Month: August 2005

Categories
Work

Farewell party

Today, I gave a farewell party for my colleagues at D2. Mona spent 9(!) hours in the kitchen, baking party snacks and cake for me.

To make a long story short, the party was a great success. Everyone praised the snacks, and they all agreed this was one of the best farewell parties they have ever been invited to. What made me a lil’ bit proud is that even my heads of group and department took themselves the time to attend.

I’ve made some photos to document Mona’s great work. You will find them in a few days in my gallery.

Categories
Arts Travel

Langen Foundation

We’re just back from a visit of the “Langen Foundation”, a museum located at the former rocket station in Neuss.

It was a very impressive experience. I must admit I’m usually not very interested in arts, but I’ve always loved the works of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. So when I watched a report on WDR TV yesterday about the exposition I thought it could be very interesting to go there. We’re currently visiting Mona’s (my girlfriend) parents in Grevenbroich, which is only a couple of kilometers away from Neuss, so we took the occasion and made a trip to the museum.

Unfortunately, it was not allowed to take photos inside the exhibition, but I took a snapshot from outside the building. I bet you know the sculpture or at least the motive, created by Robert Indiana:

I really enjoyed the visit, and I recommend it to you should you have the chance to get there.

Categories
Work

Mongolian BBQ…

Have you ever had a BBQ? I bet you have.

But have you ever had a Mongolian one??? I bet you haven’t. 🙂

I’ve been to Mongo’S Restaurant yesterday with my colleagues from our integration team. We had a great evening, and the dinner was excellent.

So what’s so special about a Mongolian BBQ? First, you choose one of 8 marinades. You then choose among a great variety of veggies, fixings, meat, and fish, and put it all into a bowl. You then hand the bowl to the cook. Everything gets roasted on a hot stone plate. The waiter then brings your bowl back to your table. And then it’s your turn: Eat it all up! 🙂

They have some quite unusual sorts of meat and fish there. Among others, I had kangaroo and zebra filet, tilapia (some sort of perch,) and surimi. I’ve never tasted these before, but I liked everything I tasted apart from zebra, which I found to be very stringy.

Overall, I can absolutely recommend this restaurant.

Categories
Cars

Not only an emperor’s daughter…

…but also a great car is the Octavia, a great car built by Skoda.

It plays in the same league as the VW Bora/Jetta, VW Passat, Audi A4, BMW 3 series, Toyota Avensis, Peugeot 407, and many more.

What is so special about the Octavia is that it offers the most value for your (and my ;-)) money. You hardly miss anything compared against the Passat (I can tell because I drove most of the above mentioned cars myself, at least I studied the brochures,) but you pay 3,200 EUR less for the Octavia than for the Passat.

So why am I telling you this? I will probably buy myself a new car some time late in 2005, and if not something very strange happens, it will be an Octavia Elegance with the 105 HP diesel engine. The thing that is still keeping me from buying it now is that you can’t yet order it with a diesel particle filter. Considering that a diesel car without a particle filter is not exactly something I would call “environmentally friendly,” I don’t even think about getting myself one without a filter.

Categories
Computers

File Transfer Software, FTP and WebDAV File Collaboration Software

I just stumbled across WebDrive, which seems to be a very nifty tool that allows one to map FTP and SFTP servers to drive letters on your PC. It can also connect to a WebDAV server. Hopefully this product solves the many problems that the “DAV redirector” built into Windows XP exhibits…

Categories
Work

Wind of change…

Ok, I promised you some weeks ago that I will tell you about a substantial change in my life with regard to my job.

I will change jobs and switch from Vodafone D2 GmbH to a group company, namely to Vodafone Deutschland GmbH, our “Global Services Platform (GSP).” The change will take place effective September 1st.

The reason for this quick change is that I have a two-year limited employment contract at D2, and that more than 12 months had already run out. So I applied internally as well as externally. In the end, I had three offers, two internal ones plus one external one. For reasons I won’t explain at this place, I chose the one at GSP.

Again I will work in the field of software integration, but this time I will be employed as a “specialist,” and I will have much more responsibility than in my current job. Our work language is English, which I see as a great opportunity to improve my spoken language. And from time to time, I will have the change to visit our OpCos thruout the world, such as in Milano (I), London (UK), or in Tokyo (JP).

Altho I really enjoyed the time at D2, I look forward to getting started in the new job.

Stay tuned for further news!