A breath of fresh air

Photo by Eric of Absurdity used under a Creative Commons license
Until recently, the only thing that separated the smoking tables from the non-smoking tables at a restaurant was a sign similar to the one above. (And if you wanted to smoke, the waiter would probably move the sign to a different table.) But a new law went into effect as of January 1st that requires most restaurants and cafes to provide different rooms for smokers and non-smokers or for the whole restaurant to become smoke free. I had read that the law wouldn't make much difference -- there are too many loopholes and no one to enforce it -- so I was quite surprised to find that my two favorite cafes are now smoke free!

While many people (like me!) enjoy the smoke-free environment, not everyone seems to appreciate it. I noticed both cafes were much slower than normal. The waiter at one cafe told me that some of the regulars who had been stopping by for coffee twice daily for the past 30 years no longer visit. (And this cafe actually has a smoking room! The customers just don't want to go upstairs.) I think I've convinced Brian that we need to make more frequent visits to help make up for the cafe's lost income. :)

Another look at Stephansdom

See the large version here.

I've really become interested in style of composite photographs. I've seen them called panographs or hockneyesque photos (after photographer David Hockney) or joiners (the name Hockney gave this style). Whatever you call it, I like it. You'll probably see more photos like this in 2009. :)

A cautionary tale

Last Saturday Brian, Jessica and I headed to the Naschmarkt to check out their goods. I always enjoy walking through the flea market, but I rarely buy anything. But this time I found the greatest book ever.


It may not look like much to the untrained eye -- just an old book that's falling apart -- but I knew what it was right away. A book of cautionary tales.

If you're a big fan of The Office, you may recognize this story from "Take Your Daughter to Work Day". Dwight tries to read the story to the kids but doesn't get very far before Michael stops him.


In this story, a young boy is warned by his mother to stop sucking his thumb, but once she goes away, he sticks his thumb back in his mouth. That is until a tailor comes along with a large pair of scissors...


...and cuts off his thumbs!

Even if you don't understand German, it's pretty easy to learn the lessons just by looking at the illustrations. This story, for example, tells you what might happen if you play with matches.


Despite the cats' warnings, Pauline couldn't resist the matches. And look what happened.


As if the girl in flames isn't graphic enough, the final illustration shows the cats sobbing next to a pair of shoes and a pile of ashes.

If you need to teach your child some lessons, you can also find this book in English. And if you want to read all of the tales and see the original illustrations, you can find them here.

Winter wonderland

Isn't that the cheesiest title ever? Yeah, I thought so too.

Brian's sister is visiting, so we've been out and about in the cold the past few days. Yesterday we noticed some people out walking on the Alte Donau. We saw the same thing last year and thought they were crazy. But this year we thought it was the greatest idea ever. I guess we've acculturated.


See Brian and Jessica way out there? With the little red arrows around them?

Whew! I made it out there too. It actually wasn't as slippery as I expected.

Personalized magnet toy

I've really been looking forward to showing off all of the gifts I made for Christmas. But I forgot to take photos of the gifts we sent to Brian's family and I haven't sent all of the ones to my family, so I don't have a lot of photos to show. But I did want to show off one of my favorite gifts.


When my first niece was born, my family all lived fairly close to one another, so we saw each other often. But by the time Emmy was born, Brian and I were in Austria and her other aunt and uncle were half way across the U.S. So I wanted to make Emmy a gift with our photos. You know, so she'll know who we are.


I tried to get my family to send me photos of themselves, but I just got a lot of excuses. Maybe it's because I told them I wanted farm-themed photos. I did get photos of my nieces, which I decided to photoshop a bit. My favorite is the photo of Emmy riding a sheep.


This toy was easy to make and very well received. As soon as she opened it, Emmy started moving the magnets around laughing. When her mom asked if she wanted to open another present, Emmy said no. That's the sign of a good gift -- you don't need to open any more!

The project is pretty self-explanatory. I used a metal pencil case as the holder, but I think you can find empty metal cases of various sizes at craft stores. Of course, I couldn't find anything like that in Vienna, so I had to make do. I covered the case with a label I designed with a farmhouse and added the same image on the inside of the case. Next, I found the photos and printed them on magnet paper. I used Gimp to crop around the images and then added them to a Word document to print them. Since I was planning to cut out the magnets, I didn't waste a lot of time getting the crop just right. The animals are from a book I purchased, which I had planned to incorporate into the gift before I found the metal pencil case.

I had a lot of fun making the toy and it seems like Emmy really enjoyed receiving it. And hopefully now she'll recognize us when we see her later this year!

Edited March 4, 2009: Welcome Tip Junkie Readers! For more magnet toy inspiration, visit this post where I show off a personalized Disney Princess magnet set.

Happy New Year

I have a good feeling about 2009.

We spent the evening at home biding our time until the fireworks kicked up shortly before midnight. We've been hearing fireworks since about 3:00 this afternoon (it's already getting dark by that time), but the real show doesn't start until close to midnight.


Fireworks over the city of Vienna.
The fireworks are not like what I'm used to on the 4th of July in the U.S. where the city hosts a firework display and you may be able to see other shows way off in the distance. Here everyone seems to get in on the action and you're surrounded by fireworks. There was a guy in the building next to ours who was lighting fireworks from his balcony or maybe from his window.


Fireworks a little closer to home. This is the view from our balcony.
And then there were a couple of people standing across the street who had quite a stash of fireworks. I'm sure I could feel the heat from some of them as they whizzed past us on our balcony.


And this is the view from our living room.
It was fun, but bitterly cold standing outside on the balcony. I hope that you have a safe and happy new year! Happy 2009!

On a hill overlooking the city

Photos taken from Kahlenberg, a mountain in the 19th district of Vienna.



Get a better view here.