21. April 2009 by Ismenio.

This is an old Hebrew Bible from my collection. The date I see is MDCXXVII (=1627) and the preface is in Latin. It contains the books of Genesis through 2 Chronicles. If you recognize it please contact me:
(click to send email) Thanks!

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5. February 2009 by Ismenio.

The King James Bible is widely known but not many people know about a very important English translation that preceded it: the Geneva Bible from 1560. Actually, in 1604, King James authorized a new translation, hoping to rid England forever of the Geneva Bible. It was was produced by a group of religious refugees who ran from England to escape repression (maybe even execution!). They went to a protestant community in Geneva (thus the name). I was fortunate enough to acquire a rare original copy, printed in 1607! That was at least a couple of years before the the King James was first published.

I especially enjoy it because it features the divine name, Jehovah, in an archaic English form. Below are some pictures of it. It is not in great shape though as you can see.

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29. January 2009 by Ismenio.

Last year I went to visit Brazil and stayed in Recife, the capital of the state of Pernambuco. One thing that I got to see was the last standing docking tower for the Graf Zeppelins.

Sadly, it’s not being maintained and my experience was that most of the local residents didn’t even know about it. It is located in the Jequia community and it’s a bit tricky to get to it but if you ask around you can find your way to it. The area is actually some sort of military base but they let us in without any trouble and I even got to take a picture with the guy at the gate.

Yes, you can climb it but I strongly advise caution and definitely avoid it if you’re not comfortable with heights. Also, because of the lack of maintenance I suspect it won’t be long before it will be really dangerous to try to go up to the observation area. I got a privileged view of Recife’s skyline as you can see in the pictures (thumbnails, click to enlarge)

You can read more about in in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeppelin

And I found this YouTube video which chronicles a Zeppelin journey from the 1930s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG5HAaTRFXk

Check the 1:50 mark where they show Recife and the Zeppelin docking at the tower.

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29. January 2009 by Ismenio.

(First blog post). Yes, it is definitely winter in Pennsylvania, USA. In recent days the temperature has dropped at a rate of double digits for a single day. There’s no denying that it’s pretty to look at the snow and even to play around in it. But, when you have to go out and shovel the driveway and face the black ice and clumsy drivers out there, that’s not fun at all!

Here are some recent pictures I took just a couple of days ago (click on them to view the full version):

January 2009

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