Friday, July 31, 2009

Average blogposts per day

Prior to me leaving, I want to mention, that the blogpost per day ratio is 1,25.
Thus you enjoyed one and a quarter post per day. 

Greetings 
Me

Weekend planing and other stuff

The weekend is coming up and we will leave for a short trip to Bavaria. You know this little country within Germany which doesn't really belong to Germany ;).

Since the math exam is coming up I will try to learn . On account of this I will take a lot of reading materials and other study related things with me.

Apart from that I also considered to take some belongings with me that will help me to focus on other topics than math. I already localised the following ones:
  • Bikini, -the weather will be fine
  • Violin, -I need to practise, the next lesson is on Monday and that's way earlier than the math exam :)
  • Inline-Skates -without these I would violate my soon to be habit of training every day at least a bit.
  • Website project -a litte practise can't hurt.
  • MacBook -to write little post for my blog to keep the promise of one post per day in average.

I'll make a picture of what I have to read tomorrow mornig, and maybe one from the pile that is left on Sunday evening.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Word of the day

I learned a word today in German, one I didn't knew befor.
It's Eckspanner and it's a term for file folder with elastic bands like this one:


I first encountered the word because I shoped some office material for me and some colleagues. Not knowing the right term for this folder I ended up with the wrong ones.

Later the word arouse my interest because another colleague told me that this could also be a term for his dog.

Let's get to the bottom of this. The first part of the word "Eckspanner" is "Eck" which literally means corner.
The second part of the word is "spanner" which either means tightener or more colloquial voyeur.

Since his dog likes to observe people from the corner of the balcony he came up with this idea.
Here is a sketch for a more visual explanation:



The difference between should and is...

Yesterday I learned the difference between should and is ;) by thinking about the colour green.
Take a look:This difference is as every year quite predictable. Each year more and more people come to visit the free open air festival "Das Fest". This year the attendance number reached ca. 400000 people.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Quote of the day

Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny (Steven Covey)

Sunday, July 26, 2009

In times like these...

I've learned recently that in times like these it is crucial to invest part of your portfolio in gold.
In case a part of your portfolio is all what is left
or you don't have a portfolio, here are some possibilities how to invest your money:

Geeky tools:

It's nice small and can connect you to others. In other words it's kind of an address book. The first step into the modern way of exchanging addresses and personal information is buying a Poken (that's the plastic thing shown above). After this a profile needs to be created and that's it.
Sharing your information is easier than ever, you just need to find someone who owns a Poken as well. This part can be tricky because some people's answer might be: "No I don't and I don't want to have one. You know, I just don't like hypes."
Having found one you just need to hold both of them together to exchange the data.

Yourself:
You'll find something, I found this:

Swedish grammar, in hope that it will help me to understand all of it someday.

Fitness stuff:
Last time I bought strap on weights for my arms and a skipping rope. This time it's a DVD.


Other stuff:
I won't tell you for what we bought the paint until it's finished :).

;) Yummy.


Saturday, July 25, 2009

Das Fest

Today we went on a festival called "Das Fest" to watch "Schandmaul" playing and to take some pictures. To sum it up it was a great evening. 





Being exausted I'll go to bed soon ;). Hope your day had been exciting too.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Dictionaries

I've been asked what kind of dictionaries I use when I learn languages or read/write texts.
This will be an incomplete list of all dictionaries I currently use:

English, Spanish, Frensh to German and vice versa
Swedish to German

English only

Spanish only

Swedish only
  • Norstedts ord the website is well not really useable but here is the way how to get to the swedish-swedish dictionary:
  1. Sign up
  2. click on profil (in the navigation on the top right corner)
  3. scroll down and click on "Ändra" in the section "Mina språk"
  4. check "Svenska"
  5. Save settings, that's easy isn't it? 
Have fun while learning new words ;)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

New "kitchen" Item

We are proud owner of a brand new Weber Compact Kettle Grill. I had a notification in the mailbox yesterday telling me that there is a packet waiting for me at the local post station :(. These post people never deliver the packages late enough so that I can catch them directly.
Being curious we puzzled it together and tried to use it for the first time. Unfortunately, the weather changed from sunny to heavy rain when we tried to inflame the charcoal :(.

Here are some pictures before it started to rain:






Don't want to be in the construction business today...


It's been a dismal day in terms of weather today. Starting of quite nice it turned into a greyish something with lots of clouds, rain and lightnings.
Sometimes a 9 to 5 office job is quite comfortable :)

Have a look on how the construction workers deal with the "cool" weather:

Yesterday's dinner

After eating, pizza, pasta, wok, burger and other fast food in Sweden it's time for real food.
Here's what we had yesterday:

But it will even get better in the following days because our fresh ecological vegetables and fruits have been delivered this morning. :)

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Jealous...

Outside my office, someone has a job I really want to do just for half an hour or so....

Monday, July 20, 2009

Schnitzel's Story

Their once was a great meal, invented by austrian people called "Wiener Schnitzel" which was made out of thin slice of veal coated with bread crumbs. As time passed by other people tried to make this plate available to all people no matter how much money they can spend. Veal was exchanged with cheap pork and even more bread crumbs had been added. 
To diferenciate the new dish from the origional one the part "Wiener" was cut of (at least in Germany). 
Over the course of time the dish was exported to even more countries. This one is offered in Sweden:




Motivational Phrases

Colleagues sometimes ask me why I do have such demotivating notes on my desk.
Well, first because I want to and second because for me they are more motivating then less.

Here is the one I currently have on my desk at work:

"Winning is not a one-time thing; it's an all-time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time . Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing." Vince Lombardi

Maybe it's the truth that sometimes feels quite uncomfortable. Thus we tend to ignore what we know very well.
There is another phrase which I really like. It once was said by Winston Churchill:

"If you are going through hell, keep going."

For a while I had a copy of it pinned to my music stand. It kept me practising violin event though I really didn't liked to do so. My teacher always calls it a pushing the cupboard time. If you have moved or you rearranged your furniture once this metaphor is easy to understand. Usually you find at least one object which is really heavy and insists on standing exactly were it is, no matter how hard one pushes against it. Finally when the one who pushed and all others around are close to a nervous breakdown is gently moves as if moving it is the easiest task in the world.

Hoping no one of you needs too push cupboards today, I wish you a nice Monday :)



Sunday, July 19, 2009

Overcomming the fear of a blank blog

Starting something new is always a Moments of exitement, fear and joy. So is writing the first lines in this blog. Fearing the unknown I am exited to see where the path will lead to and write joyfully my first entry. 
A close friend of mine once said: "A sucessfull blog needs a clear theme". Since I am interested in so many fields I would end up with a handfull blogs, I decided to let my blog's theme be everything in and around my life. To give you a brief overview I'll list some topics that will definitively play a role:
  • usability
  • psycology
  • food
  • quotes
  • art and crafts
  • public speaking
  • the art of learning
  • fitness
  • business and mangement related topics
  • books I recently read
  • music
  • languages
  • everything else that has sticked in my mind for a while
Speaking of languages, I'll post in english only. I know that there might be someone who would prefere a German version (sorry Dad but Mom can translate it for you ;) but I'm way to lazy to translate every post thince I want to post at least one post in average every day for the next 4 weeks. 

See you tomorrow 

P.S. In case of any typos, I'm sorry but I'm realy tired at the moment.