a Walk around the Block with Blah Blah Stories - Wednesday Walk

For everything, there is a first time. This post is one of those: The first ever one from yours truly in this community. Heard about this corner quite a while ago, and even took the time in the past so many months (years?) to browse through the channel once so often. I always liked this corner, though acted totally passive. Just consuming photographs, walks and information.

From the community profile, I read no real rules apply, just some suggestions. Suggestions over Rules are something I really like! Anyways, rules are there to be broken 😉

Uhm, a short walk from basically any place. Tick in the box, from my home. One that doesn't have to be on Wednesday. Tick in the box, this walk was last Sunday.

Sunday I was supposed to go adventure mode and visit someplace I have never been before. Instead, for all sorts of reasons, I sought 'adventure' in a little area I do know; My own neighbourhood.

I wasn't planning on making any photographs, but when I saw a few big signs just outside a classic building, I had to start making some. And one led to another and suddenly I had enough shots to get a story done in images (and text) to join you, the Wednesday 'walkers' 🙃

Intermezzo

For years, from time to time, I executed some super simple image manipulations with this piece of software called 'GIMP'. A kinda Photoshop which I know from way back in the day (kinda like 2 decades ago). Not having too much great experience with open source software, I felt this GIMP application should be fairly easy. Easy to install and easy to use. "With Photoshop decades on the market, the open source peeps should've been able to copy most to all the basic features one would expect", is what I thought.

Oh Boy, I was wrong!

Installation of the main GIMP app wasn't too difficult. Always a little more difficult on Mac instead on Windows, but manageable. The difficulties started when I noticed plugins and scripts are required for pretty basic features such as pre-configured filters, watermarking and batch processing. Some filters are provided with the core app. But the features not? Really? After many hours of searching, downloading, installing and testing while also learning how to add such plugins, I ended up with a shitload of filters all over the place, from extensions to some of the standard menus, submenus and subsubmenus to new menus.

Total chaos!

Obviously tested many filters of which most are configurable in quite a lot of detail, which brought chaos to my grey mass that lives somewhere between my ears.

Too much information! Too many possibilities!

I couldn't get the batch processing plugin to work. I also wasn't able to get the watermarking done in auto/batch mode, the way I want. That's for sometime later to solve.

The Walk

This is the building I mentioned before. A building in the 'Amsterdam School' style, or something similar (interested in this architecture style: visit me). When passing this one just 5 minutes outside my own home, I realised a few things at the very same time: 1) Amsterdam Dance Event is near, 2) I have a club almost at my own doorstep, 3) I missed all the cool events in this venue.

The building goes by its codename: 'Het Sieraad'.
Dutch for 'The Jewel'.

'Cocoon'. The brand was created by master Sven Väth. One of Europeans first-generation electronic dance artists/DJs with a respectable age somewhere in his fifties. Techno and House are his styles. Outsiders say techno; Insiders say his music is more House than Techno. I can attest to the latter, more House than Techno. But must admit, I've heard him play full-on Techno more than a few times, a kinda Techno that resonates with my everything. Uhm, maybe you don't care. It's a walking community here, not one of our own gazillion music corners and communities around the HIVE blockchain.

Sorry... Another sign with yet a handful of other DJs! Maybe I should've used a music community instead :( Anywho, now we are here, let's continue. But before I do, just to let you know two kinda interesting club events will be held just around the corner of my own place in just a little less than three weeks from now. Interesting!! 😉

The Sieraad! The Jewel! In all its glory! Well, the 'all' is not in this photograph. For that, you need to read further. Little tip: You can stop reading this blah blah 'story' and just scroll down while focussing on the photographs only, but you don't have to. I mean, you may as well continue reading in between digesting the heavy photographs {lol}

Didn't you notice in the other stills above? The bricks are having quite a strange colour. Obviously, I used some filters. After trying many, I selected the 'Technicolor 3' filter I applied to most of the stills. Not all using the same settings, since I played around with them for a bunch of them. My Head is turning to chaos again while thinking of all the sliders, buttons, and parameters I can tinker with. All for just a single photograph. I guess photography is a profession, can't be a hobby {lol}

Who said open source is cool?! GIMP is complex to handle. Blockchains are complex to handle. Tell me what open source applications are easy to handle? Or did I just select the wrong ones? That must be the situation! I often state: "Why go the easy route when a more difficult route is in front of us?" 🙂 Makes life more interesting; Don't you agree?

At the end of a building, usually, we find a corner. With 'Het Sieraad' it isn't anything different. This corner was one of those I passed many times but never took the time to digest all its details. The hook for instance. We have more hooks in Amsterdam, usually at the top of a building. To give support to a rope. A rope to bring furniture and stuff like that into the house, or back on the street. The latter is especially useful when moving out while being attached to your furniture.

That Technicolor filter is doing its thing! Crazy colours with a twist. The yellow-green-ish in the still is in reality more like broken white. I used the option 'retro' on this one which increases the colour shift a tat more than the default setting. Owwww, I may have used that option on quite a few others as well.

Same building. Same corner. A slightly different perspective. And voilà! Again this building feels totally different.

The colours! WOW. Blue and red 'strips' in the water. Obviously the reflections of the original, not so deep, blue sky and the, not so deep, red bricks of the building.

As you could've seen from the previous still image, this one above shows yet another...Uhm...Corner of the same building. But what a corner this is! Ninety degrees setup like most of the corners we know from our own neighbourhood. But a special corner for sure! One that houses windows. In fact, it houses a tremendous (in relative terms) amount of windows. A corner that provides shelter for many rooms. By definition, a special corner 😉

Some to more of you may think this is a regular wall, more or less. But it isn't. It is a corner, for sure. That's rule number one. In case you disagree with me, I can only refer you back to the rule, the one I defined as rule number one {lol}

By now we got to the 'end' of the building. A restaurant is located on the corner. The terrace is clearly visible. Not too many peeps hanging outside. I suppose the autumn Sunday (sunny) afternoon isn't good enough for peeps to chill outside. Though it was a day many tiny boats like this one passed by. A hint for yours truly to make a series with just the boats that I see so often when the sun is out and the sky is blue. Not enough time for this little walking round.

The profile description of our Wednesday Walk community says:

Try and get out once a week for a short walk, can be from your office, home or anywhere really and walk for a few blocks or a few minutes looking for things to get shots of.

Hence my conclusion, I couldn't spend time waiting for boats to pass by to create a boat series. The walk could be short still, but it would not be a walk of a few minutes 😉

Talking about corners: I wasn't able to make a complete round around this building without getting some wet clothes and all, or by walking a lengthy detour to pass the canal high and dry using a tiny bridge further down the road. Adding to that, the extended time it'll require which I already argued, shouldn't become too lengthy 🙃

For the last two years plus we have mucho debate in my tiny country the Netherlands about nature and green cities. While my experience is that Amsterdam is quite green compared to many other cities in Europe and I live in this city for a few decades already, still, I can be astonished when I see the kind of front gardens with all its green in streets like this. You must know, this spot is almost downtown. Just about a 15-minute walk from downtown only. These houses and front gardens and with that, all the green, are located on one of our busy streets. You wouldn't expect that! At least, I wouldn't expect that, but it is! Am not walking this street often; Mostly view it from my car or bicycle when going places. As a pedestrian, now njoying the scenery even more.

This one is from the same street; The view to the other side. On my walking round, I also got the inspiration for yet another series. A series about bicycles. Nope! It's not a myth we in the Netherlands have and use so many bicycles. Every citizen owns at least one. Although? For at least 30+ years, I didn't own a bicycle, until a year or two ago when I bought myself a fancy electrical bike. But, I'm not at all the norm 😉 Anyways, a bicycle series I'll for sure create since on this little walking round only, I saw so many crazy bike configurations I simply have to share this with you. Configurations go from retro carriers on fancy modern bikes to extremely unconventional and by definition unique one-of-kind creations, and anything in between.

A little further down the road with the houses and the green front yards, I found myself (we find ourselves) at one of the so many bridges we have in Amsterdam. Due to all these canals, we created more than 1200 bridges during the time the city is being built. I believe it took at least 500 years to build out the tiny fishers village, Amsterdam once was, into the 'rich' city it is now. Rich in between quotes, since I talk about richness in architecture (and beauty) instead of richness in terms of currency. The latter is not the case, as far as I know.

Personally, I do like this view with one side with personal housing only, while the other side shows something different, which is, in this case, a supermarket and some other shops having their backside directly at the canal side. Most canals show housing facades on both sides of the canal. Becomes a bit boring 🙃

So you know, a few minutes further in my walk, I'll enter a supermarket to arrange for my dinner. A supermarket covered by much of the white/red walls on the left side of the canal.

And if you still think Amsterdam is not so green; More green to prove you wrong 😉

By now, I did my shopping and continued the walk from the supermarket back home. Just a few hundred meters from where I left my grocery cart, crossing yet another canal, I had to take this one. Felt like being in New York City. Nope, not the view of the canal itself, the bridge in front and all. Because of the dude at the right side of the still image. He was doing his gym exercises, like something completely normal thing to do, open for everybody to see. Such things we can see very often in a city like NYC. Or at least, that is my tiny experience being in the big apple a few times in my life. But this is something we don't see too often in my country. I suppose the Dutch are a bit reserved to expose ourselves like this in public. Not this dude though. Makes me happy to see this 🙂

Whenever I pass by this little house, I think: "When will they turn this into something else, like a little apartment?" Maybe never, I donno. What I do know is we have more of these little buildings turned into AirBNB apartments in my city. Super cool idea and super cool to stay a night or more in one of those... I would imagine! Since I personally never stayed in one of these 'apartments'. As a matter of fact, I don't even know someone who did. So yes, I can imagine it's super cool to stay in one of these, but in fact, I don't have a clue if my imagination complies with reality. Anyways, this tiny house is still used by the bridge guy, the guy who operates the bridge, I mean.

Sooo much to tell about this canal! It's yet another one, about 200 meters away from the canal in the previous photograph. No tiny boats in this canal though. I mean, docked and all. In this canal docking boats is not allowed, unlike most other canals in my city. The reason is that this is one of the very few canals in Amsterdam used by professional cargo ships and (small) cruise boats. No such boat or ship in this image though. Couldn't wait for one to pass. Wouldn't comply with the intentions of this community, as mentioned before. Ssssjjjjh*t: I start to repeat myself. "Are You Healthy Edje? Not good!"

My street! They started half a year ago, and claim they will finish the project in about two years. A whole re-organisation. The canal walls need maintenance, or replacement or something. Because of that, they decided to renew everything, from the pipes in the ground (sewage, gas, energy, telecoms/internet to whatnot), the canal walls, the street, to an extra walking path between the canal and parked cars. On paper, it all looks super. In reality, I don't know yet. I guess in about two years I'll know 🙃

I very much like the colour reflection on the round red/white street sign. Honestly, I only saw this when I opened the photograph on my laptop. Have no idea where this came from. If this was there in reality, or my lens and/or camera added this. Anyways, I like it 😉

This shot had to be taken! Two times a poo box. The Dixi at the back, the blue-ish vertical box, is our standard poo box for builders of any kinda all the way to party peeps and artists at festivals. The inventor and/or manufacturer must be a gazillionaire by now; Such an amount of those boxes we use on a daily bases at so many spots throughout the country.

In the foreground, you see yet another poo box. One to leave the poo of our pets.

"Poo Squared" could be an interesting title for this still image. Only if I would've given names and titles to all the stills, which I didn't, obviously! 😉

Couldn't resist: A close up.

Before going back inside and starting to prepare my dinner, I decided to chill a bit in front of my door on the opposite side of the street. A little bit of chilling on some bench was in order. The bench itself, I'll show you a little further down.

A stair in front of me. A stair we see more often used/build in/at canal sides/walls {stop using the / edje! it's getting annoying!}. A stair with a special story. Well, more a stair that feels lonely from time to time. For at least a hundred meters to a kilometre (I never measured it though) no other stairs around. I believe the city government doesn't like peeps to swim in the canal (can be dangerous when boats and ships sail through). Boats are not allowed to dock. Hence no need for this kind of stairs. Only in case of emergency, when someone falls into the canal, such a stair comes very handy.

That said, since we have such a stair, during warm days plenty of children are making use of this one since they don't follow the rules of the government not to swim in the canal. I only praise such behaviour and approach to our local rules (and laws)! Rules are to be broken, to not follow them, to go by our own rules 😉

The moment I sat down, pigeons (and seagulls) came my way. It's a long story with lots of details I can tell you, but that's for another post. In summary, this bench, and the other one in the next photograph, was frequently used by one of my neighbours down the road, to feed these birds. I suppose they became so accustomed to that, they thought I was about the feed them. Soon enough they found out I behaved very selfish by not sharing the food I had with me in a shopping bag. I felt they need to learn to hunt for their own food again. They shall not rely on some human to make it super easy for them to 'hunt' for their dinner.

Just before I headed back into my own place, trying not to damage my kitchen too much preparing my supper, I took this one: "The sunken bench." A friend joked earlier on, asking if I chilled on that one. Maybe I'm not Cosmopolitan skinny, this heavily sunken bench couldn't be the result of my own weight. One must be a giant, maybe Big Foot, or like the giant in Gulliver's travel, to cause such a situation. "Orrrrr? Was this built by design? To create some form of puff for our legs to rest?"

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Homage to Actifit

It felt the walk was not long in distance, as well as in time. I took about 3000 steps; Walked about 2.3 kilometres. For sure a little longer than short. My Health app isn't telling me the duration though. Something I wanted to know/share as well. Maybe we can calculate from some other indirect parameter? 3.4 kilometres/second was my average walking speed. This tells us that my little round took me about 40 minutes. Not too much time, but still, quite a decent amount of minutes for a quick walk around the block.

Endnote

Initially, I planned to show you the same series of photographs using a different set of filters in my not-too-easy-to-master-and-quite-chaotic GIMP app. But now after more than 3000 words, the end to this blog post is much overdue.

To all those who kept on reading all the way down here: Don't you have a life {loL: sorry to be that outspoken and upfront; I can't help that I'm Dutch from origin 😉 }

Till the next. NJOY as much as possible without limits

a HIVE original
^{all media by edje unless stated otherwise}