Eidgenössisches Schwing- und Älplerfest 2007

Traditional Swiss sports are somewhat down to earth. It’s nothing like chocolate-eating competitions or cheese-rubbing time-trials. Traditional Swiss sports are wrestling (Schwingen), rock-throwing (Unspunnen-Stone, 83 kg) or maybe Hurnussen (hornetting).
The latter is rather a flatland-sport, where as Swiss wrestling and rock-throwing come from the mountain areas. There are several happenings throughout the year with these sports, but the federal alpine-festival (eidgenössisches Schwing- und Älplerfest) only takes place every three years. This year it was in Aarau.
Swiss wrestling has got nothing to do with the dumb and perverted show-off fights of American wrestling. As already pointed out it’s very down to earth, and it’s not professional.

Here are some basic rules of Swiss wrestling:
- There are two types of wrestlers: ‘Sennen-Schwinger’ (shepherd-wrestler) and ‘Turner-Schwinger’ (gymnast-wrestler). The Sennen-Schwinger is one who only does wrestling and no other sports. The Turner-Schwinger is one that is in a gymnast-club and wrestling is only one sport he does. Turner-Schwinger have to be dressed in white, Sennen-Schwinger have to wear dark trousers and preferably a blue shephard’s-shirt without collar. Both types have to wear wrestling-pants with handles.
- During the fight, both wrestlers have to hold the opponents pants with at least one hand, otherwise the fight is being stopped.
- The wrestling-field is round and covered with saw-dust. Both wrestlers wipe the dust off the other ones back after the fight.
- Wrestling is a non-professional sport. No prize-money is given. At normal events the first prize is a cow-bell, at national events the winner gets a wreath.
- The winner of an event will further on be referred to as ‘bad guy’ (ein Böser) or ‘evil wrestler’ (böser Schwinger).
- The winner of the annual national Schwingfest and the even more important federal Schwingfest (every three years) is called King.
- The athletes are named the ancient Swiss way: Family name first. So this year’s King isn’t Jörg Abderhalden, it’s Aberhalden Jörg.

If you think, throwing a guy on his back with nothing but grabbing his pants, you better think again: Most athletes are at least 1.9m tall and 100kg heavy (6-footers at 220 lbs)! An athletic sports-commentator of our national radio station got flipped over in less than a second in a fun-fight on Friday!
The rules for rock-throwing are even simpler: just throw it as far as possible. The rock is so big and heavy that hardly any athlete can really throw it…
The festival attracted 200’000 people. If you have been to Aarau before, you might be able to imagine what the city looked like over the weekend: The whole city was a huge camping yard, and every green spot large enough to put on a tent was occupied. But still the festival was very peaceful. Unfortunately one athlete died because of the heat and dehydration.

Hope you enjoy the videos.





Thanks to Swissinfo.org that they put some videos on youtube!

Meeting a friend

Five years are a long time. Especially when you haven't seen one of your very best friends for so long.
It struck me thunder when my friend from Singapore wrote me an email not too long ago that she'd come to Europe to visit a friend in Germany and would like to spend the last weekend of her holiday at my place. I was at the ceiling!
So I took a 2-day leave from the job and drove up to Albstadt in southern Germany (Schwäbische Alb, for those who know the area) where she was staying with her childhood friend. On the way I got some chocolates at Zurich Airport, payed the beautiful town Rottweil (yes, that's where the dogs are coming from) a visit, and also the airfield Degerfeld with the infamous asloped runway that goes downhill in the western direction.
Of course, being Swiss I calculated the driving time and told her I would be there at 4 in the afternoon. And of course, being me some things didn't really work: The restaurant at the airfield, where I wonted to get a drink and maybe an ice-cream, would only open at 5 in the afternoon. So I arrived one hour early in Albstadt. So I stood there at the house, 30° C in the shade, with a bag filled with melting chocolates. I'll spare you the details about how they looked after that...
Anyway, Natasha and her childhood friend with kids arrived. Meeting a friend after a long time is something very special. I don't remember having been so happy in the past five years.

Meeting for the first time

We went out for dinner, local dishes of course, and back 'home' had a nice chat with the master of the house. The next morning hosted a very nice surprise for me: The lady of the house runs a Balinese Wellness-Studio in the basement of the house, and she offered me extensive treatment for a special "friendship-price". 90 minutes of total relaxation including a fullbody-massage!
After that we had some time to fool around a bit, take some pictures and in the afternoon we drove back to my place. After a light dinner at home we went to Lake Halwil with my parents for an ice-cream and a little walk at the lake.

Fooling around at Lake Halwil

Saturday was a surprise for my friend: One of my work-mates once spent a couple of days in Singapore, and my friend played tour-guide. And now we met my mate again in Zurich. The usual thing: Walking through the old town of Zurich (it's more beautiful than many people think!!!), souvenir-shops (travelers want to bring something home for their friends) and of course: Sprüngli!!!!! Switzerland's No. 1 chololate manufacturer, that runs several shops in town. The day ended with an italian dinner in a restaurant near my place.

Fooling around in Zurich

Sadly the next morning was departure. But only after a nice breakfast together with my parents and introducing my friends into walnut-trees and lime-trees - not the ones with the citrus fruits, but the ones where you make lime-tea from the blossoms. ;-)
Later on I drove her to the airport and we parted for the next year or so...

The sadest part

See more pictures here.

I have a daughter - NOT!!!

Village talks. Living in a village, you can't really avoid that. Everyone knows everyone, and of course somebody will always watch you at whatever you do.

When Expatraveler was in Switzerland and visited me every couple of weeks / months, people started talking about my new girlfriend. Although we were and still are good friends, that kind of relationship was out of question from the beginning on. But because I always like to confuse people a bit I took quite some pleasure in leading things in a certain direction.

A couple of weeks ago things got even funnier.

But let's start at the beginning...

Several years ago one of my uncles moved to Poland and met a woman who had a young daughter. That daughter got quite attracted by my uncles tales about Switzerland and eventually came over here to work at a farm. And since we have a big house accomodation was no problem here. The young lady liked to go out at night, and as it happens when girl meets boy she got involved into some kind of romance. Two years and a couple of visits later he finally got her pregnant - and disappeared to Lebanon, where he actually came from and knew another woman that attracted him more. So there she was in Poland, with a daughter but without a father for the kid, and decided to return to Switzerland in order to try her luck again on Swiss men. Nothing really happened this time, except that she thrown out of the appartment she lived in and moved in our place again - with the baby this time.

I don't think I really have to go into details about the rest, but according to village talk I became the father of a 1 1/2 year old daughter within just two weeks... That's even faster than it happened in the bible! ;-)

Don't they look pretty? But believe me, I wasn't the only one who was exptremly happy when they finally left after almost 2 months!

What's your password?

We all have passwords. I believe, most of us enter at least one password a day anywhere on a computer. Be it for online-banking, email-accounts or just simply our favourite newsgroup or forum. There's nothing really about that, it's normal for us, daily life.

How do we chose these passwords? I have several email-accounts, of which I use one for personal contacts, another one for online-shopping. Further accounts are used for trash, registering software where I expect spam mail sent to. For the latter of course I don't use high-security passwords, these are the simple ones. For my homepage, personal email-account and financial stuff I have a set of passwords that I've created for high security.

But here comes the point I actually wanted to get to today: PC Magazine recently published the hitlist of the most commonly used passwords in the internet. If you are using any of these log off the internet immediately, go take two Aspirins and use the site linked further down or install this addon for Firefox.

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (your first name)

It's hard to believe, but it's true: Number One is the word 'password'. I never thought there are so many pitiable fellas around that actually follow every word on the screen: 'Enter password' - so they enter 'password'... ;-)

It's no surprise then that number two and three are '123456' and 'qwerty'. The first real surprise comes further down: I didn't think (your first name) is ranked higher than the name of the partner/girlfriend/boyfriend or family members. And by the way: 'password1' is ranked quite high as well. A free lesson for all hackers then: When you cracked one site with (username) and 'password', try the next one with (same username) and 'password1', 'password2', 'password3'.

Just in case I've worried you now: Here are some links for a password-generator (in best German language...) and a password-checker, and that's all for free. I know, the checker-tool is from Microsoft, but don't we all trust Mr. Gates' concern for internet security? ;-)))

And tomorrow morning I request a new password for my pc at work. ;-)

Flying the Maddog - MD-83 Simulator

How does an aircraft fly that’s called Mad Dog? Just a small example: Aviation staff members at Zurich Airport know a very distinctive story about this particular airplane:

Tower:
Alitalia 194 - taxi to rwy 28, hold short

AZ194:
Ahhh, yes, taxi to rwy 28

Tower:
AZ194, cleared for take-off

AZ194:
Ahhh, two minutes, need preflight (checks)
30 seconds later:

Tower:
Alitalia 194, YOU ARE CLEARED FOR TAKE OFF NOW.

AZ194:
Ehmmm, yes, yes, take off in two minutes
…In the mean time: Rwy16 was blocked by a B737 with a flat tire, Rwy14 was overloaded, so Tower decided to take a Delta B767 from Cincinnati in on Rwy28. Its crew was exhausted after 8 hours in the cockpit…
Tower
Alitalia 194, expedite take-off, we have Delta 767 final on 28 2 miles!

AZ194:
Ahhh, we need 30 more seconds...

DL104:
Hey Spaghetti, take-off or I'll fuck you from behind!
Alitalia 194 took off like a rocket...

It’s not reported if this really happened. But still it’s a funny story. By the way: The MD-80 series has very powerful engines, so 'taking off like a rocket' is nothing special for these birds.

About a month ago I had the chance to fly such a plane at and around Zurich Airport. Well, not the real plane, but we rented a full-motion simulator at Swiss Aviation Training Center (SAT) in Zurich-Kloten. This simulator is the device they train the real pilots with. It’s basically a real MD-83 cockpit that’s mounted on a very powerful hydraulic platform. Through the windows the pilots can see the environment moving around. Of course, since the emphasis of the device is to train procedures, the graphics visible through the windows are not very good.

Here are my pictures:

Pilot in command:

Take-off:

Inflight:

Landing:

Sorry for the bad quality of the images. Obviously I wasn't able to take teh pictures myself, also it's very dark in the simulator (no windows) and the hydraulic-plattform keeps the whole thing rocking.

I had the chance to fly an Airbus A330 about 2 years ago, also at SAT. But since an Airbus is more or less a flying computer the difference to the Flight Simulator 2004 on my pc isn’t too big. But the MD83 really gets you working: No computer is helping you keeping the plane airborne. No TV-screens are providing all vital flight data at a glance. All ‘steam-gauges’, and pulling the yoke moves oil through 150 meters of hydraulic tubes. This bird really gets you working. You need to stem all your weight into the brakes to get the plane to stop at the end of the runway – even with full reverse thrust. Pulling the yoke to rotate the plane at take-off almost lifts you off the seat. There is no servo-system like in every average car today. I can only laugh at these silly movies where a child as the only survivor lands such a plane – or even a bigger one – since a 10 year old couldn’t even move the yoke or even reach the pedals…

I hope I die before I get old

Who's the oldest rock singer in the world? Well, it's definitely not Mick Jagger, since Alf Carretta could even be Mick's dad - he's 90 years old! And here's the story:

Alf likes to play Bingo. But the city council of London decided to shut down Alf's favourite bingo hall. So he turned to BBC and asked them to do something about it. But instead of making a documentation about how badly old people get treated in the UK they invited the whole old people's home where Alf lives and recorded a hard rock album. They're first single 'My Generation' - originally by The Who - has just reached the Top 30 of the British Single Charts, and the video clip has reached top scores at youtube.

Together the 40 members of the band are over 3'000 years old, with an average age of 78. You GOT to watch this - especially the old bloke at the end of the clip!!!



You have to agree with me: These are angry old people! They don't like being treated like they have been treated. And the line 'I hope I die before I get old' just becomes something else when 90 years old Alf sings it.

If you want to find out more about The Zimmers, check out these sites:

http://www.thezimmersonline.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thezimmersband

Have fun!

Cars in the water...

The threat of global warming leads people to hilarous ideas. Over the coming weekend the G8 meeting in Germany will discuss matters like these, unfortunately not all participants agree with all ideas. Here is mine: Take what we've got, and think about new ways using it.

The British car magazine Topgear came across similar thinking. But their idea seemed to be fueled with more than just one pint of beer... Typical British humour along with some really stupid ideas - but still a BIG laugh!

Part I:


PartII:


Part III:


Part IV:


Hope you have as much fun as I had when I found this...