Oh, I had a wonderful weekend. On Friday I stayed home, the Saturday I spent at Retiro park and went out with friends (what turned into a bit of a weird experience, but still) and Sunday I met up with an old friends, met new people at his place and drank Bloody Maries on his terrace. Not so bad, hm?

Here are some snapshots, tomorrow I will also post a video:

First weekend. April 08

Madrid in spring is breathtaking and yet, I don't know if I am going to stay a lot longer here. It's time to move "out of the comfort zone" as some friend has put it recently. Most crucially though, I miss my girlfriend. I'd move to the Antarctic to be finally with her. However, I hope it's gonna be a nicer place where we finally settle down ;-)

Good night!

Today I read a pretty interesting article from Jason Calacanis on his opinion about work/life balance when working in startup companies:

" (...) In fact, I was writing about technology while I was an IT consultant in the early 90s. Now, I did feel like my IT job was work--in the bad sense. Don't get me wrong, I loved the IT business but many times it felt like drudgery. So, I can feel Duncan on that front: when you don't love what you do it sucks. The solution to that is fairly obvious, go find something you love to do in life. It might take some time, but it really isn't THAT hard given how amazing the market is (at least in the United Stats). (...)"

Especially recently I thought a lot about this issue and I found two things to be true (in general, not just in startup companies):

1) It's important that you love what you do, but it's REALLY hard to find such a job. If you really want to succeed in your career though, I guess this is what you have to look for, although it might require lots of patience and effort.

2) Even then, you can run into problems. In the best case you don't see your job purely as work, but as a hobby that earns you money. It becomes tricky, however, when the job gets so time consuming that it takes away your private life and sucks in all your attention. Too much of anything is a bad thing too and establishing limits is important.

Conclusion: Even if you get what you want, life does not get easier ;-)

It's Saturday and I just spent the afternoon on my balcony enjoying the sun. It's not hot, but it has about 18 degrees which is not bad at all. In Austria, you have to wait until end of March for such a day, if you have bad luck probably even until beginning of May. That's when the advantages of living in Spain become really obvious ;-)

After watching some stuff about the Andrew Meyer incident on YouTube, I actually wonder why there is even a discussion about whether it was justified to taser him or not. Even if the student was provocative and "disturbed peace", the police's reaction was absolutely inappropriate and exaggerated. If at all, it would have been enough to grab him, drag him out and deny him reentrace to the hall, but my personal view is that all this was pretty ridiculous and shocking.

The video:


Fox News report, nothing surprising there:


Here is an article, defending the tasering of the student. What I really like about it, is the comment at the bottom:


Amen! What has the country come to, when obnoxious young intellectuals have the audacity to verbally challenge our senators in blatant defiance of forum rules and with no apparent fear of violent retribution? We need to start Tasing misbehaving children, too.

But seriously, the core problem with Miston's opinion, like so many of its ilk, is that it ignores the underlying issue: why was Meyer arrested in the first place? Disturbing the peace? Give me a break. He may have been obnoxious, but that would have warranted nothing more than being thrown out of the forum -- like an unruly patron would be thrown out of a nightclub by a bouncer. It was a violation of debate rules, not a violation of law.

It's good to know that debate about First Amendment issues on our college campuses has sunk to the level of people on one side telling people on the other to "shut up". There's more than a little irony in that.

Everytime I am at Retiro I ask myself why I don't come here more frequently. It's beautiful, not only because of the lush green lawn and the huge trees, but also because it's fascinating to watch the people. Families, couples, artists and sportsmen from a dozen different nationalities gather here to spend their afternoon, to relax from their busy week. So peacefully together, you ask yourself why the world couldn't be more like Retiro ;-)

For me personally, it's a bit of everything today. I went here to cruise with my new bike, work a bit, listen to music, take some photos and...chill. It's NEARLY the perfect Sunday on a sunny day in autumn.

Concerning news about Guatemala at the beginning of the week...

Letzte Hoffnung UN

Tödlicher Wahlkampf

EU alarm at Guatemala violence

Edit: You can see my way to work also on Maps.

Lazy. I am even too lazy to lie in bed. I don't know if I explain myself but it's a pretty awful state of mind. I can not even enjoy doing nothing...

Last week it's been one year that I am working for Google and I've been planning to write a post about it. Reflections about the time there, about my job, about what I've learned,etc. So, if that wakes your interest, please be patient, but I fear that today I am too lazy to write any further.

Today it was a spledid day in Madrid and Retiro Park was full with people, life and colours. Find some impressions in my Picasa Web Album and watch the two videos below.