You may or may not have heard of it, but Berlin (well, Europe, let’s not be too selfish) has been hit by a pretty bad storm. The storm was called “Kyrill” (don‘t know its last name though).

Anyway, it was that bad that I crashed for the night at the friends place I was visiting that night — as, when I was about to leave, the radio said that it would be suicide to leave the house right now.

I took a few nice photos that night, but — as my MacBook Pro is still in repair — I can‘t postprocess them the way I would like to and hence don‘t want to upload them yet. Besides, there are soooo many other pictures on my camera that are grounded too… Come on Gravis, fix my damn laptop! Actually, come on Apple, deliver the bloody screen panel that’s holding them up! AAaaaarrrrrrrr!

If you pin your hopes on someone, you often wind up full of holes… [wind, get it? ;-) ]

Oh boy, so many papers to shift through… Not only that, but two more books, a seminar to prepare and a paper I would like to contribute to the 2007 RoboCup…

Plus there is so many things to do every day in Berlin. The city never sleeps, the opportunities for some cool night time undertaking never cease to be pop up… So many people to meet, so many concerts to go to, so many pubs to stop by. Oh, how I love that city.

If only I didn‘t have to get up half past seven the next morning. But that’s part of growing up I guess. More things to do, less time for it, more responsabilites, less room for trivial stuff. But why not, I like it. That’s what we‘ve all been working towards, right?

It’s always humbling to remember that anytime you think you‘ve gotten away with something, you really haven‘t.

Happy New Year everyone, I‘m off to paaaaaaaaaaaaarty ! First going to a friends friends place in town, then we‘re off to the Hauptbahnhof — there is a large open area pretty much in the middle of the city and rather close to the Brandenburger Tor for the big fireworks :-)

Anyways, I‘ll catch you guys next year,

party hard and stay tuned

Floz :-)

By day, enlighten; by night, endarken.

So Saturday was that big communal birthday party… Communal as in there were several people celebrating their anniversary.

After a big cooking session — kindely supported by Sarah and Julia, my two guests from Magdeburg (where I went to uni, yonks ago) — fixing large amounts of pasta salads and chili con carne, we went to the party in Moabit (a fairly central district of Berlin).

It was a bit slow to take off (but the reason was that we went there relatively early to help with the usual party prepartions), but then it became pretty crowded :-) As the evening went on, people even started dancing!

Shame on my Aussi friends — none of you showed up! Come on! ;-) Thanks anyway to my dear guests from outside of Berlin for coming!

Famous last words: Gee, that’s a cute tattoo.

Oh boy, and here we go, another year in my life has passed — actually, the first quarter–century…!

To celebrate this event (I won‘t tell you exactly when I will turn 25, you should know that ;-)) I‘ll join in some massive birthday party of a bunch friends that all have their birthday this week as well.

So if you‘re reading this, click on the link to the invitation and I hope to see you there (only the Aussie may excuse themselves ;-))

If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.

To get a bit of a change from the (in cases) slightly dry day to day work in the office, I‘ve joined two choirs a wee while back — a church choir and a gospel choir. I just love them and can‘t wait for Tuesdays and Wednesdays to get my voice going again (I‘m singing bass, for those who are curious).

Last Sunday, we had a concert in my local church. We sang a “Kantate” by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the “Historia der Geburt Jesu” by Heinrich Schchütz, which I both liked a lot.

To my surpise, our church (isn‘t it impressive that even for the curch there is a wikipedia article?!) was pretty much full! Wow. They must have somehow known in advance that I was singing ;-) Nah, not really, I guess…

Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis.

Tuesday, there was a little arts exhibition and a party announced to take place in a very unsual location: the catacombs of an old monument of the Kaiser which has been distroyed in World War 2, I think the statue of which had been removed by the GDR, thanks Bea for pointing this out (see third comment). The great thing: It’s in the very in centre of Berlin, and you would never ever get to see those spooky arches underground, right next to one of the smaller arms of the Elbe Spree (the river that flows through Berlin), and the old Palast der Republik.

So the entrence itself was pretty dodgy, just one small little manhole, and a 5 meters ladder… Down you came straight into the old catacombs, where some artists put up a variety of light– and sound installations.

Unfortunately, the party was canceled on the night itself when suddenly some police men showed up and bascially forbade the whole thing for a number of reasons. It was great to have a look around anyways, and I also got to take some nice night shots…

I became a professional fisherman, but discovered that I couldn‘t live on my net income.

I would never have thought it, but being at the right time in the right city, I had the opportunity last Friday to see Herbie Hancock live and direct here in Berlin.

Although the tickets were fairly pricy (the cheapest started at 38 EUR), in my book, it was worth every cent. Even if this guy is 66 years old, you couldn‘t tell neither by his looks, the energy he radiated, the humour he showed nor the music itself. (By the way, that’s him on the center of the stage with the guitar like keyboard I forgot the name of).

In a single word: it was as massive. No comparison in quality to anything I‘ve ever heard, when it comes to a jazz combo. Of course, this was also due to the other musicians he played with: Vinnie Coleiuta (a particularily famous drummer), Nathan East (an impressive bassist and singer) and Lionel Loueke (I didn‘t know him, but geez, he was a genious too).

Among the pieces they played were classics like Cantaloupe Island, Watermelon Man or Chameleon as well as more recent songs.

Being good at being stupid doesn‘t count.

Friday last week I went to a big party, the birthday party of one of my brothers (Jan) and two good old friends of his (Michael and Matthias), who all just turned 30…

It was a great party in many terms. Nice (finger) food ;-) Nice ladies, loads and loads of dancing (I was all sore the next day, and that rarely happens), so thanks for organising it, guys! Also, this was a great opportunity to only see a lot of people from old times (you always know your brothers‘ friends fairly well too, and I haven‘t seen most of them for a good decade!) and my family again.

As a surprise (even I didn‘t know of it!) my dad drove all the way up from Stuttgart (on the other end of Germany) and my other Brother (Daniel) was there too. I eventually managed to convince my brothers into a little photo with the three of us together, which I like a lot (and it’s the first of its kind in a about a decade too!).

Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 8 9!

Since Wednesday this week, I‘ve officially started working here at the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin, in the „Institut für Energie– und Automatisierungstechnik“ or more precisely in the „Fachgebiet Regelungssysteme“ that is Prof. Jörg Raisch’s group.

Right now I‘m still in the process of filling my empty office (pictures soon…), getting to know people, and generally just getting set up. As well as reading. And heaps of it…

In a way it’s weird, I‘ve really finished my uni degree now… I‘ve graduated, I‘ve got some title to officially put in front of my name (that’s „Dipl.–Ing.“). Kind of exciting. Also, my name is already featured on the name table just next to the elevator (see last line in the picture).

Guess that makes it official…

Once I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn‘t hack it, so they gave me the axe.