tired. had to get a homework assignment done today, as it is due on monday and i want to go boarding on the local mountains all sunday. my ankle is doing ok again (finally!) so it's about time i get to it! anyway, instead of preparing some nice new images for this page (and i still have quite a few to present), i decided to get my projects page up and running. how interesting, is it not? hmmmm. i wonder why not :) but anyone interested in computers and graphics (and i know there are a few of you) can go check it out. i will update the newest projects as soon as they are fit to post. i hope to get some impressive graphics going this term, as last term was only very little graphics related. enough techie bla bla. check it out.

i have to get up in six hours to hit the slopes, so no more new stuff for today. tune back in mid-week to find this (big) page land in the archives, see some new (and some familiar) faces and get the latest on my chill life in canada :) later dudes.

work is done. for today at least. so more on the past days: *much social* is the name of the game. my mondays are turning into weekend-like party nights making tuesdays quite unproductive. and all this after packed weekends. i'll be surprised if i can keep this up throughout the term, but as i am only taking two courses and have finally managed to delegate away most of the game coding, it should be possible. that, and more boarding. my ankle is almost completely healed again, so it's back to the mountains soon!

eddy is starting to press me towards getting on stage at the pub. actually, it isn't even a stage and the crowd is really not intimidating, but i still think we should practice some more. then again, last monday these complete morons played (until they were eventually boo-ed off), we will be much better, even with no practice at all. it's dave's birthday on february 5th, so we're actually planning to play him some songs around midnight. that is if we are still capable of holding guitars around that time. mellow mondays start around 9pm, lots of time for drinks, pool and chatting.

talked to jennifer in toronto today and it seems the canada has switched sides: they're enjoying 10 degrees and sunshine while we vancouverites have about 10cm of snow outside and big flakes coming down. quite unusual for this city. i guess even the local slopes will be a blast this coming week (which gives me this great idea on what i should be doing instead of work :-) still, being a sun-lover, i am really looking forward to summer again. apropos: frank brought a bottle of apfelwein from germany and i got to drink a glass last weekend. instant nostalgia. you guys at home better be prepared: i will have quite a bit of time on my hands this coming summer! (sorry for mentioning that all the time :-)

the others just arrived in the lab and want to get their ass kicked in quake 3. we watched two movies from werner herzog on our indie-film-night last wednesday (weird stuff, i might add) and ever since then, they're hooked on german language. especially dirty stuff (what a surprise). so we will now play on a server eddy lovingly titled the temple of scheisse. cheers.

hello all you regular and not so regular readers out there! i should be working on the game, but the weekend was tough, so my brain isn't fully functionable at this moment. good enough for updating this page though. so in the spirit of the weekend, lets start with some aftermath: i got a letter from the residence advisor regarding my unregistered party last weekend. she actually expects me to meet up with her to discuss this matter. right. i just sent her an email. should be enough. her name is cassandra engel, and we are guessing she is sent directly from heaven to lay her wrath upon us worldy sinners and hedonists! i'm bound to get some minus points for my incredibly evil insubordination, but hey, to quote clerks: insubordination rules! hihi.

the aftermath, part 2: first off, thank you ryan! i would not have posted the following image if you had not allowed me to. so let me clarify and describe what happened: after ryan decided to kill himself with long island ice tea on our last night out in whistler, i tried to get him up in the morning for some fresh air and a ride. after all, it was our last day. it took him about 10 minutes to crawl out of bed and open the hotel room door for me. after that, he immediately passed out again. following travis' advice, i started drumming on ryan with coat hangers. didn't work. i didn't want him to miss the last day on the slopes, as he was leaving for san diego the very next day. so the deal finally was, that if he could get up without getting sick, he'd have to go boarding with me. the poor guy only managed to move a few feet before he dropped down next to his bed and got sick in the trashcan. travis completely lost it, so i had to laugh pretty hard as well (i was surely still intoxicated :-) thats how the picture was taken. all in all, a quite vivid memory. and ryan, i am sure you're laughing now, eh? take care you two. i'll try to see you in summer 2003!

some more from the recent past: here are the long promised pictures from tower beach, where we finally got to see the sun and nature after four long weeks of tour de force studying. it only took about one hour in this setting to forget the weeks of hard work and regenerate all lost energy. that is one of the things that makes this place utterly cool!

i myself was in whistler around new year, but hendrik stayed in town to join adrian, amy, pratchi and some other locals for their new years party. he went for a walk on jericho beach, where we had played volleyball in the summer. the atmosphere must have been quite different and i think he did an excellent job of getting it into some cool pictures, which you can see right here:

one of my new years resolutions was, to get out of campus more often than i had in november and december, so sunday two weeks ago we went to visit the science world in yaletown, close to the vancouver canucks stadium (NHL team). what a relaxed, lazy sunday afternoon! science world was much of a learning by doing museum with all sorts of gadgets and exhibitions, which could be manipulated by the visitors. pretty interesting to be in one of these again after many, many years of studying. the kids there had the most fun of all, as they were playing with everything there was to experiment with. the giant soap bubbles were one of the biggest attractions, as you can see for yourself below.

we're getting our first assignments in the graphics and animation courses tomorrow and i can already feel the workload creeping up on me again. i will most definitely not let it get as stressy as it was last term. but that shouldn't be a problem with only two full-time courses this time around. that'll leave me enough time to indulge in our nice regular events here on campus like mellow-mondays at koerners pub and our indie-movie-night-wednesdays.

time to go home and prepare some food. yes, i finally got in the habit of buying fresh and preparing myself again. questionable though, how long that will last when things start getting tight again. nevertheless, i can't leave without presenting the first prize in last years christmas decoration contest. this you have to see! i spent my first ten years in the US and am used to quite a bit of north american exaggeration, but this was just too hilarious. but see for yourself

good laugh, eh? anyway, hope you all are getting through these wintery days well and still have enough energy to enjoy life to the fullest! well, guess the only person i don't really have to worry about at all in that respect is aussie-loni. she's sailing in the sun right now! cheers to you! i also have been wondering how urte's is doing, now that worklife has sucked her in. hope all is well! markus, oeli, alex, anand, rupert, steffi, john? you all in good shape? i know i am missing people, but i'll be back eventually, and then we can catch up! so you all take care for now and expect some more updates after i've hit the mountains again and got through with the film i still haven't used up. otherwise i could have already posted the pictures from our wild new years party in whistler. dancing on tables and other nice stuff included. story to follow with the pictures. later.

hello world! i am in a splendid mood today. we had a jam-session at my place yesterday and i finally collected my first minus points for having an unregistered party with alcohol. hihi. i wasn't expecting the approximately 30 people that joined in for the fun, so it did get a bit crowded. but man, was it ever fun! paula and leslie (our singing godesses that usually perform every monday at koerners mellow mondays) played some of their repertoire including some sarah mclachlan songs, which send shivers down my spine. the bard of the night though was definitely eddy. he simply didn't stop playing, so even after the rest of the party left around 3.30am we still jammed till 7am. same as last time, i might add. great stuff. i got to sing and play long december (from the counting crows) with paula and street spirit (radiohead) with eddy. worked out really well. after that, i indulged in all the other performances, and my beloved cabernet sauvignon (and a few pale ale's). leslie wouldn't let me get away with it though, so i still added breakfast from k's choice on my own. all in all, some great and very memorable hours. thanks you all!

mariano, one of frank's roommates, is leaving for good on monday, so we will have to celebrate him tonight with some drinks and yet another guitar jam, so i'll be off for now. hendrik got the beach pictures from before christmas off his camera, so i'll have them up here soon, probably next week. they turned out quite nice! but i will not leave you empty handed. so here you see verena and me goofing off at science world last weekend. take care for now.

time for some more whistler clubbing goodness! jennifer just sent me her scans a few days ago and it's about time i get them online. both of them are taken at tommy africans, where we hung out more than once during our stay. let me just mention that ryan surely doesn't remember these pictures being taken anymore as he was already trashed around this time (about midnight, i guess). i just got a mail from him today, allowing me to post the aftermath pictures from the next morning on this site. as soon as he mails them to me that is. thanks for that man! you were suffering like hell, but i'm sure there's a smile on your face when you think about it now :)

mea culpa: jennifer informed me, that i actually had shared her contact lens container with her. that was probably the reason i was short-sighted in that night. that and way too much beer at the pub. but for some reason, being on vacation always prevents me from major hangovers. how convenient :)

too bad that doesn't apply back here. we went to the first open mike at our local pub (koerners pub) last night and it was packed! didn't take long, and what started out as a night at the pub turned into a full blown party. it was even warm enough (+8 degrees celsius) to sit on the benches outside. i am really developing and addiction for okanagan spring pale ale. good stuff! but the pitcher (i'd say about 1.5 liters) costs 12 bucks. that's 18 marks (or 9 *euro*)! this place is killing my budget! got home around 2.30am and talked on the phone with kalli and markus for another hour or so. no headache this morning at 11am, but i didn't really wake up all day, yet. not likely to happen anymore either. so time to go home and chill out. g'night.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

and one more late thing: i missed another good friends birthday. i am an expert at that (everyone who knows me will second that opinion). so happy *late* birthday markus! as far as i recall you never really cherished that day very much, but i would have loved to be there for a drink with you. just wait till i'm back!

other stuff: i am getting much better at snowboarding and it is tremendous fun! too bad i had to twist my ankle on the last day. had a doctors appointment today and luckily it is only sprained. two to four weeks of rest. damn. but better than a cast. eddy is going to the resort big white this weekend. needless to say that i would love to join him. soon the slopes will see me again. i'm hooked!

this second week in whistler was mostly made up of me mutilating my body: almost busted my hand on the first day. thereafter, i whiplashed my neck while trying to protect my head during a crash (i smacked it on the ice anyway). result: stiff neck for two days. getting better at boarding means getting (much) faster and producing more spectacular crashes (at least for me :) the ankle twist occurred on new years eve, so i could get rid of the initial pain by indulging in our whistler-lodge-new-years-party. we all got back from the slopes pretty early that day, so the party started way too early as well. many beers, some red wine, a few spiced rum shots and a feuerzangenbowle later, we had a hard time making it till midnight. eric, a guy from sweden, actually had to be pulled out of his bed to take part in the festivities around midnight. i simply burnt my hand on the fireplace trying to open it on the very hot part of the door. dumb. the fourth injury in four days. but not to worry: all is well again :) i woke up around 10am on the sofa in front of the fireplace. contacts in my eyes, as usual. alex (a crazy and incredibly fun mexican) and eric got up at 7am (!) to go boarding. i couldn't believe it, as i was still more or less comatose. fun party, obviously.

now i've only been back for two days and the second term is already grasping at me again. lectures start tomorrow and i have to hand in some stuff for the videogame by monday. too fast! give me a break! at least it's all interesting stuff, and i had a great holiday break, so it's not all that bad. i also start my research assistantship this coming monday. the topic will be image based rendering including some new methods of 3D model acquisition. remember the cool camera rotation scene from the matrix with neo and the agent on the rooftop? thats about it. my life could be much worse :)

jennifer sent me some more pictures of us in whistler (in bars and nightclubs), i took some new ones this time around (mainly of our new years party) and i am still waiting for hendrik's pictures. i'll soon post all of these, but i have to get up tomorrow at 8.30am (brrr!), so that'll be it for now. more to come. cheers.

ta-daa! the first round of whistler pictures are developed so it's time for an update. ryan, travis, teresa, sarah and i left for whistler early monday morning. not as early as we had originally planned, but early enough for me. too late though to actually hit the slopes (they close at 3pm), so we decided to visit the amsterdam bar instead and build up a little buzz. very relaxing i might add, as it was dumping snow outside. harbinger of good riding days to come.

after dropping off our stuff at the house and getting to know everybody we went back downtown to check out the whistler nightlife. i had originally planned to make it a short night so i'd be in great shape for the slopes the next day. little did i know, that with travis and ryan i had booked into some serious partying, all night, every night. big fun. so we checked out tommy africans where they were throwing a 80's night. we met some other people from my dorm on campus and needless to say that we were all sailing.

the next day started off with ryan and me trying to get travis on a board, but it ended just as unsuccessful as the time josti and i tried to get olaf to ride. this left travis with more time to recover from the nightlife. bad for me. after that, frank, ryan and i tried to get through some nasty weather, which was great for riding conditions but nasty for visibility. fun stuff though.

the night was reserved for the irish pub in the village, the dubh-linn gate. live music. the usual deal in these places. good stuff though. good beer too :) frank and i had our fair share of drinks and decided to skip the late-late stuff. the weather forecast for wednesday was sunny all the way, which i found hard to believe. sun? what's that? i hadn't seen that bright orange dot in weeks. i live in the rainy city, remember? to my (and everyone else) surprise, the forecast was right and we were in for a treat! massive dumps the days before and now: sunshine + no winds = peaks are open and fresh! we decided for whistler mountain that day and the harmony lift area.

neither of us three had extensive experience in this stuff before, but i guess everything starts at some point. and yes, falling in powder is a hefty workout! expecially in lack of a groomed slope nearby. who cares, it was worth it. but we lost ryan. i had told him: 'stay on the groomed slopes, you'll fall in the powder', which he misinterpreted as: 'don't fall'. he fell. it took forever. anyway, after that experience, riding will never be the same. i have never surfed before, but the sensation of riding on fresh powder can't be all that different. hard to describe. but i surely was relieved of all thoughts during the ride. complete relaxation of the mind.

frank left for vancouver later that day. he hopped a plane to germany on saturday to get some face-time with friends and family back home. i still think it was a good idea to stay here for the holidays. travis had been challenging me all day to play pool so that's exactly what we started off doing (after an extensive steak dinner). the longhorn bar was actually the only bar in all of the village with two pool tables. we got there early, so we actually got to play before another team bumped us off the table. the other team then also dropped out so we started drinking with them as they turned out to be great company. craig (canada), a girl from australia (damn name-memory!) and jennifer from toronto. after many pitchers of beer and some games of darts we went for tommy africans once again. good thing we were already doing good, as it was *country night* in the club, including a complimentary cowboy hat at the door. drinks and dance. soon thereafter, craig and the aussie girl got into a fight i didn't catch (and it seemed a bit nasty so needless to recite here), so they left in a cab. jennifer had the keys to their shared apartment so she too had to leave. same direction as i was heading. we ditched the cab at her place and i helped drag craig from the car (where he was sleeping. very cold.) to his bed upstairs.

bright starlit night. heaps of snow. what better thing to do than go for a nice romantic walk? so we did, and we talked, and it was sooo relaxing. and i stayed in their lodge that night. they had two double beds. contacts in my eyes, again. but who needs eyes when they have hands? precious moments...

waking up with disorientation is weird. not that i am not familiar with the phenomenon, but it's different every time around. i wasn't that drunk, so i quickly remembered where i was. we all woke up around 7.30am because they were booked for ski lessons that day at 9.30am. one hit on the alarms head and that was over with. more cuddling. way better idea. 8.30am. ok, now we should start getting up.

me: 'hey craig, remember me?' (we had talked for at least an hour the previous night)

craig: 'nope.'

then the fatal mistake: he grabbed for a bottle of liquid on the bedstand, which looked like gatorade. it turned out to be jennifer's cranberry juice. pretty sour. not the thirst quencher necessary when your tongue is about to marry your gums. one scream of disgust later we were all up and stressing. all except for me. i was more of an obstacle in the way. we dated for the night and i was off to my house, with a cab, i had no clue where i was. big smile on my face though.

so i didn't meet up with ryan that morning. turned out he had used the day to do christmas shopping anyway. being alone, i found the time to improve my ride, check out some other parts of blackcomb mountain and get some nice shots in glaring sunshine.

the runs on blackcomb are like that children's puzzle with the head, torso and leg parts. you can mix and match and each run from rendezvous station down to the blackcomb day lodge is different. about six runs later i still hadn't tried half of the possible combinations. and this is only about one fourth of the mountain. and there's two of them, adding to 200+ runs.

thursday was planned as the last night out, as we wanted to hit the road early on saturday. ryan and i had a few misunderstandings throughout the night, which i will not further elaborate on here. but they (and some other shit that happened) led him to get incredibly drunk (i'd say, about as drunk as i got at the kurhaus on new years eve 96/97. i am not kidding). i didn't really get it, so the rest of us (evelyn, teresa, travis and jennifer) were starting to have a good time after the initial roughness. this led us to the savage beagle, where travis introduced me to apple martinis (sounds bad, tastes great!). short stop at tommy africans (yes, we liked that place) and then over to the grand finale at moe joe's. all i can say is: packed! we were amidst the crowd singing american pie and it was fun! jennifer and i actually found some time to talk and get to know each other (as much as possible, given unfair time constraints) and we stayed till closing time. jennifer and i crashed on the living room sofa in my house and we didn't sleep too much.

but we still found some time the next day to have lunch and make plans for a possible meet-again before i jet back to germany in may. i'm checking cheap flights to toronto already. what a great excuse to visit! and thank you very much for some fun and enjoyable memories (i do hope you are reading this).

at this point, my body was starting to resign and the board didn't turn as well as it should have. yes, oeli, i know you told me so :) but it was very much worth it. in the morning (yes, i got up at 8am) i *tried* to get ryan out of bed, but he had been sick all night and it didn't look like it was getting any better soon. after he got up, he just dropped on the floor again, head in the trashcan. not a pretty sight. but he got better that day. his illness was due to a bottle of long island ice tea he had been drinking in between bars. that stuff is nasty (38% alc.)! travis and i went to see lord of the rings that night, as i was definitely not up for more clubbing or bar-hopping after seven consecutive days. but boy, did those days ever relax me. so nice to know, that even after six weeks of crunch-mode it only takes a few days to get a life again!

we left early the next morning and i actually got full seven hours of sleep. luxurious i'd say. i took some shots along the way (to get the camera empty) so here they are. again, sunshine all the way, which is how it has been here in the city as well ever since i got back. how nice!

after i was back i felt utterly empty and exhausted. only took a day though to switch to full rest and relaxation mode. so i went shopping on christmas eve (the lazy mans tradition) and got the film developed (for which i had to take the two following shots).

we had a very nice christmas eve dinner, during which i got to know charlotta's boyfriend, michael. he's currently visiting her till the 14th of january. as a refresher: charlotta is my swedish roommate. michael and i had some pretty interesting discussions and some incredibly distasteful swedish schnapps. cumin. yuck! the 25th turned into a bad taste day :) we had prepared gravard salmon for the meal and i got to see how the sauce (which i to this point in life had always bought) is made as i helped mix it. delicious! a big meal, some schnapps and three bottles of cabernet sauvignon later we were all stuffed and ready for bed. it was around 2am.

whistler trip is postponed till the 29th, partially due to a serious blow to my account last week and also because i just need a few days of reading and rest. am currently reading a douglas coupland novel named microserfs about the tech boom in silicon valley in the mid 90's and how a group of renegade microsoft employees use this to get a life. great writing style. i also saw lord of the rings a second time yesterday (the first time i caught myself falling asleep from time to time. i wonder why? :) now it's two more days of quality time spent on my own, then back to three days on the powder and a new years party in whistler.

clayton, one of my roomies, is in a lodge there that belongs to his uncle (i think) and he invited us to drop by, so i'm guessing that's exactly what i will do (as he is the only person i know there and that usually means it'll be interesting = fun). i heard, that mirko got a pub in which some of you back home will be partying, so have fun there! and guten rutsch ins neue jahr to all you people back home! i'll get back to this in january. work starts on the 3rd for me. brrrr!

but first, more wintery fun! cheers!

twelve hours of sleep, some reading, guitar playing and a nice breakfast later, i almost feel regenerated again and ready for the next round! but a few more days of rest and relaxation will work wonders. i will not get around to posting the new pictures this year anymore (i think) as i didn't make it to the foto-shop today. but as another week of whistler lies ahead, with more pictures to be taken, i will post a massive update on winter-wonderland and the enchantments of excessive nightlife beginning of 2002, including all the pictures (and the one or other story). i will probably leave this webpage untouched until then, so

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

have fun, enjoy the traditions and lay back! i know i will. well, at least till the 27th. and to finish it all off, the line i love at years end.

            It's been a long December and there's reason to believe
            maybe this year will be better than the last.
            I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
            to hold on to these moments as they pass...

            - Counting Crows, 'Long December', 1996
    

i just got back from a week of intense boarding and partying and must say: whistler is a blast! powdery peaks, sunshine and cool nightclubs as well. what more could i ask for? and to kalli: i hate to break the news, but yes, it is that good! my previous boarding experience is much less than your full-week-every-year trips to the alps, but i am sure you would enjoy whistler as well. so get over here in april!

i got one of those throw-away cameras and will try to get the film developed as soon as possible (tomorrow). if i also can get hendrik to upload those beach pictures from last week, you'll actually get to see something else than just text :) i am off for dinner now, but will go into more detail on this past week of whistler in the coming days. lets just say that we had loads of fun, on and off the slopes :)

if i don't get around to it before, i wish you all a very merry christmas! i will be chilling out, curing my battle wounds, and preparing for the next round of whistler-fun before the term starts again.

what a weekend! hurricane like winds produced a campus-wide power outage all friday, so none of us could present our projects. this has now been postponed to next year. good. instead, hendrik and i went to tower beach (10 minute bike ride from home) on this clear and sunny day to watch the waves rolling into the bay area with snowy mountains in the background. it only took me a matter of minutes to forget all the work and stress of the past month! we got some nice pictures, so i'll try to get them up on this page soon.

our graphics-lab christmas party started at 2.30pm, after which we went to the campus pub (5pm), to a concert (7pm) and to amy's party (11pm). i tried to go home at 3am, but that was when eddy started playing guitar, so instead i simply crashed there (with my contacts in my eyes, great). one big breakfast and a short nap later, i was invited to mona's feuerzangenbowle party. we left there pretty early around 1am, but as i was still invited to a jam-session on campus, the night wasn't over yet. at the session, leslie and paula performed many songs i love to hear, such as long december from the counting crows and romeo and juliet from dire straits. absolutely stunning.

a quick but important message goes out to markus mueller: you have to get your ass over here somehow! i am not kidding! you will love it.

i got to sing she's always a woman from billy joel with them. after all of this, i was so relaxed that i almost fell asleep at their place, even though it's only 20 meters away from my own front door. but my eyes were screaming to be relieved of the lenses, so i tripped home and fell into a deep sleep after a goodnight chat with nadja back home.

now i have a few more hours to take the bus downtown to buy some books and boarding stuff for the whistler trip. hope all is well out there and i wish you all a relaxed pre-holiday season! i'll be back on the 22nd and will post my christmas greetings and whistler impressions then.

time to keep the party rolling... cheers!