well today I took of the day to move to my new place for this year and I hope to stay longer here. Depending how everything goes with the roommate and my wonderful girlfriend.

So here are some pictures of the front and backyard and I post pictures of the rest of this house as soon as possible.

My room basically has barley any stuff in it so far, since i need to remodel my bed and so. But once it's done it's going to be beautiful.

The backyard and frontyard are nice and I smoked my first tritip tonight, which was just amaizing and pretty cheap at 20$ for 4 lbs.

I guess I have this kind of sandwiches for the next 4 - 5 days.

Anyway it's late and time for bed.

well this is something new, a very strange behavior in one of my tests cases:


List result = this.getEntityManager().createQuery("from " + LoggingEntityBean.class.getName() + " b").getResultList();
assertTrue(result.isEmpty() == false);

int size = result.size();
int exspected = testSize * addres.length;

logger.info(size);
logger.info(exspected);
assertTrue(size == exspected);


now why do I get this error message...

[17:37:02,007] [INFO ] [main] [LoggingServiceTest] [400]
[17:37:02,008] [INFO ] [main] [LoggingServiceTest] [200]

junit.framework.AssertionFailedError: null
at edu.ucdavis.genomics.metabolomics.binbase.logging.server.LoggingServiceTest.setUp(LoggingServiceTest.java:73)
at org.jmock.core.VerifyingTestCase.runBare(Unknown Source)
at org.junit.internal.runners.JUnit38ClassRunner.run(JUnit38ClassRunner.java:81)
at com.intellij.rt.junit4.Junit4ClassSuite.run(Junit4ClassSuite.java:99)
at com.intellij.rt.execution.junit.JUnitStarter.main(JUnitStarter.java:40)



error in this line:

assertTrue(size == exspected);

ok it's supposed to fail because 200 isn't 400, but not with a NullPointer exception...

now I have been working with intellij for a bit over a week and it have to say it has it's highs and it's lows.

• refactoring is just great
• override/implment function works good
• I hate the code completion, it's just strange behavior wise
• the junit plugin is nice, but a bit strange
• the grails/groovy support is exceptional good
• the performance is good if I work on a single project, if I work on my average 40 projects at once it's impossible to work with
• nice support for for python, works quite well
• uml support is great
• ant based build are a nightmare, but we want to use maven anyway whenever, where ever
• maven plugin is great in therorie, but with complex pom's it's extremely slow.

conclusions:

• python development will be in intellij
• groovy development will be in intellij
• scala development will be in intellij
• java development will be in eclipse
• pom writing will be in intillij and I generate the project directly via 'mvn idea:idea eclipse:eclipse' instead of using the pom as project file
  

ok it's not hot in davis,

it's ridiculous hot, 47 Degree Celsius....

I mean seriously...

lesson:

• do not buy a car with black leather seats...
• do not buy a car with black leather...
• do not buy a car with black...
• do not buy a car with...
• do not buy a car...
• do not buy a...
• do not buy...
• do not...
• do...
• ...
• ..
• .

translation I hid in the office, enjoyed the AC and got some stuff done (Die hard, Die hard with a vengeance,...)

Also no smoked meat today, I will not sit for 12 hours next to this thing fighting with the heat during the day or the roaches at night.

Now time to run for a restaurant and get some tasty food. I'm in no mood to cook tonight.

mocking spring,

moved to Coding and More

ajax and grails

moved to Coding and More

to cancel flight's is fun...

Flight cost summary

Flight cost - 6/16/09

Airfare #XXXXXXXXXXXXX	$679.25
Flight cost	$679.25
Exchange cost - 6/25/09
Airfare #XXXXXXXXXXXXX	$688.78
Previous airfare	-$679.25
Airfare difference	$9.53
Orbitz exchange fee	$30.00
Airline change fee	$200.00
Total exchange cost	$239.53	USD

Grand total itinerary cost to-date	$918.78 USD

boy my checking account truly hates me right now...

so it look's like the raid is now running, so this next step would be an lvm2 layer on top of it.

I thought it would be easy, but...

/dev/sdc1: lseek 10448441413827256320 failed: Invalid argument

Incorrect metadata area header checksum

--- Physical volume ---

PV Name /dev/md3

VG Name data

PV Size 9.09 TB / not usable 3.25 MB

Allocatable yes

PE Size (KByte) 4096

Total PE 2384157

Free PE 2384157

Allocated PE 0

PV UUID 2EQH1i-BIYU-BDvH-sRb3-yruB-V15f-ZCTywN

"/dev/sdc1" is a new physical volume of "8.98 EB"

--- NEW Physical volume ---

PV Name /dev/sdc1

VG Name

PV Size 9.06 EB

Allocatable NO

PE Size (KByte) 0

Total PE 0

Free PE 0

Allocated PE 0

PV UUID 2;??-ƈ+-?m-s?b3-?ruB-V15f-ZCTywN

"/dev/sdn1" is a new physical volume of "64.01 PB"

--- NEW Physical volume ---

PV Name /dev/sdn1

VG Name

PV Size 64.01 PB

Allocatable NO

PE Size (KByte) 0

Total PE 0

Free PE 0

Allocated PE 0

PV UUID 2EQI1i-BHYU-BEvH-sRb3-yruB-V15f-ZCTywN

it looks like I just got promoted to a 64 Peta Byte server on the disk's sdn1 and 9.06 Exta Byte on sdc1.

Guess I got more harddrive space as I ordered...

So it look's like it's adding my disk's to the group instead of only my raid6 devices. The solution for this is to disable in the /etc/lvm/lvm.com the related disks:

filter = [ "r|/dev/cdrom|","r|/dev/sd*|" ]

Time for the next issue...

currently I'm fighting since 4 weeks with a retarded server, well whenever I got some time besides

• fixing bugs
• keeping the system running, because the main server is offline since 2 month now
• helping people with problems
• fighting with power outages
• fixing servers
• and actually coding doing research in the left over time

anyway for some reasons the raid system keeps failing all the time, specially it keeps forgetting it's devices.

So just some small things for me to remember for the next time...

• removing existing raid stuff: mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/sd[c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p]1
• stopping a raid: mdadm --stop /dev/md_d3
• getting some info's about the raid: mdadm --examine /dev/sd[c-p]1
• trying to assemble a raid: mdadm -v -A /dev/md_d3 /dev/sd[c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p]1
• creating a large raid0 for testing: mdadm --create --verbose --force /dev/md3 --level=raid0 --raid-devices=14 /dev/sd{c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p}1
• creating a raid6: mdadm --create --verbose --force --name=data /dev/md3 --level=raid6 --raid-devices=12 --spare-devices=2 /dev/sd{c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p}1
• storing the generated configuration: mdadm --examine --scan --config=mdadm.conf >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf

solution: found here

now just wait a tiny bit for the rebuild...

md3 : active raid6 sdp1[13](S) sdo1[12](S) sdn1[11] sdm1[10] sdl1[9] sdk1[8] sdj1[7] sdi1[6] sdh1[5] sdg1[4] sdf1[3] sde1[2] sdd1[1] sdc1[0]

9765510400 blocks level 6, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [12/12] [UUUUUUUUUUUU]

[>....................] resync = 0.7% (7591112/976551040) finish=1074.7min speed=15024K/sec

well since this month turned out to be much more pricey than planned

• ticket to germany 700$
• visa fee 200$
• conference fee 200$ (should get reimbursed in the next view weeks)
• smoker 350$ (including needed stuff like coal and wood)

and next month is going to be the same game

• rent deposit 500$
• last month rent 500$
• paying rent for 2 places 750-1000$

well I need a new cheap hobby, which won't cost more than 50$ a month and the eququiment should be also affordable/rentable.

Solution?

I will try to pick up free climbing, which will also help me to conquer my fear of heights. And also will try to survive on 500$ of food (so no more chocolate and soda)

so what's new,

• my experiment to live on 100$ a week worked quite well, only 2 days left and I still have 2 whole chickens in the freezer, which are going to visit the smoker tomorrow
• for some reasons my back is killing me time to try a different workout and I'm looking forward to swimming again
• booking a flight to germany and a visa appointment and screwing it up, now I have only a 2 day window to get my visa delivered
• trying to learn and understand ajax
• trying to work more with groovy and grails
• learning a new IDE (IntelliJ 8) and so far I love it
• switching from firefox to safari for internet related stuff, since firefox is so slow
• looking for a small ultra portable laptop with 10 hours of battery live

just another saturday, well since I decided to skip carmel this weekend and stay in davis, since friends are in town, well I decided to use this weekend and give the smoker a run for it's money.

So today we make trout spread for bagels and smoked trout.

• buy 4 trouts = 10$
• buy cottage cheese and cream cheese = 5$
• buy 12 bagels = 6$

ok now this is out of the way time to setup the smoker, this time we use apple wood chips to see how they work.

First we brine the trouts for an hour in sugar and salt (lesson for next time, brine 2 - 3 hours, they are a bit dry and needed a lot of salt), while setting up the fire. It turned out that the new york times is an aweful starter, so let's try another newspaper the next time.

The trouts are now happily smoking for 3 hours at 220-240 Fahrenheit and I use this time to be productive, equals watching cheesy movies.

Once the trout were done, we had one for lunch, put away one for dinner and mixed 2 for the spread.

• sellery
• onion
• garlic
• cottage cheese
• cream cheese

It turned out that my hand blender is broken, our other blender is not strong enough and a fork is a lot of work. So the spread is a bit chunky, but very tasty!
And I also have about 2 pound of spread now, which has to be eaten in the next 4 days, so 2 bagels for breakfast everyday and if somebody want's some spread, call me.
(It has some fishbones, blame the blender...)

About the smoked trout in general? It's is amaizingly tasty and quite a fat fish. I like it.

so the smoker finally arrived and so we started to cook our first dish.

The lesson of the day? It's not worth it to cook a single chicken, since you need way to much charcoal and wood for it. It was like 5$ worth of charcoal.

lesson 2:

one chicken is not enough, they are so damn tasty you want a second one 5 minutes later

how too?

• soak chicken in solution of salt and sugar for 2 hours
  
• try chicken
• put pepper on chicken
• preheat smoker to 250 degrees fahrenheit
• leave chicken in there for 3h
• try to understand where you need to put the thermometer and figure out why it constantly looses connection
• figure out a way to kill the coals and wood once you are done, since it makes me nervous as hell to leave the bbq on over night and going to bed
• carve the chicken, executed by ashley!

todo:

get more chickens and repeat!

step two:

the smoker is ordered and on its way...
and so is the meat thermometer

(no more dining out this month...)

step three:

get wood and charcoal

step four:

get some ribs and smoke them tomorrow night till the early morning

BBQ season has started and this year I will full fill my desire and buy a smoker.

But first time to read up where I can get what parts of beef and the parts for the smoker. Like wood and so.

You know, the usual...

well I'm back from phillidelphia and the first thing we did was a nice picnic in sacramento. We also looked at some town houses and discovered a small honey store.

It's amaizing how different honey can taste. From delicious to disgusting is just a spoon apart

• orange blossom - yummy
• clover - yummy
• sage - ok and very mild
• eucalyptus - disgusting
  
• several other kind's I can't remember

I only bought 2 pounds of honey, but it was so much cheaper than grocery stores.

...time to make some tea...

the last day in philli seems to follow a trend, it's raining and we are waiting impatiently for our flight and hope to be back in the warms of California soon.
It was a fun week, but pretty stressful. Short a day on the pool in the sun sounds great.

so it's always sunny in Philadelphia? Nah it's a freaking lie! Never believe in TV Shows! Why are I'm surrounded by thunderstorms and rain.

I should had brought shoes besides sandals...

Anyway the poster presentation is done and the response was quite nice. It also looks that everybody starts to agree with our point:

You need a database for your results!

So the last 7 years start to pay off. Several people congratulated us to the software we wrote and are highly impressed. I'm still surprised that I was brave enough to actually participate in the discussion, in front of 300 people about the different approaches to annotate massspecs. Who all have fancy titles and are accepted experts in the field of metabolomics.

What else, the first people which were fun to hangout with already left and so I have to work again tonight to find new people to talk too.

current location: philidelphia
current food: gyros
food of the last days: philli cheesesteaks
busy with: looking so far at 1400 posters, 1400 more are comming
mistake: not staying the weekend here and driving to new york = bad planning from me

why such a short post?

got no time, have to run to a talk and the internet is so damn unreliable...

sometimes things take a bit longer, like create a raid6 system over 16 harddrives 1TB with software raid...

Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
md2 : active raid6 sdp[12](S) sdo[13](S) sdn[11] sdm[10] sdl[9] sdk[8] sdj[7] sdi[6] sdh[5] sdg[4] sdf[3] sde[2] sdd[1] sdc[0]
9765518720 blocks level 6, 16k chunk, algorithm 2 [12/12] [UUUUUUUUUUUU]
[>....................] resync = 0.1% (1393856/976551872) finish=25232.3min speed=643K/sec

25k minutes? I really hope the estimate is a bit off. Cause I'm not going to wait for 17 days after each test of the raid system...

getting up at 5.30 -> arg!
waiting for 30 minutes in the cold -> arg!
spending an awesome day in nappa -> awesome!

basically we had a wonderful winetasting event, thx to the metacancer team, in nappa. The wineries were sterling (Oh I love there pinot grigo and sauvignon blanc) and rubicon (to much red wines for my taste and the chadonay was to sour) Short I'm a white wine person, but it was interresting to taste the different kind of red wines.

And we finished the day with a nice dinner a buckhorn.

Now If I just had a reflector with me, I could had really make some stunning pictures. There was so beautiful light!

well today we went kayaking in sacramento river and had a nice bbq afterward. Short it was fun and fixie performed without any problems. It looks like the car is finally happy and running as it's supposed to.

Well if I get a visa, I guess it's time to get a roof rack for the snowboards and bikes...

after working for more than 10 years with sql based languages I discovered something new again. The case statement, which is pretty damn slow (table of a couple of million entries) but it saves me the time to work with some statistical software.

dinner for tonight?

cedar smoked lemon salmon with arugula salad.

short I love the wood planks I got for my BBQ and going to cook more often like this!

it's been quiete lately, which is mostly related to the fact that I discovered that Alexandre Dumas wrote a complete series about the adventures of D'Artangan.

And so I'm slowly fighting my way throw his books and love my ebook reader more and more and can't understand how I could live without it. I mean it's so great to lay at the pool and read gigantic novels in the sun, in such a tiny device.

done:

• the three musketeers

togo:

• 20 years later
• the man in the iron mask
• the vicomte de bragelonne
• 10 years later
  
• Loiuse de la Valliere

and that's just one author...

so all i can say if you like to read and like to read classic novel, get your self an ebook reader, but be prepared to go missing...

I just created a new blog, just to keep track to the stuff my passat does to me

It starts to get annoying. Now 'fixie' is leaking transmission oil.

Another 150$ for parts and 150$ for labor, cause there is no way I can do this my self. I actually have the tools by now and the procedure is not that complicated. But there is no way I can get the car of ground and it's going to be level.

So far this month:

300$ tools and power steering fluid
230$ parts for transmission and PCV system

Well I wanted to flush the transmission anyway.

while reading at the beach in montery and getting a nice sunburn I discovered a bird of prey. Most likely a buzzard or hawk. 60 Minutes later I finally captured it on chip...

a week now I was thinking about the perfect name for my car...

it was between jasmine and fixie.

Fixie it is! Since it developed a power steering fluid leak now and another leak, which leaks very very slowly a fluid I just can't diagnose....

Work done in the last two days:

• changed the light bulb
• stripped a screw, found a way to get it off and bought a new screw
• flushed the power steering fluid

it really starts to get expensive...

But at least now I can reset the check engine light my self and diagnose it my self. Yes I bought a code reader...

sure a week after I finally bought an eBook reader amazon announces the new kindle DX, which has the large display I wanted...

...but 500$? are you kidding me...

while browsing a toy store I found something which would be perfect for fabs...

Well the last 3 days were spent with ashley at her grand mothers house in carmel and now she is out for a conference and I'm driving down the highway 1 and chasing surfers in the hope to get a nice surf picture.

Current problem, they are all way to far out and I don't have enough reach and it's raining nonstop.

Well at least some pictures of waves and the beach we took...

the good news,

I got my car done today and registered, so I don't have to worry for the smog test for a year

the bad news,

my catalytic recyclers could be really toast and I need to get the car smoged if I sell it or if I re register it next year. So I need to start saving money for this repairs, I need 4 catalytic recyclers...


I also should by a ODB II connector, so I can reset the check engine light my self...

well this weekend we did the first real test with the car...

• going to jack london national park
• hitting the oil pan while parking, lesson: if you park next to a jetta, this thing is roughly 60 cm shorter than the passat, so don't measure the distance by it...
• driving in berryessa with a tip tronic and a strong engine is a lot of fun, Ashley sitting next to me enjoyed it and felt safe. But the car feels extremly heavy in the curves and the back tends to push a bit to much for my liking
• while passing other cars cops were more than happy to check my speed with there laser pistols for me, but did not pull me over. After all I was only slighlty faster than the speed limit and it was obious that I was passing a slower vehicle. You also could say I got lucky...
• the average gas mileage over 250 miles was 23 mpg (10l/100km). Which was highway/city/hills
• the dreaded check engine light came back on, right after I got gas again. I start to hate the electronical system in the passat.

now I really consider taking the passat to the race track on friday and get some track lessons and really learn how to handle this car.

well never mind, I ended up buying the sony and it works surprisingly well and is fast enough after updating it to the newest software version.

Sadly I could only get it in silver = reflects shiny things and not in dark blue, but already filled it up with 20 novels...

Basically a nice mixtures of Alexandre Dumas, Jack London, Oscar Wilde and Jules Verne.

The biggest difference to a book? It seems to read a bit slower and you have no real feeling of progress. Like switching pages and seeing were you are in a book.

---

Why did I buy it?

• cheaper than the kindle 2 by 150$
• i don't need space for 2k books on a reader, 10 - 15 books is all I need and I can always pop sd cards in it
• it comes with a cover
• i don't really like the kindle layout
• supposed to be more stable
• speed is fast enough, as long as the books are not pdf's
• not planning on buying books in the next 5 month
  

after testing several eReaders today with R.E.A.L eBooks (750 pages - 2000 pages) and not the standard 25 page example books on them, I sadly have to say...

- sony prs-505 is just to slow ( 4 seconds to turn a page? come on...)
- sony prs-700 is to shiny and expensive

now it looks like I'm ordering a kindle 2 to see how it works and in the worst case return it. But still 470$ for a stupid reading device, which will be replaced in 2 years.

- kindle: 359$
- protective cover: 44$
- drop it warranty: 70$

The good thing, I only hear awesome reports of the amazon customer service, but still I need to find one first to test it, before I buy it. Which means I'm going to buy books for 25$ for my montery trip.

Yes Ashley is working and I'm sitting at the beach reading. (And maybe renting a surfboard and chase sharks, or was it the other way around?)

so right now it's between the sony prs-505 for 269$ or the kindle 2 + warranty for 410$ (It's fragile and if you drop it you kill it, so warranty is recommended since it refunds the money in case of drops, once...)

price wise it's obvious that the sony wins, but it only works under windows, which means I need to install windows now, if I intend to buy books.

Let's look at some books:

title: clive cussler mediterranean caper
paper back: 9.99
sony: 7.19
kindle: 7.19
ebooks.com: 9.99

title: Worlds without end
paper back: 13.86
sony: 11.99
kindle: 9.99
ebooks.com: 22.99

title: white fang
paper back: 3.99
sony: 0.99
kindle: 0.00
ebooks.com: 3.99

Now white fang is a nice example since it's a free book and can be downloaded at the gutenberg project.

Sony books can be only read on the sony eReader
amazon books can be only read on the kindle
ebooks.com books can be read on both devices

Now I'm currently more interested in reading a lot of classics, which are free under the gutenberg project and to order books while traveling. It happens so often that I was on an airplane or at an airport and just wanted to grab another books, since I read all the other books. With the kindle I can just order it (If I'm in America) with the sony I need to connect to a laptop or so, but I can stock up before and have like 50 - 100 books before I go on the plane. So I could see the me using this feature once in a while.

Design?

I prefer the sony, a lot. Since it's smaller and has no keyboard. If they would produce a kindle without a keyboard, it would be perfect.

Subscriptions, it's possible to have newspaper subscriptions on the kindle, but you can write a program to generate your own newspaper based on websites for the sony, which would be free.

What would I like to have? The kindle, but why does it have to be so damn fragile...

What would be perfect? The sony ready with the connection to amazon.com, since I do all my shopping over this store and frankly like it. Also the sony store is kinda weak on books...

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.