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Pittsburgh Steelers live!
Yep, that's me at a game fo the Pittsburgh Steelers holding a Terrible Towel! I was lucky enough to convince my parents and friends to attend the third pre-season game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buffalo Bills, for which I got discounted "second-hand" tickets. It was a really cool experience and as I heard the best of all pre-season games to attend, since the A-Team of the Steelers played for the full first half. And it showed, the second quarter the Steelers pulled all the tricks, steamrolled the Bills and scored seventeen points, six of them after a touch-down following an interecepted pass. In the second half of the game no more points were scored but we still saw some interesting plays and had a wonderful time. I was really glad that I got this opportunity to see the Steelers play at Heinz Field :)Labels: Fun, games, pictures, pittsburgh
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A year ends...
Last weekend marked the end of our Masters in Information Technology in eBusiness Technology program. It was a long last week, first we gave a presentation to our customer, who was thrilled and dazzled by our work, then we had several late nights to prepare for the final presentation to a panel of judges, which we had on Friday.
We didn’t win the grand price, but we were very happy with our presentation and are certain that we came in a close second. After the presentation our client took us to Dave and Busters for a night of fine food and games. At the end he surprised us with a gift certificate, because he felt we really deserved a price. And this meant much more to us than if we had wooed the judges into awarding us the grand price. After all we had been working nine weeks for our customer and not for the judges.
Saturday night, my family and friends had a very nice dinner in the Tin Angel Restaurant on Mount Washington. The five course menu, actually a four course menu with a tiny bite of melon at the end, was really good, especially the main course. In addition we were fortunate enough that it was a nice and clear night offering us beautiful views of Downtown.
On Sunday our program had its very own graduation ceremony. We all got to wear the classic academic regalia (cap, gown and hood) and could walk the stage to receive a piece of paper (our diplomas won’t be ready till October). It was a very nice experience and at the end we of course had to throw our hats into the air ;).
This concludes my adventures with the MSIT eBusiness Technology Program. I made some great friends, lived through challenging but also interesting times both on- and off-campus (Steelers winning the Super Bowl and Penguins winning the Stanley Cup in the same year!) and I wouldn’t want to miss a minute of it.Labels: cmu, Master, pittsburgh, usa
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Painting The Fence at Carnegie Mellon University
One of the most intriguing and fascinating traditions at Carnegie Mellon University is painting The Fence. The Fence is located in the middle of the cut (basically the center of the main campus) and is a highly visible landmark on campus. Student groups are allowed to paint the Fence only during the time between midnight and sunrise and only using regular paint and regular brushes (if you use spray paint, you'll get cited for vandalism!). As long as two people are stationed at the Fence, no one is allowed to change it's message and thus one regularly sees tents around the Fence while school is on. Fortunately, in summer everything is a bit quieter and we did not have to fight for it and could pick a day with perfect weather.
We decided to dedicate the Fence to the practicum of our MSIT ebiz Program and could persuade our client to sponsor the paint and brushes.
And so we met yesterday at midnight to start this project. Painting the groundwork was very fast, with five people and five big brushes we finished in under an hour. But once the color started to dry we spotted many places where we needed to add a second layer. Once everything looked good and the paint was sufficiently dry we started applying our message. This was more difficult than expected. For once we only had one small and one medium brush available, so only two people could write at a time. Another issue was that with the ongoing night, we did a couple of spelling mistakes, which threw us back a bit, since we had to recolor the section and wait till it dried again. We completed the final touches at 4.45am, much later than we expected. But we were incredibly happy with the outcome. The orange ground color looked fantastic against the green grass background.
More pictures in my picasa library.
PS: Since we did not find any information about supplies needed to paint the fence, I wanted to share this with you. We used:- 2 gallons of ground color
- ~1/4 gallon of writing color
- 5 big brushes (4 inch) for the background color.
- 1 medium brush (2 inch) for the letters on the pillar. [this was not enough. Would suggest 2 to 3 of those]
- 1 small brush (1 inch) for letters on rest of the fence. [this was not enough. Would suggest 4 to 5 of those]
- 1 roll of masking tape for straight letters on the pillar
These numbers heavily depend on the number of helpers you can organize. But we could have saved a lot of time if we had more small brushes for writing.Labels: cmu, Master, pictures, pittsburgh, university, usa
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Video Games Live!
Yesterday was a very special performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra: Video Games Live! is a celebration of video games music, where the orchestra and choir are supported by synchronized clips from the games and light and laser effects. In addition to the concert there was a guitar hero contest, a costume contest and a price drawing.
Of course I had to go dressed as Rincewind, after all he was featured in a couple of video games as well, and the reactions were very positive. A couple of people got the reference and were thrilled to peaces! Quote from a random guy I met on CMU campus: "Whoever you are, you are awesome!" *g*
As part of the costume contest we could go backstage and then on-stage for the votes. A guy dressed up as the main character of God of War (a really detailed costume!) won the contest.
The concert was awesome and the videoclips very funny. The most amazing thing were the performances of Martin Leung on piano, playing Super Mario and a Final Fantasy Medley, his fingers are so unbelievably fast!
Unfortunately, it looked like they did not get permission from Squaresoft for images from their games, and so even though we heard music from Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Chrono Trigger / Chrono Cross, we couldn't get the visual impression from those games. But overall this was a minor point.
If this show comes close to you, don't hesitate and go see it!Labels: Concert, games, Music, pictures, pittsburgh, rincewind, usa
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Kennywood
America celebrated Memorial Day last Monday and I got to enjoy a nice day out :). The weather was nice and warm, perfect to visit Kennywood, Pittsburgh's own amusement park.
What makes Kennywood special are not spectacular and thrilling roller coasters, even though The Phantom Menace, is quite cool and thrilling, but it's well preserved and still functioning rides from the 1930's and 1940's. Some of which are the last of their kind still in operation anywhere in the world!
The Kangaroo from 1927:
Another thing that made my trip to Kennywood memorable were the short lines, there were a fair amount of people in the park, but there was hardly a line longer than 10 minutes, and the water on the water rides. First I went on the Log Jam, which is a traditional log ride where I stayed quite dry, then I tried the Pittsburgh Plunge, a short ride in a bigger boat seating 20 people, that boat displaced so much water that the wave partially collapsed over us and we got quite wet. Finally I visited The Raging Rapids, a wild river ride, there we passed right under a waterfall and I was wet to my undergarments... Fortunately it was sunny and warm and after a couple of hours my trousers were dry again :).
All in all an enjoyable day out!Labels: amusement park, pictures, pittsburgh, usa
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Fake Cordon Bleu
Recently a new restaurant opened in Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Hofbräuhaus. It is related to the Hofbräuhaus in Munich and boasts real German food, beer and atmosphere. When I studied the menu I was immediately drawn to the Cordon Bleu, one of my favorite dishes.
Today, I accompanied Guido and a couple of friends to the Hofbräuhaus to celebrate the end of classes for the Spring semester. Of course I ordered the Cordon Bleu. When it arrived I was rather disappointed:
The ham and cheese was on top instead of inside the Schnitzel... It still tasted good but it just wasn't the same. The one thing that positively surprised me though was the German potato salad. It was awesome!
Overall it's a nice place with good food and good atmosphere, if you sit outside that is, unless you really like German Octoberfest entertainment, then you can sit inside as well ;).Labels: Food, pictures, pittsburgh
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Winter in Pittsburgh
Guido wrote a very poignant post about winter in Pittsburgh, here is a short excerpt:
"For the most time the temperature during the Pittsburgh winter is below 0 degree Celsius. Sometimes it was below 10 degree Celsius for weeks.
The coldest day this winter was -22 degree Celsius." Read the full post on Guido's blog.Labels: pittsburgh, usa
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A hint of Switzerland in Pittsburgh
We had a small Swiss Cheese Fondue tonight at Guido's Place and celebrated this Swiss winter dish in snowy and cold Pittsburgh.Labels: Food, pictures, pittsburgh, Switzerland
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Coraline 3D
After realizing that the 3D version of Coraline was shown in cinemas close to Pittsburgh I quickly checked my schedule and freed up room to see this version of the film as well.That's me in the cinema with the "cool" 3D glasses ;).
The 3D technology was very impressive, especially because it wasn't used for showy effects but rather subtly to give the movie more depth and emotion. I preferred the 3D version to the regular print and you should definitely check it out, if you have the opportunity.
A word of warning for everyone using Google to look up show times, enter "Coraline 3D", otherwise only 2D screenings will be shown in the results list. That's why I originally thought the movie wasn't shown in 3D in Pittsburgh.Labels: movie, pictures, pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh Unhinged
My return from Boston, more about that later, coincided with the win of the Superbowl by the Pittsburgh Steelers. The trip from the airport by bus was very interesting, because all of Downtown and large parts of Forbes Avenue (one of the main connections between Downtown and Oakland) was blocked off, so the Bus had to make a detour to Squirrel Hill (which is the suburb after Oakland, away from Downtown). When the bus finally got back on the route, we saw thousands of people congregated in the streets, wearing Steelers gear, waving the Terrible Towel, lighting fireworks and apparently having a good time. We also saw heavy police presence, some even in riot gear, firefighters and a couple of helicopters. Walking back home I was glad to have my yellow scarf with me, so I could blend into the crowd... ;)Labels: pittsburgh, usa
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Celebrate the Seasons Parade & some more gaming
To start off the Holiday season Pittsburgh celebrated it's annual "Celebrate The Seasons" Parade downtown. Only having seen such events in movies, inspired me to check it out in person ^^.
The parade was quite entertaining, even though there were many high school marching bands and a lot of local "celebrities". The only annoyance was that they regularly stopped for five minutes to give the TV stations time to show commercials during their live reports.
Even though it is Thanksgiving Weekend, there were still around twelve people at the CMU gaming club, which gave me the opportunity to play a couple of games:
- Ticket to Ride Europe: A short strategy game where every player tries to build train lines to fulfill his tickets.
- Nuclear War: The name says it all. A game where the players fight a nuclear war against each other. Fortunately, it is kept inquite light and thus is very entertaining, however, it heavily depends on luck when drawing cards.
- Tichu: Still a classic, still a fun game to play.
- http://boardgamegeek.com/game/36218: This time we played my copy and I actually managed to win two times (once tied for first place).
Unfortunately, everyone seemed to be heavily biased against Munchkin so my copy of Munchkin Quest was not played...Labels: games, pittsburgh
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Spamalot - The Musical
Today is Thanksgiving the day every American spends with his family eating too much food and watching football on TV. Every American? Not quite, a fair number of people found their way downtown Pittsburgh to watch Spamalot The Musical.
Spamalot is mainly inspired by Monty Python and the Holy Grail but liberally borrows from other Python classics such as Life of Brian. All in all it works fantastically well and is a riot to observe. We were laughing so hard my cheek muscles started to ache ;).
Some merchandise for the show was also sold on location and since I noticed getting cold feet recently I got these...The Rabbit with Pointy Teeth Slippers or better known as "The Killer Rabbit Slippers" :)Labels: Fun, Music, pittsburgh
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Zack and Miri Make a Porno
After discovering that "Zack and Miri Make a Porno", the new Kevin Smith movie opened Halloween weekend, it was clear I had to see it! After all Dogma is still one of my favorite movies of all times!
Zack and Miri have been good friends (and nothing more) since high-school, sharing the same apartment without major problems until their utilities get disconnected. Now they need to get money quick or end up on the street in the deepest winter. A porno seems to be an easy way to achieve that and so they start looking for actors, producers and a location. But their problems are just about to start...
Overall an entertaining movie, which doesn't quite reach the brilliance of some of Kevin Smith's other projects. What made this movie more relevant to me was the fact that it played in Pittsburgh and it's suburb Monroeville. So it was quite funny to see local "landmarks" such as Pittsburgh Steelers and Pengiuns fans, Downtown and the amount of snow I can expect in winter ;).
If you see the movie, stay seated during the end credits because there's a cool "infomercial" placed in the middle.Labels: movie, pittsburgh
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Radio and Juliet: Culture in Pittsburgh
Currently the Pittsburgh Festival of Firsts is going on and so I went with a couple of classmates to see the US Premiere of Radio and Juliet. This is a modern ballet inspired by Romeo and Juliet and set to music from Radiohead. It was a very interesting event with superb performances by the dancers and poetic movie scenes shown from time to time. I have to admit, however, that I couldn't follow all the developments on stage. Nevertheless I enjoyed the performance :)Labels: culture, pittsburgh
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250 Years of Pittsburgh on a Saturday
Yesterday was the big celebration day of Pittsburgh 250th Birthday with lots of events all day long.
The thing that caught my eye first when I arrived at Point State Park was the pink water in the fountain!
But after the initial shock, I started taking in the other sights, such as the old paddle steamers and historical re-enacters ranging from 1750 to 1820.
Also interesting was the historical flag ceremony hosted by the Eagle Scouts of Pittsburgh.
Since it was Saturday I wanted to get back to CMU to join the Game Club ^^. This time I played the following games:
- Euphrat & Tigris: A tactical game where players try to control kingdoms in one of four aspects (religion, trading, farming and government) collecting victory points. The game offers a lot of depth and is very interesting to play.
- Kingsburg: An interesting game where the player tries to influence people in the Kings court in exchange for favors (resources, victory points, battle strength). These resources can then be used to build buildings which in turn offer various advantages. The game runs over five years where every year has three productive seasons which lead up to an attack by monsters in winter time. A very cool game which can be a bit dependent on dice luck.
- Samurai: Is set in medieval Japan where players try to take control of cities to gain figures. The game is pretty quick but offers a lot of food for thought to find the right tactic. Interesting.
- Transamerica about which I've blogged before.
And still there are many games at the game club which I haven't tried yet, so I'll keep you posted :)Labels: games, pictures, pittsburgh
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Free Music, Games & Baseball
The Rib Fest took place at Heinz Field this weekend, and in addition to Ribs there were also free concerts. A good reason for Guido and me to check this out ;). The Rib Fest was very special, there were half a dozen booths selling ribs and all of them were decorated with the various awards this group has won so far! But I have to admit, the ribs were indeed very good! (Guido agrees ^^)
Since we were there on Friday, we got to see concerts by Tres Lads and The Clarks, Pittsburgh's famous rock group. Tres Lads played mostly 80s rock cover songs and The Clarks played easy-listening rock. All in all an entertaining evening, but not worth running to the next CD store ;).
Saturday I joined the CMU Gaming Club for another round of new games. This time the turnout was much higher and we got started playing straight away.
I played
- Coloretto: a bluff card game where you have to try to collect cards of the same color, but you'll only get bonus points from those three colors of which you have the most cards. Easy to learn, fast to play, fun!
- Catan Dice Game: A mixture between Settlers of Catan and Yahtzee. A fair mixture of luck and planning ahead are required, but it's fast to play and easy to take along, so that's a plus there :).
- Bohnanza: A card game where the players have to plant beans and trade with other players to maximize their profit. I've played this game many times back home and it's great fun every time :)
- Poison: A card game where you have to try to either take no potion cards or as many as possible of one color, but beware, there are poisons around and they always count against you. Another fast and fun game with lots of tactical deliberations.
- Mü & more: A complex trick tacking card game which I didn't get to play for long, because I had other obligations, but it looked pretty intriguing.
I left the CMU Gaming Club early, because Guido invited me to a Pirates Baseball Game. It was quite a lot of fun especially the Mexican Wave, but I'll let Guido write about this adventure.Labels: Fun, Music, pittsburgh
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Classes and Activities
Yesterday I had my first "real" class, i.e. a class which is lecture based and visited by students from various programs. The class is called "Social Web: Content, Communities and Context" and analyses how social online communities function, what works and what fails in these environments and the social implications of spending part of ones live online. One of the homework assignments will be playing World of Warcraft ;).
Because all day studying and learning leads to an unbalanced live, I decided to join the Western African Dance class. The session lasted 75 minutes and was a lot of fun, very exhausting and extremely painful for the feet (I had huge blisters afterwards), but after a couple of times my feet will surely get used to this torture ^^.
This morning my final new class started. "The Law of Computer Technology" looks at the US judicial system and analyzes computer related topics such as copyright infringement, patents and much more. Definitely a more "serious" class, but certainly very interesting.
That's it for the moment. Gotta go home and check if the gas (for cooking) is finally running...Labels: cmu, Master, pittsburgh
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First Day of School
Today was my first day of School! We started at 8am with a 2.5 hour Kick-Off Session for our first task (that's 2.5 hours without breaks, guys!!!). Afterwards we tried to get our team organized and start figuring out what to do.
In the afternoon the (Wireless) Network started to behave strangely, we regularly lost connection to the Net (even though the radio connection was still strong). Apparently there were some problems in the main network with power outages throughout the morning (fortunately not in our buildings). So, it was the first day of School and almost nothing was working, a good sign? ;)
Anyways, I'm just wrapping up for tonight and wanted to give a quick sign of life before I get completely buried in work...Labels: cmu, pittsburgh
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The Great Buck Howard Pre-Screening
After exiting the cinema after seeing Tropic Thunder last Friday, we were handed an invitation for a pre-screening of The Great Buck Howard. Since I've never been part of such an event in Switzerland I definitely had to check it out.
So Guido and I returned to the Loew Waterfront cinema yesterday to see what would happen. When we arrived there was already a queue of about 40 people, but we saw that the cinema was big enough to seat even more people. The first thing we had to do was disclose our age, so that they could get an overview about the demographics of the audience. Next people were being let into the cinema and assigned seats. Just when we were about to enter the line was stopped to allow the others find their seats. When the facilitator returned he asked us if we would mind assisting him for a couple of minutes, in exchange he promised us prime seats. We were very intrigued and of course agreed immediately.
We (Guido, I and 10 other people) were then led to a saloon room on the second floor where we could give feedback on six different possibilities for the movie poster. This session was very interesting and it was amazing to see the different concepts. At the end we were almost unanimous about which poster we liked best.
Then we could take our seats in the front row of the dais. The Great Buck Howard is the story of the Great Buck Howard, a mentalist/magician who has been on the road for decades but has recently lost the link to the new generation, and Troy Gabel, a would be writer who gave up law-school and now works as Buck's road manager to earn his keep. The opening of the movie is very cool, with different texts appearing next to people on screen, but did remind me of the Bedazzled remake with Liz Hurley. After the funny start movie slows down a bit to introduce the main characters and Buck's show. On the road Troy soon discovers that Buck has a better image of himself than anyone around him and so he plays half empty theaters in the middle of nowhere as if they were packed houses in a big city. But then they get to Cincinnati and everything changes.
The Great Buck Howard is a very entertaining movie. Even though it is labeled as a Comedy, the human drama and interaction is more important and laugh-out loud moments are rare. The ending is a bit abrupt, because even the story of Buck Howard is well rounded, many questions are left unanswered regarding the fate of Troy Gabel. This and the fact that the movie dragged a bit in places lead to me rating this movie 4/5.
We didn't get to see the end credits, because as soon as the movie was over the light came on and we were handed a feedback form, which wanted our detailed impression on the movie. After completing the form most people could leave the cinema. We were asked to remain behind for a more in-depth feedback round. During the next 20 minutes we discussed the movie and its implications. At the end of the session we were again presented with the six posters we already saw at the beginning. Interestingly, the poster we initially selected was no longer our favorite, instead we picked another one which we thought more fitting to the movie.
All in all it was a very interesting evening and I was glad I took the chance to see this movie (and this pre-screening process) :)Labels: movie, pittsburgh
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International and Graduate Student Orientation @ CMU
Last week featured my first official day at CMU. On Tuesday, 12th of August the International Graduate Student Orientation took place. Next to an overflow of information about CMU and living in Pittsburgh, we also received information about our Immigration status and how our Visa affects our stay in the US. In the afternoon we then had the opportunity to complete the registration process with the OIE (Office for International Education) which validated our Visas. Now we are allowed to travel outside of the US and return again :).
The next couple of days the information overload continued with sessions directed at all Graduate Students we learned everything we need to know to get around CMU :).Labels: cmu, pittsburgh, usa
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