Oranges

Today I went to a concert to collect money for restauration of the Erlangen Orangerie. The Orangerie was built sometime in the 18th century, when it got fashionable to grow citrus fruits in places where they don't usually grow... Already in the 19th century it was required for the Erlangen citizens to save the Orangerie, as it should be destroyed to make way for a hospital wing. Today the Orangerie is in a very bad state, especially the roof needs to be replaced urgently. The university, to whom it belongs, has not enough money, so they did some concerts and expositions to collect money. If you want to participate, you'll finde more information (in german) on http://www.rettet-die-orangerie.de/

Morgan Super Sport

Morgan Super Sport
Originally uploaded by stormbear.

I want one of these :-)

Cricket

Batsman
Originally uploaded by perreira.

Yesterday I went with Martin to a Cricket Match between England and Trinidad and Tobago Fans in Nünberg. Unfortunatly Phil could not join us, so we missed most of the score. But it was fun anyway. Pictures are in the usual places...

Cycling

Did some cycling after work: 17km, average speed 19.8 km/h. The drawn path looks much more oriented than I have been when I was going around, just having a vague idea where I was... (I had the map with me, but I was never sure). I also ordered a step counter today, so be prepared to much more boring stuff like "I walked 10.000 steps today..."

Politics...

University elections are coming. You can tell by the liberals spamming my blog and conservatives having ugly posters with spelling errors plastered all around university. Sometimes I am quite happy to be no student anymore.

GMT and a bit...

Found this on the World-Cup page of RTP, the portuguese public broadcast service. Seems that Portugal is in different times than the rest of europe would have thought...

A short look at the Wikipedia:
The portuguese Wikipedia is amazingly short on GMT, only saying that it was substituted in 1972 by UTC. The german wikipedia is more extense, but does not include summer times. The most concise entry is in the english one, from where we learn that Portugal is indeed in the UTC timezone (formerly GMT), but when in Summertime has UTC+1. Germany has one hour later than Portugal, so it is in UTC+1 (and UTC+2 in summer).

And for those who find that too much to read, there is also pretty pictures on Wikipedia:

Berch

Drinking
Originally uploaded by perreira.

As usual: fun.

Whose fault is it...?

Contrary to Kryptikmo's theories it's all feminism's fault.

Berch Bernd

Berch Bernd
Originally uploaded by perreira.

Memories of the times passed.

Berch

Berch
Originally uploaded by perreira.

Just went to a short visit to the Bergkirchweih. After three beers I went home. They were closing anyway...

As this was a nice quiet evening, the weekend will be hard...

Sharpness

One of the signs I have not spent sufficient time in my Erlangen Flat the last couple of months: the kitchen knives are blunt. They still are sharper than the knives found in most kitchens, but not sharp enough to be of real use. The idal sharpness is reached when a silk cloth falling on the blade gets cut in half by it's own weight. I have not yet reached this, but usually my knives are sharp enough that you only notice that you have cut yourself when you count your fingers or are standing knee deep in blood. The advantages of sharp knives are not only that cutting is much easier, it is also that wounds don't hurt and heal much faster.

So, off from the keyboard and hands on the sharpening steel. (Another word were the german is nicer: Wetzstahl)

At Home

So, I am more or less finally back in Erlangen. Again. And I will never ever go to work at the experiment again. Again. At least I don't have a flat anymore in HH. If you wonder why I prefer the small province town to the big rambling city full of oportunities and interesting and good stuff:

Today I started with breakfast at a friend's place, together with a couple of other friends, having white sausages and beer. Then I went with a really nice and good looking girl to a beer garden with a beautiful view, where I spent the afternoon (we went there with my DKW). The evening I spent with another friend in another beer garden. I did not get anything done today of the stuff I wanted to do (taxes are due, I should clean up my flat, I should prepare something for the tutorials tomorrow...)

In HH, I might have gone to a Cafe and sat there for some hours reading a book or so, but probably would have spent the day watching bad TV series. (Just for the files: I do have a few friends in HH, but I most probably would not be able to get my ass up and do something with them. I usually vegetated through the weekends, not being able to speak or move.)

Tschüss, HH

Since yesterday I don't have a flat in Hamburg anymore. So, from now on, I will have to stay in the guest house or at some friends to be in HH. It feels actually quite relieving, now that I am 100% back to Erlangen and only will go to the north in case of an emergency.

The detector seems to be quite dead now, we set up a test-stand, where we will try to heal some of the radiation damage (as if this would help...). Some modules will be repaired, it will then be installed again in about 4 weeks and then we will discover it did not change anything. So, time to start writing up and leave the sinking ship. Women and children first.

Critics

It seem's that there is intelligent movie critique sometimes:

There has been much debate over Dan Brown’s novel ever since it was published, in 2003, but no question has been more contentious than this: if a person of sound mind begins reading the book at ten o’clock in the morning, at what time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmitigated junk? The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the opening sentence: “Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.” With that one word, “renowned,” Brown proves that he hails from the school of elbow-joggers—nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along with jabs of information and opinion that we don’t yet require.

Found in The NewYorker

Hell?

Hell?
Originally uploaded by perreira.

Yes. I did enjoy it :-)

Most searched tags...?

Most searched tags...
Originally uploaded by perreira.

Uploaded not even an hour ago and already 33 views :-) Quite simple to get your pictures popular on Flickr.


EDIT: at 148 views 24 hours later... :-)

Photos

Portrait
Originally uploaded by perreira.

The Scotland Photos are on flickr now... Have fun

The international JetSet Life of PhD Students

Just arrived back from a weekend trip to Glasgow and Edinburgh, will leave tomorrow for Hamburg, then Thursday off to Lund. After that, I might need a holiday and stay a couple of days home...

Pictures of Scotland available soon...

The stillness, always the stillness

unless there's a dog. SHUT IT! WILL YOU SHUT IT! You must listen to this, before they put up next weeks show... (via Cosmic Variance)

I for one...

welcome our new ten-hour-working-at-most-overlords. Either it was an abduction by aliens or our spokesperson was replaced by a japanese fembot, while she was on conference. It just is weird when you receive a mail from a person working at least 14 hours a day, 7 days a week that working too much can lead to accidents and is generally not a good idea... Something must have happened while nobody was watching.