Finally! The sleeping room furniture has arrived!
Still some stuff missing (e.g. curtains), but the "big chunk"
has been taken care of. *G*

Not the best photos due to the crappy camera, but sufficient
to get the idea...

In March 2009 I took a flat. Its state was abysmal.
However, with a monthly rent of ~260 Euros (for 49m²),
it seemed to be great in the long run.



September 2009, six months and 20,000 Euros later, it looks like this



Well, curtains and furniture are still missing, a part of
the sleeping room furniture has been ordered. :-)

On September 1st 2005 I met direaliete for the first
time. Thus, last week we had our fourth anniversary.

Due to work-related stress and meeting on Skype almost
every day, we both forgot that special day... :P

I'm currently in Italy with direaliete on vacation.
We just arrived in Bolzano and will continue our journey
tomorrow to Padova. After checking it out a bit, we'll
make several trips to Venice, inhale its glory. ;-)

Couple days later we'll spend some time at the beach--
also in the Venice region.

P.S.: Best wishes from the both of us to enigel! :-)

New World Order Documentary
9/11: Blueprint for Truth (2008 Edition)

...

Summer-- what a dumb season. Except hot, it's hot...
If the four seasons were siblings, summer would be
the drooling, braindead idiot child with an empty
stare and a tag hanging from its neck saying "out
of order". :P

The only times when summer is O.K. are at its begin,
when spring is still in command, at its end, when
autumn takes over and during a summer storm, with
its green-ish sky, the calm followed by cool bursts
of wind-- to stay with the antropomorphic analogon:
when our "coma vigil patient" blinks its eyes.

Expected highs today: 37°C >.<

Ah well-- enough ranting, back to sweating work.

ETA: Record temperature measured today: 37.9°C - right in
the county of Austria that I live in.

In my search for something interesting to watch,
I stumbled across a "documentary" by Graham Hancock
who travels the world to gather proof for the existence
of a Lost Civilization who thrived during the ice age
and was (almost) completely destroyed by the floods
at the end of the ice age.

Take it with a grain of salt - or with a bucket full
of salt if you will, but take it! *g*

Quest for the Lost Civilization
(RAR archive, 261.16MB, 14 FLV-files)

Cheers, Phoxx. :)

I've arrived in Graz (Europe, Austria), where from
June 29th till July 5th RoboCup will take place.

The team that I'm part of - the Meta-Mechanics - will
participate in the RoboCup@home-league. We're n00bs,
so don't expect too much glory... :P

Anyway, tomorrow (Monday) will be setup day, where all
teams will bring their robots and auxiliary equipment to
the respective team areas and will map the arena, do some
test runs, etc.

The first competition of Stage I will take place on
Tuesday evening - it's called "introduce".
On Wednesday there will be more Stage I competitions
and there also will be decided who'll make it into
Stage II, if not erring. After a couple of days of
Stage II competitions, it'll be decided who makes
it to the Finals...

ETA: We only made it 12th out of 22 due to some SW problems.
Anyway, we were the second best newcomer. However, the best
"newcomer" had already experience from competitions similar
to RoboCup and is backed up by many different institutes...

Wow, almost three months that I posted something... >.<

And apart from work-related things I can't think of
anything else to post - kinda scary! :DDD

Anyway, Monday till Friday (well, technically Saturday)
I've been in Switzerland (near Lausanne) to prepare and
take part in the second year's review of the EC-funded
project I'm working for: robots@home.
Went very well, smooth sailing... ^_^

Next big thing's already appearing on the horizon: RoboCup
in Graz (29.6.-5.7), where we will participate in the
"robocup@home"-league - still tons of things to do for that.

...

I'm sitting here, staring at a computer screen,
reviewing/proof-reading two of our EU project proposals.
Although the requested fundings of €3.5Mio and €5.9Mio
kinda make one feel special, an R&R-type of weekend
would make one feel ... better. :P

Ah well - back to ruining the eyes. *g*