Not enough time for another post today so here’s The Two Friends new song Sedated to close out the day:
Category My Life
New Domain Name
I decided to switch up the domain name of the site to make it easier to remember and to clearly indicate that it’s mine. Across All Sports was great for when the blog was sports-oriented, but since I’ve been writing about politics and policy so much recently, it doesn’t make sense anymore. I don’t want links to my articles to confuse people. Thus, the new name of the site is dannyvinik.com. Switching the domain name will make it easier for people to remember (just think of my name) and anyone who visits it will know who the author is clearly.
I’m going to change the title of the blog to something else as well, though I haven’t decided on what it should be. So for now, it stays as Across All Sports, but don’t be surprised to see it change soon.
St. Petersburg
I’m on a family trip and the first stop is St. Petersburg Russia. It’s an amazingly beautiful city. I knew very little about it before coming here so I didn’t know what to expect and the place has blown me away. Here are a few initial observations:
1. SUVs! Unlike places I’ve visited in Europe, people drive nice cars. I’ve seen a number of BMWs, Range Rovers, CR-Vs and many others all around the city. There are very few scooters and small cars do not seem to be the norm
2. The buildings are low. No building is more than 6-7 stories high so you can see lots of sky at all times. Not sure I agree with the economics of this, but it makes for a beautiful sight.
3. Parks and trees everywhere. St. Petersburg is known as the “Venice of the North” because it is made up of dozens of connected islands. But the city has also made a conscious effort to build parks and plants trees everywhere you look. It’s also spotless – I don’t think I’ve seen a piece of garbage on the sidewalk yet
4. Everyone is fit. Part of this may be that people walk more in the city but I’ve seen very few people overweight here. That’s just my observation and maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think I could walk around any major American city for a day and not see a number of obese people.
Those are just my first thoughts. I’ll hopefully have more later – I want to look up some more information on the city layout and population density.
It’s also the “White Night” period here as it is never dark. I took the picture above from my hotel room at 12:30 AM and while not necessarily bright out, you can still see sky and clouds clearly. I’ll post some more photos soon and check my twitter for more frequent updates.
Danny Vinik 