2009-01-22 Back in Hamburg... Since a while Hey ho. Yes, I'm back in Hamburg since quiet a while (Dec 1). America was great. Much work, much work-out, and some very intense holidays in the end of the trip (Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York). Now, I'm living with my parents. Some might think that this might be boring. But I can really enjoy it. After many adventures (including my first talk on a conference and the wild adventurous vactions with Sven and Niels in SLC and NYC) I have longed after some recreation and some quiet everyday life. So, everything's just fine. AND: in February I'll move to good friend who lives in Altona. I'll be staying with him and his girl-friend from February to March. Apart from that all nothing's really up. Going out with friends. Walking our sweet doggie. Working. Gym. On Saturday I went to the seaside -- together with Frank and Nele. That was a great day: relax to the max. Just walking on the beach and having a good North-German-style "Erbsensuppe" (pie soup; though it's more like a stew) at the end of our walk. So far. I hope I can, next time, write some more exciting things. Take care. 2008-10-04 Good music in great clubs in an awesome city I want to promote some friends who regularly play music in different bars in Hamburg -- Christian, aka Gierfisch, and Christian, aka Der Captain, both running the famous Mind the Gap Fanzine together. They would always play a fine collection of punk, punk rock, and some hardcore. So, here are the next dates and venues, you can meet those 2: Wednesday, Oct 8, King Calavera - Gierfisch and Der Captain Saturday, Oct 18, Bad Taste Club - - Gierfisch and Der Captain Wednesday, Oct 29, Cobrabar - Gierfisch and tba Saturday, Nov 11, King Calavera - Gierfisch and Der Captain Wednesday, Nov 12, King Calavera - Gierfisch and Der Captain Saturday, Nov 15, Bad Taste Club - Gierfisch and tba Have fun. 2008-10-04 Tag der deutschen Einheit! Who gives a shit anyway, you could ask. But, I do want to remember here, that it's acutally a great day. I find, it was a very important (probably the most important post-WWII) event in Germany from a political point of view. One state was torn apart between two frontiers and, partly by lucky occasion, partly induced by its own permanent willing and ambitions through all the years when the one state was divided into two, those two states were re-united eventually. In 1990, two pieces were glued together because they had simply belonged together before. However, I want to clearify that, as this day is a national celebration day such as the Day of Independance in the States, I am not patriotic in the American sense. But, as I start reflecting on the meaning of the day and on what this day, this event has given me (this is, good new friends in Dresden and Weimar, nice holidays on Ruegen and Dresden and a united Berlin, many interesting conversations with workers and tourists from the new German federal states that stayed at the hotel of my parents), I have to greatly acknowledge those who made the re-unification turn real and admit that the day is not only important from a political point of view to me, but also from my personal perspective and from my live as such. I did gain much out of it and I would like, against common voices that very often diminsh the importance and the good of the re-unification, to say here: IT'S A GREAT DAY AND I DON'T REGRET IT TO HAVE HAPPENED! Therefore, cheers to Maggi and Anne, Karsten, Conrad, Herr Kuehn, as well as all the others from the beautiful East part of our country who I have met. 2008-09-30 Withered old man... ...is how I feel. I played squash with a friend yesterday. Only an hour. But today I feel dead. It's depressing to realize that you got old and have bad muscle ache because of only 1 hour of sports. That's why the picture of a "withered old man" came into my mind. Just Went Black -- one of my favourite hardcore bands [because they are from Hamburg of course :) ] have a song called that way. It's an awesome song from their most recent record. After they had released it, I went to a gig in Hamburg and bought this brilliant T-shirt... With a withered old man on the front. I loved it right away! [Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that shirt. And JWB don't have it on their website either]. The funny thing is, that, when I have worn it so far here in Berkeley, there would always come people up to me and say "Wow, that's a great shirt" or "I like the t-shirt" or "Bizarre t-shirt" (which I'd take as a compliment). That's really interesting. Anyway, this doesn't help me in the current situation... Ouch, my muscles... Ahhh... *CRAWLING AWAY* 2008-09-30, 1:30 pm: Of course, ... ... Bayern recovered. 1:1 is also the final score... Dammit! 2008-09-30, around noon: Allez OL! It's noon in Berkeley. Back in Europe, it's 9 pm. It's a Champions League Tuesday, as I've just observed. And, Olympique Lyon is guest in the Allianz Arena in Muinich (plays, hence, vs Bayern Munich). Guess who has just scored. Right, Olympique. Hahaha, stupid Demichelis kicked the ball in his own goal. What a pleasure to me :) Let's see, how this match will end. I'm exited!!! Later. 2008-09-25: Another piece of Hamburg that I've found... Well, actually it's not a piece, but a person. My colleague Niels, from my institute in Hamburg, has arrived. That's great. Now, I have two buddies (with Conrad, the guy from Weimar), who I can chase girls with. Or, rather enjoy all the fabulous eye-candies at the UC :D Apart from that, there isn't much happening at the moment. It's pretty much the following loop: DO WHILE(.true.)  CALL wake_up  CALL cornflakes  CALL walk_to_work  CALL work  CALL go_to_lunch ! which is one of the high-lights every day  CALL work  IF(time==.true.) THEN   CALL work_out  END IF  CALL work  CALL walk_home  IF(not_to_tired==.true.) THEN   CALL read  END IF  CALL sleep_and_reset_values END DO People here function very well. And, you'll fit in pretty soon. But it's not bad. Honestly, I enjoy it to focus on the work and do some work-out regularly. Although I must say that, getting aware of the fact that people function here, makes me a bit suspicious. Maybe they have hidden microphones that constantly suggest you to work and live healthy / doing much work-out... I don't know. Am too tired to think...... Zzzzzzzzzz.......... 2008-09-24: Small town riot rules! I have accidently found a new video by STR on youtube. Wow, great job Timo (well, I guess that is was you who stands behind the video, right?). I liked the video to Timmy very much, I loved the video to Cheers and Goodbye, but Madness is my new favourite! Melancholy at its best... BTW, there is a fourth video (to the song Addicted to Authorities). Good night. 2008-09-15: The pictures from the weekend with Svenni online. Go Cheers. 2008-09-11: This and that -- but only shortly. Since Monday I work and the sweet holidays are over :( On the other hand, Sven and I had a great great time together. And, as Sven said to me "There will be 3 more adventures; I come back to Berkley in October, you come to Salt Lake City (also in October), and we go to N.Y.C. in November". And the very knowledge of this makes me immediately happy and work goes by its own... Dammit, I still have no notebook. Need to purchase it on the weekend. BTW weekend, hopefully I'll move out of the glorious "Nash Hotel" where I already have a very attached friendship to the little roaches in my room. They are so ... so ... damn fucking ugly. Fortunately, they are not large. Not large YET......... But back to the story. I found an appartment/house where 2 women live together. And, they are looking for 2 new house-mates. Sounds great. They are quiet my age also so that the atmosphere will be relaxed and good. They seem to put much afford in living a healthy live (good damn am I happy to have quit smoking recently...) which can be cool. But this can also be very annoying. So let's see tomorrow when I meet them up. It ll be interesting. So, now it's "late" (8 pm) and I'll go to the "Triple Rock". Yes, to all of you NoFX fans; in Berkeley, there is a brewery called "Triple Rock" and, although NoFX come originially from LA, they are based in San Fran now (and rightly so). I wonder, whether they have seen double at this Triple Rock in Berkley... Anyhow, I will tonight :D Cheers. PS: Today is 9/11. But I have not recognized any special commemoration. Hmmm, let's see. Now, that I think of it, maybe the Triple Rock won't be as crowded as last Thursday because of "some" reason... 2008-09-03: Kalifornia -- ueber alles! Here we go. I have arrived safely in Berkeley. It's actually 3 days ago. And, so much hasn't happened yet. Well, I had been to San Fran on Monday for a couple of hours. Went down Embarcadero (at the waterfront) and then 4th Street to Market street. Been in the Virgin MegaStort on Market Street and went down Market Street toward "The Castro" -- a pretty nice/hip district. So, most of the time I have spent in Berkeley. But tomorrow Svenni will come from Salt Lake City and we'll have a great time. Doing sightseeing and partying with a good friend is way better than doing this on your own, right? In fact, I have felt a bit lonesome. But it's getting better and better. The fact, that the new term has started yesterday and all over the campus there are many new students, makes it much better. There are people everywhere. And, the female persons are pretty, I can say! :D Anyhow, I'll go ahead and buy a new photo camera now. My old one broke and I definitely need a new one to take some pictures in order to show you what I experience here. On Sunday, I will probably write more. So, stay tuned. Cheers. 2007-11-21: Ubuntu and punk rock I'm kinda a fan of Linux. This is, because it's pretty comfortable to work with; in particular, when you do nerdy computational chemistry stuff as work. However, I have always had problems with the installation of any Linux distribution (well, i tried SuSe and Ubuntu so far) on my home PC. In Lyon, I switched over from SuSe to Ubuntu and found it pretty cool and pretty straightforward - the installation as well as the use of this distribution. And here comes the BUT! But it was still way from being perfect from my experiences. I still had to figure out many things that didn't work out as easy as all people said. Well, yes, I used the Breezy Badger which is/was known to be not the best distribution. Now, that the new Ubuntu verison ("Gutsy Gibbon") is available, I decided to try the new dist. And, I have to say it's wonderful. Way better than anything I had before. And I, herewith, just wanna recommend it to anyone who is thinking about trying Ubuntu. The only problem, actually, is (as it was always the case with Linux) codecs for movies and mp3s. , it is described how to install them and that it is easy (as easy as with Windows/Media Player). Following this instruction/my intuition I came to the real problem. This is, there were 2 libraries not available with the standard repositories. , however, you can get them and install them right away (just in case you're planning to install the "Gutsy Gibbon"). Afterwards, the problematic gstreamer-ugly-plugin package will be flawlessly installable and you will be able to watch movies in any f***ing format (avi, mpg, mov, wmv, asf). Cheers and goodbye.. BTW ("Cheers and goodbuye"), a big hell yeah out to Small Town Riot who played last Sunday in the "Hafenklang". Haven't seen you guys on stage since ages (at least 4 years). Great show! Good night! 2007-11-15: Photography Well, my talent for photography is... Well, there is no such talent. I take pictures every now and then. Sure. My favorite places/circumstances are parties, as you will have noticed from inspection of the "pics" section :) However, there are people who really HAVE talent; for example, Fabian. This guy is a friend from good ol' Buxtehude and he has just launched his own photography website, go for convincing yourself that he is way better in taking, well, I should rather say creating photos than me. Take your time and enjoy Fabian's "creations". I say: thumbs up!!! Good night! 2007-11-08: Week I As you can see, I don't do much these days. Working, reading scientific articles, and chilling when I enter the flat. However, I'm looking forward for the first weekend in December when we (Frank, Joern, and I) will go to Berlin and visit good ol' Benny. Until then, however, the motto is still "back to work, back to reality"! 2007-11-01: Day I "Back to work, back to reality" was the motto of Adrien and me, when we, after a smoking break, went back into the CECAM to continue working. And the same motto applies now. Since I haven't had a working contract in October (fuck the authorities and the German bureaucracy), I have just worked semi-focused in October. That is, I took one or two days off per week. But today on November 1st, it's the official start of my PhD and I will work for 3 years under the supervision of my old supervisor from Hamburg. We'll see. Back to work, back to reality! 2007-10-31: Tribute to... I can somewhat proud tell you that I am a published author now. My first scientific article titled "In-Depth Study of the Influence of Host-Framework Flexibility on the Diffusion of Small Gas Molecules in One-Dimensional Zeolitc Pore Systems" was published on Thursday on the web (print version later this year). Okay, okay, it's some nerdy thing. Nonetheless, I'm proud and, as this was only possible, because I have had two great advisors during my Master Thesis - Edith and Sven - I feel deeply attached and grateful to them and I would like to express my appreciation by compiling a small "photo tribute" for/about them. So go to get a clue about the two people I owe so much. Not only from a professional point of view... Cheers 2007-10-28: Thank you,... ...Frankie boy, Huf and Babs, and Joern for all the stuff you have given us for the new flat and for a nice dinner yesterday. some pictures from the Lasagna evening. See ya. 2007-10-16: Finally,... ...a sign of life on this site. It has been a loooong time. Again! I know. Anyway, I am back on the map... I mean back in Hamburg and, therefore, I have had a big house-warming party. I, now, live together with Johan; my buddy from Sthlm. Check out the pictures from that party. Vi syns. 2007-04-12: New pictures... ...from Easter online when I, together with some collegues and cool Greek people, was in a nice parc outside Lyon. Have a look! Take care. 2007-03-20: iMac rules! Adrien and me at work... Well, when we are supposed to work go for the entire session with Adrien, Emilie and me. 2007-03-15: FUCK! It has been long time that I have updated nisses hem. Sorry for that. Yeah Bas, I know! I am a fucking lazy bastard. And even German... Sorry for both. However, c'est parti. Here we go. I uploaded some new photos and also added a new link (DEJA VU -THE(!) band from Lyon. Check out go ). Some more pics will follow. Especially those from Amsterdam have to be included soon. Has been cool to return and see all of you again. But it was way too much beer... Have fun and take care. 2006-11-01: The pics from the party are uploaded... 2006-10-31: Puhhh.... I survived the party on Friday and the whole weekend when Frank was in Lyon. In summary: Too much beer, but very funny! The pics from the party will follow in a couple of days. 2006-10-21: Check "What's up?" 2006-10-20: Uploaded some pictures! Juhu... Finally I managed to upload some pictures. Check 'em out... Ha det bra! Vi syns. 2006-10-15: I start to understand html! After some problems in the beginning, I found a (temporary) layout... I don't know yet when and how I will upload my pics 'cos I don't have internet at home which poses some problems :( Whatever, I'll try my best as soon as possible. So long.... 2006-09-27: YO BITCHES! Just wanna let you know that on this site I will try to upload regularly some pics, and write a bit about the time in Lyon. Furthermore, I intend to upload some photos from Stockholm, Amsterdam, etc. In the next few weeks this (now shity) page will be filled with live. OK! Take care!