So, time for an update. The following notable things have happened to me lately.

1. I went to EuropaPark in Germany.
2. Went for another weekend tramping trip with Matthais, this time near Luzern.
3. Got 'promoted' to Project Leader at work.
4. Started DMing with two workmates.
5. Threw a 'Kiwi BBQ' birthday party at my place.
   

Europa Park, 7th April:

Went with two car-loads of local friends. Europa Park's relatively close to the Swiss border, so it only takes an hour or two to get there. Officially my first visit to Germany.

The sun rises as I wait...

German Autobahn: No speed limit!	First impressions

The Crew	Europa Mouse? What've you done with Mickey?

Man, that place is pretty cool. We'd chosen a public holiday that most people spend at home with the family, so there were relatively few people there. The waits were only around 10-15mins at most of the rides. I think that over the course of the day we went on almost every ride in the park, which is some achievement as there are a bunch. Some go fast, some go slow, some float, some roll, some hang, some swing. Some make you scared, some make you sick, and some make you go straight back to the start of the line again.
There is one water ride where they have built their very own river to raft down. You hop in a rubber raft for four and hit the rapids. At two points on this ride there are fountains that shoot water high in the air, the effect of which is to thoroughly soak any unfortunates that happen to be under it at the time. The trigger to this fountain is a big red button on the walkway, and 50c gets you three shots. We (Claudia) spent more than an hour converting dry tourists into wet ones. Some people knew about the button and implored us to show mercy - one woman even begged - but alas, mercy is not a concept known to Claudia, and the water continued to fly.

Tramping With Matthais, 1st May:
We walked along the Vierwaldstätter lake from Brunnen to Flüelen, camping one night under a big (I presume Redwood) tree. First day rained, cleared up in the afternoon, and then stayed fine until half an hour after we arrived at Flüelen where we took a boat back to Brunnen. Perfectly timed.

Brunnen Below	Our Heroes

Camp	Sunset

Two Stupid Guys

Mmm... the smell of the mountains!	Ooh, look! A cute widdle Kitty!

Flüelen in the background.	I think we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Got 'Promoted' at Work:
Yes, it's true. From the end of May I'll be project leader.
What does it mean? I get paid more to work more.
How the hell? The old project leader quit. It's a two-man project. Ta-daa!
Forgive the satirical tone, I'm actually quite excited about it. Naturally I'm also a little scared.. The project I've been working on is quite the little monolith and has been running for a number of years under various project leaders (I think I'm the 4th generation). The technology we use is 'special', and most of the time in order to fix something you have to know it inside-out. This often means looking at its insides to figure out how it works. (And you wonder why programmers aren't considered People-Persons.) Nonetheless, I reckon it'll work out fine. Ask me again in a month.

Started DMing with two workmates:
Actually I have Alex, our DM to thank for that. I casually mentioned I'd be keen to try my hand at running a game sometime, and he dumped a bunch of resources on me and told me to get to it. I'm surprised at the amount of preparation time required. So far we've run two sessions, and I've been blogging the session journals here. I'm having a ball and I think so are the players.

Threw a 'Kiwi BBQ' birthday party at my place.
Sunday the 6th of May. My place. Damn, that was cool. The weather was crap in the morning but by 2pm the rain had stopped and things dried up pretty quickly. Around 30 people showed + kids. The tables and the BBQ were set up under shelter, so the rain didn't bother us much. I found five types of imported NZ beer and put on bangers and burgers. People brought what they wanted. Unfortunately Switzerland doesn't sell the nasty sausages we have back home, so I had to settle for the high quality ones with real meat in them. Bugger.

That's me for the time being.