university life, photography, madness

After my epic struggle against the evil duo (and thanks to the more then sub-optimal weather today), I had time to fix the other 2 laptops, my dads old one and my brothers old one.

This time, it was much easier, since I only had to sweap their drives clean, install XP, set drivers up, install basic software and done. Notice the lack of Vista here? Thats the reson it worked so well. Only problem was the not working touchpad (or hardly ever working) on my dads computer, but this is an old problem.

Also, everything is ready now for the medival games in Pörtschach tomorrow. More info can be found here. Bring a friend.

Unlike yesterday, the weather forecast wasn’t as good for today. Also unlike yesterday, it stayed nice the whole day. And also unlike yesterday, I just went for a short trip (you know the baaaad weather).

So instead of the long trip to the river (what I try to do tomorrow), i just went to the Kreuzbergl near me and looked for some plastic boxes in the wood with my GPS. Wise as I am, I uploaded waypoints for 2 caches on my gps, because from the 2 I added, I found just one. Even with 45 min of climbing and scratching my legs open, I found nothing besides the knowledge that short trausers are bad in the forrest :P. At least I don’t had to worry about ticks, got my shoot today.

Luckily, at the 2nd cache I had more lack, 2nd place I looked was the cache. Nice to feel some sucess for once. Nice place too, havn’t thought we have such big rocks there. Have to explore the Kreuzbergl a bit more the next days.

On my way back, I still wasn’t like giving up, so I looked for the first chache again, but still, no luck up there. I have to go there again with some friends, more eyes might help there. When not, it will at least be fun.

And now to something fun less. My dad bought (against my advice and better judgement) a new notebook for him. It came with Vista, and he asked me if I could check it and install some other needed software (AV, office software, music software and so on). I agreeded, again against my better judgement. And what I expected to take 1, maybe 2 hours turned out to take almost 6 hours. It not only came with Vista, but also with Norton AV on it, what is a duo from hell. Not only vista almost refused to let me set up the network so I could install some missing drivers, Norton refused to leave the harddrive.

First I thought it works, deinstallation was running, and suddenly vista decided to help norton and crashed. No I was there, with an undead norton running (more or less). Deinstallation didn’t work anymore. Running was working even less, besides crashing notices every 5 sec. And the removal tool from Norton didn’t even start up :P. I was close to call an exorcist to get rid of this satanic combination that was spinning inside the computer. But I decided that I give it one last change, and this time no more Mr. Nice Guy.

I went straight to the heart (aka the registery), and the scene was quite close to the ending of HAL in 2001. Vista told me to go out and such stuff, but I removed all the evil parts, and now it works fine. Well, as fine as it can run. Never support a computer you havn#t suggested

First, the weather was really great today. Forecast said it will stay nice, maybe some showers in the alps or in western Austria, but nice here all day long. And since you can’t sit at home on such a nice day, I went cycling. As Isaac suggested it, i went towards Maria Rain, looking if the Church was open for a pano, but nada. So, I just keeped cycling, nice track btw. Not very challenging from the terrain, but nice. Here’s a map.

Blue markers are photos, but just with the small one, first ones because I was mid-cycling and wanted to go somewhere, the later ones just with the small one because I was in hurry and under hail-attack.

It started all very nice, sun was out and barley a cloud in the sky. Really nice to cycle, maybe a bit to hot, but nice. It lasted more or less for 1/3 of the track, then I noticed some darker clouds, but nowhere near me. I thought I was save there.

Sadly, things started to change. First thing I noticed were some angry looking clouds from behind. Nothing to worry about I thought, unless I changed direction and was facing them now. Things have looked better for me.

Things got ugly first, when it started to rain, and then it started to get REALLY bad when the hail set in. Luckily, I was already on the way back then, riding along the railroad track, and they have those nice bridges across the railroad every few 100 meters. I went under one, then the wind started, and then I climbed up as high as possible to find shelter from the hail that entered the brige on the left side and with just minimal height loos, it left on the right side. As soon as I got up, a car took shelter under the bridge too, hail looked pretty bad.

At least, the hail didn’t last very long, around 10 min, then it started to clear up again. Normal summer weather. I went on, wanted to go home now, but I wasn’t getting home as fast as I thought, I found some (or plenty) raspberries on the way back, so I took a short break there. Rest of the travel back was boring and uninteresting.More photos can be found on Panoramio here

And some other good news. I found a spare keyboard, same as my old one was, just this one is mostly black with orange, while mine was mostly green with yellow. I won’t screw this upen and change cover (will break it again for sure), but the keys should be exchangeable. So now I have a black keyboard with orange outline and 2 set of keys, green and black. Ideas how to mix them?

Not quite as nice as the forecast said, but still a nice weather we got here today. Perfect for cycling. I went north-west today, a direction I havn’t explored as much as others. Some nice places I have found, just needed better weather then this OK weather today to do them. Thanks to the GPS, I marked the best spots, might try it the next days again.

After cycling (and a small snack), I went to the city, wanted to fill the film in the Zorki, 15 frames were left and I want to start developing again soon. There is another film in the Bessa too, gonna finish that off next saturday at the medival festival. Gonna be fun.

And then bad news in the evening, my keyboard (some remember the nice green/orange one) stoped working, and while trying to clean it to get it working again, it totaly broke. Now I’m back to a 90s IBM keyboard that goes click every time I press a key. I feel like I traveled back in time.

Alice Cooper was quite excited about it, and I can clearly see why. After the last exam today at 15:30, the current semester is now over (appart from 2 papers I have to write, but that has time), holidays started.

Since I didn’t get back out before 5pm, I just went to the city a bit, relaxing, not much time to go somewhere special. BUt that will change tomorrow

Holidays. HURAYYY.

So, not much to write today, since the exam is tomorrow, most of it was spend learning for it. Only break was a short visit to a friend around noon, we ordered some photo stuff from germany and we had to get together to send the order away. Should get a lot of nice stuff in around 10 days

Like most of the previeous days, weather was nice and I had to learn stuff Not the best combination if you ask me. Only good think, on Monday afternoon that is history, then summer holidays start. And I’m pretty sure that exam will be a piece of cake

But wait, this day wasn’t like all others. A few days ago I noticed a poster in the city, about a concert in Feldkirchen. And that concert was today, advertised as The Animals, it was actually Animals and Friends (one of the 4 groups, looks every member of the first band made their own group). Sadly it was the group without Eric Burdon, but nevertheless they found something very good to fill that place, can’t compare it to the real one, but it sounded damn good today.

Sadly, we had to notice another big flaw over here. BAD MARKETING. Most people I talked too told me they just found info about this event by pure luck. After all, around 170 people showed up there today. Not very much, hardly any.  Tickets would been quite pricy to me, they were 32€ (not that I would buy tickets ( not that I would by tickets for friend I invite )), but when you do the math, thats hardly any money for them. That could have been done MUCH better. Get the local radio stations into, use the internet, it can’t be that hard.

Anyway, enough of that, I know you want photos and here you go Click on FLICKR.

So, now back to learning, but this time to a more easier to learn class, media and politics. Still a lot to learn, but this now is “understandable” and also I know the prof allready so I somehow also know how he will ask the stuff. Should work better then the last exam yesterday

Otherwise, after a major cleanup project, I finally found most of my missing rechargeable batteries. Now I try to charge them. Need plenty of energy for tomorrow

So, had the first on my 2 exams today, and it didn’t went very well, don’t expect to much from it. But at least I know now what I have to learn for the 2nd try in fall.

After that, I went to the city, needes some cheer up and whats better then walking around with a camera. Also had to do some shopping, so that fitted nicely.  Took not that many photos, since I wasn’t highly motivated, also there was not much on in the city.

Later I visited a friend, we finally ordered some more film and chemicals, since you can’t get them in Klagenfurt (or most parts of Austria anymore).

And just when I went to bed, we got some nice hail too

Also on a sidenow, I got another proofe that the university is run by drunken lemures. Its great when they make the powerpoint slides avileable online. Its ok when they convert them to pdf. Its NOT ok when the keep the annoying blue/gray patterend background they used.

So, last day before the exam, so a bit more learning, some sleeping and then I hop i will write something good. Either way, then most of the learnign is done, there is one more exam next Monday, but that should be a piece of cake. Hopefully.

Can’t wait for this to be over