Dumpster Fires

They have dumpster fires in Spain too... only they keep them in actual dumpsters not in their gov't institutions. After last night's blog entry, I took the trash out. As I was shoving cardboard into the cardboard recycling container I felt a spray of water. It turns out there was a fire crew on the other side of the bins spraying down my bin and the bin next to it because it was on fire. Now, I know I come off a bit oblivious sometimes, but I did notice the emergency vehicles on the other side of the bins, but I didn't really notice that the bins were smoldering. I guess I figured someone would stop me from approaching an active fire scene, but, this is Spain, I guess they're more relaxed here. Here's a photo of a bombero (firefighter) checking out the smoldering bin:

Here's the same bin this morning. It's seen better days:

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Mostly worked today. Still obsessing over discrete Fourier transforms. Collected some accelerometer data on my morning walk and analyzed that a bit. Very easily able to extract my walking pace from the data using the dominant frequency of a discrete Fourier transform.

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This evening Laura and I walked over the Festival de las Naciones at the Prado de San Sebastián. This is a collection of arts and crafts stalls, restaurants featuring cuisines from many countries, and a stage for performers. We walked around a bit. It was crowded. The one act we watched on the main stage was a collection of dance performances by a local dance school. It was basically a dance recital. Some traditional, some modern, all fun. The Argentina tent looked good, but I'd already eaten dinner:

The US cuisine was kinda boring:

The fountain was pretty and well lit with lights in the trees:

The main stage:

Here's one of the young dance ensembles we saw: