Music in general; the older I get, the less pop and rock music and the more jazz and in particular classical music I hear. J. S. Bach and Mozart are the only two geniuses in music, says dutch author Marten t'Haart, and I think his view has some merit. Berlin Philharmonics' solo flutist Emmanuel Pahud has recorded a wonderful CD with Bach pieces (B000055WFG). I saw him June 2006 with the Berlin Philharmonics playing Carl Nielsen's flute concerto.
For some time I tried learning to play the flute myself, but I quit lessons after two years because I could no longer find the time for regular practice. It has become rare that I get around to play some flute again, but when I do, J. S. Bach's Sarabande from the partita for solo flute in a minor and the oboe part of the Sinfonia from the Cantata BWV 156 belong to my favourites. An interesting web site about flute playing is here, thanks to Larry Krantz.
A few years ago I began to learn Italian. I had been in Italy before only for two very short visits, but I was immediately enthusiastic about this language. The enthusiams faded, again due to a lack of time. But at least I managed to visit Rome together with my neighbor, who took the Italian lessons with me. (Rome 2001)
Quite a few new things in 2008: After numerous vacations in spanish-speaking countries, my wife and I started to learn Spanish beginning January with the first community college course. We definitely intend to continue that next year.
In April I started learning to play piano. My teacher moved away in between, so I'll have to look for a new one; meanwhile I try to practice on my own on my shiny new digital piano (a Roland FP-7). My idol is Gabriela Montero, who is not only one of the finer Bach pianists, but also fascinates her audience with her improvisations.
And in May we finally started playing golf. A crash course earned us our proficiency certificate ("Platzreife"). Two additional courses in November helped us to improve our skills, but not our handicaps yet.
In a blog on Dreamwidth I occasionally write something about books I have read, technical stuff (IPv6 at home, for instance), and a few other things.
Some people are amused by my frequent use of dictionaries, but I find language an extremely fascinating topic. I mainly use "Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache" (Duden Verlag) for German and the "New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" (Clarendon Press) for English. I still need a good american dictionary. "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker was the single most interesting book on language I found so far. (Jutta Degener made me read this book.)
My collection of pieces from the heritage of information processing contains
The last section above are the devices I owned once; I recognized that I didn't have the time to play around with them any more, so I gave away the ones for which I found new owners and discarded the others, keeping only those that I couldn't bear to trash or that don't take up too much space. I'd also happily give away the typewriters, the adding machine, and the Courier modem -- if anyone is interested, contact me.
I manage most of my network-related things myself to keep my system and network administration skills fresh, not only for fun, but also, as it turned out, for profit -- without that, I might not have got my current job. My network stuff includes mail and DNS servers for my domains including secondaries, three news servers (two external transit servers, one at home -- just the tiniest bit over the top), and a web server (obviously :-). The software used is OpenSolaris, Linux, Postfix, unbound, NSD, INN, Apache -- the works.
Besides the network administration, I also do some programming in my Copious Free Time(TM). In 2006 there was a little Lisp interpreter in Java, Jnil, and now, fall 2010, a sequel in C called Hic sunt Lambdas (work in progress). Originally I wanted to do one in Lua, to learn the language, but I just could not help it flowing out of me in C. The Socket program gets an update very few years, too.
My SO and I live in Berlin, Germany, in the vicinity of 52.45 N 13.34 E.
We both love the island of La Palma for its sheer beauty and the pleasant climate. But Isla Coche had its charms, too, and Casas Pelicano were really great. See vacation pictures at SmugMug. (At this point I could mention that I am also interested in photography, although with limited artistic success.)
I have some beliefs.
