Random thoughts

Wishing You A Very Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Labels: personal

When two men fight for their position in line at the fish stall,
When a truck and a car block each other at the car park and both drivers furiously refuse to back up,
When all the Briochekipferl are sold out as if everyone was going to have a Verhülltes Bauernmädchen for dessert this year,
Then it must be the most peaceful time of the year.



We wish you all the best for the holidays.

Frohe Weihnachten!
Merry Christmas!
Veselé Vianoce!
Joyeux Noël!
Feliz Natal!
کریسمس مبارک
圣诞节快乐!

Labels: personal

When I embarked upon studying law in September last year, little did I know what to expect. How easily would I get back into learning? Which subjects would I find interesting? How much time would I be able to devote to studying besides job, family and teaching?

One year later I have answers to most of my questions. Getting back into the learning routine wasn’t too hard. The work commute has provided an excellent opportunity for reading text books (although they look somewhat shabby after a few round trips in the backpack). Watching the video streams in the narrow period during which they are made available turned out to be the biggest challenge, with soon-to-expire lectures piling up towards weekends and more than once requiring the family’s understanding and support.

One year later I am happy to report that things have been going well. I took most of the exams offered and passed with reasonable grades, and will soon have completed the first section of the program.

This week I attend the second lecture block at the Institut für Multimediale Linzer Rechtsstudien in Linz to learn about the courses offered in the upcoming years, to pick up more books and DVDs with recorded lectures, and to meet with other students.

Will this change what I do professionally? That question I haven’t answered yet, but it’s quite possible that one day it will. After I finish my courses, that is.

Labels: education, jku, personal

We wish everyone a Happy New Year 2010!

As we started the new year, we watched not only the fireworks but also the “blue moon”, as the rare occurrence of two full moons in one month is called. albeit incorrectly as Mayo noted. The next time we will see this astronomical phenomenon on a New Year's Eve will be in 2028. Unfortunately the weather conditions weren't too good, lots of clouds throughout the day and now dense fog.

2009 in retrospect

In January, organizational changes and painful staff reductions at work marked an unfortunate start of the year 2009. On a more positive note, the painter was almost done with the house, and we had a surprise party to celebrate Andrea’s birthday–the first in a series of round birthdays amongst friends and family–with rented tables and chairs in an otherwise empty house. With the beginning of the spring term, I also resumed teaching at Webster University in Vienna with courses in Web animation (yes, that’s mostly Flash development) and Web design principles.

February and March were mostly filled with going to furniture stores, chasing Kika to deliver the missing kitchen cupboard (and annoying everyone with frequent updates on the incorrect delivery, partial delivery, non-delivery) and running errands around the house.

On April 2 and 4. we moved to the new house with great help from Christian, Michael and Rainer. We were exhausted after hauling boxes and furniture. There was plenty of stuff left in the old apartments waiting to be moved in the months to come, and we were missing some furniture (did I mention a kitchen cupboard?) but immediately enjoyed living in our new home.

In May, Elias and Daniel welcomed their new cousin and gently put their arms around the newborn baby, very cute.

Our first real holiday trip with the kids in July started with a damaged engine and the desparate search for a replacement vehicle. Other than the rough start, we had a good time, enjoyed Italian cuisine, the sea and the nice sand beaches in Lido di Jesolo.

In August, Andrea and the kids spent some time with the grandparents in Salzburg, so I had the house to myself, which meant more visits to the hardware store and eventually getting all shelves in the basement properly secured.

With a week-long block course at the picturesque Burg Schlaining I started my legal studies at the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz in September. The degree program is suitable for distance learning and will take at least four years.

After a busy fourth quarter we were looking forward to the holiday season. This year for the first time we celebrated Christmas at our place instead of visiting family. Our plan was that Elias and Daniel would attend church in the afternoon with the grandparents while we decorated the tree on Christmas Eve; they were both so exhausted from the excitement about the holidays that they fell asleep instead. Judging from the expressions on their faces when they saw the tree, we did a good job :-)

Labels: personal

Over twenty years after coming to Vienna to study computer science, I felt like going back to university and enrolled in a master's degree program in legal studies offered by the Institut für Multimediale Linzer Rechtsstudien at the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz.

The program started in early September with one week of lectures at the Burg Schlaining conference center. Besides getting an introduction into the concepts of law, registering and picking up the text books and DVDs, we had sufficient time for socializing and getting to know fellow students. On the first evening, the major invited to a reception at the town hall. I appreciated the warm welcome and thoroughly enjoyed the week, learning something new in the relaxed atmosphere of scenic Stadtschlaining and meeting nice people.

Having spent a good portion of my study period with checking bulletin boards distributed throughout the campus for announcements and organizing the study—the Web had not been invented—I was positively impressed how well things were organized here. The lectures and practice sessions are available on DVDs or as video streams, and textbooks are available for all courses, eliminating the need to take illegible notes.

What's nice about the program is the flexibility where and when you study. Of course that flexibility comes with the risk of procrastination, so feel free to ask me about my progress from time to time (read: no more than once a quarter!) as a gentle reminder.

Will I become a lawyer some day? Probably not. I haven't given much thought to how a law degree might change my career plans. Either way, it will be worth it to me.

Labels: education, jku, personal

No, we didn't get the distances wrong. Granted, Wiener Neustadt is about 60 km from Vienna whereas the distance to Jesolo is 600 km.

We left home in the dusk on July 1 with our van fully loaded, expecting to reach our vacation destination Jesolo by noon. Shortly after we had passed Wiener Neustadt, we noticed strange sounds under the hood, and the engine temperature started to rise quickly. “Stop engine. Oil pressure low.” destroyed our hope to reach at least a service station.

The towing service arrived promptly, we squeezed two child seats and ourselves into the tow truck and still hoped for a quick repair. The mechanic who first inspected our car suspected a more serious problem, and an hour later we had the sad certainty: our VW Sharan had suffered from a broken connecting rod and subsequent damage to the engine at less than 7000 km, “a manufacturing defect”. We would certainly not continue our journey with this car.

We weren't ready to give up, though. After all we had made travel arrangements, and the kids were excited about our first vacation trip abroad. Volkswagen offers a Mobility Guarantee, which sounds like you would retain your mobility when your car breaks down. It includes free roadside assistance and towing, which was indeed helpful, and a replacement vehicle of Volkswagen's choice for three days. Subject to availability, that is. Three days wouldn't helped much anyway but the rental car partner mentioned they had no large vans available for the rest of the year (mind you, this was on July 1!) and actually had no cars available at all, not even for an hour to drive to the airport to pick up another car. As good as the mobility guarantee sounds, it was pretty useless when we needed it.

It's summer time and most car rental companies were short on cars. In the end we managed to arrange for a reasonable large Opel Zaphira with the help of a wonderful agent at weekrent.com and I took the train back to Vienna to get the car. Meanwhile Andrea stayed at the dealership with two tired kids, not a good way to start a holiday.

We left Wiener Neustadt in the afternoon and arrived in Jesolo late at night, tired but glad that we made it after all.

Labels: personal, travel

We are pleased to announce that we finally moved. Our new address: Buchbindergasse 6, A-1130 Wien.




The move went well and almost according to schedule.

We started packing on Tuesday, slowly filling a corner of my apartment with moving boxes. Christian had volunteered to help on Thursday, so we spent most of the day hauling some 30 boxes down three floors from the apartment, stuffing them into the van, driving to the house and unpacking stuff there so we could later reuse the boxes.



After three tours back and forth, wir hatten fertig.

Friday night was the time for the next round of packing boxes, and again we filled the storage space quickly. Amongst the packed stuff were some treasures that had long been lost, including two small booklets which were hidden under a pile of photographs, and a set of wedding pictures which mysteriously showed up behind a teapot!

Saturday was really the big moving day, with more boxes as well as furniture and other heavy stuff. Fortunately we had even more helping hands, and with a convoy of a rental transporter and two additional cars managed to move “everything” in just three more tours.



A big thank you to Christian, Michael and Rainer; you guys were absolutely terrific, and we would have never managed to move in two days without your great help.

We will spend the next few weeks organizing the new home and moving the remaining, less needed stuff that we left in the apartments. The house is currently filled with boxes waiting to be unpacked and things look slightly messy. Nevertheless we enjoyed the first night in our new home, and Elias tiptoeing over to our bedroom and giving us a gentle wakeup the next morning.

Lastly, we had our DSL line installed today; now if only I could find all the cables in one of the boxes…

Labels: home, personal

We have finally settled on the moving dates to our new home: April 2 and 4. We plan to move a good portion of the boxes by car on the first day, and get a transporter to move the larger furniture, the remaining boxes, and other stuff on the second day. That leaves one day in between to recover from hauling boxes and furniture down three floors from our apartments, and then up one or two floors in the house.

Help needed!
We greatly appreciate any help you can give us with the move, including packing and unpacking, disassembling and reassembling furniture, moving stuff around, and last but not least looking after the kids (that is, feeding Daniel during the day as needed and keeping an eye on Elias when he returns from kindergarten, or taking him to the nearby playground, weather permitting). Hints and tools for moving are also welcome.

Please kindly let us know if you can help us with the move. Food and drinks will be provided at the house.

(Last updated March 31, 2009)

Labels: events, home, personal

After cleaning my office chair from milk, the results of Daniel's inverse peristalsis, I wasn't planning to clean the keyboard next. That was before I poured a glass of naturally cloudy apple juice over it. From a quick glance the keyboard looks alright; the keys popped out quite easily, albeit with a crackling sound, and the electronics stayed dray, or so I hope.

I will remind myself that food and typing don't go well together and enjoy the comfort of a clean keyboard for a while before falling back to my bad habits :-)

PS. Speaking of milk, on Saturday night we went to the cinema to see Gus Van Sant's beautiful and highly acclaimed movie Milk on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, portrayed by Sean Penn, who just received an academy award for his performance this weekend.

Labels: daniel, home, personal

We had this winter's first snow today in Vienna (not counting the few snowflakes back in December). Fortunately temperatures are up again after a rather chilly week, and that was not just because Russian gas stopped reaching Europe.

Labels: personal

Wish you Happy and Prosperous New Year 2009!

We returned to Vienna tonight from our family tour to Salzburg, Munich, Dornbirn and Salzburg again.

It was good to see our families again, including the first meeting of little Daniel with his great grandmothers. At the same time it feels like we spent most the last 10 days driving (or, getting stuck in traffic jams), so we are glad to be home.

Labels: daniel, personal, travel

Festivus, Kwanza, Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, whatever you celebrate at this time of year: Happy holidays and all the best for the new year!

PS. Daniel wasn't unhappy at all with the hat, except of course when we shot the picture.

Labels: personal

Matt Cutts' blog post today—I’ll try to write something soon, but it’s been busy for the last few days—painfully reminded me that I had a few half-finished blog entries waiting to be completed and published. It’s actually been busy for the last few months, so expect some ancient posts to finally appear over the holidays.

Labels: personal

Guys like to talk about cars. Ever so often when travelling and meeting colleagues abroad, I would get asked what car I drive, and then the conversation shifted to quality of life and how great living in city where public transport actually works would be. For more than twenty years, the network of buses, trams and the underground served us well and still does.

“So you don't drive?” would often be the next question. I do drive, and have accumulated thousands of kilometres on the road on business and holiday trips, with more than 70 car rentals over the years. I also signed up for car sharing a few years ago and enjoyed the convenience of having access to a wide range of vehicles within walking distance from my home.

In 1993 I rented my first car in Vienna for the relocation from the dorm to my apartment. Moving the few belongings back then took multiple trips, and we spent all day moving boxes.

Most of my initial driving experience, oddly enough, was on the left side of the road. While consolidating our European Web hosting infrastructure in North Harbour, I travelled to the UK frequently. The first time I was scared to death, but driving on the left side turned out to be less challenging than I had expected, with the notable exception of multilane roundabouts which I still find tricky. Only once on a business trip to Mulhaddart near Dublin I got onto the wrong side of the road after exiting a petrol station. Fortunately traffic was low and I realized the mistake and changed lanes when I saw a car approaching on “my” lane.

Driving in Australia in 1998 added another challenge: Driving on the left side of the road was easy, I had enough practice with that, but Australian cars also have the controls for wipers and indicators exchanged. I don't want to know how many times I switched the wipers on when making a turn, on a perfectly sunny day.

Did I mention guys care about cars? In August 1999, when the weather forecast for the UK left little hope for clear sight of the total solar eclipse, our friend and hobby astronomer Gurbir Singh decided to abandon the camping ground in the UK and instead take a flight to Austria. Now we had a reason to get serious about eclipse watching! We agreed to meet in Pinkafeld, I bought a tele lens for my camera and a tripod, made reservations at the high school dorm, and ordered a car from Hertz.

Fortunately their reservation system didn't check for availability. When I arrived at the counter a slightly grouchy clerk told me they had to pick up the car from another location first but they would have a car for me shortly. The side effect was that we got a free upgrade. Gurbir liked the car too and acknowledged that working at IBM seemed to pay off if we could afford the latest Volvo model. I think that he was mildly shocked when I mentioned we had rented and didn't actually own a car.

We had a great day in Pinkafeld, finding a good watching spot, (not) learning to juggle, waiting for the wonder of nature. The eclipse was fascinating; everything seemed so calm and peaceful, even the birds turned silent.

On our tour through the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, in 2002 something was wrong with our car's theft control, and the car would often refuse to start immediately and require a few tries. No big deal, only once when we were waiting in a long line to board a ferry and the car wouldn't start it was slightly embarrassing. Towards the end of our trip, our vehicle was clamped by the police on Neringa for stopping briefly next to the tourist office(!) Too bad I forgot to take a picture of my first and last clamping so far.

It was on our honeymoon trip to Mauritius in 2005 where we got the smallest car ever, which was fine for day trips without luggage and quite convenient on the narrow roads. We also learned the art of bargaining with car rental staff there. On the first rental, we paid the quoted price minus a “special discount”. The next day, we claimed our customer loyalty bonus and got another discount. On the third rental we appealed to the renter's slogan “We try harder” for an even better deal. The savings weren't substantial, but the bargaining was fun. Of course, for less than the cost of the car alone we could have hired a taxi driver to take us around all day long, but we preferred touring the island on our own.

Fast forward to 2008.

This morning I picked up our new car from the dealer. Our first car. From our renting experiences we pretty much knew what we wanted, a large van, removable extra seats, and reasonable fuel efficiency. We had rented a Seat Alhambra last summer for our trip to Vorarlberg and had been pleased with the vehicle. Our choice fell to the comparable Volkswagen Sharan in the BlueMotion version, which has improved fuel efficiency—6 l/100 km, or 39.2 mpg (US)—and reduced emissions.



What happened to the couple that happily lived for many years without owning a car? Getting suitable cars had become increasingly difficult, especially around public holidays. Car sizes vary, and ordering a full-size wagon doesn't guarantee you can easily accommodate all passengers and luggage; we once even had to uninvite a friend who was planning to hitch a ride with us. More than once the clerk at the rental company was trying to please me with an upgrade to a luxury car and was disappointed when I only cared about the size of the trunk. No matter how nice a Mercedes E class may be (and it has a fairly big trunk), when it comes to fitting two child seats, two strollers and a few suitcases, there's nothing like a van.

Also we will soon move to a residential area with more distant grocery stores, less frequent public transport connections, and no car sharing station nearby. While I plan to use public transport often still, the car will be convenient for occasional tours to the shopping mall, picking up construction material and furniture, and the like.

So next time someone asks me the question, I will have a different answer.

Labels: home, personal, travel

Almost two months ago I had mentioned that we were planning to buy a house and had made an offer. The negotiations and the paperwork took a while. We finally agreed on the deal and signed the contract earlier this month, and received the keys yesterday.

Elias was very excited as he moved around the house (he had slept through the two times we had seen the place before) and seems to like it. He quickly made friends with the two children next door, too.

The house was completely renovated not too long ago, so only minor adaptations are required. We plan to furnish the house within a month or two and move in by autumn.

Needless to say that we are very excited and happy about this and looking forward to our new home.

Labels: home, personal

Alright, I do have a reputation for putting Websites to the test, but they seem to break even if when I just innocently try to use them:




I guess this was the perfect greeting card for me, better then the cute dog blowing up a birthday cake which was supposed to show :-)

Labels: fun, personal

It is almost a week now that the whole family has been back home, and we are slowly getting into a routine of handling two boys.

After a few days at the AKH Wien, Daniel was transfered back to the birth clinic on Thursday, and we returned home on the weekend.



Daniel is doing great; he mostly sleeps through the day and becomes more demanding at night (so please don't ask if we get much sleep!)

We greatly appreciate all the help we received from friends and family, a big thank you to Helga and Thomas who took care of Elias at 5 a.m. as we went to the clinic, Simone and Michael for having Elias over the weekend and my in-laws for looking after Elias while we were away.

Thanks also for all the kind wishes and greeting cards!

Labels: daniel, personal

Our hearts are full of love for Daniel Nikolas. Our boy arrived on Saturday, June 7 2008 at 5:26 a.m., slightly earlier than expected.

Little Daniel is currently at the AKH Wien for medical observation. The whole family is doing well, and Elias is excited about the arrival of "baby Daniel, baby Daniel, baby Daniel". More later, now back to the hospital.

Labels: daniel, personal

The EURO 2008 will start tomorrow night with the opening matches in Basel and Geneva, followed by matches in Vienna and Klagenfurt on Sunday, not that I am interested in soccer or suddenly became overly patriotic (which probably wouldn't be a good idea based on what I read about our soccer team :-))

The only reason I care really is that our apartments are close to one of the venues, the Ernst Happel stadium, and we expect to see and hear crowds of fans passing by.

One of the positive side effects of the event was an improvement to the already excellent public transport system. The U2 metro line was extended to the stadium and will be extended further in the coming years. The upcoming event certainly added a little pressure to complete the extension on time.

The most notable change, however, has been the plethora of cars decorated with national flags, mostly Austrian, some foreign, and a few mixed. Signs to the stadium and the fan zone in the city center have popped up everywhere over the last few days, all kinds of merchandise are offered (anyone care for a football shaped loaf of EURO 2008 bread?), additional waste bins have been installed, and even the sausage stand around the corner looks much more colorful and inviting than usual.

We had actually planned to leave Vienna for the duration of the event and go on vacation but had to change our plans, more on that later. Let's hope for some exciting matches to please the fans and most importantly for a peaceful event.

To probe further: Official UEFA EURO 2008 Website

Labels: austria, home, personal

After many years of searching, we may have finally found a new home. It is a detached house in residential area of the 13th district of Vienna, not as close to the city as we currently live but still acceptable. Supermarkets, a playground and tram and bus stops are all within easy walking distance, too.

We did view the house twice and made an offer last week. The owner has accepted in principle, so now we need to work out the contract details. We are very excited about this and will post details and pictures as soon as we close the deal.

Labels: home, personal