so the 'toy' is finally fixed and ready togo, well the skid plate is still missing, but will be installed soonish.

About the car?

* Volkswagen Passat GLX
* 2.8-liter V-6, 190 horses
* Power glass sunroof
* Rain sensor, automatic wipers
* Heated windshield washer nozzles
* Automatic climate control Air Conditioning
* Multi function trip computer
* Genuine wood decor
* Monsoon Sound System 8-speakers with amplifier - still no ipod connector...
* Driver and front passenger side airbags
* Side Curtain Air Bags
* 8-way driver and front passenger power seats, driver with 3 memory positions - can't figure out how the memory system works...
* Heatable front seats - after all it's cold in ca...
* Homelink with sun visor extension
* Leather seating surfaces
* ABS (anti-lock braking system)
* ASR (Anti-Slip Regulation)
* EDL (Electronic Differential Lock)
* Electronically controlled 5-speed Automatic Transmission with Tiptronic
* 6 disc CD-changer, trunk mounted
* children safety doors, I was successful in locking myself in the car...
* large trunk
* couple of dings, nothing major
* cruise control, to avoid speeding tickets

and it drives so much nicer than my truck. I totally forgot that car's can be silent and not making weird noises all the time...

doing some math tells me that I would break even after reading 100 books on a kindle. Which would equal to about a year of reading.

I really need to test this thing sometime soonish...

ok the passat is still in the shop and I get eaten by bugs in the house, but I hope to get it back tomorrow ready togo.

I keep looking at the kindle2 since i do not want to spend more money on books and than can't keep them if I have to move. But 370$ is a bit steep and I don't even know if I like it. I guess I wait for the kindle3 which has I 10" display (I hope...)

The financing will be most likely done by the selling of a certain item, which would make it the most expensive kindle ever...

Ashley and I are also browsing all possibility of visas. To get an H1B seems to be impossible. To get a O1 is unlikely, but most likely my only chance. So far we also thought about the possibility to move some were together. But that's one of our crazy? Idea's.


While writing this blog I killed 22 mosquitoes, help!

mhm ashley kept pointing out that the passat smells like stuff is burning and so i spent the last couple of hours trying to figure out what it could be.

The smell comes front the driver side of the car, so maybe this?

I'd bet you have the "oil seeping from cam adjuster" problem. The cam adjuster for the right bank is at the rear and directly above the exhaust pipe...if oil drips down it hits pipe and burns...the intake for the cabin air is right above it...so the fumes are sucked into the cabin when heater or AC is on and fan is blowin. I had same problem...Audi published TSB saying that PCV system should be replaced B4 replacing cam adjuster gaskets/seals or valve cover gaskets since clogged PVC can lead to increased crankcase pressure which forces oil by the seals...since it is way cheaper labor wise to replace PVC (and the parts to do so are about $90 online) I did this and oil seepage stopped...been almost a year and no problems!

does not sound to healthy (give me head ache) and so I guess I have to replace some more parts or live with the smell...

maybe just maybe I get lucky?

My local shop gave me a technical bulletin that applies to Passat, 2000-2001, 2.8L vehicles. The OBD for the catalytic converter system may be set too sensitive causing fault codes with out a defect in the catalytic system. The bulletin covers DTC codes P0420, P0421, P0422, P0430, P0431, P0432. The code descriptions all contain an 'efficiency below threshold' comment. Warranty claims would reference 'As per technical bulletin 2010372'. I think that the emissions coverage has expired, so it should be interesting to see if I have to pay for the update. I had the independent shop verify that the 02 sensors are good, and they didn't recommend replacing the cat's before having the code update. Will see how it plays out, but thought folks might appreciate knowing that there is a TB out for, at least, this model year/engine.

http://www.carsurvey.org/reviews/volkswagen/passat/r40379/comments/page-6/

since my emission values are all perfect...

so far invested into the Passat:

• 4600$ Passat (4300$ + 300$ taxes)
• 80$ oil change
• 40$ new air filter
• 120$ aaa membership
• 240$ for timing belt kit
• 100$ for front liners
• 250$ for a skid plate
• 100$ for valve cover kit
• 30$ for a car fax history report
• 50$ hood lift support
• 230$ tools
• 140$ code reader
• 40$ ramps
• 300$ for labor

but now It's driving perfect.

got money for:

• 400$ + 200$ worth of garage credit for my dogde dakota, it will be missed
• 900$ 17-55mm F/2.8
• 590$ Taxes
• 250$ broken SB-800

being able to drive around soon and spend time with Ashley,

price less

cost of the passat:

6270$ total so far

do I trust it:

no

what needs to be done that I trust it?

• replacement of transmission oil
• PCV system replacement
• ECU update

miles driven: 1200

correction,

my truck is officially dead and for sale,
bought a 2001 VW Passat V6 GLX for an incredible price,
drove it home,
engine mal function lamp turns on,
it's very low on oil,

I hate my live...

the passat is now going in the shop to see what the issue is...

...i just bought it and I thought I can resell it easily, since it looked to be in perfect condition and a friend who is a vw mechanic checked all what he could and was amazed about the condition the car is in...

besides the engine problem. I love this car. It's so wonderful to drive...

today is the day were my trusty truck was declared officially dead. It needs repairs for over 2500$ which is just a waste of money.

Now once I get my visa, I can go car shopping again...

point reyes, is just wonderful...


well this Saturday Ashley and I went to the 'Point Reyes' national seashore and explored the deep and green jungle and the 'dangerous' surf. Why dangerous? Well it seems that if you hand somebody your key she is going to loose it and you spend the next 20 minutes searching the beach for a little orange tiger...

We even managed to see some deers, but like always it took me to long to grab the right camera/lens combination and it disappered, before I could capture it :(

About camera, that was my workout...

• tripod + head
• D200 + 70-200mm F/2.8
• D80 + 10-20mm
• 35mm F/2
• 50mm F/1.8 (didn't use it, won't bring it again)
• 90mm macro (I still suck at macros, I should sell it)
• Reflector, just in case...
• several filters which got stuck at each other and so could not be used...

I still want a small little semi pocketable camera, like a nikon P6600 or so. But I don't really needed it anyway...

Oh ya, pictures. You can find them here

The pics of me were taken by Ashley, which is getting more and more interested in the art of photography.

the story was:

• me sick
• me getting better
• me taking pictures of local salon
• me getting fever again
• me going to bed

yes I am frustrated that my blogs keep disappearing, it's a disaster...

The good thing is I still shoot on average 1000-2000 pictures a month and keep getting better, but need to learn to be more creative...

ok why do my post keep disappearing...

pics are here yet again, but I don't write the story yet another time. I'm frustrated...

what a wonderful Sunday,

getting up early after a long night with friends in the local bar and riding the bikes out to Sacramento.

Basically, Ashley, Kimberly and I decided to grab the roadbikes and ride the 14 miles to sacramento, drop them off at Ashley's house and visit a local exhibition (Buddha, German art, Californian landscapes) and having some quick mexican food afterward.

Finally we went back to davis and my crank set got loose again, which I needed to tighten up several times afterward. I should replace it rather quickly. We also lost Kimberly during the ride (it turned out she was collecting flowers...) getting some frozen youghurt while waiting for her (she passed by and ignored us...) and now making some crepes with applesauce.

The rest of the day, well I need to catch up on some work, watching a movie and preparing my self for yet another dentist visit in the morning. Maybe it's less than 500$ this time.

I'm also looking at yet another lens purchase (18-200mm VR) which would be needed on the possible roadtrip in a week. Since I do not want to carry the 17-55 F/2.8 and 70-200 F/2.8 and 10-20mm sigma around. But than do I want to spend 700$ just to avoid to carry 7lbs around? I think I rather spend this on another vacation trip.

Saturday morning, or in other words a picnic next to the farmers market with friends and snapping some pics of kims daughter playing with Cody.

And yes we did had wine at this picnic and fancy cheese, which make it more less perfect :)

how to make fancy style pan cakes...

Ingredients:

2 cups of flower
2 eggs
2 cups of MILK, you know the white stuff

Mix it together, drop it in a medium hot pan and spread it out with a spatula, if the pan cake breaks, add a bit more milk and try again.


Flambe:

2 x shots Barccadi 151
2 x shots Cointreau
nutmeg, cinnamon to taste
1 large can of pears in medium or heavy syrup

• discard the syrup (or drink it...)
• slice the pears
• soak the pears in the Cointreau/Barcadi and add spices
• wait 20 minutes
• put it on a stoves of medium heat
• wait 5 minutes
• ignite the flambe with a LONG match (paper tissue works too...)
• get a new haircut, short hair + flambe = good, long hair + flambe = bad...
• keep tossing the pears so the alcohol burns evenly off, if clumsy take a spoon and just steer it, but you get less chicks in this way
• serves to the pancakes hot with vanilla ice cream
  

If you are not fancy, serve apple sauce...

Snowshoeing in tahoe, well it's more difficult than it looks and hiking boots are defiantly the wrong shoes.

now I'm stuck at home with only wet boots and my dry shoes are in the office. Solution? Going to the office with bike shoes and picking up the spare shoes + spending the rest of the day reading at mishka's.

But I'm glad that the D200+17-55 F/2.8 are both weather sealed, they defiantly got there fair share of snow

(clumsy me)

Well tonight I decided to drive to sac quick, on my road bike, in the hope to get back in shape.

Lessons learned:

- I'm out of shape, an average speed of 28km/h is nothing to brag about
- do not ride in the dark if you are night blind, it got dark after I was half to sac
- harbor blvd in sac is a scary place at night in spandex...
- I really want to do this more often
- I am going to buy aero bars, since the causeway was just a straight line for 10 miles
- Santana is not the best music to ride too
- take a camera with you next time, there were so gorgeous reflections in the wildlife area

Short once you hit the causeway it's really fun


And tomorrow we go snowshoeing and taking pictures in Tahoe!

ok introduction of my algorithm to get rid of my ant problem:


//get available ants
List ants = getAnts();

///keep running till there are no more ant's to be found
while(ants.size() > 0){

//iterate over the current available ants
for(Ant a : ants){

//we kill the current ant till it's truly dead
while(a.isDead() == false){

//actuall kill method
a.kill();
}
}

//get more ant's
ants = getAnts();
}


Ok I provided the algorithm and software solution, now somebody needs to find a hardware solution for this...

I think this are the pictures I like the best from the short photo shoot with presh in the 'studio' yesterday afternoon. We had to shoot inside the house, since the weather is just getting worse and worse everyday.

finally managed to get a haircut...

and playing around a bit in the studio I setup in the garage for the monday shot.

what could be more fun than to spend a day in the spring sun and shooting pictures of her?

I also had the chance to play around with a model which is interested to be photographed by me and Emily.

Here are the best pictures of the tryou which was just a 25 minute shot with her and a single softbox. Hey I'm back to keep it simple...

Another clickmonkey workshop and a lot of new pictures. This time it was about shooting roadbikes and here they are

still working on the jury crap...

well yesterday I got a letter that I'm supposed todo jury duty at the 20nd of january, well yesterday was the 22nd and it was send to my old apartment...

so my current day so far is:

1. call number, fight with the automated system, sorry nobody avaialbe to take your call and they hang up
2. wait 5 minutes
3. go back to step 1.

this game I do no since 2 hours and so far not really making progress to appologize for this. I mean I do have no interest to pay a fine or go to jail because of this, not that it's very likely. But they did write on the letter:

Failure to respond to this summons will subject you to a fine, a jail term, or both

I'm not even allowed to do jury duty for Christ sake...

plans of the next days:


thursday:

• 8 - 12 working at home
• 12 - 2.30 writing at mishkas some more documentation
• 3 - 5 giving introduction how to use a particular software

friday

• 8 - 12 working in the office
  
• 2 - 5 working at mishkas on more documentation

saturday

• cleaning house
• going out
• rediscovering strawberry margaritas

but playing settlers of catan all night long at sudwerks was fun tonight.

it turns out that my room mates have way to much time and sitting next to each other in the living room and writing on a 'presentation about the impact of google documents to your social live'

there was no liqueur involved, yet...

as promised some pictures of my new room now that it's nearly finished and just needs some more pictures on the walls. Well which one to pick first...

well I finally managed to sort the 400 pictures I took at the rugby game last night and can only say. The D200 really does not work very well in low light and shooting constantly at iso3200 and iso1600 in the beginning did not improve the picture quality. We are basically back to black and white pictures, which are pretty grainy and still shoot only at 1/50th-1/100th of a second at 300mm.

Yes I managed to borrow a 300mm F/4 lens and it's just great and I want one. Maybe in June or august, if I get my situation here sorted.

what was planned to be the perfect morning, turned out into well something else..


- getting up at 5.30
- taking shower
- leaving the house at 6.30
- moving roommates volvo C70 out of the drive way
- moving my car out of the drive way
- moving roommates volvo C70 into the drive way
- trying to get the key out of the ignition for 24 minutes
- giving up and asking roommate what's wrong with the key
- hearing response, well you need to press the little lever under the transmission... (I somehow failed to make the connection between the keylock and the TINY TINY lever, I mean serious...)
- spending another 10 minutes to figure out that the engine need to be running to press the lever or something like this...
- forgetting to drop of some dvd's
- coming to work
- leaving work because I forgot my breakfast
- getting breakfast at mishkas
- dropping coffee and getting new coffee at mishkas...

damn I so hope it will become better...

Asparagus soup, based on a recipe found on the internet and optimized by me

Ingredients

* 3 lbs asparagus (white preferred, green works too)
* 1 large yellow onion, chopped (white onion works too)
* 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
* 6 cups chicken broth (careful that it's not to salty!)
* 1 cup heavy cream (or more is always better...)
* Salt and pepper
* Nutmeg
* A great portion of love for your friends
* a spatula to defend the food against hungry kids. The bigger the better

Method

1 Cut tips from 12 asparagus 1 1/2 inches from top and halve tips lengthwise if thick. Reserve for garnish. Cut stalks and all remaining asparagus into 1/2-inch pieces, discard the ends. If it's white asparagus peel it first and

2 Cook onion in butter in a 4 or 6-quart heavy pot over moderately low heat, stirring, until softened. Add asparagus pieces and salt and pepper to taste, then cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Add broth and simmer, covered, until asparagus is very tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

3 Purée soup in batches in a blender until smooth. If you want a very creamy texture, you can put the purée through a food mill or press it through a sieve. Transfer to a bowl (use caution when blending hot liquids), and return to pan. Stir in cream. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Drop tips in it and cook for another 5 - 6 minutes on low temperature. Keep warm till served and do not reheat it afterward!
(Hand blender works too, if you use a plastic cocktail blender let the soup cool for 5 - 10 minutes, with a glass blender rinse it under hot water for a couple of minutes)

well tonight we celebrated my welcome back to davis at kims place.

Well to short say, we made some great food:

- asparagus soup (made by me)
- cod in some kind of sauce (kim)
- chicken in some kind or sauce (kim)
- tri-tip steak, pan fried which was amazingly good, but different (made by me)
- california roll (kim)
- crepes with pears (flambe) and vanilla ice (filling/flambe by me, crepes by kim)
- feuerzangen bowle (made by me, organized by kim)
- shrimps (kim)


I also start to figure out how to use the damn razor without cutting my self... Well slowly, but facial scars are supposed to make attractive, but how much attractiveness does a men need...

well my hones arrived and now I try to learn honing razors and knives.

The first test is the standard honing pyramid:

3/1
3/1
1/3
1/3
1/3
1/5
1/5
1/10

which resulted in some first results, but nothing to get crazy about yet. Well I just need to practise.

still waiting for the hones, which should arrive on monday and afterward I'm going to hone a cheap knife first for practice reasons.
Maybe I can find a barber here who can hone the razor for me, so I learn something.

on the other hand, my room has now some drapes and start's to look better, but boy it's tiny...

I also ordered yet another sonicare toothbrush, since I can't manage to get my old one running again after the 8 weeks without use. This is now the 4th? toothbrush in 4 years...

ok it turned out that I stropped into the wrong direction and this lesson cost me another 120$ for a set to now sharpen the razor....

220/1000 grit stone
4000/8000 grit stone
SiC flattening stone

first shave with the new razor:

disappointing, major skin irritations, uncomfortable

I need to practice a lot and it might needs to be honed or I did something wrong during stropping and messed something up.

mhm, maybe it works better tomorrow, at least I smell nice now...

Yay Christmas in germany with the family.

You just don't need a flash sometimes, but higher iso would be nice...

one of the worst pictures I ever took, but the stuff was so tasty and my fingers were shaking from the cold...

a chocolate shop in Potsdam :)

I'm happy to announce that my website now allows comments and has a guest book.

...And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy." And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu ... And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." Amen...

I guess I watched too munch monty python lately, but I just LOVE this part!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Knight_(Monty_Python)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Hand_Grenade_of_Antioch

On this day 10 years ago I told a woman

I love you

and her response was, what does this mean for you. This question surprised me in a way that I thought was not possible and I was not able to answer this question in any way.

If she would ask me the same question now, what does

I love you

mean, I'm still not sure how to find the right words to describe such a feeling. But this time I would actually have a rough idea and would understand why she asked this question in the first place.

I think sometimes in live people ask you questions which you are not able to answer, but leave you with a better understanding of your self and you can only be thankful for things like this. Sadly this woman disappeared 2001 from my live and I was never able to reestablish contact since them.