windmills I took this photo because it reminded me of an experience I had on the train ride from Budapest to Vienna. When the train had crossed the border from Hungary into Austria, we passed row upon row upon row of these same types of three-bladed windmills. There was an American couple a few rows in front of me. They had been chatting and sort of poking fun about things the whole trip -- they seemed to have a little bit of that arrogant, ugly American type of attitude -- and sure enough, when the woman saw the windmills she made the comment, "It must be some environmentalist run amuck". To her, it seemed that if it was something different than "how we did it back in the States", it must be some kind of radical, European thing. The fact that wind power might be a practical, economical, and efficient form of energy didn't seem to occur to her. Why don't we have (or use more) wind power back in the States? Could it be that the utility companies want to keep us all plugged into a grid for which they can continue to charge us a hefty usage fee? Hmm.