Time seems to go pretty fast. This blog is over seven years old now. My employment by Opera Software over five. And I just reached twenty-four.
In Argentina I got the idea to visit all continents before I turned twenty-five. But if I am to visit Antarctica — the one I am missing when following the seven continents model — it would have to be by sailboat. That seems the most exciting. Turns out that getting a place on a small sailboat is rather hard if you are just by yourself. I will gladly accept any tips — about sailing to Antarctica — as birthday present! :-)
On the holiest of holy books in my room, the A to Z telephone directory, I swear to tell the truth. Life is empty. But of course, there is some salvation. That is to say, it wasn’t so utterly empty from the very outset. It takes real effort upon effort, an all-out struggle, for us to wear it down, to reduce it to an empty nothing. Here is not the place to go into just how we struggle, how each and every way we wear it down to nothing. Too much trouble. Anyone who simply must know has only to read Romain Rolland’s Jean Christophe. It’s all there.
From the non-existant novel One and a Half Times around the Rainbow by the fictional author Derek Heartfield (who comitted suicide in 1938 by walking of the Empire State Building with a portrait of Hitler in his right hand and an open umbrella in his left) imagined by Huraki Murakami for Hear the Wind Sing.
“But then again, the conditions are the same for everybody. We’re all riding the same disabled airplane. Sure there are them that get all the breaks and them that don’t. Them that are tough through it all and them that are weak. The rich and the poor. But you know, there’s nobody who’s got more than normal reserves of strength. It’s the same across the board. The haves are forever worrying that they’re going to lose it all, and the have-nots are worried that they’re going to stay have-nots forever. It’s the same for everybody. Anyone who catches on earlier should strive to become that much stronger. Even if they only pretend, right? There’s no strong people around anywhere. Only those who put on a good show of acting strong.”
From Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami.
A few days before leaving on vacation to Switzerland we walked into a mountaineering store and found a book called Tour of the Matterhorn by Hilary Sharp. We skimmed through it and thought the seven stages it described could easily be done in the time allotted for our vacation. The evening before leaving we figured out it might be slightly tougher than anticipated, but still doable. Turns out — especially the first two days — walking in the mountains with an eighteen kilo or so backpack is quite exhausting. In fact, I can still feel my legs. Although somewhat shorter (estimated at about hundred forty-five kilometer rather than hundred seventy), the trail was quite a bit tougher than the Tour du Mont Blanc, which we walked a couple of years ago. Back then we did not carry a tent and cooking equipment either. Just like last time I kept some day-to-day logs.
| Time (24h) | Location | Height (m) | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 — traveling and Part 1 of Stage 1 | |||
| 4:30 | Utrecht | Time to wake up! (We had roughly two hours of sleep. Bah.) | |
| 4:45 | Utrecht | Taxi. | |
| 7:20 | Schiphol | Departure. | |
| 9:27 | Aéroport International de Genève | Train. | |
| 13:30 | Zermatt | 1600 | My Swiss watch tells me we are fifteen minutes late! |
| 13:45 | Zermatt | Acquired food and a map. | |
| 14:00 | Zermatt | Heading to the start of the trail with an out in the open elevator. | |
| 14:20 | Zermatt | Started walking! | |
| 21:00 | Europahütte | 2200 | Finally arrived. We are both exhausted. A waterfall we went under just before arriving turned into a gigantic slide of mud just after we passed. Slept and ate in the hut because of the thunder and lightning outside. Overall a pretty exciting first day. |
| Day 2 — Part 2 of Stage 1 and a shortcut | |||
| 6:45 | Europahütte | Leaving with a slight headache. | |
| 7:30 | Ate some breakfast. | ||
| 9:15 | Second break. Sun is coming up. Still a headache. | ||
| 10:45 | Third break. | ||
| 13:45 | St. Niklaus | 1120 | Fuck. It is Sunday and almost everything is closed. We manage to get some sandwiches and decide to sleep somewhere along the start of Stage 2. |
| 15:00 | Jungu | 1998 | We go up to Jungu with the Jungenbahn (CHF 10) as our legs no longer carry us and it was recommended by the book anyway. Quite nice. |
| 17:00 | Jungu | Ate some Rösti in a restaurant and read Pinball, 1973. Still a headache. | |
| 18:30 | Jungu | Walking up the trail of Stage 2 to find a place for our tent. We think this might be illegal. | |
| 20:00 | Sleep! | ||
| Day 3 — Stage 2 and Stage 3 with a shortcut | |||
| 5:40 | Waking up and packing up the tent. | ||
| 6:20 | Started walking. | ||
| 9:20 | Augstbordpass | 2894 | Yay! |
| 9:50 | Picked up a cat supposedly from the hotel we are going to. Carried the cat all the way down. | ||
| 11:00 | Cat jumps away. | ||
| 11:05 | Gruben | 1822 | Ordered a cola. Joël has an ice tea. |
| 11:20 | Gruben | The cat — not from the hotel — catches a mouse and lets it go again. Several times in a row. | |
| 12:00 | Gruben | Schnitzel! | |
| 13:00 | Gruben | Heading out again for Stage 3. | |
| 15:30 | Meidpass | 2790 | |
| 16:10 | Here there is a shortcut down to the valley for Saint-Luc. Not an official route. Not having much energy left after two passes we decide to take it. | ||
| 16:30 | Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. (This route stinks.) | ||
| 19:00 | Saint-Luc | 1655 | Just in time for the very last bus leaving Saint-Luc. |
| 20:15 | Zinal | 1660 | After having to wait in some other village for half an hour, finally there. Remy joins us here! |
| 20:30 | Zinal | A friendly lady points us to a hostel. There is no camping (it used to be there but was closed down; people suspect the hotels) and we have to stay in town to get fresh supplies from the supermarket in the morning. | |
| 22:20 | Zinal | Finally sleeping. | |
| Day 4 — Stage 4 | |||
| 6:45 | Zinal | 1660 | Time to wake up and get breakfast. |
| 7:30 | Zinal | Supplies at the supermarket. | |
| 8:00 | Zinal | Leaving! | |
| 11:30 | Col de Sorebois | 2835 | Break. |
| 13:00 | Lac de Moiry | 2127 | Another break. With a cola this time. Also fetching a nail clipper from inside the tent. |
| 14:00 | Lac de Moiry | Time to leave. | |
| 16:00 | Col de Torrent | 2919 | |
| 17:00 | Beplan | 2536 | We decide to put up camp here next to a lake. |
| 19:15 | Beplan | Early night. | |
| Day 5 — time to rest (due to bad weather and general tiredness) | |||
| 4:30 | Beplan | 2536 | Early morning. |
| 5:10 | Beplan | On our way. | |
| 8:00 | Les Haudères | 1450 | We need to get some medical supplies so have to walk back (partially) to Evolène. Joël lost a contact lens we cannot get back. (Nearest place with a chance was Sion; too far.) |
| 9:30 | Evolène | 1371 | Big brunch here. |
| 11:15 | Evolène | Taking the bus to Arolla, from where the route continues. | |
| 11:45 | Arolla | 2006 | Bought gas, food, and safety pins to patch up the tent. |
| 16:45 | Arolla | Cooked a nice hot meal. | |
| 17:50 | Arolla | In the tent reading while it rains outside. | |
| Day 6 — Stage 5 | |||
| 4:30 | Arolla | 2006 | Up, refreshed. |
| ~5:30 | Arolla | Gone! | |
| ~10:00 | On the Haut Glacier d'Arolla. This is very exciting. Also somewhat scary due to lack of crampons and sticks. | ||
| 11:00 | Col Collon | 3087 | Hello Italy. |
| 11:45 | Rifugio Collon-Nacamuli | 2818 | Got a pan of pasta with parmasan cheese to boot! |
| 12:50 | Rifugio Collon-Nacamuli | Leaving the hut. | |
| 15:00 | Prarayer | 2005 | We put up the tent here. And we can take a shower! Yay. |
| 19:00 | Prarayer | Sleep. | |
| Day 7 — Stage 6 | |||
| 4:30 | Prarayer | 2005 | Wake up and pack up. Also an apple. |
| 5:10 | Prarayer | Start! | |
| 5:30 | Rain. Bleh. | ||
| 8:15 | Ascent from hell. This is some fucked up terrain. | ||
| 8:45 | Colle di Valcournera | 3066 | Fuck. Descent from hell. |
| 9:30 | Rifugio Perucca-Vuillermoz | 2910 | Starts raining cats and dogs outside. Win. Great tuna pasta and some cheese and sausages for on the road. |
| 10:50 | Rifugio Perucca-Vuillermoz | Time to go down. | |
| 15:00 | Breuil-Cervinia | 2006 | No camping in sight and not really able to walk much further either. Bah. |
| 15:30 | Breuil-Cervinia | Some food in the park. Fixing a cheap hotel. (Cheapest so far, admittedly.) Getting some supplies. Eating a pizza. | |
| 18:50 | Breuil-Cervinia | Zzzzz. | |
| Day 8 — Stage 7 | |||
| 4:30 | Breuil-Cervinia | 2006 | Up! |
| 5:00 | Breuil-Cervinia | And away! | |
| 9:15 | Theodulpass | 3301 | To get up here there was a lot of strong wind and snow. Tricky but fun. Patching up one of Joël’s shoes and re-attaching his glasses with tape. Not his lucky day. Also, hello Switzerland. |
| 10:15 | Theodulpass | Heading up the glacier. Whee! One of my legs slips through a crack and I hit the glacier with my knee. 1-0 for the glacier. | |
| 11:15 | Off the glacier. Ugly-ass looking building. We decide to move on. Slightly jealous of the people who were skiing down the glacier. | ||
| 14:00 | Zermatt | 1600 | We made it. Drei bier, bitte! |
| 14:39 | Zermatt | Off to Lausanne by train. It’s all over. | |
The overall story is much longer of course.
(On Flickr I posted a Matterhorn Tour set.)
We must all be cut out for what we do, he thought. However you make your living is where your talent lies. He had sold vitality, in one form or another, all his life and when your affections are not too involved you give much better value for the money. He had found that out but he would never write that, now, either. No, he would not write that, although it was well worth writing.
From The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway.
So then you have something to say that fits in one hundred and forty characters, but twitter is down. My brother Remy van Kesteren just aced his exam. The exam being an absolutely stunning harp concert. So proud! Much more should be said about the details, his story telling — view on things, the different pieces, the sound the audience made while he was silent, but alas, it is late and I am tired.
Recapping WebM’s First Week: We’ve done extensive testing of VP8 and know that the codec can match or exceed the quality of other leading codecs.
Booyah! If you’re interested in media formats for the web it is probably worth subscribing to the WebM blog.
‘But what is the purpose of all this? Why are you doing this to me?’ ‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing, darling — ah — hem — Sal has pleaded and begged with me to come and get him, it is absolutely necessary for me to — but we won’t go into all these explanations — and I’ll tell you why … No, listen, I’ll tell you why.’ And he told her why, and of course it made no sense.
From On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
Forever writing. Getting lost in words. Describing the moment. A friend mentioned Jack Kerouac. In relation to what is written. Wikipedia’d him. As it turns out, Jack Kerouac inspired Haruki Murakami. All intertwined. Then in Amsterdam. Much later and with plenty of time to kill. Looking for shoes. Finding a bookstore. “H for Hemmingway” … “K for Kerouac,” on the English shelf. Bought On the Road. It is great. Thanks Art.
Yesterday I rolled my first maki. The rice was already prepared however. Making the rice exactly right is probably the hardest part when making your own sushi. It is something the Albert Heijn for instance (otherwise great) completely screws up. Or whoever delivers to the Albert Heijn which they then sell under they own AH brand. Anyway, I should learn making that perfect cooked vinegared rice as everything else is relatively straightforward. Or stick with sashimi. :-)
I had this great plan to rant here about the “Recover Gamertag” feature on the Xbox. And hopefully be noticed by someone on the Xbox QA team and get it fixed in some Xbox LIVE update. I usually do not play on my own Xbox 360. If there is a really great game, such as Modern Warfare 2, I might get into it for half a day, but typically I play on someone else’s Xbox 360. And each time that happens and we want to play online Xbox gamertags need to be recovered. This is an extremely painful process. First you enter your gamertag. You do not select it. In fact, you cannot select it. No, you enter it character by character using the directional buttons on the controller. Extremely painful and also superfluous as the gamertag is typically already known by the system. It gets worse from there. Now you need to enter your email address. Then your password. Apart from the fact that it takes ages it is also very annoying. Then you have to agree to a disclaimer that was not downloaded in the background but is in fact downloaded right that instant. At least that is the only way I can explain the extreme slowness for it to appear. And even though you will not read it you still have to wait because the agree button is disabled until the download has completed. After that you still have to wait around a minute for your profile associated with your gamertag to be downloaded. It must be either fricking huge or on a slow server. Either way, it sucks. After that all should be fine and you can play your game.
Now I said had at the start, because as it turns out Microsoft recommends me to carry my gamertag and associated profile around on some kind of storage device. Where as I use their servers as some kind of storage space. So arguably I am incorrectly using the “Recover Gamertag” feature and can therefore not complain about it being so broken, because in theory you rarely need it. However, working with an Xbox 360 storage device seems rather non-trivial and extremely cumbersome. Not to mention the fact that you have to remember to copy all your data each time you might end up playing a game somewhere else and you have to carry that storage device around. On top of that both Xbox USB drives are rarely empty because the play & charge kits have to be continuously plugged in as their batteries are horribly broken.
Putting this data in “the cloud” seems so obvious. Especially since it already mostly is. The user interface just needs to be cleaned up.