Live Life. Life is Short. Life is an Adventure.

I got to spend today in Central Park following a look at a NY apartment. Met up with some friends, and met some new people, played some frisbee and enjoyed the summer ambiance. I kept having “Central Park in May” run around in my head. My walking got me to see many things. Some highlights.

All my photos at Memorial Day Central Park NY 2008.

Plenty of sun baking, look at those turtles.

And a few humans as well.

Children and animals.

A Roller Party in the park.

Flowers.

Water Sports.

Other Sports.

And the general park surrounds.

And a guy playing two trumpets, who would have figured that?

I got a great first word in Facebook Scrabulous game tonight. 83 points. Probably the highest word score from any game so far.

I’ve been back in New York for a week now, caught up with a friend today for the afternoon. Weekend travel on the NY Subway can be a bit hit and miss. Trying to head south on the 6 at 51st, oops, have head north to 59th first. Thing is, it’s a maze to get to cross the platform, down stairs, under line, up stairs, then down stairs again two levels. At least I made it to my intended destination relatively on time. Then my iPhone would not get a signal from AT&T. This happens when exiting the subway, airplane mode, and a off and on, and still no signal. 5 full minutes before the phone decided to work.

An early dinner at Blue Smoke on 27th Street, then a stroll around town for a few hours. University Ave, Washington Square, Houston, Bleeker, 10 Ave back to 23rd St. Plenty to talk about, great to run some ideas by somebody, my play writing plans, some old forgotten website ideas, domains which I just re-registered now.

A great gelato shop on Bleeker, reminded me of my favourite shop back in Brisbane. A cupcake shop with a line around the corner at Bleeker and 11th, rather weird. It was a beautiful day, too hot for even a jacket that I carried around for like 5 hours. Great light in the afternoon on the brownstones, wish I’d brought my good camera (Canon EOS 40D).

Two things to add to the New York To Do List. Dinner with hot date at Morimoto 88 Tenth Avenue, and evening in a Stretch Limo such as Silver Star Limo.

I did however with my compact shoot a few cool vehicle number plates. My Collection is starting to take shape, all US States, I think 7 Canada, a few European countries, and recently all states in Australia. Pity my uploading skills were not as productive. But the pick for today was this “LESS GAS” on a Toyota Primus. Very cool indeed.

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During my recent visit in Australia I got to spend some time with friends Mike and Alison. An avid and happy Manchester United Supporter, the offer for a beer is never short of something different. It helps when your the importer of 200+ World Beers.

Seems hard to believe, I’ve been in Germany almost a month. I’ve not seen much, certainly haven’t gone anywhere outside of walking distance from my home/work. Of course I’ve spent 1 1/2 weeks of my time back in San Francisco/Silicon Valley for the MySQL Conference and Expo.

Life has developed somewhat of a routine, get up, get ready, take out the garbage, walk to work. Had an exceptionally bad night sleeping last night (with a general night, being poor one can imagine) causing a later start. Walk around the corner for lunch, today I had to tackle the post office for sending to a previous (for me) MySQL employee, and I was most grateful for the help of a colleague who assisted me in translation.

Leave work, go to the supermarket, I do this each day, just so I can get a few things I can carry home. It’s amazing how much a single human being consumes. Generally I catch the 112 bus home.

Today’s shopping including finding light bulbs, as I blew not one, but two over the weekend. It took some time, and well it’s difficult to ask for help, I’ve generally found that English is not understood, at least easily so I try not to try. Also had to revisit and buy the right salt. With everything in German one even when trying to digest as much detail you can still mess up. Something else to eat, to cook for dinner, which has become routine, again the language and pretty much lack of knowing anybody, or at least anybody saying, hey come out for dinner.

I’ve managed to find the translation rather more difficult then expected. I only know a few poor words of German, and I’d like to learn more, just swamped with trying to define my role in a new position, so that takes all my energies, and stresses. My mobile phone sends me text messages in German, which I’ve pretty much ignored. Today realizing it was voicemail, attempted to connect to voicemail, that’s all in German speaking too, so give up there. I forget to mention, the supplied manual was in German (but at least I could download an English version). Tried to install some software today, it’s in German. What is this, Germany or something.

At home, I’ve managed a routine. I’ve constructed a rudimentary working area, old uncomfortable chairs and a round table do not make for a good and comfortable place I sit. I’ve got a keyboard box (finally a US keyboard I had to wait to go back to get), a speaker from supplied radio (only one English music channel I’ve found anyway, and 3 carefully placed books, gives me a not very stable but working elevation for my laptop screen.

I might if motivated turn on the television, but again that’s all German too. I know when I arrived I had CNN via cable in the hotel, just the one station in English. I found out that free digital is available, so was prepared to pull out my USB Cable stick, only to realize I’d left the aerial in storage in New York. Drat. Still I’m working on my laptop, playing CNN will both get boring after a time, and take away from me being able to work.

You blink, and it’s like 8:45pm, it’s still light outside. Time to think about cooking dinner.

Playing Scrabble via FaceBook has become an important part of sanity. Only have two friends playing, and it can take a day for a move, so it gives me a few minutes.

I did get to see something today, that I wanted to see be it brief for 30 seconds. The Beluga past by the office in view this afternoon. This oversized modified Airbus is what is used to transport parts for the new Airbus 380 which is still rather plagued in mainline production. I also heard that the Airbus company is actually a European Government initiative, not a company with roots in one country, formed by Germany, France, Britain and Spain. This would explain why it’s built in different places and shipped around for assembly.

So all in all, not too much wow about a new country this last week. I have the enjoyable task of heading to Australia this weekend, not that enjoyable as it’s a long flight, three actually just to get there, and then returning home via US (that’s 5 more flights). It’s all traveling East, which sucks in comparison to traveling West.

Almost forgot to mention as the smoke wafts in. Window open to let some air in, but only long enough to some smoker, I think below me lights up and then it’s terrible. The weather in Hamburg has been unpredictable, rather Melbourne like, hot, cold, wet. Had all these today.

I got to see a little of Hamburg in the last day. It started with the sights and sounds of the ReeperBahn in Hamburg. I managed to get a tour by a MySQL employee, Kay which really made the entire translation thing easier. Indian dinner, a few stops for a beer or two, including a beach setting bar area which was rather cool. No talking to unknown German women occurred but I got to experience while heading home to stay on the right side of the road and avoid the prostitutes area which was clearly pointed out earlier. I suspect the area with clubs, brothels and sex shops would get to be a rough place later at night.

The Altonaer Fischmarkt, or Fish Market in English, provided for some passing of time on Sunday. It’s litterally five minutes walk away and I suspect I got a larger dosage and timeframe of operation then expected as the Hamburg Marathon was in play, well just outside my door really as well.

Not game enough to start buying fresh food, and fish but I did manage a few souviner tee-shirts for my trip home.

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