i started to “collect letters” during my trip to namibia & south africa in september 2007.
once i had sensitized myself to single characters, they seemed to stand out pretty much everywhere, and during the last 1.5 years, i was able to capture some beautiful letters, numbers and signs “in the wild”¹.

all of them are available in resolutions between 5 and 10 megapixel, which makes them perfect for “writing” something on a wall with poster-size prints, like this:

here’s a bunch of my favourites:

[view photos: a letter from abroad]

this is an exciting time for the kakapo recovery programme:

Kakapo population boosted by two, more chicks on the way
The Kakapo Recovery effort is one step closer to bringing the world’s kakapo population to 100 after the successful hatching of two kakapo chicks.
The latest additions bring the small but increasing population to 93, and lots more chicks are expected in the coming weeks.
As well as the 25 confirmed fertile eggs yet to hatch, there are another eight to be checked and seven more females are ready to nest.
…
“It will be awesome to bring the kakapo population to more than 100 and all signs are indicating that could very well happen. If this breeding season produces 30 to 40 chicks it will be a huge step in the recovery of this species,” Deidre Vercoe said.

source: kakaporecovery.org.nz
a kakapo chick photo is available at stuff.co.nz.

there’s also a new ranger’s diary entry by deidre mussen.

via failblog

another interesting post there: cow transportation fail. it clearly shows a tyrolean license plate!

the galapagos albatross (phoebastria irrorata), as the name suggests, is a species endemic to an island in the galapagos archipelago. partners stick together for their entire life, which can be up to 45 years.
when they first meet, and every year they reunite, they go through a cute little courtship ritual.
in order to describe it, i’d like to borrow a snippet from english wikipedia:

The courtship of the Waved Albatross is a very elusive and spectacular sight to see, it includes: rapid bill circling and bowing, beak clacking, and an upraised bill to make a whoo hoo sound.

one of telekom austria’s managers answers an international investor’s question.
this is part of this year’s “capital market day”, an annual public TA conference held in vienna.

there was a live webstream available online. obviously, it was removed from the presentation that you can watch there now.

selected impressions from the perspective of a middle-sized dog.

[view photos: legs]

in our small collection of board games, there is an austrian version of monopoly from the early seventies, which my mom apparently received as a birthday gift. it has her name written on the bottom of the box in childishly written letters.
the currency in monopoly austria is austrian schillings¹, and the game has a set of two or three streets from each provincial capital.

in january 2007, at one point during a 90-minute-layover in vienna with absolutely nothing to do, i noticed i was walking through one of the streets from monopoly.
i decided to find the other two, and takes pictures.
that same year, coincidence or fate (whatever) also brought me to bregenz, salzburg and eisenstadt (forgot to collect the streets), which means i’ve collected 4 monopoly cities (including innsbruck, excluding eisenstadt) so far.

i’ve just rediscovered this abandoned project, and might try to complete it in the near future.
oh, and please ignore my old hair-”style”. i was young and didn’t know better.

[view photos: monopoly austria]