Heddal Stave Church in winter

The only quite unpractical thing in late fall and winter is, that it is getting dark so soon and that you cannot see as much as you would like to.
However the Heddal Stave Church with a tiny snow cover and illuminated creates a special athmosphere.

Das einzige Unpraktische am Spätherbst und Winter ist, dass es so früh dunkel wird und man leider nicht so viel sehen kann wie man gerne möchte.
Dennoch hat die Stabkirche von Heddal mit einer kleinen Schneedecke und Beleuchtung eine ganz besondere Ausstrahlung.

Promising ...

... is the small now cover which made it through the day for the first time. This and last week we had the same procedure almost everyday: snow over night, the guy with the tractor cleaned the soccer field, then it became warmer and soon everything started to melt and in the evening it froze to the ground. But not today so there is some hope and it is still snowing and it is weekend - so with a bit of luck I can ski tomorrow or Sunday. Funnily enough just about a hundred meters down at the university and downtown, the snow melted away.

Vielversprechend ist die Schneeschicht, die sich den heutigen Tag über gebildet hat. Diese und letzte Woche hatten wir fast jeden Tag die gleiche Prozedur: es schneite über Nacht, der Typ mit dem Trakor säuberte den Fußballplatz, es wurde wärmer und bald schmolz der Schnee weg und alles gefror an den Boden. Aber heute nicht, also gibt es doch noch etwas Hoffnung und es schneit immer noch und es is Wochenende - mit etwas Glück kann ich morgen oder am Sonntag Langlaufen. Lustigerweise blieb der Schnee nur etwa hundert Meter weiter unten auf der Höhe der Uni und in der Innenstadt nicht liegen.

I forgot...

... to mention that I want enough snow to ski. We got some snow yeah ... 2 mm over night and they melt during the day because it is getting too warm. Well, Oslo wasn't really my favorite location anyway but why is snow everywhere where people even don't want it and none (2 mm is a joke) here? I know the answer - because I WANT it ;)
Sure I could go to some other places in Norway but no time for vacation.

Ich hatte vergessen zu erwähnen, dass ich genug Schnee zum Skifahren haben wollte. Wir haben zwar Schnee aber die 2 mm, die über nacht fallen, tauen am Tag wieder weg, weil es einfach zu warm ist. Natürlich war Oslo nicht gerade mein Traumziel aber irgendwie finde ich das schon gemein, dass es sogar überall da schneit, wo es die Leute gar nicht wollen und hier hat es keinen Schnee(die 2 mm sind ja echt ein Witz). Das ist wahrscheinlich, weil ich Schnee HABEN will. Natürlich könnte ich auch woanders hinfahren aber ich habe keine Zeit für Urlaub.

Pity

They didn't make it by only one point but it was almost settled last week when Norway lost against Turkey in the qualification for the European Championship. And I was so much looking foward to watching them like that:


Picture from: www.spiegel.de (sometime in October I think it was the game against Moldavia).

Schade - sie haben um einen Punkt die Qualifikation für die EM verpaßt aber das war ja vorauszusehen, da Norwegen letzten Samstag gegen die Türkei verloren hatte. Und ich hatte mich so auf Momente wie den oben auf dem Bild gefreut.

Nur manchmal wenn der Südwind weht ...

... und wildes Fernweh durch mich geht wie schauerliche Stürme, dann sehn ich mich ... (Subway to Sally, Auf Kiel, Bastard).

Manchmal da wünsche ich mich ganz weit fort in eine einsame Hütte ohne irgendeine Menschenseele treffen zu müssen ... so etwa 5 Mal pro Tag in letzter Zeit.

I will not translate lyrics because I think that you can only understand the original.
Sometimes I would wish to be far away in a lonely cabin without having to meet anyboday ... around 5 times a day.

One more because it is so much fun !

What do you do when your computer does connect to the internet but not to the network (although it was connected to it on Friday)?
a) change the network cable
b) remove the laptop from the dockingstation
c) format the whole(!) computer and reinstall windows
d) all three

And now you probably think none of the above but the answer is d) and I could have almost killed that person. I was already sorry that I asked but I need the network and it is not my job to fix that. So I am going there, telling the lady that I cannot connect to the network she looks at it - I will get another internet cable to make sure that it is not a crossed one. I said(quite confused how one could have this idea): but it worked on Friday what should have happend to the cable until Monday? ... didn't help she wanted to get a cable so let her get the cable ... then she is trying her account, my accounts and had the glorious idea .. yeah! it is the docking station (by that time I was getting quite annoyed but still trying not to show it) ... OF COURSE it did not work after undocking the computer so she had (for the first time) a good idea and wanted to check if everything with the IP is correct so she took the computer and had it for maybe 1 hour (it felt like the whole afternoon). When she came back .. you have some data on partition E can you make a backup I have to reformat and reinstall windows. My first reaction was WHAT THE FUCK but still I tried to swallow that and asked what would actually be the reason to have partitions if the data is lost anyway since she is going to format all? She didn't get what I said instead she told me that partition C has to be 30GB and it is not and so she has to reshape ... well maybe I am too stupid but can somebody explain to me why C has to have 30 GB? Why can you not just format C and reinstall windows? Well it is ok - I have all the data elsewhere but I JUST SPENT TWO DAYS TO 1) install all the things she forgot to or wasn't capable to install (including making a nice partition of the unallocated 80GB) 2)install the programs she wouldn't even dream about installing (including such simple progs as firefox (yeah it was NOT on there) or irfanview 3) put my data on the new E partition BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT IT TO BE LOST WHEN THE SYSTEM CRASHES. In addition she didn't finish today .. nice working attitude which I could do that, too. So tomorrow when I get the computer back I can spent THE NEXT TWO DAYS ON CONFIGURATING THE COMUTER THE WAY I WANT IT AGAIN!
And she actually has the courage to ask me why I am kind of angry.

And after the party?

Be so kind and puke right into the elevator (and DO NOT CLEAN IT UP). The neighbor is very happy to smell this right after breakfast and since the other elevator is not working the neighbor is also happiliy carrying done the bike 6 floors (yeah workour is fun). Why put my bike into my appartment? I don't want to have it stolen and I don't really trust people here.

Why only party on weekends?

When you can party every day of the week and annoy your neighbor with loud techno music, high screaming (girls), clouds of smoke and conversations in the hall (exactly in front of the neighbor's door). The neighbor is also very happy to be kept awake until the middle of the night since she is for sure not paid for not doing any work. But luckily the neighbor is used to the noise by now and has ear plugs. AND most important the neighbor is moving soon (already counting days).

Why snow?

Therefore:









And before you get the wrong idea - no there is still no snow here in Oslo. The pictures were taken in November 2004 in Alaska. As long as I cannot take any new pictures here I just have to look at "old" ones which I think are still nice.

New computer

More than two weeks ago I ordered a laptop for my work since the other computer didn't have the capacities for my calculations and for the conferences and talks I would have needed a laptop anyway. The university has a contract with Dell so I got a Latitude D630 (well I told the IT lady that I want at least a 2GHz, dual core processor, 1GB RAM (I got 2 now) and diverse other things). I didn't specify the capacity of the harddrive but I thought that at least 80 GB would be standard nowadays anyway. On Thursday, I finally got the computer and she told me that she had installed all the programs (of course she has to because of the licenses) and the only thing I have to ge myself is the license for CS3 . Naturally I was quite happy to have the computer and started to arrange things to my liking and realized quite soon that the graphic card driver was not installed - this I could luckily fix myself since the woman was gone for the day already. Then I realized that the computer is only showing me 40 GB space on the harddrive (11 of those were already used with the programs) and was quite astonished why the harddrive should have only 40 GB. Luckily I am admin of my laptop (I wasn't of my other computer which resulted in starting programs from my personal folder - complete nonsense), so I checked in the system and - tralalala- there were 80 GB lying around unallocated (at least she could have told me that I have to make a partition out of those but she should have done it herself because she gets paid for that and I am not). Well, that could be fixed also by myself .. then I started to test programs .. office - no license. Ok that could not be fixed so I had to get her to fix it ... then I tried most of the programs but I forgot matlab and guess what - yeah she also forgot the license for that program.
Well, I hold back most of the critics but actually I almost could have done the installations myself then at least I would have known what is on the computer and what not but I get paid for doing some scientific and not for installing a computer. Well, the computer is really cool - slowly I have all the things I want on there and it is so quiet compared to my Averatec and the old computer at work.

Definitely not funny...

... is it when there is more snow at my mum's place in Germany than here. Come on - why did I come here ? (ok I am here because of this good position but location wise I am still sad that I am not in Tromsø or Alaska.) If it continues like that I will definitely have to go to Antarctica for a winter after my PhD - probably then all the ice is gone there, too ;).

Ich finde es nicht sonderlich lustig, dass es bei meiner Mutter in Deutschland schneit, während hier noch keine einzige Schneeflocke vom Himmel gefallen ist. Warum bin ich denn hier? (ok mal abgesehen von der guten Stelle die ich in Oslo bekommen habe aber Tromsø oder Alaska würde ich als Orte schon bevorzugen.) Wenn das weiter so bleibt, dann habe ich keine andere Wahl als nach meiner Doktorarbeit einen Winter in der Antarktis zu verbringen - wahrscheinlich ist dann dort auch alles Eis geschmolzen ;).

snow-Schnee-snø-snow-Schnee-snø-snow-Schnee-snø-snow-Schnee

Evening impression V

Here are a few more pictures:
Und nochmal ein paar Bilder:

I'm addicted...

... to learning vocabulary with this vocabulary trainer - no joke. This is a really good one which I found by chance - it is mainly written in German (no problem for me hehe) but you can use it in basically every language you want to learn. So you can train from Russian to Japanese if you really feel like it. I really like the program because you can type in your vocabulary or even look for existing vocabulary units somebody else has already written and then you have to pass 9 levels until the word is out of your list and regarded to be known. There is also a statistics function so you know how many words you knew and you didn't and you can see how many words are on which level - and this all for free!

Ich bin süchtig nach Vokabelnlernen mit diesem Vokabeltrainer. Habe ihn zufällig gefunden und finde ihn einfach nur klasse. Er ist in deutscher Sprache verfasst aber man kann sich eigentlich jede Sprache einstellen also auch Russisch - Japanisch wenn man das unbedingt möchte. Das Programm ist richtig gut, weil man eigene Vokabeln eingeben kann oder Lektionen verwenden kann, die von anderen zusammengestellt wurden.
Man muss die Wörter neun mal wiederholen, bis sie dann nicht mehr abgefragt werden. Außerdem gibt es eine Statistik wie viel man richtig oder falsch beantwortet hat und man kann auch sehen wie viele Wörter auf welchem Lernlevel sind.