Yes, I am still alive, I just took a small break from the blog for a while but I have not forgotten it.
We are still waiting for the real spring to finally come. The weather got a little better in the meanwhile but there are still quite a lot of days with temperatures below 10C. Still, there were nice days too and we tried to take advantage of them. The best thing is though, when we come home from work is no longer dark outside, that’s a big plus.
As far as work goes, things are so and so. The so called crisis is affecting everyone and our company is no exception it seems. They are trying to cut costs from everywhere and while I can’t really say I blame them in a way, I definitely don’t enjoy it. I am currently still working in the “lovely” town of Rheinbach but there might be signs that I could be working again in München. That’s still not that close to home but it’s definitely better than now. It’s quite a bit closer (around 2h drive as opposed to 3-4h drive to Rheinbach) and it’s a real city for a change, much more to do there.
Otherwise I enjoyed my new hobby and I took advantage of the longer days and better weather and went to all kind of places to make pictures. Among other things I tried my hand a bit at street photography (that points to a Deviantart group on the subject) but I am still not that comfortable with it. I find it a bit awkward to just go to people and ask them if I can take a picture :) So my attempts so far were from the distance or when nobody was looking. Sometimes it just works to walk around with the camera in my hand and snap shots while I pass people. Later on I usually have to trash quite a lot of them but a few are decent and worth keeping. Need more practice I guess :)
Below some pictures I took in the past month. As usual, a click on the image takes you to its page when you can view a bigger version.
Unfortunately my vacation days are over and I am back at work. After 4 weeks at home (the longest vacation/time off I ever had) it takes a while to get used to being at the office again, but I am getting there.
In the meantime in The Cave, the kitchen renovation is almost done and it looks MUCH better now. Still, my wish to make pictures and post them has been denied because it does not look “perfect”, there are some thing left to be painted. So maybe this coming weekend.
The bathroom upstairs is almost ready too and in the last weekend we cleaned and renovated the small room downstairs where we have the washer and the dryer. Before it was yucky and ugly, now it’s clean and with gypsum on the walls instead of wallpaper. It also has a new floor and the room is properly sealed. The previous owners were pigs, no other way to say it.
I started doing more stuff with my new Canon. First of all I was a bit surprised to find out it does not come with any kind of memory card so I got a 16GB SD Card from Amazon and now everything is fine. Most of the time I shoot in RAW format and I do the post-processing in Lightroom or RawTherapee if I am in Linux, so the extra space on the SD card is welcomed because one RAW file can take up to 20MB.
I still have a lot to learn but I have reactivated my Flickr and Deviantart accounts and I started posting there my first attempts. I have also updated the blog with a small widget which displays the latest flickr Deviantart uploads (the flickr widget looked crappy).
I wish I would have some faster lenses, even something cheap like the Canon EF 50mm/ 1,8/ Objektiv II for a start, but that’s really not a priority right now so it’ll have to wait I guess.
Unfortunately the warm days of the summer are gone. I still see sunny days every now and then but it’s cold and we’re starting here to have temperatures below 0 during the night. We didn’t even have much of an autumn, it kinda jumped directly to winter. Don’t know if I should be happy or not about that, I am not crazy about autumn either, at least not about the rainy part anyway.
At work it’s still kinda ok. Besides the fact that I have to go back and forth each week, the project is interesting, challenging and gives me the chance to work with technologies not easily available in most other places. It’s a great place to learn things and I would say it’s the perfect working environment to be in if you’re studying for CCIE, the Holy Grail of Cisco Certifications (Service Provider part).
Which is exactly what a couple of my colleagues are doing but it’s not easy at all. This is one exam (a 8-hour lab actually) where it’s not enough to just know stuff, you have to know it perfectly and be able to work fast because you are constantly under time pressure. And trust me, it’s not cheap at all, you end up with thousands and thousands of euros invested in books, rack rentals, boot camps, the lab itself, etc. Needless to say, this is hardly doable without the support of your company. And on top of that, the pass rate is very low. It is said that less than 10% of people taking the lab pass it the first time. On average, one needs 3-4 attempts to pass it. Kinda bad, eh ?
I am probably at the stage where I could attempt it but I really have no time for it, not when I am gone most of the time. Maybe later. I will just focus on other professional certification in the meanwhile.
Vacation is coming at the end of the year, which is something I am looking forward to. Probably we won’t go anywhere but some time at home is not bad either. Speaking of vacation, there is one thing that annoys me at my company. They ask us to give a vacation plan for the whole next year. I have 28 days of vacation and I have to plan them ALL one year in advance. I can understand their point of view in a way, that they need some kind of overview when people are gonna be gone, but I still think it’s very weird. How am I supposed to know what I will do in one year ? Something might come up and you might need to change the dates but you can be shit out of luck if someone else in your team has it planned in that time.
They say that this is just for “planning purposes” and that you can change it but we all know that once you turn it in, it’s pretty much fixed, there is no change because you most likely conflict with someone else. I didn’t use to have this in my former company but it was a bit easier there I guess, less people in our department so less chances of conflicts.
After a break with white sausages, bretzels and beer, I can relax for a bit before I have to get back to work. But before I do that I just want to share some thoughts about some thigns happening at work.
If you work in a bigger company it’s quite possible that there are people you don’t know at all or not enough. For example, where I work now the room is at the end of a really long hallway, I have to walk it every time I need to go out, to the kitchen, toilet, etc. So here I am, getting out and heading down the hallway. As it happens, most of the time someone does the same on the other end, walking towards you.
Now the thought process starts. Will he/she enter an office before we meet ? What if he doesn’t ? Do I know the dude ? What do I say ? Do I say Hello ? What if I already said that before, what then ? A second “Hello” would look stupid, the dude might think I am a retard who forgets shit. So you see, this is a complicated issue. Basically you have several options you can take:
if he/she gets into an office, then you’re off the hook, no need to say anything (best option).
if it’s the first time today, a “Hello” will do fine.
sometimes you can just smile and nod, something like a “How’s it going?” but without needing an answer.
if it’s in the morning and it’s one of the persons you shake hands with, then do that. Does not work so well in case of a woman though.
if you know the guy and you happen to remember some common activity you can actually stop and ask “Hey, how did it go with bla bla bla?“. That works too.
sometime people say “Mahlzeit” (especially in Bavaria), which would translate to some like “Enjoy your meal” or something but they use it here from 9am all the way in the afternoon, like a “Hello“. I keep thinking: “WTF ? What meal ? It’s morning!“. I never got used to this but I know it’s just a saying so I usually just reply with Hello, since that’s what they mean anyway.
you could just focus your eyes somewhere on the wall and not say anything.
you can develop a sudden interest in the paper you hold in your hands.
or in your mobile.
you could call your voicemail and listen intently to the “You have no new messages!” message while he passes you.
if it’s at the end of the day, you can just say “Good bye!“
if the dude has a cup in his hand you could say some like “You can never have enough coffee, eh ?“. Of course, that will sound kinda dumb if they guy has tea in his cup but sometime you gotta take the chance.
you can punch his shoulder in a friendly manner. This has a limited applicability though, quite low on the list. And never do this if the guy has a cup in his hand because then the “friendly” part might disappear rapidly.
That’s as much I can think of right now but I am sure there are other options as well.
I am still around and I did not forget the blog, it’s just that I’ve been a bit busy with other things lately. During the week not much special is happening, it’s just work as usual. Most of the time in München, some of the time in this shithole small town called Rheinbach on the other side of Germany. Which is where I will be next week, actually. I can hardly wait, I am trembling in anticipation. Umm .. no, not really. In any case, not much I can do about that right now so I have to go.
Otherwise we’ve been working on our house, which we nicknamed “The Cave”, don’t ask why. The Cave is starting to look better now. We are also trying to do something about what we call “city rats”. They are not actually rats, just pigeons. We don’t like them, they are all over the roof, they make weird sounds and they shit everywhere. Luckily Freya might’ve found a solution:
Yes, that’s a pump-action water gun with a pretty good range. We hunt them down now and I think they are learning that it’s not so safe anymore to sit anywhere they please.
At the beginning of June I finally have a week of vacation, which should be kinda nice. As it happens, my parents will also be visiting and they will also bring a very special little somebody, which I will very happy to see again. That’s also the reason we have accelerated a bit the renovation inside The Cave. It’s not yet ready to receive too many guests but hopefully we’ll get it ready in time ;-)
Professionally I am still kinda working towards my CCSP, I have two more exams left in which the Cisco ASA firewall plays a major part. That’s one thing I can’t practice with at home so I don’t have many choices. Either classes or I just get whatever books I can for self study and I do the practice online. Which is what I will do actually. Internetwork Expert is a well-known site for the candidates to the CCIE, the Holy Grail of the Cisco certifications. They also have rack rentals and I noticed that the security rack has all the equipment I need to practice for my ASA exam: 2 ASA’s, IPS sensor, ACS server and so on, just perfect.
So I just rented rack slots for one week and at the end of June and I will just stay home and practice. It’s actually not that expensive either, about $15 for a 5.5 hour slot. My boss agreed with the plan, probably the $90 price for one week plus some books as opposed to many thousands of euros for a 4-day Cisco course plus travel expenses might’ve had something to do with it.
Last but not least, I am still trying to convince Freya to do a guest post on the blog but so far no success. I am still working on it, she has some funny stories to tell from her daily trips to work ;-) I even offered to translate it into romanian but I guess I need to offer more incentive. We’ll see.
Weather was a little bit warmer for a while (and by that I only mean couple of degrees above zero) but then it all went to hell again. This is what I was seeing yesterday from my office window:
Bad. Today it calmed down a bit and it looks like this:
I am tired of winter. I am tired of snow. I am tired of cold, wet, ice and cold wind. I am tired of negative temperatures. I don’t want much, just couple of degrees above zero.
Tonight I get home after 20:00h so there is no time to do anything. Tomorrow we have to go to all kind of places, shopping, etc. On sunday we have a bit of relax time but starting with monday, we’re at it again. I am still home for that day but it’s going to be a busy day.
In the morning I have to go to the old apartment, we arranged with a company to come and pick up the last of the heavy furniture pieces. Then I have to drive to the capital city of this Kreis where I will apply for my new driving license, because I can’t do it in my own village. Of course, it’s not free: 41 €. Then back to Hertz, where I rented again a van for a day. Then back home, pick up the mountain of trash bags, old electric equipment, old wood and so on. To the dumpsite place, back to Hertz and then finally at home. The day is probably over by then ;-) Great.
Daily stuff, Pictures | Stefan | 
April 10, 2010 8:37 pm | 
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