the 28th summer games in modern olympic history at their congress in Copenhagen. Chicago is thereby competing against Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.

Chicago was considered as favorite for a longer time but especially Rio is a strong competitor and eager to be the very first Olympic City from South America. Otherwise, giving the games to Madrid or Tokyo seems to be a little bit more unlikely since Peking and London are hosting the preceding games. But nevertheless, decisions in the conspirative circles of the International Olympic Comitee are always hard to predict and only on Friday we can be sure if the Obama Factor really helped to bring together "the Youth of the World" in Windy City in 2016.

San Francisco Vol. II

Yet another set of pictures from San Francisco. Since fall has already started here in the Midwest I really miss the nice weather at the West Coast.

San Francisco

... steep streets, calm neighbourhoods, Golden Gate Bridge, the inhospitable island of Alcatraz, homeless and other hippies, dense fog, world-famous cable cars, ...

All this and much more is San Francisco on the West Coast in California.

Its unique flair, the friendly and open minded population and its great diversity make it to one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

I liked it very much and it is definitely worth a trip for everybody.

Radio Silence

Being quite busy in the last months, regrettably there have been no new posts for a longer time.
But now I am back on air and try to give some updates more regularly in the next weeks.
Since bubbleshare is no longer available as of November 15, I will change the style of the picture slide shows and maybe also some details on the general appearence.

So stop by in the near future to hear some news about fall in the Midwest and my short trip to San Fancisco last week ...


So long



flo

Taste of Chicago

Every year before the 4th of July the Taste of Chicago, the largest food festival in the world, is held in Grant Park. The best and most popular Chicago restaurants offer a great variety of all kinds of meat and drink.
As further highlights, fireworks are held at both Independence Eve and Independence Day.

Chicago Blues Festival

Blues for free in Grant Park!!!
The annual Chicago Blues Festival offers a weekend of blues by various musicans all over the awesome area of Grant Park. With over 90 performances it is the largest free blues festival worldwide.

At the Beach

Finally, temperatures are rising in Chicagoland. Hopefully this will be the start of summer...
It's time for the beach!!!

Hello, I'm a Mac.... And I'm a PC

Baseball @Wrigley Field

Baseball is one of the most popular sports in America. On sunny days in the summer, the countless fields around the country are always crowed with kids trying to imitate their idols from the Major League Baseball.
Wrigley Field is the home ball park of the Chicago Cubs, one of the MLB teams located in Windy City. Since it is located in the residential neighborhood of Lakeview, some residents make some extra money and offer additional seating on their rooftops:
But after watching a whole Cubs game at wrigley Field, I have to admit that I did not get the real baseball feeling. Nothing really happened and two of the very rare hits I missed by not paying attention. Maybe I just don't understand the game? ;-)
At least the real Cubs fans were pretty excited:

Niagara Falls

The Niagra Falls are a spectacular natural phenomenon on the international border between Canada and the USA. Connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, Niagara River drops about 50 meter and up to 5.7 million liters of water per second can traverse the falls during peak flow season. This awesome waterfalls are divided into the impressive Horseshoe Falls on the canadian side and the smaller American Falls. You can walk behind Horseshoe Falls and looking out on the back of the falls give a great impression of the power of this natural landmark.

guestbook and comments

By popular request, I installed a guestbook and linked it in the sidebar on the left. (edited: sidebar is actually on the right... ;-) )
Comments on postings are now also enabled.


Feel free to leave a message! ;-)

John Hancock Center

With 344 m in heigth, John Hancock Center is the fourth-tallest skyscraper in Chicago. Its 94th floor observation deck offers a beautiful view over both Lake Michigan and the skyline of Chicago.
From here, you have a good look on all three higher skyscrapers of Chicago, Aon Center, Trump Tower, and Sears Tower (from left to right).

Grant Park in Spring

Times Square in New York City

NBA playoffs

The Chicago Bulls beat the Boston Celtics in a thrilling double overtime game and tied the first round series at 2-2.

Brooklyn Bridge at Night

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge at night gives you a beautiful view on the illuminated skyline of Downtown Manhattan.

Empire State Building

The remarkable Empire State Building is one of the landmarks and the tallest building of New York City. From its 102th-floor observation deck in 381 m heigth, you have an awesome overview over the Big Apple and the hole Manhattan island. On the 86th-floor outdoor oberservation deck, you can feel the fresh air and have a great 360-degree over the New York skyline.

New York Knicks@Chicago Bulls

The Chicago Bulls beat the New York Knicks 110-103 in an exciting game at the United Center. Now they are facing the Boston Celtics in the first round of the NBA playoffs starting this weekend.
Crunch time!!!

Street Canyons of Manhattan

New York, New York ...

Welcome to the Big Apple, the never sleeping melting pot...

Always in motion, devotional calm in the Central Park, millions of starbucks, worldfamous skyline, yellow cabs everywhere, crowded with people, impressive illumination at night, sky touching skyscrapers...
It was awesome!!!

Happy Easter!!!

Hi,

wish you and your families happy easter!!!
Hope you enjoy your egghunt...

St. Patricks Day

To celebrate the traditional irish St. Patricks Day the Chicago River is dyed green by the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers.

On the Rocks Reloaded

Lake Michigan On the Rocks

Fraser on air...

Fraser was on the nationwide ABC news yesterday. They interviewed him about novel developments in anti cancer therapy. In the future, nano machines developed in our lab may help to get anti cancer drugs specifically delivered to tumor cells.

A Sunny Day in the Winter...

Sears Tower

Explore Chicago from the top.

NHL@United Center

Hakan Saepper was in town and we saw the Blackhawks beating the Dallas Stars 6-2 at United Center.
It's ice time!!!

It's melting

Once again, the weather in Chicagoland changes very fast and temperatures raised from -18 ºC to +14 ºC just within a few days. Today, it feels like spring and almost all the snow is melting...

Blago is gone...

Today, the Illinois Senate voted unanimously to remove gouvernor Rod Blagojevich from office. It is assumed that he was trying to sell the vacant senate seat of Barack Obama. Hopefully, Illinois won't be a banana republic for much longer...

Back Again ...

Unfortunately, my good old powerbook is on LSD since a couple of weeks...


So I decided this should be a good reason to support the falling economy and now I am a proud owner of a brandnew macbook pro:


It's mactastic!!!!

Snow Again

It started snowing again in Chicagoland and this will be continuating for the next days.
Let´s fight the snow!