Mittwoch, November 17, 2010

Donnerstag, Mai 13, 2010

Melbourne

As you may have noticed: I really did move to Melbourne after all. Martina and are in the country for a week now and things are starting to put themselves together. It was quite thrilling to walk up to the immigration - Do we have a valid visa? Could it be true that Australia invites us for over four years in less then two week? Yep - it just took them two weeks to grant us a valid working permit. Well the visa was valid an also our luggage including my snowboard did arrive. Yes. A snowboard. Snowmaking has started!

We also managed to find ourselves a nice flat close to the beach and now we just have to wait for our boxes. I already saw the first eight of them in the post shop however I simply too weak to carry 240kg at once. That'll be the task for tomorrow beside signing the lease contract and taking possession. 

Jobwise I am doing ok. I did had some interviews and let's see how it turns out.So have a great weekend.

I'll be busy with moving.




Sonntag, März 28, 2010

Good Soldiers never die, they just fade away

A few hours ago I just learnd that an old friend of mine died recently. He wasn't that much older than me - just 23 days - so there are some fair questions about why. He was one of the good guys and my thoughts are with his close friends and with his family. Since I didn't had much contact during the past ten years I won't go into details - not that I know something anyway.

But here's a thing which came into my mind: Sladi lived a real life and a part of it can be found in social networks. There is a document of what our generation is doing every day. If we wan't to know something about our ancestors, we have to ask our parents, grand-parents or go to the attic and search for that old photo-album.
But what happens with us? What happens we the things we do? Fifty years from now on maybe my grand-children will be able to read this very post I'm writing right now. Everything we blog, we post and we twitter is conserved for future generations - if we like it or not. Our generation will be the first whose path of life can be followed even decades after we walked that path.
Right now for social networks that isn't an issue, however it will be. What do you do with the profiles of people who simply died? Even though Sladi isn't alive anymore, I think it's right to keep his facebook-profile and moreover to see who cares beside me.


But maybe that's just me. Sladi R.I.P.

Donnerstag, Februar 11, 2010

DieMotrix

We all have friends and everybody likes holidays. However if you go on a trip with a lot of buddies there's always the question "Who did pay for which item and how much money do I owe to the other guys?"

It's annoying, isn't it?

Thought so. This is why years ago Stefan came up with a solution which was pretty easy and excel-based. Unfortunately I did loose that first sheet and this why I had to rebuild it from scratch. I didn't know how he created his sheet but I knew it is possible.
By now I have a nice version of that so called "Motrix" and we use it quite often. Martina and I even use a slightly modified version to keep track of our daily expenses.

Anyway. Here is the Google Spreadsheet Version of "DieMotrix". The big advantage over the excel version is that more then one person can work on it without messing it up. You just send out the link to all of the guys, they enter their expenses and in the end you can see who still owes whom any money. To get started just click on the link and make a copy of that file:

DieMotrix V2.1

In there you'll find three tabs: DieMotrix - which is the calculation-sheet itself. X-Change Rates - yes DieMotrix is multi-currency capable and you don't even have to enter the exchange-rate. And finally there is an example of eight guys who made a snowboarding trip to Switzerland. This should be pretty self-explanatory.

Don't fight over money - it isn't worth it.

Mittwoch, Januar 27, 2010

Boom-dee-a-da, Boom-dee-a-da, ...

As you may have noticed I did not post a lot the past four month on this blog. Sorry I was busy having the time of my life and sharing that with the girl of my life.

We saw and did so many things that I either write a whole book about it or I just tell you the story in bits and pieces. Right now I'm still amazed. The Discovery Channel is right:

The World is Just ... Awesome

Man, I cannot get that song out of my head.
(just click yourself through this album. the songtext is in there)


I love the mountains
I love the clear blue skies
I love big bridges
I love when little whales fly
I love the whole world
And all its sights and sounds

Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da

I love the oceans
I love real dirty things
I love to go fast
I love childish kings
I love the whole world
And all its craziness

Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da

I love my mooses
I love arachnids
I love hot magma
I love the giant squids
I love the whole world
It's such a brilliant place

Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
...