Category: Uncategorized

This morning we had quite a bit fog outside, so I was a bit surprised that after arriving at work, there seemed to be a patch of clear sky above. And tho in the light-polluted Frankfurt morning sky you can only see a few of the brightest stars out there, I knew that there are billions of suns above. Or, like Zuleikha said when she was younger and meant a real huge number:

“Hundertmillionentausendeinundachtzigsechsundzwanzig”
(Zuleikha, while younger)

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A cute little photographer took some selfies with my camera and remote:

A fun session…

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Wow; it’s over ten years ago that “Lost” started – in fact it’s a bit older than our daughter.

Read a nice “open love letter to Lost“, from Matt Tory. It explains why and how this time, it all came together. And why and how this experience – which it certainly was – cannot be repeated.

Found through DarkUFO, which is one of the pages I was following while watching, and waiting for the next episode.

Thanks to Matt for this, and thanks to the makers and the wonderful cast of “Lost” of course.

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This is a typical sunset as seen and painted by William Turner in 1838:

During that time (which is called “Biedermeier”), paintings often had these intense colours. So what was different?

What was different was the climate. 200 years ago today, the Indonesian volcano Tambora (see Wikipedia in English, German, or in Malay) exploded with the force of approximately 170.000 Hiroshima bombs, cutting off its own peak from about 4300m (before) to around 2800m (after).

This lead to the “year without summer” in 1816 (English, German) pretty much around the world, as seen in Northern America or in Europe.

Follow these links to the Wikipedia pages in your preferred language if you want to know more. What happened was the coldest summer since the beginning of measurements, just some 25 years after Captain Bligh of the Bounty was dropped off his ship on Timor, which was nearby.

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Our car had to have its front brakes repaired, so it had to stay at the dealer for a day. And this time finally I asked for a hybrid replacement – and got it:

Toyota Prius

Lovely car. Surely not everyone’s cup of tea, but for the daily suburban commutes, you’d hardly find a better one.

I took that photo this morning at my employers’ garage. By now we have back our Corolla – and I’m still happy with that one as well. Even if it takes 2 liters more on each 100 kilometers than this bigger cousin.

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Look at this, which I found via this link. Unbelievable.

But at least the photo of that bunny was nice.

Here is one photo which Mélanie took of me yesterday:

It’s awesome, isn’t it? Told everyone that she’s good…

Merçi beaucoup Mélanie!

And thanks to everyone else for viewing.

It was a busy week for me. On Wednesday after work I went to the local meeting of some group within the German “Model Kartei“, which was quite nice.

On Thursday it was Mitchie’s birthday. Here are some flowers which Zuleikha got for her Mama:

And today we had to go to Zuleikha’s school which had some open day for interested kids and parents of next semester’s new 5th classes. So we had to ‘cater’ them a bit, selling coffee and cake.

Oh, and Zuleikha had her first public stage performance with her brass class, which was very nice. Gut gemacht, Schätzchen!

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A day or two ago one of my colleagues told me (or rather us) that Windows support for their version 7 of the operating system ended this week. And yesterday I told the same to a friend who’s also in IT (in a manager position even), and his reaction was a bit like:

“What? We just rolled out version 7! Cannot be – I’m sure you’re talking about Windows XP?”

Well yes and no. For XP, even the “extended” support ended last year, that is correct. But if you look at Microsoft’s “Lifecycle” page, their so-called “mainstream” support for version 7 ended this week indeed. But the “extended” one will continue for another 5 years, time enough for most enterprises to upgrade to some newer client operating systems.

Should you have any questions about this, the page lists 3 commonly asked ones, and have a look at the “what does it mean?” page as well.

Basically, for Win7 that means that you have to install Service Pack 1, and/or to enable automatic updates. That way, your Win7 will still be supported until its “end of life” in about 5 years from now.

Vista? Oh well – two more years if you’re on Service Pack 2 (see my first link above).

Hope that clears any questions.