My life in Vienna
the year 2003- second half -
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My life in Vienna
• 7 November But now... a much longer update about what has happened to me the past months. I know, it's been a very long time ago since the previous "real" update but hey, haven't exactly been sitting here doing nothing. :o) In April I was asked to do some websites for a startup in Event Marketing. As my job with Concert had finished in November last year it was time to give a little structure to my life again and decided to give it a go and created websites for them. It turned out that they did have a lot of work coming towards them so they offered me a job helping them out. Well, it didn't really work out for some of us so one of my "colleagues" decided to start up his own company, organising bus travel to musicals in Austria, Hungary, Czech and maybe some other destinations. He needed a website so we created Then the idea came up to organise more things around musicals and theater so we decided to start a new company called For this company we're now working very hard as we want it to become the largest musical webportal in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We're well on our way now with information for Actors, Fans and Theaters. We are now expanding our views towards producing a musical, publishing a book and so on. It is a very interesting time for us now but for me, the work can still be done next to a full time job so I'm actually looking for one now. Time to get some job security again and time to let things go a little, to get away from the musik-theater details and to broaden my horizon again. 
For these websites I've learnt a lot of new things again. As I used to be a
computer programmer is was fairly easy to get into PHP programming. A few evenings
and a book with the PHP basics and I was on my way. First wrote dynamic menus as
I got fed up with changing the menus on all pages every time the "boss" changed
his mind so now it's only a matter of changing one file and the menu is automatically
updated for all pages and it works fast... We've choosen a very good ISP, they're
highly professional and up till now we haven't had any problems with them and
they even have very reasonable prices.
Anyway, dynamic menus with PHP are just "spielerei" so it was time for more interesting things so I wrote message board software, which can be used by members only, which went live a few days ago now and is working like a dream. Of course you can always take snippets of code from other scripts but then it's a mess from the beginning on so this time I wrote everything myself. It's set up to run quickly and without a lot of overhead so it should keep up even when we do have an extremely large number of users. Last year I've taught myself Macromedia Flash but apart from playing with it there was no real reason to use it but this time ESM asked me to create a website for a German musical called Big Star Factory. As it's more a party musical the website had to be modern, flashy and styled for the younger audience. As this year the fashion is 1970s style, I've used a 1970 style font and colours and it was a good reason to use flash with a little audio. After all this website work my 3106.net page got a little dusty, some parts I still like a lot but others could do with a change. Hhmmm, well, what can be said? :o) As said I'm looking for a full-time job again and the gouvernment is now helping me. During November I take a course on how to find your real profession, the one that really fits you. Well, so much is clear: it's going to be a job in telecommunications, internet services and support or webprogramming and -design. Those are the three things that I really like to do. Hope to find something soon, can't wait to learn new things again, to get to know new, interesting people and to bring some structure in my life again. Sounds weird for a guy like me but life can't always be about fun and games :o) 
Unfortunately I've been not very sportive this year, no long distance cycling trips this time. Have done some trips around Vienna, especially some with a friend. He was really into cycling, also unemployed so a few mornings we took our bikes out for a spin in the Wiener Wald, the hills surrounding Vienna. Being a boy from the flat country, hills are still not my thing, flat roads are more my thing but it's still great to get up in the morning, have a little breakfast and cycle 100 kilometers. Coming home, feeling your muscles and your tired body feels so good! 
On the old-stuff front not a lot has changed. I purchased a lot more interesting books
and as it got very messy, all these books laying around there had to come another
bookshelve. The day it was built it was already full so decided to buy some old
suitcases instead as they look very nice. Bought one, then it was full and once again
new piles started to grow. So I got a travel chest, which was full the day it entered
the house. Hhhmm, now I have 3 bookshelves, 6 suitcases and there still is a pile of
books standing around.
As Katrin put it: « our place looks like a train station » I've also collected myself a very large family. The people photos from around 1900 are so nice, the combination of the old film, the anti-hallation layer not yet being invented (or at least not common) and the uncoated lenses is just great. The whites are glowing and as the emulsion was so slow, the people had to hold still for a few seconds which accounts for stiff portraits. Then the fashion, the moustaches of the men, the huge dresses of the ladys, the borrowed toys for the children and the fake outdoor-backgrounds with the wooden studio floors. I just like them so got a box full of old pictures and of course some standing around for decoration. Being into the old stuff now and everyone getting into digital photography nowadays, it's a good time to do some black-and-white developing myself before it will die. I know, some people say it's there to stay and I think so too but now it's still not too hard to get the chemicals and tools. Well, eBay will always be there and darkroom equipment is very cheap nowadays but you can't believe how hard it was to get the standard Kodak D-76 chemicals. Wanted to have a tin with D-76 but they don't sell it anywhere in Vienna so in the end I ended up with a large bag "for commercial use only" for a Gallon of developer. Ah well, it works perfectly but it would have been so nice to own the tin box, which has been the standard package of the chemistry ever since it was sold. Anyway, it's good fun to mix the chemicals, to make sure the temperature is right, to wind the film in the box, to poor the developer in, the shake it in a controlled way for a few times, to poor it out, to put the fixer in, shake it, poor it out and to open the box with the wet film, unroll it and being able to see the pictures. It's like magic! Nothing like going to a photoshop where you get your film developed in 15 minutes. This is PURE MAGIC! 
Then I wanted to give slide film a go and bought some Fuji Velvia 50. Of course
this is very special slide film but as it was supposed to be that "very special
experience" it was a good way to get into it. Velvia is very expensive in 35mm
but as medium format film it's actually pretty cheap and as a 6 x 6 slide
would look much more interesting than a 24 x 36 mm slide it was time to get
my Yashica D out and shoot some Velvia with it. It is amazing stuff! Then it
was time for the autumn to come because the colours would look great on Velvia
but as the summer's been so dry, the leaves fell off before they coloured. Ah
well, next year might be better. At least there's still enough film in my fridge.
During my spare time I've been reading a lot fo books, mainly about Austrian- and world history. There's so much to read and so much to learn. Very interesting to be able to get an overview of how things connected, how certain events had an influence on the course of history during later years and also very interesting to be able to develop an own opinion about things, nothing is as black-and-white as it's being taught through television and the history lessons during my school time. It's all much more interesting. Also interesting to see that history is not history, every author has his/her own preferences and own opinions but when you combine things you might get closer to the "truth" yourself... Anyway, for those of you who know an interesting job for me, my work experience and knowledge can be found in my resume (Deutsch and English). |