Category: Initialization

365 Days Down

August 17th, 2011 · · Initialization, Recognizer, Resource Hog One comment

Well, people: I done it. Exactly one year ago today, I was stepping off the airplane in Berlin with a few suitcases in hand and a pissed-off cat in a plastic cage. The first meal I ate in Berlin was, sadly, McDonalds, and my first apartment was no larger than my bedroom is now. Things have certainly improved since then.

In the last year, I’ve learned about Zoll, the Customs agency, and have learned to work the system to my advantage (or to at least steer clear of them). Tip #1: Never, and I mean never, ship anything to Germany from the USA using FedEx. Not personal items, anyway. FedEx doesn’t seem to know what this is.

Also this last year, I’ve experienced the German health care system a couple times. The first time was when I broke my toe, and this second time was recently when having my vision checked. Aside from the taxes I pay, the total cost out-of-pocket for all my health services the last year: 20€.

My 5th floor apartment with a view costs less than a shithole in East LA with a view of a wall through barred windows. If this place did have a view of a wall, it would be the Berlin Wall which used to be right out front. This building is only 10 years old and has concrete walls, ceilings, and floors. I don’t hear my neighbors and they don’t hear me, even when playing music well past midnight.

I have not placed my foot on an accelerator pedal since arriving here. The only pedals I work these days are the cranks on my bike. My bike ride to work is shorter than my drive from Altadena to Irwindale. Total cost for transportation per month: 74€ in the winter or only a few Euros during the summer.

I have two grocery stores within walking distance of my apartment. They’re so close, it wouldn’t even be worth the effort to drive to either of them if I had a car. Also within walking distance are a Thai restaurant, a café on the water, a döner kebab stand, and a baked good shop. My bank is up at the end of the block. Simple and convenient.

I’m healthier as a result of just living my daily life.

60MBit Internet access for roughly 26€ per month. Faster and cheaper than the US.

I actually prefer Schuko and Europlugs now. They look funky but stuff never falls out of the socket, not even massive wall-wart power supplies. And thanks to the 230VAC here, the electric kettle boils water in a snap.

I have tons of new friends and most of them coworkers. Even if we didn’t work together, they’re still just the type of people I’d want as friends. This is evidently what happens when you work for a young and hip company in a city that values and encourages arts.

Out of the 365 days that just passed, only 3 would have benefited from the presence of air conditioning. I think I’ve become sufficiently acclimated to the humidity.

Contrary to the stereotypes, German does not sound like a rough, abrupt, and angry language. It actually sounds quite smooth to me now, almost French if you can believe it. There was one guy at the Berlin Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie that did have the Hollywood German voice, but he is evidently an exception to the rule.

And finally: Club-Mate Cola and Spezi. Nuff said.

 

Of course, there are some downsides to this relocation. They go something like this:

Missing friends that I’ve known for years and trying to maintain ties through Facebook. Not so easy.

Where the hell can a guy get a decent burrito around here?!?!

Levi’s jeans start at 99€ and go up from there. No, that wasn’t a typo. Convert that to US Dollars and you’re spending at least $140 for one frickin’ pair of jeans.

Whatever the price is in Dollars is how much Apple charges in Euros. If it’s $99 in the US, it’s 99€ here.

Not being automatically eligible for a German Driver’s License since I moved here from California instead of Colorado. No way I’m paying 2,000€ for someone to teach me what I already know.

Stores are closed on Sundays. And I really miss Target.

19% VAT.

GEZ.

Yes, it snows here.

 

Nevertheless, I’m in for the long-haul. When I consider how out-of-water I felt when arriving here a year ago, I must admit that I’ve made remarkable progress since then. I’m no master of the German language, but I’m not an idiot, either. I have a rough idea of where things are in this city and don’t have to rely on a map much anymore. It will be really interesting to see what happens over the upcoming year now that I’m settled in and can truly call this city my home…

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Auf Wiedersehn Zeughof Straße!

December 30th, 2010 · · Initialization, Recognizer No comments

Zeug happens to be one of my favorite German words thus far, because of its meaning and because of how it sounds. “Tsoigk!” It means “stuff”, “thing”, or “equipment”. And check this out:

Feuerzeug = Feuer + Zeug = “fire” + “thing” = lighter. As in a cigarette lighter. Or how about:

Werkzeug = werk + Zeug = “work” + “stuff/things” = tools. Yesssss.

Can you guess: Flugzeug?

flug + Zeug = “fly” + “thing” = airplane.

But see? English is guilty of compound words of its own–like “air” + “plane”. Yet these zeug words never stop being fun.

Luftkissenfahrzeug = Luft + Kissen + fahr + Zeug = “air” + “pillow” + “drive” + “thing” = hovercraft.

It is therefore with a wee tear in me eye, that I say farewell to my first apartment in Berlin: the tiny room at Zeughof Strasse. Yes, I’ve been in my new place on Legiendamm for nearly 6 weeks now. But this is just another example of things that take longer in Germany than they do back home. I accepted the new place on Legiendamm in mid-November to ensure that, no matter what, I’d have a good “overlap” at both places to allow a non-stressed move. I was pressing my luck when I asked if I could move out of the Zeughof apartment by end of November since I already “knew” the required notice was 30 days. But I figured it was worth the try. Since that failed, I had 30 days to move out–lots of time. What I didn’t realize is that I had 45 days because they only do 30-day notice or end of the month, whichever is longer. See? Because the 30-day mark from mid-November was mid-December, I had to hold on to the place until the end of December.

It was good, I guess, since my foot was still hurting a couple weeks ago, that I ended up having the full 45 days. This morning, I took out the last bags of trash, vacuumed, and cleaned the bathroom before meeting the hausmeister. I turned over the keys, grabbed a last bag of belongings, and headed out. I will miss the place for the fact that it was very close to work. A 15-minute walk door-to-door. As it turns out, I never had to try that walk in the snow since I was already living at the new apartment by the time it snowed (I’d even purchased all the big furniture from IKEA by that time). By moving before the snow and having enough time to let my foot heal before finishing up, I guess the timing of everything couldn’t have been better.

That’s one more major chore checked off the list. It’s nice to see that the “done” column is longer than the “to do” on that list.

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New Apartment Pictures are Posted!

December 21st, 2010 · · Initialization 7 comments

As promised, I have posted pictures of my new apartment–this time it’s furnished. I have added the pics to the existing gallery. You can jump to the page by clicking here. Some things to note:

  • The sofa is a gift from my mother. Thank you! As with everything in this place, it came from IKEA and I had to assemble it by hand. It went together easily and even has a pull-out section that turns it into a double-bed. This means I can now have guests stay over. Leo will be the first one to enjoy my Berlin hospitality and my mother is scheduled to come in the summer. That means there’s still wide availability for anyone else that might be interested! I liked this style of couch with the sort of reclining area since it sort of looks like a corner couch. As you’ll see in one of the pictures, that corner is the sweet spot. I can recline, face directly at the TV, and also have a view out to Engelbecken and St. Michael Kirche!
  • The TV center is still awaiting a full-sized (hopefully 50″+) LCD TV. Right now, I have the small 32″ LCD there so I have something to watch. When the large on arrives, the 32″ will go into the bedroom on top of the white bookcase in there.
  • The large white bookcase–the one with 25 cubby holes–was planned before going to IKEA, but the add-on desk was an impulse buy. It ended up working perfectly since the desk sticks out the same distance as the sofa. I like that the desk faces the window–I can have a decent view while working. Oh, the white-ish file cabinet next to the desk was left over from the previous tenant. It’s the one thing in the room I didn’t buy.
  • That chair that looks like it’s patio furniture is actually the most comfortable chair I’ve ever had. I had no choice but to buy it, even if it seemed somewhat out of place with the rest of the furniture. Fortunately, I don’t think it sticks out bad at all, and it can be easily repositioned in front of the TV for serious gaming.
  • Almost 1/3 of the living room is still open for setting up all my music gear. At the time I took the pictures, I was working from home with my broken toe. As a result, the studio doesn’t really exist–it is my NI desk away from the office. It, too, faces out into the room and out the window. Better than facing the wall.
  • When Scott and Roxy were over, Roxy was really impressed with the hall closet. She said something about walking into it which gave me the idea to actually make it my clothes closet (there is no closet in the bedroom). So, in order to save on the cost of purchasing a wardrobe, I just got a simple clothes rack that just fit into the closet (I actually had to move the metal shelf unit to the opposite wall to get it all to fit. Great solution, I think.

I still want to do some more things in here. For starters, I want to get a few rugs since, in a couple locations, there are some stains on the carpet. Would be nice to cover those up. Also, even though I appreciate having blinds and curtains here, they are pretty horrible colors and patterns. They’re functional for now, but soon they’ll have to be replaced with something that is more complimentary. I also need to do something about these bare walls. Pictures? Sound-absorbing materials? We’ll see…

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On The Net Again

December 21st, 2010 · · Initialization, Recognizer, Resource Hog No comments

How did people live before the Internet? It’s a weird question to ask because, until the Internet was invented and deployed, I was one of those people living an Internet-less life. The whole world was Net-less. Sure, I ran a BBS when I was still a teenager, a sort of isolated website where the user actually had to call in via a phone modem. Had nifty ASCII graphics, online games, and even FIDO mail (an early form of e-mail). But it didn’t touch what the Internet can provide today.

Ever since I arrived in Berlin in mid-August, I’ve been somewhat thrown back into the Internet “Stone Age.” Native Instruments has excellent high-speed Internet which I’ve used at the office, but this same service was not available at my apartment. To hold me over, I had to use the comparatively-slow Internet capabilities of my iPhone or use a USB Wireless Internet adapter from Vodofone. The Internet access with my iPhone is covered in the contract price but I needed to pay for the Vodafone service any time I used it. The pricing was something like this:

  • 0,49€ for 15 minutes of access with a 1GB limit (an impossible mark to reach in only 15 minutes)
  • 3,49€ for 24 hours of access with a 1GB limit (it was possible to hit this limit within this amount of time and it would often happen when downloading an OS update or new Apps)
  • 12,49€ for 7 days of access with a 1GB limit (this was my most common purchase–it allowed me to do basic e-mails and searches for a week, but no streaming content of any kind)
  • 39,95€ for a month of access with a 3GB limit (while the best deal in terms of days-for-Euros, the 3GB limit was too low).

As a result, I purchased many 1-week packages at 12,49€ a pop, but the service was too slow to allow Skype chats or decent video streaming, and the download limit put the kibosh on downloading any US TV episodes. In total, I’ve paid Vodafone 89€ and $95 for slow-as-hell Internet access over the last four months–we’ll over $200.

My slow-Internet-woes are over now, though, thanks to the arrival of Kabel Deutschland and their installation of my cable Internet service. I appear to be getting 32M/Bit speeds and the service costs 19,95€ per month. I get 10 months of kick-ass broadband access for the same price I paid to Vodafone in the last 4 months. Jeebus.

This is great news because it means I can now stream data. This is essential for voice and video VoIP calls (aka Skype and iChat) back to the States. This came just in time for Christmas and I know I’ll be talking to a bunch of people that way this coming weekend. I can also download all the episodes of The Big Bang Theory that I’ve missed (I’d been trying to do this at work but I often forgot). Software updates are now easy to obtain and I can also connect all my other gear to the Internet now (the Apple TV, the Wii, as well as my iPad).

Speaking of the iPad, I’m very excited to finally be able to use this thing as a Web-enabled device. It’s been fun as a standalone thingy, but I expect the experience to be much more satisfying when I can actually use Safari for browsing, connect to my Mail accounts, and perform my banking all on the nice large touch-screen. Maybe I can even join some multiplayer TRON games with the new TRON: Legacy iPad app!

I would say that proper Internet access has been the final piece to fall into place. With the exception of a car, I have now re-established myself in Berlin with the equivalent of what I had in the States. An apartment, furniture, phone, job, etc. The 4 months it took was much longer than I’d anticipated, but it feels good to be successful nonetheless.

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Concrete and Sound

December 9th, 2010 · · Initialization, Resource Hog, System Idle Process 3 comments

With my broken toe keeping me home this last week, I decided to try getting some better sound happening in this apartment: I broke out the M-Audio CX5 monitors. In visualizing the setup of my new apartment, I figured I would be putting the studio in the corner farthest from the couch. There’s a lot of space there and the speakers would be able to fire out into the room instead of reflecting off walls to my sides. Since I’d managed to get the big desk setup before injuring myself, I placed the speakers on there, connected them to a little Behringer mixer, and hooked up my iPhone to hear the results.

Crap.

Actually, I’m not sure if “crap” is an appropriate term here. How about “Holy crap this sounds terrible!” That’s more of what I was thinking. For a musician living in an apartment, this place is sort of a blessing and a curse, and it’s all due to the pure concrete walls, floor, and ceiling surrounding me.

The good: Being that the walls are concrete, it’s very hard for sound to leak through the walls and annoy my neighbors. And I’m not just talking about treble frequencies, but bass frequencies as well. Bass is often the hardest thing to control in an apartment building. The bass can pass through the walls, run along floor joists, and end up in many apartments even at quiet volumes. This usually puts the nix on any sort of quality home entertainment center (5-channel surround with subwoofer) and definitely puts the kibosh on a music studio.

The bad: Being that the walls are concrete, it’s very hard for the sound to leak through the walls and annoy my neighbors, thus the sound is reflected back into my room where it creates massive reverberations with a surprisingly long decay time. When any sort of bass frequency is released in this room, it bounces around all over the place at a specific pitch–it sounds like my head is inside of a bass drum shell. The built-up frequencies are so strong, in fact, that I cannot hear the pitch of the bass that’s coming out of my speakers. It’s completely gone. Without a doubt, this is the absolute worst place I’ve ever tried setting up a pair of monitors.

Something must be done about these reverberations or I’ll need to buy an amazing set of headphones. Normally, a person would resort to mounting acoustic foam on the walls to minimize the reflections. Indeed, this will help a bit in my case, but it will only dampen the high-frequency reverberations (which are definitely bad in here). But the foam won’t do squat for the bass frequencies. Because the bass frequencies are so long and so strong, they’re the hardest to control. To wrestle them into submission usually requires serious physical reworking of the room including finely-tuned bass traps (aka huge hollow boxes) positioned in key, but not necessarily convenient, locations throughout the room.

I obviously want to avoid installing bass traps in my living room, so I’ve had another idea: The Auralex MAX-Wall. This is a system of broadband absorption panels that can be set up on stands to create a temporary sound booth. There is a system that would create 4 walls 5 feet high and 4 feet wide each that could then be arranged to separate my studio workspace from the rest of the living room. If I also put foam padding on the walls in that corner of the room, I may be able to create a fairly dead sound-pocket within the living room where I can work. The MAX-Wall would attenuate some bass on its way out into the living room and it would attenuate the reverb from the living room that may try passing back through the wall again. Double-attenuation of bass coupled with massive high-frequency damping may solve the problem.

Admittedly, this solution would not be particularly sexy. This living room is nice right now because it feels so open. Setting up this wall will shrink the size of the room quite a bit. And, unless I missed something on their website, Auralex doesn’t make this MAX-Wall in light colors. They only seem to have dark colors like charcoal gray, deep purple, or burgundy which would really make the room seem smaller.

So it seems I’m stuck between concrete and a MAX-Wall. What should I do here? Should I not even try this and basically give up on having a proper studio at my place? Sure, I can still work on headphones but, as any sound engineer will tell you, achieving a great mix is really hard to do on headphones due to a loss of certain psycho-acoustic characteristics inherent with speakers in a room. Relative volumes get harder to judge, the stereo field gets exaggerated, and even bass pitches can be transposed.

If I do go this wall route, it won’t be cheap, so I welcome any suggestions from anyone who may be reading this. What do you do when you’re stuck inside a concrete room?

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Vor…

November 29th, 2010 · · Initialization, Recognizer, Resource Hog No comments

A few weeks ago, you all saw the keys to my new apartment, yet I have been rather silent about it since. While I’ve had the keys in my possession since then, I have not been in any rush to move. It’s not that I really love the tiny apartment and am dreading the new one–quite the contrary. However, the tiny apartment requires one-month notice before you move out. Therefore, the Monday after I got the keys to the new place was the start of the one-month count-down. Of course, there’s no reason for me to stay at the tiny apartment for the whole month, but this means there was no need to rush. I could take up to an entire month to buy new furniture, move things, and clean-up the old place.

Indeed, I started out slowly. I went to the apartment one evening and measured the place so I could better understand what size of furniture may fit. I then browsed IKEA’s website looking for things I may like and took note of the things I was interested in. I then took a weekend to go to IKEA and look at the things in person–the couch, chairs, desks, and so on. While there, I did manage to buy some new lights for the living room since the installed ceiling light in there was hideous. The second light is a floor lamp that goes with the ceiling light.

I then spent another week thinking about everything, checking my budget, and whatnot. On Friday after work, I decided to head to IKEA to make the purchases. I’d built a Wish List on their website and printed it out before I left. The list included the location (aisle and shelf) for everything I wanted, so I was able to bypass the whole marketplace, grab a cart, and start loading up my new things. It’s pretty nifty how IKEA does all that–I think they’re even smart enough to separate items across different aisles when they are different colors (i.e. the white bookcase is in one aisle while the black version is in a different aisle). If those things were kept right next to each other, I’ll bet there would be a much greater chance and someone would accidentally grab the wrong color of something.

So the real question that I’m sure is on all your minds right now is: How did I get this stuff back to my place without owning a car (or truck, for that matter)? It turns out IKEA’s got that on lock-down, too. Actually, it’s a third-party company that’s got it covered called Möbel Taxi. These guys in yellow jackets stand right at the exit of IKEA and will load all your stuff into one of their vans and take you anywhere you want to go. If you pay a little extra a pair of guys will go and do all the loading and unloading as well.

When I was all done with my purchases, I had four carts full of stuff. That means I went in once and filled up a cart in the warehouse, paid for it, and rolled it out to the taxi guys. Then I went back in, placed my order with the warehouse for the huge stuff (couch and entertainment center), then loaded up another cart and paid for all of it. After rolling out the second cart to the taxi guys, I then waited for my last two carts.

Sure enough, they loaded it all up, took me to my place, and unloaded everything all the way up to my living room. The price: 75,50€ due to the extra weight, the fact that I was an extra zone away from the store, and because I wanted help lifting. Man, I’m glad I paid that because I probably would have been a complete wreck if I’d done it myself. I know from pulling things off the shelf (and from moving them around my living room) that a lot of that stuff is heavy. Therefore, by 9:30PM on Friday night, my living room was loaded up with tons of cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked and assembled over the weekend.

I obviously worked endlessly this last weekend getting things setup and moved, but I didn’t get it all finished. As a result, instead of making you all wait longer to see what’s up, I’ve decided to post a gallery of “before” pictures so you can at least get a sense of the place. The kitchen was already loaded when I moved in and there was also a bed in the bedroom, so those pictures will not change much when I post the “afters.”

For now, you can see the gallery here.

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Die Schlüssel für meine neue Wohnung

November 14th, 2010 · · Initialization, Recognizer, Resource Hog, Syntax Error 6 comments

It’s been a long time in the works and I haven’t wanted to talk about it much in the fear of jinxing it, but they’re finally in hand: the keys to my new apartment!

One key for the mailbox and one for everything else.

I’m not exaggerating at all when I say it was easier to get a job in Berlin while living in the US compared to getting an apartment in Berlin while living here. For those of you who have never tried this and assume, like I did, that getting an apartment wouldn’t be much different overseas, here’s a list of eye-opening discoveries I stumbled upon during my journey:

  1. Einbauküche–also known as “EBK”, this refers to a fitted kitchen. What is a fitted kitchen, you ask? Well, it means that a kitchen actually exists. Evidently, it’s very common in Germany (and possibly other parts of Europe as well) for the tenants to buy all of their own kitchens. I’m not just talking about a microwave, refrigerator, or other appliances. I’m talking about the stove, counters, and cabinets! That’s right: without an Einbauküche, you basically have a tiled room with a sink mounted on the wall alongside various hookups and fixtures. You can usually see where the cabinets used to be–there’s sort of a cleaner area on the wall that sort of resembles a chalkline at a crime scene. The previous tenants took everything with them and it’s your job to buy new stuff of your own (if you want it).
  2. Kaltmiete und Warmmiete–these translate to “cold rent” and “warm rent.” What’s the difference? Cold rent is the actual rent of the property without any utilities or other costs (building and grounds maintenance, trash service, etc.). Warm rent includes those costs. Naturally, it’s the cold rent that’s listed on any website and it sort of reminds me of the trick most airlines do where their ticket prices appear cheap but you have to pay for your luggage and meals separately…it’s a way to get their number to show up higher on a list when searching for the lowest fares. Why separate the two? Well, it makes a difference in two other calculations which are explained next.
  3. Kaution–Us Amerifolk know this as “security deposit” so, in a manner of speaking, this is nothing shocking…until you see how much they want. The typical deposit is 3 monthly rents! Not just first and last up front, but 3 months plus first month! Fortunately, the Kaution is calculated using the “cold rent” which makes it a little easier to digest, but such a large lump-sum like that can make moving a very expensive proposition. Of course, you’ll get (most of) that money back when you move out, so it’s not really an expense in the true meaning of the word.
  4. Provision–And then there’s the exact opposite of the Kaution: the agent commission. This money simply thrown away. It’s money paid to the agent for posting the apartment on a website, making a few phone calls, and maybe showing you the place. This amount varies, but I have seen it equivalent to 2.38x monthly rent plus 19% VAT. That’s basically another three-months worth of rent but, unlike the Kaution which puts your money on hold until you leave, you can simply kiss the Provision goodbye.

So, let’s just do a for-instance here: an apartment you find online that has a Kaltmieter of 500€ may actually have another 250€ on top per month for Warmmieter making the monthly rent 750€. They may want three months of Kaltmieter for the Kaution–that’s 1.500€–plus 2.38 months Kaltmieter plus VAT for Provision–that’s another 1.416,10€. So, in order to move in to an apartment listed with a 500€ cold rent, you’ll have to show up with 3.666,10€ and be able to afford 750€ per month. And after all of that, you may not even have a kitchen!

Considering everything above, I actually got fairly lucky. I’ve heard some amazing good-luck-tales from friends but they’re hard to come by. And while this one may not go down in the history books as a totally incredible deal, I’m quite happy with how it tuned out, especially from my American perspective. Here’s what I was able to swing:

2-Room Apartment, 80 square meters, terrace, white tiled bathroom with full-sized tub, and a fitted kitchen. Warm rent: 830€. Provisionfrei! The deposit is still 3-months cold rent which is 1.950€ but, as you’ll see in a moment, this is OK. Aside from the fact I should get a lot of that money back when I move out, this apartment also includes the following:

  • Fully-fitted kitchen, even more so than most places with an EBK. This has a fridge and separate freezer which is not so typical here. Most places (like where I am right now) have those tiny under-the-counter fridge/freezer things which can only hold a couple days-worth of food. At the new place, it’s as tall as a regular American fridge, and it’s sort of hidden by the fact its doors look just like all the other cabinet doors. Aside from the glass-top stove, there is also a dishwasher! Holy cow! I only saw a dishwasher at one other place, and most placed don’t even have the space for one (typically, if there is an empty space in the EBK, it’s for a clothes washer). On top of this, the previous tenant has left me the rug, table, and chairs as well as a huge assortment of dishes and silverware. So aside from some pots and pans and a couple basic appliances, the kitchen is all set to go–hardly any money needs to be spent there.
  • The tenant also left his bedroom set for me. Queen-sized bed (or whatever the equivalent is here in Germany), night stands, and lamps. The comforter matches the lamp shades which is an interesting touch, but I probably won’t keep them because the patterns are pretty, uh, well, weird? It’s kinda cool–it may grow on me–but I might be able to find something better.
  • The previous tenant also left behind all the blinds and drapes which is super-cool. And while I’m not totally sure, I think the drapes in the bedroom sort of matched the bed, too. What I do know is that the bedroom can be pitch-black–those are some heavy drapes. There are a set of regular slat-blinds in the living room with light drapes that cover them. Good enough to last me for a little while!
  • Aside from one spot in the living room, the previous tenant also left all the ceiling light fixtures. The one in the bedroom is really cool.
  • I also got a few plants on the terrace along with some furniture (two chairs and a table).
  • The tenant left this sort of “entry-way sit-on-it-while-you-put-your-shoes-on” thing which, functionally, is cool but looks very old and dainty. Definitely not something that would fit in once I get some other furniture into the place. Fortunately, the entryway is separated from all the other rooms so it could sort of sit in there like an orphan without affecting the vibe of the other rooms. But everyone would see it as they come in and would probably ask if I got that thing from my grandparents.

So with all those things already in place, it reduces my costs for furnishing the place, so the full deposit was OK. The fact I got it provision-free is unbelievable. And the place also has some great extras like a storage cage downstairs, a bike room, a garage (if I ever got a car, which I probably wont), and even the trash/recycling bins are inside which will make them easy to get to even during a blizzard. I also just found out today that this area is one of the few in Berlin that is outfitted with fiber-optics. Once I get my modem installed, I’m going to have something rediculous like 36Mbit connection which is going to be upgraded two more times the following year. There is a business on the ground floor and I think that has something to do with why the better technology is there. I can’t frickin’ wait! Can you say “Video chat”?

If anyone is curious, you can see the location of the flat on Google Maps by using this address: Legiendamm 10, 10179 Berlin, Deutchland. As you’ll see, this place is situated right next to a park with a large pond-thingy. St. Michael Kirche is at the northern end. In fact, my living room windows look out over that park which makes an awesome view. This is still considered Kreuzberg but is only a short bike ride or a couple train stops from Mitte. It’s also about a 5-minute walk from Tresor!!! But I swear that was only discovered after the fact. Here’s a picture of the park out front:

That's St. Michael Kirche at the end of the park.

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I Woke Up at 8AM for this Shit?

October 19th, 2010 · · Initialization, Syntax Error 2 comments

The building management likes to leave notices in the mailboxes and I’ve received a few already. For example, they announced a week or two ago that they’d hired a company to clean the curtains in the apartments. At 7am, I got a knock on my door and the crew came in and took the curtains down. With no window coverings, it was very tough to go back to sleep at that point. The curtains were back in place by the time I got home.

Another notice I got explained that they’re having all the windows in the apartments replaced and that I’d have the option to stay in the apartment during the construction (what?) or could move to another unit. Obviously, I chose the latter. A few days ago, I got the notification that I’ll need to move to apartment 38 by Monday, 25 Oktober. That’s one floor down from me at the end of the hall. Not a big deal. In fact, they’ll want me to move back to my original apartment when the construction is done, so I think I’ll only need to move some clothes and my computer–just enough to survive a few days–and can leave my other boxes in the apartment. Easy.

At the same time as the above notice, I received another. All of these notices are in German, by the way, so I usually have to bring them into the office for someone to translate, or take the time to type them in to Google Translate to understand what they say. This one, however, required no translation–I could tell what this one was about immediately. On the letter was the following:

W-LAN

Score! Even in German, W-LAN refers to Wireless Internet and, as confirmed at work yesterday, the building has installed W-LAN and now provides the service to all the tenants. About time! I’ve been using one of those USB Internet Adapters which is basically Internet over-the-air (like the Internet used by my iPhone). It works, but it’s not fast and there is a bandwidth (download) limit each week. The speed and bandwidth limitations prevent me from being able to make Skype calls back to America or downloading video (I keep up on my Big Bang Theory episodes by downloading them at work and taking them home). With proper W-LAN, those issues would be a thing of the past!

Unfortunately, there was no security passcode for the W-LAN on the letter–I had one of the guys at work read it to me to confirm. It said that, instead, I needed to go to the home office to get the access code from the janitor. The home office hours are 8am-9am, Tuesday through Friday. Convenient.

So I woke up at the ungodly hour of 8am this morning to get down to the janitor during my one hour of opportunity. I went down with the ultimate case of bed-hair, but figured it didn’t matter for something like this. Keeping hours like that, he certainly couldn’t be surprised by my appearance. When I got there, I was overjoyed to realize that he did not speak any English. Seems silly for a building that provides short-term housing for people moving to the area…I know there are a lot of English-speakers there besides myself. Nevertheless, by pointing at the letter and the words for “passcode,” I was able to get the info from him.

Excited with my success, I went back upstairs and immediately fired up my computer. I turned on the wireless receiver and searched for the Wi-Fi network. Nothing. My computer didn’t pick up any networks anywhere. Motherfucker. I remember one of the other guys at the office mentioning that he saw a router out in the hall (he’s also staying in the same building as me) so I went out into the hall looking for one. There it was–just two doors down from me. I took my iPad with me so I could try connecting while standing right below it–that worked. I put in the username and password and was greeted by full bars on the Wi-Fi meter.

Before heading back to my apartment, I decided to run an experiment and attempt a download so I could gauge how fast the connection was (and to also know if I suffered any decreases in speed back in my apartment). I tried loading the Wikipedia page for the movie “Apocalypto” which I had just watched for the first time this weekend. It’s a pretty amazing movie, by the way, but I digress. This simple Wikipedia page took almost 30 seconds to download while I was standing right beneath the wireless router. FAIL! That USB adapter from Vodafone would have probably been at least 5 times as fast.

While maintaining the connection, I went back to my apartment. Sure enough, when I sat down in the living room, the signal was gone. I was able to find signal again while sitting on the toilet which is right near the front door to the apartment. Even still, speeds were horribly slow. Like absolutely ludicrous. They must have put up multiple wireless routers in the place but hooked them all up to the same 1MB/s line. That, or there are a bunch of people eating up all the bandwidth downloading Internet porn.

Alas, my hopes have been dashed. There will be no Skype calls back home. I will not be streaming any video content to stay current with America. I will continue to pay Vodafone for my 1GB of Internet access each week, at least until a jailbreak for my iPhone 4 comes out and I can get MyWi working again. Fuck!!!

I guess the only “good” thing to come out of this is that I still have motivation to move to a new apartment. There was a risk that, if the Wi-Fi had been kick-ass, I would have been more content to stay right where I am. At 527€ per month including all utilities and Internet, it would have been a decent deal.

I have two apartments to see now–one today at 8:30 PM in Prenzlauerberg and a second at 7:30 PM tomorrow on the other side of the river from where I work. I actually have high hopes about the second place since it is so close to where I work and right near the Waschauer Straße U- and S-Bahn stations…it’s a great hub to get many places. Both places, I believe, have Internet services ready to go that I won’t have to share with anyone.

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Dremel Time

October 14th, 2010 · · Initialization 2 comments

For many years, I’ve occasionally suffered from what feels like headaches, but is probably more of a neck-muscle ache. Some days aren’t a problem, others are totally painful. I attribute most of the cause to improper posture when working on the computer. I also think it may also be related to eye strain from an imperfect contact lens prescription.

Last week, I started getting the head/neck aches again and realized two things: Since starting at Native Instruments, I have been working on a 13″ MacBook Pro all day. Also, I just started getting dirty with Adobe Illustrator creating some graphic mockups of potential products. So, I was suffering from poor posture working on the laptop (which forced me to look downward at the screen all day) and I was also straining my eyes to work on the tiny screen and see what I was doing. On top of that, I was only wearing my disposable contacts rather than my eyeglasses.

This week, I made some changes: I borrowed a Griffin Elevator from Scott at work to raise the MacBook up to a more ergonomic level. This required bringing a wireless keyboard from home so I could still type at the proper level. It also prompted me to remind the division manager that I was still waiting for a proper 22″ external monitor, one I’d ordered almost a month ago through the company’s “AFE” process. I also decided to switch over to my eyeglasses this week.

The good news is that, since doing this, I stopped suffering from the neck/headaches. The even better news is that my 22″ monitor showed up today so I’m no longer trying to squint at a tiny screen while I work. But some of you may be wondering why I wasn’t wearing my eyeglasses this whole time. After all, I was wearing them the week I came to Germany back in August.

The truth of the matter is that I have a big fat head. You may not notice it at first, being somewhat in proportion to the rest of me, but my head is quite large in circumference/diameter. Sure, maybe it’s an ego thing, but it’s also a physical reality. For example, it’s very difficult to find a hat that will fit me. I don’t really look good in hats (or I haven’t found one that looks good) so this hasn’t been a major issue in my life. But it does pose a problem where glasses are concerned.

When looking for frames before leaving the States, I specifically requested frames that would fit a bigger head like mine. The girl at the optometrist’s office had a few on hand with the brand “XXL” written on them. As it turns out, XXL is the “Big & Tall” of eyeglasses. The ones I found look good–they’re a good width for my face. Some of you saw this in person, others simply got to see the picture in one of my early posts on this blog.

Anyway, I was cutting it really close and got these glasses only days before I left for Germany. My grandmother actually picked them up for me on a Friday and my flight out was the following Monday. As a result, I did not have a chance to go into the office and have them fit the glasses to my face.

Well, I should have. In fact, we should have paid attention to the entire fit of the glasses–not just the width–when originally trying them on. I was so concerned about their width that I didn’t even think to look at the length of the temples (the parts that hook over the ears). Not only are the XXL frames wider than normal, the temples are also longer than normal. I wore the glasses the weekend before leaving and was constantly pushing them back up onto my face. Every few minutes, they’d work their way down my nose as if they were reading glasses. It was quite annoying and I eventually tired of it and switched back to my contacts. But after putting the glasses back on and relieving my head/neckaches, I decided it was time to fix the problem for good by shortening the temples to a length appropriate for me.

These are metal frames with rubber “grips” slid over the ends where the temples hook over the ears. The rubber is partially for comfort (who wants bare metal cutting into their ears?) but is also for grip. Because the temples were too long, the rubber didn’t start until right above my ear and they extended way back sticking out at the back of my head. This means that the rubber wasn’t making proper surface contact with the side of my head, therefore they were not offering the proper grip. I figured the solution would be to pull of the rubber grips, clip off a length of the metal, then slip the grips back on again. Voila, shorter temples.

Last Saturday, I went to Alexanderplatz and attempted to find some wire cutters. I still need to figure this city out because I was unable to find any–even at a 6-story department store–and I couldn’t find any hardware stores. I finally found some cutters in an automotive store. Only 1€ so I picked them up.

Well, you get what you pay for. When I tried to clip off the end of the temples, the frames literally cut their own shape into the wirecutters. The cutters hardly made a dent in the frames. Uh, oh…that’s when I realized I may be dealing with titanium. How the hell am I to cut that? After a bit of research, I arrived at the answer: a Dremel.

Fortunately, another coworker, Daniel Klose, owns a Dremel and was kind enough to bring it into work today. He even had the proper cutting disks. I sat in one of the kitchens and got to work. Not only did I need to cut a length off the end of the temples, I also had to grind into the middle of the temples a bit since the metal gets wider as it gets closer to the front of the frames. Since the rubber grips were going to be sitting further up the temples, I had to cut into the taper so it wouldn’t cause the rubber to split open.

It took about 30 minutes, and I think I got high off some sort of metal fumes (which is probably not a good thing at all), but I now have a set of glasses that seem to be fitting me much better. The real test will be coming up shortly when I eat my dinner–I’ve found that the motion of chewing, which flexes muscles that go up the side of my head, is quite efficient at making my glasses creep forward and down my nose. If I can eat a meal without having to push my glasses back up on my face (or at least only have to do it once), then I will consider my modifications a success. I’m keeping my eyes crossed!

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Retina Burn

October 12th, 2010 · · Initialization, Resource Hog 7 comments

Today is the 12th of October. I arrived in Berlin on the 17th of August which was 56 days ago. I had sealed the deal with NI weeks before and, at the time, told them that I’d be needing to get a new Apple iPhone 4 since my current iPhone 3GS was locked to AT&T and wouldn’t be useable in Germany.

Yesterday, the iPhone 4 finally arrived at the office. Sure, I know this isn’t amazing news to most of you, especially those of you back in the States who have had your own iPhone 4 for months, but it’s a big deal here since these phones are much less common in these parts. I don’t know what the deal is, but T-Mobile (the carrier with the exclusive iPhone support contract) has a 9-week wait on new orders of the iPhone 4. Is that high demand or poor supply? Are units being diverted to other countries while Germans are left to suffer for months? Well, one person’s suffering is now over.

To be fair, I haven’t been suffering that badly ever since I did the jailbreak on my iPhone 3GS. I was running OS 4.0 at the time so I could jailbreak it. And I had no choice: I had to jailbreak in order to get a local T-Mobile SIM card to work. I was also enjoying using MyWi and PDANet for tethering to my computer. Using the trial periods of both those programs, I was able to save at least two weeks of Internet charges to Vodafone.

But the iPhone 4 arrived with iOS 4.1 pre-installed. I do believe that a jailbreak was just released for iOS 4.1 this week, but the need to jailbreak is much lower now. Obviously, I’m on a local plan now, so getting raped by AT&T is no longer a motivation. Really, the only reason I’d have to jailbreak now is to take advantage of one of those Internet tethering programs. I just paid for another week of Internet from Vodafone to ensure I had a proper Internet connection while setting up the phone yesterday, but I might see how far I can go without computer-based Internet once the week expires.

See, now on the iPhone 4, using the Internet is a little easier thanks to the one significant improvement in the iPhone 4: the Retina Display. Sure, the iPhone 4 has other improvements such as a front-mounted camera for Face Time calls, a gyroscope for better motion control of apps and games, and the camera even has an LED “flash” and HDR mode for even better pictures. I think the processor may even be faster on this sucker–equivalent to the iPad–but I’d need to look that one up to be sure. But the Retina Display takes the cake above everything else. All I can say is “Wow!”

For those who haven’t seen it, I suggest you find someone with an iPhone 4 and ask them for a peek. See, the Retina Display isn’t just an improvement over the previous versions of the iPhone. It’s an improvement over any LCD display (yes, I know that’s redundant) you have ever seen. It is higher resolution than you computer or your HD TV. It’s absolutely nuts how tiny the pixels are on this screen. When you read text on it, the letters look like continuous strokes rather than pieces of pixels packed together to look like letters. I swear I cannot see any pixels on this display at all except when I take off my glasses and hold the phone right up to my face…then I can see them. They sure are tiny.

This technology is a mind-blowing improvement from where computer graphics were 15 or so years ago when I first started getting really dirty with computers. My first personal computer was a 25MHz Intel x386 with 4MB of RAM and a 40MB hard drive. This iPhone trounces that computer in every single respect. Back in those days, there were terms like CGA, EGA, VGA, and even SVGA to signify the quality of the graphics display. One of the most common display modes back then was VGA 13h which was 320 pixels wide by 200 pixels tall with 256 colors. I played many games at this resolution including favorites such as Wing Commander and Doom. My friends and I all thought the graphics were brilliant in those days as we stared into our 15″ CRT monitors.

In contrast, the iPhone Retina Display is 960 pixels tall and 640 pixels wide. You could literally smash over 8 entire VGA 13h screens into one iPhone 4 display, and you could also show thousands of more colors simultaneously. Also consider this: The iPad resolution is 1024 pixels tall by 768 pixels wide. Even though it’s many inches larger than the iPhone display, it only contains a handful of additional lines and columns of pixels. What will be really exciting is when this sort of resolution is found on iPads and standard computer/notebook monitors. That will be ridiculous!

Until then, I’ll enjoy surfing the Internet on my iPhone 4 without having to zoom into a webpage anymore to make it legible. Tiny text is now rendered clearly, though it’s still small, so I can leave the majority of the page on screen. So very cool.

I am still going to keep my iPhone 3GS, however. As I discovered yesterday, NI will be retaining ownership of this iPhone 4 for the next two years. If I quit or loose my employment with them before that time, I’ll have to give the phone back. Seeing as how it took nearly 2 months for this phone to arrive, I figure it will be wise to keep the 3GS on standby should disaster strike. That phone is still jailbroken so I can put a new SIM card into it at any time. Of course, I’m not planning on any of this–I intend to keep my employment until this thing is mine. But on the bright side, I’m not bound by any contract with T-Mobile. If the iPhone 5 is totally insane-awesome, I could sign up for a new contract myself and get one at the subsidized cost! Muah-ha-ha-ha!

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