Marbacher Gassenlauf

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So…after a really short night and bad signs (a mate of mine celebrated his birthday and we were drinking beer + jaegermeister until well after 3am this morning – can you call that bad signs?! :mrgreen: ) I decided to…run!

To be honest the route was tougher than I expected and I thought about quitting after the first lap, but then I thought: You’re here now…so run! – and that’s just what I did…

I finished in position 258 (which in turn is place 218 (edit) only counting the male competitors)) – not bad! Although I didn’t finish in my “magic time” of under an hour…here’s the time:

Snapshot of my finish

1h 7m 58s: laps 20:04/23:40/24:14 – nontheless I’m proud and glad that it’s over ;-)
Maybe I’ll start again next year – but only if I can find the time to train a little bit more, especially on the route itself as there’s a huge difference between 10.5km flat and 10.5km of up and down (47 height meters per lap)!

Sporty weekend…or…run Ingoal run…

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On Saturday it’s time for the “Marbacher Gassenlauf” (Marbach is the native town of Friedrich Schiller). It’s basically a city run, although the route is through all the old alleys (“Gasse” = alley) with their lovely cobblestone pavement so it’s a little bit tougher – especially due to the nature of the route:

3 laps with 3.5km each, height difference per round = 47 meters :eek: – so a total height difference of 141 meters…

Here’s a pic of the route (the part in the red square is the cobblestone part):

Route of the Marbacher Gassenlauf

I guess it’s going to be a tough one as I haven’t been in a 10km+ run before, but I’m feeling fine and confident…although I didn’t do any additional training sessions (training for footie at least two times per week is enough IMO).

My personal goals:

  • Make it through all 3 laps
  • Have fun! (If that’s possible ;-) )
  • If it’s possible stay under 1h
  • Don’t die of boredom

I’ll report back on late Saturday or Sunday with results…

New Premiership started…

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…some weeks ago and although I didn’t post about it yet I’m playing the telegraph fantasie footie game again – and so far it’s looking good for me, although it’s looking even better for Mr. Price. As usual we’ve got our little bet going once again: the manager who finishes beneath the other manager is going to pay for next round’s account (hopefully I’ll win again this time…it’s 1-1 so far).

So far there have been played 3..4 matches so far (some teams are one game behind) and it’s really looking good this time:

  1. Mr. Price, 140 points total
  2. another player
  3. Ingoal, 132 points total

:mrgreen: – I’ll be posting updates regularly again from now on (scores are updated on wednesdays, so that’s when I’m going to post the current standings).

Take your pick…or…how can a TV duell influence the voter’s perspective?!

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I don’t know if you’re uptodate when it comes to german politics, but it’s been decided that there will be a new vote on September 18th 2005 (the next normal vote would have been in late 2006), because the current chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder (SPD), felt that he didn’t have total support anymore.

Short overview: Gerhard Schroeder (social democrat) is the current chancellor and leading the government (SPD + Gruene – “Red, Green”). Angela Merkel is the candidate of the CDU (christian democrat) and is trying everything to get elected and run the new government (which would be CDU + FDP – “Black, Yellow”). Not only is she a woman, but she’s from the old German Democratic Republic (GDR or DDR in german) so a woman out of “the east”. Current polls suggest that CDU is currently around 40+ % so it could be possible that they’re the new government.

So the election campaign has started and is now in full gear…and so today is the first (and last) TV duell of the candidates (current chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and challenger Angela Merkel) which is currently on every major tv station.

My assessment after roughly one hour:

Gerhard Schroeder (SPD): Presenting himself in good shape and has really warded off every attack and tbh is looking like the total winner so far.

Angela Merkel (CDU): Presenting herself (she would be the first woman chancellor ever) as here old own self and although she’s trying, she’s not really able to threaten the chancellor IMO.

Final assessment: Whether you’re a fan of him or not (if you like Tennis I would say “Game, Set and Match” if Boxing is more for you it would be “K.O.”), the winner is: Gerhard Schroeder.

After 90 minutes of seesaw and a little jabbing and stabbing in both directions, it’s more than clear, at least to me, that most of the promises of the challenger are simply smoke screens which can’t be implemented or aren’t all that different to the current approaches taken by the government.

New season starts…with an impressive win!

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Today was the start of the new football season. This year we’re in “Kreisliga B – Staffel 2” which is one league above the “Kreisliga C” in which we played last season. After a bumpy preparation period (lots of teammates were either on vacation or not really keen on doing all the conditioning and so we weren’t really able to train all the stuff you should train in a preparation period) and all the preseason losses (4 matches played, W-D-L=0-0-4) we weren’t too sure about how well we would fare against TuS Freiberg (who went through relegation from Kreisliga A last season).

How did we do then? FC Marbach II 5-0 TuS Freiberg :-)
After being up 3-0 at half time we missed numerous chances (including a penalty kick) in the second half and so the 5-0 could have been even higher.

Side note: Nope, I didn’t play as I handed in my resignation from active play after last season/prior to this season as I didn’t see a chance to get a decent amount of playing time. Nontheless I’m still training (I was the only one on the team to participate in all preseason training sessions) and I’m ready and willing to step up again if we’re short of players…

Backup day!

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A quick scare this morning: we had a short but total power outage this morning – not a biggie, unless your pc is running 24/7 (mine is acting as fax-server and all) :rolleyes:
Too bad that I don’t have a UPS for this computer anymore as it broke months ago and I just don’t feel like spending major bucks on a state-of-the-art one yet again (I’m not a big fan of Line-Interactive UPSs).

The pc wouldn’t boot up as the primary hdd refuse to spin, luckily enough it came alive after some reboots :tup:

That’s when it hit me: the last backup of my business stuff is more than 3 months old :eek: , so first thing I did was a dvd-backup and an off-site backup (encrypted on one of my private ftp-servers).

So I declare this day to be backup day! …and even more important: I’m looking around for an automated script-type backup to do an automatic off-site backup regularly from now on ;-)

One year anniversary!

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Oh my! One year of Ingoal’s Insight… and I totally missed to write about it. Not a biggie though as I’m only two days late :-)

How time flies! Ingoal’s Insight… started on August 23rd 2004 and a lot of stuff happened since then. “The design” of the site was changed numerous times or at least fine-tuned to the point where it is now (latest addition: the too cool for IE button bottom right). I’m planning to do a “facelift” sometime in the near future, but don’t pin me on a certain date (busy times).

Some statistics:

  • 266 posts where made (wow that’s less than 1 post/day, I guess I could be more active again, it’s just hard to find the time)
  • around 1k unique visitors per month
  • PR 5
  • listed in dmoz

I want to thank all the readers, visitors, contributors, friends, family and colleagues who are, at least a little bit, interested in the stuff I write and I’m hoping for many more years to come! As it’s the 1yr anniversary I think there should be some sort of contest/give-away or whatever, I shall think about that and announce something soonish!

Round up

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Well, well, it’s been a while since my last post – I’m sort of really busy these days…

Fantasy Footie:

  1. Premiere League: I’m playing in the Daily Telegraph’s Fantasy Football League again (link). There are many prices up for grabs and I guess it’s going to be fun to compete against Joe again…same bet as last year: the one who scores more points over the course of the season will receive a free account for the next season (so far it’s 1-1, Joe won last season, I won the season before the last season).
  2. German league: I’m playing in a private online game again…so far I’m in midfield, let’s see if I can get into the price ranges this year (places 1-15 out of 100)

Uni:
I’m in the middle of a learning spree as the exams are coming mighty fast (mid September and early October). Apart from that I’m trying to get in gear with our research project.

Online stuff:
I’m trying to get some new projects off the ground and it’s really hard to get the time together to really work on things…

  1. ImageUploads.info is completed and is slowly picking up a user base…nothing more to do, at least for now.
  2. Crown-Mail.com is completed, although I’m not totally satisfied with the slicing of the images, needs some final touch-ups…
  3. Blogtastic – the final goal of the site is to act as a reference for available blogsoftware as well as a discussion place for bloggers, curious “non-bloggers” and who knows what else…needs a lot of work…
  4. Ingoal Network – I’ve got so many different sites now, but they’re not “under one roof”, so the Ingoal Network would be just that, a housing for all my sites…the domain has been with me for quite a long time, but I didn’t get around to do anything with it yet…hopefully that’ll change soonish…

Today:
The Pope, our very own Joseph Ratzinger, Benedikt XVI. is in Germany. I’m just watching the tv coverage and you gotta be amazed. Whether you are a believer or not, it’s just amazing to see how many people are moved by a single person!

Windows Vista everywhere

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Although it’s still in early beta stage, Windows Vista (or the Windows formerly known as Longhorn) is everywhere. Screenshots, reviews and discussions are flooding the net and I ask myself: Why? – True, some people have been waiting for this one for a loooong time now, nontheless I’m not overly excited yet – after all it’s going to be at least another 3-6 months until the real deal is in my hands and who knows which features will be in the final product…so here’s what I’m going to do: sit back, relax, have a look at screenshots and a laugh at the Pro/Contra Microsoft/Windows discussions as they start to pop-up once again… ;-)

Yesterday in court…

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Yesterday was a really emotional day. I went to court to witness the revision of last year’s trial (short summary: a drunken driver hit and killed my mate Sascha Himmelsbach on December 9th 2002 – he was on his way to uni that day and couldn’t do anything about the accident…the accident assessor calculated that there were 0.7 seconds of possible reaction time from the time that the drunken bastard started to skid until he hit the car of my mate :( )…he was sentenced to 22months in jail in the last trial, which took place in May 2004, but he appealed, so yesterday the revision took place.

After hours and hours of story telling and lying (or at least stretching the truth) he was once again sentenced…this time to 16months in jail. I guess it’s impossible to make up for killing someone, but 16months and some insurance money doesn’t sound right to me – but what can you do, you gotta take what you get.

I really hope that this is the end of this (once again he could appeal because it was a new trial)…as it’s hard to see the guy walking around free for over 2 years now although he’s been sentenced once and now a second time.

Sascha Himmelsbach, 18.08.1978-09.12.2002
Gone, but never forgotten!

Koelsch Cup 2005

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Alrighty, yesterday it was time for the Koelsch Cup again. Short description of the Koelsch Cup:

  • A team consists of 2 players
  • A match’s duration is 10minutes max – if a team scores 10 goals the match ends immediately
  • The Koelsch Cup is the Koelsch Cup because (almost) everyone is drinking Koelsch…that said: most of the early matches are high-class, most of the later matches tend to be really funny with (almost) all players a little bit drunk ;-)
  • The pitch is 15m x 8m with two little goals (see here)
  • All matches are strictly fair play!
  • The Cup is all private…

I had my fourth go at the cup this year and once again played with my partner Benjamin “Ailton” Keiper. This year 20 teams competed for the cup – the preliminary round was played in 4 groups (A-D) on two pitches (first time ever). We ended up in Group D and were able to watch some interesting matches before taking the field ourselves – we lost the first match 5-7 against our FCM II rear gunners “Buuunsch” and “L.Oe.”. We won our second match 9-2 after trailing 0-2 and at this point we were almost through to the final round (4 out 5 teams of every group play the 1/8 and so on) so we weren’t really focussed on winning anymore and lost the remaining two group matches. After that we played our 1/8-final (which we didn’t intend to win) and were able to watch the remaining matches without any hassle – drinking and eating without interruption :-)

Overall it was once again a really nice Cup so I decided it would be my turn to help out tearing down all the stuff…so it was a short night (in bed shortly after 2am, alarm went of at 9am)…but all in all it was worth it as we were able to get the stuff sorted quite quickly… :tup:

Hopefully there will be another Cup next year – this would be my 5 year anniversary :-)

Busy weekend

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Oooh what a weekend. Went out to play Golf for the first time ever on friday and it was really fun! I could really like it. We went to the GolfClub Niederreutin which is so beautiful you couldn’t even imagine. As we were mostly beginners (some mates have played before, some haven’t) we went straight to the driving range and tried to get our swing going – tbh it does seem so easy when you look at the Golf Pros on the telly, but believe me it isn’t. Nontheless we didn’t do all that bad and were able to even hit some good shots with the Woods (W1/W3/W5) in the end. To finish up our golf experience we visited the chipping/putting area and had a little fun there. All in all a really good experience – I guess this won’t be the only time we were playing ;-)

After the Golf experience we headed off to play a little private poker round which started at midnight and lasted until around 10am on saturday morning – I split the main pot with my mate Armin in the end…so noone was really disappointed.

After that it was time for a little brunch and some chillin’ on the couch…about 2pm it was finally time to take a nap – and after a good nights sleep the weekend is almost over again. Time to regroup and head off into the first week after the semester:

Exams are coming up in September/October, so still enough time to get the learning on it’s way…besides that it’s time to start our “Fachstudie” (a team of 3 students are analyzing something over the course of 3 months) – we’re covering the topic “BPEL4WS vs. WS-CDL in different scenarios”. This should really be fun and a good way to deepen our knowledge about Web Service Technolgy!