Es ist schon seltsam wie man selbst als informierte und nur mäßig subversive Person doch immer noch zusammenzuckt, wenn man morgens unverhofft einen Brief mit diesem Absender/Briefkopf aus dem Briefkasten fischt...

Power Changes

Today was the day when we expected to sit in the dark with no lights, no fridge...no electricity.
Why? Because 2 months ago I decided to change our electricity supplier. The new electricity is said to be a 100% free of nuclear powers and fossil fuels, it is said to come only from wind, water and solar energy. Besides that it will save us a lot of money year by year.
All I did was sending an online order to the new supplier. Then I received an email, telling us that they will take over our delievery "as soon as possible"...and that was it. On the evening of June 30th I did not feel to well with those coming changes and no real confirmations, so I called the new provider and they said like "cool, Winni, everything will be okay. From tomorrow on we will deliver clean energy and all you will feel from it is a lower invoice"

Everything really went out fine and now all I wonder about is: why didn't I change the provider some years earlier, saved a lot of money and spent it for my desired trip around the world????

Tickets please

Recently, due to my mini-job, I am travelling a lot by train. Today I tried one of the things that could make my travels a lot easier: I booked my train ticket by cellphone and even used my phone as a ticket. That may not be a big deal for some of you, but for me it was an interesting experience.

After my booking, I received an MMS message on my phone with a barcode. When the conductor on the train would come for control, I'd simply show him my cellphone with the barcode, he'd scan it and that's it...that's what I thought. The reality was a bit different. I had to change trains three times and in none of the trains the conductor wanted to scan my ticket. They all just looked at it, shook their heads, mumbled sth like "...well..ok...fine..."and turned away.
Now isn't that a great way of shortening any control in trains?

The door

On todays morning tour by bike, I saw a pretty nice church, but the door of the church did not really leave an inviting impression on me:

Ein neues Fahrrad

Nachdem mir am letzten Freitag mein Fahrrad geklaut wurde, hatte ich mich sehr schnell nach einem neuen Rad umgesehen. Letztendlich ist meine Wahl auf das "Ortler Bozen" gefallen. Am Montag habe ich es bestellt und bereits am gestrigen Freitag wurde es versandkostenfrei geliefert.
Wie das bei verpackten Rädern so ist, mußte ich zunächst mal Pedale, Sattel und Lenker anbauen und das Vorderrad einbauen. Das war alles innerhalb von 15 Minuten erledigt, aber dann mußte ich die hydraulische Felgenbremse einstellen, denn die saß fest an der Felge. Bis ich das hinbekommen hatte, waren weitere 30 Minuten vergangen.

Insgesamt habe ich heute etwa 40 Kilometer gefahren und hier ist ein erstes Pro/Contra:
+ Schwalbe Pannenschutz Bereifung
+ LED statt Halogen Beleuchtung vorne...ist im Gegensatz zu einer Halo Beleuchtung sehr hell
+ Magura hydraulische Felgenbremsen greifen sehr schnell und sehr hart. Zuerst gewöhnungsbedürftig, danach einfach nur herrlich
+ Shimano Deore XT Schaltung wurde extrem gut eingestellt und schaltet absolut exakt selbst bei cross-gear Schaltfehlern
+ die Federgabel hat einen 15mm längeren Federweg als die Standard Gabeln

- Die Magura Bremshebel sind aus billigem Plastik. In einer niedrigeren Preisklasse hatte mein Vorgänger Rad schon Alu Bremshebel.
- Der eigentlich schöne Alu Rahmen in mattschwarz wurde durch unzählige Komponenten Aufkleber verschandelt
- es lag dem Rad keine detaillierte Beschreibung für die Einstellung der hydr. Felgenbremse bei
- eine solche Pseudo Luftpumpe an einem solchen Rad ist lächerlich.

Unbelievable

There are those days in life when I am positively surprised by something that always seemed to be impossible to me. Today was one of those days. As I wrote, some freak stole my bicycle last friday. The only good thing with that was the fact that I have an insurance against bicycle theft. But, seriously, I asked myself what I could possibly expect from the insurance for a 3,5 year old bike?
Last wednesday I sent an email to my insurance along with the invoice from 2006. Today, only 3 days later, I received a cheque from my insurance and guess how much they refunded me? Tataaaaaa: the full prize!! So, I did not have any loss in 3,5 years.
...as I said: fast payment - full amount...unbelievable, but true!!

Geocaching

Since 3,5 years I am into geocaching and even though I am a lazy cacher with less than 500 founds, I still enjoy it from time to time. One thing I noticed during the last year: the quality of caches has increased. 3 years ago I was often wondering and complaining about the many many of micro caches, esp. film-canisters. Today I cannot even remember the last film canister that I held in my hands. Even more, there are fancy ideas and well designed cache boxes around.

Two examples:You won't have a problem to find this cache box. A large box of app. 70 x 40 x 40 cm, even with humidity control, filled with books to share and swap..

What about this one? Can you spot the cache box?Aha...there it is! Looks like a tiny power distribution...and when you turn it the right direction, a whole opens up, containing a very small logbook.