seattle

My first time in the States. Seattle is quite a nice city, not too hot (actually pretty cold and rainy), friendly people, and so on. I'm here to attend the American Control Conference starting on Wednesday. I extended my stay by a couple of days to see something from the US. I will miss the first round of the EURO 2008, but Germany is still doing well. So, I hope I can watch the quarter final when I'll be back in England.

indiana jones and the great disappointment

I watched the new Indiana Jones movie last weekend. I was hoping that this one is as good as the first or third of the previous ones, but I was rather disappointed. Aliens, nuclear blasts (in this case totally unnecessary) and a more or less confusing story. Especially the aliens didn't fit at all (to my mind at least).

cambridge beer fest

These days, there is an awesome beer fest going on. I already enjoyed Andechser Spezial Hell and several types of ales (slightly disappointing, though). Good stuff!

i'm not rational

Pi meets e

back to the bundesliga!

My favorite team, Borussia Mönchengladbach is back in the Bundesliga. After the 7:1 on Sunday, the scored 3:0 against Wiesbaden and are too many points ahead to mess it up. Congratulations!!!! Bayern is waiting :)

fairy godmother

We have a fairy godmother in the lab: When I came back to my desk (after 4 days absence), there were 3 bottles of beer on my desk! I don't know from whom or why, but I was really surprised (in a positive way). I will wait for the fairy godmother to reveal her identity.

spring in cambridge

Coming back from Bruges, I realized that something fundamentally changed: it got warmer, trees are blooming and so on. It's spring, the best season of the year!

esann conference in belgium

From Wednesday to Friday I attended the European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks (ESANN) in Bruges (Belgium). It was quite a cosy conference: not too many participants, but nice ones. Bruges is also nice. Looks a bit like Venice, but nicer (they have trees and parks in Bruges). I went to Bruges by Eurostar: London-Brussels in less than 2 hours. And after that an IC to Bruges. I like the Eurostar, although the interior looks a bit like old-fashioned German ICs. Anyway, good stuff.

snow in cambridge

Three days after the official start of spring, winter came (back??): We got loads of snow in the morning. It was very nice although it melted in the afternoon :( Shakir, who has never seen snow before, was really enthusiastic about it.

sightseeing in cambridge

Jarno, Arbora, Shakir and I enjoyed sightseeing in Cambridge. We went to the museum of classical archaeology with its fantastic sculptures from the Roman and Greek Empires. After that, we went to the folk museum and saw how living in Cambridge was centuries ago. Shakir guided us to the tower of St. John's college from where we had a fantastic view at Cambridge! Then, we had a look into the Fitzwilliam museum before we enjoyed a concert in King's college chapel. We finished the day with Indian food and some ales afterward.

hillwalking in lake district

Last weekend, we went again to the Lake District to climb some of the hills there. It was quite fun although we suffered from strong wind, rain, and hail (at least on Saturday).

office guns

Today, I randomly found the office guns homepage: How to build reasonable weapons from stationary... Cool stuff! http://www.officeguns.com

trip to ely

Jarno and I went to Ely by bicycle. Instead of a nice path for bikes we had to go on public footpaths, which essentially means across meadows. That was quite exhausting, especially if you do this for 15 miles (3 hours). Nevertheless, Ely Cathedral was very nice to visit. On the way back we took a "standard" main street.

visit in london

Yesterday, I went to London for a couple of hours. Mainly because of a seminar in which I gave a talk about my research. After struggling with technical things it went OK I think. Anyway, I met a lot of people I knew from before, e.g. Christian or Dilan. The 10 hours in London were definitely worth it!

the deadline

Yesterday we had an important deadline. To meet it we switched into "work-only mode" with increasing working times. Unwanted. Example? If the deadline is Friday and you find discover that your theory is wrong (Friday morning, 1:30 a.m.) you have to rewrite the paper and your code. Resulting in 20 minutes sleep that nigth in which I found the answer to the problem. That was luck! Anyway, now I'm back in "normal mode", which is probably better for health and stuff. Next deadline is in 2 weeks...

winter school in sheffield

Last week I went to a winter school on data modeling in Sheffield. Sheffield looks much more like an "English" city than Cambridge—less touristy, more British-style Victorian-age buildings. Apart from interesting lectures I met a bunch of nice people from England. During this week I gathered some ideas how to improve the stuff I need for my daily work.

orchestra revisited

Sunday I went to an orchestra again to reactivate my violin skills. Was really cool. However, after 2 years of not unpacking the instrument the practice was rather exhausting.

puncture month

Unbelievable how unlucky I'm with my (new) bike this month. I got already the 5th puncture since 31 December—it's just two weeks! Probably I spent already as much money for repairs as for the bike itself. I hope today it's the last time!

visitors in cambridge

From end of December to today there have been two friends visiting: Hiroto and Hannes from Tübingen. Hiroto just came over for new year whereas Hannes came to work with our supervisor. Great times—although New Year in Cambridge is probably the most boring event ever: nothing's going on, many places are closed. However, we had a very nice time here (at least I think so). Hannes came just after Hiroto has left—and brought sun to England. Best weather to do sightseeing in Cambridge and London!