finally a blog update

although much in happened the last weeks, i just wasn’t in the mood to write a blog post.

first of all i want to express my deepest condolence to family muggenhummer in grieskirchen. after one month i still can’t believe what happened. i’m so sorry for your loss.

so what happened in the last month since my last blog post?

the absolute highlight of october was our new york trip at the beginning of the month. we flew on thursday the 9th and returned on monday the 13th. on friday we met up with kathi from cbl05, who is doing her internship in canada and was only a 7 hour busride away from ny. we spent a really nice time visiting some of the famous sites in the big apple.

on friday we went to see miss liberty on liberty island, then we took another ferry to ellis island to see the immigration museum. we took a long walk to see wall street, ground zero (or the construction site of world trade center 2012) and a little bit of chinatown. then we went down to time square and spent some time shopping (toys’r’us and virgin megastore ftw!). in the evening we saw the grease musical which was totally full of win. in the evening we went to a bar, drank some pitchers of bud and took the subway to our hostel. the hostel was quite ok, it was only 20$ a night, so the millions of flies in the bathroom and the uncomfortable bedrooms were ok for that low price.

saturday we went up the ‘top of the rock’. 20$ for an elevator ride is a total scam, but the 360 degree view from the top of the rockefeller was just unbelievable. luckily kathi had her camera with her, so we took some pictures. later we went chilling in the central park. in the evening we went to time square and enjoyed food at friday’s (it was worth waiting half an hour for a seat ;)). after a small shopping spree at time square and some pitchers of beer we went back to the hostel.

sunday morning we went to the moma (museum of modern art). i can honestly say that this was the best museum i’ve ever been in. great exhibitions, but unfortunately the photography exhibition was closed for october. we spent about 4 hours in the moma (which was much to short =)).

afterwards we went to see the blue men group. it was a great show, must see when you are in new york!

on monday flo & me drove back to laguardia airport after 3 hours of sleep. after a short flight back to milwaukee (only ~2 hours) we came home totally exhausted and decided to not go to work monday afternoon. we spent monday chilling at home.

it was really a great trip, new york city is really enjoyable as a tourist, but i just couldn’t imagine living there. it’s just far too huge. so i was really glad when we came back to ‘small’ milwaukee. the downtown here seems so cute and tiny after seeing nyc. =)

the rest of the month was unspectacular, but really comfy.

we celebrated helen’s birthday by going to a mexican resteraunt that tom & helen enjoy. had some great food (huge portions) and margaritas.

we got thrown out of the gasthaus because flo passed me a beer. i got thrown out of the red room (a small fun bar near us at humboldt & water) for drinking a coke (!!). i said i’ll drink soda since i’m underage here, and i don’t want any trouble. but the barwoman was a bitch and kicked me out. but apart from these two incidents i was pretty lucky here i guess. there are bars that don’t id me, plus we spent some nice evenings at a place which is rented by four miad (milwaukee institute of art & design) students.

helloween was real fun here in the states. on the weekend before helloween we were carving pumpkins with tom & helen, and afterwards we were waiting for trick & treat-ing children to come around.

on helloween we were invited to a huge helloween party at the miad students’ place. i’ve never seen such a huge party. a really huge amount of people partying hard in a rather small house, everybody dressed up (unbelievable how much effort and money goes into the costumes here), everybody drunk. and we were lucky that there was no problems with the cops (like it can happen on parties of that proportion).

at work everything goes well, we finished our first projects for the open house (which was on the same day as helloween), flo is continuing his work on the flexitutor (his project from the last semester at hagenberg), i’m going to have a meeting with jacques tomorrow, where he will tell me what new features he wants to see in the math flash game (my project from last semester).

ok, now i’ll try to keep the blog more up-to-date, then i won’t have to write such mega-posts like this one =)

karpo

christians on campus and international welcome party

time for my third blog post in the united states =)

work is going great, i’m still doing the pixel artwork for our game, while flo is messing around in after effects (with nice results btw)…

we use our free time to get to know as much as possible of the american way of life, and collect many impressions in the time we’re here…

last week, we had a visit from the “christians” on campus (see flickr photos) which was a funny experience (and pretty schocking at the same time, that closed-minded morons like this still exist)… i had some heated discussions with them until i decided that this is a total waste of my precious time, so i talked a bit to the nice girls from the counter-movement =)

wednesday we finally spent some time on german (or at least bavarian) territory again =) tom took us to the bavarian inn (http://www.bavarianinnmilw.com/), where a jazz big band from hessen (sister-state of wisconsin) played… the music was great, the band members cool and the beer awful (miller lite lol).

on thursday evening we went to the german stammtisch, which is taking place in the ‘von trier’, a bar which is 4 blocks away from us. although nobody from the stammtisch arrived the evening was still full of win, i wasn’t asked for an id so i could drink some good beer (bitburger) again. on this place i just have to mention the friendly attitude of the americans again: when they hear some1 speaking german, they immediately come over and start a conversation…

on friday we encountered that kindlyness again… professor (and former dean of the sois) mohammed aman asked us, if we could help his wife with an indesign problem… we agreed and around noon he took us to his home, which is about 20 min north of milwaukee… we helped his wife (she is publishing her husbands articles in bookform) which took about 10 min. for this short work time mohammed bought us delicious jimmy johns sandwiches for dinner and we spent some time chatting with him and his nice wife. it turned out that they have 2 unused bikes in the garage, and before leaving, they decided that we should take and use those bikes until we leave in december. i wish ppl in europe would behave as friendly and helpful as here.

on saturday tom and helen had their annual international students welcome party. we helped helen with cooking the chili and cleaning the house and had some chili+beer breakfast. at about 2pm the students from all regions of the world (germany, sweden, japan, korea, mexico, …) started to arrive and we had a great time with them. in the evening we joined some of them in the gasthaus (student’s pub in the basement of the university) and had some fun (drinking games ftw).

while i was sleeping saturday’s condition off on sunday, flo and tom were pretty productive, they took a look at the bikes and adjusted brakes and stuff… when i got up we took one of the wheels to the bikeshop to straighten it out and bought locks.

in the evening we watched the sunday live packers game against the dallas cowboys. it was a deserved win for the cowboys…

i’m sitting in our office atm and shifting pixels again =)

karpo

day 13 in the u.s.

it’s our second week in milwaukee already, we get more and more impressions from the united states, as said in my last blogpost most of them are very positive =)

on saturday we went to our first ‘block party’, which was organized by the catholic church a block away from where we live… after sleeping long we went shopping nearby, tom told us about a skateshop some blocks away, so we decided to check it out. we bought some shirts and jeans (it’s true that the clothing in the u.s. is extremely cheap compared to europe) and (happy with our purchases) we sat down on our terrace and had the great idea of drinking one or two beers before going down to the block party and eating something. we spent our whole afternoon chilling on the terrace and drinking “one or two beers” (the 2 crates of miller we bought vanished pretty fast). at 7pm we went down to the block party with tom and helen, where we had some more beer and burgers. from what i remember i liked the church party very much, it was nothing like the “bierzelt festln” in austria, where some drunk farmers listen to other drunk farmers playing farmer tunes or awful cover songs. the people were nice (mostly people from the neighborhood, but only a few young ones) and the music was great, it was an older guy from milwaukee (pretty well known here btw) playing blues with his band. i forgot his name unfortunately.

on sunday we had to fight with a strong hangover, so we decided to drop in at mc donalds for a fast food breakfast (mc donalds burgers taste better in usa, especially when one’s drunk). we spent the rest of sunday relaxing at home, at noon we watched the green bay packers play against the detroit lions (green bay packers = epic win). later the son of tom and helen came to dinner with his girlfriend and we spent a nice evening eating helen’s meatball spaghetti (delicious as always) and chatting.

on monday we had a meeting with the school’s marketing team and presented them our ideas concerning the open day (equivalent to our “tag der offenen tuer” in hagenberg). we’ll be working on a non-interactive presentation, which will be shown on huge screens, and we’ll be developing a game in which the visitors will get to know the school of information studies and the courses offered. while flo is playing around with after effects, i started doing the artwork for the game (the game will be held in old videogame-like graphics)…

ok, i think i summarized the last days pretty well, now im going back to my pixelart =)

karpo

cd /usa/wi/milwaukee

i finished my summer internship at illustree in the end of august. it’s been some rough weeks and i was pretty exhausted in the end… i’m still extremely glad i did this awesome experience, the work was great and i’m kinda sad that it’s over already…

afterwards i spent some time with friends and family in austria and started preparing myself for the trip to wisconsin (visited doctors, bought a new suitcase, etc.). on wednesday flo came to grieskirchen, so we could leave early the next day. my dad brought us to the airport in munich at 8am, where our trip to chicago started. the flight (through copenhagen) went good, except for a random body check i got into in denmark. they brought me in a room, x-rayed my shoes and kept asking me if i am transporting any fish. whatever.

we got to chicago at about 5pm (midnight in “normal” time). after passing the american border, where we had to fill out our names, passport numbers, visa numbers, etc. for the 100th time. at least now i know how to spell “karpowicz” correctly. from the o’hare international airport we took the coach usa bus to wisconsin. tom, our landlord, got us at the amtrak station in milwaukee and took us for a short car trip through the inner city. after 22h of traveling we finally arrived at tom’s house (a 100 year old victorian style house) and drank a beer with him and his wife helen. we fell asleep quickly (we haven’t had any sleep in the plane).

we spent our first morning in the united states by eating helen’s delicious chili for breakfast (she has 1337 cooking skills). afterwards we went to the pick’n’save to do some shopping and were surprised by the range of snacks they have… 50 meters of snacks and various tortilla dips… and everything is so huge =)

after a visit at a liquor store, where we equipped ourselves with plenty of “milwaukee’s best” and “pabst: blue ribbon”, we spent some time chillin on the terrace at home. we also made a long walk through milwaukee and got to know beautiful bradford beach (which btw is only 10 minutes from home).

on saturday we made another car trip with tom and went to the indian summer festival afterwards (http://www.indiansummer.org/). it was pretty nice, although i found it a bit kitschy. anyway, the festival grounds in milwaukee are awesome and we’re sad that it was the last festival this year. we went downtown and were at a mall (where i couldn’t resist buying a nintendo ds ^^).

on sunday we were too exhausted from the 20+ miles we ran around in the first days, so we just went down to the beach to chill. great weather, and the water was not that cold for september =) on the afternoon tom showed us the north and east of milwaukee and took us to “kopp’s” where we ate ice cream (delicious, but as everything in the u.s. it was huge) and (also huge) burgers. we went to bed early to be fit for our first day at work.

the next morning we went to the university. of course we had to fill out immigration forms _again_… so not only the food is huge in the u.s. but also the bureaucratic machine…

we got to know the faculty and staff we’ll be working with, everyone is extremely nice, so flo and me feel very well here =) we got assigned our office (michael fruehmann’s old office in fact) and started tidying it up and setting up computers for us to work. i’ll post pics of our office asap =) in the evening we watched our first NFL game with tom, who explained us the rules, and helen, who made another great meal… it was a great evening and an awesome game (green bay packers = win).

i’m sitting in our offices atm, we haven’t got a specific project to work on yet, but we got some time to set up our pcs and live ourselves in.

our general impression of the united states is very positive: we’re extremely happy with the place to stay michael found for us (thanks again), tom and helen are great people and we already feel at home at their place.

the people we are meeting at the university (staff & students) or at shops are much friendlier than ppl are in most places in europe. milwaukee itself is very beautiful, i’m constantly trying to save that beauty in photographs =). the only thing annoying us is the fast food (and very expensive healthy food)… we can’t imagine eating at burger king etc. each day…

sorry to every1 that i didn’t answer msgs / mails often in the last weeks, it’s been a stressful time =)

btw: flo and me started uploading our pictures on my flickr account, there should be a way to embed it in wordpress.

karpo

trace(“hello world”);

following the general trend in kwm06 (my course of studies) i decided to start a blog too. damn peer pressure ^^

i’m currently residing in vienna, working for ILLUSTREE – Digitale Kommunikation (see illustree.at for more) as developer trainee. i can look back at 5 weeks full of developing, sleeping and developing. it’s great at ILLUSTREE, the tasks are challenging, the working atmosphere is great and i’m gaining lots of experience concerning actionscript / flash.

besides, living in vienna is ‘ur-leiwand’.

btw: great news about my internship in milwaukee, wisconsin: flo and me got our visas last week and finally booked our flights (we’ll be leaving beautiful austria on 4th september). we’re both looking forward to the internship (after filling out plenty of bureaucratic paperwork), i’ll post pics when we get there.

karpo