Roman live from Hoboken

Assassin's Creed 2

2010-02-21T08:36:00.003-05:00

Assassin's Creed 2 was one of two new Xbox360 games that caught my eye during the commercial breaks of NFL games before Christmas (the other one was Dragon Age: Origins). So when I saw it on sale last week at Amazon it was no-brainer to get.

I really like the setting of the game - fifteenth century Italy - and the nonlinear gameplay. Nothing forces you to play the main story right away as there are ample side quests that you can tackle first or in between. Graphics and sound are also top, as are the animations (especially when fighting/assassinating someone or freeclimbing up buildings). What I didn't like is the fact that I finished the game in less than a week - and that's not with playing around the clock but with a couple of hours in the evening most days. They already have such elaborately built city models for Florence, Venice and others - why not utilize them in more quests? There are two downloadable extensions until now, we'll see how long it takes to play them.

Overall I would say the game is worth the on sale price but if I would have paid the full price I would be disappointed by the short time for playing it.

Valley Forge

2009-11-07T21:13:00.005-05:00

Today was a beautiful fall day with nice temperatures and sunshine on the US east coast so we decided to drive to the Valley Forge National Historic Park in Pennsylvania. This park is at the same location where George Washington and his Continental Army spent the winter of 1777/1778 during the American war for independence. Like a lot of historic places in the United States it is very well maintained and preserved and is now a national park. If you interested in history or are just looking for a nice hiking area I can definitely recommend the park, both Ramona and I enjoyed the day (again thanks to the good weather). As always pictures are online at http://photos.spitzbart.info.

Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol

2009-09-28T18:30:00.000-04:00

Even though I had preordered Dan Brown's newest book 'The Lost Symbol' two weeks before its release date it took Amazon until last Monday to ship/deliver it. I was big fan of his previous four books so I knew once I could get a hold of this one I would find time to read it right away. Long story short, I finished it in less than 4 days because once I started reading it was hard to put it down.

I don't want to give away the story for those readers who have not read or finished the book yet but I really liked the fact that the author used Washington DC and the Freemasons as background. Dan Brown is ingenious in mixing real locations, symbols and traditions with fiction to create a very enjoyable story. Highly recommended!

New York Sports Weekend

2009-09-28T17:30:00.000-04:00

Since a friend came over from Europe I organized tickets for the Yankees baseball game on Saturday and the Jets football game on Sunday for a New York sports weekend. Besides the teams we cheered for winning (Yankees beat the Red Socks and the Jets defeated the Titans) it was quite a very different experience. The Yankees are playing in a brand new stadium that was opened right before this season while the Jets are still playing in the 30+ years old Giant stadium (the new one will be opened after this season). What the Jets lacked in comfort from the newer stadium the crowd made up for atmosphere, all I'll write is J E T S - Jets Jets Jets.

Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge

2009-09-07T18:23:00.002-04:00

After much complaining in the last post about all the weight I wanted to spend today carrying my gear as little as possible while still being able to play around and take pictures. After searching online yesterday evening I found the perfect place, the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is a large area of tidal wetlands along the New Jersey coast a couple of miles north of Atlantic City. In typical American fashion is has a eight mile long trail where you can drive through the refuge on a dam watching the birds left and right in the wetlands. Pictures from the trip are on my Smugmug site - http://photos.spitzbart.info/Daytrips/Forsythe-National-Wildlife

Quality has its Weight

2009-09-05T19:40:00.001-04:00

After last weekends trip to the Philly zoo I realized that some of the pictures were not as sharp as I would have hoped and also I had to crop a lot more than I wanted because I was missing focal length on the upper end. So the quality I refer to in the title is that of the taken photographs. The solution to the problem is a better lens, one with a longer focal lens that is also faster. Before making any decision to buy I have rented one over the long weekend (Monday is Labor Day) and got it on Wednesday. I immediately noticed the difference in weight compared to the other lenses I had until now...

To really play around with the lens I spent a few hours in the Bronx Zoo, since that's where a longer focal length would really come in handy. The pictures are great, really a step up from what I was able to get just a week ago but I didn't enjoy having all that weight either around my neck or in my hands all the time. So I'm still not sure if I should consider getting a longer lens or not, hopefully after using it more the next two days I have a better idea. Stay tuned for more pictures...

Snow Leopard

2009-08-29T15:24:00.003-04:00

When Apple unexpectedly announced last Monday that the Mac OS X Snow Leopard update will be available Friday I thought I'll probably wait a few weeks before getting it. We bought both Ramona's and my MacBook Pro after Mac OS X Leopard was already available so I wasn't sure what to expect. Coming from the Windows world I would not have installed Vista on top of XP trusting it will make things better or faster (let alone free up hard disk space). Well, on Tuesday I caved and ordered a copy of Snow Leopard, which arrived yesterday ;-)

Installed in less than an hour all my applications still work and as promised more free space on my disk. Overall I like the improvements they made (at least the ones I already found) and the OS just feels "snappier". Now let's wait for the developers out there to really take advantage of the new capabilities of this release and make things go even smoother in the future!

Daytrip to the Croton Dam

2009-08-15T18:40:00.001-04:00

After we spent one day of the last weekend in Manhattan we decided to take advantage of the rental car today.

During the week I had seen pictures of the Croton Dam so that became todays destination. The dam was built in the early 20th century and is part of the system that supplies New York City with fresh drinking water.

The pictures to the right are taken from the Croton Gorge Park right underneath the dam. On the top one I used a ND filter to slow down the shutter speed enough to get the nice blurry water, the bottom one is from the bridge that leads over the Croton river to the parking lot.

The Dakota - Then and Now

2009-08-08T20:24:00.003-04:00

The Dakota (the building John Lennon lived in when he was murdered) back in 1890 and today. Amazing how some things stay the same even though everything around them changes...

Photoshopping Las Vegas

2009-08-08T09:23:00.003-04:00

Original: http://photos.spitzbart.info/photos/498979023_HgxhU-L.jpg

New URLs

2009-08-05T19:36:00.002-04:00

I finally found time to consolidate my various sites, while the old links will continue to work the following should be easier to remember:

This blog - http://blog.spitzbart.info
Photos - http://photos.spitzbart.info
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/roman.spitzbart

Flames

2009-07-28T17:19:00.002-04:00

With the weather not being that good last weekend Ramona and I decided to enjoy a lazy weekend with a whole lot of doing nothing and staying home. I had some time playing around with my camera and matches, nothing spectacular - the better shots to the left and below...

Hiking in the Cheesequake State Park

2009-07-19T15:43:00.002-04:00

Like almost everyone else living in or close to the city we didn't want to spend the beautiful summer day here. Judging by the traffic jams most people went to one of the beaches along the New Jersey shore, but since neither Ramona nor I are big into spending days in the sun on a beach together with thousands other we went to the Cheesequake State Park. For those wondering why a park is called Cheesequake - according to Wikipedia the name is derived from the Lenape Native American word Cheseh-oh-ke, meaning "upland" or "upland village".
The park has a small lake for swimming, lots of picnic and grill areas (seriously considering to buy a bag of coal, some meat and go back there one day to have a BBQ or a "Grillerei" as it would be called in Austria) and four different hiking trails. The trails are very well maintained (which I expected after I paid USD 10 to get into the park) and are mostly running through the forest. Even on a hot and sunny day enough shadow to make walking enjoyable. Didn't take many pictures, the one above shows a painted turtle just a few meters off the path.

I tried to import the GPS log of our walk into Google Maps, let me know if this works or if you can't see the track in the window below...

Ice Age 3 - Dawn of the Dinosaurs

2009-07-13T16:02:00.001-04:00

Originally we wanted to see the next Ice Age sequel - Dawn of the Dinosaurs - on the July 4th weekend but somehow we didn't find time even though it was a long weekend. Thanks to the lengthy commute I have and the frequent traffic jams that make it hard to predict when I get home we waited until Saturday to finally see the movie. We enjoyed it and I would say if you liked the first two parts you'll probably like this one as well. I guess not too many Americans agree since it was pushed from the number 1 spot this week by Sacha Baron Cohen's Brüno, which I won't watch thanks to Andi's review...

Ringwood State Park

2009-07-13T15:57:00.002-04:00

After a heavy thunderstorm rolled through the NY area Saturday late evening it was back to Summer weather at its best on Sunday. Since I still have a car we try to take advantage of it on the weekends by travelling to places hard to reach with just public transportation. This weekend we drove around 30 miles to the Ringwood State Park located on the border between New Jersey and New York (the blue marker on the map below).

We went to the NJ State Botanical Garden and Skyland Manor for a walk in the sunshine and around lunchtime we continued to Shepherd Lake for a picnic. I've posted some pictures online at our Smugmug site - http://spitzbart.smugmug.com. Direct link to the gallery is here...

Thanks for the reminder!

2009-07-13T10:04:00.005-04:00

After a friend has gently reminded me last week that my blog here is not updated very often and is often behind a couple of weeks I figured that I have two options: Let it die completely or put in a little more effort and update it more consistently. I choose option two, so for those of you still subscribed hang in there, more to come...
For starters I have updated the list of podcasts I listen to regularly, it has grown quite a bit mainly because I'm in a car 3+ hours each day from Hoboken to Stamford and back. One goes through a lot of material with that kind of commute. Also removed the list of pages and books from the right side since both are outdated not by weeks but more months or years...

New York Botanical Garden

2009-06-01T11:22:00.004-04:00

Ramona and I took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday for a trip over the Hudson to the New York Botanical Garden. A dream for anyone interested in taking photos, never took more on a single day than yesterday...

Photos from the last weeks

2009-05-25T15:53:00.002-04:00

Rather than trying to recount the various trips we made over the last weeks together with my parents visiting I decided to just put up a few photos. Full sets as always on http://spitzbart.smugmug.com

Playing around with Macro Photography

2009-05-03T08:30:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking about getting a macro lens for my Olympus E-510 for quite a long time. Until now it always came down to not being sure if I could really use it and if it was worth the money. Thanks to the guys at Lensrentals.com I was able to get the lens for a week and play around with it - unfortunately mostly at home because the weather wasn't that nice yesterday. Below are the better pictures I've taken with it so far:

Bushkill Falls

2009-04-19T15:23:00.003-04:00

Spring has finally arrived - that means temperatures have now reached what I enjoyed in Los Angeles in January :-)
Since we still have a car (how else should I get to Stamford and back each day) we decided to do something I haven't done for years (I could have said decades but that would make me look ooooold) - we went hiking at the Bushkill Falls in Pennsylvania. This is a very well maintained area with multiple walks from 10 minutes to 2+ hours. The one we decided on was 90 minutes and we came to most of the 8 waterfalls. For those wanting to see pictures, I have started to move over to Smugmug so you can find the latest stuff at http://spitzbart.smugmug.com or directly to the gallery here.

Quick Update

2009-04-01T20:36:00.002-04:00

Sorry, it's been a long time since the last post. We're both long back in NYC after the weeks in Los Angeles and I've taken over a project in Stamford. So rather than being in a hotel close to the office I've got a 1+ hour drive to work each morning. Will write more once I find more time...

Just finished preparing some real good steaks at home, if you live in the US and want to get some good quality meat I can only recommend Omaha Steaks!

Viva Las Vegas

2009-02-22T21:56:00.006-05:00

Taking advantage of the long weekend thanks to Presidents Day we went to Las Vegas. Flying out Friday evening after work and returning Monday evening we spent 2 days in Vegas and Sunday at the Grand Canyon (most of it in a bus on the way to/back from Grand Canyon). It was really worth the trip, all the casinos/hotels (that seems to be a synonym in Vegas) at the strip are just magnificent. Both during the day and at night one can spend the whole day just looking and wandering from one place to the next one, just see for yourself here. The Grand Canyon really is one of the natural wonders of the world, standing at the rim looking down the canyon was unforgetable. The pictures are not able to catch the full beauty of this site.
The work week has been long and stressful (after all it took me over a week to finally get to write this post) but we're making progress. Two weeks left to go and it we'll go back to cold New York...

Walk of Fame & Universal Studios

2009-02-10T22:48:00.002-05:00

Last weekend Ramona and I finally had time for sight seeing here in Los Angeles. We started by going to the area around the walk of fame and the Chinese Theatre on Saturday. To be honest we've expected more from the glamorous pictures you see in magazines and TV, the area is quite old and shabby. Pictures of our trip are here...
Sunday we spent at the Universal Studios and despite the cold weather (cold for LA meaning around 12 centigrade) it was really worth the trip. It's a mixture between theme park, movie centered shows and a tour around the actual movie studio. That's where we took the picture next to this entry. More here...

Los Angeles

2009-02-01T18:02:00.003-05:00

My first two week stint here in Los Angeles has ended on Friday. I'm out here for a POC (proof of concept) with a prospect, a very intense project with tight timelines. Didn't have much time yet to see anything of LA except a short walk around downtown last weekend. Returned today for the next 3 weeks, this time Ramona is with me since she also came to New York this weekend. Hope to find some more time to write about it ... now off watching Super Bowl XLIII. GO STEELERS!

Between Flights

2009-01-15T09:08:00.003-05:00

Just came back from Luxembourg yesterday evening, two days earlier than originally planned. Since I had already finished all my work I' wanted to spend two more days here in Austria rather than staying in Lux. Especially since I'll by flying back to New York on Sunday, followed by a flight to Los Angeles on Monday. Will stay there for initially 2 weeks but might get much longer...

Luxembourg

2009-01-11T09:07:00.004-05:00

It's already a week since I arrived here in Luxembourg last Sunday, thought it's time for an update! I'm not staying in the main city of Lux but in a small village a few kilometers outside called Strassen. A colleague recommended a small and quiet hotel here a little bit closer to the client office in Windhof. Judging by just looking at the parking lot there are maybe two or three other rooms occupied over the weekend, everyone else left on Friday. I have rented a car here so I'm at least able to get around, although this means I have to scrap ice every morning before going to work. Really didn't miss that part of owning a car :-(
The reason for staying in Lux over the weekend was that rather than loosing 6 hours each direction for the flights I thought I'll explore the region a little bit. That didn't happen for two reasons: One is the cold weather - walking around with -10 centigrade simply isn't fun, the other reason is work. Not for the client here in Lux but for my next assignment in Los Angeles, which should start right after I'm back in New York (unless plans change - nothing is sure until it has happened).
I was a bit surprised how little help the fact that I speak both German and English is here in Lux. The country has borders to Germany, France and Belgium so I expected to at least find some people speaking German here. For work this is not a problem since the working language for the client is English anyways but whenever we go out to eat everything is French. Until now I've been lucky and the things I order were at least close to what I imagined :-)
NFL playoffs are under way and since I'm outside of the US I thought I'll have little chance of seeing the games. I was wrong - actually the NFL broadcasts the games over their internet site (of course you have to pay for it - USD 24.95 for the 4 weekend games). The quality is fantastic, after the first couple seconds the video signal is clear and in HD quality, I can even watch the games I don't see live (like yesterdays evening game) the next day without any commercials. For all football fans out there who want to see NFL games with the original American broadcasters check out http://gamepass.nfl.com

Back to Work

2009-01-04T12:39:00.003-05:00

Little more than 2 weeks of relaxing vacation in Austria are over and as I'm writing this entry I've just arrived in my hotel here in Luxembourg. A nice flight from Linz over Munich to Luxembourg, thanks to a full flight I was even upgraded to business class :-)
I'll be working here in Lux the next 2 weeks before flying back to NYC after a weekend in Austria. No plans for the weekend yet but any suggestions what one could do or visit in Lux would be greatly appreciated...

Happy Holidays

2008-12-24T04:06:00.003-05:00

Happy holidays and merry Christmas from both Ramona and myself!

We're both in Austria on vacation right now, relaxing and getting ready for the new year. I'll be working in Luxembourg for 2 weeks after the vacation but more of that once the time comes...

Jets vs. Broncos

2008-11-30T21:50:00.004-05:00

The New York Jets got beaten by the Broncos on Sunday. That itself is not really worth writing about but the fact that I was fortunate enough to watch the game in the stadium is. A colleague of mine has season tickets and invited me to the game. Since both New York teams are sold out for the whole season I never thought I'll get to watch a live game. Unfortunately the weather was really bad today and it never stopped raining (sometimes just a drizzle, sometimes heavy rain but always rain) and the Giants stadium has no roof. Thanks to the modern wonders of clothing technology we managed to stay relatively dry and warm (or more precisely we managed to get not too wet and cold) all the way from tailgating to throughout the game. Tailgating means to grill and drink on the parking lots before watching the game, really really popular at football games, the parking lots were almost full 3 hours before the game even started. Wanted to take more pictures but water and electronics are a bad combination...

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

2008-11-28T20:05:00.003-05:00

Together with more than 1 million others Ramona and I went to Manhattan yesterday to watch Macy's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. I had already seen it once before right after I moved to NY so we left before 8 to get a good spot along the route. Even though we got up before 7 on a holiday we still had to walk up to 56th street before we could even get close enough to watch the parade. A collection of the pictures we took are here.

Sunset over the Statue of Liberty

2008-11-12T16:13:00.003-05:00

Better late than never some pictures from Sunday...

Wild Safari and the New Jersey coast

2008-10-27T07:38:00.003-04:00

After a rainstorm passed through New Jersey and New York on Saturday we got really lucky with the weather on Sunday. Propably one of the last weekends with sunshine, no clouds on the sky and 15+ centigrade.
We had rented a car over the weekend and used it get to the Jersey Gardens outlet center on Saturday and drive down to the Six Flags Wild Safari park on Sunday. Wild Safari is a drive-through park where most animals can roam freely and walk right up to your car (some like Bears or Elephants are behind a fence). Some animals like rhinos didn't care about the cars and just walked slowly across the road while others like the Zebras took a closer look at every car that passed by to make sure they don't miss anything edible :-) Pics mostly taken by Ramona are here (had to drive).
With the gorgeous weather we then drove to the New Jersey coast at Ocean Grove to walk along the beach and just enjoy the sun. Pretty strong surge there as you can see on the pictures here.

The Lion King

2008-10-22T11:25:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since we've been to a Broadway musical and since a cousin of Ramona is in town this week we got tickets for Disneys 'The Lion King' yesterday evening. The production has been in NY for the last 10+ years and is currently in a theater next to Time Square seating over 1500 people. Really enjoyed it even though I had not seen the animated movie of Lion King before. Great costumes and music - up until now the best I've seen here in NYC (not that I have a huge sample to compare with).

Denver, Des Moines and back

2008-10-18T10:28:00.003-04:00

4 days, 4 flights, 3 cities, 2 prospects, hundreds of questions - that's the short summary of my last week.
Started in Denver, the mile high city, where I spent less than 24 hours followed by 3 days in Des Moines. Compared to New York two very different cities. In Denver you can see that the vegetation is influenced by the altitude (mile high is meant literally with an altitude of 1600 meter or 1 mile) and when the weather is clear you have a beautiful view of the mountains all around. Des Moines is a much smaller city/airport where arriving at 10pm we couldn't get anything to eat anymore. The downtown area is dead in the evenings, only a few bars but hardly any residential buildings. Interesting is the skyway that stretches throughout the main buildings. This means that although our hotel was a couple of blocks away from the office we never had to get outside - a clear advantage since it was raining hard the first morning. The meetings went very well, I think we managed to show them the advantages and the power of our solution and hopefully those trips will result in sales.
The next week I'll be in New York (mostly in our office, but that can and will most likely change throughout the week) and then on Monday next week I'll be traveling to Chicago for the next sales call.

Time to hit the road...

2008-10-12T14:21:00.003-04:00

After a couple weeks in the office prep time is over, it's time to hit the road again. Off tomorrow (Columbus Day) but will leave for Denver in the evening, continue to Des Moines Tuesday evening and return back home on Friday. All meetings are to sell our software ... wish me luck!

Daytrip to Toronto

2008-09-19T11:01:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I had another one of these nice day trips that start with getting up at 4am in the morning and coming back home at 9pm. The reason why I get to do more and more of this short trips is that the last weeks I've started to take more responsibility in the pre sales area. This means that I'll help in meetings and discussions with prospect clients with expertise around our architecture and implementation.
The flight to Toronto was really nice, 10 people in a plane that could accommodate over 100 and we touched down ahead of schedule. After breakfast we met with the prospect for a 3 hour demo and architecture discussion, went really well. Back to the airport and let the fun begin ... plane is here on time but we have ground delays. For those of you not familiar with the operating procedures for air travel, a ground delay means that our plane was not allowed to take off because there was no landing slot available in LaGuardia. Overall we were lucky because after an hour delay we took off and after a long cab ride through the traffic of Queens and Manhattan I was back home 17 hours after I left...

Proof of Concept - Omaha

2008-09-14T17:49:00.002-04:00

I've spent the better part of last week out in Omaha, Nebraska doing a proof of concept with a prospect there. It was a very stressful and hectic time with little sleep but in the end we could complete all the use cases and answer all questions around our product and a possible implementation. Travel to and from there is relatively easy as there are a few direct flights from Newark airport. Due to our schedule we had to take a very late flight into Omaha on Tuesday and the last flight back to Newark on Friday but both flights were only an hour late each (and for any flight involving Newark airport I consider that on time). Picked up a very nice Chevrolet TrailBlazer SUV for the three days from Avis, really enjoyed driving a car again after a couple of months. Thanks to the GPS device in it we've made it everywhere we wanted to go without any major problems ;-) Now let's hope the successful pre sales activities lead to a nice sale...

Austrian/European Food

2008-09-13T16:20:00.002-04:00

While searching for a recipe Ramona has by mistake discovered an online shop that specializes in European foods. We don't miss anything here in the US, frankly there are things I would miss now in Austria, but there are things that you get used to growing up. In our case things like Milka chocolate, or a certain coffee brand. So we were really happy when our first order from Euro Food Mart arrived last Thursday, finally sweets and various other things just like at home in Austria.

HD has arrived

2008-09-13T16:12:00.003-04:00

After watching the NFL games last Sunday and Monday I decided to check how much money the upgrade to HD would cost me. Big surprise - nothing! Cablevision does not charge you for HD channels, all you have to do is exchange your cable box for on that is HD ready. So that's what I did today, walk over to their store and get the new box. For tomorrows second game day I'm ready ... ready for HD :-)

Labor Day Weekend

2008-09-02T09:49:00.003-04:00

The Labor Day holiday yesterday made this weekend a long one. Since I'm not traveling enough on business Ramona and I spent this weekend in Washington D.C.
Rather than flying we opted for a much more civilized way of traveling and took the Amtrak train. While the train took around 3 hours compared to the 45 minutes a plane ride takes the overall travel time is the same. For the flight you have to arrive earlier and getting from the airport to the center of Washington would have taken longer than the flight (our hotel was a 5 minute walk from the train station). Going there Saturday morning and returning Monday evening we had more than 2 days to enjoy the good weather and sightseeing. We spent most of the time walking along the National Mall visiting a number of the Smithsonian museums there. Monday we took the subway to Washington Zoo before heading back home in the late afternoon. Pictures are here...

Back Home

2008-08-17T04:59:00.003-04:00

I'm back in Hoboken after my 10 day trip to London. Got up early yesterday morning, headed out to Gatwick airport and took a direct flight from there into Newark. Flight was on time, arrived early and there was no line at all for immigration and cabs - I should fly on the weekends more often :-) With a couple of storms passing through New Jersey yesterday I had feared that it might take us longer to get into Newark but besides a very bumpy ride in it was fine.

Usually when I go to Europe I fly Lufthansa, since they're the only airline with connecting flights into Linz (Austria). Since there are no direct Star Alliance flights from Newark or JFK to London I took Continental. Overall it doesn't make a big difference but it's the small things that count. Continental seems to have a few centimeters more in seat pitch - really made a difference for my legs. CO doesn't try to get fancy with their meals, unlike their German counterpart they served basic things that work well in the ovens of the economy class. Example? Lasagna - the stuff tastes good even if it's prepared in a microwave oven so that's a good choice for an airplane. The things LH has served me in the past always remind me of cheap convenience food that you prepare in the oven at home. Yeah, it might have been Chicken with vegetables and potatoes but now everything has the consistency of ... let's not go there. Also a nice inflight entertainment system with up-to-date movies - although LH has catched up over the last year or so in this area.

I've spent the last 7 work days and part of the weekend mainly writing design documents for a big implementation my company is doing in London. Although the project was started in February and is supposed to go live end of September there were a few areas not defined yet. Tried my best to cover those gaps - now it's up to the guys onsite to implement the designs. Overall a very hectic time but in the end the customer seemed happy - in our job that is all that really counts!

PS: As you can see by the time I've written this ... I might be in US physically but timewise I'm still in the UK...

Working in London

2008-08-10T05:56:00.002-04:00

Since arriving on Wednesday I've spent two days helping out at a client here in London. Mainly helping them with designing a system that will meet the complex requirements that we've agreed to. That's also the plan for next week until I fly back home on Saturday morning.
The time difference is much less of a problem compare to when I travel to Austria. I think flying during the day instead of overnight really helped - still a bit of trouble to get moving in the morning but nothing a good coffee wouldn't cure. Slowly getting adjusted to taking a taxi not a cab, asking for the bill not the check, taking the tube not the subway - how different two countries both speaking English can be ;-)

London it is

2008-08-05T20:15:00.002-04:00

How quickly things can change. When I got up this morning I thought I'll be in our NY office this and most of next week, now I know that I'll be leaving for London tomorrow morning returning Saturday next week. I don't have the full details on what I'll be doing yet but from what I understand some architecture work for a client there. All I know is flight is leaving at 9am tomorrow ;-)

Roadtrip to Rockville, MD

2008-07-30T08:15:00.003-04:00

Back in Hoboken from a long road trip to a prospect in Rockville, MD. 4 hours of driving to get there Monday evening, another 4 hours to get back yesterday. Enough time in a car for my share - next time I'm gonna take the train and then go by car the last miles. But the effort was worth it, had an excellent meeting and hopefully we'll be back there soon getting them from a prospect to a signed customer.

Weekend in Philly

2008-07-27T20:33:00.002-04:00

Ramona and I just came back from spending the weekend in Philadelphia. After I've made it back from Omaha on Thursday we took the Amtrak train to Philly Friday evening. Compared to flying the train is a really nice way of traveling; no security checks, arriving 5 minutes before the train leaves is ok, legroom to sit comfortable, standard 120 volt power plugs for each seat,...
We stayed in a hotel right next to the old city of Philadelphia and after a good breakfast started our trip getting tickets for the Independence Hall and taking a look at the Liberty Bell. Getting out early really paid off because we had comparably short lines (compared to the long long lines that we saw during the rest of the day) and they still had tickets (there is only a limited number of tickets available for the Independence Hall each day). In the afternoon we took the ferry over to Camden, which is right across Philadelphia on the other side of the Delaware river. We wanted to visit the Adventure Aquarium but the wait time of approx. 1 hour just to get tickets made us go back to the hotel for some rest before heading out again to a nice Steakhouse for dinner. Pictures from the first day can be found here...
Sunday we went to the aquarium early so getting tickets was no problem, spent most of the day there before we had to get to the train station and get back to NYC. Aquariums are really not a good place for taking pictures so only a few turned out good - link.

A day in the office tomorrow followed by another sales meeting on Tuesday - leaving at 7am for Washington.

Travel Time

2008-07-24T07:09:00.003-04:00

After a couple of weeks without traveling it's time to hit the road again. Already at the airport for a flight to Omaha, NE to visit a prospect client there. Should be a one-day trip, hope I'll make it back this evening with the last flight back to Newark. Tomorrow evening Ramona and I will take the train to Philadelphia, PA to spend the weekend there - hope the weather clears up until then. Finally on Tuesday I'll be out at another prospect somewhere close to Washington. Let the fun begin!

PS: Actually the fun has already begun, first flight is delayed at least one hour. Airport and airlines are still struggling to recover from the major thunderstorms that hit most of New Jersey yesterday evening.

Homemade Sushi

2008-07-19T16:37:00.002-04:00

Today Ramona and I finally had time to try making our own, homemade Sushi. We've had most of the ingredients (everything except the fish) at home the last weeks but somehow never found the time or didn't feel like making it.

First off, the Sushi and the rolls were delicious, even better then we had expected since we had never made Sushi from scratch. It certainly took some time from cooking the rice until everything was done and ready to eat but as you can see on the pictures it was well worth it.

Taking the ferry

2008-07-11T20:45:00.004-04:00

Unlike the last time Ramona and I went to IKEA this time we took the ferry to the new superstore in Brooklyn today after work. Since this store is at a quite remote location (as far as you can call any place within New York City remote) they have a number of shuttle busses from subway stops and a ferry from downtown Manhattan - all free. Really a nice way of making sure customers have it easy to come and shop. Thanks IKEA!

To the right is a picture of the waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the three waterfalls of "New York City Waterfalls", an art installation taking place here in NYC this summer. Apologies for the poor quality - point&shoot camera on a moving ferry...

iPhone 3G

2008-07-11T08:52:00.002-04:00

Finally! For all those waiting the new 3G iPhone from Apple will be available in stores today. On my walk to the PATH station this morning I passed by at least 200 people already waiting in line at a small local AT&T shop here in Hoboken. Can't help but wonder how many of those will actually get one before they're out of stock...

Hancock

2008-07-09T14:50:00.002-04:00

Another one from the list of movies I was anxious to see - Hancock. Will Smith, Charlize Theron and the rest of the cast did a good job here, wish the writers had done as well. The first half was really good but the second part somehow it felt they had trouble connecting everything together for the grand finale. To me the end seemed a bit forced but overall it was a good summer action flick - don't expect too much from the story and you'll have a good time!

WALL-E

2008-07-05T08:57:00.002-04:00

Thursday evening Ramona and I met after work in Manhattan to see the newest Disney-Pixar movie WALL-E. Like all previous movies that originated with Pixar (Toy Story, Monster Inc., Finding Nemo, Ratatouille) it was really funny and worth the money. Since we saw the first trailers in January of this year we've been waiting (for all readers from Europe - since the movie is not advertised for yet watch the trailer here) and I was positivly surprised that the trailer left you in the dark about most of the story. Sometimes the trailer for a movie already gives away a lot of the story but in this case it only showed scenes from the first third but nothing from the rest of the movie.

The next movie (hopefully today or tomorrow) will be Hancock, and looking at the schedule for this summer it won't be the last one, with movies like Dark Knight coming.

Back Home

2008-06-30T09:32:00.002-04:00

Ramona and I made it back home to Hoboken without a hitch yesterday. All flights were on time, good food and since we missed the storms in Newark we had a smooth ride in. Now trying to get back into the eastern timezone...

Visa Extended

2008-06-19T09:09:00.002-04:00

The most important thing in this two week vacation is done. Today Ramona and I went to the American consulate in Vienna and had both my L1 and her L2 visa extended for another 2 years. This means we both can stay (and work) in the US until August 2010.

Made it to Austria

2008-06-14T14:53:00.002-04:00

Big thank you to Lufthansa! Without them organizing a direct transfer from the arrival gate to the airplane waiting to departure I would have never made that. My baggage in fact did not make it but it I just came back from picking it up at the airport.

Time for vacation

2008-06-13T19:24:00.002-04:00

I'm sooo ready for vacation! As I'm typing this I already sit at the gate in Newark, keeping my fingers crossed that I make it all the way to Austria without any major delays. Currently it looks like we're leaving 25 minutes late, which should not impact my connection in Munich. That said everything over an hour or so would leave me stranded in Munich for more than 6 hours.

Btw - Lufthansa information sucks! One hour before scheduled departure there was no plane at the gate yet they still pretended that "we'll depart on time". Yeah ... sure, at least be honest and upfront about delays!

MacBook Pro

2008-06-11T09:49:00.002-04:00

Now that the WWDC keynote has passed and didn't bring us a new MacBook Pro (I know it was a remote chance) I decided that I've waited long enough. Since yesterday I'm a proud owner of one :-)

Zum Schneider

2008-06-09T09:08:00.002-04:00

The Euro2008, which is hosted by Switzerland and Austria, has started on Saturday so I met with friends on Sunday to watch the first game of the Austria team - their 0:1 defeat against Croatia. Despite loosing we had a good time watching the game amongst a mixture of Germans, Austrians and a few Croatians in the "German Indoor Beergarden" Zum Schneider. Andreas has posted some pictures...

Besides that we're melting ... up to 35 centigrade of the weekend and today. Not the nicest weather to commute to the office in business attire...

Governors Island

2008-06-01T21:24:00.001-04:00

Governors Island is a relatively small island (~1300 x 600 m) in the harbor of New York. For more than 2 centuries up until 1995 it was a military and coast guard base south of Manhattan of the shore of Brooklyn. The reason for this short history lesson is that nowadays Governors Island is open to the public a few weekends each Summer and today Ramona and I spent most of the day there.

The ferry ride from the terminal in downtown Manhattan just takes 10 minutes to the island and as part of the revitalization efforts is free. Seems not too many people have heard of the island being open because only a handful people joined us on the 11am ferry.

Being on the island itself felt strange, it almost feels like you're walking through a military base where time has stopped. The buildings are all magnificent shape, at least on the part of the island that is open to the public (around half the island). Ramona spent most of the day just enjoying the sun, reading a book on the spacious grass areas. I've walked around a bit and tried to capture the look of Governors Island with my camera. I've uploaded the best pictures here...

Bronx Zoo - Take 2

2008-05-25T20:00:00.002-04:00

Try to make the most out of the nice weather (sunshine and 20+ centigrade) we spent most of the day in the Bronx Zoo (or let's say half there and half in subway and PATH - door to door it took us around 2 hours to get there). The entry is labeled "Take 2" because we've already been there last August, but the zoo is simply too big for a single day.

The pictures from the trip are without any location, unfortunately it turned out one has to bring the GPS logger on the trip - and not forget it at home like I did :-(

Back home Ramona bake some white chocolate cookie, which I'm gonna enjoy now.

PS: Since some people complained about Ramona or me not being on the pictures from last weekend there are two of us this time...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-25T19:16:00.002-04:00

After a long period of literally no movie that we wanted to see in the cinema (some of them we'll watch on pay TV or DVD) Ramona and I saw the latest Indiana Jones (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) yesterday. I had really high expectations for this one, having seen the previous 3 parts numerous times on DVD - so I wasn't too surprised when the movie didn't live up to the expectations. What surprised me was that after the movie it almost felt like "the shouldn't have done another one".

Spoiler Warning
Sorry, but why did Indy need to find out he has a son and then marry at the end? Are all those references really necessary, like kicking open the box with the ark from the first part, the picture of his father and Marcus Brody on the desk and so on...

All in all it was a good action movie but not of the quality I would have expected from Lucas & Spielberg. Cutting out half an hour would not have hurt...

American Apple Pie

2008-05-18T17:00:00.003-04:00

Since the weather forecast predicted a thunderstorm for this afternoon (which has arrived by now) Ramona decided it's time to try the apple pie recipe she found last week. One word ... delicious!

Pie existed in the form seen to the left around 5 minutes before a big part of it was already gone ;-)

Shopping and a walk in the park

2008-05-17T20:10:00.004-04:00

With the nice weather today Ramona and I took the train to Manhattan in the morning for some shopping and a long walk in Central Park. Since we left early we started the day with a American breakfast at a small Dinner here in Hoboken, not the most healthy start but delicious :-)

After some shopping we entered Central Park at 72nd St from the upper west side and a lot of pictures later (best of them here) we left into 6th Avenue. If you wanna see where the individual pictures have been taken click on the link 'View Map' to get a nice Google Map. I finally had time today to really use the GPS logger I bought some time ago. Basically it creates a log with the location and timestamps that I can later on correlate with the time a picture was taken. Post production of the pictures was done with a test version of Apple's Aperture2 (thanks to Ramona for letting me use her MacBook).

After the long walk in the park we just wanted to get back to Hoboken but discovered that today was a big street fair on 6th Avenue (at least 10-15 city blocks long). So some more shopping there including more unhealthy food :-)

Kind of matching that we just ordered a pizza for dinner, we'll make up with lots of vegetables tomorrow...

It's been a while...

2008-05-13T11:50:00.000-04:00

Sorry, its been way to long since I last wrote, somehow I just kept pushing the task day after day and now it has been almost a month...

Work: Nice change, the next couple weeks I'm working for a client from the GS office. No traveling or longer commutes, just the 45 minutes it takes me to get to 22 Cortlandt St.

Apple TV: After a couple of iPods and Ramonas MacBook the next cool thing we bought from Apple. Nothing revolutionary there, just a well designed piece of hardware to watch iTunes TV shows and listen to music in the bedroom as well.

GTA IV: Hands down the best game I've played so far. The city, the people, it almost feels like a real place you're playing in, really well designed. Combine that with top-notch graphic and sound and you have my personal game of the year. Looking at the reported revenue for that game and it seems I'm not the only one (300+ million dollars).

Hanami

2008-04-19T16:29:00.004-04:00

Hanami is the Japanese tradition of enjoying the cherry blossoms in Spring. The weather was still gorgeous so we took PATH and subway to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which claims to be one of the foremost cherry-viewing sites outside Japan. It was really nice walking through the gardens in the sunshine, one cherry tree next to the other (not all but most in full bloom). Pictures from our trip (can be found here...

Back home ... earlier than expected

2008-04-18T19:50:00.003-04:00

Disorganized client means meetings get canceled and instead of a 5:25pm flight we've made it to the airport early and got on a 1:30pm flight back to Newark (that arrived 30 minutes early). Weather has gotten even better, instead of like spring it's now more like summer - 27 centigrade when I arrived home :-)

So instead of a quick dinner at the airport with a colleague I had fresh Italian pasta at a table in the sun here in Hoboken with my wife...

A not so lazy day in Toronto

2008-04-17T17:08:00.003-04:00

While yesterday was a relaxed day in Toronto today was not as good - except for the weather (still sunshine and 20+ centigrade). A series of meetings from 9am to 4pm with various teams from both the client and consulting company. Without going into any (confidential) details, it's a big mess and we're somehow caught in the middle of it. Todays highlight was definitely a slide showing the deadlines and phases for our part of the implementation. The thing is we have never estimated the work, don't have a single statement of work signed or any idea how much data/attributes we'll have to map. We'll see what nice surprises tomorrows meetings will bring...

Anyways, heading out for a drink and dinner now, flying back home tomorrow evening. Fingers crossed the weather holds and I'll make it back on time (or at least within one hour of the schedule).

A lazy day in Toronto

2008-04-16T17:35:00.002-04:00

"If your destination is not Toronto it is now as we just closed the door" - the day started with a flight that left on time at 10:25 from Newark and arrived nearly half an hour early in Toronto. Spring has really taken over for the moment and it's a sunny day with a little over 20 centigrade.

Since the only thing planned was a short half hour meeting in the afternoon a colleague and me took the opportunity to walk around Toronto a bit after lunch and enjoy the warm weather. Before you get jealous, tomorrow and Friday are 9-5 continuous meetings, although I still hope to sneak out early on Friday so I don't have to reschedule my return flight.

Toronto Déjà Vu

2008-04-14T14:47:00.003-04:00

Sorry, long time no blog but nothing worth writing about happened...

Last Friday a colleague asked about my schedule for this week to which I replied "It's pretty open". "Wide open?" - "Yeah, I mean there's nothing I know of from Monday till Friday" - "Ok, because I'm gonna need you in Toronto from Wednesday till Friday". So I'll be back in Toronto, waiting hours at the airport for a flight that takes around 50 minutes, hassled by Canadian immigration control about the purpose of my trip (the old discussion am I working or do I just attend meetings) and enjoying the generally cold weather...

Nah ... to be fair, the trip isn't that bad. I'm leaving on Wednesday around 10, staying in a hotel downtown and the flight back is scheduled for early evening on Friday. But what would an Austrian fellow be if he has nothing to complain about ;-)

Google Everywhere

2008-04-01T11:54:00.000-04:00

Like most people I started using Google for searching the web. Now, almost a decade later, I still use them whenever I want to know what I want to find but not where. Amazingly their landing page is still not cluttered with information and ads and the "sponsored" links in the search results are clearly marked as such and don't bother me.

With my move to the US came the need for two things: A reliable and fast map for US cities and a good source for US news. The map of my choice was Google Maps, simply because their solution was fast and easy to use, is very good at interpreting where you want to go (try this at other online maps) and last but not least marks where entrances to the subway stations in NYC are. The source for both local (meaning Hoboken and Manhattan) and US news became Google News. Like the services mentioned before fast, easy and reliable. In my opinion using an aggregation service instead of reading one or more online news sites gives a much broader view on what's happening.

So when I started to write the very blog you're just reading it again turned out that Google already had a service with everything I was looking for. This time it wasn't until after I had decided to use Blogger that I realized it belongs to Google. The service to check traffic Google Analytics - less than 5 minutes to register and configure it.

For RSS readers it even went the other way round, at the suggestion of a friend I was already using a different product when I discovered Google provides a reader as well. Again, the Google product was much faster and easier so I switched. Using notebook for gathering all the various things I need again and again but just can't remember - discovered it when looking through the list of services that Google has - by now migrated the contents of my private wiki to it.

I've been registered for Gmail for a long time but only recently started to use it. Main reason was that they have a pretty good spam filter and having them check my other email accounts gets rid of checking multiple places.

Somehow Google time and again manages to put out a service that I need and very often it turns out to be faster, easier to use and more convenient compare to what other companies provide. Thanks to their single-signon using a new service does not even require me to register or remember another username.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

2008-03-23T09:57:00.003-04:00

The long easter weekend here in the US already starts with having Good Friday off instead of Easter Monday. So we did all our grocery shopping for the weekend on Friday to have enough time for a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday.

After getting there around 11 we spent almost 4 hours in the museum, seeing roughly half of the exhibitions. It is simply too big for a single day so you have to pick and choose what you want to see. Pictures of the visit can be found here, unfortunately not in the best quality as the use of flashes is not allowed in the museum (not that the built-in flash of my camera would have made much difference).

Afterwards we walked down 5th avenue all the way from 82nd to 33rd street, stopping in a few shops along the way ;-)

Typical American Dinner

2008-03-09T10:50:00.001-04:00

Friends of my family were in town and since they had only a few days I wanted to make sure they don't leave without having a real American dinner. Which lead to a question that came up quite the last months: What is typical American food? Here in NYC there are such a multitude of different restaurants featuring food from all over the world, but what is typical for the United States. There is only a few things Ramona and I could come up with: Steak, burger and barbecue.

Since it was on short notice I was searching for a restaurant that could accommodate a party of 5 on Saturday evening. All of the places that would fit the description above I had been before were already full booked. So we ended up trying a new place called Blue Smoke. To make it short it was hands down the best BBQ I ever had. Delicious rips with plenty of sides, excellent burgers and a decent selection of steaks. So if you ever think of having BBQ in NYC there is only one recommendation I can give: Blue Smoke

Getting home turned out to be a bit more difficult than expected. Just as we came to the turnstile in the PATH station we heard that service was suspended. So back up to the street and finding a cab to get over to Hoboken. Thanks to traffic and a couple of closed streets (strong winds caused a lot of trouble - also the reason why PATH was not running) it took us more than an hour to get home.

Phantom of the Opera

2008-03-08T00:15:00.001-05:00

Finally the weather forecast was right, it was raining cats and dogs starting late afternoon. And like always when it rains for more than 2 hours most corners have flooded. To add a little more fun there was also another main water break ... the second in this week.

Despite the bad weather we headed out in the evening over to Manhattan for Phantom of the Opera. Took more than two years for the first musical but just a couple weeks for the second one ;-) We really enjoyed it although it was quite different from the first one we saw on Broadway. Compared to Grease it was much more opera (who would have guess it with that title) - hardly a spoken word, all conversations sung. Sometimes that made it a bit hard to follow if two or three people sing different things in high pitched voices ... at least for someone with a mother language different then English. The special effects were really spectacular - yes, special effects in a musical ... another thing I didn't expect. Unlike last time where we sat really close to the stage our places were in the front row of the mezzanine, really a nice view of the whole stage and all the other places where things happened. Not sure why I thought all the action will be on the stage. I tried to take a few pictures of the theater but unless I learn some new Photoshop magic they won't be ready for publishing anytime soon...

Austrian Cafe

2008-03-02T18:42:00.003-05:00

Upon recommendation from one of Andis friends we went to a Austrian cafe called "Cafe Steinhof" for a late lunch today. Getting there was a bit difficult, like most weekends some subways were not running their normal schedules or routes - part of our trip was a shuttle bus instead of the F train.

The food was really good, we had a tomato soup followed by a smoked pork loin (which would be called Selchroller for those readers speaking German) and delicious desserts. Compared to what you would pay in Manhattan or Hoboken for lunch it was reasonably priced. As expected Austrian was referring to the menu they had, neither waitresses nor any other customers seemed to speak German.

Ramona - hungry and starting to get angry at me for taking another picture while she wanted to start eating. For more pictures go to pumsti goes NYC...

Efficient space usage

2008-02-29T16:48:00.002-05:00

Parking garages in Manhattan make efficient use of their limited space :-)
Picture taken from a clients office at Water street, apologies for the bad quality - not my camera but their dirty window...

Bureaucracy in the United States

2008-02-27T20:18:00.002-05:00

Ramona is slowly getting closer to having everything she needs to work in the US officially. After the work authorization card (took 4 months) she applied for a social security number almost 3 weeks ago. Since the card was not in the mail since we stopped at the local office again this morning to follow up with them. Seems that our post box was not labeled correctly - no kidding! To get the card her full name has to be on the label of our box, although all other mail for her (including the work authorization card) arrives normally. So back to step one and in the next 2 weeks it should be in the mail...

At least I could finally file our tax return for last year, a prerequisite for getting the nice tax rebate checks that president Bush announced recently :-)

Winter Storm Warning

2008-02-22T17:25:00.003-05:00

The third time this year that the national weather service sent out a winter storm warning this year. The first two times hardly any snow, less than one centimeter - but last night was different. When we went to bed around midnight there was no sign of any snow visible but when we got up ... well take a look:

Long weekend is over...

2008-02-19T09:40:00.003-05:00

The long weekend (thanks to Presidents Day yesterday) is over, nothing special just relaxing at home and going to the gym (yes, I've started to work out again ... at least once a week for now). Monday evening we had all-you-can-eat Sushi at Todai together with Andreas and his girlfriend.

Last week also marked a big change ... after years of working with Windows and Linux/Solaris (me @ work) we got started with Mac OS. Yes, Ramona got her MacBook last Monday. I'm still amazed how easy and straightforward everything works on a Mac, at least until now ;-)

Indy is back

2008-02-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

Trailer to the next Indiana Jones movie: http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/indianajones.html

Happy Valentine’s Day

2008-02-14T21:02:00.003-05:00

Happy Valentine's day to everyone! I know I'm a bit late but didn't get a chance to write earlier...

Following American traditions I took Ramona out for a nice dinner this evening to a restaurant called P*ong. We had a nice 10 course tasting menu and a few glasses of good red wine ... life can be good!

valentine’s day at p*ong

smoked trout caviar, scallion pancake, white miso ice cream
cauliflower milk soup, grated chestnut, white truffle oil
big eye tuna sashimi, edamame crème, sesame, yuzu, soy jelly
whipped foie gras, hazelnut, caramelized chocolate bread pudding
veal loin carpaccio, kalamata olives, black pepper, lemon, tuna belly sabayon
pinot noir braised duck & cocoa pot pie, cherry, shitake mushroom
shaved gouda, wild arugula, cabernet poached pear
wild strawberry sorbet, vanilla chantilly
sicilian pistachio parfait, milk chocolate cake, olive oil ice cream
soft chocolate cremeaux, passionfruit, 24K gold, lebanese rose foam

Even the NYSE had a Valentine's day banner today:

The weather sucks...

2008-02-13T10:10:00.003-05:00

Monday it was freezing cold with feels-like temperatures down to -20 centigrade, yesterday it started snowing in the afternoon making the sidewalks a slide and last night it started raining (and it has not stopped yet).

Walking to the PATH (the subway I take from Hoboken to Manhattan) on the snow soaked with water was no fun ... at least the sidewalks in Manhattan have been cleaned from the snow. The wind close to the customer office I'm in today killed my umbrella ... guess that's what you get when you screw around with climate.

Presidents Suite @ Millenium Hilton

2008-02-09T10:00:00.000-05:00

A few pictures of lower Manhattan at night, taken from the Presidents Suite at the Millenium Hilton (we had a cocktail reception their after our 2008 kickoff meeting at work).

A little too early...

2008-02-04T11:54:00.000-05:00

A colleague just told me about this, here at Amazon you can still pre-order a book about the 19-0 season of the Patriots ... only they lost yesterday making it 18-1 :-D

Update (3pm)
The link seems to be dead now, guess Amazon realized the book about the 19-0 season won't be released...

18-1

2008-02-03T22:04:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to the Giants for beating the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII stopping them one game short of a perfect season!

The coming work week should be a little less hectic than the last one (three different clients in two cities with a snow storm in between), most of Monday in the GS office, Tuesday at a customer in the WFC (doesn't really count as travel). We'll see what needs to be done from Wednesday onwards...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

2008-01-31T17:25:00.000-05:00

Weather forecast was right and the snow storm predicted to hit Chicago has arrived. Snow is coming down pretty heavy for the last 3 or 4 hours and I just heard that it's going to get much worse in a few hours. My flight is already delayed 5 hours and now scheduled to leave at 12:34 am with an arrival in Newark at 4 am.

Why am I already at the airport then? My meeting was already finished by 1 pm and with the snow storm predicted I headed back to the airport to see if I can get on any earlier flight back home to beat the weather. The flight I could get on standby was scheduled for 4 and right now is tracking somewhere around 7 or 8 departure. But to be honest by now I would prefer if they just cancel my flight. Going back to the hotel, getting dinner and a good night sleep before flying home tomorrow morning sounds so much more tempting then sitting around for 7 or 8 hours here...

Update (7:20pm)
I've been able to get a confirmed seat on the plane I was on standby - that's good. The aircraft has left Newark 2 hours ago and is on route to Chicago - that's good. The aircraft can't land in Chicago because the snow storm got worse - that's not good ;-(
More waiting ... should have just left here hours ago and get back to the hotel, but the offer of the confirmed seat on the earlier flight and the aircraft already in the air ... stupid me

Update (8pm)
The plane has landed and is at the gate ... with any luck I'll be leaving Chicago this evening after all!

Update (12:20am)
Finally at home! Over and out...

Cold day in Chicago

2008-01-31T10:23:00.001-05:00

I've made it to Chicago yesterday with more than 3 hours delay, which meant I finally arrived at the hotel a few minutes past midnight. Short night and breakfast ... already in the office getting ready for the workshop. Weather forecast for this evening predicts a snow storm so chances are there will be more delays - that is if my flight is not canceled at all. Gotta love travel in the US...

Chicago (or another flight delayed)

2008-01-30T18:28:00.000-05:00

I'm currently sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Chicago, didn't expect it to leave on time (according to Expedia the flight I booked is not delayed around 10% of the time) but a delay of 3 hours... :-(

I really don't understand why the airports here don't cap the number of scheduled flights (although they're talking about that finally). It seems that only with perfect conditions (I guess a sunny day with no wind or clouds) they can make their schedule. If there is only the slightest thing like wind or clouds everything starts to collapse. Today it's strong wind ... which means they have to leave more space between flights taking off and landing - delays started in the morning hours already. Of course my flight was still showing as "on time" until I got to the airport, when they moved it back 1 hour three times (basically when I left home the flight was on time, when I arrived at the airport it was 2 hours late and at the gate it was 3 hours late). Can't airlines at least think ahead a bit??? If I would have know for sure that my flight is not taking of until at least 9:20 I would not have been at the airport around 5. As long as they claim its on time I have to at least be here in case they miraculously are on time. But hey, as long as passengers have not alternative (no, driving 1000 km for a single day in Chicago is no alternative) and don't wanna pay higher fares nothing will change.

Enough rambling about the flight (btw it is a United Airlines flight but they're not the only airlines with delays today), the reason why I'm going to Chicago is a one day workshop for a customer tomorrow. Spontaneous like customers are they decided they want this workshop tomorrow last Friday and I was the one who got lucky. Flying back tomorrow late evening (fingers crossed the delay is under 1 hour) and back to a customer here in NYC on Friday.

Cold is getting a little better but I still feel like sh*t each morning when the alarm rings...

Grease

2008-01-28T10:07:00.000-05:00

Some things take their time. After two and a half year leaving in (or close to) New York City I finally made it to a Broadway musical yesterday. Ramona and I went to the Grease production that opened here last August.

The musical was really worth the time, a well cast ensemble together with the popular songs from Grease made the 2 hours feel much shorter. The theater itself is not that big, the first row is less then 1 meter away from the stage (the second row we were seated in is not much further away) so you're really close to the action. I'm sure it won't be another 2 years before the next one, just looking through the list of musicals currently played right now...

PS: Still fighting that damned cold ;-(

Back to work...

2008-01-22T10:53:00.000-05:00

The long weekend is over and it's back to work for me. Didn't get to read as much as I planned but at least I was able to cure the cold I had most of last week. One of the reasons why I didn't get to read much was that I kind of rediscovered the Xbox360 I had for the last 2 years but didn't use that much. I started to play Elder Scroll IV: Oblivion yesterday, which should keep me busy for quite some time ;-)

On the business side of things, I'll be wrapping up the current assignment this Friday and then do a couple of short term things before leaping into the next long term job starting March. Of course that is if plans stay the way they are (which they never do) and if no customer changes their plans (which they always do).

Packers Lost

2008-01-20T22:13:00.000-05:00

To be honest I had already started writing this entry congratulating the Giants to their win as the game was ending. But that was before their kicker missed for the second time sending the game into overtime. Unfortunately the Packers, after getting the ball, finished the game with an interception that lead the Giants to their game winning field goal. Season's over for the Packers ;-(

Good luck to the Giants, my money is on the Patriots finishing their perfect season with a Superbowl win.
..

Long weekend ahead...

2008-01-18T15:23:00.000-05:00

The first long weekend of the year is ahead with Monday being Martin Luther King Day. This time the client I'm currently working with observes the holiday as well, just checked that to be sure :-) Not much planned for the weekend, Ramona was ill most of the week and I have a bad cold by now as well, guess we'll take it easy and relax. Lots of books to read I brought back from Austria so that alone should keep me busy for a couple of long weekends. Working my way through the Alan Greenspan autobiography Age of Turbulence, maybe I'll write about it here once I'm done...

Sunday is of course reserved for football, the Packers will beat the Giants to follow the Patriots to the Super Bowl. That's how a perfect Sunday afternoon would look like...

Long time no real update

2008-01-13T08:38:00.001-05:00

Its been a long time since I wrote a real update, first two weeks of vacation in Austria and the last week a friend from Austria was here in NYC. During the week Ramona excelled in her role as tourist guide and yesterday I went to the Empire State Building once more (click on the pictures to see them full size).

Like the whole week we had nice weather (17 centigrade and sunny on Wednesday) with good visibility. After going around the top and snapping a couple of photos we took the subway to Soho and then walked to Chinatown and finally back downtown.

Then the highlight of the day - after 2 years not making the playoffs the Packers returned to action following the first round bye. After a really bad start (being down 14-0 after just 3 or 4 plays is what I consider really bad) they bounced back and finished of the Seahawks 42-20 in what looked like a snowstorm. I'm gonna put out a bold prediction - Packers vs. Patriots meet at Super Bowl XLII. Of course I reserve the right to adjust that prediction after todays games :-)

Wrapped up the day with all-you-can-eat Sushi at Todai...

Hoboken from the Empire State Building

On the way back home...

2008-01-06T07:27:00.000-05:00

The new year starts like the old one ended, sitting on the airport waiting for a flight - only this time back to NYC. Two weeks of meeting friends and family and relaxing and now back to work...

Happy Holidays

2007-12-25T16:14:00.000-05:00

Me and Ramona wish everyone reading Happy Holidays and All the Best for 2008!

We're both back in Austria spending quality time with our families and friends and will return to the US January 6th next year. Don't expect much updating until then ;-)

Christmas Party ... Again

2007-12-19T21:49:00.000-05:00

Just came home from the Christmas party the company I work for threw for all our customers (we had another one 2 weeks back for employees) - what a difference! Held in a small private room in midtown Manhattan with live music, lots of good food and nice waitresses ;-)

Was really nice to meet with most of the customers I've worked with the last 2 years (except the one from north of the border who didn't attend) in an informal setting, catch up how things are going and in some cases learning about opportunities how we can help them...

PS: Two more days and I'll head back to Austria for 2 weeks of vacation...

Walking around Manhattan

2007-12-15T17:49:00.001-05:00

Ramona left for Austria yesterday so I had nothing much to do the whole weekend. Since I'm still rather new to "real" digital photography I decided to take the warmest clothes I can find and head to Manhattan with my camera.

I started walking through Central Park and then headed along Broadway to Times Square and switching to the subway to downtown. Lunch break in the GS office (mainly because it was a warm spot with a restroom *g*) and then another walk down to Battery Park.

I've put some of the pictures I took here, overall I returned home with more than 200 pictures but many were duplicates and some didn't turn out the way I had hoped. But hey, that was the idea ... play around and learn what works and what doesn't!

Now back at home let's see how bad the forcasted nor'easter will be...

The Golden Compass

2007-12-11T10:18:00.001-05:00

Ramona and I saw "The Golden Compass" starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. I hadn't heard much about the movie except seeing trailers in almost every ad break for the last weeks ;-)

A very entertaining visionary movie that unlike others used special effects to tell the story not to stand out. Since we went there early evening right after work we had the cinema almost for ourselves. The end was a bit surprising (I didn't know it's based on the first of three books by Philip Pullman) but nevertheless worth the time and money spent!

Olympus E-510

2007-12-08T17:14:00.000-05:00

This Thursday I got my new digital camera - a Olympus E-510 - and since then I've been busy trying to figure out what I can do with it ;-)

Some first pictures are here...

Supersized

2007-12-02T17:53:00.000-05:00

Americans always take it one step further. If things are good let's make sure there is plenty of them!

The Austrian energy drink Red Bull is now sold in half liter cans ;-)

Toronto and the Niagara Falls

2007-11-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

As written in the previous entry Ramona and me spent the Thanksgiving weekend in Toronto and at the Niagara Falls. We flew to Toronto on Thursday morning and well, what should I say ... the flight was delayed. Out of the 20 flights I took from New York to Toronto (or back) exactly two have been on time - and this was not one of them. First the plane came in more than one hour late because of a snow storm in Toronto and then we had to hold circling over Toronto because the runway was too slippery to land. But we made it ... although 2 hours late.

The Sheraton hotel downtown Toronto made up for the hassle - a big room and a delicious lunch. Did I mention that I could also watch almost the whole Packers game in the bar there (now 10-1)? With the snow still coming down heavily we scraped the idea of going up the CN tower and went shopping - Toronto has a nice underground system that allows you to walk from building to building without ever going out. They really have experience with snow and cold temperatures there!!!

Thursday morning we drove to the Niagara Falls (little more then one hour drive) and checked into our second hotel - a nice big suite with everything from a Jacuzzi to a view of the falls. Next to the hotel a big casino - let's just say our efforts to refinance the vacation there have failed miserably ;-)

Sunday morning we drove back to the airport in Toronto and then .... the flight departed and arrived on time!

More pictures can be found here...

Thanksgiving Day Weekend

2007-11-22T07:35:00.000-05:00

We're on our way to Canada - writing this from the airport. We'll stay a night in Toronto and then drive on to the Niagara Falls. Will be back on Sunday evening ... Happy Thanksgiving :-)