ittam

"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.

Just walk beside me and be my friend." - Albert Camus

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After the happy occasion at the beginning of the week it was back to work. Staying at your mothers place and being fortunate to store all your stuff there for god knows how long. I felt obliged to do some cleaning and moving of furniture inside the house - this is what I did for several days. In the end I was astonished how much space you get when you just clean up and chuck a few things (really only a few:) out.

In the attic I found some ancient computer stuff like a "HP Deskwriter" InkJet Printer. I think this was the very first ink jet printer produced by HP. I just checked on the HP website - it is so old, that they do not even have a picture there.

Some old redundant CRT computer monitors where also there just taking up space and not ever to be used again.

My mothers first computer, a "Kaypro II" released in 1982, on which I played my first computer games (an awesome game called "Ladder") is also there, probably still in working order.

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Every evening I went out to meet friends, friends I will not see very soon again. The thought is a sad one, but looking forward to the time of meeting again I smile.

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Launch date is set to be the 16.11. - Flight to Gran Canaria

New life is something astonishing, leaves you with a smile on your face when you encounter it and you can not really put into words. So small and so alive. At the beginning of a long way to come. What excitement!

Another weekend has past and getting more ready to go with every minute. My mind is set and the equipment too.

Seeing the leaves of the trees turn golden and the cold and the mist in the morning tells you that summer has turned to fall and then turn to winter with all the leaves gone. It is a nice time to walk the forest, which we did yesterday. The noise of the many thousand leaves twirling in the wind have a calming serene effect. The branches hovering over you as if to protect you, harbor you and shield you from the light giving the whole scene a "Robin Hood" kind of feel. 

Walking through the woods is nice, the air fresh and the mind detached from everyday business. A good break.

Eventually rain started pouring down through the canopy formed by the branches above our heads. Shoes and pants were slowly getting soaked. Some drops even sneaking down your back despite the so called waterproof jacket and umbrella. Nature's powers. How will I encounter them on the high seas to come?

Back at the house we opened a bottle of Champagne in honour of the new life that saw first light yesterday and by that bestowing upon me the title of "uncle". Toasting with a smile on my face I looked forward to meet him.

Later doing a short movie using very basic means, like a Nikon digital compact camera to illustrate on how to pack a backpack. It was fun to make and totally improvised. Still we were happy with the result. See for yourself (link). 

A motorbike ride on a Suzuki "Inazuma" from Rambouillet to Chartres and back felt good.

Seeing the grandmother of Annelie and getting the "Open Space Trace"-Shirts we enjoyed a day of grey in grey with a smile.

Some days ago there was this news on the radio, right around breakfast time, about some suicide bombing to UN facilities by some Taliban extremists. Many people died. Horrible. While hoping that you never get directly affected you might still try to understand the motive and the final stimulus to do such an act of violence.

Here in Switzerland the fear of such atrocities is minimal, due to the neutrality and the (general) open mindedness of the people living here, so the whole terrorism topic is something for the news and people traveling to the USA or the Middle East (just naming two). Therefore it can only be imagined how it might be and what the backgrounds are.

The motive for terrorism is often connected to the terrorist being or feeling suppressed by someone. Depending on the land he is living to engage in politics might not be an option due to the fact that it is not a functioning democracy (or alike). He then resorts to violence against the oppressor.

This behaviour has for example taken place all over Europe with their respective revolutions (or alike) at one time.

If you now bring religion into play the while situation becomes much more radical.

As examples for religion I will take Christianity and Islam. Both of them have a book of rules, the Bible and the Koran. The original texts have been written long ago and have been reproduced many times. In translations the text has been adapted according to the language and the translator, where probably many things got lost in translation.

As taught in school books can be interpreted one way or the other. Even single sentences can be interpreted by themselves, leaving out the connection of the whole book. Good examples for this are the numerous Shakespeare quotes that fly around. Without the whole text of the play where it is taken from you do not know what it was originally meant. In that case you turn to your own thoughts about its meaning.

In extremism the words of the books are interpreted in ways to either suit the strong believes of one or to serve the purpose of supporting one's intentions. The "real" meaning is irrelevant.

If you then are in a position of religious power you can influence others to serve your intentions, therefore using them to your own end. In other words these people are very good sales men, selling the perfect deal to you or rather making you believe that it is the perfect deal.

As examples are the crusades and the suicide bombings in the middle east.

Since I am not knowledgeable of the two books (the bible I have read partially and the Koran even less) I can not really discuss about it in more detail. From my point of view I am of the opinion that live itself is too valuable to be blown to bits. I also include the life of the bomber in this statement. I do not believe in heaven and even if I would, someone killing other people does not get a reward for it in the afterlife.

Saturday, right after the party I started packing for real. Getting all the stuff out of your flat and into boxes is quite a tedious matter, especially when you do not have enough boxes. So, boys and girls - always have enough boxes ready. And the boxes should always have a good weight to content ratio to get the most out of it. If its too heavy you can either not or barely carry it or the box will just give in and collapse, releasing everything onto your feet. If you do not pack the boxes enough then you just need so many boxes that you can not store it anywhere.

So there I went...being happy to be able to use the car of my brother (many thanks). When the vehicle (a Ford Focus hatchback with lowered back seats) was filled to the brim I drove out of Zürich towards the west past all the construction work being done to the roads leading out.

In the west lies the little town of Olten and near it is a little village (with cows and sheep and alike in the fields :-) where my mother lives.

Being able to store my whole household there is a great relieve to me for multiple reasons and I am very grateful for that.

Back and forth I went to get some stuff there before the big move would be on monday. I just tried to pack all the sensitive stuff like computer hardware or sensitive stuff you can not really pack well.

On monday morning 4 friends arrived to help me and one of them brought a rental with a lot of space. It was actually one size bigger than the one we wanted to rent. But as luck goes it just looks that it will be alright. The size was perfect and we managed to pack everything within 1.5 hours, which is quite magnificent, in my opinion.

At our destination (where there were  only three of us) the unpacking went just as smooth as before and we were quick.

Conclusion of the move:

- The attic is almost bursting and all over the house are stuff I brought (leaving me with work still to make the whole mess liveable)

- Friends are priceless and by that I do not mean they are cheap labour but that when you need help they are there as you would be for them. So thanks again to all of them.

Finally there is again the time to write. Sometimes you have to be a busy bee just to get everything to work. No extras possible during that time, just the essentials.

The farewell party was a success and left me with a happy memory of a evening/night well spent. I want to thank everyone for coming by to see me off. It was great to see you all and I hope to see some of you again before I really leaving on the 16th of november.

I had so much fun that I totally forgot to take any pictures :-)...

One can barely believe this, now that I am moving out of my flat I discover "screen sharing" on my computer.

I can remote control my MacMini (which I use as a Media Station) by sharing the screen of it on my MacBook. This means I do not need an actual screen on the MacMini and no keyboard or mouse. It is really great and I will enjoy using it for these few days :-)

To use "screen sharing" on your Mac you have to have it activated in "Sharing" in the System Preferences. You can then log in to this computer from another. It is wise though to set the access group, so that only certain people can access it.

Snow, snow everywhere. Leaving Zürich cold weather was expected but then while climbing up the mountainside in a cable car we crossed the snow-line. Incredible. 

The place we went to (there were 10 of us) was called "Seilpark Pilatus". It consisted of stages where the aim was to get from one tree to the next by putting your balancing skills, strength and stamina to the test.

Never having done this I was quite excited and after a short but important safety instruction on what the do's and don'ts were, we started full on. The cold fingers and toes were quickly warming up and you felt the exertion. We climbed, we balanced, we rappelled and crossed vast distances by sliding along a cable.

The snow apart from increasing the difficulty, gave the whole exercise a special touch. Mount Pilatus loomed in the background all white.

Fun all the way through and to complete the picture a tasty cordon bleu from the nearby restaurant for lunch :-)

If you want to know more about it check out their website Pilatus-Seilpark

My father helped me greatly by joining in the fray of moving stuff from A to B. A being my flat and B being my mothers place where lucky me can stow away things for the time of my traveling.

The moving part of the day went as smoothly as a swiss clockwork (how cliché :-).  It started with the timing of the arrival of my father (with car)  and the appearance of free parking space right in front of the flat. That was quite magnificent. And it ended with everything (plants, pots and paintings) fitting in snugly.

While moving the biggest box its bottom nearly collapsed. That would have been a mess with first a Wok pan flying out followed by a shower of fragments of glass. Well lucky I was, because it did not happen and my head was spared ;-)

Now the flat is getting more and more empty as my trip draws nearer and closer. 

Lunch we enjoyed in a very good restaurant called "Landgasthof Hirsernbad". A healthy mixed salad for starters, an autumnal fine pumpkin soup to warm up and then as a main sautéed Egli filets. Finally as a dessert we shared a exceptional chestnut mousse. Just delicious. What can I say, it is definitely not on the way to anywhere (for a Zürich oriented person) but it is well worth the detour.

Check it out! www.hirsernbad.ch 

Yesterday the fight was on between the computer and me, who would be more resilient. It was a battle as it often is if you do not exactly know what you were doing and only knew what you wanted.

I tried to install and modify a comment system for my blog which should be spam free and good looking. In the end I managed two of the three. It does not yet look as it should.

Right below this entry there is a "read comments" butten which enables you to insert comments to the blog. I always wanted to implement this so people could share their thoughts. Well here it is. Feel free to use it.

 

UPDATE 

I just received an email from the creator of the comment system helping me to understand how to modify the appearance. Now I just have to play around with it until it looks as I want it to (whereas it already looks good).

Sitting here in the "Café Java" in Helsinki's Lasipalatsi building sipping a roiboos tea I think back and forward. A nice café by the way with free-wifi and comfortable atmosphere.

A lot of things happen all the time. One has to cope with it and most people react differently.

Decisions to be made. No regrets to be collected. At every junction. Time flies.

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Back in Switzerland there is need to do a lot of "administrative" things like insurance, assets (=Organize the money to be available in a secure way), addresses of people to meet (as well as sending them a message) and so on and on. It appears to be never ending until you leave.

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Some recommendations for Helsinki:

If you are looking for a nice café here is a selection. They all sport good and free Wifi as well as a cosy atmosphere.

Café Java (see also above)

Café Carousel - a place with a view and comfy couches and free coffee refills.

Café Kiasma - located within the Kiasma Art Museum it is very well lit by the outside light and also serves a very good "Cesar's Salad"

 

To get my mind of the things of today I decided to go to the movies. Just fresh from the studios was "Surrogates", a movie starring "Bruce Willis" as the lead. It was placed in the near future where most people (99% of all) had surrogates (remote controlled robots) going about their everyday business. These robots where safely operated from a nice chair at home. So in short while the whole population was sitting at home in their control chairs their representative robots went about their daily lives. The surrogate would look as you would want it to look like and do whatever you want them to do without danger to you.

This sounds very similar to the concept of avatars in the virtual world, where everyone logging into a virtual environment (e.g. second life or world of warcraft) could become someone else there.

The plot was quite simple and there were attempts to implement some surprising twists and turns while always attacking the concept of surrogates.

I was neither surprised nor overly impressed by the movie. It was entertaining I agree but nothing more.

Bruce Willis fit well in the role of the truth-seeking cop. When thinking back at it there was really no other actor with any major appearance. Most of the surrogates appear to have almost no facial expression while one or the other appear normal, this is bothersome since they should all be surrogates.

When looking at the technical aspect of the movie there is nothing to report. It is well made but also not exceeding in any way.

My recommendation is that if you have too much time at hand and do not have any expectations then this movie is something for you otherwise it is not.

A very warm welcome from everyone from the Open Space Trace website who followed the blog there.

Annelie and I will not be traveling together. That is in short the reason for my moving away my travel blog from the Open Space Trace website. Annelie is the body and soul of the project. I was maybe only the small digit or the big toe - doing the website (design and programming) and taking some pictures.

Space and all involved aspects were always big interests for me and will continue to be. I worked for 6 years in the space industry (at Oerlikon Space - now renamed to RUAG Space) and it was the best job you could imagine.

On my trip I will continue to follow the space related hotspots in the respective countries, reporting on them and trying to spread the fascination.

Cheers

Matti

Friendship - when your down there is someone helping you back up and when your up there is someone there enjoying it with you. Talking, laughing, crying and drinking is only part of it but essentially it is the time you spend together that counts the most. A friend once asked me what is of more value than the time you can give to someone you cherish? I agree completely. Do you?

Tonight I went for a walk and a drink with a good friend of mine. Talking about many things, good and bad. No boundaries, only understanding. Sipping Campari Orange and red wine (Blauburgunder; since they ran out of port) relaxed, happy and being oneself. Going there I felt good and was looking forward to it, going home afterwards I felt full of good thoughts and inspirations. Some might call this a perfect evening. I am grateful to be so lucky to have friends like this.

Friends can touch your innermost and they do, leaving you changed every time a little bit.  

 

Paying attention to other cars can be quite exhausting especially if you are rushing along at 150kph on the german Autobahn. 150 is not that fast there, so everytime you want to overtake someone you first try to guess how fast the big Audi is approaching from behind and if you can get by the truck that is in front in time. At night when you can only see the headlights in the rear view mirror it is even more difficult to judge the distances to the cars behind you.

As noticed during this 930 km drive it is important to be concentrated on the task at hand and therefore be able to react in time like in the situation faced. For example when we came racing along the road in a long downward curve noticing that all the cars and trucks in three lanes were at a standstill. The brakes worked fine and in the end we had a few meters to spare before we would have kissed the next car on the trunk. A few seconds after we arrived there the traffic started moving again and I noticed that the police were escorting one truck from the road onto the side-strip. Recalling that moment I can still not see why all vehicles had stopped and it showed how quickly your holidays could be over.

Every day one talks to others about something. Sometimes it is more important somtimes less. The question always stands if both parties have the same understanding of the words exchanged. 

Very often when you recieve a message and you do not understand (acoustically, meaning wise) everything you imediately start making assumptions to fill the gaps. These assumptions are based on the things that you know of the topic and of the other person and of yourself. It's a best guess. These can be wrong and they can be right. The chances are balanced.

Today for example I volunteered to reinstall a friends computer she had just bought. From the talk with her I had the impression that it would be a huge job, that nothing was working as it should and that I had to completely set-up the computer anew. Today when I got there I noticed that it was actually working fine and only some programs had to be installed. My knowledge of the situation was partly based on the information I recieved over the phone which I then completed with my assumptions. This resulted in two different meanings (hers and mine).

In this case it did not really have a big impact. It was merely a good surprise. But in other cases it might be devastating if the subject of discussion is more important.

Out I went, to do some sports, riding a bike for 3.5 hours. It felt really good do so. Not feeling like being chased by a demon (and therefore needing to be fast) I took it quite easy. When exerting like this your mind stops brooding over things of the past, it starts being just there and now. This can feel so relaxing - you should try it sometime! 

Today while I was waiting in line at the cashier I was observing the other people and the things they were buying. How much can one tell about someones life from the food combination they buy? What does it mean if just two yogurts are bought or beverage only in small 0.5 l bottles?

I just created this website (with the help of a template) and enjoyed a very fine dinner in a nearby restaurant called "Rosso". It's quite an insider tip here in Zürich and the food is good. But what can I say the food is only half as important as the company your dining with. Today I was lucky.

Check it out! www.restaurant-rosso.ch