Year: 2014

  • Mountain climbing in Berlin

    Mountain climbing in Berlin

    I cycled up the tallest, most fearsome peak in the whole of Berlin at midnight last night. Teufelsberg is a 120 m high mountain in the former West Berlin, built from 75,000,000 m3 of rubble deposited there after the war. Buried underneath the mountain is an incomplete Nazi military-technical school designed by Albert Speer.

    The USA’s NSA organisation decided it would be a great idea to build one of their largest spy installations on top of the mountain during the 1960’s. The original spy domes and their protective fencing are still there.

    I can neither confirm nor deny if someone may have breached the outer perimeter to inspect the domes at close range 😉

    The dome
    The moon was so bright that we could barely see any stars out.
    The entrance to the domes
    This is the entrance to the facility.
    Our group of explorers
    Our group of explorers admiring the domes in all their moonlit glory.
    Barbed wire surrounding the dome
    There is double barbed wire fencing surrounding the top of the hill to protect the domes. Guards roam the grounds 24/7, so anyone entering after hours should be super careful.
    The dome
    The domes looked beautiful in front of the full-moon.
  • Eurofighter

    This crazy looking aircraft is the Eurofighter. The most advanced fighter jet currently in use publicly within European air forces. I took these pictures at the Berlin airshow earlier in the year.

    Eurofighter Eurofighter Eurofighter

  • My manly slippers

    My tootsies were getting cold during the evenings, so I decided to buy some slippers to keep them warm. I decided to get some manly looking ones to impress the ladies. They’re super awesome and super warm 🙂

    new-slippers

  • More F16 pictures

    Here are some more photos of F16‘s at the Berlin airshow earlier in the year.

    F16

    F16

    F16

    F16

  • F16 Fighting Falcon

    F16 Fighting Falcon

    My bedroom back in the 1980’s was adorned with multiple models of the F16 Fighting Falcon, an American fighter jet which capture my imagination after watching the overly cheesy movie Iron Eagle. Fast forward quite a few years, and I eventually got the chance to see some first hand at the Berlin Airshow earlier this year. The sound of them flying is incredible, as is the phenomenal acceleration.

    F16 fighter jet against the clouds

    F16 fighter jet on the ground

    F16 fighter jet against the sun

    F16 fighter jet

    F16 fighter jet

    A steep climb, including dropping counter measures, with extra photoshopping to show the plume better
    A steep climb, including dropping counter measures, with extra photoshopping to show the plume better
    A steep climb, including dropping counter measures. I did some "Photoshopping" (I actually used the GIMP) to show up the exhaust plume and counter measures better.
    A steep climb, including dropping counter measures. I did some “Photoshopping” (I actually used the GIMP) to show up the exhaust plume and counter measures better.
  • WordCamp Norway

    WordCamp Norway

    No I haven’t been visiting Oslo recently, but I forgot to post these pictures from WordCamp Norway, a conference I was attending there back in January.

    WordCamp dinner

    WordCamp dinner

    WordCamp dinner

    We stopped off at the palace after dinner. I used to live not far from here back when I lived in Oslo.
    We stopped off at the palace after dinner. I used to live not far from here back when I lived in Oslo.
  • My new apartment 🙂

    I learned a valuable lesson recently. You should never agree to move into a new apartment without seeing it first, no matter how temporary the arrangement may be! I was intending to stay somewhere for a month until I found somewhere more permanent. I didn’t have a chance to see it before moving in; the pictures looked fine though, so I figured it’d do. On moving in, I found out that it came with a screaming child covered in filth, a kitchen full of rubbish and dirty diapers and the bed in my room was full of food and dirt. I stripped the bed down to the mattress, cleaned it as best I could and tried to go to sleep. I then began puking my insides out (food poisoning) and bailed off to a hotel around lunch time where I stayed for two days until moving just out of the city to a house kindly lent by my friend Caroline. I told the landlord that I wasn’t intending to stay there because it was too dirty and that I’d return the keys some time before October 19th, when my rent was paid until. She was furious and demanded I return the keys immediately. Somehow she missed the logic that I had no reason to return keys for a room I was still paying rent for. I won’t bore you with the whole conversation, but here’s the highlights …

    Tomorrow my husband will be be here. We will find you anyway, you cant hide … I
    have all details from you. We will find you anyway … Pray to god that we will not find, you you dont know us!
    Edited for Grammar and spelling corrections

    The police have now had a chat with her and have asked her to come to the police station where she can pick up her keys (which I left with them). Sheesh.

    After that debacle, I moved into an AirBNB place for a few days before moving into my much newer, much cleaner, and all round awesome little apartment 🙂 I have three rooms, one is more of a hallway, a living area and my bedroom (which is oddly triangle shaped) and a shared bathroom/kitchen. A quick trip to IKEA had me fully kitted out with furniture. Awesomesauce 🙂

    ringbahn-living-room

    ringbahn-bedroom

    If you have any advice on how to fit a rectangular bed into a triangular bedroom, please let me know in the comments 🙂

  • YouTube’s selling videos?

    Since when has YouTube been selling movies? Is this news, or did I just stumble across something new?

    EDIT: I tried buying a movie, but it doesn’t seem to accept any of my normal methods of payment (various Visa cards). So I’m guessing this is some sort of malfunctioning test that YouTube is running.

    top-gun-sale

  • Home made protein balls

    I decided to make homemade protein bars this evening. I mixed up some rolled oats, dried cranberries, vanilla flavoured whey protein and chopped almonds. Then I got some peanuts which i turned into peanut butter and mixed that up with chocolate, honey, almond milk and some apple sauce which I nuked on high for 45 seconds. I then added the hot stuff to the cold stuff, mixed it up, then tried to them them into bars. It was too darned sticky, so I ended up making protein balls instead, as they were easier to form 🙂

    They taste awesome and are incredibly healthy despite their taste 🙂

    protein-balls

    If you would like to make your own protein bars/balls, checkout the video by NaturalGC on YouTube which I based my recipe on.