View 361 May 9 - 15, 2005 (original) (raw)

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Slept in late. Maybe that will do the jet lag.

It didn't. I seem doomed to sleep most of the day. Nearly everything is closed on Sundays anyway. Santa Maria de Trastevere was crowded for Pentecost. After Mass an elderly sextant in slacks and a white shirt without necktie went about blowing out candles. No altar boys or girls for that, and no ceremony to it.

=================

2330: Back from a long walk. It's a 45 minute walk from here up to Castel San Angelo and the Vatican. Trastevere is lively on a Sunday night, very much so. There's a stretch along the river between the Sixtus Bridge and the Mazzini Bridge that has no street lights, and it's about 60 feet down from the walk at street level to the paving stones on the walk at river level. The wall is waist high. No street lamps. Perfect place for an accident. I may make use of it.

The graffiti is heavy here, but it thins as you get close to the Vatican. There's almost none along Conciliation Blvd. and none at all inside the Vatican courtyard. Whether they clean it off, or the police are vigilant, or there is actually some respect being shown by the taggers isn't known to me. It may be thought bad luck to desecrate the Vatican itself. Certainly there's no hesitation to mark up the local churches! Many homeless or campers or both on the marble sidewalks under the arches leading into the Vatican. Some had full kits, backpacks, sleeping bags, some kind of inflatable mattresses; campers undoubtedly. Others looked more like bums. And some in between. The area is well lit, and the police obviously patrol the area so aside from the police themselves it seems reasonably safe, and there may be a deal going, sleep here and cause no trouble and we won't roust you.

There's a military area that seems to have been an Arboretum at one time, and a sign that commemorates those taken off to extermination by the Nazis in 1943. I don't find much in the guide books but the post is guarded.

Sunday TOP Current View

Current Mail

This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 8,000 - 12,000 words, depending. (Older columns here.) For more on what this page is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE. If you have never read the explanatory material on that page, please do so. If you got here through a link that didn't take you to the front page of this site, click here for a better explanation of what we're trying to do here. This site is run on the "public radio" model; see below.

If you have no idea what you are doing here, see the What is this place?, which tries to make order of chaos.

Boiler Plate:

If you want to PAY FOR THIS, the site is run like public radio: you don't have to pay, but if no one does, it will go away. On how to pay, I keep the latest HERE. MY THANKS to all of you who have sent money. Some of you went to a lot of trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods. I am preparing a special (electronic) mailing to all those who paid: there will be a couple of these. I am also toying with the notion of a subscriber section of the page. LET ME KNOW your thoughts.

If you subscribed:

atom.gif (1053 bytes) CLICK HERE for a Special Request.

If you didn't and haven't, why not?

If this seems a lot about paying think of it as the Subscription Drive Nag. You'll see more.

For the BYTE story, click here.

Search: type in string and press return.

For Current Mail click here.

The freefind search remains: