My submission for the weekly photo challenge at PhotoFriday.com, you can find it as entry #204.

The Setup

Overall I used three flashes, two YN560 and one FL-36R:

• A DIY salad-bowl beauty-dish with grid provided the overhead main light, casting some soft shadows.
• One flash was positioned behind the glass and shaded in a way, so it only hit the steam above the glass.
• The last flash had a make-shift double-slottet blind, providing a narrow accent light from the front:

You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need

Being in such a tiny and personal venue led to a very jam session like atmosphere, with a lot of communication between the bands and the audience. I especially loved “Spring Breakup” for their twisted humour (most lyrics about breakups and others unusual aspects of relationships) and their rough folky sound; banjo and ukulele work together very well. Also the instruments of “Susie Asado”, ukulele/guitar and violin, fit nicely and their experimental style of using the instruments created amazing results. The sometimes slightly bizarre and surrealistic lyrics of “Susie Asado” created an intriguing atmosphere. It was interesting to see, how she was using lyrics almost like an instrument (Tintenlumpenhand) switching languages mid sentence.
All-through the evening I enjoyed the lack of any percussion instruments (the knocking on a ukulele or violin aside), as these are usually over emphasized for my taste. A lot of music would sound better without a drum set, sorry. Also the relatively short set per band were nice. More bands with shorter sets offer more diversity for me.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It was really great concert evening and I will definitely visit that venue again!

[10:02]
If the world was perfect, and everybody had money and everybody drove a BMW … nobody was homeless, nobody ever got sick, everything was wonderful, everybody was smart and everything – happy all the time – you’d have to go an awful long way out of your way to make a difference in this world. You’d have to do a whole hell of a lot to try and improve the way it was.
But in a world that sucks – like this one – you don’t have to do very much at all! There was never a time in the history of the world where you could do so little and get so much done. You could do more with a little smile – just hold somebody, say hello to somebody, or just feel good by yourself, even when you don’t feel like feeling good.

Very fitting just love his humour!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I wanted to take these photos for a while, so today I just popped around the corner to the hardware store and got me a set of colourful pencils. While I was there I stumbled over those coloured spatulas and got them as well.

Cheers
Tim

Banks = evil
Regulation = good

So far nothing new, it seems the vast majority of the Occupy* thing is the usual leftist bunch. No creative inspiration to be found there Only slogans demanding positive freedom, no one asking for negative freedom.
After following the demonstration to take photos, I had time to sit down for a quick snack. I had two very very interesting conversations; one with a pensioner who shared my pessimistic perception of the demonstrating crowd and a bit later in a café, another conversation with a classical leftist guy, who favoured nationalisation of banks.
Differences aside, we all agreed that the current economical and political situation will create more awareness in the current generation and that it will have a lasting effect on our mindset.

Solange wir diskutieren, ist alles gut.
As long as we discuss, everything will be all right.

(Gabriele Fischer – brand eins)

Towards the end of the demonstration, I got my own poster from my car and went for a stroll through the crowd. Let’s say I got some strange looks:

(more individual responsibility; less redistribution)

Let me know what you think!
Tim

Does anyone have experience with repairing a punctured tire?

The long and steep part between Brensbach and Gumpersberg was definitely worth the beautiful view:

Many sweet little farmer villages and nice landscape, I really like this landscape of rolling hills and a mix of open fields and dark forest. On the way back, I took the local train “Odenwaldbahn” to the Lichtwiese campus where my office is) and cycled the last bit from there. I think some other time, I might try the bit from Bad König to Eberbach.

As a reaction the US singer-songwriter Tom Paxton wrote his song “I’m changing my name to chrysler”, parodying what had happened. The same song got covered numerous times, of which I like the version of Arlo Grthrie (famous for “Alices Restaurant“) best.

I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler
by Tom Paxton

Oh, the price of gold is rising out of sight,
And the dollar is in sorry shape tonight.
What a dollar use to get us
Now won’t get a head of lettuce,
No, the economic forecast isn’t bright.
But amidst the clouds I spot a shining ray,
I begin to glimpse a new and better way.
I’ve devised a plan of action,
Worked it down to the last fraction,
And I’m going into action here today:

Chorus:
I am changing my name to Chrysler,
I am going down to Washington D.C.
I will tell some power broker,
“What you did for Iacocca
Would be perfectly acceptable to me.”
I am changing my name to Chrysler,
I am leaving for that great receiving line.
When they hand a million grand out,
I’ll be standing with my hand out,
Yes sir, I’ll get mine.

When my creditors come screaming for their dough,
I’ll be proud to tell them all where they can go.
They won’t have to yell and holler,
They’ll be paid to the last dollar
Where the endless streams of money seem to flow.
I’ll be glad to show them all what they must do.
It’s a matter of a simple form or two.
It’s not just remuneration, it’s a lib’ral education,
Makes you kind of glad that I’m in debt to you.

Chorus

Since the first amphibian crawled out of the slime,
We’ve been struggling in an unrelenting climb.
We were hardly up and walking
Before money started talking,
And it’s said that failure is an awful crime.
It’s been that way a millenium or two;
Now it seems there is a different point of view.
If you’re a corporate Titanic
And your failure is gigantic,
Down in Congress there’s a safety net for you.

A few decades later I stumble around on the internets and discovere this song, thinking

“Oh how fitting, nothing really changed …”.

Trying to get a more detailed picture of the song and it’s creator, I quickly found out, that there was an updated version: “I’m changing my name to Fannie Mae” which references recent events in the world economy, like the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Again it was quickly covered by Arlo Guthrie, who happens to be a supporter of one of the current candidates for presidency Ron Paul.

I am Changing my Name to Fannie Mae
by Tom Paxton

Oh the price of gold is rising out of sight
And the dollar is in sorry shape tonight
What the dollar used to get us now won’t buy a head of lettuce
No the economic forecast isn’t right
But amidst the clouds I spot a shining ray
I can even glimpse a new and better way
And I’ve devised a plan of action worked it down to the last fraction
And I’m going into action here today

Chorus:
I am changing my name to Fannie Mae
I am going down to Washington D.C.
I’ll be glad they got my back
‘Cause what they did for Freddie Mac
Will be perfectly acceptable to me
I am changing my name to Fannie Mae
I am headed for that great receiving line
So when they hand a trillion grand out
I’ll be standing with my hand out
I’ll get mine

When my creditors are screaming for their dough
I’ll be proud to tell them all where they can go
They won’t have to scream and holler
They’ll be paid to the last dollar
Where the endless streams of money seem to flow
I’ll be glad to tell them all what they can do
It’s a matter of a simple form or two
It’s not just remuneration it’s a liberal education
Ain’t you kind of glad that I’m in debt to you

Chorus

Since the first amphibians crawled out of the slime (of the slime!)
We’ve been struggling in an unrelenting climb
We were hardly up and walking before money started talking
And it’s sad that failure is an awful crime
It’s been that way for a millennium or two
But now it seems that there’s a different point of view
If you’re a corporate titanic and your failure is gigantic
Down in Congress there’s a safety net for you

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s always good not to loose once sense of humour in strange times
Cheers, Tim

• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (de)
• Deutsche Welle (de)
• Deutsche Welle (en)
• Spiegel Online (de)
• DRadio (de)
• Stern (de)

As not all presentations focus on space exploration, I followed some interesting talks about social engineering, successful security intrusions, digital currencies and even non-linear milk dynamics!

All these light and technology installations offer really amazing backdrops for nice photos:

There are vids on them internets: cccamp11@Vimeo cccamp11@youtube

Cheers!

http://digitalegesellschaft.de/

They [Europe's Leaders] cannot agree on who should bear the cost of today’s crisis: should it be creditors (through a write-down), debtors (through austerity) or the Germans (through transfers to the south)?

Full article

Click here to view the embedded video.

from crowdflow

Videos – Federated Social Web 2011 Europe

I haven watched all of them, yet, but I’m sure there’s some really interesting information. Especially as Tim Berners-Lee is holding a quick keynote. One of the talks from Saturday is about “OneSocialWeb” which I blogged about a while ago.

Ronald Jenkees gives a great example on how to sell an album! Generally friendly, well priced, a reasonable sharing policy and self distributed. [A_Note_From_RJ.txt] included in the album download of Disorganized Fun:

Thanks a million for downloading my second CD! A lot of work and fun
went into this album. Posting jams on youtube helped shape it into
what it is. And so did the kind comments from people who liked those
jams. Thanks for those – they go a long way!
I hope you enjoy Disorganized Fun!

Music Sharing:
While I won’t be hating on anyone who shares my music, I hope that
everyone will keep it in mind that I’m an independent artist. I make
most of my music from scratch and I’m not signed to any record label.
However, if you know someone who has no way of paying for my music,
feel free to share. I’d personally rather those people be able to enjoy
my music rather than to not hear it at all.

Licensing:
If you’d like to use my music in a commercial project (anything that
makes someone money), you can contact me at ronaldjenkees@gmail.com.

Non-Profit Use:
If you would like to use my music in a non-profit project, I simply ask
that you please put me in your credits somewhere for the music you use.

THANKS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!

RJ

jenkees.com
youtube.com/ronaldjenkees
ronaldjenkees@gmail.com

And the best thing is: it’s really amazing music!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The simple spherical mirror made out of cardboard and a layer of aluminium foil with the receiver in its focal point works perfectly. It extended the range of my keyboard beyond my balcony (~ +60%).

Cheers
Tim

In order to reflect political positions more accurately, I devised a two dimensional scheme. Through many discussions and arguments with friends and colleagues, it matured over time. The results are explained in the following diagram:

original file in SVG format

(added 2011-01-15)

Instead of a single dimension from left to right, this scheme uses the two dimensions:

• The balance between needs and abilities
• The balance between state and the individual

With this diagram I want to stimulate a discussion about the placement of different parties or other organisation. I positioned the major German parties based on my intuitive estimate. For reference I included the two leading US parties as well.  I do not claim that this is a correct or final expression of the current situation.

I would be very happy to see a healthy discussion around this proposal and if you want to contribute, just write a quick comment. You can also use the editable SVG file (linked below the diagram) to visualise your own ideas.

Greetings
Tim

Updates based on the comments below:

(2011-01-15)

Let me clarify the two original dimensions:

• Needs and abilities is based on the question
  “What a person deserves is based on what the person needs. Or: It is based on what the person can achieve with its abilities.”.
• State and individual is based on the question
  “Can each person apply its own solution to a subjective issue or does the state collectively define issues and solutions?”

Regarding the reappearing question of additional dimensions: In my first thoughts I included more dimensions, but dropped most of them in favour of making it easier to grasp and printable. In order to accommodate more dimensions on a two dimensional presentation, I added a parallel coordinates plot above which additionally includes the dimensions:

• Balance of centralisation and decentralisation
  “Should a solution be implemented on the lowest possible level (subsidiarity) or should a central government implement global solutions?”
• Balance of xenophobia and xenophilia
  A xenophile statement would be: “It doesn’t matter where somebody is from as long as he pays his taxes.”. A xenophob statement is: “National workers first!”
• Long term and short term orientation
  This is closely related to sustainability; Does a party focus on short term gains or does it take future effects into account? What is the time frame a party uses to evaluate their decisions? Just a few months or a couple of generations?

According to Melly’s comment, I positioned the green party a bit closer to the centre on the needs/abilities axis to reflect the even balance. Based on Nightwolf’s comment, I added the German Pirates Party.

Especially regarding the pirates, there is still a high level of uncertainty, but I guess their future tendency will be more towards the state and the needs. This highlights another aspect, currently neglected by the diagrams: uncertainty distributions. As hardly anything in life is 100% certain, especially not in politics, each rating in each dimension should also define the type and the spread of the uncertainty distribution.

As the information density rises with more dimensions and even uncertainty distributions added, I would welcome creative ideas on how to visualise both in a single diagram.

(2011-03-03)

Wikipedia before you think? Certainly not!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

• WikiLeaks is bad so we need to hunt them down
• WikiLeaks is bad so we need to protect our secrets better

But I think the missing option is

Do we need to be so secretive?

In most articles I have read recently, journalists are accepting the secrecy of our governments and are not questioning the motives or justifications. In my opinion we need to ask these questions and our employees (“the government”) need to explain in detail, why they need to keep which information secret.

It is those who we elect and pay to keep our states running, who need to justify why they hide information from their employers.

Tim

PS: Wired posted a good article today about the positive sides of WikiLeaks.

Many of the popular existing social networks have a certain focus; from a German perspective this would be MySpace for bands/music, StudiVZ or Facebook for the student life and Xing for the business networking. Based on these distinctions, they also attract different social groups. Though this diversification and competition itself should be considered useful for the end user, it leads to separation. Most of us will know the situation, where some real-life friends are on one social network and some are on another. As the existing networks do not talk to each other, the only solution to stay in contact with all your friends, is to join a number of popular social networks:

Another issue arises, when one of your social networks decides to change its policies in an unacceptable way. Currently you have two choices in this situation: leave the network and loose contact to those friends or accept the uncomfortable changes and for example show more information publicly than you intent to.

The image described above changes dramatically if we look at how many people with their web-based e-mail accounts. One friend is registering with GMail, another one with his ISP and yet another one (a geek like me ) is running his own e-mail server. Yet noone wonders that UserA@gmail.com can send a mail to User2@t-online.de! And even that geek renting a server or running his own infrastructure can obviously communicate with both of them. Should one of the e-mail providers turn rogue, a user can just get a new e-mail account at a different provider and still stay in contact with all his friends and colleagues in his address book.

Wouldn’t this be nice for social networking?!

Well, this is basically what OneSocialWeb (OSW) provides! Based on the communication protocol XMPP (formerly Jabber), which is standardised by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), OSW provides a social networking experience, which is very similar to web-mail. Individuals (like me) or commercial organisations (like GMX or GMail) can run their own social networking platform and the individual end users registered at these platforms can freely communicate with each other. OSW supports the known ways of communication in social networks, like creating realtionships between people (“friend”, “follow”, …) and exchanging updates on current activities. Similar to e-mail, the end user can just switch the social networking provider, without loosing contact to his friends.

If you are interested in trying out this new approach to social networking, write me an e-mail or a comment, and I can create a testing account on http://social-one.de/, which is a test platform without commercial intent, hosted on a rented server.
Currently there are three ways of interacting with the system:

• A traditional web based client (http://social-one.de/), which would be familiar to most users coming from traditional social networks. As this is still in alpha stage, it does not provide the full functionality, yet.
• A graphical client for Android devices, which I couldn’t test so far, as my old Android 1.5 is not supported. (If anyone can report on this, please write a comment)
• A text based client on the console, which is not exactly the most convenient way of interacting, but it is the client supporting most of the current functionality of OSW.

I hope this is a helpful introduction to federated social networking. Many thanks to all the developers around the OSW project, you’re doing a great job!

Cheers
Tim

Question everything. – Why?
Tim

October 2009

My grandma turned 90 this year and as the years before we celebrated at my parents place in Spain. We went out for a very yummy lunch. Because I saw some Indian dishes on the menu, I asked the waiter about it and it turned out, that the chef is actually from india. So my grandma and I ordered curry dishes, while my parents went for Mediterranean fish.
The afternoon we spent together. I had prepared a little speech, recapitulating the years of her life. In order to prepare myself, I created a over 2 meters long time line, with all major events from our lifes and history. It is quite amazing how much can be packed into a single lifespan! In the evening we surprised her a little more by lighting a

December 2009

Towards the end of the year, there was the Christmas party of our institute. Every year the whole scientific staff spends a whole day together, visiting an interesting industry partner or some other entertaining venue. This year the organisers chose the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe which showed a very interesting exhibition, mixing technology of the past century with artistic aspects.
After the exhibition and a brief visit at the Christmas Market in Karlsruhe (where we had some local food and mulled wine), we went back to Darmstadt. At a local restaurant (3klang) we met with former colleagues and enjoyed a very tasty dinner while our professor recapitulated the past year, highlighting the achievements.

The holidays around Christmas I spent back at my home town Filderstadt with my family. I always enjoy seeing them, as we usually don’t meet too often over the year. The days were filled with tasty meals and nice talks in front of the fireplace (which we didn’t light, as it was warm enough and the fire light usually gets everyone tired ).
After the holidays I returned back to Darmstadt. The next day I picked up two friends and we drove to Berlin where we met up with some more friends to stay at a flat which yet another friend had left to us for the days around new years eve. In the capital, we went to a very interesting photo exhibition about the work of Don McCullin at the C/O Berlin, ate at a sweet little Italian place in Berlin Mitte and celebrated new years eve with a big crowd of CouchSurfers at Hostel/Bar/Club Belushi’s.

So far for 2009 … have a nice year 2010!
Tim

After a number of interesting presentations on engineering design in at the IDETC09 conference in San Diego and a successful talk highlighting our paper, we ventured on towards our final destination, Las Vegas.
The first few days we rode along the back country roads of southern Arizona, where we saw the true “Heart of America”, small villages in vast beautiful landscapes offering simple lodging and typical healthy American food (the choice between sandwiches and burgers ).
 

The next days we used for some touristy locations such as the former Route 66, the obvious Grand Canyon (with some thunderstorms!) or the less overrun Antelope Canyon. Especially the latter was truely amazing, as one is crawling through a narrow rift with the sun shining in from above. In page we were pretty lucky: As this weekend is the famous Labor Day Weekend, where it seems all Americans explore their own country, all motels in Page, AZ were totally booked out. A friendly receptionist at one of these motels connected us to a local guy, renting out motel-style rooms for a reasonable price.

As I am writing we are on our way to the Zion National Park and are staying in Kanab, which is also dubbed “Little Hollywood”, as many Western movies where shot here.

So far for now, the last bits of information will be posten from home.
Cheers, Tim

As a colleague and I are presenting a paper at an international engineering conference in San Diego (IDETC09), we extended our stay by two weeks.
We arrived one week ahead in San Francisco and we will be leaving the US from Las Vegas a week after the conference.
So far the trip was really interesting. Starting in SF we stayed in a hostel (Green Tortoise), visiting some touristy places like Fishermens Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge, which we even crossed.

From SF we took a rental car to Sequoia National Park, camping in those beautiful forests and going for a nice hike through the Giant Forest and even climbing the stairs up to Moro Rock. Staying in this amazing nature, we saw plenty of wildlife; birds, squirrels and deer. Just before leaving the park we even saw a black bear!

On our way back towards the pacific coast and San Diego, we went for a refreshing swim in a small river coming from the mountains we just crossed (we went up and down all the time, reaching altitudes as much as 2200m). With a short stopover in Ventura, we even spent a whole afternoon at the beach, watching the surfers ride the rolling waves.
 

So far for now, I guess I’ll write the next update when I get back home.
Cheers, Tim

I ordered all components online and when I got the last part (the mainboard of course ) putting everything together was just a thing of minutes. Installing a console Ubuntu system is quite a routine for me and only took a few moments. Of course installing all the services that had previously been running on my desktop took some more time:

• NFS Server for my files
• Digital TV (DVB-S) using MythTV
• SqueezeCenter for the SqueezeBox in my sleepingroom
• E-Mail server using fetchmail and DOVECOT IMAP
• Subversion server via SSH
• Apache2 webserver providing the following web-interfaces
  MythWeb for managing my recordings remotely
  RoundCube for IMAP
  PHPMyAdmin for MySQL maintenance
  WebSVN for Subversion repository browsing
  Munin for system  statistics

So far everything proved to run reliable and best of all: The whole shebang only uses about 20W compared to 160W the desktop is using. The next thing I’ll have to do is to create a simple enclosure as I am not convinced by the Mini-ITX cases you can buy off the shelf.

As a friend of mine was singing at the local Strawberry Festival, a whole group of us went there to check it out.
The festival was held at the farm of a farmer in Weiterstadt, close to Darmstadt. A sunday afternoon crowd of mostly elderly and kids gathered in a big marquee and enjoyed a variety of dishes based on asparagus or strawberries.The Jazzband “Focus on Jazz” performed many ever-greens and also some less well known tunes. Overall they were really good, very professional musicians. Because of this, I got the impression, that the band was quite a bit overqualified for the crowd.

After the band, an asparagus peeling competition between some local “celebrities” was set up and moderated by a very distinct entertainer from the area. While the contestants were peeling away, she was singing behind them in a very strong hessisch dialect.

The “grand finale” was reached, when a dancing group of some girls from a local school presented their very enthousiastic routine:

Overall it definately was a very interesting and diverse Sunday arvo!

Gemeinsam für ein sicheres Deutschland. Die Kampagne „Du bist Deutschland“ war 2005 der Beginn einer positiven Stimmungswelle im ganzen Land. Diese gebündelte Energie hat sich 2009 umgekehrt, denn nun bist du potenzieller Terrorist und wirst überwacht.

Yea, it’s been a while, but I made it back to my parents place in Spain!

Before diving in deeper, let’s cite Wikipedia to explain this concept in a few words:

[...] a social movement involving individuals who offer hugs to strangers in public places. [...] The hugs are meant to be random acts of kindness – purportedly selfless acts performed by a person for the sole reason of making others feel better.

At first we settled right underneath the Heiliggeist Kirche near the market. Being so lucky to catch on of the very first sunny and warm days this year, our signs were shining in the bright sunlight and the first confused looking people started to ask us why we were actually doing this. After dispersing the suspicion we might be some sort of sect or organisation trying to hook people, most people were amazed by this idea and loved it. Especially mid-aged and elder people agreed that Germany needed more of such events. (I think this is true for any country at any time)

A younger German couple we hugged early during the morning came back, carrying their instruments. After settling right behind us they started jamming on their guitars, creating an amazing atmosphere. As we were giving out our hugs for free, they also played without a hat on the street. (Thanks again unknown musicians, you certainly improved our mood even further!)

Around midday we moved down the road a bit, as the sun had moved away from our previous spot. We kept on hugging random strangers till the sun set behind the beautiful old-town of Heidelberg.
After this long day of hugging, everyone was rather exhausted. After dinner at a Libanese restaurant, we walked through the old town, catching a glimpse at the illuminated old castle. Later we crawled some local bars and got introduces to a “special” local schnapps. At the end of a long day, everyone joined their hosts, surfing some local chouches (thanks again hosts!).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Department of Public Prosecution
Canton Basel-Stadt

Criminal Investigation

…

Basel, Shrove Wednesday March 1977

Dear Mr. Schweizer,

regarding your inquiry dated 25th January 1977, I reply as follows:
The act of shitting pants is only liable to public prosecution, if those pants are not your pants and you commited the act with deliberation. Additionally a criminal complaint has to be filed. Under these conditions, following current practice, the grounds for a damage of property according to para. 145 sec. 1 StGB would be given. Thus the committed act is not an offence liable to public prosecution but a offence requiring a complaint to be made by the victim which, according to par. 6 StPO, falls into the category of private action. Thus you can be at ease and do not have to withhold your urge.

Concerning your letter dated 28th January 1977 I can reassure your, that your secret has been treated with discretion and that your “services” must have been misinformed.

Furthermore I am not able to help you with the issues depicted in your letter dated 1st February 1977. Nonetheless I can fully understand that the DM 28750,–, which you obtained by fraud to the expense of the bank, offered you more pleasure then the therefor prodounced prison sentence.

However I am relieved to hear that you currently have no truely serious problems aside the initially mentioned ones. Should this change, I would be pleased to offer you my aide and support.

Kind regards
Dr. U. Flachsmann, Prosecuting Attorney
Acting Chief of Criminal Investigation

Rene Schweizer
GAGA Basel
Aus der Lyss 20
4051 Basel
Tel. 25 12 06

Basel, 1st March 1977

Department of Public Prosecution
Kohlenberg 27/29

Basel

Regarding the letters dated 25th and 28th January 1977

Dear Sirs,

as I did not get a response regarding the abovementioned letters, I would be much obligated if you could let me know whe I may expect a response.

I am sure that it is clear to you, that I cannot deal with such a problem on my own. Supposing you do not consider yourself responsible for such matter, it would be of great help to me, if you could provide me with information about other bodies which you consider appropriate.

With sincere thanks for a prompt resolution of the issue
Rene Schweizer

Rene Schweizer
GAGA Basel
Aus der Lyss 20
4051 Basel
Tel. 25 12 06

Basel, 1st February 1977

Director of the Criminal Investigation Department
Lohnhof
Leonhardskirchplatz

Basel

Dear Director,

in 1968 I commited my first bank fraud, which resulted in 30.000 Franks and one year in prison.

As only the 30.000 Franks gave me pleasure, I wonder if there is a secret society, which educates interested and skilled young people to expert criminals. Have you, being familiar with this topic, heard of such an organisation?

I’d be very pleased to receive your assistance in this matter, as I would like to apply for an apprenticeship as soon as possible.

With sincere thanks for you effort and best wishes
Rene Schweizer

Rene Schweizer
GAGA Basel
Aus der Lyss 20
4051 Basel
Tel. 25 12 06

Basel, 28th January 1977

Department of Public Prosecution
Kohlenberg 27/29

Basel

Dear Sirs,

my agencies informed me that my problems, which I explained in the letter dated 25th January, are being discussed publicly at the tables of Spalenburg [suburb of Basel].

As my problem is not meant to be heard by the public, I would like to ask you for a little more decency in the future.

Sincerely and thankfull for a soon reply
Rene Schweizer

At a recent party with friends and a nice big bowl of “Feuerzangenbowle” I passed the book around and people just smiled and giggled reading a few of the correspondences. As some of them don’t speak German natively, I started translating on the fly and the idea came up to publish an English translation.

With the kind permission of René Schweizer himself, I decided to feature some excerpts in my blog:

René Schweizer
GAGA Basel
Aus der Lyss 20
4051 Basel
Tel. 25 12 06

Basel, 25th January 1977

Department of Public Prosecution
Kohlenberg 27/29

Basel

Dear Sirs,

I shat my pants and would like to know if this is an offence liable to public prosecution.

Respectfully with gratitude for you effort
René Schweizer

During the next few days or weeks I will publish more excerpts of this “tactical madness”, as the author calls it.

For those who read German, I can only suggest to have a look at “Das Original – Ein Schweizerbuch“, a collection of correspondences of the last 30 years.

Cheers Everyone
Tim (who believes in casual madness)

Around new years eve a friend of mine from study times organised a skiing/boarding trip to Sölden in the Austrian Alps. With sunny but cold weather and a great choice nice slopes, we we could really enjoy the beauty of that region. Though a slight cold kept my from snowboarding for two days, I quite enjoyed those times as well, relaxing with a good book to read. (Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami)

So far for now, I wish everyone a great year 2009!
Cheers
Tim

The band itself arrived around 22:00 and sat down for a late african dinner. After moving in all those diverse instruments (e-guitar, bass, vibraphone, keyboard, trombone and some indian double-sided drum) they started playing. Their sound reminded me a lot of a more psychedelic version of the early Santana. I massively enjoyed those chilled tunes relaxing on the comfy couch. They played till 01:00, but it felt way shorter as I was so immersed into the sound.

After this concert, the musical balance of this week is regained (see prev. post).

In the evening I drove down to Mannheim and found a parking spot in the area after a few minutes search. I got to the venue around 9ish and had a unpleasant encounter at the entry. They refused to let me take my camera (non-SLR that is) inside! I really didn’t expect this from a band who call themselves punks. On the other hand I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to see that the fully virtual ticket process went smoothly; as I don’t have a printer hooked up to my computer, I stored the ticket PDF I got online on my mobile and presented it to them. The girl typed in the number underneath the barcode and I could enter. I still wonder though if it is possible to scan the barcode from a display?

Inside, I got me a shandy and a few minutes later the band started. Soon I realised that their studio recordings were way better then their live show. The drumset was mixed way too loud, blowing everything else to pieces, which is especially sad, as they run a very interesting mix of instruments (e-violin, acoustic guitar, washboard percussion, …). Also their appearance on stage did not feel authentic, more like a well choreographed freak show. Being rather dissappointed, I just left about 1 hour into the show.

I guess one can’t always be lucky with the concerts, though the majority of the recent concerts was really good.

The next day we enjoyed the beuatiful weather in and around the pool, just relaxing and talking, playing some garden games (Boule, Beachball, Water-Volleyball, …) from time to time. We even witnessed a partial lunar eclipse that night!

Though the weather was predicted pretty bad (a lot of rain and strong winds) we again were rather lucky. It just rained a little bit Thursday night and it got story Friday, but that was it, the rest of the weekend was rather pleasant, not too hot or cold.
Because of the wind on Friday our pavillions mostly consistet of random sticks and fiber-reinforced tape by then. (Hail tape! What would I do without it?)
As I didn’t expect the parking area to be some sort of remote from the campsite, I removed the backseats from my car (which was surprisingly simple, cheers Toyota-engineers) in order to be able to fit my bicycle trailer in there. Arriving at the festival around midnight (the Filderstadt friends had saved some space for me), I realised that this was no necessary. As the concert area and the camping area were on different sites, there was plenty of space and one could just drive the car right to the campsite. With things beeing very well organised and easy going, I could just dive right into the festival spirit and relax. (Aside very good operated sanitary installations they also organised a small tent-supermarket with all the basics)

The next afternoon, Martin and I met at the beergarden in Leinfelden. After a laid back late brunch we went to Vaihing to get drinks for the party at Flowrider’s garden that night. At the mall we stumbled into a store selling nonsense gadgets like Hawaii flower garlands and soap bubble toys, of course we couldn’t resist and bought a bunch of the garlands and bubble toys for the party.
As things already got late, we drove straight to Flowrider’s party in the fields behind Vaihingen. The usual crowd barbecued and partied all night, getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes from the nearby pond.

Another big luck was the beautiful weather I had for the whole stay, just as I arrived at the airport on my way back home, it started raining again.

Cheers
Tim

Bilbao Airport:

Guggenheim Museum:

The City:

I know it has been a while, so let me give you a brief update:
As most of you probably know I moved to Darmstadt to start a postgrad position at the Department for Computer Integrated Design at the TU. I found a pretty nice flat at the southern outskirts of Darmstadt and settled in quite well so far.

The job is just in the field I was looking for, the intermediate area between engineering and information technologies and my project allows me to get around a bit.
So far for now, I’ll also add a few more details about my recent trips.

Cheers
TIm

All my boxes are packed and tomorrow I’ll be ready to go!

Let’s see when I’ll be able to post again, hopefully activating the DSL-line won’t take too long!

Cheers
Tim

After I spent the last few years in Germany without a car, I recently decided (with the push of my parents) to get me a used car. The decision which car to buy was rather easy, as I quite liked the Toyota Yaris which the ADAC (German Car Club) rated best in its class regarding runnig costs. (fuel consumption, maintenance, etc.) After just one week of browsing the offers I can now introduce you to Zaphod, sticking to my previous namespace, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Happy new year everyone!
Tim

The panoramas were created using hugin, a really nice tool for mostly automatic panorama stitching.

Local Culture

I made it home well, right in time for quite a few late summer / autumn festivals. The first and biggest was the traditional Wasen, a few weeks later I visited the Fellbacher Herbst for the first time. A pretty nice wine festival in the heart of, you guessed it, Fellbach with live music and many booths selling local wine and food. The last local festival in that row was the Krautfest, a festival around Filderkraut, which is typical for the Filder region and only produced here.

Good old Friends

Two weeks after I returned back home some good friends from highschool times and I went to Switzerland. The first day and evening we spent in Basel, joining with one of our friends who had worked there for his studies. After we finally decided on a restaurant I had a really nice wild boar roast which I won’t forget for quite a while.
The second day we drove to Luzern and started hiking up the Pilatus with fog all around us, one could barely see 50m. Overall the elevation difference would have been 1600m in one day, but in my corrent condition I gave up at about 1000m and took the cable car to the top. There we had a reservation for the hotel and enjoyed a relaxed evening (the others were totally tired as the last 600m were the toughest part).
Sunday the fog had cleared and the view was really marvellous. After a brief sunbath we took the cable car back to the lower station where we had parked the car and spend the rest of the day browsing around the inner city of Luzern.

The Studymates

The last weekend of October my group of best friends from the aerospace studies in Stuttgart gathered in Hamburg. The first day had a bar crawl through the Schanzenviertel and along the Reeperbahn.
After everyone had recovered from the night before, we went down to the pier (Landungsbrücken) and took a boat trip around the warehouse district (Speicherstadt) and the harbour. After that we just walked around downtown a bit and found a really nice and small mexican restaurant where we managed to get a table for the nine of us. After a good meal and some Tequila we retreated to Oli’s place where most of us stayed and had a rather calm last evening.

My Grandma’s 88th Birthday

As we planned the gathering in Hamburg quite a bit ahead, I could arrange that it would be the same weekend as my grandmother’s 88th birthday. So Sunday I got up a bit earlier, took the bus to the main station to get a few fresh flowers and visited her. It is truely amazing how clear her mind is, everytime I really enjoy talking to her. As usual I ate quite a bit more than I had planned, but I guess that’s a universal fact for grandmas all over the world!

Cheers, Tim.

The small glasses and the lack of authentic German food aside, this Fest was definitely a good experience.
Cheers, Tim.

Cheers, Tim.

I’m sure this will be fun:

The new place is really nice, with a big spacious kitchen and a backporch with a big open space.

Victor Wooten Concert
Ben and Zach had been telling me about Victor for quite a while, claiming he is one of the best bass-players ever! As always I was a bit skeptical.
Arriving at the Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points, Ben first went to the Turkish place next door for some falaffel. Sitting in front of the snack bar, we started chatting with the owner, who told us that they just opened that weekend. A little into the talk he realised where I was from and started talking German! He and a few more of his staff had spent a few year in Germany before coming over to the US. Being a really nice guy, he offered me a free falaffel, which I couldn’t refuse, and it indeed was very good!

With some food in our bellies we went back to the Variety Playhouse to see the concert. And I must say Ben and Zach were SO right with their raving! Victor Wooten really is one of the best, if not the best, bass-player I have ever seen performing! Toghether with a really amazing band they just blew my mind away! Every single musician was so good and as they seemed to be playing just for the fun of it, the whole concert felt more like a jam in some friends livingroom.
You can find the photos i took right here in the gallery.

In the meantime I switched from sweet tea to Pilsner Urquell, but lets just go on …

Graduation Day in Columbia
Three weeks later Zach and I drove over to Columbia for a weekend, as it was Mitul’s graduation day.
This being the second trip to Columbia (we went there for St. Patrick’s Day as well) I must say I really like this city with its central bar district and pretty much all of Ben’s and Zach’s friends living really close to the downtown area. One funny thing that evening, highlighting the absurdity of some of the regulations over here, was that we got refused to enter a bar because Zach and Steven were wearing “Gang Style”! Yeah! Those two guys really look dangerous!

Everybody being a bit tired from the night before (hanging out at Chubby’s) we just went to a nice spot at the river and relaxed there, playing with Jerry, Janna’s crazy dog. In the evening we went to a nice restaurant where they were brewing their own beer and got some nice southern food.

Plum Hollow Bluegrass Festival
Steven, who I just got to know on our recent visit to Columbia, told me about this Bluegrass and Moonshiners Festival in northern South Carolina and that he planned to go there. As I always liked small festivals and Bluegrass we planned to meet there and camp out for the weekend.
After a relaxed ride north to Spartanburg on the interstate 85, I arrived in the area around noon and soon realised that this is as cliche as it gets! When I had to ask for directions I could barely understand the heavy southern accent. The whole town was decorated with US flags and on the roads you could only see pickup trucks. After a few extra turns I made it to the Plum Hollow farm, where Steven was already setting up his special campsite. A nice hidden spot, with quick access to the whole festival.

As I expected sitting around a campfire at night, i had prepared some stick-bread, which is mostly unknown in what the Americans call the world and the rest of the world calls the Unites States (sorry i couldn’t resist ). So the first evening Steven and I were wandering around the campsite, joining different groups around their fires, spreading stick-bread and trying moonshine people brought along. Soon I was known as “The German with the stick-bread” all over the festival (around 200-300 people I would guess).
The stage was set up nicely right in front of the forest with a well needed tin roof providing some shade for the listeners. So bluegrass bands were playing pretty much all the time till around midnight, when people would move to their campfires and start playing their own music, jamming with others.
I managed to record two songs with my camera and converted them to mp3-format:

• Puttin’ On The Ritz (download)
• Wagon Wheel (download)

the first two pictures below show that scene at about 2am around a pavillion.


Overall I must say this was all I hoped it would be! I really enjoyed spending the weekend with these friendly and down-to-earth people sharing food (thanks for the fresh-hunted deer burgers) and a great time!Well … that’s about it … hail to those who made it all through this long post, I know how short the average attention span these days is.
Hope I manage to get my lazy bum up and write more often, so I don’t end up with these almost “half-year-reviews”.

To cite Tony Blair: “That is that, the end.”

I’m sorry I haven’t updated this site in the last few weeks, but I was pretty busy settling in at my new town.

Let’s do this in a chronological way. After doing my thesis-presentation, I had three days left to get my bags packed. With a little overweight, I left from Stuttgart airport, boarding a direct flight to Atlanta, GA.
As I had slept pretty bad the night before, and just had a few short naps on the plane, I was pretty worn out by the time I arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson. The long immigration procedure and the double checks of my luggage didn’t really relax me either.
After I picked up my rental-car outside the airport, I made it to Kristi’s place rather easily, meeting her again after three years. She had invited me to stay at her place for the first few days, which was soooo helpful! (Thanks so much Kristi!)

During this first week I managed to find a nice shared flat, just about five minutes away from my new workplace, Engineous, Inc.
My new flatmates, Zack Zach and Ben, are two really friendly, laid back Americans, both from South Carolina. Ben works as a webdesigner while Zack Zach studies epidemiology. We share a nice kitchen connected to a well equipped livingroom (Cable, XBox, RC-Heli,Stereo) and two bathrooms. Amongst the amenities are a washer, a dryer, a mircowave, an ice-cube-making fridge and a really nice “Lean-Mean-Fat-Reducing-Grilling-Machine”. In the appartment block we also got a swimming-pool, a tennis-court and barbecues in the garden.

My workplace at Engineous is really nice as well, a small professional team and I got my own cliche cubicle!
The last few days I was pretty immobile, as I had returned my rental car. To get to work, Ben gave me a ride in the mornings and in the evnings. As America is really organised around cars (drive-thru-everything), I was looking for a used car. Last weekend Zack Zach and I were driving around the area, looking at some offers I had found on craigslist. In the end we found a 2000 Toyota Corolla, which is said to be one of the most reliable cars over here. As I didn’t have an insurance yet, Paul (another friend), whose insurance would cover any car he’s driving in, brought the car to my place, where it sat the last days, as I was waiting for my insurance to kick in. After getting all the needed paperwork together, I took “Heart-of-Gold” (her name) for a ride and got my the registration plates just today!

Actually I just came back from a round of tennis with Ben, though I lost 0:4 it went way better than I had expected after a break of ten years or more!

Well, so far for now, I’ll try to keep the updates coming more regularly.
Cheers, Tim.

just recently I came across a site of brillian nerdy geek humor by Ernest Cline (to cite him, this is “Airwolf”).
I especiallly loved “The Geek Wants Out“, either read it, or even better listen to it in mp3.

Cheers to you all,
Tim.

Tim

After learning for the last few exams, Jörn and I took our bicycles for a tour to the far end of the airport, where landing airplanes pass just a few meters above ones head. It’s pretty amazing to listen to the sounds the wingtip vortexes create in the air. On the way back we headed to a beergarden and had some great local food, Maultaschen with potatosalad. With a nice cold beer the perfect refreshment after a tour of about 30 kilometers.

So long (and thanks for all the fish ),
Tim.

After 24hrs in the vacuum bag, the first wing just looks great! It’s really stiff and strong, I just tested it for about 4g loading without any noises or anything. (a crackling noise is a first indication for overstressing the compound material)

The chord of the wing still is larger than the final wing, as the trailing edge is excess material and will be cut to the final shape later.

Cheers,
Tim (smiling)!

Yea, I know I haven’t updated in a while, so I’m doing this right now.
Aside the work for my assignment I’m, as always, learning for some upcoming exams, if nothing fails, these are my last ones!

As my last rc-plane got damaged during the last launch I’m working on a new one. Basically the same flying-plank concept, but this time with higher wingspan and thus higher aspect ratio. Another novelty will be a small electric motor (brushless outrunner) with a folding prop, to assist the time in between thermals.

The design of the wings is different as well, this time I cut a styro-foam core (with Joern’s help ) which I’ll cover with 1mm obeche veneer. First I tried using the rest of the styro and 36kg in water bottles to press the veneer to the core, while the epoxy was curing, but this didn’t work well in the strongly curved areas around the leading edge.

For some time I thought about using a vacuum system for the pressing, so this time I decided to finally build such a system. All I need is a airtight bag, to put the wing and veneer in and a vacuum-pump to evacuate the bag.
For the bag I got me some 0.09mm PVC foil which I then sealed with a hot wire on a wooden bar, pressing it to a flat surface.

To create the vacuum, I used a cheap aquarium-air-pump, reversing the tubes on the inside, measuring the pressure-difference with a small tube, hung on the wall of my kitchen with the open bottom end in a bottle of water. The height the water rises when a vacuum is created on the other end is proportional to the pressure-difference, with 1m corresponding to roughly 0,1 athmospheres. This showed a sufficient pressure-difference of about 0,3 athmospheres while the pump was still rather quiet.

On the last two pictures you can see how nicely this works. But these were just preliminary tests, without the epoxy. The real test will be tonight!

I’ll post some further update once I see how the final test worked.
Cheers, everybody!

My friends and I started the Worldcup with a nice barbie at Oli’s place.

Especially the night out after the match Poland – Germany was amazing, around 70000 people partying in the city. The best thing is that there’s hardly any violence or aggression!

But I think after that night I’ll need a few calm days without these crowds!

Cheers,
Tim.

As I haven’t written much in a while, I’ll just give a brief overview of the last events.

As the new version of Ubuntu was released this month, I organised a small release party in Stuttgart. Though this was quite spontaneous, we ended up with a group of six Ubuntu interested people.

A few days later Kathi and I randomly got to watch a pre-worldcup soccer theatre performance in front of the new castle in Stuttgart. Especially the pyrotechnics were really impressive!

I also started working on my assignment, focussing on evolutionary optimisation of rule based designs. Ask me in person if you want a more detailed description of this.

So far for this update, cheers …
Tim.

We went bbqing at the Max Eyth See

and had a nice afternoon flying our model planes in Scharnhausen.

I even managed to get up and give my flat a spring-cleaning!

Just yesterday I went to an interesting concert in the “Laboratorium“, some modern blend of balkan/gypsy music. The band is called KAL and consists of mostly young musicians from the area around Belgrad.
After a few songs more and more people got up from their seats and started dancing around the tables … really great athmosphere in that small venue.

So far for this update, have a nice time!
Cheers, Tim.

After learning for nearly 2 1/2 months now, my mind goes on strike. Words start to become meaningless rows of letters after a while. There’s hardly any difference between my brain and my dessert anymore!
Little more than a week and I’m done for this semester, finally! Hopefully the weather will be more like spring by then.

I’ll try to wobble some more nondestructive testing into my jelly-brain.
Cheers, Tim.

And some video as well: one of the first flights
Next I’ll get me a longer rubber, to get to a higher altitude from the begining, giving me more time to fearch thermals.

Cheers everyone,
Tim.

This time I also chose a thinner airfoil (JWL065) adding the need for a spar. To get a smooth surface, I’ll cover the wing with adhesive foil.

Read more once I managed to test this guy.

Cheers everyone,
Tim.

To let you know what I’m doing at the uni, I posted a few pictures of the laboratories for non-destructive testing.

This is me, pictured by an infraredcamera; I guess those structures at the side of my forehead are veins.

These are the inner structures of my mobile-phone, x-rayed from behind.

The left picture shows a standard photo of the nosepart of some wing. The right shows the same part in ultrasound exited thermography, where the defect (a small crack between two rivets) shows up in white because it radiates heat.

Aside this we are preparing for the final presentation of our airliner-design and the last few days I started preparing for the tests coming up in the next months.

G’day everyone,
Tim.

Lately I managed to decide on a new monitor. After reading quite a few tests, I chose to order a Hyundai L90D+

replacing my old blurry Eizo T662 tube, which I had bought used three or four years ago.

It’s amazing how well logistics can work! It took less than 24 hours from clicking the “buy” button till the delivery guy rang at my door.

Aside that not much new to tell, my friends and I finished the work at the airliner design contest and handed in a report of 160 pages. After the final presentation I will put the paper online, for those interested in our work.

So far, have a good time!
Tim

Cheers everyone,
Tim.

A happy new year to everyone,
Tim.

Santa and the view on Heslach

a small puppet-theatre we discovered right around the corner

“Sie wollen uns ans Ende der Welt jagen,
doch die Erde ist rund.”
“They want to chase us to the end of the world,
but the world is round.”
Found at the OBW9, the last punk resort in Stuttgart, beeing stormed by special forces.

“Der Kopf ist rund damit das Denken die Richtung ändern kann.”
“The head is round so that thinking can change the direction.”
Found at a trash container near the “Palast der Republik”, a small bar near downtown.

Cheers everyone.
Tim.

Once again there are exams to be written, so I’m sitting at my kitchen-table, learning for Space Systems at the moment.
Fluid Dynamics, Flight Mechanics/Flight Control and Thermodynamics will follow later.
A nice thing this semester: there will be 2 1/2 FREE weeks between the last exam and the next semester!

Cheers everybody!
Tim.

Cheers!

*cough *sneeze
Tim.

Aside the studies I also got a job at one of the aeronautics institutes in the “leighter than air”-group. My first assignment is the design of a gauge, measuring the momentum and force at a small propeller engine.

Thought the weeks are quite busy, it finally feels like I’m getting somewhere, somewhere right.
Cheers everybody,
Tim.

Let’s find a name for it, send in your creations!
Cheers! (to all the foreign beeings, roaming around Stuttgart this late!)

It still feels so unreal, on the one hand being at home makes me wonder if I ever left at all, while other stuff just confuses me, like cash refund on plasic bottles and the 1euro coin you have to put in the shopping trolley.
I already met some friends, and the nice people from the photo-shop I usually go to still remembered my name!
So far for now, I’ll have a big gathering with my friends on friday, and after that, there’s plenty to catch up with at uni.

Cheers, Tim.

Cheers, Tim!

Washington – did all the touristy stuff, Capitol, War Memorial, Space & Aviation Museum

Boston – met up with my parent who are touring New England in a Caravan. Went to Providence and the Cape Cod.

Chicago – Stayed in Linking Park, a really nice area with lots of bars and restaurants. Got 2 free nights in the hostel for fixing one of the Internet Computers.

St. Louis – Once more the touristy stuff, took the ride over The Arch, went to Forest Park and the Science Museum there and visited the Union Station on the way back to the Amtrak station.

Austin – Got friends with some locals, had a marvellous time with them! First night we went to a Frat Party, the next day Sherry showed me around town, the green belt, a street festival and a very nice mexican restaurant. In the evening we all went to the concert of The Polyphonic Spree, a damn good experence!

New Orleans – after a verrrry long ride on the train for 34hrs (got a delay of about 10hrs!) I just arrived in NO yesterday, met some other germans and just had a relaxed evening in the hostel, still worn out from the trainride. I guess I’ll get some live music today and the next days, thats what NO is famous for.

That’s it so far,
cheers, Tim.

Arriving at Union Station right in the heart of Washington, it took just a short taxiride to the hostel, which immediatly felt comfy for me. It’s more some kind of shared accomodation with an interesting owner. He spent quite a while in arts and in architecture and so we surfed the net together (free wireless internet in the hostel) looking for interesting housing concepts using shipping containers.

One day we rented a car to go to the Florida Keys for snorkeling. (renting a car for 5 of us was way cheaper than eny organised bustour) Near Key Largo we went on a boat which took us to a reef ashore. Compared to the reef I saw in Thailand years ago, this was quite alive and populated by heaps of different colorful fish. Though the water was quite muddy (maybe still because of the storm?) snorkeling was great fun and we enjoyed the rest of the day at a nice reopical beach in the national park. (Mo even managed to get a fresh coconut from a palmtree! )

As the “storm” is over, we moved back to the Tropics Hostel, enjoying a shower and a room with just 6 people in it.

Cheers, Tim. (aka Tally – a nick one of the kids gave me )

Cheers, Tim.

Finally back to warm weather, sunshine and late sunset!

Cheers, Tim.

Cheers, Tim.

check http://gallery.oh7eleven.de/tim/ for pics

riding to Ship Cove (video)

The next day she went off with the ferry to the northern island and I hit the road towards Nelson, giving an english girl from the hostel a ride. In Nelson we were just sipping on a nice long black, talking about where we’d been so far, when we realised that we had been neighbours for two months in Sydney!!! We even had talked across the fence once without seeing each other! The world is soooo small, especially down under .

video of Marvin driving on 90 Miles Beach

But sorry, I’m quite lazy so I’ll just write a rough timeline:
After a few rather relaxed days in Auckland I went up north to the Northland. (quite logic name ).
after lot’s of coincidences I ended up in Whangarei Backpackers, a really nice and cosy place with an interesting bar downstairs which should be open by the time you read this (it wasn’t really when I was around)
For two nights I went further north to the northern AND western most tip of NZ Cape Reinga (it’s neither most northern nor most western) and went back down via the westcoast where I stayed in a beatufil calm place called ‘The Treehouse’. Back in Whangarei (pronounced Phangarei) I went shopping at Pak’n'Save where I ran into freinds from the Backpacker who were preparing for Ruthy’s Birthday. We didn’t really stop celebrating that birthday for three days .
After the weekend, we (Fab4 Ruthy[Wales], Matt[England], Gavin[Kiwi] and me) spontaneously decided to take it down to Auckland and just go on.
After another two days in Auckland we split up and I went further south, following the westcoast. At the moment I’m enjoying a few clam days in New Plymouth in a friendly place which even has a Sauna! (Shoestring Backpacker).

Enough for now, got longer than I though …
Cheers, Tim.

Tim.

Well, enought of the past, I’ll be boarding any moment.
On the road again, taking the long way home.

Thanks everybody for this nice time,
Tim.

Oh bright future!

Greets, Tim. (king of homeimprovement)

back in Tokyo
arriving in tokyo around 1900 i went on to the starbucks where martine and i set up a date. with a big cup of hot chocolate i waitet for her, later we dropped my stuff at the New Koyo and went on to Ueno, where we looked for some english pub.
after some beer we had to get the last train home, each of us in another sirektion. we set up some date for the next day (today).
after a long sleep till 1000 i had some cup-noodles and went to the place where we wanted to meet, as trains had to wait a while (probably some track-works) i got there about 30 mins late, and couldnt find her. after another 30mins waiting i gave up and went to the HotSopt in Shinjuku to update my webstuff. well here i am … up to date again. two more days in Tokyo and on i go for Sydney.

Greets, Tim.

this morning i first answered some e-mails from Martine, trying to set up some meeting. (it’s really hard without mobilephones, i can remember how thing were working before mobile-communication), afterwards we walked to downtown Tokyo, passing a beautiful park and the emperors palace.
after a visit in a BIG bookstore (having a look at some nice photoalbums with fred (he studied design)) we split up, with me travelling to Shinjuku, where i set up the meeting with Martine. Right around the corner there’s a beatiful hotspot, with some trees and banks to hang out and relax. (see pic below)

Cya m8s, read you soon.

Greets and bye, Tim.

The last few weeks / months of university were quite busy. There was really few time to relax or even party! So I’m doing that right now. Last week i went to a concert of ‘Open Season’ and ‘The Peacocks’ at Stuttgart, after that I had a strange evening with a nice girl at the Club ‘Le Fonque’, the ‘evening’ ended at 800, returning home with the first connection. Last week, my parents, my grandma from Hamburg and me celebrated christmas, gathering, having lots of unhealthy food and even more fun.
Before christmas, my father and me exchanged the old gas tank of my Samurai, which took us three days! After christmas we started to prepare my new room in the house, by clearing it and painting the walls.
As soon as we built the tables and other stuff, I’ll move. After 2 years of cellar, I’m quite happy to see the sunlight again! (Don’t think my parents stuffed me in the cellar! I chose to do that and they told me 2 years ago I was crazy because of that, maybe I was!)

Right now I’m returning home from a concert of ‘HISS’ at the ‘Schlesinger Int.’. Was really great! Some kind of mixture between Rock and Polka with German lyrics.