Markus’ Blog

With rainfall of up to 200 l per square meter in 24 hours, things are not looking too great for the eastern parts of Austria these days, especially since more rain is in the forecast.

The following pictures were taken from gallery provided by Die Presse, an Austrian daily newspaper.

My parents made it back home safe and sound after their visit in the Lower Mainland. However, their start into summer was a little worse than ours.

While they do live in the general affected area, my old home town is generally pretty safe with regards to flooding. Since they were built, the dam with the A22 freeway and another one with the S3 rail line has protected most properties in town.

Vienna seems safe, too. They have several side arms and at least one artificial river arm, normally blocked off by a lock, that can be flooded to prevent water from spilling into the city.

Time flies. My parents will be arriving for a two week visit in only three more days. Just a few days ago it was still months away — or so it would seem.

Looks like everybody is getting excited. My dad’s already studying the menus of nearby restaurants, so he won’t have to bug me so much with translating. That means he’s seriously looking forward to the trip.

They’ll get to see our new house for the first time for real. They saw it briefly during their last visit, but it wasn’t finished inside yet, and we certainly weren’t living in it at the time.

I hope they like our place. And the kitteh, of course, who will delight them with middle-of-the-night howling.

It’s April! A.P.R.I.L. The fourth month of the year. The month that indicates that a quarter of 2009 is already over. I don’t want to be getting any more snow. We’ve had enough of it this season. Nor do I want 2°C outside!

I shouldn’t feel too bad, I guess. In March, the region around Vienna received three to four times the normal amount of rain. At Hohe Warte weather station, the rain record from 1900 fell (122 l/m² then, 142 l/m² now).

However, they are in for 20°C weather over there. We should be headed at least somewhat in the same direction, too.

I don’t like being sick. I am not used to being sick — and I like it that way.

The last several weeks have been kind of trying. I first got a cold at the beginning of February. I stayed home from work for a day and recovered over the weekend. It wasn’t over, but it was getting better.

Then, last Tuesday I thought to myself, hey, my nose is barely stuffed anymore. Yay! Almost done.

On Wednesday, I coughed all day long. On Thursday I felt worse, and on Friday I was back in bed.

Another weekend spent in bed, and I am somewhat human again. But I am still coughing, my nose is stuffed and running again — and I am really getting sick of being sick.

Maybe taking the #130 bus in the morning with all the BCIT students was not such a good idea after all. (I’ve been doing that for about a month. And I started being sick shortly thereafter.)

Please go away now, cold, and don’t come back this season. Or next, for that matter.

My wifey has tagged me, not only for the first meme of 2009, but for my first meme ever. Here we go.

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged.

1. I am a geek at heart. Computers and otherwise.
2. I like food. Yummy food.
3. I have two stomachs. One for regular food. One for desserts. Ask my wife, she knows it’s true.
4. I sucked at blogging lately (as evidenced by the lack of posts).
5. Unlike I wifey like the occasional snow. Don’t like the slush, though.
6. I am chocoholic. I need a serious stash of good chocolate available to me at all times. (No Hershey’s chocolate, thank you very much!)
7. I am not a Windows person. Never was and likely never will be. Unix rules!
8. I am fascinated by big vehicles, like buses and trucks. — No, don’t ask. There simply is no explanation.
9. Love the new built-ins in our library.
10. Wordpress just ate an update of mine, so I have to redo at least 8 entries.
11. I am taking way too long to fill this out, as it is. I started on Jan. 10!
12. If Brigette won’t start playing with her new fancy Canon Rebel XS by this weekend, I will do it for her. It’s been sitting around for weeks!
13. I am “colander brain”. Certain things (i.e. where I left my house keys or my gloves) just “seep” out of it — and are gone for good.
14. I wish I wasn’t losing my hair. It started when I was around 17. However, there’s an amazing lot of it left, considering it’s been departing me for pretty much half my life now.
15. I like figuring out and understanding how “stuff” works.
16. Without my glasses, I am “blind as a bat”. Seriously, it’s amazing how blurry and fuzzy stuff is. Bloody astigmatism.
17. I use public transit to go to work most days. And even though the #104 can suck at times, I still don’t hate Translink. Which is really interesting, considering how much I used to despise the Austrian Federal Railways with their constant fare increases and non existing maintenance for the aging trains (and the resulting daily delays).
18. I am allergic to pollen. Weeds mostly.
19. I love to bug my wife. Sometimes too much so.
20. I am fortunate enough to get paid to do things I enjoy. “Playing” with Unix-like operating system kernels, that is.
21. Looking forward to our trip to Paris next winter. That and the short detour to Austria before heading back.
22. I miss my job-related travels to San Jose, though. It’s almost been a year since I met my team members face-to-face and it looks like I am not going to travel again any time soon.
23. According to wifey my eyes tend to change their colour with my mood (more blue, gray or green). — No idea how she came up with that. The fact that my mom’s eyes are blue and my dad’s are gray/green couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it.
24. I miss driving a stick shift.
25. I have no cavities. Never had any. And yes, that’s despite item 6 and, yes, I am over 30. — Now, wait, after saying that, I’ll pay my dues during my next dentist visit.

That “tagging 25 people” part is not going to happen. Sorry, I know I am a bad rule-keeper.

It’s gone by quickly, too. Almost blindingly fast. And a lot of stuff happened.

Let’s see:

• We started out the year in Austria, and Canada was only the third country we visited in 2008.
• Hong Kong was the fourth — and it was my first time in Asia.
• We sold a condo.
• Bought a house.
• Moved, not once, but twice.
• My parents came to visit and we took them on a tour through the Okanagan.
• Santa brought Brigette a Wii.
• Vancouver got tons of snow.

And we generally had a pretty good time. Let’s see what 2009 will bring.

Happy new year, everyone!

Merry Christmas, everybody. And a white Christmas it is, this year. I hope everyone is having a good time with family and friends.

I remember that, three years ago, when we were going to Kamloops over Christmas, Brigette said I’d finally get to see White Christmas in Canada. — And there wasn’t a flake of snow on the ground in Kamloops, nor in Vancouver.

This year, Brigette’s mom is coming to Vancouver — and boy is she ever get White Christmas in Vancouver. Currently, she is on her way on a Greyhound bus and already got stuck and had to change buses. We shall see how the rest of the trip goes. Better, I am hoping.

I have never seen that much snow around here. Not that I mind it too much, even though I get to shovel lots, lately.

A good Christmas Eve to all. May it be followed by an equally good Christmas Day.

Yay! Just wished this happened more often.

Apparently, McColo Corp. a well known hoster of spammers and malware spreaders was shut down on November 11.

What’s really funny is how the shutdown immediately showed up in worldwide spam statistics as considerable drop in spam activity (click to see a bigger version).

Sleazy bastards, those McColo guys! They deserved being shut down. Hopefully, they won’t be able to find a new home anytime soon.

I guess this means we are really grown up now. We live in a real house and we get real Halloween “monsters” ringing our door bell demanding treats. That never happened in our condo and even less at the basement suite.

It’s fun, and we are getting way more “foot traffic” than we had anticipated. Our fears of having to take most of our Halloween candy to work to get rid of it, will not come true. There are quite a few kids touring the neighbourhood cashing in big time on candy. One dad said that they stopped at home to empty out their candy bag, before resuming the hunt. And a young fellow hollered, as he was leaving our front porch, how lucky they were today. Not at all surprising, his bag looked quite full and heavy at that point.

My favourite of all, though, was a young guy who was dressed up as “serial killer”. He had a whole bunch of mini-cereal boxes glued to his shirt. Pretty darn funny.

It’s been a quiet month for my blog, so far, but it’s been quite a busy month for us. Not only did we go on vacation with my parents, we also went and bought our house (like really bought it, with money and stuff)!

Looks like everything is coming together nicely on the house front. It’s a little scary how low our savings account dropped when we were getting our down-payment ready, but it means we own a real house! Forking over a bank draft with a six figure amount on it was an interesting experience all on its own, but it should well be worth it.

Now that we have signed the documents and handed over said bank draft, all that’s missing now is us moving in on Friday. The city has granted the occupancy permit, which could have been the last thing to delay us, so we are good to go on all fronts.

NEW HOUSE, HERE WE COME!!!!