As the title says. Not much has happened since the last posting. Christmas has been a bit stressful with several attempts of appropiate gift-finding and driving around followed by a quite nice Christmas Eve. On 25th I felt a bit sick followed by massive down-ness yesterday and a bit relief today. I hope the trend continues so that I’m healthy again soon.
Tag: Personal
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Walking freely
Yesterday I began leaving off the ankle stabilization I’ve been wearing for quite some time now. Walking without artifical help now feels very strange again. But what’s more irritating is that many of the tendons and ligaments in my foot are now shortened and I have a very limited field of freedom compared to my healthy foot.
I hope that by leaving away the stabilization these shortened ligaments will be expanded again. But again this will take time and until then I have to take care not to overwork them or I’ll be risking to rip them again before they are flexible enough again.
Btw.: Thanks Ellla for the ultra-short-term invitation to your self-made Oktoberfest yesterday. Saved my evening and lifted my mood 🙂
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DVB-T Cheap Antenna Hack
As I’ve recently purchased a new large LCD TV-set which also has abilities to receive DVB without additional devices I found myself in the need of also having to get a DVB-T antenna. I did a short test-drive with a borrowed antenna from my parents but was not too satisfied. There was a proper signal quality but it was far from what I expected. I’m living in direct line-of-sight from the DVB-T broadcast antenna, which is only a few kilometers away, so I should have an outstanding signal quality. But it was just a bit below average. Stable enough for uninterrupted TV viewing but nevertheless I somehow didn’t want to buy an expensive antenna to just reach average signal quality.
So I began researching a bit why there was such a bad receiving performance despite the more-than-ideal conditions. As it turned out, DVB-T antennas which are available in the shops have (of course) been designed to have receiving abilities across the whole DVB-T broadcasting bands (UHF and VHF). But since in each area there are only a few channels used these allround-antennas are not the ideal solution for everyone.
I found several guides how to build a specialized antenna fitting for the used channels in the area but since I’m living in the direct proximity of the broadcaster I did a fast try with a simple setup. Just cut off a piece of thick wire from some I had lying around (according to the measurements I found here) and stuck it directly into the antenna-plug of my TV set. And surprisingly I immediately received the targetted channels with even better performance than with the allround-antenna.
I still want to build a proper antenna with correct shielding but for now this works excellently. And I’m also planning to try making a better performing antenna (a "Doppelquad-Antenne") to improve the reception in border areas. If I find the time to build it, I’ll let you know.
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Small blog enhancements
Currently I’m trying to make some subtle enhancements to this web presence. If you experience any inconvinience, let me know in the comments.
One very visible change will be the new top box in the sidebar, titled Common, containing all the common stuff which are part of a blog. Like the new About me page. Or a proper tag cloud page, which is not yet visible because of an unknown reason, as it is present in the blogs templates. But I’ll sort that out sooner or later.
A new section Similar Entries on each entry’s page now lists also blog postings which may be related to the current one. As this is determined by an automatic process I still have to look if it matches my expectations.
Furthermore some tweaks here and there but no changes which are big enough for a separate announcement.
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Back to a colorful world
Yesterday I joined some people in a paintball match at paintballaction.at. Since I already played a few times (one time here, one time at another company-event) I instantly agreed to participate when I was asked by ellla1981. if I’d like to play.
The match yesterday was quite fun. We’ve been eight people, split into two teams and I’ve been the only one who has played before. Altough it had rained the day before, yesterday the weather was fine and the places where completely dried up. There were two fields, a smaller 35x30m and a larger one with 70x30m. We started with some matches on the small one, which had some obstacles and covers, and switched to the greater one with forts and trenches later on.
In the end all of us were a bit exhausted but everyone was happy and would join another event if we manage to organize one in the future.
Bunny also wanted to join us but had to skip this chance when during equipping with the safety masks we found none which fit him. Some more impressions from the event are visible on my flickr-set.
Afterwards I went to a barbecue where I impressed to cook a bit when I emptied my plate which he filled with three chops, two large fried sausages, and a pile of chewabchichis. Added some bread, some salad and a few drinks and this made a nice conclusion of the day.
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Term (almost) over
Past Monday finally I handed in one of my term papers for the last term. It has been quite a bit of work but it’s now over at last. Just in time, so that I can see how the good weather is over and my plans to do some cycling will probably vanish in thin air.
Just one paper left for university to correct if I find the time. Its not mandatory, as the mark in that subject is already a positive one but it could be much better if I didn’t disagree with the professor on some topics in that paper. He gives much more importance on form of the paper than on actual content. For example I gave the different work-packages short-names similar to their project phase, but the professor criticized it being not aligned to the "standard"… This standard was mentioned during the course but never stated as the definitive guideline. Oh well…
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Vacation roundup
As today is my last day of my current vacation block, here is a quick overview of it.
Most of the time I spent on the term papers which so far needed much more time as I’d initially expected. It’s not that I’m unable to understand it but rather that I’m unable to formulate the knowledge in my head in proper sentences which I could write down.
Nevertheless I found some time to also do some different activities altough not as much as I would have appreciated. I’ve been to the cinema a few times, I dug out my bicycle from the depths of our storerooms, I’ve paid the city of Linz a visit and also the Ars Electronica Center there which runs science and art exhibitions.
A bit of minor work here and there and that’s been the roundup of my vacation. Nothing too exciting this time as the university stuff takes up a lot of time even in the holidays…
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Next vacation block ahead
The upcoming two weeks I’ll be on vacation again. Originally I planned to perform some sports but by damaged ankle voided my intentions. Nevertheless, I’ve had a talk with the doctor of my employer and he suggested to start easy not with running but with cycling in about two weeks. So I’ll be preparing my old and dusty bike next week, maybe purchase a helmet, and start off easy in my second week of the vacation.
Furthermore I was told that in about 2-3 weeks I could also carefully(!) begin with badminton again. Carefully means, that I should only be going for throwing the shuttlecock back, making targetting exercises and so on, but not chasing every hit or jumping around to reach hard to catch hits.
In these two weeks I’ll also have to work some more on two term papers to finish off this term.
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Ankle stabilized
Well, yesterday I had the second appointment in the hospital to check the current shape of my ankle. As I had expected, I could hand back the crutches I got for the past week. Instead of this I got a stiff fixture on my ankle which allows me to move almost normal again but prevents tilting my foot and causing additional ruptures to my damaged tendon.
Of course I’ve got the expected additional constraints. I have to wear this fixture for six weeks and after that I should stay away some time from indoor sports, which usually are fast sports with high forces on the feet. Instead I should train the muscles to support my foot stability and lower the risk of future weaknesses.
But I was also told that after some additional resting time from now I can also start with easy sports, like running, to shorten the recovery time a bit. Or at least to make the reentry into sports not that sudden with the end of my ankle-stabilisation phase.
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Team switch results and sick leave
On Friday I got feedback from the team where I’ve been assisting for some time. It seems, that I did quite well, the feedback was 100 percent positive and also accompanied by the statement that they would welcome it if I decided to permanently switch to them.
I have to admit that I already played with that thought a bit, but for now I think I’m not switching (yet). After checking back with my superiors there would be no problem at all, so it’s really completely my own decision. After these results I think it will get more comon to exchange team members for a limited time cross-department. And I think that such exchanges will largely be positive as all concerned parties can learn from the experience.
In other news, I’m in bed. Yesterday in the very last minutes of playing Badminton I somehow tripped and hurt my ankle. It was quite painful but after about 10 minutes it went away and I could walk normally. Over the course of the afternoon and evening the ankle began to hurt just a bit and became swollen. This morning my ankle had the shape of a tennis ball and hurt much more than yesterday so I decided to give the hospital a visit. The physicals resulted in pulled ligaments and now I’m on sick leave for at least this week. And I guess, the revisit on Friday will result in that I should stay away from such fast-running sports for some time. Damn…
