back in work mode. woohoo! 2am. finally i get to stay in the lab late and just work, i really missed that so much. and whoever believes this crap doesn't know me at all! but i really want to get this update done tonight so i can get to my course projects tomorrow. on the 26th of april i get kicked out of the dorm and all uni work will have to be done at least a few days before that. in short, this equates to stressy weeks ahead. but it was all worth it, as can be seen from the pictures and stories below.

so to start, lets turn back the time wheel about three months. setting: between christmas and new years in a cold but cheap lodge in whistler. reason: boarding and new years party. i didn't know many people in the crowd (actually i only knew three) but it turned out to be loads of fun anyway, what a surprise :). like when i twisted my ankle on the 31st, so bad i had to drink sooo much just to get rid of the pain. but it still hurt. so to distract myself from that pain, i burnt the palm of my hand on the fireplace while leaning on it. yes, i was quite wasted. it was our new years party, what do you expect? shortly thereafter i fell asleep on the couch in front of the fire, where i woke up the next day around 4pm. some pictures from that night:

i left for vancouver on the 2nd of january and had a hell of a time getting back into study mode. actually, i still haven't succeeded till this day. term 2 was just chock full of social life and boarding. hmmmmmm. speaking of boarding: some more pictures from red mountain! including that cool shot of nicole on the chair with completely frozen braids. there you go guys, i finally managed to get it developed, scanned and posted. too much social activity and friends from germany kept me from getting it up sooner. better late than never, so take a look. i'll probably never forget that incredible vista on the top of the mountain. good times.

but eddy and i simply couldn't get enough, so after getting back from red mountain (on saturday evening), we decided to spend the coming weekend in whistler. me with that coooool free whistler season pass i mentioned in an earlier posting. anyway, i didn't seriously work very much that week. the weather was simply way to good and i had to improve my hackysack skills in the sunshine. maybe i should get my priorities straight. then again, maybe not :) here are two more shots from that weekend. after eddy gets over his initial morning grumpiness he's a good motivator and also very funny! but see for yourself.

whoa! almost forgot to mention how much fun we had partying eddy's birthday last night at koerners pub. we finally did it and played a few songs during the open mic session, even though my voice sucked due to that damn cold. but it wasn't the last mellow monday, so i'm sure we'll get up there at least one more time when i am feeling better and can actually sing ok. do i sometimes mention that pictures will follow? yes? ok, so guess. i left eddy in the belief that he would be going on stage alone due to my cold and so. he didn't like that too much. hehe. as soon as he strummed the first chord of green day's 'time of my life' i ran up and sang with him. it was fuuuuun! after the set, all dams broke and we got incredibly wasted. and i am no longer the only 31 year old guy around here! coooool! but as we all know, it'll not last very long, my 32nd b-day is dreadfully close.

hell, i'm getting way too used to these late nights way too fast! need to leave. have to lay horizontal and sleep. so again, farewell and goodnight to you all.

i'm still alive! sorry for the no-show lately, but i wasn't physically present in this lab since the 13th of march. first nadja, anja, josti and myself had a week of pure fun in and around vancouver, whistler and victoria (on vancouver island), and right after that the mega-flu hit me. four days spent feverish in bed. baehhhh! now i am slowly getting better again, which better go fast as it's eddy's birthday at 12pm and we are still scheduled to play/sing at koerners pub tonight, even with a sore throat. but hey, it's the last mellow monday for this term, you gotta do what you gotta do!

have to run for now, fotos and stories of the past weeks to come as soon as possible. all pictures of nadja's visiting week will be posted after she develops, scans and mails them to me, which she promised to do soon, right? later dudes.

woohoo! sunday night and i am struggling to get an assignment for monday done. too much other really necessary stuff kept me from working, like a birthday party and a night club on friday and eddy's sushi dinner on saturday. as usual, the faculty of forestry was having a friday afternoon party in their building, so frank and i started the party way too early, considering that i was still planning to go to a gastown nightclub. got home at 3.30am but had to meet eric downtown at noon again, so no sleeping through the painful part, too bad. but we had a fun time in the second hand shops of vancouver. especially since all the stuff there is made for people smaller than me. eric had a field day. i got myself an old adidas jacket, but that was all i could find in my size. most of the time i was trying on leather jackets that impaired my ability to breathe. eric was amused. hihi.

got to eddy's place later than planned and he had already been preparing the sushi dinner since noon. i was aware of the fact that sushi is hard work, but as i had never done it before, i surely underestimated the logistics. so we got to make nigeri, maki, futomaki, california rolls and spicy tuna rolls. hmmmm. needless to say it all turned out great and was completely and utterly delicious! thanks eddy! something else i hadn't tried yet: sake bombers! take a shot of very warm sake and drown the shotglass in a half glass of cold beer, then drink fast. five sake bombers later, we were all ready for some guitar jamming and the lovely voices of paula and leslie. eddy and i tried playing/singing 'no suprprises' from radiohead and it turned out quite well. later that night, eric, eddy and paula watched slacker again. not me, i passed out. too tired from the previous night. or was it because of the sake bombers? we'll never know...

just got the assignment done and mailed it to the prof. i actually managed to get the pictures from the new years party developed. will be scanned and posted soon. many shots from red mountain, whistler and other recent events too. will try to get them up here before nadja arrives on wednesday. shit, still have so much to do till then. gotta run. cheers!

back again from a sunny whistler weekend. hmmmm. fun! and it was almost free! i got a season pass from a guy who has already left the country, so boarding was free. eddy and i stayed at sebastian's place in whistler, so no overnight cost. only expenses: drinks, food and the rental car. cooool! i took some pictures with the throw-away camera, but as hendrik was on the mountain on saturday as well, here are some of the shots he took (thanks for the pics hendrik!).

mark mailed me the red-mountain pictures (thanks man!). i wonder how many of you (who were not on the trip) actually looked through the daybook. according to the hit statistics of this webpage, most people stopped after page two. hihi. the best stuff is at the end! which is why i am not going to write a lot on that trip. will be kept for stories to tell in the future. sadly, i had to censor most of the good pictures :) guess why. even so, there's still more than enough to laugh about. take a look:

all pictures, in which people are wearing eddy's *helmet* (the so called 'gimp-hat') are taken on our last night in the a-frame. according to eddy (see daybook): best a-frame party EVER! i second that opinion. at some stage that night we were slam dancing to metallica (i guess) until eddy managed to crush the ceiling light-bulb with his head. a quick cleanup later, the party went on. pretty rough drive home the next day.

ok, 6.20pm, monday the 4th of march. now i start some WORK! nadja, anja and josti are arriving here on the 13th and i want to have a week off for them. it's looking good! should get all stuff done by then. no slacker weekend this coming week, no sir! and nadja, in case you are reading this: we should reconsider the whistler date. the 17th is st. patricks day, which will be celebrated in bars all over vancouver! according to the locals, this is an event we shouldn't miss! will email you about this soon (or call you).

enough goofing around :) take care y'all!

for all you red-mountain-a-frame people, here it is: the daybook! there's some fun shit in there! god, eddy and i are still cracking when we read through it. what a fun, fun week we had! it was great hanging out and riding with all of you. click on the book logo below to start the tour down memory lane.

so as i guess you a-framers are reading this, an important message to mark d.: please set up your website so i can donwload the pictures and videos off the digicam soon! i remember there being some sweet stuff on there. and mark s.: would love to see some of the pictures you took with the slr, so if you find the time, send some samples out west (or perhaps even to germany if i'm already gone, you can find the address on the 'contact' page linked from the navigation bar at the top of the screen). once again: great vacation! thanks to you all for making it so memorable!

10pm again. crap. no work done at all today. i'd better get to it. nadja, anja and josti are flying in on the 13th of march to visit for a week and i want to have as much spare time as possible! tomorrow i start two weeks of insane working. possibly disturbed by a visit to whistler mountain and/or a bike trip to stanley park ;) praying for the weather to stay as cool as it is now. bye.

again, i should be working. instead, i used about every spare minute in the past two days to hone my hackysack skills in the beautiful sunshine with eddy, dave, dave, frank, hendrik and eric. sweet sunshine! i missed it sooo much during the monsoon, which appears to have finally come to an end. good! then, as soon as the sun goes down, i constantly do non-job-related stuff, like update this webpage with again some new pictures. so without further ado, the pics from dave's birthday (21 years old), which we celebrated at koerners pub on a mellow monday. i finally got some pictures of leslie and paula, with whom eddy and i jam regularly. they sing versions of sarah mclachlans songs that put me in a state of complete relaxation. shit, i'm gonna miss this stuff!

and now, to make sure i don't do any work at all today, i'll scan our daybook from the week at red mountain. for all of you not on the trip, don't expect too much. most of it doesn't make much sense. we were pretty hammered most of the time we wrote in it. but for those on the trip: enjoy! later.

back from the kootenays. best snowboarding ever! powder all over and tons of tree runs. need to go back. don't want to work. hmmmm, powder! thanks to my friend eddy, i'm slowly but surely becoming a junkie. can't wait to get up to whistler again. soon. there were many pictures taken and as soon as mark mails them to me they will all be posted here. well, almost all. videos as well. on top of that, we kept a daybook in which all of us six wrote comments and other fun stuff we said after getting pretty wasted. eddy has that book now, but we'll scan it and thereafter put it up here on this site. not all of it will make sense (probably not even to me) but it contains some funny quotes, some of them related to the quality of the mass-market beer over here (molsons canadian, worst beer ever. worse than coors light. not kidding).

eddy hasn't coughed up the koerners pub pictures yet, but thanks to my lovely swedish roommate charlotta i get to post a picture of me goofing off, and one of her with her friends anna and tina. there are much more coming soon. damn, don't i always write that? i still haven't developed the film from the new years party. whatever. i'll get to it.

starting to get tired here. as my body cries for some rest after four full days of intense boarding and partying, my mind is once again hooked! ahhh yes, these sweet addictions of mine. good thing they're fine with me. and so, after a week of absence, the pub will see me again tomorow night. eddy and i actually got around to practicing a six-song set we will perform there in two to three weeks time (i guess). good old green day ('good riddance') and the likes. some bowie too ('man who sold the world' and 'space oddity').

bedtime. here's a shot of me in the chair on grouse mountain, obviously quite pleased with the quality of the powder below. you all take care now, especially those of you who i haven't talked to in a while (or only communicate with via email and/or answering machines). need sleep. g'night.

hooray! another late night at the lab. homework due tomorrow and i didn't start any work till about 6pm today. had a great time partying into dave's birthday last night. tequila shots and spring pale ale. hmmm. this morning (well, 2pm) was headache central, a bit of dizziness and complete disorientation. so to remedy that and get myself a bit motivated, we treated ourselves to a huge and delicious sushi dinner. so now the assignments are done (and on the projects page) and i can get some rest for loads of reading i have to do before the weekend, as those days are reserved for jam sessions and parties friday and saturday. some of you can expect a call from a hammered me, just coming home from some party (if i don't crash there :). alex had me on the phone last night, and i think he got quite a laugh, right alex? i don't even remember all the stuff we talked about anymore! but this morning i had my headphones on and was listening to the ramones all night, on repeat! guess that implies that i was quite comatose. oh well. fun fun fun! drink drink drink! eddy had his camera with him and was obsessed with taking many, many pictures of the entire gang so expect them to be posted here soon. as far as i recall there was some fun stuff, and most definitely stuff that needs to be censored :) or maybe not. we shall see.

bedtime. will catch you cats later.

and now for some canadian faces. these are most of the guys i am frequently referring to in my news postings, so at least you can now add (some) faces to the names. more pictures to come soon, eddy has his digicam with him and we'll be at the pub tonight.

next slew of pictures were taken by frank sometime around new year. he used hendrik's digicam, which is of much better quality than his own and he got really lucky with the weather and lighting conditions.

hendrik turned 26 two weeks ago and invited us all over for red wine, beer and a delicious selection of cheeses. just for all you europeans: cheese here is generally bad news! two words: expensive and bland. hendrik found this cheese deli above the liquor store (how convenient :) with tasty and not too expensive cheeses, so i am slowly becoming a regular there (hmmm, cheese!). the week had been quite work laden (yeah, right), so it was time to get in the mood again. see for yourself.

and here, to finish off the picture parade, proof that we *do* get snow in vancouver. this of course led to some nice snowball fights and other stuff (boarding perhaps?) that kept me from getting any work done. how terrible :)

now i'm sitting here after a fun weekend, radiohead playing on the headphones, and wishing to get back on that mountain as soon as possible! two more weeks till reading break, when we'll go on our ski-roadtrip. yes! eddy and i also plan to go to mount baker in washington state next week for two days, as they are currently selling monday through wednesday lift-passes for only 30 canadian dollars. all fun and no work. almost. but i should get to it. later. tonight we celebrate dave's birthday at koerners, which implies that i will be braindead tomorrow. but i have eight papers to read and three to write reviews on. should be do-able tomorrow, but if not, so be it. time to let it all go.

hope to hear from some of you soon! cheers.

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.