Written by Wojciech Ogrodowczyk who takes photos, climbs mountains, and runs Brains & Beards to help companies deliver better mobile applications faster.

Carrying a camera

I’ve been carrying around a camera all the time for more then seven years now, since I got into the small Fuji system. Most of the time it’s…

Highest point of Portugal

Highest point of Portugal is a weird place. It’s a top of the mountain called Torre in the Serra de Estrela range. You can get all the way…

Budapest streets

I’ve mentioned multiple times how difficult it is for me to take pictures in the city I live in, even though I usually have my camera on me…

Surfing in Sagres

An early design decision around the heating strategy in our van (“just go south”) naturally led us to spend the coldest winter time in the…

Benagil Caves

If you travel from east to west, south coast of Portugal gets more and more steep, eroded and taking various surprising forms. There aren’t…

Tarifa

It’s hard for me to write anything about this place. I heard a lot about it before, about the vibrant party culture, about the digital…

Granada

As you might have noticed, I changed my photography style a little bit. As an experiment to learn composition I switched my camera to a…

Summary of 2018

It’s been the end of a year recently, so it’s a traditional time of summaries and reflection on the goals that we have. Although, I normally…

Sperlonga

During our trip south through Italy’s mainland we stopped for about two weeks in Sperlonga. It’s a popular climbing destination for late…

Etna

The first night we spent on Sicilly was right at the base of Mount Etna. Even though it’s a heavily visited place with a lot of tourist…

Campodimele

One of the places that we stayed in Italy was a small village of Campodimele. We came there by a complete accident, to take care of a camper…

Lake Bled

One of the classics to visit in Slovenia if you’re a photographer. This beautiful scene of a church built on a small island in the middle of…

Tbilisi

The last couple of days of my Georgia trip I spent stuffing myself full with khinkali and wandering through the streets of Tbilisi with a…

Kazbek

Last year I did a short mountain trip to Gerogia that got cut even shorter. I tried to climb one of the most popular Caucasus summits for…

Logarska Dolina

This shot was just pure luck. We’ve woken up cold early in the morning, not motivated by beautiful sunrise light, but by getting some hot…

Ptuj

For a while I’ve been looking at landscape photos with the soft light, the mist, and the beautiful colours. For a long time I thought it’s a…

Berlin: street art

Before I move on to more up-to-date photographs that cover what I’ve been up to recently, I’d like to share a few last shots from Berlin…

Berlin: keep it weird

“Keep Berlin weird” is a popular phrase to hear in this city. After living there for two years “weird” is the adjective that I think…

On alternative lifestyle

I haven’t written much on this blog in a while. Especially, nothing personal. It’s mostly because I felt there’s nothing particularly…

Kőszeg

In the last post I doubted whether the content here will ever catch up with what’s going on in my life. Now, it’s even less probable. I got…

Prague

It seems this blog will never catch up with the current times. I’ve been to Prague for a short weekend trip more than a year ago and I…

Gozo

Gozo is Malta’s little brother. It’s a decent-sized island about 15 km long and half of that wide. Although probably it’s most efficient to…

Malta

Last year in September I went to Malta for some extra sun to counter the effects of incoming winter in Berlin. It turned out to be a really…

Walking on the Devil's Bridge

Just a short day-trip to see the famous Rakotzbrücke - a Devil Bridge in the Kromlau Park. It was a pleasant visit. The town is…

Zona Volcànica de la Garrotxa

Last year, just before moving out of Spain I did something that I should’ve done much, much more often. I took a weekend trip to explore the…

Kathmandu

Kathmandu is a great city for practising travel street photography. People don’t care much about you, because there are hundreds of tourists…

Manaslu Trek: On the way

There’s a big difference between getting to Nepal with Qatar Airways and then switching to some local transport to get to Arughat, where the…

Manaslu Trek: Larkya Pass

Larkya Pass is the thing all the Manaslu trekkers fear the most. The guides keep the fear going, because it’s part of their business to seem…

Manaslu Trek: Samdo

The last real village before the Larkya Pass is Samdo, at an altitude of 3690m. It’s fairly well-developed - there are some signs fog cyber…

Manaslu Trek: Manaslu Base Camp

When doing the Manaslu trek you need to properly prepare for crossing the highest pass at 4930 meters. For this it’s not enough to follow…

Manaslu Trek: Prok

While the whole Manaslu trek seems exotic and exciting when you start the journey, after some time a kind of monotony sets in - you get up…

Berlin: Weihnachtsmärkte

Berlin’s Christmas markets got a bit of bad press this year due to a recent incident. However, let’s not let this unfortunate situation take…

Life in Tsum Valley

For the local people the repertoire of attractions is even smaller in Tsum Valley. Sometimes a group of tourists will pass, leaving some…

Monasteries in Tsum Valley

Although Nepal is mostly a hindu country in terms of religion, that’s not what you see in the high Himalayan valleys. The people living in…

On Becoming a Developer

Being a professional programmer for a decade now I’ve accumulated LOTS of obscure bits of information. So it’s completely understandable…

Maroccan Road Trip

In February I did a quick road trip in Marocco to get some sun and warmth. That part didn’t particularly work out, as it was raining…

Serra del Cadí

There’s been a lot going on in my life since the last time I posted some photos. I went to Marocco, Nepal, and moved to Berlin. Those photos…

On Spacemacs for Dummies

Since recently I’ve been trying to switch to using Spacemacs instead of Vim. As I had literally (in the literal sense) no Emacs experience…

Xavier Miserachs in Macba

One Sunday evening I went to Macba to see the modern take on Xavier Miserachs’ photography. What better opportunity could there be to bring…

Cerdanya

As part of my education in Club Alpino Barcelona, I’ve recently had a small trip to practise alpinism in Cerdanya, on the French side of the…

On Spell-checking in Mac OS X

I think the longest-standing annoyance I had with the Mac OS line of operating systems was spell-checking. As I’m a fairly good speller…

On Bugs and Features

Most of developers have heard many times the phrase - it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Normally considered a joking comment on the state of…

Győr

During my crazy Christmas trip around Europe I had one hour to take a walk one evening through foggy Győr. It’s after season, Christmas…

Andorra

Long weekend in Andorra. As usual, full of people shopping, crowded, nowhere to park. Stayed in a hotel that was sitting alone on a mountain…

Chamonix

A few photos from an October trip to Chamonix. Things I’ve learnt: everything is closed in October weather is not stable anymore Alps are…

Project 365

I’ve been photographing for years, on a regular basis probably since somewhere around 2005. However, I found I could only photograph when…

Euskadi

[PHOTO]

Paris

Plenty of people, tourist traps everywhere. Definitely not my cup of tea.

On Mob Programming

I think the idea that stuck with me the most from this year’s Craft Conf was Mob Programming. It’s like pair-programming, but much better…

On Debugging

Recently I did a small debugging workshop for Ironhack students. As it’s probably the thing they’re going to spend most of their time on, it…

More Budapest

A few pictures taken while visiting Budapest for the Craft Conference.

Analog 2012

A couple old pictures I took around Barcelona a few years ago with an analog camera. All the effects - analog and unplanned.

On Craft Conf

I went to Craft Conf hoping to learn something that will make my code better. After the first day, I have to say I got nothing along those…

Atacama

Here’s a few photos from a week I’ve spent on the Atacama desert trying to climb Ojos del Salado (6893m). Funny thing, I didn’t take a…

On Life Beyond Ruby

Yesterday at the Smash Tech Summit Barcelona conference I delivered a talk on polyglot programming. It was a simple why/how/what breakdown…

On The Power of Habit

I’ve just finished reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg . It’s great. It’s exactly about what the cover says: how habits work, what…

Vallecitos

Vallecitos is a popular valley for Aconcagua altitude preparation. It’s close to Mendoza (Argentina), the refuge is reachable by car and it…

On Filtering Inputs

It’s very important for your general health and well-being to watch for what you take in - both with the food that you feed your body as…

Budapest

[PHOTO]

On PolyConf

Last week I’ve been to PolyConf - a polyglot programming conference. Definitely one of the best conferences I’ve ever been to. Talks were…

Tourist Barcelona

On delivering your talk

There are two programming talks I absolutely loved: K things I know about building Resilient Reactive Systems by Joe Armstrong (warning…

On hate against Google Docs

tl;dr: I hate Google Docs, because: It’s Google It’s Docs It doesn’t work I harbour a deep dislike against using many Google products, with…

TDDrama

I think the most important lesson of the whole TDD drama that shook the Ruby community is this: nobody knows anymore what TDD really is…

Ordesa

[PHOTO]

Road Trip - Argentina 2013

8500 km road trip through Argentina in 2013. Music: Bongo Botrako - Todos los días sale el sol

Rspec_api_documentation - yay or nay?

Short answer If you’re not using Rails, probably nay. Unless you like activesupport being loaded in surprising places. Long answer…

Pedraforca

Turns out I wasn’t the only one with an idea to climb Pedraforca last weekend.

Tatry

Just a longer weekend in the Tatra mountains. Not much snow, but still fun.

Installing Specific Ruby Version via Vagrant

If you’re using Vagrant for your local Rails development environment you’ll probably want to install a specific Ruby version to match your…

Human Touch

[PHOTO]

Uploading Images to a Rails App via JSON API

The whole process is pretty simple (if you do it rarely enough not to care about performance or data transmitted). Unfortunately, the error…

Argentinian Wilderness

[PHOTO]

Installing PostgreSQL via Vagrant for Rails Development

As I’ve mentioned a couple months back in a discussion on Twitter, I think PostgreSQL would be much more popular among Rails programmers if…

American Road Trip

8500 km seen through the windshield. Mountain canyons and vast open plains, asphalt highways and dirt country roads, schorching sun and…

Brasil

O melhor.

Rails dev environment with Vagrant and Berkshelf

Finally, after months of telling myself “I really should’ve been doing that by now” I switched to a VM-based local development environments…

Case for Lightning Talks

I always feel ambivalent about going to conferences or user group meetings. On one hand, you get to meet interesting people and get to know…

Landing That Dream Job

I’m currently looking for my next dream job (sidenote: if you know somebody who wants to hire an experienced Ruby programmer to write code…

Poland - Come and Complain

Back in Poland for a few months. Rain, cold and local trips. Related: Poland. Come and Complain.

Szczecin

Turns out there’s pretty solid climbing on the Bismarck Tower.

Big external displays with Macbook Air

Due to staying the next half a year in more or less one place, I was setting up my home office space. It involved getting a serious external…

Testing Thor Apps with Cucumber

Imagine you’re writing a command-line Ruby tool using Thor. Although probably if you’re reading this, you really are. Probably you would…

Bouldering in Albarracín

Goodbye weekend spent in Spanish bouldering Mecca. The place is amazing. Styles and difficulties of boulders vary greatly, there are…

Catalunya climbs

A few photos from a small climbing holiday I took last year. More old stuff to come as I’m cleaning up.

Perpignan - Vielha - Barcelona

A few snapshots from my mobile phone during a two day motorcycle trip from Perpignan back to Barcelona.

Sokoliki

Nostalgic winter trip to a place where I’ve spent many a summer.

Berlin

[PHOTO]

Mallorca

With the snow outside it’s a perfect moment to revisit some old photos from a short trip to Mallorca last summer. With a destination like…

Catalan Winter

Just a short local Sunday ride I did this winter.

Manakara

This town’s split in two parts by a channel that goes through it. It’s an old transport route that is the main reason the town’s so well…

Madagascar highways

Just one of many accidents on the biggest and most important road in the country - RN7 going from Antananarivo south to Toliara. One of the…

Toamasina

Journey to this lovely place from Antananarivo is super simple. First you need to take a cab to the proper bus station on the outskirts of…

Ambositra

Local gangsters, dirty street stalls, flooded rice fields, poor food and a Polish tourist group getting drunk in a restaurant. Would not…

Île Sainte-Marie

If I were to choose where to have my motorcycle accident, I couldn’t have chosen a better place. Recovering on a sandy beach reading a book…

Antananarivo

Antananarivo is just yet another “developing” capital. Bands of small kids stealing on the streets, rats in the gutters, palm leaves stuck…

Campeonato de España de Bloque

Bouldering championships of Spain.

Sagrada Família

Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. Barcelona, Spain.

JSON hijacking in Rails

JSON hijacking is a relatively unkown (amongst developers) type of web application attack. Hence there aren’t many resources that tell you…

Cala Sa Nau

Psicobloc is a form of solo rock climbing, practiced on sea cliffs at high tide, that relies solely upon the presence of water at the base…

Cala Varques

Top Mallorcan destination for climbing hippies. Psicobloc, cliff jumping, slacklining, nudism, soul cleansing, illegal camping and late…

Cartagena de Indias

The most beautiful city in Colombia. Take it however you want.

Taganga

Taganga is just a fishing village. Bars, hotels and diving centers fishing for tourists. Policemen fishing for drugs and bribes. Tourists…