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August 20, 2005
Trip to Germany: Part 4 - A Hiberno-Saxon Wedding
The fourth day in Germany started with a train journey. The wedding was due to take place in the village of Oberbärenburg, which is near the town of Altenberg, near Dresden, so our first task was to get to Dresden. For this, we took a train.
We had bought tickets in advance using a ticket vending machine in Ostbahnhof on Wednesday. The vending machine was easy to use and in a few screens we had tickets. We booked in three groups, as although we were travelling to Dresden together, we were all coming back at different times. This meant we were split up on the train, which was a pity. Our assigned seats were easy to find. The carriages were well labeled and the platform had diagrams showing roughly what the layout of the train was going to be. Colm's family were also on the train and the wandering between compartments and chatting quickly passed the two hour journey. The train service itself was stereotypically German: it was clean, efficient (only a few spare seats), and absolutely punctual.
A 50 minute bus journey brought us to Oberbärenburg, where we checked into our hotel. Oberbärenburg seemed to be a holiday village. It was mostly comprised of hotels and guest houses nestled in forested hills. It wasn't too busy but I could easily imagine it being packed during the winter months: it had a ski resort feel. We passed a bob sleigh run on the bus. It is a good one: olympic bob sleigh teams train on it. The hotel we were staying in had letters of thanks from the USA and Italian olympic teams hung proudly in the lobby.
That evening we went to a barbecue, hosted by Heidi's parents. This was a really good idea as everyone got to know each other. Pork steaks and good sausages were eaten and beers, and later Long Island iced teas, were drank. Apparently, having a party for wedding guests on the day before the wedding is a German tradition. It is a good one in my view. It made the wedding more relaxed as everyone had met most of the other guests.
The wedding itself was an intimate affair. The 30, or so, guests sat in on a bilingual civil ceremony which was rather like a lighthearted marriage guidance session. The whole occasion was thoroughly recorded Peter, the official photographer for the day, who deployed professional grade photographic equipment to the situation in a professional manner.
The reception took place in a small restaurant, at the top of a hill, a few kilometers away. Transport there was by bimmelbahn, a tractor pulled carriage. This was slightly silly but a lot of fun. The carriage was open enough for numerous conversations to take place and the journey was long enough for that to happen, so the party started before the wedding reception did.
After a short wait for the bride and groom, and after they sawed a log in half, which is another German tradition, we sat down to dinner. This was excellent. The restaurant specialized in garlic dishes and all three courses had a garlic choice, even dessert. I have to say that garlic ice cream is delicious: pungent and sweet. After dinner there were speeches, for a while, and music and dancing that went on into the night. All in all, a memorable occasion.
Posted by JohnC at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2005
Trip to Germany: Part 3
My solo adventures in Berlin ended on the afternoon of the second day. Some of Colm's friends, Phil, Alex, Peter, and Ann arrived then and we met up for dinner. Blog coverage of the trip improves dramatically from this point on, as Ann is an very entertaining blogger. Her account of events is at Travels With Grandma, which is her travel blog. She also has another blog called Of Marathons and Other High Intensity Endeavors, which is where she writes about everything else. Ann is a good writer with interesting things to say, so both blogs are worth reading.
We ate in a very nice restaurant, called Theodor Tucher, near Brandenburger Tor. This was a very nice restaurant, with a literary theme. The food was nice, the service was good, and the atmosphere was pleasant. It was expensive by Berlin standards but as an inhabitant of Dublin it felt reasonable to me. As you can see from the guests shown on the website, it is an up market venue.
The next day we went sightseeing. In the morning we all went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. There is plenty to see there and it is worth the visit. However, it is very busy. I practically had to shuffle through the first third of the museum, like a worker from Metropolis, before the crowd opened out a bit to allow me to wander around the exhibits. In the afternoon the group split. Ann went searching for Goya, Turks and Punks. The rest of us went out of the city center to see Spandau Citadel. Ann had a lot more fun: Spandau was a washout. It rained. Very little was open at the citadel. There were no other tourists there that we could see. The few signposts that were there were only in German, apart from the one just outside the gate. It wasn't much fun so we quickly headed back to the city center.
We spent the the evening in Hackescher Markt. I was later told that this is the bohemian area of Berlin at the moment. It is a nice place with great restaurants. After food we retired to our respective accommodation in order to be well rested for the following days traveling.
Posted by JohnC at 12:31 AM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2005
Tao of Programming
While browsing blogs.sun.com, I came across a link to the Tao of Programming. It is a series of observations on programming written in the style of Chinese philosophy. It is funny, in a ha ha only serious way, and is worth a look.
Posted by JohnC at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2005
A new Paul Graham essay
Paul Graham has posted a new essay on what business can learn from open source. It is a good essay and I agree with most of. The main points are that people work harder on stuff they like, that the traditional office environment is unproductive, and that good ideas come bottom-up more often than top-down. I agree with this. However, I disagree that a startup, or aggregation of startups, is the best way to carry out a large scale endeavor.
A corporation is in essence a bureaucracy and bureaucracies have a track record of getting large scale tasks done. However, this only happens if the bureaucracy stays focused on the task and bureaucracies have a tendency to lose focus and to spend time perpetuating themselves. A bureaucracy that focuses on a particular task and dissolves when the task is complete is very productive. It is productive even if the ideas come from the top all the time or if the organization is based in a traditional style office building. The self perpetuating aspects of the bureaucracy are what cause the problem.
So what exacerbates the self perpetuating aspects of an organization? I would agree with Paul Graham that the difficult in determining the productivity of individuals is the major factor. However bad this is for individual contributors, it is much worse for managers. If an team delivers an exceptional level of performance, how much was due to the manager? Would they have done better with another manager? How could someone tell? Managers are judged by their peers based on the size of the budget they control and the number of people under them rather than on the productivity of the members of their organization. This is what leads to self perpetuating bureaucracies: every manager in an organization is trying to grow their part. They have to: they are not good managers if they don't. Fixing that would go along way to making corporations more productive.
My objections aside though, Paul Graham's essay is, as always, worth the read.
Posted by JohnC at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
August 01, 2005
Trip to Germany: Part 2 - Bauhaus
On my second day in Berlin, I had another few hours on my own. My friends we not due to arrive until after midday, so I decided to spend the morning at the Bauhaus Archiv. This small museum is dedicated to the German artistic movement, and art school, of the 1920s and early 1930s. Bauhaus artists included Kandinsky and Paul Klee. The movement's goal was to unify art and technology and to merge the artist's studio with the craftsman's workshop. It encompassed furniture and interior design, paintings and posters, and architecture
The museum was small but very well laid out, just like its website. It was divided into five sections: a section on Bauhaus history, a section on artistic and color theory, models of Bauhaus buildings and interior design, exhibits of Bauhaus furniture and appliances, and a shop selling items, such as cutlery, clocks, and briefcases, whose design has been inspired by Bauhaus. I really enjoyed the section on color theory and the section with the models. These were interactive and the exhibits had instructions beside them to help you get the most out of them. For example, there was an exhibit explaining the effect of color and lighting on the perceived dimensions of a room. Other exhibits explained how blocks of color affect the perception of nearby colors and the effects of after images. All of these were wonderfully clear and concise. The models of Bauhaus architecture and interior design were very interesting too. From them you could see how practical the designs were. I could easily imagine myself living in one of these places.
The Bauhaus Archiv made an impression on me. The goals and style of Bauhaus appeal to me. I expect I will be investing both time and money this year to learn more about the Bauhaus movement.
Posted by JohnC at 04:41 PM | Comments (1)