Ice conditions vary :) It's far too warm. Good for walking in the snow, though.

Taken today. Unfortunately there was a lot of fog (as usual).

What a concert! Too short, but I won't complain. They played The Importance of being idle as well as Don't look back in Anger!, so my favorite Oasis songs were included :)

Yesterday we ventured to seek out one of the frozen secrets of Elbsandstein. Conditions were sub-perfect, the first few meters of the waterfall were missing so we had to jumar up to where the fun could start. All in all a nice day out in the snow!

When I first heard about underwear made of wool, I was a little sceptical. Then two guys I met in Lappland last winter told me how much they love theirs. I got a 200d top for birthday and had the chance to test it on a 2 day trip last week in quite different conditions (from sunny heat to -14ºC snow storm).
The result: I'm completely impressed! It keeps your sweat away from your body when you haul your pack up that steep path and it keeps you warm even when wet afterwards. Also makes for a very comfortable underwear in the sleeping bag. Short: I love it, get one!

What you need:

• 5 Kg sliced beef
• 250 ml soya sauce
• 250 ml worcester sauce
• 125 ml tabasco sauce
• 100 g honey
• 50 g garlic
• pepper
• salt What to do:

Cut the meat into slices about 2cm wide. Put everything else into a big bowl and mix it, add the meat and flavor generously with pepper and salt. Put the bowl into the refrigerator for 24 hours and then put everything on as many gridirons as you have and into the oven at 50-60°C for 8 hours.

It's a perfect snack when doing outdoor stuff!

Wow, I guess we are somewhat famous now.

• Feature on CC08 with picture of us - isgtw.org
• TU Dresden press release - tu-dresden.de (english german)
• Press Release from LBNL - hpcwire.com
• IU Press Release - uitspress.iu.edu

• Saxxess - saxxess.com

• Freie Presse - freiepresse.de

• Dresden TV - dresden-fernsehen.de
• SuperComputing Online - supercomputingonline.com
• HPCWire - hpcwire.com
• Wirtschaftsfernsehen Sachsen - wirtschaftsfernsehen-sachsen.de
• Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit - smwa.sachsen.de

Just a few days after leaving sunny Texas, I enjoyed a day of skiing in Altenberg yesterday. There were some winter-in-sweden-deja-vues involved :)

Here I am, back again in good old Germany. In Washington, we had to wait inside the plane on the ground for 4h, because United had to repair some hydraulic vents. We arrived in Dresden with 3.5h delay. No sign of my luggage so far, I hope Lufthansa will find it and bring it to my appartement tomorrow.

The last few weeks have been so full of new impressions, people, work and fun that I feel like I will need some days to reflect on all this.

We actually won the challenge! Those Months of really hard work did pay off. It's 3:30am now and we are still partying. Our plane leaves at 4pm and we hope to arrive in Dresden at 2pm local time on Saturday. Although I met so many nice people here (greetings to the guys from Alberta, Canada), I miss Anne (in the first place) and all the other folks in dresden. See you soon!

So we arrived at our booth at the Austin Convention Center. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to set up our cluster until the rest of the team has arrived. Some impressions:

Robin, Jens and Daniel just arrived and we picked them up at the airport. They have had a delay of 8 hours because dense fog in Frankfurt prevented their plane from landing, so they were quite tired and after a short talk we postponed everthing until tomorrow, when we will set up our cluster at the Austin Convention Center.
Here (as promised): some pictures:

While Jens, Robin and Daniel got stuck in Frankfurt, I had a good flight from Indianapolis. (photos comming soon - have to eat something first :)

There is even a Twitter feed for our team at SuperComputing. <insider_joke> Killer Pimp goes Web2.0 </insider_joke>

Just a few hours prior to our departure to Austin, we took the chance to have a taste of the best steaks in Bloomington, prepared by Little Zagreb - an unspectacular restaurant in downtown Bloomington (at least from the outside). We were lucky to catch a seat, the place was really crowded. Not knowing how much 20 oz. actually are, the rib eye turned out to be a real challenge, but an extremely delicious one.