After last night's post and keeping an eye on all the news coming from Computex today it's not really all that surprising that I had another 'Taipei moment' tonight. After an interesting discussion session about ICT in education that Wayan had organized, we went out for dinner and beers. The moment we got out of the building and saw that it had rained I had somewhat of a flashback to my Taipei experiences in 2006 and 2007. The rain, the wet streets, the yellow lights in terms of the atmosphere combined with the fact that I was talking ICT over beers with a bunch of outstanding people from different parts of the world certainly reminded me of all the good times in past years. On top of that I didn't get too much sleep last night and had quite an intense and productive day and so it's not hard to connect the dots. Plus the weather in DC these days is remarkably similar to Taipei as it's hot and humid here and there's no escape from it, especially when the A/C in your office isn't working.
The generally interesting thing here of course being that I had spent quite a lot of time these past 48 hours reminiscing about Computex and Taipei. But it's one thing to think about something and a totally different story to actually be back there, to literally relive these moments long gone. I've often thought about these sort of moments and for some reason they're often connected to out-of-the-ordinary experiences such as Computex or travelling. I'm starting to believe that there are certain situations that the mind simply can't fully comprehend at the time, often due to sheer exhausting, sleep deprivation and mental overflow (been there, done that), which come back at later times to be thoroughly processed. Reliving those moments is probably part of this process. And actually I really don't mind it, quite the opposite, I cherish the chance to mentally be back in situations and places long gone.
So cheers to good memories and here's to many great experiences in the future! ...and could you please bring me another Sam Adams?! ;-)
Listening to Heavens - Patent Pending and In Flames - Come Clarity while I write these lines sitting in the metro on the way home...
Showing posts with label Taiwan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taiwan. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Computex 2008 opens without me...
So while my Monday, a great day by the way, is slowly coming to an end I know someone who certainly isn't sleeping at the moment. In fact I'm quite convinced he hasn't slept all that much in the past few days seeing that he just got into Taipei on Monday to attend Computex 2008, definitely the best place to be these days. I'm of course talking about my friend Sascha of eeepcnews.de and epiacenter fame.
At this precise moment he is probably running through either the traditional exhibition halls around Taipei 101 or in the brand-new Nangang Exhibition Centre looking for news-worthy information, photos and videos which will then be rapidly published via the aforementioned Web sites and Steve's umpcportal.com. (On a fun side note: check out operations center that Steve set up to cover Computex out of his home in Germany!:-)
While following the constant stream of news coming out of Taipei over the past 48 hours I couldn't help but feel a little sad that I'm not there to enjoy the raging madness that is Computex. I was lucky enough to be there in the past 2 years and it was a blast even though I probably aged a year during the 6 days each I was in Taipei in both 2006 and 2007. The preparations leading up to those 6 days were always quite cruel, last year I actually pushed myself over the edge as I briefly passed out from exhaustion during the first leg of my flight from Vienna to Taipei via Abu Dhabi. (Needless to say a flight across the globe is the very worst time to lose consciousness.)
Of course the event itself is quite demanding in itself, running from meeting to meeting, always on the look-out for new products and/or booth babes. This is balanced by great evenings and nights spent in the hotel bar of the Grand Hyatt, at small halal restaurants, random watering holes or wherever else. Of course it's always the people that really make these nights memorable, and damn, I miss having the chance to hang out with them. Even though many of them have actually moved on to greener pastures and aren't in Taipei anyway.
Just when I was about to publish this article I remembered that I had taken a short video during my 2007 trip which I uploaded as sort of introduction to the Computex coverage on EPIACENTER.com:
Needless to say that after watching it and looking at some of my photos taken back in June 2006 I just might cry myself to sleep tonight...
China Pa, Carnegies, Taipei 101... I miss you!
At this precise moment he is probably running through either the traditional exhibition halls around Taipei 101 or in the brand-new Nangang Exhibition Centre looking for news-worthy information, photos and videos which will then be rapidly published via the aforementioned Web sites and Steve's umpcportal.com. (On a fun side note: check out operations center that Steve set up to cover Computex out of his home in Germany!:-)
While following the constant stream of news coming out of Taipei over the past 48 hours I couldn't help but feel a little sad that I'm not there to enjoy the raging madness that is Computex. I was lucky enough to be there in the past 2 years and it was a blast even though I probably aged a year during the 6 days each I was in Taipei in both 2006 and 2007. The preparations leading up to those 6 days were always quite cruel, last year I actually pushed myself over the edge as I briefly passed out from exhaustion during the first leg of my flight from Vienna to Taipei via Abu Dhabi. (Needless to say a flight across the globe is the very worst time to lose consciousness.)
Of course the event itself is quite demanding in itself, running from meeting to meeting, always on the look-out for new products and/or booth babes. This is balanced by great evenings and nights spent in the hotel bar of the Grand Hyatt, at small halal restaurants, random watering holes or wherever else. Of course it's always the people that really make these nights memorable, and damn, I miss having the chance to hang out with them. Even though many of them have actually moved on to greener pastures and aren't in Taipei anyway.
Just when I was about to publish this article I remembered that I had taken a short video during my 2007 trip which I uploaded as sort of introduction to the Computex coverage on EPIACENTER.com:
Needless to say that after watching it and looking at some of my photos taken back in June 2006 I just might cry myself to sleep tonight...
China Pa, Carnegies, Taipei 101... I miss you!
Monday, December 31, 2007
A look back at 2007...
It's a weird feeling sitting here in front of my notebook after basically not using the machine during the past few days. The last time I checked my e-mails was 2 or 3 days ago and overall I've probably spent less than an hour on the computer since Christmas. And you know what? It's been an extremely relaxing week! :-)
I spent most of my time sleeping, meeting friends, going to the movies (saw Gus van Sant's "Paranoid Park" yesterday and David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" today, both well recommended) and reading (I finished Cormac McCarthy's "No County For Old Men" in less than 24h). All in all it's certainly been a very relaxing week and I guess the only one who's had an even more relaxing week is our cat, who spent most of the last 2 days lying next to me and sleeping all day long.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll be heading to Vienna to celebrate New Year's with some friends and once I sober up (which will probably take until Jan. 2nd;-) I'll get back into the swing of things and start being productive again. I've lots and lots of things on my to-do list, the most important items being: studying for university as I've got lots of exams coming up over the next few weeks, preparing my bachelor thesis, finally sorting through my TransSib photos and also uploading the ones which I took on the recent trip to the USA, getting OLPC-related stuff done, getting work done for EPIACENTER, etc. So I certainly won't be bored...
While hangin' around these past few days I also spent some time thinking about 2007 and as ever so often I was amazed at just how quickly it went by. I tried coming up with some core things I did this year but too much has happened to really be able to compile that into something short'n'sweet. So here's a slightly chaotic look back at 2007:
Travel: If there's one thing that certainly kept me busy this year than it was travelling. All in all I spent about 9 weeks outside of Austria, a pretty decent amount I dare say. Starting with the family trip to Barcelona in February, continuing with my standard CeBIT visit in March, to be followed by visiting one of my closest friends in Granada. In June I flew out to Taiwan to attend Computex, in mid-July I spent a weekend in Paris and at the end of August I took off on one of the finest journeys I've ever made, the one along the Transsiberian Railway from Beijing, through Mongolia to Moscow. And now the last-minute decision to head to Washington and Boston which made for a very nice end-of-the-year in terms of my travels. I'm not quite sure what 2008 will bring but at the moment I know that I'll certainly be at CeBIT again, plus I'm very likely to head back to South America (with a focus on Brazil and Argentina) come August. Plus I'm pretty sure some other opportunities will present themselves and knowing myself I'll probably jump on every one of them.
Concerts: While certainly not having been to as many concerts as my dear friend Patrick I did see a couple of very good shows. Off the top of my head I'd probably say that the recent Ennio Morricone concert in Vienna was amongst my favourite ones. The best one however was the Nine Inch Nails concert back in March, I've never seen that kind of jump-start energy as when Trent Reznor hit the stage on March, 29th. Again it remains to be seen what 2008 will bring, at the moment I'm trying to get tickets to the Korn show in February and the tickets for the Smashing Pumpkins concert in January have already been bought. The interesting decision will be which festival to attend, at the moment the first band-announcements for the ones close by haven't been too exciting so we might head to Southside in Germany this time 'round.
Movies: I haven't had a chance to count my movie-stubs (I collect those) for 2007 but I'm guessing I saw about >50 movies in the cinema this year. Most of them during my two favourite film-festivals around here: the Crossing Europe in Linz and the Viennale in Vienna. It's certainly been a very good year when it came to great movies!
OLPC: The single biggest theme that makes this year different to previous ones is my involvement in the One Laptop per Child project and more specifically OLPC Austria. I can't even begin to count all the great people I've meet within and thanks to OLPC Austria, the countless hours I've spent on that project, the many lessons I learned about myself, ICT, education, project-management, collaboration, etc. This is probably the single best thing that happened to me in 2007 and I'm thankful for being able to work on this project because it's really an amazing experience.
University: I'm very happy with the progress I've made these past 12 months and if all goes well I'll finish my bachelor degree no later than autumn 2008. As mentioned above I'm currently in the brainstorming- and planning-stage for my bachelor thesis (surprise, surprise, it's something in the OLPC context) and that will definitely keep me busy during my semester-holidays in February. Looking back it's really quite amazing to see how much I've learned during this past year, both in terms of actual technical skills (especially thanks to two lectures about object-orientated programming and software engineering) and more general skills that I now find to be applicable in a variety of settings and projects. With regards to the future of my studies I'm not to happy with the stock Master programs offered at my university so I'll probably go for a custom-tailored one with a focus on ICT and its correlation with society. Plus even though I absolutely love living in Vienna it's definitely time to pack my bags and study abroad for at least half-a-year in the not-so-distant future. No clue about when, where or what but again I'm sure I'll figure it out along the way.
Blog: I have to say that I'm also quite happy that I managed to keep this blog alive after my TransSib journey and at the moment I'm up to around 80 posts with some of them remaining unfinished and sitting in the background. This highlights an issue that most bloggers are likely to encounter: Not having the time to update the blog as much as one would want to. It really does take a lot of discipline to keep posting and I hope to be able to do better in that regard in 2008.
Well, what's left for me to say at this point? All I can say that 2007 has been an outstanding year and just looking back at this mini-summary above I'm extremely happy with how it went. Now bring it on 2008!!! :-)
I wish all of you a Happy New Year and a great start into 2008 (at least once that hangover goes by)!
I spent most of my time sleeping, meeting friends, going to the movies (saw Gus van Sant's "Paranoid Park" yesterday and David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" today, both well recommended) and reading (I finished Cormac McCarthy's "No County For Old Men" in less than 24h). All in all it's certainly been a very relaxing week and I guess the only one who's had an even more relaxing week is our cat, who spent most of the last 2 days lying next to me and sleeping all day long.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll be heading to Vienna to celebrate New Year's with some friends and once I sober up (which will probably take until Jan. 2nd;-) I'll get back into the swing of things and start being productive again. I've lots and lots of things on my to-do list, the most important items being: studying for university as I've got lots of exams coming up over the next few weeks, preparing my bachelor thesis, finally sorting through my TransSib photos and also uploading the ones which I took on the recent trip to the USA, getting OLPC-related stuff done, getting work done for EPIACENTER, etc. So I certainly won't be bored...
While hangin' around these past few days I also spent some time thinking about 2007 and as ever so often I was amazed at just how quickly it went by. I tried coming up with some core things I did this year but too much has happened to really be able to compile that into something short'n'sweet. So here's a slightly chaotic look back at 2007:
Travel: If there's one thing that certainly kept me busy this year than it was travelling. All in all I spent about 9 weeks outside of Austria, a pretty decent amount I dare say. Starting with the family trip to Barcelona in February, continuing with my standard CeBIT visit in March, to be followed by visiting one of my closest friends in Granada. In June I flew out to Taiwan to attend Computex, in mid-July I spent a weekend in Paris and at the end of August I took off on one of the finest journeys I've ever made, the one along the Transsiberian Railway from Beijing, through Mongolia to Moscow. And now the last-minute decision to head to Washington and Boston which made for a very nice end-of-the-year in terms of my travels. I'm not quite sure what 2008 will bring but at the moment I know that I'll certainly be at CeBIT again, plus I'm very likely to head back to South America (with a focus on Brazil and Argentina) come August. Plus I'm pretty sure some other opportunities will present themselves and knowing myself I'll probably jump on every one of them.
Concerts: While certainly not having been to as many concerts as my dear friend Patrick I did see a couple of very good shows. Off the top of my head I'd probably say that the recent Ennio Morricone concert in Vienna was amongst my favourite ones. The best one however was the Nine Inch Nails concert back in March, I've never seen that kind of jump-start energy as when Trent Reznor hit the stage on March, 29th. Again it remains to be seen what 2008 will bring, at the moment I'm trying to get tickets to the Korn show in February and the tickets for the Smashing Pumpkins concert in January have already been bought. The interesting decision will be which festival to attend, at the moment the first band-announcements for the ones close by haven't been too exciting so we might head to Southside in Germany this time 'round.
Movies: I haven't had a chance to count my movie-stubs (I collect those) for 2007 but I'm guessing I saw about >50 movies in the cinema this year. Most of them during my two favourite film-festivals around here: the Crossing Europe in Linz and the Viennale in Vienna. It's certainly been a very good year when it came to great movies!
OLPC: The single biggest theme that makes this year different to previous ones is my involvement in the One Laptop per Child project and more specifically OLPC Austria. I can't even begin to count all the great people I've meet within and thanks to OLPC Austria, the countless hours I've spent on that project, the many lessons I learned about myself, ICT, education, project-management, collaboration, etc. This is probably the single best thing that happened to me in 2007 and I'm thankful for being able to work on this project because it's really an amazing experience.
University: I'm very happy with the progress I've made these past 12 months and if all goes well I'll finish my bachelor degree no later than autumn 2008. As mentioned above I'm currently in the brainstorming- and planning-stage for my bachelor thesis (surprise, surprise, it's something in the OLPC context) and that will definitely keep me busy during my semester-holidays in February. Looking back it's really quite amazing to see how much I've learned during this past year, both in terms of actual technical skills (especially thanks to two lectures about object-orientated programming and software engineering) and more general skills that I now find to be applicable in a variety of settings and projects. With regards to the future of my studies I'm not to happy with the stock Master programs offered at my university so I'll probably go for a custom-tailored one with a focus on ICT and its correlation with society. Plus even though I absolutely love living in Vienna it's definitely time to pack my bags and study abroad for at least half-a-year in the not-so-distant future. No clue about when, where or what but again I'm sure I'll figure it out along the way.
Blog: I have to say that I'm also quite happy that I managed to keep this blog alive after my TransSib journey and at the moment I'm up to around 80 posts with some of them remaining unfinished and sitting in the background. This highlights an issue that most bloggers are likely to encounter: Not having the time to update the blog as much as one would want to. It really does take a lot of discipline to keep posting and I hope to be able to do better in that regard in 2008.
Well, what's left for me to say at this point? All I can say that 2007 has been an outstanding year and just looking back at this mini-summary above I'm extremely happy with how it went. Now bring it on 2008!!! :-)
I wish all of you a Happy New Year and a great start into 2008 (at least once that hangover goes by)!
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