So it looks like Berlin (and Europe) has finally gotten decent coverage from Google Maps. Now I can Finally give folks an idea of what it looks like (from the air anyways) where I’ve been living for the last 6 years.

So, a small tour is called for….

• My place
• The Reichstag
• Alexanderplatz (Alex for short)
• The Holocaust Memorial
• Annika’s Mom’s place (near Kiel)
• Where I lived when I first moved here (Yes, those are garbage trucks)

Notes for new users:

You can change the zoom factor with bar on the left. You can change between the 3 view with the buttons on the top right. If you want to send someone a link then you need to click on the “link to this page” link at the top right (above the map). If you don’t, then the link will only take them to Google Maps start page and not to your destination.

Enjoy.

After a week of Annika coughing and blowing her nose every few minutes, it’s my turn. I have a growing mound of used tissues beside my desk and the coughing is just starting. Oh joy!

Thanks for nothing, Annika!

Before the World Cup gets rolling here in Berlin, I’m planning on taking a trip down south to Bodensee (Lake Constance). I was originally planning on going to Spain but have now decided on staying inside of Germany because I’ve still got 2 trips left on the 99 EUR 4-trip ticket they were selling at McDonald’s.

I’ll be taking my bike and camping around the lake. From what I’ve seen on the internet the infrastructure is really nice for biking/camping. I’m also glad I’ll be going outside of the high season. As the lake has about 300km of shoreline and I’m planning on doing the whole thing, I’ll probably stay about 10-14 days. This should give me time to take it easy and stay at a few places a couple days.

In 2000, I took a bike trip from Berlin to Breman which was about 350km. That took 4 days at a brisk pace. Last year Annika and I took our bikes up to Ueckermünde and then rode to and around Usedom. That was just a 5 day trip, though.

Last night Annika and returned from our Easter trip to her mother’s place in Kiel. Although they were calling for poor weather, it was really nice 90% of the time. We played mini-golf on the first day, on Easter Sunday we had a brunch with others and on Monday we visited friends. We then took the train back.

There was one guy sitting in front of us on the train with earphones turned up really loudly. You could hear everything. The worst part about it though is that he was listening to the most common pop crap. The kind that we as a society we collectively learn by heart after only a week of radio play; even those of us who listen to very little radio. Being that the guy was 40ish, I’d think it would be a bit embarassing to listen to such music on a mp3 player where you personnally select the music. Guess not.

Late last night (or early this morning), I submitted my first ever patch. Hopefully this is the start of a long line of contributions. It fixes a problem in Monodevelop with the Code Template drop-down in the options panel. It’s bug #78082.

Every day I work on my soon-to-be-announced project I get more confident in C#. For anybody learning C# on linux with Mono, I recommend you look at Banshee for an example to help you along. The ActionManager class is very helpfull. Here is another good resource for tutorials. And lastly, You can go to the Mono Project sight for a good intro to the Gtk Treeview widget. Treeview is a beast at first but is really nice once you get the hang of it.

I’m just getting finished with my taxes. I sent the forms for the last 3 years in in December and now I’m doing 2005. This year my taxes are a little more complicated due to trading stocks. I must say though, taxes aren’t as difficult to do as I once thought. The “worksheets” are pretty idiot proof. For those earning money abroad, don’t be scared. It’s really easy. Just do form 1040 (as always) and form 2555. There’s really not much to it.

One interesting thing I noticed was that for the years 2002 and 2003 the amount on line 22 was exactly the same, to the penny. That’s pretty amazing considering my income was very different in those years. Funny I didn’t notice that when sending it off earlier.

On a down note (as if taxes weren’t enough of one), the IRS sent me a letter saying they unfortunately lost my 2004 return. Great. So I call and ask about what I need to do exactly and the guy on the phone tells me that the 2002 return was the one that was missing. Now I get o wait a month or so for them to call me. This sucks because I’m trying to get all this tax stuff done because Annika is trying to get a Green Card and we wanted to have it by X-mas.

Today is 4/5/06. If you’re using the American notation that is.

Enjoy your day.

On Sunday Annika and I went to Unsichtbar here in Berlin. It’s a resturaunt where you eat in complete darkness and whose staff is blind or sight-impaired. I had gotten a gift certificate for X-mas from Annika’s mom, Anja. Annika paid about 40 Euros for her meal though. It’s not cheap but it is fun.

The menu doesn’t tell you what you are really getting. It just colorfully describes basically what you get. I got the vegetarian meal, of course and Annika got the fish. You can get either a 3 or 4 course meal. We got the 4 course one.

You place you’re order in the waiting area, by the way. Otherwise it’d be hard to read the menu, duh. You are then collected be the waiter, told to put your hand on the person in-front-of-you’s shoulder and lead to your table. The tables are all against a wall that you can put your drink against. The coners are all padded just in case. It’s really liberating to eat in the complete darkness. You can sloutch, throw things at your friends and of course you have to use your fingers. I would love to have a infrared camera in there!

The food was quite good although I found it a bit wierd that they had roesties (hash brown type thing) on the main dish. I get those from Plus all the time. The desert was also a bit “easy”. The salad was really good, though and the soup was good but creamy, which I’m not a fan of.

If you’re thinking of going I suggest you go with as big a group as possible. It’s more fun. Also you need to reserve well in advance.