Silent night

Merry Christmas to everybody who sneaks about my blog these days.

Here is a version of "Silent night" by Tom Waits. Completely different from "Last Christmas" and other stuff which made throw the radio out of the window;-)

Remember the day

Already two years ago...

Paper Boat Challenge December

Here is the new Paper Boat Challenge (something easy this time;-):

What is shown on the picture below?
I confess, a certain technical understanding might help.

Views about engineers

Always wanted to know:

• What is an engineer?
• What does an engineer do?
• Are engineers different somehow?
• What do engineers always carry with them?
• What do engineers like?
• How do engineers dress?

Here you can find the answers;-) (in German)

Panamericana im alten VW

Just wanted to share my new favourite website with you: http://www.panamericana-im-alten-vw.de/

I think it's because a)Since I was in Mexico I really like the VW Käfer and b)I dream of traveling the Carretera Panamericana myself one day.

Where all the spam comes from

Probably most of you know that the term "spam" (meaning junk mail) is derived from a Monty Python sketch. The more often I watch it, the more I laugh.



By the way, spam as food is a kind of canned meat (Hormel Spiced Ham).

Paper Boat Challenge November

I will be without internet some days but I prepared a new Challenge for you so you should not get bored;-)

What makes my day

The pun does not work in English, that's why here are some lines in German:

Ich habe heute mein Mail-Archiv durchsucht, weil ich wissen wollte, ob wir zu einem Thema "Niveauregulierung" schon eine Antwort rausgeschickt hatten. Das ist dabei herausgekommen:

Von mittlerweile über 4500 Mails in meinem Archiv hatten nur 5 Niveau... Ich sollte mir mal Gedanken über meine Arbeit machen;-)

Visitors welcome

Some people asked me about my new flat so here are some pictures and explanations.

I live in the same house as my landlord. From the street the house looks like in the picture on the left. It's built in a kind of modern style which makes quite special especially for Siegen. However, in our street there are 5 other houses in the same style although they have all different shapes. They were designed by the same architect who then sold his plans to 6 different families.


From my desk (where I also sit now) I have quite a nice view over Siegen. Even at night it looks nice.


And if somebody wants to come and visit me next spring or summer to have a BBQ... I have a terrace now. It still looks very empty but I will get a table, some plastic chairs and of course a grill. What I already have is a sunshade but I think I will not need it the next few months.

By the way, that does not mean nobody is allowed to visit me before spring. Just let me know if you want to see the rainiest place in Germany;-)

Book of questions

Sometimes I thought to myself that there are a lot of books which try to give answers on very different topics but there is no book of questions. Today I found out that I was wrong and that there is a book of questions by Gregory Stock. Although I had something different in mind I find the idea quite interesting. Here are some of the questions from his book:

• Would you pull out the wings of a wonderful butterfly if you got a great one-week holiday according to your choice for it?
• If you had to choose today to either stay with your partner for the rest of your life or leave him/her immediately - what would you do?
• How many of your friendships have been lasting longer than 10 years? Which of your current friendships will be important to you in 10 years?
• You could become 90 years old. The last 60 years with the body or the mind of a 30-year old. How would you decide?
• Do you judge others with a higher or lower standard than yourself?
• Would you kill an innocent person if you could stop poverty in the world by doing so?
• You could live 20 years in extreme happiness knowing, however, you would have to die immediately afterwards. Would you decide in favour for it?
• What in life makes you extremely thankful?
• You are responsible for 100 people's lives. Which alternative would you prefer: You can save 90 or you have a 50:50 probability to save/lose all.
• You can either go on a 4-week holiday with your parents or work extra hours in the office every evening. How do you decide?
• How much sex would you really like to have if your partner was always willing and there was no time limit?
• Would you like to extend your life by one year if another person's life - who you will never meet - was reduced by one year? How would you decide if you knew who it was?
• With whom would you feel more comfortable: A partner who is twice as attractive as you or one who is half as attractive as you?
• How many times a day do you look into a mirror?
• Would you commit perjury for a good friend?
• Would you send your partner to a seminar about sexual practices?
• You get to know that your best friends deals with heroin. How do you react?
• You can choose to either have one good friend and no further acquaintances or many superficial friends and no soulmate. What do you prefer?
• You have the chance to meet the love of your life knowing that this person has to die in 6 months. Would you like to meet that person nonetheless? What if that person would not die but betray you?
• Would you like to know the exact date of your death?

There is no right or wrong to these questions but some really keep you thinking...

Paper Boat Challenge October

I have to confess I neglected my blog and you, humble reader;-), quite some time. In the meantime I moved to my new flat, I had 2 weeks of holidays of which I spent one sailing... I hope I'll find more time now to tell you a bit more about that!

I managed at least to create a Paper Boat Challenge for October (I hope there are still people out there interested in new puzzles):
http://www.theclimateisrightortrains.com/?lang=de
http://www.eu-ea.com/index.asp?bid=232
http://unbarcodepapel.blogspot.com/2006/06/teotihacan-city-of-gods.html
http://www.magen.com/index.php
http://blog.otphys.net/

Live your Light

Last week at this time I was in Düsseldorf at the Santana concert. Although the ticket was not cheap at all, I'm glad that I bought it and that I was there. I definitely was worth it! I had not been at a similar concert before. Most of the time I didn't feel like in a concert but in an endless jam session (of about 2 hours and 45 minutes). A very good one I have to admit.

Below you can find the setlist and although I'm not a Santana fan through and through I knew quite a lot of the songs. And even during the songs I did not know, I didn't feel "lost" (like it is sometimes the case in other concerts if you don't know all the songs) because Santana's music is really universal. One can also see that in the diversity of the audience. For example there were 15-year-olds as well as people who could have been at Woodstock.

What I found a bit strange in the beginning was Santana's message "love and peace" which he repeated a few times. Strange because it sounds so honest when he says it. Well, I read he wants to found his own church on Maui...

Setlist:

1. Peace / Jingo
2. Life is for Living
3. Everybody's Everything
4. Corazón Espinado
5. Incident at Neshabour
6. Batuka / No one to Depend on
7. Namia / María María
8. Foo Foo
9. Boogie Woman
10. Savor / Percussion Solo
11. King Charles V
12. Right on / Umi Says
13. Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen
14. Oye como va
15. Apache / Smooth / Dame
16. Soul Sacrifice / Drum Solo
17. Samba Pa Ti
18. Angel Chant / Into the night

Here you can find some pictures of the concert. The text is in German.

Paper Boat Challenge July

Here is the new Challenge. I'm always a bit uncertain about how difficult the puzzles are but I guess this one will take you some time. Have fun!


P.S.: If you need a bigger view, click on the picture above to get the original size.

Trip to Lausanne and Lyon

I already mentioned that from 11th to 16th May I took some days off and took a short trip to Lausanne and Lyon. Now, I finally will share some pictures and impressions with you.

I chose Lausanne for my trip because an old school friend of mine, Ulrich, lives there now working on his PHD thesis (or the preparations for it). So it was a nice opportunity to see him again and to have a cheap accommodation during my stay;-)

When I arrived on Sunday night, Ulrich had already prepared a very Swiss dinner;-): Chili con carne. The following day we did a tour by bike around the Lake of Geneva. We tried to go from Lausanne to Geneva clockwise around the lake (= the longer way) but at some point I had to confess that this was too far for me. For me about 100km were enough. The 30 missing kilometres would have become a torture...

You can see some pictures we took in the following map (thanks to Michael who told me how to embed it here!).


Bigger view

At 5pm we took the ferry from Ivoire to Nyon and then the train back to Lausanne. BTW, we were really lucky because it was the last ferry. I had expected there were ferries at least until 8 or 9pm. Mmh, things are different in Switzerland.

Tuesday we spent a whole day in Geneva visiting the main attractions like le Jet D'Eau, the cathedral, the UN building and some of the many parks. At night we had a nice dinner in a restaurant with some Argentinians on the next table. So very Swiss again...

On Wednesday Ulrich had to do some things at his uni in the morning. In the afternoon we went to Château de Chillon which we had already passed on our first day. It is close to Montreux where it seems to be normal to have a Porsche other types of expensive cars. We took the bus from Montreux to the castle which turned out to be a mistake: The day before when we had gone to Geneva by train they had told us that we also could use any type of public transport there with our ticket. We expected the same in Montreux but no, it wasn't and they caught us "dodging the fare". That meant we had to pay a fine for which we also could have rent a car (maybe not a Porsche but a nice car).

As I didn't want to detain Ulrich from his work too long, I decided to leave Lausanne the following day and to visit Lyon, too. I went there on Thursday morning but didn't have a perfect start there: It was raining when I arrived, I didn't find accommodation in the beginning and my colleague at work called me to tell me about the latest problems with one of my projects. However, the weather turned better and everything else as well. I found a hotel which was not nice at all but the room was ok.

What I liked most in Lyon is its Old town with its alleys (especially Rue du Boeuf), shops and restaurants. In one of them I ate quenelle, a typical dish from Lyon.

Rue du Boeuf

On Friday fortunately the weather was good again and I could see some more sights in Lyon like the roman theatres, the Tour Métallique and the basilica Notre Dame de Fourvière...

Basilique de Notre Dame de Fourviére

At night I went back by train which was a looooong journey: I had to change trains in Paris (but not only trains, also stations) and in Karlsruhe. But I have to say I had nice fellow passengers (after the extended Russian family had left the compartment again).

View of Lyon

Great ambitions

I had great ambitions today. I wanted to post some pictures of my trip to Lausanne in May. As I already had uploaded all of my fotos to Picasa (because Ulrich wanted to have them, too) I thought it would be a good idea to put some pictures on a map (you have that possibility in Picasa). Embedding a Picasa slideshow worked perfectly with my Mexico pics last December. Therefore I thought I could publish the map on my blog, too.

Well, I was too optimistic because - although Picasa belongs to Google and works on the basis of Google maps - there is no button "link to this page" like on MyMaps. This is why you can't see that map here but only a screenshot.

Does anybody of you computer experts out there know if there is a ("nice") way of embedding the Picasa map on a blog? Or maybe it is possible to transfer it to something else that works...?

No more TOTO (?)

This morning I read the following article on stevelukather.net and I have to say that is really bad news! At least for me. Toto, THE rock band is over? No more great records and concerts...? My musical ideal will never play together again. I decided today cannot be a good day at all.

Steve Lukather - The end of Toto

Friday 06 June 2008 10:54 by Arend

In several interviews and blogs Lukather made some (little) allusions to the end of Toto. The die heart fans got the message, BUT a lot of people didn’t got the clue and wouldn’t believe that Toto is over before they read it loud and clear from Steve Lukather himself. Here's Luke's announcement about the end of the Toto era.

Steve Lukather: "I would like to make a formal annoucement as I have been barraged by e-mails and speculations on various websites.

The fact is yes I have left Toto. There is no more Toto. I told the guys before the last leg of our tour.
We had some differences in how business was being done. The other fact is that I have been the only guy who was at the first rehearsal till the last gig a month or so ago. When Jeff died part of us all died with him. We pursued it and had some great times. Simon was a champ replacing Jeff at a most difficult time. Bobby was out of the band for 16 years and then came back and you know the other singer stories. Other than Bobby, Joe was the only guy that really fit with us cause he was a high school buddy as well. No offence to Bobby at all.

When Dave retired that was REAL hard for me cause we started the band together. Hell its 35 years if you count High School where the core all met. When Mike fell ill and had to leave that was it for me. If there isnt a Paich or at least one Porcaro how can we even call it Toto? It was bittersweet cause I finally got to tour with my dear friend and musical legend Leland Sklar whom I have known since I was 19 years old. We had some laughs and great times
Honestly I have just had enough. This is NOT a break. It is over. I really cant go out and play Hold the Line with a straight face anymore. I was 19 when we cut the record. I am 50 now.

I have only the deepest respect for the guys that have been in and out of this band over the years. We had a great run and I owe an awful lot to the experience and the success we had. We hung in there hard despite being the most hated band in the world by most so called "rock critics". We took the punches and kept going. Our old label President Donnie Ienner ruined us in the USA by not releasing our records and not letting us out of our contract for over 10 YEARS! And that really set us back. Why? You have to ask the man himself cause we never knew why. He just didnt like our music or us personally I guess. We will never know.

The USA turned there backs on us and it was very hard for me to keep smiling thru it all. It just sort of festered inside me and I was hurting myself in the process and eventually I had to be honest with myself and I was not happy at all. The guys in the current line-up could not be more different individuals and the only real thing we had in common was music. This was NOT the high school band of brothers that we started in the 70's. We had a magic thing and the same sense of humour and the same views on life. Somehow that was lost. Its not the new guys fault. It is what it is.

I just cant do it anymore and at 50 years old I wanted to start over and give it one last try on my own. As the only original member that had NEVER ever left or missed even ONE gig or recording I figured I might as well do it myself now while I can still get out and do it and have a new record that just came out and a new band that is unreal and a tour booked that will take me thru the end of summer 2009 and beyond. The title of my record says it all. Ever Changing Times.

Today I confered with my soul brother and founding member David Paich on this matter. He wrote me back and he said "We are FREE"! I laughed out loud. I dont think he thought this was Toto anymore either.
There are no bad feelings from me to the other guys at all. I wish them only the very very best and all the good things in life and I am sure we will run into each other here or there and it will be hugs and all, hope so anyway.
So, there you have it. I hope you will come out to one of my shows and thank you for 31 years of friendship."

stevelukather.net, June 5th 2008

Does anybody else share my feeling of deep sadness?

Paper Boat Challenge June

Do you need any explanation? Here is the new Challenge (picture below). Have fun!

Serenata Española

Yesterday I went to a little concert of Spanish music here in Siegen. It was music for a guitar and a violoncello which was really relaxing after a day at work. However, the type of audience was a little strange. 90% were teachers I would say;-)


For those of you who are interested in music or just curious, here is the program of the concert:

Gaspar Sanz (1640 - 1710)
Villanos
Ricercare
Españoletas
Las hachas
Cananos

El cantar de los cantares
Tres piezas sefaradíes

Canciones españolas
Las rosas d'Ishapan
Cuando el rey Nimrod
El pastoricito hijo del alba
En Jeréz de la Frontera

Danzas populares andaluzas
Romanza
Farruca

Pause

Isaac Albéniz (1860 - 1909)
Malagueña
Granada
Asturias

Enrique Granados (1867 - 1916)
Oriental
Danza española

Pablo de Sarasate (1844 - 1908)
Aires gitanos, Opus 20

Flen flyys and freris

This is a post especially for Michael and Florian who are still looking for the solution of the January PBC. It was related to the origin of the "f" word, mentioned the first time in a poem called "Flen, flyys, and freris" (= "Fleas, flies, and friars").

Explanation on wikipedia:

The usually accepted first known occurrence is in code in a poem in a mixture of Latin and English composed some time before 1500. The poem, which satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambridge, England, takes its title, "Flen flyys", from the first words of its opening line, "Flen, flyys, and freris" (= "Fleas, flies, and friars"). The line that contains fuck reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk". Removing the substitution cipher on the phrase "gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk" yields "non sunt in coeli, quia fvccant vvivys of heli", which translated means "they are not in heaven because they fuck wives of Ely" (fvccant is a fake Latin form). The phrase was coded likely because it accused some Church personnel of misbehaving; it is uncertain to what extent the word "fuck" was considered acceptable at the time.

I thought this would be easier because when you google for "fleas AND flies AND friars" the wikipedia article is the first search result. Followed by a lot more links to the poem and explanations.

Paper Boat Challenge May

I hope this will be more of a challenge than last time:

Beetle Ad

A friend who studies in the USA now and who I know from my time in Mexico sent me the link to this video. I think we all were infected by the Mexicans' "Beetle Mania". At least a little bit...

Paper Boat Challenge April

You may have noticed that I haven't written here for a while. Work kept me busy and I guess it will keep me busy the next couple of weeks. Today I have a day off although I'm doing at least some things for work at home.

By the way, this could be my winter holidays, at least according to the weather...

Let's have a try with a new puzzle. This one shouldn't be too complicated:

Sonnet 98:
13,3; 2,7(-h); 2,3; 11,3; 9,1(r=t); 7,5; 5,1
3,8 + 3,9; 2,7(-h); 13,4; 9,8

PBC 2/08

If you have an email account you cannot avoid it although you do not like it at all: Spam. Almost everybody suffers from it. But sometimes it can be funny (either because you cannot imagine that anybody believe in such strange business proposals or just because of the content itself).

Please send me some funny spam this time.

Fresh music

After some time, here is another one of my own songs. I hope you enjoy it.

New year - new chance

Also in the new year the PBC goes on.

But first of all I should say sorry that there was no December Challenge because I really didn't find the time to be at least a little creative. I also have to say I couldn't name a winner for November because I didn't understand 2 (out of 3) entries: the one about brushing our teeth and the foto with the horses??? Maybe I'm a little dull...


And here is the new one:


Have a try first. I can give some hints later on.

Resolutions

The beginning of a new year is a time for resolutions, right? Also for this blog.

Well, last year wasn't bad at all (my first real job, visiting old friends, making new ones, knowing a bit better what I really want...) but there are always possibilities to improve. Next year we can check together then if I could;-)

• I definitely want to finish my post about my stay in Mexico (the foto album already works).
• I would like to write about the books I read (if I find enough time).
• I guess it's time to do some sports again. (This one is my favourite resolution - every year again.)
• I want to do things more efficiently to have time for the really important things like meeting friends, spending time with my family, reading, doing my music...
• And another "favourite" resolution: Trying to find out what I really want - every day again.

A happy new year to all of you!

P.S.: Do you have resolutions? - There is space for comments!