01 .00 info

Everything you want to know, and much more.

01 .01 matt

My existance was first manifested on the second of August in 1991. My eyes are green and brown, my hair is dark brown. I am a boy that lives in the somewhat strange country Holland and I am in love with Jesus. My full name is Matthew Leonard. It's the personality behind all this that is the more complicated.
The personality behind all this likes to be lazy and has not finished this text as of yet.

01 .02 flamingo

Flamingos are gregarious wading birds in the genus Phoenicopterus, phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Aves, order Ciconiiformes, family Phoenicopteridae. They are found in both the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, but are more numerous in the latter. Flamingos are tropical birds, although large colonies have been observed high in the Andes. The American, or greater, flamingo, Phoenicopterus ruber, is now rarely seen in Florida, nesting chiefly in the West Indies. Its plumage is vermilion with black-edged wings; a common S Asian and African flamingo is scarlet with black wing feathers. There are four species in the Americas while two exist in the Old World. Two species, the Andean and the James's Flamingo, are often placed in the genus Phoenicoparrus instead of Phoenicopterus.
Flamingos frequently stand on one leg. The reason for this behavior is not fully known. One common theory is that tucking one leg beneath the body may conserve body heat, but this has not been proven. It is often suggested that this is done in part to keep the legs from getting wet, in addition to conserving energy. As well as standing in the water, flamingos may stamp their webbed feet in the mud to stir up food from the bottom.
Young flamingos hatch with grey plumage, but the feathers of an adult range from light pink to bright red due to the bacteria in the water they inhabit and the pigments obtained from their food supply. A flamingo that is well-fed and healthy is vibrantly coloured bright pink and is more desirable as a mate. A white or pale flamingo, however, is usually unhealthy or suffering from a lack of food. Notable exceptions are the flamingos in captivity, many of which turn a pale pink as they are not fed foods containing sufficient amounts of carotene. This is changing as more zoos begin to add shrimp and other supplements to the diets of their flamingos. In summary, flamingos obtain their color from a beta carotene diet.
The flamingo scoops its large bill backward through shallow water in marshes and lagoons. When closed, the serrated edges of the bill strain from the muddy water the aquatic plants, shellfish, and frogs on which the bird feeds. The nest is a cone of mud 1 to 2 ft (30-61 cm) high and about 1 ft (30 cm) across with a depression on top. The mates take turns incubating the one or two eggs, sitting astride the nest with their legs folded flat on either side.
Flamingos filter-feed on brine shrimp. Their oddly-shaped beaks are specially adapted to separate mud and silt from the food they consume, and are uniquely used upside-down. The filtering of food items is assisted by hairy structures called lamellae which line the mandibles, and the large rough-surfaced tongue. The flamingo's characteristic pink colouring is caused by the Beta carotene in their diet. The source of this varies by species, but shrimp and blue-green algae are common sources; zoo-fed flamingoes may be given food with the additive canthaxanthin, which is often also given to farmed salmon.
a wikipedia article on flamingos » a reference encyclopedias search on flamingos »

01 .03 train

A train is a series of rail vehicles that move along guides to transport freight or passengers from one place to another. The guideway (permanent way) usually consists of conventional rail tracks, but might also be monorail or maglev. Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate locomotive, or from individual motors in self-propelled multiple units. Most trains are powered by diesel engines or by electricity supplied by trackside systems. Historically the steam engine was the dominant form of locomotive power through the mid-20th century, but other sources of power (such as horses, rope, wire, gravity, pneumatics, or gas turbines) are possible.
A train can consist of a combination of one or more locomotives and attached railroad cars, or a self-propelled multiple unit (or occasionally a single powered coach, called a railcar). Trains can also be hauled by horses, pulled by a cable, or run downhill by gravity. A passenger train may consist of one or several locomotives, and one or more coaches. Alternatively, a train may consist entirely of passenger carrying coaches, some or all of which are powered as a "multiple unit". In many parts of the world, particularly Japan and Europe, high-speed rail is utilized extensively for passenger travel. Freight trains comprise wagons or trucks rather than carriages, though some parcel and mail trains (especially Travelling Post Offices) are outwardly more like passenger trains. Trains can also be mixed, hauling both passengers and freight, see e.g. Transportation in Mauritania. Such mixed trains became rare in many countries, but were commonplace on the first 19th century railroads.
Passenger trains are trains that move passengers from one train station to another. The distance between stations may vary from under 1 km to over 1000 km, and their journey time may vary between minutes and days. There are several sorts of trains. The most common are the intercity-trains that bring passengers from one city to another, mostly used for short travellings. Long-distance trains, for example travel between many cities and/or regions of a country, and sometimes cross several countries. They often have a dining car or restaurant car to allow passengers to have a meal during the course of their journey. Trains traveling overnight may also have sleeping cars. Very long distance trains such as those on the Trans-Siberian railway are usually not high-speeed.
Another sort of train is a high-speed train, for example the TGV in France. High speed trains normally travel during the day, and arrive at their destination before the night falls and are in competition with airliners in speed. In Japan, most of the public transportation travel between the Tokyo metropolitan area and the Osaka metropolitan area (with around 500 km in distance between them) is dominated by the Shinkansen, however in travel further than around 500 km (such as Tokyo-Hiroshima) more people prefer to travel by air. Very fast trains sometimes tilt, like the APT or Pendolino or Talgo. Tilting is a system where the passenger cars automatically lean into curves, reducing the centrifugal forces acting sideways on passengers and permitting higher speeds on curves in the track with greater passenger comfort. The fastest train on rails is the French TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) (French for High Speed Train) which achieved a 574.8 km/h (356 mph) speed in testing in 2007. However, TGVs run at a maximum commercial speed of 300-320 km/h. The German ICE uses this commercial speed of 300-320 km/h too.
Freight trains have freight cars. Much of the world's freight is transported by train. In the USA the rail system is used mostly for transporting cargo (or freight). Under the right circumstances, transporting freight by train is highly economic, and also more energy efficient than transporting freight by road. Rail freight is most economic when freight is being carried in bulk and over long distances, but is less suited to short distances and small loads. Bulk aggregate movements of a mere twenty miles can be cost effective even allowing for trans-shipment costs. These trans-shipment costs dominate in many cases and many modern practices such as container freight are aimed at minimizing these. The main disadvantage of rail freight is its lack of flexibility. For this reason, rail has lost much of the freight business to road competition. Many governments are now trying to encourage more freight onto trains, because of the benefits that it would bring. a wikipedia article on trains »

01 .04 site

Okay, so somewhat more serious. Flamingotrain.com has existed since December of 2005. It has then existed solely of a blog for a very short time, after which it has been on hiatus for quite long. After that, it has been on hiatus for months, if not years. Ftcom then came back online with a new layout. A new layout that was replaced within two months with an even newer layout. An even newer layout that was then replaced within a few weeks. You are probably looking at that one.
The name flamingotrain.com was pure spontaneous inspiration that directly led to an action of registration of the name at mijndomein.nl, where this thing is hosted. Article 17.61b of the Flamingotrain.com Mission Statement says that "it would be wrong to look at this collection of webpages as if it were created with, for or because of a certain mission." The Statement later continues to mention that this site was "created to function as either a so-called 'place for expression', a 'visiting card' or a combination of the three." I guess that really just sums it all up, doesn't it?