Also the place has a train-lift or berg-bahn which takes you from the train station to the middle of the mountain. It is really cool, and much nicer than a gondola. Plenty of room to relax and change.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Why People Move to Switzerland
I was supposed to go to Davos, but I missed my train at 6am, and so deciding not to waste such an early morning, I hopped a train to Bern saw a cool poster and went to Zermatt. Absolutely fantastic decision. The skiing was tremendous. The place is mind blowingly large and lies on an international border (italy-swiss) so you can ski back and forth freely. I didnt have my passport so I was a little worried, but it would be pretty ridiculous to get checked half-way through a run or on a chair lift.
Also the place has a train-lift or berg-bahn which takes you from the train station to the middle of the mountain. It is really cool, and much nicer than a gondola. Plenty of room to relax and change.
Also the place has a train-lift or berg-bahn which takes you from the train station to the middle of the mountain. It is really cool, and much nicer than a gondola. Plenty of room to relax and change.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Kuehtai
On sunday we skied at Kuehtai. A nice resort west of Innsbruck. The resort wasnt nearly as high, but had even more snow and was perfectly clear and sunny. Right of the bat it was fantastic. We did quite a bit of off-piste adventuring. Off-piste was never really my thing, and I had a couple of rough patches (quite literally with rocks scratching my pretty skis), but we had a few godly runs on untouched deep powder. It killed the thighs, and required hiking, but was absolutely worth it.
Food here was great, but nothing compared to the glacier. Now I feel like I have 'really' skied in europe and can relax this week just basking in my success.
Food here was great, but nothing compared to the glacier. Now I feel like I have 'really' skied in europe and can relax this week just basking in my success.
Kühtai Skiing
Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS GeotaggingSaturday, January 24, 2009
Stubaier Glacier
On saturday we went skiing at Stubaier near Innsbruck. The resort was nice and quite high (the highest point was over 10k feet). The elevation's effect was much larger than I would have thought. I was out of breath several times from simply hiking to the lift or even skiing. Hopefully this can pop my EPO up enough to be a killer cyclist at Atomiade. The day started out a little too overcast, but got better rapidly. By lunch time the sun was completely out and nearly cloudfree. Lunch itself was fantastic. Not only was it rather reasonbly priced (8.60eu for Tirolian Groestl). This consisted of potatoes, bacon, beef, and a few veggies and spices cooked in a pan with a fried egg thrown on top. It was absolutely delicious, and provide more than enough energy to rip up the slopes the rest of the day. Including the final run-out back to the parking lot. This was a '10km' (my gps watch said more like 5 but who knows) run that was minimally prepared. I felt like an adventurer doing it.
Skiing at Stubaier Glacier
Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS GeotaggingFriday, January 23, 2009
Off to Innsbruck / Week Recap
This week served to be much more productive at work. I was able to start re-writing everything to work in one tight, neat, organized interface.
I also was able to start getting back into a better workout routine. Starting with my first indoor LSG training. Which despite the promised 'fun', started out in a not so fun manner. The warmup and even the mat-work was great and certainly beneficial, but after that we played what I can only call Chutes and Ladders from hell. The board resembled more or less the c-a-l board, but on each spot was a number between 1-6 and these number corresponded to what fun activity that spot demanded. The activities were jump rope 90x (I couldnt jump rope when I was younger and it has only gotten worse with time, much worse), crawl and jump through a military style course 3x (maybe this is fun for little people, but my body doesnt do that at all), run across a balance beam 3x (another activity i cant do at all, and there was always a traffic jam behind me), and a few others that were not so torturing.
After that we played Zielball or something like that, and it was basically dodgeball with some weird rule modifications that I was not able to get my head around.
The night was redeemed when we played basketball, a sport I enjoy in theory, but given everyone in the states is so much better than myself at it, I have never been able to really enjoy playing it. However playing here, especially with a running group was great. I certainly was not the best player (I am truly terrible), but I was certainly top-half.
On thursday I went to dinner and a movie with Deniz and Adrianna (the other PhD students who started Sept 1 with me). We say Slumdog Millionare which was fantastic. It was the most excited I have been in a movie in awhile. I was really drawn in. I wish it was a true story, but oh well.
As for this weekend I am heading to Innsbruck with Jesus (a guy I met in the running group who works for Alstom) For what should be a great time skiing and enjoying apres-ski. The weather right now is rainy in swiss, so hopefully austria can do better.
I also was able to start getting back into a better workout routine. Starting with my first indoor LSG training. Which despite the promised 'fun', started out in a not so fun manner. The warmup and even the mat-work was great and certainly beneficial, but after that we played what I can only call Chutes and Ladders from hell. The board resembled more or less the c-a-l board, but on each spot was a number between 1-6 and these number corresponded to what fun activity that spot demanded. The activities were jump rope 90x (I couldnt jump rope when I was younger and it has only gotten worse with time, much worse), crawl and jump through a military style course 3x (maybe this is fun for little people, but my body doesnt do that at all), run across a balance beam 3x (another activity i cant do at all, and there was always a traffic jam behind me), and a few others that were not so torturing.
After that we played Zielball or something like that, and it was basically dodgeball with some weird rule modifications that I was not able to get my head around.
The night was redeemed when we played basketball, a sport I enjoy in theory, but given everyone in the states is so much better than myself at it, I have never been able to really enjoy playing it. However playing here, especially with a running group was great. I certainly was not the best player (I am truly terrible), but I was certainly top-half.
On thursday I went to dinner and a movie with Deniz and Adrianna (the other PhD students who started Sept 1 with me). We say Slumdog Millionare which was fantastic. It was the most excited I have been in a movie in awhile. I was really drawn in. I wish it was a true story, but oh well.
As for this weekend I am heading to Innsbruck with Jesus (a guy I met in the running group who works for Alstom) For what should be a great time skiing and enjoying apres-ski. The weather right now is rainy in swiss, so hopefully austria can do better.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Flumserberg Skiing
In order to be sure I would never have to answer 'I dont know' to the question how is the skiing in europe, I went to flumserberg this weekend with the meetup group. I sadly forgot my camera in all the rush, but I did have my gps so you can see what was done here
The day was good, a bit overcast and windy, but the snow was good, and nowhere near as busy as Meadows or even Ski-bowl. There were no lift lines anywhere.
It served as a nice sunday activity and was only an hour or so from zurich. It is probably not the best skiing around, but it is close and not too expensive (except food which is outrageous).
My first week back at work was a little bit slow. I had a poster presentation and a quick powerpoint for my lausanne boss. After that it took awhile to get back into the swing of things. I have realized how quickly I forget things. I got a few swimming trips in, and a nice run. Hopefully next week will be more full-speed
The day was good, a bit overcast and windy, but the snow was good, and nowhere near as busy as Meadows or even Ski-bowl. There were no lift lines anywhere.
It served as a nice sunday activity and was only an hour or so from zurich. It is probably not the best skiing around, but it is close and not too expensive (except food which is outrageous).
My first week back at work was a little bit slow. I had a poster presentation and a quick powerpoint for my lausanne boss. After that it took awhile to get back into the swing of things. I have realized how quickly I forget things. I got a few swimming trips in, and a nice run. Hopefully next week will be more full-speed
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Hiking and Working and Everything Else
So the last post, I didn't realize I had posted, hence its title was a bit off. So backing way up. I have found a really great hiking group here on Meetup. Just about every sunday they go hiking somewhere different in Switzerland leaving from Zurich. I went with them to Eggeberg, Ebenalp, Turbenthal, and Faido. The group is mostly foreigners although a few swiss people have come. The discussions are almost entirely in english, although if you sneak up on the swiss and germans you can catch them speaking in german. The weather for every trip has been fantastic thus enabling me to take wonderful pictures of everything. Today as it is raining/sleeting/snowing I am glad I seized the opportunity to get outside as much as possible when it was sunny.
Working has gone well, I have much more direction on my project now and have begun the process of taming the robot I am working with. Most of the work was already done my job is just to perfect it, integrate it, and scale it to large sets. Hopefully it wont be too difficult. It is easy to spend hours just tooling around with it.
Everything else? Well I have started swimming because I realized I can swim for free tuesday, wednesday, and thursday mornings with ASVZ (student sports association of zuri). They have someone there providing specific workouts to do, and today the workout involved pelvis thrusting, push-ups, and swimming lengths without breathing. We also did some backstroke where I learned that apparently I swim as though I was sitting in a chair and I shouldn't do that. Upon leaving the pool I read the sign on the outside rating the pool; it had several normal criteria like temperature and length, but my favorite was Flirtfaktor which it got 3 hearts, whatever that means.
I also found a german film group for students who want to learn german every wednesday night. The first time I went the film was in english with german subtitles (what?), so it was extremely easy to understand and not entirely useful. Last night, however, it was a german film with german subtitles, and an extremely nonlinear plot. To add to this they used extensive metaphor and complicated language. Needless to say, I had only the foggiest of ideas of what happened in that film. It was action packed, and the leading actress was quite cute though, so didn't bother me too much.
Finally back to the weather, It snowed last night and today. Currently it is above 0 (32) so it probably won't stay long, but there is some on the ground and all forms of public transportation are delayed. The city looked absolutely fantastic in the snow especially at night. I like snow much better than rain, but I think I will need to figure out better shoes as the waterproofness of my running shoes is nonexistant. They, in fact, would be more aptly described as thirsty much to my feet's dismay.
Working has gone well, I have much more direction on my project now and have begun the process of taming the robot I am working with. Most of the work was already done my job is just to perfect it, integrate it, and scale it to large sets. Hopefully it wont be too difficult. It is easy to spend hours just tooling around with it.
Everything else? Well I have started swimming because I realized I can swim for free tuesday, wednesday, and thursday mornings with ASVZ (student sports association of zuri). They have someone there providing specific workouts to do, and today the workout involved pelvis thrusting, push-ups, and swimming lengths without breathing. We also did some backstroke where I learned that apparently I swim as though I was sitting in a chair and I shouldn't do that. Upon leaving the pool I read the sign on the outside rating the pool; it had several normal criteria like temperature and length, but my favorite was Flirtfaktor which it got 3 hearts, whatever that means.
I also found a german film group for students who want to learn german every wednesday night. The first time I went the film was in english with german subtitles (what?), so it was extremely easy to understand and not entirely useful. Last night, however, it was a german film with german subtitles, and an extremely nonlinear plot. To add to this they used extensive metaphor and complicated language. Needless to say, I had only the foggiest of ideas of what happened in that film. It was action packed, and the leading actress was quite cute though, so didn't bother me too much.
Finally back to the weather, It snowed last night and today. Currently it is above 0 (32) so it probably won't stay long, but there is some on the ground and all forms of public transportation are delayed. The city looked absolutely fantastic in the snow especially at night. I like snow much better than rain, but I think I will need to figure out better shoes as the waterproofness of my running shoes is nonexistant. They, in fact, would be more aptly described as thirsty much to my feet's dismay.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Running Lausanne
I ran the Lausanne Half-marathon today. It is a fantastic run. Just about as perfect as I could imagine. The marathon would also be good, except its an out-and-back which I am not a huge fan of. The course runs right along Lake Leman and you have hilly vineyards on one side and the lake with the French alps in the background on the other. They also had an interesting assortment of bands playing nearly every kilometer ranging from YMCA cover bands (of course saying why-em-see-ahh instead of aye) to a guy and his accordian. The food support along the course was excellent, and at the start they had $3 pumpkin soup which tasted fantastic. They also had organized warm-ups with crazy-ish techno music and moves that more closely resembled irish dancing than stretching. So if you are looking for a new run to do, I would say it was excellent.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Where I work?
Yesterday while browsing around I found the kid-friendly version of PSI's site. This is how they describe the SLS to kids.
Aladins besondere Wunderlampe
Die Synchrotron Lichtquelle Schweiz (SLS) des PSI ist ein gigantischer Röntgenapparat und ein riesiges Mikroskop. In der UFO-förmigen Forschungsanlage werden Elektronen stark beschleunigt und auf Slalomkurs gezwungen. Dabei senden sie Synchrotron-Licht aus.
Das spezielle Synchrotron-Licht entschlüsselt kleinste Strukturen und ermöglicht so grosse Fortschritte in den Naturwissenschaften, in Technik und Medizin – z.B. bei der Erforschung schwerer Alterskrankheiten wie Alzheimer und Knochenschwund.
Ein spannender Rundgang führt Sie durch diese Wunderlampe modernster Wissenschaft.
Roughly translated
Aladin's Special Lamp.
The Swiss Light Source of PSI is a gigantic (ginormous also acceptable) radiation device and a microscope. In the ufo-shaped research facility, electrons are accelerated quickly and swung as if going through a slalom course, thereby emitting synchrotron light.
The special synchrotron light unlocks the smallest structures and allows great progress in natural science, technology and medicine. For example exploring complicated aging diseases like alzheimers and (bone-dissapearing, haha) osteoporosis.
An exciting journey leads you through this most modern of scientific Magic-lamps
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