A little music

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Berlin TV Tower

Yesterday I was in the clouds, almost... I visited the Berlin TV Tower so I was at almost 204 meters from the ground, 203,78 to be exact :)

We had to wait about one hour after we bough the tickets so we walked around the Christmas market (Weihnachtsmarkt) in Alexanderplatz.

A few pictures from above:

And a few pictures from the night:

All the pictures here.

The first real snow in Berlin

Today when I woke up everything was white. And it kept snowing almost all day. It was a lot of fun riding the bike today :D

Here is the snow from my office window:

This is my bike covered with snow:

There is a lot of snow on the street:

Smoking tires

Last weekend I was home again. I wanted to film the smoking tires of the aircraft when it hits the ground and I was lucky to sit in the back of the plain so I could make a short movie:

Clever bike lock

Eat your ride

Opencart - my choice for a shop on the web

It's been a while since my last tech post... I enjoy my work but usually it's just work and not always you get to do something that you really like. But sometimes I get to do something very interesting and than I can call my work a hobby.

My new hobby is called OpenCart. Yes, I like open source and I try to use open source as much as I can. I understand that you have to pay sometimes for software but I don't understand why you have to pay hundreds of dollars or euros for some software that you just use sometimes because you have to. And yes it is ok to pay for software if you make money using it. So this is why I will ask for some money for what I'm working on.

So you ask what am I working on... I am developing filtering options for OpenCart. If you take a look at this great shopping cart you can observe that it is a great software but it lacks some filters. So I'm developing some filters for this cart, some filters that can be fully customized. You can choose the filters for your product and you can even choose for which category to display filters.

I like OpenCart because it is open source, it is mvc and it doesn't use any templating language (like smarty).

I hope I can finish this project next week and than I will try to make an install version. I was thinking that I will ask for about 5 euros for this extensions and donate at least half of it to OpenCart :)

Danny MacAskill - "Way Back Home"

Via @lancearmstrong

Berlin Sea Life

Last Saturday I went to so some fishes. I visited the Sea Life in Berlin. There were a lot of interesting species but I liked especially the design of every aquarium, they tried to make them very similar to the animals real habitat.

Some pictures:

All the pictures here.

I liked very much the  AquaDom, the world's largest cylindrical aquarium. It has 1 million litres of water and it is 25 meters high. I've made this short movie from the elevator inside the aquarium:

The Berlin Cathedral

Berlin Cathedral (German: Berliner Dom) is the colloquial name for the Evangelical Oberpfarr- und Domkirche (English analogously: Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church) in Berlin, Germany.

Last Sunday I went to see this church. I wasn't expecting much, I tough it will be just a church. But I was wrong, it's actually a church, a museum and you can even take a walk on the top of the church and see the whole city. The entrance fee was only 5 euros and there was no line :D

Here are some pictures from the church:

Some pics from the museum:

A few pics from the top:

All the pictures here.

The parliament from Berlin

Last week I visited the parliament from Berlin. On the way there I saw a demonstration, yes even in the rich countries the people go out to the street :)

After waiting for for one and a half hour in the cold I got in.

I had to wait a lot but at least it was free and the glass dome on the top was very impressive.It was very cool to see the town and they even gave us audio guides. Here are some pics:

the Hungarian frag above Berlin :)

Brandenburg Gate

the TV tower

All the pics here.

Tricks from Senegal

Via freerider.ro.

A few bike pics

food bike

 

At home

Last Friday I flew home for the weekend. Monday morning, before the flight back I went out for a ride. I like to ride in autumn because I like those beautiful colors.

The forest was a little sad but the weather was nice. It was a nice test ride, I was testing my post season legs, I had a very long break, about a month since the last ride and I was testing my new tires also.

At the last race I destroyed my Race Kings (the post about the last race is coming soon) and I had a set of Town and Country under the bed. I wanted to bring the bike to Berlin so I thought it would be a good choice especially that I wanted to bring the trainer to.

They are pretty good tires. If you need a tire that is good on the tarmac (this is very fast) and sometimes you want to go in the fores this is a good choice. I slipped a few times but the tires helped a lot and I didn't fell. What I don't like about these tires is the comfort. I don't think that I will buy a new set after this one. The Race King is more comfortable and it is very fast on the road and pretty good in off road. I think that the main difference is that the Town and Country is more durable than the Race King.

This was the first time in the forest after my bike had a little upgrade. I had to change the cassette and the chain because it had over 6000 km and the chain started to jump. I also had to change the middle chainring and the rear hub. The Cassette is XT and the chain is XTR. After the first pedals I could feel the difference, before I had Deore :)

PS: If somebody says that the bike makes only your legs stronger is a liar because all my muscles area little stiff now :)

Miniland Berlin in the Dark - video

When I visited Legoland I've made a few videos about the Berlin Miniland:

Legoland

Last Sunday I visited the Legoland from Berlin. When I was a kid I liked very much to play with Lego. I enjoyed especially the Technic Lego.

Legoland is a very fun place to visit especially for kids and for those who love these bricks. My favorite part was the Berlin Miniland:

Other Lego creations:

All the pictures here.