It's been a long time

Wow.  It's been a long time since I've written anything here.  Work really got in the way of most things and the blog got set to the side. I will soon have a lot more free time to work on non-work things, and the blog should get a bit more active.

Since the last post, I've changed jobs, and discovered I have Swiss ancestors. It's led to a new outlook on living here in Switzerland. 

More music server stuff.

So, after awhile of living in Switzerland, I decided it'd be nice to be able to access my music over the network. To do this, I'd have to rip all my CDs, what I brought to Switzerland and have in some nice storage cases, though they do take up a bit of space.

I thought it'd be nice to have some sort of server to store the music. At first I thought a PC would be good, but they were to expensive and too loud. At some point I stumbled upon the Linksys NSLU2. This is a great little device with a 266mhz processor and 32mb of memory. It draws something like 3 watts of power when not connected to the USB drives that one can connect to it. It runs Linux as an OS, and as the source was available, people figured out how to modify and replace the OS. When I think back, this little machine is several times the machine that the VAX 11/780 we had in college. It has no fan, and is absolutely quiet. I found a fanless external disk drive that was also fairly quiet and that was my hardware configuration.

The next thing I needed was a way to serve the music to iTunes. The answer was what was called mt-daapd at that point, and is now called the firefly media server. Firefly does a great job of serving up to iTunes. The only big drawback is that you don't get coverflow. But, if you just want to fire up iTunes and play random music, this is a good way to do it.

This was a great solution for a bit, but my little G4 iBook didn't have that much power, and so I started thinking about another way to listen to music....

Music over the net.

One thing you miss incredibly when you're living in a country other than your own is the radio that you had in your country. I suppose there are some interesting Swiss radio stations. And, actually I rather like Radio Swiss Jazz, but one channel isn't really enough. Sure, there's World Radio Switzerland as well, but the music they play on the station is stuff I just can't stand, even though I like the content. There was also the English Show in Basel, but they had the same problem.

After awhile I decided it would be good to check out the options on the Internet. At first there were a few stations on iTunes. It's still a pretty good option. Stations like those of RadioIO are pretty decent, even if they're all music and no news. Of course for news there's always the option of listening to NPR, which I can get over iTunes, various network players and even my cable TV box. However, I still end up watching CNN or Swiss TV for most of my broadcast news these days, even if it's just for the background noise.

But, the listening to of music on a computer isn't always a great experience. It's okay to use iTunes at work with some headphones, but at home I want to just kick back and listen. I'd also like to listen to something played over some nice speakers and not have to deal with the headphones. So it was gadget time! :-)

The first thing I'd actually tried was iTunes with a Airport Express. I bought my first AX before leaving from the US. I was using it as a extension wireless router at first. It worked quite nicely for this. I also tried using it with my iTunes collection, then on my little G3 iBook. The iBook didn't have enough room to store my entire collection, which I wanted encoded as a lossless collection, but it did play some stuff nicely. It was fun to play with for a bit but I ended up deciding I needed to use the disk space on my iBook and so ended up going back to just using my five disc changers. However, in Switzerland, I no longer had my five disc changers....

Customer Service...

Yesterday, I woke up to find my DSL line no longer working quite right. I was cut off from the net. Well, mostly, I did use the dial-up to get to the football score I was looking for.

Eventually, I decided to call up the big phone company and after about 15 minutes I was connected. The guy answering the phone was obviously first-level windows support and tried his best to help me. The first bit was to have me reset and power on and off my modem/router. I'd done this about ten times already, but I gave it another try. Didn't work. Then he tried to escalate my call. Being Sunday in Switzerland, this wasn't the easiest thing for him to do, and it ended up being impossible. So, he then started with my router configuration. I'd mentioned it'd been working fine for several months and that I'd not changed it. It was possible that it could be a hardware problem, but not the configuration.

Not having any other options other than my suggestion that there was a problem with the DSL line, he suggested I do a factory reset of the router. There was no way I was going to do this, after all, it'd been working fine for months. I suggested again that it was probably the line. He decided that he'd make a call to see if this was a possibility.

Yep. There was a problem with the line, and a number of folks in the neighborhood had already called it in. So there goes an hour of my life and I ended up with a cold pasta lunch yesterday. Magically, this evening the un-reconfigured DSL modem was once again functioning perfectly....

Four Years!

I just passed the four year mark of living here in Switzerland. Now that I've got a job and my German is good enough...guess I'm here for good.

First day at work!

Today was my first day at the new job. I'm not going to really say too much about it. After all, I prefer to separate my work and personal life. However, there is just one thing I want to say about the day. Somehow, I managed to survive an entire day speaking pretty much nothing but German. I had some doubts I could do it, but I did. What was surprising, is that I actually got comfortable speaking German and was able to relax and enjoy it.

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.

Press finally picks up on Swiss Franks rise on the US Dollar

This morning's New Zurich Times' leading story has to do with the falling US Dollar vs. the rising Swiss Frank. I mentioned this earlier. They mention that prices for US goods sold in Switzerland are near twice that for those same goods in the United States. They post the price of the Dollar at about 1.01 Swiss Franks, which I haven't seen yet, as most quotes I've come across have been about 1.03.

Further inside the paper they give a chart of various goods that are overpriced when purchased here in Switzerland. They also editorialize that the prices must fall. Trademark goods are ridiculously expensive. Especially when you consider that many of these products are no longer made in the United States.

Yesterday, I wandered around a couple of shops. One was a bookstore, but I realized that at the prices involved to buy from a scant collection of English language tech books, I could order from Amazon, with overnight shipping and still save. I take hits all along the way in that transaction, first with a padded exchange rate, a fee to transfer funds to my US account, expensive shipping to Switzerland, and lastly a potential 2.3% or so sales tax and 10 Frank fee from the Swiss Government. Still, it is way cheaper to get these goods from the United States. I get a better selection and cheaper prices.

Three year old German Students.

I was going to wax all editorial about my views on forcing three-year-olds to have High German instruction in a Swiss German speaking country, but I think I'll just put the link out there about making these kids learn a language that people don't really speak here.

Is it a good idea? I suppose only time will tell, though I've got just a little bit of doubt on this....

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.

Back from skiing.

I just spent the past week skiing in Disentis. It was wonderful. Now I need to upload the pictures of that trip, and of the trip I took to Davos during the WEF and do a couple of postings about those trips.

A trip to Laax

From Vals

A picture of Vals will have to suffice, as I don't have any of Laax. The skiing conditions are similar, but the lifts in Vals are mostly surface lifts.

Last tuesday I took a trip out to Laax. I decided taking the train and bus would be a good way to get there, as I was going on my own. Fortunately, SBB (the swiss train service) had a deal on travel and lift tickets, so I ended up paying less than I would have for gas and ticket to get my trip. The connections are great, and the trip was more or less relaxing. Being a weekday, I didn't have to worry to much about the crowds. The views as the train headed down Lake Zurich were wonderful, and the weather was great. It is an adventure, however, to figure out what to do with your skis on the trip. The newer railcars have a luggage/skirack you can put your skis in. I was in an older car on the way down, and ended up placing my skis in the luggage rack over the seats. No problem.

Arriving in Chur for the transfer wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Fortunately, I was in a car that ended up stopping right in front of the escalator. From there it was easy to get to the bus. The bus had a rack in the back for skis and snowboards, so all I had to do was enjoy the trip up.

The bus took me all the way to Laax, though I could have disembarked in Flims. When I arrived at the ticket counter with my coupon from SBB for my ticket, I was told I'd have to pay FIVE FRANKS for the RFID tag card that was my ticket. I was fairly unhappy about this, as nothing anywhere said anything about the extra charge. Though, they had my money at this point, and if I wanted to ski, they were going to make me pay this. Still, it's a rip-off.

It was then time to ski. I worked my way to the top, riding various lifts. I spoke to a number of fellow skiers, all in German. Most were German, though I did speak in a combination of Swiss-German and English to a middle-aged gentleman from Appenzell. All complemented me on my German. The Germans said that I didn't speak with too much of a Swiss accent. I suppose my German is better than I think.

Lunch was interesting, as I had planned on just grabbing something quick, like a burger or brautwurst. Instead, I stumbled into a gourmet restaurant on the summit. It was still fast. However, it was a very nice meal with white tablecloths. I was thinking this is a far cry from what passes for food in the US ski resorts I've been at. I had a nice meal of capuns, which are dumplings filled with bacon or sausage and wrapped in a spinach leaf. They were very good. My mother-in-law also makes excellent capuns as well.

The skiing was pretty good. There was a bit of wind up top, but I found a chairlift on the west side of the area that was servicing a nice slope and that was in the sun. I skied there for a couple of runs, and as I liked this run the best, it was of course the slowest chairlift.

After a couple of runs on the chair, I had to work my way over to the Burton Snowboard Opens. The son of one of my cousins was competing, and that was really the reason I was up at Laax. So, I went over and saw him compete and met up with him and met a few of his friends. It was nice to talk to a few Americans again. Then it was time to go catch my bus home.

All in all Laax is a pretty cool place to ski. The tickets are a bit pricey, but the lifts are great (except for that slow chairlift). The snow was good. The views wonderful. The runs were good as well. In many ways it reminded me of skiing at Crystal Mountain in the Cascades, but the food was so much better.

Rainbows

I was just rightly chastised by the Global Librarian, who lives on the other side of town, for not posting a blog entry since November. December was pretty busy. I was a couple of weeks during the holidays up into the mountains, where I didn't really have much network access. Anyways....

Yesterday we got a storm that passed through, but it created some really nice rainbows. Here's a couple of pictures:

Three years..

I've been an official resident of Switzerland for three years so far, well as of yesterday.

Quick Thoughts on Blogcampswitzerland 2.0

Back on October 20th, I attended Blogcampswitzerland 2.0 held here in Zurich at ETH. I had attended the conference last year and found it quite interesting.

This year was a bit different. To start out with, nearly all of the presentations, with the exception of the start-up segments, were in German. Dannie Jost's presentation on "The Swiss Myth", a nice play on "Swiss Miss" - the chocolate drink, was probably the only exception and was in English. Well, most of Dannie's presentation was in English. As you will see when I finally post the videos, the discussion did branch out into a bit of German. I suppose this isn't surprising given that this is in a German speaking part of the country. Fortunately, my German has progressed to the point that I could understand most of what was going on. Dannie's presentation was quite interesting and I'll comment more on it when I post the video.

The other really good talk was Michael Gisinger's talk on copyright and it's history. Michael did me the great service and presented in that mythical language 'High German', as so I could understand it better. And, users that speak a non-Swiss German will also be able to understand the presentation when I post the video. As for you anglophones, well, perhaps someone will add appropriate subtitles. You can't really run audio through babelfish at this point...

It was mostly a good conference, but not as good as last year. I wonder if a conference on blogging is a bit limited at this point. Perhaps a more general technical (while still having a track on blogging) Barcamp is in order for Zurich?

Many thanks to the BlogcampSwitzerland 2.0 Organizing Committee for all the hard work putting everything together!

A late Swiss-National-Day post

We spent Swiss National Day this year by first climbing the local church's tower. The tower is only open to visitors a few times each year. Swiss National Day is one of those days. I figured it would be a good chance to get a good view of our new town. And I figured it'd be cool to look back to our balcony and see what our place looks like from the tower.

I took this picture from just in front of the church. The tower looks much smaller than it actually is at this angle. But, you can see the person in the corner of the railing hanging out. It was over 200 steps to where the railing is.

From Cinque Terre/...

The view to the south was very nice, with Lake Zurich in the forground and the Alps in the background.

From Cinque Terre/...

To the North is Thalwil in the foreground. The Uetliberg is in the center rear, and Zurich is in the right background.



We live somewhere to the West.

From Cinque Terre/...

Speaking of the West.... After going up the church tower, we then headed to Felsenegg for a short hike up to the top, followed by a aerial tramway trip back down. There's a restaurant on top of the Felsenegg, and it was getting ready to celebrate in the evening.

From Cinque Terre/...

We finished the day with a dinner of barbecued bratwurst and then watched a few of the evening's firework shows.

There is a website with the information on when the church tower is next open. Which is September 21st from 7-9 in the evening, and on Sunday September 23rd from 11am to 12 noon. It's only open when the weather is good. There's also a better picture of the tower on their website.

The tale of the BBQ and the little crescent wrench that couldn't

On Friday Alice and I headed over to Zugerland, a shopping center run by Migros, that is almost the same size as SihlCity. I think Zugerland pulls off the whole shopping center experience much better. That, and parking is only 50 cents an hour.

We were in search of a new BBQ. My old BBQ having been left in the US two and a half years ago. And with our new place having a balcony (two actually), we need a BBQ. So we went off and found a great little BBQ made by European Outdoor Chef, the Delta 480. It's a gas grill with a funnel system in it that you can adjust based on what you're cooking. A co-worker of Alice's recommended it to her. You can cook pizza in it if you've got the pizza pan (which we bought) or the pizza stone (which I just found out about). On Saturday I picked up a socket wrench set and a crescent wrench, which I figured would just about be able to handle any job I needed to do. Oh, and I got an electric wireless screwdriver for 30 chf, it was on sale.

So, today, Sunday, I got to work assembling the BBQ. It went together pretty well, and was looking great on the balcony. I even wheeled it around a couple of times, just to see how the wheels worked on it. Then it was time to light it up. I hooked up the fuel hose to the BBQ and tightened it up with my new crescent wrench, and then I hooked up the hose to the gas canister and....the wrench was too small! Argh! And, did I mention that today is Sunday? In Switzerland? Where all the shops are closed and no bigger wrenches can be bought until Monday? Doh! So, the bratwursts ended up getting cooked up in the pan tonight for dinner. Tomorrow, I'll get that bigger wrench, and get some outdoor chef action done.

Muttenzer Fasnacht

From Muttenzer Fas...

Our own little village of Muttenz has its own Fasnacht festival that bookends the much larger Basler Fasnacht. It isn't a very big celebration, but it is still fun. Last year, when my parents visited, we got a huge snowstorm, so we went and enjoyed the local celebrations instead of those in Basel.

This year, it was sunny and warm. The Saturday after the Basel celebrations, the had the final parade through the village, and right past the front of our place. One marching band came from town, the rest from a number of other places, including at least one from the Black Forest.

I set out to take a couple of pictures and do a bit of video. By the end of the parade I was covered in Confetti, and Alice had enough oranges for a couple weeks worth of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

From Muttenzer Fas...

From Muttenzer Fas...

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...

Video: Stephanie Booth

Stephanie Booth's presentation about Multilingual blogging given at Blogcamp Switzerland is now online. Stephanie discussed blogging in multiple languages. Her own blog is in English and French, however, she doesn't post translations. Sometimes she writes a post in French, and other times she will write in English. She also discusses the difficulties encountered with posting in different languages and how differences in language and culture can separate people.

My question for Stephanie is: Do you notice that people often have a different personality when the speak (or write) in a language different to their own? I think I myself am a bit different when I'm speaking German than when I am speaking English. Another example I've noticed is the difference in Michelene Calmy-Rey's (a Swiss political leader for you folks not here in Switzerland) persona in German vs her persona in French. The first time I saw Calmy-Rey speak in French I was amazed at the difference to the way she spoke in German.