A couple of weeks ago I won some business cards on a blog I read called Janko at Warp Speed.  Janko is a developer with a BlogEngine.Net installation that he blogs from, typically on the subject of web design. The cards I won are professionally printed and to my own specifications.  Naturally, I had James do the design work, and he has come back with some intriguing design work for the back of the card.  The front is still a mystery to me, though I should be getting the results soon :-)  I’ll post the design here and then maybe a couple of photos of the finished product when they arrive.

UPrinting Contest Winners

This is to be another round up of things that are happening now, rather than a post about a specific topic.  Despite my promises, I just haven’t been on the ball recently with regards to the frequency of my posting.  In my defence, I’ve spent the last ten days with a fucker of a cold, and now I may be getting tonsillitis.  Despite feeling crap I did go to see Coldplay last week. This was the first large (i.e. more than 20,000 people) concert I have been to since I saw U2 back in Ireland for the Zoo tour.  That makes it a fuck of a long time since I’ve been in a crowd that big, and I didn’t realise how awesome it all was.  I also didn’t realise how much I had missed big stadium concerts like that, so I’m going to keep an eye out for more I think.  REM are playing here soon, but I’m not into them enough that I would spend 60€ to see them. We’ll see what comes around.

My sister was over to stay with us last week.  We had a pretty cool time while she was here, doing things like taking in the Wiesn (Oktoberfest), climbing down Wendelstein and just hanging out.  Wendelstein is a an 1838m (about 5500’) mountain about an hour outside of Munich.  It is the next mountain down from the place where we usually go skiing / snowboarding, and also relatively close to Anna’s grandmother’s house. There’s a cable car that we took up and from which I managed to get some great photographs.  There was a lot of cloud at ground level about half way up the ride, and it made for some interesting photos.  I’ll post some when I get the photo gallery sorted out again.  Anyway, we went up there by the cable car, had some food and the obligatory beer and walked back down instead of taking the car.  In retrospect I should have done a couple of things different.  I should have tied my shoes tighter around the arch and toe area, as my toes hurt a lot from walking constantly downhill for a few hours.  I should have taken the compact camera and not my SLR complete with large bag and tripod.  It was fucking heavy by the time we got back down.  Finally, really I should have just gotten the damn cable car ;-)  Nah, it was actually better than I’m making it out to be… but a very tiring experience.  Oh, and there was snow up there.

We took her to see the Oktoberfest too.  We went during the day and early enough to get four seats in the Hippodrome tent, as Andreas was with us.  It was a bit early to be drinking a Mass of beer at midday, but we endeavoured to rise to the challenge.  We also had the obligatory half a chicken (each) that you get in Bavaria with your beer and this one was awesome.  The Hippodrome tent (its called a tent but it seats 3,200 people, with room for another thousand outside and its one of the SMALLER tents at the Wiesn) had a chicken roasted in an awesome baste.  It is made by a famous local chef called Schubeck and can conveniently enough be bought in his spice shop in Munich.  There’s some in the kitchen now waiting for a chicken to come along and roll itself in it.

Okay, so its later than I thought, and I have to get some sleep.  I still have this damn cold and my throat is pretty damn sore at the moment.  Tomorrow I’ll post about the new build of Windows Live Writer, the analytics of DaveWhite.Net, a new social networking site called SocialMedian and how I finally managed to sort out my passwords.

Wow.  After eleven years as Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern is to resign next month. He said that it has nothing to do with the ongoing investigation of his finances to see if he took backhanders hen he was in office. "I know in my heart of hearts I have done no wrong and wronged no-one." said Ahern today.  All I know so far is from the BBC, but I wonder what the real reason is?

After my course today, we went to the cafe downstairs, and practiced our German.  We talked about the weather in Germany, and how we couldn't speak the language well enough, and languages in general and how they are thought in schools.  We did it all in German.  I really had forgotten, and missed the feeling of being stretched to the limit, with that conversation.  Maybe some of my sentences came out badly, and maybe the grammar was crap, but we still had the conversation.  We talked about a range of subjects and managed to get our points across in German.  Fantastic!  It was the first time I've managed to do that in a situation where I couldn't switch into English and had someone translate for me.
So, we moved all our stuff to the new apartment in Daglfing over the weekend.  It took us three trips, in a van and the car with the seats down.  We should be able to get everything else done in a single trip on Wednesday :-)  Haven't figured out how we're getting there yet - we'll fill the car and take the train while Andreas drives maybe?  There are some bookshelves to move too, which are 3m high.  They can be dismantled and will fit in the car if the front seat is down.  That means only one person can go with the car.  Yummy, logistics.  We're not going to have an Internet connection straight away either, so I have to make sure that everything gets done for the guys in London before the end of tomorrow.  Its all finished now, but I need to go see if I can break it before I give the code to them ;-)