Sziget 2011 – Day 1
2
Tag Archives: flickr
Today is Wolf Day
WTCC / Trofeo GT MC
As a very nice birthday surprise I got a paddock pass from a friend to the Sunday WTCC race at Hungaroring. This was the first time ever the touring car championship came to Hungary.
When we arrived the first Trofeo Maserati race was going on, resulting in the victory of the local driver Norbert Kiss.
There was also a race for AutoGP cars, which proved to be way too fast to photograph and also incredibly loud. Not being familiar with the series I had to look it up: AutoGP is the successor of the Euroseries 3000 or Euro Formula 3000, using engines roughly the same power as GP2, formerly Formula 3000. TL;DR: it’s one size smaller than F1.
The big attractions were of course the WTCC races themselves. The Zengő-Dension team was well prepared: for the people at the finish line seats they handed out posters of the car with backs matching the Hungarian national colors. We were asked to hold these up to form a giant flag whenever Norbert Michelisz, the Hungarian driver, passed. With the grandstand full the atmosphere was fantastic.
To much ovation Norbert ended up coming in 2nd in the first race. In the subsequent one, however, a too ambitious first corner landed him off track with the car’s nose wrecked beyond hope, only to be saved by the torrential rain which caused the race to be suspended. Boosted by the continuous encouragement coming from the stands the crew managed to put the car together with heroic effort. Michelisz risked rejoining on slick tires enabling him to run the fastest lap of the afternoon even with his car barely being held together by duct tape.
Most of my pictures ended up blurred or showing half cars or an empty track. The semi-decent ones are on Flickr.
Poppy on the roof
Just above our flat there is a rooftop garden. After the building was finished (and the flats sold) no one really cared about matching the early visualizations, so only some sempervivums were planted as an alibi. Nature’s been gradually taking over since then: this time of the year it’s poppies.
Causation
I suppose after a certain age – or kindergarten – everyone is familiar with the joke in which the patient repeatedly touches various body parts and complains of pain which, in turn, gets identified as a broken finger. Following this analogy if a series of endeavors all turn out to be failures of differing degree then how’s that to be interpreted as anything other than an issue with the attempter.
Do. Not. Try.
Limbo
It’s been very much like a roller-coaster these days. Had I ever tried drugs I’d imagine the highs to be comparable. And the lows, well, I’m no stranger to deep dark ones anyway.
It’s all good, though, since were I not experiencing this oscillation of moods I’d complain about the lack of it for sure. It’s better to live than vegetate. And this time I won’t give up my dreams so easily.
Animals
Recycled content. — In another life, I went to the Budapest Zoo. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that it is, after all, a great place. In the end I almost ran out of CF card space.
I just remembered I had the pictures because Semcon was doing some decoration and we offered our pictures to be framed for the office walls. Mine didn’t get used, but I was reminded to make a Flickr gallery of my favourites.
Also, the white wolves are the coolest.
In Pictures
We went skiing and I uploaded a selection of the pictures to Flickr. Now I want to hear no more complaints about not updating.
On the first day there was crazy fog, especially on the peaks.
Some evenings we played Catan.
The scenes were much like the ones on postcards and nature albums.
And in Vars there is a so-called Park for freestyle skiing.
Want more? 33 photos await in the set.
Gone Pro
What better way to start a new year than spending some quality (virtual) cash. I’ve gone pro on my Flickr account and I was instantly treated to a nice surprise: some photos I thought were lost forever became available.
Non-pro Flickr accounts can only have a limited number of photos and sets. Already uploaded pictures don’t get deleted just become inaccessible when the account expires. That’s how I regained access to my old Hong Kong set.
When I moved back from Japan I also had to transfer the files from the linux box I used there and somehow the folder containing these photographs got lost. Not that they were great or anything but they hold sentimental value this being my only trip to other countries while I was in Japan. Also (as I frequently mention) I love the fact that I visited places mentioned in a movie, like the monastery on Lantau where you could share the monks’ meal:
I wrote about my HK trip here: Hong Kong, Day 2, Hong Kong – revisited, Hong Kong – part 2.
