First Installation of Resource Booker and pub quiz night

Hannover, Germany

Today was a special day...

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My groupware app I have been writing here in Germany was installed on a computer that is bigger than me (2.5M x 1M x 1M) today and is now running as an actual business application for a real company. Prior to this it is was displayed 10 feet tall projected onto the wall at the company meeting with 14 people going over every aspect inch by inch looking for bugs and features they wanted / didn"t want while I sat hoping the software didn"t crash or anything.

This, in essence, is my first commercial computer application. My boss didn"t look too amazed, more or less he gave the "about time I get something back for all the money I spent" look but to me: this is why I wanted to be a computer programmer ever since I was 12 years old. This is a real dream come true. And getting the LINUX system to work properly was a real pain in the ass that kept me awake for a long time so it makes it 10x"s more rewarding.

There are some screen shots above, one where I was making some final adjustments in Emacs and 2 others showing the processes run via "top", a unix resource monitoring app.

I found a place in Hannover this week, I applied for it but I"ll have to wait to hear back from the owner whom lives in Switzerland. It"s in one of the most lively areas of Hannover near the University, there are loads of pubs and clubs around and it"s not to far from the Centrum by train. There is a beautiful court yard and the house it"s self looks very European, modern and unique.

The only problem: I have to give my current landlord 3 months notice (but I think I can work my way out with the current housing demand) and there is a ?1000 (about $1700 Canadian) deposit plus 1st months rent. The rent is cheap though, it"s only ?10 more than what I"m paying now and it"s 3x the size of the current place I"m living in. Bremen is pretty expensive for such a small place.

Last night my team won the funniest answer for the second time in a row at the Thursday quiz night at the pub. I wanted a team name that would get the attention of the Germans and one that the pub owner probably couldn"t decipher. The last time I was in this competition I went as "Team Kanadia" and this time I went as "Team Macht Die Beine Breit" (Spread your legs wide). The entire crowd was laughing when the teams and scores were announced at half time.

This time I actually got 26 answers right, the winners got 41 right. I never thought I would come so close to the top. Most answers would require that you would be about 30 to have enough general knowledge to answer them but usually I get lucky with certain topics.