lost n found

heyhey,

I'm in reno right now - another crazy city in nevada. i was invited to attend the supercomputing conference here. so yah, a lot of stuff happend since I arrived here...here is the story:
i flew in yesterday morning. from the airport i went straight to the sparcs convention center, where the conference is. at the conference there are all these talks and discussions that u can attend. but its also a sales conference... so many companies are there to present and sell new stuff.
when I arrived at the hotel yesterday night I could not find my wallet any more! sh**! I searched all my bags but i couldn't find it...trying to check into the hotel, they wanted to have my creditcard, which - of course - was in my wallet. in the end I was lucky that I already paid for the first night, so they let me into my room for one night....
I was pretty sure that I lost it at the conference, since I still had it shortly before I left there. Today I went there early and I was lucky!! somebody found it and brought it back :)) that saved my day!! but it gets even better ... i won a playstation 3 ;) one of the companies there had a draw for a playstation every day... so i filled out that form and then i was the lucky winner in the end. thats pretty cool.

...right now I'm watching spiderman 3 on my new toy ;)

On the road

I was travelling a lot in the past few weeks. we had visitors from switzerland. first, jonas (not my brother, but noe's brother) was here. and then - one week later - my brother marius and justina arrived. now - a few thousand miles later - I have so many pictures ;) check them out here

lots of stuff

hey,

it's more than two weeks since my last blog entry. I'm having fun here!
Two weeks ago it was my birthday. I invited a few people from the lab and from google for bbq. After having dinner we started playing games in the pool till we got stopped by our neighbor ! apparently we were too loud and the next day was a school day. so some of us went to the 'dutch goose', a pub in walking distance. that's where we played pool for the rest of the evening....

last weekend I was invited to go to ventura with amanda & noe. her parents and her brother life down there. it's a little further down than santa barbara. because it was labour day on monday it was the perfect weekend for the trip. we drove there on saturday morning and came back on monday evening.
they have two waverunners. we went to the ocean with them on saturday and sunday.

it was simply amazing ;) they are reeeeaaallly fast! the most fun part is to make jumps right next to the beach, where the waves start breaking.
on sunday morning we went to the beach. I tried surfing again, but I wasn't that successful. After trying twice I had no more power to get on the board. Surfing is so exhausting... and I didn't eat in the morning, which was not very helpful for that ;)

now, the next weekend is already here. tomorrow we have the triathlon party in our house. since erin, thad & filip are all in the triathlon team they invited the whole team for barbecue. otherwise I don't have plans yet. May be we'll walk onto a 'big' hill - I forgot it's name - north of san francisco....

severin

Russian River winery tour

Hey,

Wie gehts euch allen? Ich sitz grad im Liegestuhl vor unserem Haus ;) Momentan is alles etwas drunter und drueber hier, da wir immernoch am einziehen sind. Ueberall steht noch stuff rum ;)

Letztes weekend haben wir ne weintour gemacht ;) Alles leute die jetzt grad in unserem haus wohnen. Erin & Thad und Dominik & Heidi and me .. Am Samstag morgen bin ich erst mal frue afgestanden um mit erin joggen zu gehen. Sie trainiert momentan grad fuer n marathon, der diesen herbst in SF stattfindet. Ich hab nur knapp 1 1/2 h mitgehalten ;) erin war noch ne ganze stunde laenger unterwegs! mittags sind wir dann losgefahren in die weingegend im norden von sf.

Insgesamt haben wir in den 2 tagen 6 verschiedene wineries besucht und natuerlich ueberall wein vom feinsten degoustiert ;) lecker! uebernachtet haben wir auf nem campingplatz ganz in der naehe eines kleinen flusses, dem russian river. nach ner kurzen nacht gings dann am naechsten tag weiter mit wein probieren, grad nach dem fruestueck .... nach ner kurzen badepause sind wir schlussendlich der westside road entlang gefahren wo wir nochmals fantastische weine probiert haben. reben und wein gibts dort so weit das auge reicht...

Live's good

Hey,

Es ist zeit mich wiedermal zu melden. Sogar unser Moritz blogt mehr als ich ;)
Letztes Wochenende bin ich nochmals umgezogen. Ich hab per zufall n freies zimmer in nem netten haus ganz in der nahe beim campus gefunden. Noch zuefaelliger werden hier in 2 wochen nochmals 2 schweizer einziehen. Heiko, der hier sein bio-engineering phd macht und Max, der hier seine masterarbeit schreiben wird. erin, that und filip sind die amis, die nun hier mit mir wohnen.

gestern haben wir dann auch zum ersten mal den grill im kleinen 'garten' angeschmissen...der garten ist deshalb so klein, weil der pool so viel platz wegnimmt :o it's really nice here.

sonst hab ich die woche nebst dem arbeiten immer ein wenig sport gemacht...montags fitness, dienstag jogging, gestern squash und heute bin ich mit Noe klettern gegangen. Nach kurzem duschen sind wir dann noch kurz zu google gefahren ... die hatten da son event ala 'musicstar' fuer all die interns die im moment da sind (immerhin ein paar hundert leute!!). das ganze war zwar schon mehr oder weniger vorbei als wir angekommen sind. So sind wir dann wieder zurueck auf den campus gefahren, aber natuerlich nicht ohne vorher noch zu essen. Food gibt's dort immer, auch spaet am abend noch ...

so long,
machets guet
liebe gruess,
severin

Weekend in Isla Vista and Santa Barbara

On friday the week before we headed down south after work. Amanda picked me up first and then we went to google campus in mountain view the pick up noe. after a 5 hour drive, and a stop at 'in & out' (they make the best burgers of the world!), we arrived in Goleta, right next to Santa Barbara. I stayed with Martin and Julian for the weekend and Amande and Noe went to Ventura to see her parents.
Julian and Martin are also studying at eth in zurich. right now, there are working in a software company in Goleta. They have been here for almost a year now. on saturday and sunday martin showed me how to do surfing. It was great, although it's not that easy to actually get the waves with the right timing and then stand up.
On saturday night we first went to Santa Barbara, which is very nice. We just went down the 'main street' to the peer and then we headed back to get something to eat. After that we were well prepared for a long party night in Isla Vista ;) Isla Vista is the town right next to the University California of Santa Barbra (UCSB). A lot of students live in the houses right on the cliffs and there it gets very crowded on saturday nights...

Das Wetter oder it's always nice ;)

An sich sagt der Titel schon alles ... das Wetter war bis jetzt fast immer schoen hier - zumindest da wo ich meistens bin (Stanford, Palo Alto, Menlo Park). Ab und zu sieht man ein paar wolken am himmel, oder der wind blaest mal etwas kraeftiger. Dazu ist's dann so um die 30 grad warm. mit shorts, t-shirt und flip-flops ist man also immer bestens unterwegs ;)

Angenommen ich haette jetzt aber Lust auf Nebel und kuehlen Wind, dann muesste ich auch nicht lange suchen. In San Francisco ists recht oft neblig, und auch wenn man nach Westen ueber die Foot Hills geht kanns schnell neblig werden.

Als wir eines tages nach Half-Moon-Bay gefahren sind, sahs dann auf einmal ungefaehr so aus

Von weitem sieht das ziemlich eindruecklich aus ... aber am Strand haben wirs net lange ausgehalten ;)