Sleeping Beauty

SSL22878.JPG
Originally uploaded by Stephan’s Place.

This Easter Monday we used the nice weather to have a walk in the landscape behind Mühlenbeck in the Brandenburg March. Like in the romance of the sleeping beauty behind the Mühlenbecker lake we stumbled upon that forgotten manor-house “Dammsmühle”. It has seen during its history people like Napoleon, Wilhelm II. , Nikolaus II., Harry Piel, Heinrich Himmler and Hildegard Knef.
Now it’s abandoned and mostly forgotten deep in the forest. Too bad. But still a beauty.

For those who can read German here is a short summary of it’s history.

Advertisement

Seminar Class Get-together in Heidelberg

SSL21984.JPG
Originally uploaded by Stephan’s Place.

This weekend I had a get-together of my old seminar class with my alumni’s from the Technical University of Chemnitz. We studied together from 1979 to 19 84. For those who are not familiar with such classes, at that time students in east Germany were organized in classes during the whole scholastics time, learning according a semester plan.
Being part of such a scholar community was a lot of fun, and we meet every 2 years since that. This time we’ve been near Heidelberg, in a guest house called “Alter Kohlhof” , which has a very well leaded restaurant with excellent wines from it’s own wine production.
I just can recommend that.

The battle of Bunker Hill

SSL21314.JPG
Originally uploaded by Stephan’s Place.

On June 17 Boston people celebrating the anniversary of the battle of bunker hill. We accidental came to that event, following the Boston freedom trail.
Although not really much people attended, It’s always nice to see how respectful some people treat their history.

Lars on the red line

Lars on the freedom trail
Originally uploaded by Stephan’s Place.

Yesterday we arrived late in Boston, were we’ll attend the Enterprise 2.0 conference. Today we took some time to have a condensed city visit. Lars discovered the red line, which leads to the most important historical places in a kind of loop road. So we followed the line. Finally we saw a lot (check out my flickr pics), but we’ve been really down after all these miles in the heat.
In the afternoon we worked on the presentation and Lars wanted to start some coding work. Now I’ll gonna pick him up for a light evening meal and tomorrow we start the 4 day conference marathon.
Many people already arranged a meeting with us, therefore we are very snoopy for tomorrow. I’ll keep you informed.

tomtom, tomtom, ist da oben jemand drin?

Odyssee 2007, Teil 1: Ein Dialog mit dem TomTom-Support:

Kunde 10.05.2007 10:21 :

“Ich habe tomtom home mit meinem xda orbit auf WinXP installiert und alles läuft super. Nun habe ich einen Mac, neu. Tomtom home ist installiert, erkennt aber das Phone nicht. Wenn ich links unten im tomtom home auf das Icon ” Mein Gerät” drücke, wird “HTC Artemis” erkannt,danach stürtzt Tomtom home ab. ”

Antwort (DE) 12.05.2007 11:40 :

“Guten Tag , Vielen Dank fuer Ihre Anfrage.

Father’s Day…

SSL21091.JPG
Originally uploaded by Stephan’s Place.


Originally uploaded by Stephan’s Place.

… is afflicted in Germany with groups of men walking or biking through the landscape, but never ignoring a tavern on the way. Most of them carry beer with them, in case the distance between 2 taverns is to dry.
In Birkenwerder, a small green town north of Berlin were I live in, we found today a live band at the restaurant near the lake. The “Bluegrass Breakdown”, a local country band was playing nicely and a lot of line dancers joined the stage to perform their dances. It was really a nice atmosphere with friendly people. Good neighborhood.

The last days in CA

SSL20991.JPG
Originally uploaded by Stephan’s Place.

About the Red Herring Spring conference I’ve already posted here. Next day we headed the Hwy 1 north, enjoying the landscape. On my flickr pages are some more photos from that. Finally we arrived, guess where? the picture here has a nearly hidden hint included. The town was wonderful and impressive as ever, and I was wandering through the city to visit some old known places. Finally I found a nice bar to rest from the walk and enjoy a Cesar salad with chicken and a draft beer.

The art of speaking

DSC_3837.JPG
Originally uploaded by salimfadhley.

Yesterday I was at a presentation of Mr. Markus Renevey, owner of the Swiss “The Talk Company” about “Confident Speech making and Presentations”. He was heavily preaching his message:

“be genuine, have a message, be credible”.

Not really new to me. But the discussion after the presentation showed, that this basic ideals are still not a matter of course. Many attendees came up with the “need to not tell every piece of truth”.
But I totally agree to Mr. Renevey, that this is a important step to longterm credibility & trust.
Here is an other quote from him which was very inspiring to me:

“If you want to get people to an island, don’t tell them how to make boats. Tell them about the wonderful blue lagoon there.”

I think we often forget the goal by emphasizing the way to much. It’s the goal what keeps us moving.

Sharks and Herrings

Today I figured out that the “Red Herring 100 Europe” web page has a slight different design especially in the header picture than the “Red Herring Spring” which are the Red Herring 100 awards for North America.

Does that makes sense to you??

Service @America

Red Herring is an American company, obviously. This morning we came to the congress and Lars forgot his name tag. He asked me to go back for it. I said no. Just lets look if they can provide you a new one. They gladly did. I wanted to put some flyers into the press room. After I couldn’t find it one of the Red Herring Hostesses came along to escort me to the press room. After she saw the flyers in my hand she immediately asked to do that for me. With pleasure.

Lather on I was repelled by the concierge of the conference hotel when I wanted to recharge my laptop. I went over to the red Herring office and they gladly did.