do something new once a week

done and finished.

Last Sunday I’ve been wakeboarding. Besides being a lot of fun, this is the best abdominal exercise I have ever done. In the first try I fell into the water right after the start, the second time I almost made one round, and 3rd time I did two complete rounds without a fall. I did not think I would learn it that quickly, it sure helps when you are used to a snowboard :-) Its amazing how fast you can get on the water: At my 2nd fall I flew about 5 meters far. Now I know why all the professionals wear helmets!

I now regularly go climbing each Thursday, and Aikido on Tuesday and Friday. That does not leave much free time for other new things between lots of work and the fun, but for me work is lots of fun too, so I don’t consider it much of a problem :-)

Also, last week I got a Wii. I am really looking forward to
playing bowling & golf against my parents during Christmas

Quite a bit has happened since my last posting here. I went to Spain (Andalusia) for two weeks and had a really fabulous time, but now I am addicted to olive oil and gazpacho. I started a new hobby, climbing, this is great fun and excellent exercise in staying calm (believe me, the last thing you want to do is get nervous and start sweating when you cling to two 2cm ledges some 20 meters above the ground). Last week I got a nice Award at the company I work with. This week I have already booked my skiing holidays, one week in Saalbach Hinterglemm (which has 200km of skiing slopes and is Austrias largest connected skiing area :-)
And finally, yesterday my € 60 Ikea bed broke down into little pieces. Time to get something a bit more robust!

Two days ago I had birthday, and as a present to myself I went canyoning. It was great, several 5 to 7m jumps, and we roped down 25m through a waterfall. I will definitely do this again.

Yesterday I had to start with a physiotherapy because of abrasion in my left hip. I will probably need a hip joint protease in about 10 years. No more running or tennis for me, but cycling and swimming instead. Oh well. At least now I have more reason to buy a new mountain bike :-)

The last two weeks have been quite turbulent: At our company my friend and me acquired a large project that will keep us busy for the next two years, my job focus has changing quite a bit, today another extremely interesting project appeared and immediately got hold of me, and for some reason I have earned lots of respect for my work so far; at least people now trust my decisions which leaves me with a lot more responsiblity. Oh, and apart from the job other even more interesting changes are happening :-)

Had my first aikido examination yesterday. Now I am a 6th kyu. Not that I care much about the grade, but it was good to see that I could do the techniques without much trouble :-)

For the curious: it was Ikkyo, Sumiotoshi, Shiho-nage, Kokyu Ho, Kotegashi, Iriminage; with attacks aihanmi or gyakuhanmi.

I am currently watching judment day. At least it seems like it, it was extreme hot the whole day, and now suddenly a storm front is approaching that looks very much like when the UFO appeared in the movie independent day. The wall of black clouds is almost there, all birds are gone, the temperature is falling, and my neighbour’s kids are screaming. Hehe, I am looking forward to a great spectacle from mother nature :-)

I switched to another bank which offers much higher interest rates (2.75 instead of 1.70) than the one I’ve been with for my whole life. I also want to invest a bit into the stock exchange and am learning how to read balance sheets.

Yesterday I was on a bike trip, about 110 km. That’s a lot more than I am used to, but I wanted to see if i could do it.