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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427
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OP
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427 |
I seem to remember we had a brilliant fred a few eons ago on what we could see from our window in the place where we generally log into AWAD. I found reading that thread very warm and illuminating, as it gave me an insight into other AWADers' surroundings. It was good fun. Would you all care to revive that thread and share your view? Word-related task: underline all items pertaining to the extended metaphor in my post. 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
AS from today, my view from the window is different: It used to be a busy street with streetcar rails and the long wall of a 1950ies' factory building. That was when I opened AWAD in my office on the 4th floor. Now I am retired, and installed internet access from my appartment, where I look down on the lawn in front of a school gym hall. Usually the place is animated by children, but today only the crows walk about in the fast-melting snow. The rain on the roof makes a noise not unlike the hard disk of my computer when it is busy loading a file.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Congratulations on your new-found freedom, Werner! The window in my study at home is tiny (about 600x400 - that's about 24"x18" for you ole time Americans!) Until earlier this year it looked out onto a stone wall arcing away from the house corner where the study is sited, largely overgrown on its 1m height with scraggy trees and bushes. We cleared some of these to get more light, and replaced them with low shrubs - not sure yet if they were well enough established to survive the current cold weather. In the border between the house and this wall is a patch where daffodils, primroses and a few snowdrops will sprout in the next few months.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
What would otherwise be a bedroom, were there more of us in this townhouse, is an office which I share with my sweet bride. The window faces west so I can see, through a mix of maple trees and evergreen trees (mostly Douglas Fir) the grey waters of Puget Sound (it is overcast today) and, on the other side, the snow-covered Olympic Mountains. I have lived in a lot of places around the world at one time or other and have always returned to the Pacific Northwest happy to be where one can see sights like this.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
I sit within what we knowingly refer to as our office -- it's really just a glorified computer room, formerly a small third bedroom on the upper floor. The work surface is generously spacious, with much space freed up by a fine, new flatscreen monitor; although spacious, this surface is, as is its wont, cluttered with books, spiral notebooks, and post-it notes (stuck to nothing). To my right is a wall unit filled to capacity with (mostly) books. The space nearest at hand, and at eye level, has the references most used in offline wwftd research. Just below that is a rack of software CDs. Also here is a desk calendar, on which The Naked Organist© proclaims the last day of the year 2005, and a New Moon rising.
When I glance up over the printer, I can see out through a door that is halfway ajar into our upstairs sunroom -- windows all around, which gives me a westerly view of our snow-trimmed maple and, through its otherwise bare branches, the back of the large old house that obstructs any sight of Lake Harriet, just beyond the Rose Garden.
Just over my left shoulder is the only window in the office, which looks out on nothing but the house next door; but which lets in some needed light on these short winter days. Behind me is a fold-away antique desk and, in the corner, my closet. The monsters are strangely subdued today.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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Here's the view out our picture window. Shot with a zoom lens at about 130mm±3dB. No cropping.
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
Next time shoot it with a 30-06. Yummy.
TEd
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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It was the day before hunting season and it was within 500 feet of a dwelling.
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Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 500
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Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 500 |
My home computer is in the back upstairs room in our house. The window is over my right shoulder, and if I turn to look, I will see a stand of spruce and balsam, mere treelets when we moved here in 1992, and now over ten feet tall, every one. Behind them, a large balm of gilead poplar, now bare of leaves. Some tops of birch and maple, and then sky, which today is grey and cloud-covered.
David's computer is in the basement room of his parents' house, with no window whatsoever.
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,529
veteran
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veteran
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,529 |
Good morning.
If I swivel my chair to my left I can look out into a cold grey 2006 edition of Northern Alabama. Then by standing up I will get a full panorama of the surroundings by looking through a three by six plate-glass window. Today there is not much to report. A grove of barren birch trees adds nothing but depth perception to the fog shrouded woodlands beyond. On brighter mornings my eyes could follow a path that slopes towards a blue pond about a hundred yards away, but today the only other features of note are the World’s smallest birdhouse hanging high up in a birch tree (I had hopes of attracting the World’s smallest bird) and a cedar roofed art deco plexiglass bird feeder. Ever the custodian, I see that the floor of the World’s smallest birdhouse is now on the ground, and the bird nest in the art deco feeder from last summer is still in the feeder so I vow silently to implement these improvements before spring.
Now, so you folk won’t think my life uncluttered, I’ll sit back down and swivel around the small room where I do my computering.
Directly behind my computer desk is a wall-length secretarial credenza. A discerning person with a magnifying glass might discover that the wood finish matches my computer desk, but I can’t.
Everywhere fossils, rocks, little bottles of sand, obscure any hint of surface underneath.
(Oh heck, Andy just called. We are to day-trip North Alabama today. I will return soon and add my thoughts to the metaphorical part of Awad “windows” later today.)
Good morning again.
This morning dawns bright. Warm air blowing in from the Gulf has raised temperatures to the mid-seventies with few clouds. I think I mislead when describing my computer roon as "cluttered". It is much worse.
Last edited by themilum; 01/03/06 07:57 AM.
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
My computer is in the corner of the living room, next to the front door and facing NE. Looking out through the screen door, I see the porch where my Woodstock windchimes hang, positioned to catch the tradewinds. In the yard, I can see the three tires I painted white, filled with potting soil and planted with flowers. The one nearest the road has peppermint stick zinnias, the middle one is planted with 4 O'Clocks and stock. The one nearest the porch is cosmos. Just the other side of the tires is a small bed planted with radishes and two cherry tomato plants. Until last week, there were three, but the neighborhood free range chickens massacred one of them. Just beyond the tomatoes, the yard takes a sharp dip. There is a lemon tree on the edge of the dip. A barbwire fence seperates the property from the narrow semi-paved road. Every other fencepost has sprouted branches, refusing to give up life. Across the lane, I can see my neighbor's mango tree and the hill continues downward for 300 yards before sloping upward again. Sometimes, if the neighborhood is quiet I can hear the surf beating on the north shore, about a mile from here. Everywhere I look I see jungle growth and the occasional bright green iguana, blue skies and white puffy clouds. This morning, the sun was shining through the rain.
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 270
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 270 |
My window, in my not-so-big room, is a view to my family's backyard. Looking through the latticed shutters I can only really see a big metallic closet, and right behind it an avocado tree; which I can see only part of (mainly leaves). Pretty bland eh? and I mean boring. And anyway I keep it shut since it's wintertime. Fweezing! So you got groves, deers and woodstock windchimes? ... The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence! 
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
from my chair, i can lean forward a bit, an look to the left and see north west, --the 59th street bride is draped like a string of pearl in the background, most of the building north of 50th street have no special lighting, but are bright shapes siloetted against the dark sky. In the foreground, a chromophotic display-- Yellow sodium vapor lights, red neons, red tail lights, even a green traffic light or two. Headlights, house lights, signs and signal lights. cars, trucks, buses flow by, streams of lights, afrantic constilation, ephemeral in their patterns.
--at this moment, the veiw is slight obscured by the double helix of red and green that illumiates my terrace and my living room, a tapered cone toped with a star. even in the dark, the imagined tree gives off enough light to make the crystal icicles and snowflakes glint.
If i sit back, with out leaning back, another window frames the spire of the empire state building.
closer to the window, my veiw is enlarged, a panarama of skyline that extends from lower brooklyn, (with a portion of lower manhattan hidden by a near by structure) but my view of manhattan starts below the lamp tower of Con Edison's 14th street office, it extends upwards to the triboro bridge. about half the length of mahattan can be seen.
with my immediate view, i have art work, prints and embroidery, glass objects, (including a 6inch crystal ball)
behind me, a small bookcase, (48inches wide, and 48 inches high) hold most (but not all) of my dictionaries.
(the shelves are haphazzardly arranged--i plan to sand and finish these unfinished book shelves.. (they are store bought, but made from birch, (not birch plywood, nor MDF with a birch veneer, but real wood))and make a more orderly arrangement of the books (and empty from the selves, the non books stored there--(a scanner, CD's, print cartidges, ink refills, and other computer leavings.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427
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OP
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 427 |
Thank you so much, everyone, for your contributions to this thread. I'm really sorry I didn't do my bit earlier; after I posted my initial query I was abducted by the real world and then I forgot all about it.  Anyway, from the window of my study at home I have a view of a block of buildings to the left and a vast expanse of sky above and to the right. It's cloudy today; the sky looks whitish. The street that runs just below my window (it's a first-floor flat) is planted on both sides with tall trees, so when they are in leaf I don't really see much of the buildings. One of the trees is pretty close to my window, which is very nice in the summer. If I stand and look properly out the window, just across from my house there is a huge empty lot which belongs to the sports centre a little ways further down. A couple of weeks ago a stream of lorries, excavators, cranes and what-not started arriving, and the place is now full of builders and vehicles. They are building a sports course and other things. Having always been fascinated by all things massive and mechanical, I am highly entertained by the processes and so I spend a bit of time looking out the window every day. 
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
The additions to my house are greater in floor space than was the original house (we think). It's sort of hard to tell after all these years. There used to be four kitchens, but now we have only two.
Anyway, the main portion of our house is four large square rooms (20 feet by 20 feet, more or less, two up, two down, separated by a central hallway which runs from front to back. At the back end of the central hallway there's a hall leading off to the right, and just inside that hallway is an area about 5 feet by 8 feet that was at one time a bathroom. I have my computer desk underneath the window, which looks out into our back yard. I suspect there was at one time a bathtub where the desk is now, since one would have fit perfectly there. The room to my right as I sit at the desk is about 15 feet square, and was at one time the owner's bedroom. It has since been converted into a really big bathroom. though without any special amenities. One of these days I am going to put in a big shower area with a tub to replace the generic fiberglas tub that's there now. One of these days. . ..
I can see my workshop about 75 feet behind the house; behind that is a fifty yard deep stretch of trees, with a slope downward to a church school and parking lot, with some houses beyond that. During the summer it's just a mass of green but in wintertime I can see through the trees to the houses, though the school and parking lot are too low to be visible from the window.
About a third of the trees are massive wild cherry, unfortunately not on my property. The remainder are all locust, which are in the process of dying off due to some sort of infestation. Again not on my property, but when I was building my workshop I took out several which would have fallen on my new building.
Directly under the window there's a deck, which is about six steps above the ground. Sitting on the deck is my hot tub, pure luxury on a cold night!
TEd
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