Yes since Friday after work I have been lying in bed – ill again. But today I feel better.
Today Monday is a bank holidayin Belfast.
However, I will not do more than continue to rest today and prepare some
blog entries.
And that was the weekend.
Schlagwort: weekend
weekend report
hey all,
so that was a relaxing weekend!
On Friday the guys and I were in the pub again where we had a relaxing evening.
After I slept long on Saturday I worked a little bit on my new Linux machine! In the evening we played some rounds CS 1.5 and then we just hung around with some other guys from our house.
On Sunday I made some Linux stuff because I installed a Debian for me with the awesome windows manager that I used to show graphical windows and my shells! So I skript a little bit and edited some Config file´s.
Thats all from weekend!
weekend retrospective
Hey,
as you can imagine my weekend was boring because I was ill and had to stay in the apartment.
It all started last week when I got a sore throat and then I got a cough!
Therefore I can not write that much today because I’ve done nothing but sleeping, watching movies and eating!
I can tell you that we have made boulettes with a cheese filling. That was awesome!
Sorry for that short post but I didn’t do more this weekend!
I will write more about this week in the following days!
Bank Holiday
Hey 🙂
this is a blog about Monday our free day.
On Monday I didn’t sleep that long, just until 11 o‘ clock :P. I couldn’t sleep that long because I had plans. We wanted to go up to the Cavehill and wanted to check out Belfast’s castle.
So at 12 o’clock Daniel, Clemens, Sean and I started walking in the direction of the mountains. The way up to the mountain is almost 10km long.
First we took a look at the castle. It is a small castle with a restaurant or something like that but we didn’t go inside. Outside was a little garden with nice flowers.
After a little break in the garden we started to go up. It took us about 45 min to go up because the hill is just 400 m high but it is a nice promotion and you get a very nice view over Belfast. See for yourself.
When we were up we had a large break and enjoyed the prospect.
So here are some pictures. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
Incidentally, we had to walk the whole way back. We were back by 18 o’clock. My feet hurt and I needed a shower. 😀
Unfortunately I did not get the blog entry finished by Monday because I had an headaches in the evening!
And on Sunday we had problems with the internet but now it works with the LAN cable! Tomorrow someone will be coming by to check the bad network here.
End of week #4
Hello everyone,
first of I’m sorry that I couldn’t update the update the Blog as planned on Friday & yesterday, Sunday, evening. The reason for that is our network, somehow every weekend or network begins to act up and then it’s no longer possible to access the Internet, well at least not entirely because sometimes its possible to access websites saved in your DNS cache but even that is rare. The main problem is that some idiot changes the configuration of the gateway for the whole network, mind you all apartments are going through the same gateway, and resets the changes we made last weekend to get it running again and we are not able to access the gateway at the moment. As a result we have DHCP leases with the duration of „forever“ and duplicated addresses, I’m only able to write this blog entry because there is no one on the network so early in the morning (most people are sleeping till noon).
To come to the point, this point entry will sum up my experiences for the rest of the last week and I will continue my normal blogging cycle.
Alright lets get started!
On Wednesday I was visited by Mrs. Neumann, my supervisor at the Max-Planck Institution, and Mr. Bavar, the supervisor for the AFIB, to check how I’m doing.
We had a little chat and I showed them my workplace, told them about the work I do at the museum and they got to meet my colleagues. As they had a tight schedule they couldn’t stay long and left after 20 minutes to visit my classmate Henrik and our accommodation.
The rest of the day I spent with writing the documentation for the DrayTek routers I’m installing and started to clean up my desk in preparation for the arrival of the bench table we ordered.
And for the people who don’t know what bench table is I’ll give a short explanation, the rest of you can skip to the next paragraph.
A bench table is basically a computer case for testing purposes, it allows the user to access and exchange parts easily without taking out other parts. They decided to buy one after I pointed out that it would be easier to test hardware for defects at a bench table then assembling a new test PC every time they want to test a graphics card.
On Thursday I was tasked with the problem to find out how to install the Microsoft System Center Client software on a Mac client. Well I found out what the necessary requirements are but I will have to work my way through the necessary deployment of certificates and distribution points, I think it could take a while till I fully understand how to get things running.
The next day I went to work at Ulster Museum again where I helped Graham and Robin to take down the screen in the lecture hall, after the screen was down we had to calibrate the colors for the projector, because now it’s projecting right at the wall, and adjust the spotlights for the stage so that they don’t throw shadows. It was quit fun because we got to toy around with the new A/V (audio & video) rack the installed, which meant we inserted a Blu-ray disk and watched videos on YouTube, but all in the name of calibration of course 😛
On Friday evening we had a LAN Party again but I went to bed early because we planed to hike up to Belfast Castle and from there up Cave Hill.
The next day I knew the plans have been cancelled because most of them went to bed between 2 or 3 and they wouldn’t be up till noon.
But after I got up at 8 and saw that the weather looked really nice I decided to go alone and started my hike at 9:30 after I packed my bag with water, cereal bars and of course my camera.
I walked past City Hall, of which I took pictures but they were deleted because of foobar (unknown reason), through the city centre, took a left at St. Annes’s Cathedral, took a right at Carlisle Circus and walked straight down Antrim Road until I reached the entrance to Cave Hill Park after a 90 minutes walk.
From there I took the path that lead me to Belfast Castle, a truly wonderful building with a neat little park/garden and an incredible view over Belfast.
At the castle I took my first break and ate breakfast, sandwiches bought at Tesco on my way through city centre, and enjoyed the view over Belfast from a bench in the park. Shortly after that I started my ascension to the peak of Cave Hill.
At first I walked through the forest surrounding the foot of Cave Hill and followed the Cave Hill trail marked by stones along the way.
When I broke through the forest line and looked up the step face of Cave Hill it was truly breathtaking. I took a short break to enjoy the view and to eat a cereal bar.
Along the way I found out why Cave Hill is called Cave Hill, because of the caves, big surprise I know :D, there are five caves of unnatural origin in Cave Hill, that’s what Wikipedia says but I only found one.
Anyway following the path leading to the top I enjoyed a growing panorama spanning all of Belfast, Belfast’s surroundings and even a glimpse of Scotland beyond the sea in the distance.
After around 90 minutes of hiking I arrived at the top of Cave Hill and was almost blown away the strong winds, that suddenly appeared because the step side of the mountain shielded me all the way up.
Arriving at the top I made my way to McArts Fort, the point on Cave Hill with probably the best view, there I met Andrea and Joanna, two really nice girls from Switzerland.
We made our way back down on the other side of Cave Hill, going around the old quarry and arriving back at Belfast Castle. On our way down I was attacked by an angry bush with thorns, I its possible that I walked into it, and almost slipped on one of the steeper parts on the way. At the castle we went into the cafe in the cellar of the castle and had a tea and sandwiches and talked about our experiences in UK and Ireland. I was telling them about Belfast, Joanna told me about her stay in Scotland and Andrea about her stay in Galway. After that we took the bus back to the city centre and parted ways.
I was home around 4:30pm and went straight into the shower to relax and clean up and went to Lavery’s Bar in the evening to get a pint of Guinness and enjoy the atmosphere.
Yesterday I woke up with aching leg muscles and a stiff back, the former is a result of the hike the latter is caused by a to soft mattress.
After breakfast I waited for the rest to get up and we didn’t leave the apartment after that, with the exception of going to a shop to get whipped cream for the cheese noodles we had, they were yummy I tell you 😀
We mostly played old video games against each other, e.g. Command & Conquer Red Alert 2, CS 1.5, but the setup and configuration for everyone took longer than we hoped for.
Alright I think that’s enough for the moment and I thank everyone who has read up to this point. I hope all of you had a nice weekend.
Yours sincerely
Tobias
End of Week #3
Hello everyone,
it’s Sunday evening (more like night) and you what that means. Correct new blog entry! 😀
In my last entry I wrote that I would be driving to Armagh with Robin, little misunderstanding on my part, Robin told me we were going to Omagh and just understood Armagh (because of his accent they sound exactly the same) , but I will be going to Armagh at some point during the next weeks. Robin picked me up near the Botanic Gardens and took the opportunity to take a look around the park and it’s really really beautiful.
The museum in Omagh is the Ulster American Folk Park, which displays the lifestyle of the irish people before they went to America and after they arrived there.
For this purpose the build up typical living houses workshops and everything, in most of the rebuild workshops they demonstrations and they have actors in many of the old buildings who tell the visitors of „their“ situation. All in all very neat but I haven’t had much time to look around because a) it was raining really hard most of the time and b) I had work to do…obviously :P.
The main reason we went to Omagh is to install a new server which is acting as new domain controller with full replication of the one that is already running, because the one currently hosting the AD-service is really old and if that one fails (possibly in the near future) it gets thrown out and the new one will take over.
Furthermore we had to install a new access point and I was to set up a new router but I wasn’t able to do this because the IPS login credentials were missing, which means I will have to do this later. I hope to use this opportunity to take more pictures and to get a better look at everything.
Another good thing about this day was that I got to see more of the irish countryside and I’m always baffled by the extreme difference between Germany and Ireland.
And on the weekend we didn’t get the chance to go to Donard Park, mostly because the weather report said we would have bad weather which turned out to be quit fine (except for the wind), so instead of going to Donard Park we had a third nice weekend in Belfast’s Queensquarter.
On Saturday we had a big party in the Building because Rubén was celebrating his birthday, he is one of our spanish neighbors upstairs, and the same time the guys in the apartment below us had another party.
Today I was the first one to get up, again, and started to clean the kitchen/living room because it was kinda filthy 😀 After the rest got up and had Breakfast we went shopping again and had a small but funny LAN-Party.
Next weekend the guys and me are going to rent a car and go on our 3 day trip to the Giant’s Causeway and surroundings, we are all really excited and Robin will help with plotting the route we should take to get the most of our trip.
That’s it for the moment, I hope all of you had a nice weekend.
Yours sincerely,
Tobias
Yeah, it’s friday!
And again a week comes to an end.
There wasn’t anything new at work, just the same as the last days.
Today we had interesting weather:
In the morning we had a wonderful blue sky and no clouds. Then I thought, “wow what a wonderful day!”. When I looked out of the window one our later it rained and the sky was grey again. Half an hour later the sun was shining again. The whole day the weather changed in that way.
Our street has some similarities to a ghetto. The house next to ours‘ is abandoned. There some kids make fire and riot. So we often have the police in our street. On wednesday the fire brigade was in there as well, with two cars.
At the moment a crocodile sits next to me.
I think we want to go out in some minutes.
Here you can see some pictures from the sea.
2 weeks and counting
Hello everyone,
it’s Sunday evening, again, and the second week in Belfast is over.
On Friday I worked at the Ulster Museum again but this time it was very slow day because at first we, Graham and me, had to wait for the delivery of the new iSCSI controller for the backup system. After the arrival of the part at half past 10, not half past 9 as promised, we had to wait another 45 minutes for the HP technician responsible for installing the controller. And as it turned out the controller was the wrong one, so we had to wait another 90 minutes in which the technician tried to find out if the correct controller was available, which it wasn’t. In the end the controller has to be „imported“ from Prague and is to arrive on Monday.
In between I took care of a few tickets at the Ulster Museum e.g. I installed Software for a user via remote support and deleted user accounts for employees whom have left the NMNI.
In the evening we, my flatmates and me, went to a pub with our spanish upstairs neighbors but I went home early, around 12, because I wasn’t feeling well.
Yesterday we did our weekly shopping and replenished our food supplies, we bought cheese, cereals and other necessities, in addation I finally found some chai tea, of which I’m currently enjoying a cup. The rest of the day was spent in peace, which means we all did our own stuff and talked about what we want to do next weekend, as of now we want to take a hike at Donard park near Newcastle.
Today we went back to the city center for smaller errands, I bought myself a new belt and postcards for my family. While on our small trip we found some cheap meat and finally had decent self made meal, also we vacuumed and wiped the floor in our apartment.
To summarize our weekend we can use one word….quiet. I hope to upload some pictures of Donard park next weekend, so you have something to look forward to.
Yours sincerely,
Tobias
Weekend
On Friday we had a Party Day, friday evening after work we went to a pub with a dance floor upstairs. With us were two guys who flew with us. They are draftsmen from the Oszimt. The four Spanish guys who are living above us and two of the other computer scientists from the other apartment went with us. That was a very funny evening. But… I´m sorry for that but the Irish people are not the best dancers and unfortunately most girls are really not the prettiest. It is funny to watch them because the more they drink the funnier it is. As an example…One of my colleagues here lost his phone and an Irish girl stole his tiger costume tail. Yes that was our amusing Friday.
On Saturday I slept until 15 o’clock. Then after breakfast I took a shower and then we bought food. We had a very relaxed evening.
Today I stood up earlier 😀 After eating breakfast and helping my girlfriend with a computer problem I went jogging along a river which was very nice but pretty exhausting. Then we cleaned our apartment and now I write this blog. After that I will make myself something to eat.
A few things I noticed
Hello everyone,
it’s Sunday evening and the first week is as as good as over. It was a pretty turbulent week, a lot of things happened and there where things had to get used to, e.g. to share a small flat with 4 guys, but all in all I think I’m off to good start.
This weekend was mostly quiet, on Saturday we went shopping for food and smaller things like dishtowels. We tried out the asian supermarket around the corner where we bought 60 instant noodle packages for the small hunger in between or grim times when fresh food or frozen pizza is rare :). I also went to Waterstones, a book store which is basically the local pendant to Thalia (surreptitious advertising ftw! :p) and got myself two books to read on my way to work or days with case of bad weather.
I also went to Subway (surreptitious advertising again, whats wrong with me?:D), which by the way is at almost every corner, and bought myself a tuna sandwich and it tasted the same as in Germany (I know big surprise, duh! ;)), except for the fact that they offer other breads and coleslaw topping.
In the evening we wanted to go to another pub but were turned down quickly because two of our little group wore „sneakers“ and weren’t allowed inside, which is ridiculous, I mean it’s a pub and not high class dace temple.
With no other option left we went back to the pub we visited a few times of the week, the Elms Pub, had a few beer and went back to the apartment and had a 90’s music night.
Today we really took it easy, I was the first one to get up, again, I’ll never understand how people can sleep till noon or longer ;). We had a nice self cooked diner and just had a quiet day in, except for Daniel who had to fight with technical difficulties, first his mobile phone and then his operating system gave him trouble, but well it was at least amusing for the rest of us.
To summarize, the british people care about the shoes they wear when drinking, subway is pretty much the same, you can get everything you need at asian supermarkets and 90’s music is still bad, even after so much time.
I hope you, the readers had nice weekend too and until next time.
Yours sincerely,
Tobias