Thursday 21 February 2008

Michael Clayton

That was a surprise. George Clooney in a film that is not comedy nor love-story. Michael Clayton reminded me a lot of films like The Bourne Ultimatum or Grishams The Firm. There was no action like in the Bourne Ultimatum but Clooney did quite a good job in playing the role of Michael Clayton. Michael Clayton, an attorney and former gambling addict, working now for a big Law Firm usually does the job "behind the lines". He cares for the "things that must be done" besides the regular lawyers work.

Diovorced and bankrupt because of his former gambling addiction he has enough to do to get along with his own life. When his friend an colleague was obviously killed by the company he was working for, Michael Clayton notices something like a conscience in him and begins to continue the work and research of his former friend and lawyer. He finds out that there is something terribly wrong with the company that he and his colleagues were working for...

As I mentioned, I was surprised about this film and I like it. But it is not more than average to me. Hard to follow the first 30 minutes, the story is not really fascinating, somehow trivial for today and I would not be surprised if things like this happen in reality...daily...somewhere.
The good thing is, that Clooney leaves a lot of space in the person of Michael Clayton. Enough space for the viewer to make up his own mind about the big business and the person of Michael Clayton in particular.
It is somehow an old fashioned movie...playing with the values of conscience and moral. The critics will love it...I am sure!!

Wednesday 20 February 2008

Sunrise

This morning on my way to work, I thought about the word happiness and what it means to people. Yesterday I have heard that word so very often and was always surprised to see what happiness means for different people. For one it was the unexpected height of his dividends per share, another was happy that he bought a really cheap air-ticket.

And I noticed that at the moment I am most happy when sitting on my bike, heading towards some nice spot or just driving somewhere through the woods...I could do that for hours and hours.

The sunrise this morning fitted somehow to my actual condition: Cold and insrutable around, but a light coming up behind the wall of fog that could be strong enough to warm everything up today :-)
Have a nice day everyone!!!

Monday 18 February 2008

Re-Posts

Just in case some of you may wonder if their Feed Reader will probably show them some old posts: There may be a lot of old posts appearing on my blog during the next days because I gave up my geocaching blog in german and decided to transfer the posts over to this blog.

Nur falls sich der eine oder andere wundert falls sein Feed Reader ihm in den nächsten Tagen einige uralt Posts bringt: Ich hab meinen alten geocaching blog aufgegeben und mich dazu entschieden die Posts trotzdem mit rüber in dieses blog zu nehmen...reine Sentimentalität ;-)

Sunday 17 February 2008

Into the Wild - In die Wildnis

Es gibt Filme die sieht man, amüsiert sich und vergisst sie irgendwann wieder. Into the Wild wird mir sicher lange in Erinnerung bleiben. Es geht um Chris der sich irgendwann dazu entschliesst sein jetziges Leben hinter sich zu lassen. Er bricht alles ab und lässt auch materiell alles hinter sich um zu Leben...einfach nur zu Sein!
Von Anfang an gefesselt hat mich die ruhige, Road-Movie artige Musik und natürlich das Extreme des Films. Aber dann wurde ich doch überrascht wie sensibel hier mit der Person des Chris umgegangen wird. Seine ganze Einstellung, seine Worte und Gesten müssen einem Respekt abverlangen, soviel Moral und Ethik wünschen sich heutzutage sicherlich viele Menschen. Chris zieht also durch Amerika, trifft alte und junge Hippies und landet letztendlich in Alaska....was von Anfang an sein Traum war. Hier will er mit und in der Natur leben, scheitert aber eben auch an der Natur. Er ist den ganz einfachen Dingen nicht gewachsen weil er selbst natürlich viel zu zivilisiert ist. Da nützt es wenig das er die entsprechende Euphorie und Achtung vor der Natur und besonders den Tieren mitbringt. An seiner Unfähigkeit sich selbst als der Stärkere durchzusetzen geht er zugrunde.

Ein durchgeknallter Spinner ist der Chris in diesem Film sicher nicht, aber besonders glaubwürdig erscheinen viele Dialoge und Handlungen auch wieder nicht. Die Schwester wird im Film als Erzählerin hingestellt und erzählt viele Dinge über Chris' Jugendzeit und das kaputte Verhältnis seiner Eltern zueinander. Für mich hat das alles jedoch so gut wie gar keinen Bezug zu Chris' Sehnsucht nach Dem Sein...dem bloßen Existieren und dem Einordnen in die Natur.

Aber der Film ist schon bemerkenswert gut. Allein die Bilder des Filmes faszinieren schon. Die intensive Betrachtung der Hauptfigur ist auch fesselnd aber eben doch ein wenig unkritisch dargestellt. So als wollte der Regisseur Sean Penn schützend sein Händchen über einen "Bruder im Geiste" halten.

Auf jeden Fall ein absolut sehenswerter, berauschender Film der trotz einiger Schwächen schon jetzt mit zu meinen Lieblingsfilmen zählt.

Friday 15 February 2008

Canon PowerShot A570 IS

Yesterday I received my new photo camera Canon A570 IS. Not the newest innovation but I am not a professional photograph. We were satisfied with our old Kodak Easyshare which still makes excellent photos. But we were missing the possibility of taking videoclips as we do not always want to carry the camcorder with us. I addition to that, the old Kodak was much too heavy and large to carry it with me in my pocket. So, usually when "on tour" I took snapshots with my Sony Ericson mobile-phone cam.

The Canon camera seems to make even more brilliant photos. It is small but not too small so that you can still fell it in your hand. That's important for me because otherwise I always feel as if I am shivering while taking pictures. I will publish my first photos taken with the Canon Cam soon but I also figured out that there are negative attributes: The electric power supply comes from 2 AA Mignon Batteries. That's of course better than from a special Canon battery pack, but those Mignon batteries will need a recharge quite often I am afraid.
The other thing is that video clips taken with the Canon cam need a hell of a lot of space. The format is .avi motion jpeg and even in lowest resolution they will need about 30 MB per recorded minute. I don't care for my 2x2GB memory card and I don't care for my HD space but sendung clips by email will be far too slow especially for those who don't have a fast internet connection (like many of you have).

However...the cam is now in "Winni's experimental laboratory"...I will keep you informed

Thursday 14 February 2008

Spot the Elephant

Look what I have found...now, aren't that nice optical, photoshopped illusions?? Your assignment is to spot the elephants!



Monday 11 February 2008

barbecue in winter

Yesterday some of our neighbours may have looked a bit suspicious towards our balcony. Are they crazy? Did their kitchen burn down? Those must have been their questions when I began to clean up our balcony and took out our barbecue grill for the first time this year.

It is still winter, yes, but it was such a beautiful day with sun and blue skies, we were hungry and we wanted to have the first barbecue in our neighbourgood for this year.
And yes, it worked - we had some sausages and steaks and afterwards I took a blanket and lay down in the sun to enjoy and chase away winter from my soul.

Sunday 10 February 2008

Tierpark Petermoor

This sunday we went to a very small Zoo, situated only 20 minutes from our home. We wanted to make a nice excursion but then decided not to go too far and not to be too active since our little daughter was ill all the week and just recovered from her bad cough.
But it was a nice walk there and a lot of animals to look at, even if they were not that exotic. Llamas, monkeys, deers, cangaroos, ostrichs, rabbits, parrots, different geese and hundreds of different birds. In addition to that, there was an enclosure with goat where children could go in and touch and play with the goats. Very nice.

More photos here

Saturday 9 February 2008

Geocaching - Krimpelsee

Wie so oft in letzter Zeit bin ich am Samstag früh alleine los um einen kleinen Spaziergang zu machen und meist verbinde ich das dann mit dem Suchen eines Caches in der Gegend.
In Bremen und Umgebung werden die für mich interessanten und lösbaren Caches allerdings langsam Mangelware.

Für diesen Samstag hatte ich noch einen gefunden.
Krimpelsee - Um einen kleinen See herum liegt dieser Multi mit 4 Stationen + Final. Die WP zu finden war recht einfach, nur am WP4 hab ich einen ziemlichen Schaden angerichtet als ich den von einer Brücke herunter hängenden Hinweis komplett abgerissen habe. Ich hab echt gedacht, der Hinweis wäre mit Klett oder sowas festgemacht, tatsächlich aber war er unter der Brücke angeklebt und mein Spiegel hätte hier mal wieder zum Einsatz kommen sollen. Naja...shit happens. Mail an den Owner klärt sowas.
Am Final dann der Schreck...da wo der Cache an einem Baum erwartet wurde, war kein Baum mehr. Zum Glück hat die Cachebox aber überlebt.

Insgesamt war das ein wunderschöner Gang am Morgen. Ich bin um 7.45h am See losgegangen und war ca. 9.15h wieder am Auto. Außer dem Cache habe ich noch einen atemberaubenden Sonnenaufgang und jede Menge Ruhe und frische Luft gehabt.

Friday 8 February 2008

Geocaching, Alt und ausgebrannt

Since I already wrote about the nice effects of geocaching after work, I can now tell that geocaching before work has the same effects...wow, what a surprise ;-)
Last night there was a cache published on opencaching.de and it was said to be only 2,8 km from my home. I thought of going there in the evening still...but I was too lazy. This morning at 7.00h I left home as usual to go to work by bike. But I went to find the cache first. And yes...another FTF (First to Find)!!! All in all it took me an additional hour and some 15 additional kilometres by bike, but it was fun and that's what counts.

Now, I am curious if the cache will be published on geocaching.com too. If so, I will have another FTF even before the cache was published.

Wednesday 6 February 2008

Geocaching, Paulas Golf Trophy Hole 1

Geocaching after work. That's always a perfect relaxing but also exciting thing for me if the location is good. Today it was good. The cache was published only 3 hours before the end of my working day. Situated near a golf-course, there were 2 questions to answer to find out the final coordinates. I have never been interested in golf at all and so it was impossible for me to answer those questions. I needed the help of wiki and google and when I finally had the coordinates of the cache box, I took a look at the google-satellite view of that area and decided that it was a nice little forest there...perfect for a walk after work.

Nothing special so far. I discovered the cache box very quickly and ...yippie...I was the first to sign the logbook. In addition there was a surprise for the First Finder in the cache: A Hotel Voucher for a weekend for 2 people in a First Class Hotel in the south of germany. Cool...I was really happy about this found and I think we should use the voucher to combine with a geocaching tour.