ivy’s page

Yesterday, my age flipped a new bit. Let’s hope it isn’t the Bozo bit

Finally the water outside has frozen again. It seems like everybody has gone out on skates .

I enjoyed the space lego I had as a kid. The company used to claim you could build anything. There are many examples on the net of advanced lego techniques but I particularly likethis one…

One of the great achievements of google; now I know one can actually qualify for a Bosloper degree. Looks like quite a challenge as well:

(15) Must have hunted for and killed at least one game or fur animal with a muzzleloading firearm or primitive bow and must have used the skin and/or meat for food, clothing and/or accoutrements. The hunt must be made from a strictly primitive camp, the hunt accomplished under primitive conditions within the limits of local game laws.

Sounds like an interesting holiday occupation

Yep, I’ll be traveling the next few days. Between the 4th till the 6th of november, I’ll visit the statue of liberty . Then I’ll be joining the WICSA 2005 conference in Pittsburgh for a few days . With only two days in between I’ll be off to Växjö (Vaxjo) for the ECOWS 2005 conference. I’ll try to get some pictures on the net, network connectivity permitting.

This sunday I attended the soccer match of FC Groningen playing against Ado Den Haag. I’m not a frequent visitor (once every two years), but everytime I think it’s an impressive organisation: lot’s of people, police, stewards, catering (never saw so many snackbars in a row), players, and all the entertainment around it; quite a spectacle actually. Living very near to the Stadion (300 m), usually every match is announced by my street being completely overparked; during the game I’m kept informed of the score by the audience (yelling means a goal for the home club, relative quietness means that it’s not going well), and when the fans pick up their car again, their expression tells it all.

During and around the game, there’s lots of things to see. The stadion really is in a detoriated state; lot’s of grafity and it’s completely covered with green, dirty stuff. The good news is that it only has to last for another six matches before it is put out of use (a new stadion will be ready shortly). I imagine this is the regular sunday afternoon occupation for most people around here. And the crowd is very diverse; elderly, youth, fathers with their little children all dressed up in the club colours, hooligans, and everything in between.

The experience of attending a game is different from watching it on television. Standing in an enthousiastic, concerned crowd makes it a happening. I’m always glad to take a friend that is knowledgable in the soccer area; otherwise lots off the subtilities of what’s going on would get lost. It does feel a bit strange that there’s no replay after a goal, feels like something’s missing in real life

Anyway, ‘we’ won the match with a 3-1 score.

I always like the atmosphere at the Noorderzon festival (when it’s not raining ). A nicely mixed audience is watching a broad variety of people perform arts, music and theater. Amateurs or semi-professionals pop up everywhere in the park to break-dance, perform some magic show or play on their instruments.

The Cirque Ici show I attended was, although it’s hard to describe what actually happened, very impressive. Strange devices, a marvelous show, and a guy with concentration and muscular control abilities I’ve never seen before. I think the program description tried to do it nicely:

Cirque Ici is a remarkable circus built around the extraordinary performance abilities of just one performer, Johann le Guillerm. With musical environments created by two electronic musicians, a range of machines invented specially for the performance by Johann le Guillerm himself, home-made low-tech lighting, breath-taking agility, and a broader range of performance skills than any one man should normally possess, the performance speaks of consummate creativity and extreme virtuosity.

Definitely a recommendation!