VIP zone

I'm at the Alpine Racing World Championship, working as one of the 1400 volunteers. Today was the Super-G race. I worked outdoor in the VIP zone at the race arena. That's where the important people from FIS (the international skiing federation) and the national skiing associations sit, together with their invited guests. Austrian Ski Team, Swiss Ski Team, US Ski Team, Alpine Canada, Audi, Carlsberg ...

The spoiled and well-fed brats get their three-course lunches for free. Ten steps away is the VIP stand with prime view to the finish area. We checked their VIP accreditations, and guided them to their warm and exclusive restaurant.

And we chased ordinary people away.

We told the poor guys to go to the other side of the arena, and line up to buy hot-dogs and burgers. Be happy that we let you watch the race at all. You know, we have to obey Pareto's Law (economics), also known as the Matthew Principle (Matt. 25:29):

"For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the ones who do not have, even what he has will be taken away from him."

That's life. That's how our world works. Like it or not. It's class society.

It was a nice and cold day. From my work area, I had a perfect view to the race.  Very good >:)

(Picture taken today at the race.)

Christmas

Yesterday was the last day of work before Christmas. I left the office around 6 pm. I immmediately wished that it was 2. January so that I could get back to my equations and computer codes.

Fuck Christmas. I’m not interested.

(Picture taken today, when I was out on a short walk. Days are short in Winterland on this time of the year. It's hardly possible to take a picture in day light. However, the darkness outside fits with the darkness of my mind.)

A horse in the street

I went for a quick walk downtown, had a couple of quick errands to do. On the way back home, I walked through one of the oldest streets in town. The street is named after a local saint, I think. it’s been there since medieval times, long before the reformation. Monks used to walk there on the way to the cathedral.

Suddenly my feeling of ancient times was kind of confirmed by a horse pulling a sled up the street. Horse traffic is sparse in town now. It's more common to see Teslas and other electric cars.

A few moments later I passed over the old town bridge, with a view to the technical university (where i once was a student), where they do reasearch on artificial intelligence and under-water robotics. All kinds of advanced stuff was invented here, like internet search and the GSM cell phone network.

I think that we have come pretty far since the last catholic arch bishop fled the town in1536. The first step of progress is to get rid of religious power.

Now I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop (not the the Amsterdam type, here they only sell coffee). I'm drinking the coffee of the day and writing some crap, like I often do when I'm here. Whatever. The coffee is very good >:)

(Picture taken on my walk to town center today)

Long day

It's been a long day. I left home before 4am in the morning to catch an early plane, and came back home after 11 pm. I went to our office in the capital to attend a workshop starting at noon. I thought it was a good idea to have some other meetings and talk to people I work with in other projects while I was there.

I just got the time to grab a salomon wrap in the cantina before the workshop started. The topic was exploration for metals in the deep oceans. Very exciting, to plan the activities which maybe, and only maybe, will be a big source of income in the future.

I got to meet people in our company who I normally never meet. The guys on the upper floors, the guys doing business analytics and stuff like that. They talk about business drivers, value chains, scalability and revenues. I only talk about science. That's easy.

It was dark when I took the train to the airport at 6pm. I had a shrimp sandwich and a beer, while waiting for my plane. The sandwich was incrediby expensive ($20). I thought I should pocket the beer glass when I left, as a revenge.

My plane was delayed. Late incoming fight. More time to kill. I sat for a while thinking about my dear soulmate, who I miss.  Then I went to the bookstore to look at the new books. That's the only stores I like. I saw a cute lady in tights. I walked over to the sci-fi shelf, pretending to be interested in intergalactic-war-fantasy-novels, just to see her from behind. Thick thighs, big butt, very nice. That's not an offense, is it? I didn't say anything, didn't touch. I just watched, and she didn't notice.

Maybe I committed a crime, or a thought crime. I don't know. It's strange times ...  >:)

(Picture taken tonight, while waiting for the train to the airport)

A day in the fall

Summer is over. It’s a rainy day in the fall. Rainy and dark. I’m on the way back home from a business dinner. Good food, fish of the day, and good beers. Meeting with colleagues I haven’t met before. New project, future value chains, it’s called. Research for the future. Very exciting.

I always volunteer for the new and exciting stuff that’s coming up in our company. I still work for the dark side, petroleum exploration. But the future is green, so they say. Electrified, renewable. Probably it’s a big hype, driven by the climate change scare from IPCC, The new "Jehova’s Witnesses", scaring about the end of the world.

Anyway, it gives me the opportunity to do some cool science, funded by tax money, partly. And I agree with the conclusions, we need to use renewables, recycle, reduce consumption, even though I don't agree with the arguments, and the big scare.

Doing new stuff, new science, that’s exciting. I’m quite good at this, grabbing the opportunities, at work. Not so much in my private life though. Sad but true.

(Picture taken  while walking back home from town)

Summertime

It’s been a busy summer so far. That’s good. It keeps my mind away from haunting ghosts.

We’re painting the house, Little Boy and I. The most time-consuming part is the scraping of old loose paint. When we get as far as the actual painting, we’re almost done. We have a tall house, and I don’t like climbing high. I send Little Boy to the top of the scaffold to take care of  the uppermost part. Sometimes kids are useful. 

In Russia the FIFA World Cup is taking place, with great football games on TV every day. We watch all the games, of course. It’s the only "TV show" I watch.  The semifinals start today. Then there’s only three games left. Very sad. It always feels like drug withdrawal when the World Cup is over.

So far we see some clear trends. The European teams dominate. No South American teams, no African teams, no Asian teams made it to the semifinals.

Surprisingly, Germany was out after the group matches. The Netherlands, Italy and USA didn't even qualify.

Shia is better than Sunni, at least when it comes to football. Out of five Muslim countries, the followers of Ali, Iran, was the only one among the final 16. 

Jesus did better than Muhammad. Egypt, with superstar striker Mohammad Salah were eliminated in the group matches. Brazil and their forward Gabriel Jesus made it to the quarter finals. 

Tonight we watched the first semifinal: France  vs. Belgium 1-0. Both teams had a majority of black and brown players, ghetto boys from the suburbs of Paris and Brussels. Almost all the supporters in the stand were white. They can afford to travel to Russia to watch the World Cup live.

Tomorrow is the second seimfinal: England vs. Croatia. I hope England will win. Football's coming home. I would like to go.

(Picture taken a couple of weeks ago, when we worked on the painting the first two walls)

The end of now

The last day of April came with blue sky and a few inches of fresh white snow, from last night's percipitation. I took my rando-skis and went to the top of the mountain. In fact, I was cheating a little bit, since I used the ski lifts as far as I could get, and then walked the rest of the way to the top.

Moving up the slope, step by step, with climbing skins under the skis, just me, alone. It's like time is slowing down. It's a moment for reflection over life, the universe and everything. Maybe diffraction is a better word than reflection. Whatever, by Huygen's principle it's not that much of a difference.

It always feels like time is running slow in the mountains. You can enjoy the moment, the present. Now is the transition between the past and the future. Now ends but always reappears. Now is always moving, and always forward.

The past will never come back. The past was good, and not so good. Anyway, it's nothing I can do about it. The future can still be shaped. Or maybe I canæt do that much about the future either. What happens will happen. Universum decides. I take it as it comes.

And then the skiing season has come to an end, for now. Six months from now, the white gold will be back >:)

(My rando-skis. Picture taken in the mountains today.)

Eat some snow

The spring-winter is here, the best time of the year. Sunny, slushy spring skiing. I was in the mountains skiing last weekend, as usual.

In the lift line I heard a conversation between a little boy and his father:

"Dad, I’m thirsty."

"Eat some snow."

That’s a great advice. But you don’t hear it very often. My father used to say it when I was a kid. I have said the same to my boys.

With plenty of snow around you won’t get dehydrated. Just eat it slowly, to avoid 'brain freeze', as we used to call it when we were kids.

And remember that  old Zappa song: don’t you eat that yellow snow; watch  out where the huskies go >:)

(Picture taken some time ago in the mountains.)