Monday, June 30, 2003

A week at home...
It was nice to be back home. It's been around half a year since the last time. I went to the IGA 2003 in Rostock with my mom. It's the international gardening exhibition with its main attraction, the willow cathedral, the biggest living natural-plant construction in the world. Moreover I re-discovered Schwerin on an official sightseeing tour guided by my sister Teresa.

I came back on Friday, hitchhiking again. But this time it took me about nine hours because of traffic jams. On Saturday I went to Munich with Julia. She went shopping a bit and I had a casting in the Maritim Hotel held by StarCast. I'm not sure this company is fraud or not. They seem to be quite legitimate. After all they invtited just a bit over 60 people to this casting, had around 15 employees there including photographers etc.

They interviewed me, made photos, interviewed me again. Then they decided to give me a contract and showed me to the next room where my sedcard was arranged. For the printing of 600 of these sedcards, which will then be delivered to tv-channels etc., they wanted to charge a bit over 300 Euros. So now I am no longer sure in what they are interested. I mean, they didn't gave everyone a contract, and had just a bunch of people there in the hotel. I can't believe they cheat people, because these 300 Euros per person is not enough to pay off the employees, the hotel, print the sedcarts, and still make some money. On the other hand if they are really sure that you'll get a job then they should overtake these costs and to settle it with future income. After all they will get 30% of my payment if they arranged the job. And I also don't like the fact that they didn't communicate these costs before. Anyway, I'll not pay a cent to them and better continue my thesis. This will hopefully pay off much more. :=)

Saturday, June 21, 2003

So now my hitchhike statistics...
Start at my apartment in Ingolstadt: 5:30 am
Arrival in front of my family's house: 12:30 pm
This made a good seven hours for the approx. 690 km.
I had five different cars, including one Audi A8.
Three of the five drivers had studied Business administration, just like I am doing now.

Friday, June 20, 2003

Go North
Tomorrow I'll hit the road again in another attempt to hitchhike home. Let's pray for much traffic. Last time I travelled on a Saturday was not so cool, but I couldn't leave today, so I'll have to take it as it comes. I'll come back during the next week, maybe Wednesday/Thursday, depending how I'll travel.

Monday, June 16, 2003

"In front of them all" in Stuttgart
I have been to Stuttgart last weekend for the SWR3 Arena of Sound music festival featuring Mel C, Tiziano Ferro, Blue, Right Said Fred, Wonderwall and others. Plus it featured a tropical thunderstorm with such rain you can seldomly experience in Germany. Nonetheless the athmosphere was wonderfull and - the best of all - it was completely free. With me were Kai, Julia and Basti. And we stood just less than ten metres from the stage, very positive for a shortsighted person like me. :-)

See the photos or video (Real Player required) from the SWR3 radio station.

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Preview
As announced some days before I've got someting new. It's a recumbent bike also often referred to as a Human Powered Vehicle (HPV). Just in case you haven't seen such thing before, this bike has no fairing. It is the wrapping of the delivery service. I made some test drives already. It's very cool. As soon as I have some nice pics in action I'll upload them. Promised.

&copy 2003 Johannes Beck


You've still no clue what I'm talking about? See these soruces: The German HPV organisation, the English Recumbent FAQ (in German).

Thursday, June 5, 2003

The Summer-Challenge weekend was extrafine, especially the beach party at Saturday. They transformed our campus into a beach with pools, palmtrees, cocktail-bars and 50 tons of sand. It was so good I even can't remember how I got home and when. But I did!

Jolle running the duathlon (&copy 2003 Stephan Mueller, Donaukurier


Above is a photo of me running the second part of the duathlon. Tim was swimming first and then I went on the track. We got third overall, and I ran the 5.1 km in less than 20 minutes, faster than anytime before. See more photos...