Thursday, December 17, 2009

Wineglass Bay & other nice places in Tasmania

Wineglass Bay
Wineglass Bay,
originally uploaded by _bernd_.
Lisa and I spent a prolonged weekend in Tasmania to visit Hobart, Cradle Mountain National Park and the famous beach on Wineglass Bay. The photo shows that the weather wasn't always at its best, but we had a lovely time down there, and I hope we will revisit Tasmania soon having better weather.

I still need to finish a roll of film and get it developed, but I posted some photos on Flickr.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Conference photography

OZCHI 2009 student volunteers
OZCHI 2009 student volunteers,
originally uploaded by _bernd_.
This week was all about OZCHI, the Australian conference on Computer-Human Interaction. I had several roles in the conference, one of them being the event photographer. Have a look at the set of photos on Flickr if you are interested in what's going on during and around such an academic event.

Monday, September 14, 2009

End of the volleyball season

volleyball
volleyball,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.
Last weekend marked the end of the indoor volleyball season. This year I've been playing with the Division 2 team of the Melbourne University Renegades. We dominated this division at the beginning, but lost all our games at the end of the season because half of the team was on holidays. So we landed in fourth position, which was slightly disappointing given the players we had.

After my team was out, I had the opportunity to play the semi-finals and finals with the Division 1 team. Unfortunately, we lost the final against Monash University in 5 sets. Nevertheless, it was fun to play with this team, especially in front of the large crowd in the final.
More images of the finals are on http://www.renegades.com.au/

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

2.33

13/08/09 at 12:35 PM
13/08/09 at 12:35 PM,
originally uploaded by 2.33.
Shawn and I have started taking photos from our office (2.33) to make use of our amazing view of the city and to experiment with our camera. For each day of the week we post a photo on http://flickriver.com/photos/41420945@N03/

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Whale watching

watching
watching,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.
Last weekend, Lisa and I drove to Warrnambool to watch whales. The bay in Warrnambool attracts Southern Right Whales, in particular whale mothers who raise their young (while the father hangs out somewhere in the ocean). For me this was the first time I had the chance to see such gigantic and fascinating animals. It was amazing just to see their fins, to watch them play with their tails or even seeing them jump out of the water.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Video & photography

video crew
video crew,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.
I'm attending an introductory course on documentary video production at RMIT together with Shawn and Emy in order to work on my filming skills (actually, in order to develop those skills from scratch :) It's been an interesting experience to see how much work it is and how difficult it is to produce something that looks good and is interesting. The photo was taken at the end of a film shoot at the farmer's market and shows our group.

The next thing will be that I want to get more into photography, which will be the context of my final study for my PhD. I'm planning to get a new camera (my old one broke) - the question is Canon Powershot G10 or Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3? Hopefully I'll have more recent updates to present on here then.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Volleyball again

Lloy Ball
Lloy Ball,
originally uploaded by nataliebehring.com.
I'm back in action on the volleyball court with the Melbourne Renegades. I've already played in the second and first team over the last 2 years. Now I'm in the third team, because I want to focus more on my studies and I can't commit to the amount of training required for the first two teams. It's fun though to play in the third team, which is led by my house mate Jared. All players know how to play and put a lot of effort into their game; we've got a good team spirit, and we easily won all games so far.

PS: the photo is obviously neither me setting nor my photo, because my camera is broken. But I'm planning to get a new one soon and I hope to deliver more photo impressions from the court, from uni, and my life in Melbourne soon.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Congratulations to a colleague and very close friend

with Shawn and Bernd
with Shawn and Bernd,
originally uploaded by leongtuckwah.
Tuck submitted his PhD thesis last Monday and received his balloon at the School of Graduate Studies (If you see someone with such a balloon on campus, you can assume this person has just handed in his or her thesis - or it's open day at Melbourne Uni ;) His supervisors, Shawn and I were fortunate to be with him at this big moment.

Tuck has worked extremely hard over the last few years and created a more than outstanding piece of research. His supervisors highly praise his work and I'm sure it will be the thesis against which all other theses in the near future will be compared with (including mine :-O ) Tuck has also managed to get a post-doc position at an outstanding university in Europe, and that during times where funding and jobs are generally short.
He will leave us soon and Shawn and I will miss the conversations with him over a cup of coffee about research, life and everything else.

All the best Tuck!! ... and time for me to get some work done ;)

From Sheffield to Salzburg to Auersbach and back to Melbourne

Eureka Tower
Eureka Tower,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.
I travelled quite a bit over the last few weeks: First I left Sheffield after 3 great months and said "see you" to Nicola, Silvia, Coilin, Grace, Andy and Peter.
Wolfgang picked me up at the airport in Salzburg and I had a few fantastic days with him Laura, Sophie. It was great to catch up with Elisabeth, Regina, Michi, Carina, Geraldine, Berni, Christoph & Sigrun.
On the way to Auersbach I stopped in Graz to hang out with Lena on the Mur beach.
I spent my last week in Austria then in Auersbach with my family, relatives and friends Mario, Arnold, Christoph (playing volleyball felt sooooo good :), Lorenz, Jürgen & Phil. Time was way too short, and it wasn't fun to say "goodbye" again.
After more than 28 hours on planes and at airports I arrived in Melbourne where I was happy to see Lisa again. All the travels were fantastic, but I'm more than happy to settle down for a bit and to change trains and planes with my bicycle.

Monday, February 23, 2009

A weekend in Wales

I spent the last few weekends mostly working (or at least I tried to) so that I would have some time for Juergen, Jenny & Johanna. They came to the Island for holidays and we caught up in the North of Wales for the weekend.

I was planning to take the train to Aberystwyth early in the morning on Friday, but I took the wrong train and ended up in York. Eventually at 6pm (and 4 hours later than intended) I arrived at the coast in Wales and met JJJ.

The following day, we hung out on Llyn Peninsula. Unfortunately, my digital camera stopped working, so I don't (yet) have many pictures to show. Any who, we saw lots of beaches, sheep, hills & the highest peak in the UK (or at least we saw the clouds surrounding it), the hometown of the British pop star "Duffy" (who won 3 Brit Pop Awards a few days before), cliffs, and more sheep.

We continued our trip with some pretty impressive castles (Caernarfon, Beaumaris and Conwy), and a short visit to the place with the longest name in the UK, called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is Welsh for "St Mary's Church in the hollow of the White Hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St Tysilio near the Red Cave. We saw neither church nor cave, but the sign at the train station was pretty loooooong.

It was good to see the sea again, get some sun, have lots of food (especially the huge breakfasts with everything from black pudding to baked beans), and to hang out with old friends and have fun (and to eventually get the RIGHT train back ;)

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Visit to York and Life in Sheffield

York Minster
York Minster,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.
Lisa visited me in Sheffield over the last few days. We spent most of the time in Sheffield, which is lovely to live. However, for her last sightseeing trip in Europe we had to go to York, which is only 1 hour away by train. York is the seat of the Archbishop of York, the primate of England (whereas the Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ALL England :) The church is incredible and also the rest of the city centre is very charming and resembles the atmosphere of the Middle Ages (though in a much more touristic way :) We ended this trip in a traditional pub where we tasted ales with Peter Wright and his wife.

Some notes about Sheffield:
  • We walked across the town over the last few days and discovered some beautiful patches.
  • It's got one of the best independent cinemas I've ever been to (I wish I had time and money to go there every day).
  • I also found good coffee, though for the most time it's safer to order tea.
  • And I watched a great game of football - Sheffield United beat Norwich 1-0.
  • Finally, I've become physically active myself and participated in circuit trainings in the gym - omg, my muscles are sore :) I hope it will help me playing volleyball again.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Arrival in Sheffield, UK

Why 2 separate water taps?
Why 2 separate water taps?,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.
From Jan to April 2009 I am a visiting student at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. I will use these 3 months to to get to know other people with related research interests and to make some progress in my thesis.

My impressions after 2 days are predominantly positive. Sheffield seems to be a nice town, although it's actually quite big. My uni is close to where I live, directly in the city centre. My host and my colleagues here have been very supportive and I think that I will have a good and hopefully productive time here.

Two things that I can't understand however are: Why is it impossible to get good coffee here? (tea is nice, but it can't replace coffee) And why do old and new basins have two separate water taps? In this way you can chose between burning your hand or freezing, hmmm...

Christmas / New Year in Austria

Lisa's first snowman
Lisa's first snowman,
originally uploaded by bernd ploderer.
Lisa and I had a wonderful (though chilly) time in Austria over Christmas and New Year. During this trip I was reminded of several things:
1) How beautiful Austria is with all the historical places, the wonderful nature and pittoresque landscapes that the weather at various seasons paints.

2) How good Austrian food tastes, the bread, the meat, the pastry, I really missed it :)

3) How dreadful smoking is, especially in Restaurants and coffee bars. I can't see any reason why it is still allowed and accepted.

4) Finally, how valuable my family and my friends in Austria are to me. Thanks to you all, and especially to Mum & Fritz, Dad & Heidi, Anita, Doris,Arnold, Mario, Lorenz & Silvia, Wolfgang & Laura, Celina, Frankie and all the Spartakaners, Lena and Juergen, for such a wonderful time. It's great to know that it is possible to keep up the friendship despite the geographic distance.

PS: I put lots of photos on Flickr