Short Jazz Update

Just a short update on Jazz clubs I visited while staying here... ;-) ...on June 21 I went to Warmdaddy's in Philadelphia, Stefan took some pictures of that event and Fred put them on his Web Albums...and here's the link to it...

Status update

As some people in Switzerland are quite fast in declaring me dead, when I don't write from time to time, here's an update on my stay in the States...as some of you may know, my internship is almost over here (I'll finish work on August 17) and so I'm just trying to get a few things done before I leave (like planning a trip to Florida in the beginning of August) and to enjoy the nice weather...that is, enjoying the days where it actually is nice weather...unfortunately, we had a lot of clouds and rain lately...but well, it's still good enough to spend some time at the beach or to go out in NYC, where I went to the Blue Note Jazz Club once again to see Cachao the inventor of Mambo himself and where I just went out last Saturday to celebrate the birthdays of some fellow interns...can't really complain too much... ;-)
So long...more updates after I've seen the Simpsons movie or after my Florida trip...

Niagara Falls

So, here's the promised update on my trip to the Niagara Falls. We started on Saturday in the early morning and went all the way up North to one of the most spectacular natural sights in this country (ok the most impressive part is in another country but that's a detail... ;-)). As it was only a bit more than 400 miles away we decided to make a day trip out of it...I mean something like 13 or 14 hours of driving in one day is not that tough, right? Well yes it was a bit tiring, but it was definitely worth it. These falls are impressive and we chose a wonderful day (sunny with 30°C) to visit them. The high temperatures were especially handy when we went very close to the falls during the boat tour (btw: if you ever go there, take the tour from the US side around noon...same tour as from Canada, but with less people). If you have a look at my pictures, you may see the cute plastic coats we got there, but you don't see how wet we were when we got out of the boat (and how may pics I had to delete because of water drops on the cam's lens). And before we started to get too dry we also took a short walk next to the American Falls...well we had enough time to dry afterwards anyway... ;-)

Independence Day

As some of you may know the Fourth of July is quite an important date in the States. And this year they even announced to start showing Transformers at that date... ;-) ...btw: don't miss that movie if you like action, hot girls and special effects (that was actually the description I got from an American teammate at Siemens...he went to see it on the 4th of July)...and talking about movies: Die Hard is a great movie as well...
To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the amount of celebrations that were going on here. I mean, it's probably their most important holiday, but I would say that the Zürifäscht around the lake of Zurich which happened to be last weekend (they do it every third year) is a bigger celebration than that...probably even the fireworks can compete with the Fourth of July fireworks in NYC...I mean, I'm comparing Zurich with New York City here! Considering that the fireworks in Zurich were done at two consecutive evenings with the fireworks coordinated following the rhythm of the played music (on one of the occasions they even did it with a live band), I really think that they can compete in NYC in that category...anyway: I still went to see the fireworks in NYC after a nice party in Belmar (New Jersey shore) the evening before and a relaxing BBQ with the usual mix of Siemens-interns and Brazilian au-pairs in the afternoon. In NYC they had closed a part of the FDR Drive (a freeway through the east side of Manhattan) right next to the East River where they did the fireworks. As the freeway is elevated, we had quite a nice view from there...yet, I was quite surprised by the lack of music there...as I was told, there was music at some other places like the Liberty State Park, but well ok...we had one of the closest spots to the fireworks, so I can't complain too much... ;-) ...needless to say that I also took several pictures and some videos...I had to throw away a large part of the pics but the rest can be found on my Web Album as usual...also make sure to check out Michael's pictures of the BBQ and the fireworks on his blog...and while your at it you can also have a look at the picture he took (when he started to work at 6am...as usual...on a Monday...nuts ;-)) of my workplace. There on the right you can see the two machines I'm working with and on the left the workplace of my supervisor with two monitors...and as you can see, I'm one of the few interns at Siemens with a spot next to a window... ;-)
Getting back to Independence Day, it really seems that I did the classic kind of celebration for that holiday...BBQ with friends and fireworks...as I was told, that's what most Americans do as well...I still would have expected bigger public celebrations...especially in a big city like NYC...

And one more thing...I just want to try how nicely it works to embed videos to this blog and how could I do it better than with the trailer for the next major blockbuster...check it out and make sure to click on the video and check the other trailers here as well... ;-)

Update: As nicely as it worked to embed the video, I'm getting annoyed by the trailer playing each time I open the blog...so, if you didn't see the Simpsons Movie yet, go see it now! It's worth it... ;-)

PS: I went to the Niagara Falls this weekend...pictures and more details will follow so stay tuned... ;-)

Pictures and Maps

Just saw that they have a new feature on the Picasa Web Albums which now link the pictures to maps and the best thing is that it's extremely easy to use. For my albums I didn't even have to do a lot about it, since I had used the location tag on my albums anyway and now on my public gallery you can see a map on the lower right, showing all the album's locations. Then you can also go into one of the albums and link the pictures to a precise location. I tried that one for the Others Album and for some of the latest ones like the Toronto Album where you should set the Map to Hybrid/Satellite mode to understand the locations of the pictures taken on the CN Tower... ;-) ...as I said a cool and easy to use feature...
I was also trying to embed google maps in the blog, but that doesn't seem to be that easy...but well...as a workaround, you can just have a look at this link with some landmarks related to my stay here...and if someone knows an easy way to embed such a map on this blog, just let me know... ;-)
And one more thing: I went to a baseball game in Philadelphia last Thursday where the Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds 8:7 in 10 innings...well seriously I can't imagine people watching this sport very often... ;-) ...but ok the stadium was well filled and the atmosphere was good...interestingly enough the atmosphere got even better when it started to rain...at that point people were not watching the game anymore anyway... ;-) ...and in the end there was also a firework with a nice countdown...on the big screen...which stopped at 10 and didn't continue... ;-) ...personally, I forgot my cam but Sascha took some pictures here...