A night at the ballpark

Image006.jpg
Originally uploaded by jmeyer.

My buddy Dan and I went to the ballpark in San Francisco last night. Giants 10, Arizona 2. Was a good game, a local guy from Los Gatos, Kevin Frandsen, had three hits in his first Major league game ever. Pretty cool. Only downer of the night were the beer prices. $8 for one beer is simply ridiculous. But we had "the best kosher hot dog", according to the vendor. I'd say it was at most average ... ;-)

Who would have thought ...

... that Linux is evil. If you read this you may be tempted to believe this. Of course it isn't and part of me wants to believe that the person who wrote that was just trying to make fun of the whole thing but more likely, the author meant every word. What's even more tragic is that he/she also believed that crap and that there is a even more people out there that will do the same. This is utter garbage, half facts, wrong facts and of course the bible and God are mentioned. Scary ... Read it and let me know what you think. Sometimes you wish the internet was less open ... so that not everyone could post their crap but I guess we will have to live with it.

Patent Stuff

While I was at IBM, part of the job of any research employee was to create intellectual property. Over the course of the 7+ years I was there I submitted roughly 10 or so patent applications. When I returned from my last vacation, my buddy Jan gave me a frame from IBM commemorating my first issued patent, 3 and a half years after it was filed with the US patent office. This is pretty cool. The patent itslef was a collaboration of a few people related to my old project, WebFountain. Pretty cool.

flood waters

flood waters
Originally uploaded by jmeyer.

flood waters
Originally uploaded by jmeyer.

The two pictures show the water levels of the river "Elbe" in my parent's hometown. It was at 8 meters and 30 centimeters, already down 40cm from the highest level this season. Normal water levels are around 5 meters. For the Americans among you, this is a difference of almost 10 feet. So far the levees have held steady.

nice rainbow

nice rainbow
Originally uploaded by jmeyer.

We took this picture while in Germany, watching the river Elbe flow by. Teh water levels were pretty high. It was raining and the sun was shining and we caught this nice rainbow. In case you are wondering where this is in Germany. The city in the background is Lauenburg which is roughly 30 miles upstream from Hamburg. The side of the river we were standing on is the small village of Hohnstorf, where I grew up.

Digital SLR ...

After hearing Sonja complain about the response time of our digital camera (canon powershot) for too many times I decided to treat her for her birthday and get her a better camera. I opted for the Canon EOS Rebel XT Digital SLR. Since we had a Canon SLR before and two lenses, all we had to get was a body. And man, it is nice. it has 8 MegaPixels and it behaves like any SLR camera. We really liked out own traditional SLR camera but in the times of digital photography who has the time to get their films developed. Really annoying. So I went and ordered one and Sonja really likes it. Me too ;-)

Our vacation so far ...

So here we are in Germany, ready for a relaxed time and it turns out that relaxing will be the last thing we will do for quite some time. Now, we weren't quite hoping for spectacular weather so we were fine with the rain but we weren't quite prepared for the nasty stomach virus that hit us after three days. To recap, instead of hanging out and enjoying my Mom's good food, we spent our time in bathrooms, doctor's offices, sleeping, vegetating and feeling miserable. On top of that we got my brother, his wife and their little son Frode (15 months) sick as well. Our little guy Jonas (13 months) took the worst hit, he had to spend two nights in the hospital due to dehydration. the whole things was not a pretty sight. Slowly though, we are getting back on our feet and the kids are starting to smile again. On top of that, my vacation will be over in two days when I have to head back to the U.S., Sonja and the boys will stay a little while longer. I just hope that the remainder of their vacation will feel like one. Big thanks to my parents who have been nurturing all of us through these very sucky last seven days. Although it wasn't quite the vacation one had hoped for, it was still great to see the family. I just need to figure out where to find the time to recover from this vacation ... ;-)

where we are staying

where we are staying
Originally uploaded by jmeyer.

The house in the picture is the place where we are staying most of the time in Germany. My brother Axel and our parents built this house about 3years ago. The interesting part about this house is that it is partially built with a wood frame recovered from a farm building built in 1879, which was still in very good condition and gives the new house an antique look and feel. Inside it is state of the art construction though. Very cool. Flight to Germany was ok, with its ups and downs that travelling with small children brings. At least our kids weren't the noisiest and most annoying on the plane. ;-)
Weather has been great today. Warm (by northern German standards) and sunny. First day and a half were kind of shitty, same as in California, or so I hear. More later.

Visiting Family

It's time again, we are going to pack up some stuff, grab the boys by their ears (not really, but it sounds good) and hop on a plane to Germany. Visit the parents/grandparents and not cook, clean or do anything remotely strenuous for a few weeks. Well, except for the flight that is. Sitting for 13 hours in a confined space with a three year old (Ben) and a one year old (Jonas) will be no walk in the park. Sonja and I are trying to be as prepared as possible to keep the boys happy and entertained. Wish us luck and may the temper tantrums be rare. Germany is going to be great, there is floods everywhere, the bird flu has struck already and the weather forecast doesn't look to exciting either. But hey, neither it is here in CA right now. Why are we going then? Because it's family and living 6000 miles away from your parents makes you want to go, regardless of weather. We are excited. Alright then, off to packing.

Drive-Through Ordering over the internet ... Simply ridiculous

Now, even McDonalds is outsourcing ... According to this article McDonalds is experimenting with a system that frees individual McDonalds restaurants from having a person take the orders locally. Instead an order outside the restaurant will be routed over the internet to a call center. I can't imagine a job in a call center anyway let alone taking orders for super-dollar menus and chicken mcnuggets or whatever they are called over the phone. Makes you wonder though what's next, that you will actually call someone in India when you are using a drive through ? Or that FedEx or UPS will actually deliver the burger from the restaurant to your car? This is crazy.

Firefox market share ...

I just looked at a web page that reports web browser market share. Assuming those numbers resemble reality, Only Firefox and Safari are gaining market share while Internet Explorer is losing market share. How long 'until Firefox will catch IE. Well, pretty simple. Over the last 12 months, IE has been losing roughly .27% market share. Assuming this trend continues and that all of IE's losses will go mostly to Firefox, it will only take approximately 136 months (that's 11 years and 4 months) for Firefox to get equal market share ... Something to look forward to. Why am I worried about browsers? Well, I am working on some frontend stuff (PHP, JavaScript, DHTML) and it's still a pain in the butt to make things look equally great in all kinds of browsers.