everything's not lost.

i’m actually surprised that a photo of me making pizza was viewed 30 times already on twitter:

uploaded by martin and werner who i know are totally full by that delicious abomination right now :)

close up:

told you it’s an abomination. but tasty nonetheless.

and yes dani, this time I also made the dough myself, just like last time :P

was making muffins with werner on saturday to take them home to my parents for our family easter get-together :)

they turned out to be quite yummy!

full set: www.flickr.com/gp/66435023@N00/9mweg5

been to planica in slovenia today with tine and werner to watch the team contest in skip jumping. it was quite fun and a great atmosphere! about 25.000 people were cheering for the jumpers. and i bet about 20.000 were drinking too much beer.

we paid extra for a place on a tribune and ended up having a great view. still, 300mm are not enough to do any actual mid-air pictures of the jumpers.

here is a selection, the full set can be viewed here.

i still suck at photography! the first pictures i took had ISO800 setting, because i forgot to change it back. and funny enough, the same thing happened to werner, who had used ISO1250 the whole time. damn.

seems like all the cleaning didn’t cover the fact that my car was on the verge of breaking. now it broke.

today, i wanted to drive my co-worker to the repair shop, but when i approached my car, the central locking system didn’t work. not that big of a deal one might say. i switched on the lights: nothing. i inserted the key and wanted to start the engine: nothing. everything was black. not a tiny bit of electricity anywhere. and i swapped the battery two months ago. so now i was afraid that the alternator might have died and called the automobile association ÖAMTC to assist me and help figure things out. the mechanic that came was very friendly but that didn’t help. it really was the alternator. which basically means, that i can dump my car because it would be too expensive to repair it considering all the rust. i smell destruction derby.

what does this mean?
a. that i have to take the train in the future, which i was already considering because of fuel prices.
b. that i may need a car, because after all, a car is still necessary.
c. that i get to read more.
d. that i have to adjust work to the timetable of the trains.
e. that i am going to show werner how real men handle the loss of their cars. living and working in klagenfurt? without a car? piece of cake! we’re talking about the big picture here. klagenfurt-villach baby. yeahrrrrrrrrrr.

after the mechanic diagnosed my car he charged the battery a bit but it wouldn’t have been a good idea to drive to klagenfurt. so i just left it in the parking lot of my company where i don’t pay for the parking space until i figure things out.

then i walked to the train station – about a 10 minute walk from my company – only to discover that i missed the train by a few minutes (18:30). next train: 19:54. great.

arrived in klagenfurt at about 20:30 and had to walk to my flat: 18 minutes. by that time i already missed the photography-exhibition of an aspiring newcomer: tine.

now i’m proceeding with one thing at a time. biggest challenge will be to prepare a budget, since my new flat isn’t exactly cheap and i also have to have a new bike. damn you capitalism me.

and just for the fun of it:

“Smooth” is probably the best description for the last few days!

Right now, Friday 4^th January 2008 at 22:04, I’m sitting in front of my new desk in my new accommodation. Here’s, what went down so far:

• I’ve been searching for a new home for quite some time now, some times more, some times less, but there wasn’t anything that I liked… either it was too small, too expensive, in the wrong area of Klagenfurt or altogether.
• exactly a week ago, I checked out an apartment which I instantly fell in love with! Great size, great location, great condition (almost new), underground parking lot, almost affordable, but definitely worth the price. Plus: a huge terrace and my own little garden (4×4m I think). BBQ time!
• I called my landlord and quit my old contract
• I posted a message on various site that my old room was up for rent, since I had to find a new hirer, because I quit my contract to soon and didn’t want to pay 2 apartments for 3 months (cancellation period)!
• I agreed to the new contract with my new landlord on Friday, met to signed it on Monday, got the keys on Monday.
• I moved in on the first of January 2008 (Tuesday) while other people were still recovering from their new years eve hangover. There was a lot of help from my parents, my uncle + his wife and my sister. We moved almost all the stuff and since that day I’m living here.
• A few things that were missing so far were a desk and a storage for my clothes.
• I already had a bed, a couch, the whole living room, a wardrobe (the last two were a gift from a friend of my parents) and a fully equipped kitchen (part of the apartment and dishes and so on are my property)
• On Wednesday I went to work, but got two extra free days for moving and related tasks on Thursday and Friday which I used to manage some of the obligatory stuff when moving, like address changes and so on. Today (Friday) I went shopping and got a new hall-stand, a new desk and a new partition. All of these things were in stock at the various stores so I didn’t have to wait or choose anything else.
• So far, over 11 people called or mailed to get my old flat.
• Also today was the second part of setting up my new space with my newly acquired stuff. I got big help from my dad and my uncle with that. In fact, they did most of the work and I was more like assistant (to the) manager or some other completely irrelevant job description. Then my mother came and helped. Then my uncle’s wife and their daughter. Then my aunt with my sister and their two kids. They all helped and did their part. Well, my niece and nephew mostly made an even greater mess, rather than help, but that didn’t make much of a difference.
  
  
• What’s missing now are curtains – since I have a huge front made of glass to the terrace, everybody from the houses around could look inside… a bit disturbing so far. But this is covered as well, since my sister luckily still has some and I should get them real soon. Best part: they fit very well to the rest!
• And Internet, Internet is still missing and could take a while.

Within next week I should have a new hirer for my old flat, get my money and live happily ever after.

At least I hope so. Since I do somehow believe in karma, I’m thrilled about what the future might bring now… but 2007 ended well and 2008 is starting with an even bigger blast, so it seems like karma is delivering :)

If you’re ever around here, tell me in time, my mini-bar is stocked up!

This blog will be quiet for the rest of January I guess, because now I’m off for a few days of work with my co-workers in Switzerland. After that I’m scheduled to be a few days in Bulgaria for a few days of work, this time with some of our developers.

Hopefully, with February I’ll have Internet access here and then everything should be perfect.

take care
thomas

update 2008-01-05 16:02 – werner was kind enough to give me mobile Internet access, so for the time being I’m online.

wahoooooo!