I am currently on my way back home from Bonn, where I spent a weekend with my friends Simone, Katrin, Anke, and Tom. On Friday, I was invited to my former employer’s summer party in Bonn. The party started off in the afternoon in the garden of the villa the company is based in. Some of my former colleagues still work with that company, but my friend Simone, for example, started working with a company that is based not far from Frankfurt, so she came all the way from there to attend the party. It was good to see my friends and former colleagues, and of course there were a lot of stories to tell. There was a great buffet, and a saxophone quartet played for us. Very nice. Some of us ended up in the ... read more

I just arrived in Melbourne, after a wonderful week with friends in Newcastle. I stayed with Monica and Scott, and it was just great to spend time with them. Monica had taken the whole week off work, and Scott, who is self-employed at the moment, took time, too. On Sunday night, we had a barbecue and sat around a fire that Monica had lit. Camo, Adriaan, Donny, and Tinks came over. So good to see them! Monday was a pretty active day. In the morning, I went to gym with Monica, afterwards we had lunch with Tinks. In the afternoon, Monica, Scott and I tried out the new bike path that runs from Belmont North (where Mon and Scott live) to downtown Newcastle. In the evening, we were invited to Camo’s place for dinner. And we ... read more

Last week, I attended the European Conference on Positive Psychology in Copenhagen. I left on Tuesday afternoon, and we flew in a tiny little airplane which we could only access on the airfield as it is too small to be accessed straight from the terminal. Bo came to pick me up at Copenhagen airport, which was pure luxury for me and really nice anyway. He took me to my hotel, where I checked in, and then we went for a nice little walk around the city centre. Bo explained me a lot about the city. It reminds me a bit of Hamburg as it is traversed by many canals just like Hamburg is. There are beautiful old houses, and the Danish successfully combined the ancient with modern architecture. They have a very modern opera house, theatre, ... read more

As you might recall, Mike Harker flew from Tegelberg last month. He said it was going to be his last flight. He sent me two pictures, one that shows him when getting ready for launch, and one that shows him in the air with the Seedwings Space. There was a little documentary on that last flight on German TV, nice one. Have a look url=http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/hauptnavigation/startseite/#/beitrag/einzelsendung/1054186/SPORTreportage-vom-23-Maihere. Go to the bottom of the screen and click on "Sport Aus Aller Welt" and then in the time line to about half way. His flight flim is the last minute of the broadcast. There is also an interview with him and a report on his flight from Zugspitze in 1973 and his bad accident in 1977 url=http://www.br-online.de/bayerisches-fernsehen/suedwild/schwangau-aktuelle-sendung-20100518-ID1274206253452.xmlher... read more

Yesterday, we finally had a task. The sky was already blue in the morning, the sun was out. I could not believe it. One day before the Worlds - good weather. One day after - good weather. Who on earth made the weather gods so angry? As it would not have been a valid World Championship with only one task, but the pilots were of course eager to fly, the organisers decided to set a fun task for the women and rigids. The tasks were up and down the ridge, around 50 km for the women and 90 km for the rigids. It took us a while to get all the pilots off the mountain because the wind kept on changing. And the ground is still very wet, so clouds built up quickly, and conditions were, ... read more