Dawn Patrol

Haley and I got up at 5 am this morning, picked up her little brother and went to Dawn Patrol at the Reno Balloon Races. It was really amazing. I wanted to go for years but of course could never get out of bed on time. At 6 am the first five balloons went up and as it was still pitch dark the balloons light up really nice as they go up. At 7 am there was a mass ascension with over 90 balloons, it was an amazing sight. Click here to see more balloons.

ow my god.........

Holy shit what is this all about??? I want those 1:34 minutes of my life back!

accessories I won't be getting for my truck

Truck balls its CRAZY!!!....well at least you could compliment someone with: "sir your truck seems to be well equipped!" ;-)

new car

Car dealers are facing tough times.....especially when I try to buy a car from them. After sturdy negotiations for 3 hours and walking away twice and having at least seven car salesman involved (i made a joke that i should get a $500 discount for every person involved) I finally bought a new (second hand) car today. No details on the price but lets say I was able to get $3000 more for my trade in than they initially offered and I was able to haggle about $6600 off the price they were asking. One of the salesman actually told me after the deal that they were making a loss on the car selling it to me... which is understandable as the car had been on their lot for more than 6 months ;-) Don't know if it is true but I'm happy with the car. It's a 4x4 truck with still decent gal mileage (24mpg hway, which is even better than my saab). It is really the most expensive thing I bought. Nevertheless no more transporting my kites in my saab. No more having to hitch rides to Alpine meadows as my saab can't drive in the snow (I got a season pass this year). Haley and I can take our bikes to lake tahoe and we can go camping in Yosemite now. My mum can come over next year for springbreak and we won't have to rent a car ;-)

the joy to be a train machinist

Amazing Video: the true face of Da Vinci

Seinfeld promoting Vista

During the nine-year television run of "Seinfeld", Jerry's computer was always a Mac. Now Microsoft hired him to promoting Vista! I loved Jerry because he was a mac and saab guy like myself!  whats next? he's going to promote Hummers? It does make sense though: a nineties star for a nineties operating system.

airjack

This device called an airjack claims to be safer than a regular jack. You inflate it with the exhaust. I wonder if you die of carbon monoxide poisoning when you deflate the balloon. 

Olympics opening ceremony

Did not see it on tv but the photos are amazing! 

don't use a translator

If you don't understand English, don't use an online translator to translate the name of your store to be put on a sign ;-)

de volharding

"De Volharding" was one of my favorite buildings in the town of Balk where I was born. It used to be an old warehouse -part of a cow feed plant- and the storage facility was later used by a ship yard, but it closed down early nineties. I went on a boat trip with my dad yesterday and we cruised by it only to discover that it had been torn down. I love old industrial architectures and I'm sad the local government decided to demolish it. There were plans to turn it into luxury condominiums but the financing fell through. You could do some really nice things with this building such as penthouses or office space but apparently the ground which is was built on was polluted to such an extent that it became to costly for any development. This building was very characteristic for the view on Balk and it will surely be missed. 

the running of the bulls

So you take the running of the bulls in pamplona and replace the bulls with bat wielding roller girls and elvis impersonators on scooters! seems fun no?

logic gates out of domino bricks

I'm affraid this post will only make sense to a few people. This cool video made by software engineer Neil Fraser shows that you can build logic gates (AND/ OR/ XOR) out of domino bricks. Its kind of hard to see how he builds the AND and I don't know how he does the negation to build the XOR out of and OR & AND.

goodbye terrorizing dogs

sleep deprived

Ugh. last night was the worst night of my life. Around 4.30 AM we heard lots of shouting in my street and a massive fight was taken place. Cops came and arrested some people. At 5AM my new neighbor decided to play some loud rap music. Despite banging on the wall, on his door and shouting the music did not stop. I thought about calling the cops but Haley and I decided to go over to her place. Bailey her cat started miauwing and jumping on the bed until 6 am till I fed him. Haley's indian roommate -who's operating some sort of call center - walking on the stairs till 8 am till Haley went out of bed asking him to shut up. Dogs barking kept me up until 9 am. I'm fed up with all the noise downtown so I will cancel my lease. Haley and I looked at a nice place on Palisades drive, in a very quiet neighbourhood. A two bedroom house which is very nice which one of my colleagues rents out. We'll probably kick the indian roommate out of Haley's house and find two quiet roommates so the other renters get some sleep as well.

art exhibit

Haley and I went to the coast this weekend to escape the thick smoke blowing that has covered reno for the past weeks which is a result from all the forest fires in north california. After a tip from a super friendly guy who sold "the best chai tea you've ever tasted" at a truck stop on the I-16, we ended up at the Ocean cove campsite about 10 miles north of Jenner. This was an okayish campsite - it was quite loud- but probably the only site we could go to as we did not make any reservations. We spend our weekend doing little hikes and walking & chilling out on the beach. It was actually quite hard to find beaches as mostly there were steep cliffs with weird rock formations. We found a little beach something called black point beach and chilled out on the beach. Haley with a sudoku I with the Kerouac's classic On the Road. We tried to fly my kite but there was not enough wind. After a few hours I was quite bored so I proposed to create an art exhibit using stuff we could find on the beach. We both set out. I made the word "ARM" spelled with crab arms. Haley topped this with a really exquisite exhibit of various beach found treasures displayed on a wall where water was flowing down which created a really nice effect as treasures left for dead by the sea found new life given by this water ....... allright i'm ranting but she did a really great job! I could only counter her efforts by saying that my exhibit was inspired by oppressed women in Tanzania. I could not answer how that related to crab arms but nevertheless it was a great weekend: more photos here

helmet

I don't have any wheels (yet) but this helmet is ubercool.

handsfree baby!

short hair

With average temperatures of 90F (32C) biking around reno with long hair is too sweaty for me. I found out that my rockabilly hairdresser Tom committed suicide last month. Rest in Peace Tom, I'm gonna miss our David Hasselhoff conversations.

European Championship Soccer

I was able to watch both semi finals during my lunchbreak in my office with some colleague professors. The final I will watch in the Sierra taphouse since I don't have internet nor cable in my home. Go SPAIN!!!