The Euro '08

On Sunday I was lucky enough to go to one of the games of the European Football Championships 2008. We managed to get four tickets in the lottery. Even better, we managed to get them to a game that Switzerland was playing against Portugal.

Switzerland didn't do so well during first two games, losing both. Still, it's always fun to go to a game in St. Jakob Stadium. I hadn't been to a game in Basel since we've moved to Thalwil and so I was looking to see what the upgrades to the stadium were like.

It was fun watching the game, and surprisingly Switzerland won. They played a good game, though many of Portugal's starters did not play. Still, a win is a win.

The only big drawback to the game was the incredible amount of cigarette smoking going on. So much, in fact, that there was a haze in the stadium.

Old Fasnacht video

Here's some video I shot last year of Fasnacht. I'm just getting around to putting it up on the web. We wandered around with some friends that are in a Fasnacht clique.



I quickly realized that I wasn't going to get any good pictures with my camera. However, the video function seemed to work decently with the low light conditions, but the Canon S40 is a sorry replacement for my Panasonic video camera.  The quality isn't great, but it's not so bad. There's a better version at my .mac video gallery.

Movin' Day!

Tomorrow is Movin' Day, or rather the past few days have been moving days. So, we're busy with all of that and Alice still has a long commute to Zurich for another day. We're leaving Muttenz and the Basel area for Thalwil. We'll miss many things about living near Basel, especially grocery shopping in France, and all our friends in the area.

I need to finish up writing about the trip to Paris, and in the meantime, I've also taken a trip to the Cinque Terre in Italy.

Basler Fasnacht pictures

NSFW WARNING: Depending on where you work, a few of the lanterns in the Picasa album may not be suitable for work at the larger resolutions. The thumbnails should be fine.

I'm finally getting around to organizing some pictures I've made. I've uploaded them to my picasa web gallery.

The Basler Fasnacht is probably the most well-known of the various carnival celebrations that go on in Switzerland around the beginning of Lent. Nothing quite matches the impressive Morgenstreich parade at 4 in the morning on the first Monday of Fasnacht.

Most of my pictures were taken during the day this year. Taking pictures with a flash is frowned upon, as it blinds the people wearing the Fasnacht masks. Besides, the photos don't turn out with a flash anyways. I ended up shooting a bit of video at night instead. I have to put that up on a server somewhere as well.

From Basler Fasnac...

From Basler Fasnac...

From Basler Fasnac...

Small earthquake in Basel.

So, there was an earthquake (2.9 on the Richter scale) this afternoon about 5:45 this evening in Basel. It is suspected that the now suspended geothermal power plant that was being built is the cause. The power plant was shut down in December after there was a 3.4 earthquake. Turns out pumping water into an unlined karst geologic structure is a bad idea. Who would have thought that? Pretty much anyone with a university degree in Geology, Geography or Civil Engineering, I should think.

The Basler Zeitung has the story (in German)