I'm not sure whether I've raved over the wonders of Google, the omnicscient, omnipresent cybermonolith. I usually associate those three dysphemisms with evil corporations like Microsoft and recent member to the club, Apple, yet my enthusiasm towards Google remains unchanged. Why? They provide great services to everyone for free. I sit here on the precipice of a new adventure, and decide that it's time to break the six months of silence and update my blog again. One blog to cover six months of busy-body me-life. Since the advent of Google Calendar however, the daunting task of book-keeping is now mere dictation. Scroll back to June and start typing. Emails are likewise retrievable. Yes sir, I like it. I like it a lot.

June 2009:
I started my new job at BSI AG. I'm still doing (some) java development, but that's about the only similarity with my old job. To encapsulate it, our team develops the software running behind Swiss Post counters, but that's about as encapsulated as it gets. There are more than twenty people on the project and more different, intertwined technologies than you can shake a stick at. Programming languages alone include Centura, C++, Scout (an in-house language/tool), and a lot of PL/SQL, but once you factor in the plethora of hardware devices the Post use to read barcodes, scan payment slips, print receipts, weigh parcels etc. which our software speaks to, and the whole data management which collects and balances data from over 3000 Post Offices across Switzerland, you begin to form an idea of the complexity of the project. Yes, technically it's very demanding which is great for me. An additional challenge is that the company is German speaking - spoken and written. Team meetings, emails, documentation, and customer contact is all in German. One can only assume I've learned a thing or two. To make it simple, work is challenging, but it's also rewarding and I like that.

Moni and I visited our friend Steffi in Freiburg (Germany) in early June. We only stayed for the weekend, but it was a really nice trip. The city of Freiburg is surprisingly beautiful, with its cobblestoned inner city and little streams running along all the gutters. There was a party at Steffi's one night, we saw the weekend market, and went for a walk up around in the hills. The cuisine there is good - and the beer also. :)

Work, jamming, Kung-Fu and Dnd as usual.

Two groups of couchsurfers stayed in June.

July 2009:
Dentist appointment! Well it was fine. I've been keeping those little fellas in line like my life depended on it. Moni can't believe how much dental crap I have in my bathroom. Electric brushes, regular tooth paste, high fluoride tooth paste, fluoride gel, mouth washes, dental floss, and inter-dental brushes (various diameters). And what's even more absurd? I use it all - well most of it. If you don't know why, I can only say you haven't been following my blog for that long.

Had a barbecue with the old work guys + our support team. Was cool, complete with fire, food, beer, throwing a football around, and fishing it out of the lake. Yahoo.

Two couchsurfer groups. A 1st generation American girl with Pakistani parents came to stay, and was interesting to talk to. Two German-speaking Belgium friends rented a car, drove south to Locarno (Italian-speaking Switzerland) and bungy jumped off the Verzasca Dam (think Pierce Brosnan in 007). Did I come too at the last minute? Hell yeah!

I was sent on a four-day powerspeech course by my work. Quite impressive considering I'd only been there a month. It was focused on public speaking and oratory skills. Recommended for anyone (hell, we're all software engineers!).

Work, jamming, Kung-Fu and Dnd as usual.

August 2009:
Interesting developments on the couchsurfing front. There were two American girls who had previously stayed with me, and were returning via Zurich airport. They, Moni Andy (an English chap I've come to be good chums with here in Zurich) and I gathered some armaments and went to the Werdinsel (Werd Island, which is just downstream from a hydro-plant on the Limmat). We lit a fire, ate some gooood meat from it, and played guitar. Great fun - but that's not the great part yet.

The great part is that Max and Rowena came and visited me here in Zurich. I met them twice at the airport (the first time their flight from Canada had been cancelled and they couldn't get the message to me until I was already on my way), and they crashed over at my flat for a spell. Max did a slide-show presentation of his climbing/sailing/adventuring days for a group of friends who were interested. They went up to Kleine Scheidegg with Max's old boss-plus-family from Fox Glacier (from whom I also acquired my excellent Scarpa tramping boots). Moni and I camped in my tent at Interlaken and met them there. Next day we went up the Jungfraujoch train which zig-zags inside the Eiger mountain to the train station built onto the saddle between Eiger and Jungfraujoch, at a headache-inducing 3,454m altitude. We went for a walk together, ate the heaviest cheese dish I've ever had, and eventually returned to the hotel on Kleine Scheidegg. Moni had a bout of altitude sickness and was KO for several hours.

Rowena the Abominable	Wild Empathy
Mönchsjochhütte	Stepping into the light
Kleine Scheidegg	Swissy Swissness
Jungfraujoch Station

There was also my grandparent's 65th wedding anniversary. The whole family reunited and had a grand old shin-digg in Fulenbach.

Eventually Max and Rowena continued their travels to Budapest, Japan and then home. It was great to see them after such a long time.

Andy split up with his girl, which was a bit sad. She's Swiss, and thusly his reason for coming to Switzerland, so it was foreseeable that he might return to England or move on to . Fortunately for us he's sticking it out. He can get by in German, has some good friends, some work, and has now a flat to boot.

Otherwise? Work, jamming, Kung-Fu and Dnd as usual.

September 2009:
Little of note. Just work, jamming, Kung-Fu and Dnd. As usual. I did arrange for a cleaner once a fortnight though, and after having some back problems signed up for regular deep-tissue massages. Life is good.

October 2009:
Couchsurfing alarm goes off again! Marissa came to stay. What a week. Within my regular schedule I managed to fit in the last camp fire for 2009 (marshmallows, cooked vegetables, and dodgy dripping chocolate banana splits), a walk up to Uetliberg, a session of guitar-and-pizza with Andy, and drinks in El Local (hell I was tired by then). She tagged along to a jam session, a dnd session, and went nuts (understatement) on the public transport with a all-zone pass I would never have used. I've had my share of couchsurfers Marissa was definitely the most fun (again, understatement).

November 2009:

• Dentist appointment - all clear.
• Jurgen visited from Austria - went to the wine ships at the lake, and sampled wines. Drunk for 20 franks. Bargain.
• Blood donation - did I mention I have O- blood. Gives me a self-inflated sense of importance. Not rare, but special in the way that O-'s can only receive O- blood.
• Kung Fu grading - I have reached another level of ass-whooping enlightenment. Yee ha.

I got all inspired at DnD and, with Andy's help, built a scythe-wielding war machine out of recycled stuff I had lying around the flat - beer cans, egg cartons, toilet roll, and bamboo skewers. The prototype's power source is a vacuum cleaner, but the real thing needs a Permanency (Gust of Wind) to be cast inside the turbine chamber. Haven't figured out brakes or any crap like that out yet, but who needs it.

Behold, the Blade of Doom!




December 2009:

• BSI Zurich office opening - made a desert and brought a chair. Chocolate mouse was popular, beanbag was not.
• Haircut and dinner at Roger and Sandra's.
• 24th Christmas dinner with Moni's family, like last year.
• 25th Christmas lunch in Fulenbach with my family.
• As I write this, the clock ticks down to my trip to Sri Lanka for Marissa and Sagar's wedding. I'm freakin' amped man. Just one sleep and then I'm on the plane. Still gotta pack though... might play some games first.

Stay tuned for my adventures in Sri Lanka. :)

(And just to end with a touch of irony, did I ever mention how crappy the integration between Google's Blogger and Picasa are? Uploading images should be easy an automated. It's not, and thumbnails are only generated if you upload them manually with the web-interface. Grr@Google.)