Unfortunately nowat sunday evening a rather pleasant week is over.

May usually is the really first stable (weather) month in the year here and with a public holidaywithin, I’ve quickly decided to have a week off. Nothing really planned I used it mainly for relaxing, but did quiet a lot of pleasant and nice things this week.

Nothing really fancy at all … just a great mix of everything … like "gulp" cleaning the car, shopping new clothes and shoes, riding Suzi (my motorbike), playing with my new toy which arrived shortly before (a Nikon D90) and "very pleasant" sharing and enjoying time together with friends.

Last is very important for me, but unfortunately often comes too short when work and appointments fill up daily schedules.

Last sunday for example I decided to visit a rather close friend movig a bit away closer into countryside. Not really planned I came exactly right when he and his wife had fired up the bbq and so I got both, an interesting tour through the new house and an excellent lunch in great company.

Yesterday I was hiking all the day and right about that Frank (another friend of me) and me decided to catch up again today with our push bike…  It was rather hot today, but despite …. we archived to do 60km today …. and following a spontanious idea we headed in ti visit a common friend of us and luckily found him at home really.

Besides all activities this week, I was also in close contact with a remote friend of me and happily able to assist and partly advice in doing a bigger acquisition.

The only … hmpf … sad thingy this week was me running into a speeding trap with Suzi (round about 20Km/h too fast – shame on me), but sitting on Suzi and with a bit of luck they might just have flashed from in front and it might work out fine for me …. hopefully!

Just as you might see an overall great week filled with lots of activities and interactions with friends …. right as I like it! Thats Tops!

ps: to Judy… visible result out of using the new toy still have to wait a bit though. Seems like I need to practise a bit first again. :-/

pps: I’m not really neglecting this site here …. recently I’m just not in a mood writing much – more :-/

Life is fast! And often it isn’t really easy to keep your mood up.

As I shared here last my weekend lately wasn’t one of the best once I had ever and looking back I just can say I’m happy about it is over.
Belonging to the Internet access I wasn’t really able to archive much. I’m getting the actual connection a bit cheaper and doubled the speed, but it is far away from the speed I wanted to have. On the other hand this new company offering the 32 MBit connection does not really seems to be very reliable and therefore it might not be a very worse thing I’m now not dealing with them.

But you know what? …. Donating a little gift (huh .. little?!) to yourself always is a good way to raise your mood again…..

And so did I  !!

Quickly decided I’ve ordered something I was wishing to buy since ages, but never was able to justify for myself so far, and as it looks it is shipped very quickly. So with a bit of luck I will be able to hold it in my hands tomorrow or the day after and I’m "very" sure my friend Wilf and me will have to exchange about it a lot.

For you here ….. sorry about! ….. at first, I will remain with the question about what I’ve ordered plainly not answered, to simply ensure I will have something left I can write about tomorrow.

Looking back to yesterday, I guess sleeping long was the best thing of the whole day.

Getting up rather later had the benefit that I really felt reliefed and the breakfast after the bath was also ok. But from then on it was a constant up and down and I couldn’t say that I really liked that saturday.

Feeling curious about haven’t heard back from the cable company after I made a contract with them back in march, I’ve called them … just to hear about they had forgoten about me … and therefore didn’t quit my so far DSL contract (it’s ususally here for you authorize the new contractor to quit the old contract for you for clearing all details to overtake service with the old provider).

And now I might have to stay with the old DSL for one more year. 🙁

To get over that we decided to drive downtown to run a few shoppings there and as i had planned inform myself about actual SLR Models.  Ok, I quickly found out about it needs me to buy the more expensive model of course! And later on we did spend ages about lokking and trying sports clothes for my wife.

It is really impressive how much time you can spend with that …. believe me! 😐

Having finished that heading into my favorite cafe there was of course a must and Late and cake there was terrific as usual.
As for afternoon was nearly over them we decided to walk back to the car when I had the great idea to stroll for some new sunglasses.

Two shops later I was a proud owner of new Ray Ban Sunglasses and even had saved 10 Euros on the 2nd shop were cheaper than the other one.

Was it a sign, that sun right had gone when I left the shop proudly wearing my new sunglasses?! Don’t know! 😐

But back to the underground parking lot I had to see that all the roads were blocked by police as for a town marathon and there was no chance to get to my car and/or out of town with it for the next 7 hours. 🙁

Thanks got my brother, which I’ve called quickly, was in twon and could pick us up and taking us home.

Around 10pm then, not being keen to leave my car in downtown all night lon, I did took the train to downtown again …. just to find out about … they still do run there! About the parking lots was closed down for night and as it looked first there was no chance for me to do anything about. But staying there, I remebered that this parking lots belongs to a hotel and I walked there paying the fee and to get the door opened again. So having the car back finally, I called police asking them about a chance to open the gates for me for a second to pass …. And unbelievable but thrue 🙂 I got a really friendly police officer on the phone, sending me just 20 minutes later (impressively) 4 police officers to block the road for me only and allowing me to pass!

Wow that was cool …. and it needed me just another half hour to find my way out of downtime as for all the closed down traffic there. Guess next year I should better run with those others instead. I’m just not sure I will make it over all 42km though – perhaps 2 or 3 I might do?! 😐

Actually cheeky Microsoft is pushing their new Internet Explorer 8 as an Update Packages and people like me ( ) not reading carefully will get their IE 7 replaced by just clicking away a single (not really innocent) window. Stupid ME!!

Now doing websites you always need a variety of web browsers checking your work for rendering issues within different browser. And therefore it is not unusual for a web developer to have more than on box to test and code on.

So IE 8 is of course of interest for me, but not necessarily on my main box.

Getting aware about I’ve lost my IE 7 (not a real drama – as for you can choose the rendering engine within IE 8 and set it back to the old behavior) I quickly went for info running it parallel. It is possible and not even difficult to do … But at the end not really necessary!

Already a while ago I picked up info about a company with name Xenocode, and makes their point about bringing application into the web. "Run software instantly from the web, with no installation or hassles." is their slogan. And at least when it comes to Internet Browsers it is already reality.

Install their plugin and the friendly company will allow you to run all major Internet Browsers (and Versions) directly from the web without installation first. Boy, that rocks!

With May 1st, a public holiday here in Germany, falling on a Friday this year, we had another long weekend again.

Using time off best possible, we drove away catching up with a few couples at Bavaria close to a town called Bamberg.
Bamberg itselt is a lovely town directly situated at the River Main, with a picturesque "Old Town" and a lovely surrounding around.

 The folks we were going to see are all friends we did meet first, once back in 1993 during a trip at Greece we did all start as strangers to each other. Since that time we are committed friends and year by year we make effort coming together and seeing us again.

It is a strange and fascinating thing and for sure a strong relationship between all making it possible, all coming together on an ongoing base again and again.

Catching together this year,  even had a pleasant more reason on top, as for Astrid one of our friends living there had given birth to Kilian their 2nd son only 4 weeks ago.

Guess you are able to imagine, that catching up first, more or less were a wild "hallo". Over and over we had heaps of things to share and about a few things we did there together, spending time with each other was the aim. And you can be sure that we had a rather good time there together.

Curious topic besides…. little Kilian the one or other time feeling and being grupmpy with things and life in general and having the tendency to cry as the appropriate way to share this news with us … always relaxed and smoothed again when I started to hold him. Quickly recognised by his mum I soon started to become her "preferred method" of choice to become little Kilian quiet again. 😐

Not I would have mind that in general, but not being used to it in general, I could not say I would mind no longer being in charge anymore. 😉