one of the reasons me buying the giant tcr advanced 2 road bike was all the internal cabling for gears and brakes and the included built-in speed and cadence ANT+ sensor. so being a gadget junkie, it would be a shame if i didn't make use of the built-in sensor. so after doing some research i purchased an iPhone case which includes an ANT+ radio transceiver.
after unmounting the built-in sensor and removing the plastic preventing the battery to make contact and mounting the sensor back on, i gave it a go connecting my transceiver enabled iphone wirelessly with the sensor. and what do you know, it worked the first time. none of the annoying pairing confirming you get with bluetooth enabled devices. it just worked. this means my strava application, besides using gps metrics, now also makes use of the speed and cadence readings from the sensor. too easy!
the case could have a bit of tighter mounting, but so far that has not caused any issues. the fact that the phone is completely covered and that the touch screen is still usable is a big plus. so excuses like it's raining just won't cut it!
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i can't say i did much today. the reason for that was a very thirsty afternoon and evening in perth's cbd yesterday. but considering it rained for most of today, i guess it wasn't that bad staying in. the highlight of the night out was devilles pad, a las vegas style hell themed nightspot in the heart of perth. what a crazy place. the highly entertaining performers of the night were the Western Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra:
As part of our continuing series of concerts celebrating the jazz greats, on the unofficial 60th anniversary of Bossa Nova, WAYJO, with particular charm and natural flair, will perform the new thing at Devilles Pad.
i was starting to feel much better after having some of katrina's delicious cooking though. winners on the menu were the homemade chicken pies and the banana bread. yumm!
letting the cat out of the bag: i have emigrated to perth, australia. my emirates flight EK420 to perth arrived yesterday the 25th of April 2012.
it's been on the cards for a while, even whilst married to paula. however, earlier this year, the so to speak ball really got rolling when i visited perth and thanks to my mates matt and andrew met a few recruiting companies and potential clients. not your typical holiday, it was great interviewing and of course being interviewed by the IT folks in perth. what wasn't easy was doing all of that dressed in a suit and tie whilst one heat wave after the other was causing air conditioning bills soar to new heights. the best part of the suit dressing business was getting out of it and heading to the beach to try and cool down in the indian ocean.
after accepting the job offer, which included the skilled migrant visa sponsorship needed for me to be able to work and live in australia, it was only a matter of almost two months for me to pack up shop in germany, ship the necessary to perth and not forgetting turning up for work on the 30th of April. i was pleasantly surprised how quickly the company sponsorship visa, also known as a visa 457, came through. sure it took me a while to fulfill all visa application requirements, but only a couple of weeks after submitting the application, we received the good-to-go. and that was pretty much the point of no return. after that moment, the packing and shipping chores to perth defaulted to a higher urgency. it kept me busy for most of april and relatively speaking, i didn't have that much packing to do. as for the moment i am not shipping any furniture. for starters i moved in with my good mates matt and katrina. but several boxes are making their way to perth...fingers crossed.
even though i am truly looking forward to my new job (permanent employment... can you believe it), seeing my perth mates frequently and everything else the gorgeous perth has to offer, leaving germany and austria wasn't easy. them mates and my parents and my nan will be dearly missed. but thanks to skype and the occasional decadent emirates flight back to munich, will hopefully ease the longing.
to beat the eventual forgetfulness, i am hoping to document as many initial experiences as possible. they might not come in the form of a blog entry like this one, but certainly as a tweet, a flickr or instagram photo, a foursquare check-in or all of the above aggregated on friendfeed.
how exciting!
a spur of the moment decision and despite the not so ideal weather, my folks and i visited the giselawarte on top of lichtenberg. they claim, and i believe them, that the top of the giselawarte boasts a spectacular view of the surrounding valley followed by the alps on the horizon. due to fog and a partially wet day, we didn't get to see much of that. But it was still worth a visit, the highlight being that we had the monument to ourselves...which for any sightseeing location in the densely populated austria is uncommon. the visit was happily concluded by a hearty lunch at gasthaus zur gis.
spur of the moment pics taken with my mobile phone:
after sharing our enthusiasm about the new mercedes benz look gracing so many of their models, balazs and i spontaneously drove to the impressive show rooms here in münchen to have a closer gander.
i just love the new more mean look. gone are the round headlights (E class), in are the more squarish headlights. what i am really looking forward to is the new c coupe. some serious eye candy i would say!
pics taken with my mobile phone:
we spent the weekend in austria celebrating my dad's upcoming birthday. it was a well chilled weekend, good eating, country side walks, killing of mosquitos, etc...did I mention good eating? what you see my dad eating for dessert is an austrian delikatesse, salzburger nockerl(a meringue-like dish). and yes, he did finnish it.
my toy for the weekend was a racquet like fly swatter. by pressing a button on the handle, a small current flows through the metal mesh. when you hit the insect in mid air, in our case loads of mosquitos, sparks fly resulting in an instant death of the insect. it also becomes a bit of a smelly affair, seeing that the mosquitos physically get roasted!
• view a larger map of the cycling route
life is good, especially when you get an opportunity to cycle in and around münchen. my favourite route at the moment is a 40km stretch from our home down to the starnberger see. there's a load of variety, in terms of uphills, downloads, straights, etc. but also the surroundings: city, forest, farmland, lake etc. even though i'm generally knackered by the time i arrive at starnberg, i still feel a high... a "fully charged batteries" sensation. nevertheless, instead of cycling back home, i take the very convenient train back to münchen.
for the interested, i traced/plotted the cycling route with my over three old mobile phone which has an internal gps receiver (my mio a701). and the tracing/plotting sofware i have installed is noniGPSPlot.
for our summer break, we spent two gorgeous weeks in finland (paula's homeland). it was a casual afair, taking it real easy, eating well, some sight seeing and of course seeing friends and family.our sight seeing trips were mostly day trips but sometimes we couldn't help ourselves staying for more than a day. some of the highlights were the lakes, forests and hotel in asikkala, a relaxing day in muumi land naantali and half a day in tampere. as mentioned, part of our casual being involved taking saunas (when we were lucky to have one at our disposal), good eating and drinking and definitely sleeping in.
i can definitely recommend visiting finland. a word of advice though: in the country side in summer make sure you are well protected against mosquitos. i was bitten 37 times on my feet (ankle downwards) wearing only flip flops, in one afternoon walking in a forest. and i thought africa had loads of mosquitos...not!
i thoroughly enjoyed the spur of the moment cycle trip to starnberg lake. i haven't cycled the roughly 50km route before, but i can asure you, i'll do it again. a fair share of the route is for cyclists and pedestrians only, through a forest reserve. the track goes dead straight for many kilometers, making it real easy to check out the scenery around you.
herzlich willkommen! i'm a german speaking south african currently living and working in munich, germany. i'm a java, grails, groovy software developer and one might notice my site being a bit of a geek's sandpit. feel free to have a gander!
andreas nerlich
software developer
munich, germany
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• Beers by the river (@ The Lucky Shag) http://t.co/d55KKf8d (posted )
• Not quite the München #Oktoberfest but close enough http://t.co/50Q7yGlU (posted )
• At least I didn't have pesky snakes #perth @ Herdsman Lake Wildlife Centre http://t.co/sXGizmGN (posted )
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