Wakeboard Championship : German Open 2008 (27-28Sept)

It's a great weekend. The weather is fair, clear sky with sun, and 19DegC. It's perfect for wakeboarding! Of course, I don't do it ^^ But just so happen that German Open was happening somewhere near the northern part of Cologne, called Fühlinger See(which is a lake), and beautiful park for people to spend time sunbathing, cycling, inline skating, running, kayaking... all kinds of activities! I didn't watch the whole thing which started since Saturday as early as 9am. But I was there on Sunday for the finals at around 3pm, and just enough to watch the finalists doing performing some amazing jumps before the prize giving ceremony at 5:30pm. I don't think I'll ever wakeboard since I don't like water very much. Maybe someday I might try it just for fun, but you'll never know. ^^

Lotsa people, entrance is pretty much free, except for the 2.50Euro parking fee.

You can tell that it's not so cold, but people still brought sweaters just in case. The sun did its job well keeping us all warm.

That's the announcement stand, with a Land Rover carrying the loudspeakers, and of course bearing the sponsor's mark everywhere it goes.
DJ stand, and I think that's probably the coolest baby OrangUtan you can ever see. Check out the bling-bling.

This would be the boat towing those stuntpeople around.

I think this one is probably on sale, or just for display. It looks like a very cool boat!

Oh yeah, the cockpit's not bad too.

Here are some pictures of those wakeboarders doing Double-Up jumps.

Prize giving ceremony for boys' category.

And the ladies.

And these are the Champions for the Men's category.

Look at the dog ^^ It was following it's master who won the 2nd place in one of the events.

This is one scary-looking but very friendly Doberman. Look at all the muscles, and the legs are enormous!

This one just look like a walking carpet, or just bigfoot's cousin. ^^

My Workplace on a magazine

Nothing really special to blog about this week so I'm just showing some pictures I found on the magazine published by the Chemical Park where our plant is situated here in Knapsack. The aerial shot from the west looks very cool actually. The two 9 cells modules of cooling fans means we're in business. I'm still wondering why our exhaust stacks/chimneys are not painted the same way. I just zoomed into our plant from the cover page of the magazine here. You can see all other plants around our plant which is on the bottom-left corner.
And of course there's a page of article inside with some brief ideas of our plant. I'm not going to translate. ^^

In Oslo

So, I was in Oslo for a meeting. I had to leave Cologne on Tuesday evening to catch the 8pm plane. The flight from Dusseldorf to Oslo is about 2 hours. The train ride from Cologne to Dusseldorf is usually around an hour. And then as I reached Oslo, the train to Skoyen was about 30 minutes. By the time I got to Erik's front door, it was already 11 something at night. Erik's a good friend of mine who was with us in Knapsack for more than a year last year for internship and we had a lot of fun time together at work. He's the best when it comes to providing warm hospitality, and this post is all about his house. I guess this is one of my ways to say "THANK YOU" to Mr. Erik!

This is Erik at his work place. He's the friendliest person you will ever meet! I mean, how can you say he's a bad person with a smile like that? ^^ RIGHT?!!!

This is Erik's game/work room at his place. It also couples as a guest room. So if you're visiting him and spending a night there, you're getting this awesome room.

In Erik's guest room, you have a PC where he spends most of his time playing World of Warcraft. Loads of External Harddrives there which he stores all his goodies from the cyberworld.

Erik loves art. His mom's an artist by profession. You can see that he likes fantasy art, games and books.

If you're having a longer stay at Erik's, you'll never get bored with all these board games lying around.

Here's a view outside his window, and the TV in his guest room for PS2, N64 gaming.

Just trying to get a shot of his fat PS2, and N64 controllers and games.

This is Erik's kitchen, and I love it. The space is not too big, not too tiny, just perfect to create any cuisine I am sure.

These are the only guitars Erik plays. ^^ He's a self proclaimed GUITAR HERO!!

Another shot outside of the window. The railway station is only 5 minutes walk from his house.

Stacks of games and CDs.

Yeah, he's got red and blue balls too ^^

My start of the day. Enough sugar to keep me going and going and going and....

This is what Erik does every morning before heading to work, he watches funny stuff on his TV because he believes that everyday should be started with laugher. I love his philosophy!

This time we were watching Russell Peters. If you don't know this guy, you HAVE to check him out. He's one of the funniest Indian dude EVER!!!

A shot of Erik's house.

Erik's collection of 'goodies'

Erik's 'MANLY' electric grill. ^^ I think he told me once that it's illegal to have gas or coal grills there due to safety reasons.

A shot on Erik's living room, and balcony. I think his house is really really nice and comfortable. I'd like to have a cossy house like this one day.

Here's our Statkraft HQ.

Train station is about 10minutes walk from our HQ.

This is the airport express train. I think it's stainless steel cladding all over. Probably a great idea for a maintenance free machine huh? :)

Waiting for my flight back to Germany. And the rest are just some shots in Oslo Airport.

I left Oslo on Wednesday evening. And by the time I got home, it was already 10pm. It was a really tiring trip, and I wished that I could stay a little longer. Thanks again Erik!

Lobster Lunch!

Yeah, sounds very yummy, but it was really yummy. I just wished that there were more lobster flesh to it. It's priced at €5 at our canteen, and only available today, and perhaps even for the first time. The fleshy part is only the claw from HALF a lobster, and the rest are just spinach flooded with the sauce (which I believe is made from the lobster flesh). So the rest of the parts were just shells, and I finished it in less than 5 minutes. So what did I do the rest of the time? Play with the shell ^^ performing my own 'operation' in the name of Science. That made the €5 seemed a little bit more well spent.

Yummy sauce. Should have licked the plate :Þ

Bento Box again!

It's rainy day in Cologne on Friday night, September 5th 2008. It's my dad's 62nd birthday, and on Saturday September 6th, my bestfriend registered himself to be the husband of his 11-year long girlfriend, and it's on the same day they decided to be a couple 11 years ago. Cool huh?!
For those alone, it's a great reason to have a nice meal at Bento Box(hahahaha, I will never run out of excuse for this!:Þ )
So this time I didn't eat a lot. I only had a Kamo Udon, a Philadelphia Dream Sushi(with Philadephia cheese), and a coke. After that, just went back home and watched CNN. But after we got out of the restaurant, we spotted something unusual on the street of Cologne.... 67-69 5th generation Ford Thunderbird, and it was in a great condition too!

Kamo Udon.Udon with duck meat, seaweed, beans and bean sprouts, chopped spring onion, and Chinese mushroom in yummy miso soup.(Eur8.80)
1967-69 Ford Thunderbird in almost flawless condition.
I think the rear-end just looks wickedly cool! ^^ Much like the 1970 Dodge Challenger.