In Search of Sherlock

According to the Guinness book of World Records, the most-portrayed movie character is Sherlock Holmes. Considering his ubiquitous presence in modern media, it's hard to believe that only 4 original novels containing Sherlock Holmes exploits were ever published by Conan Doyle himself (though there were dozens of short stories). Perhaps some of this is due to the expired copyrights of the original works, which allows for anyone to write a derivative work royalty-free. In any case, virtually everyone has now heard of Sherlock, but likely have not heard so many details of the actual stories or their development. An interesting phase of the series of writings occurred in 1893, only 6 years after its initial creation. Struggling to make progress with his more serious work, Conan Doyle decided to kill off Holmes.

Engineering 101: Stability

The weather is getting warmer, and soon we'll be in the peak of the Swiss construction season. Every year, the winter cold prevents much from happening in the way of civic development. Thus, as soon as the ground thaws, the bulldozers magically spring into action wherever they happened to be last left. A major revamp project is about to begin in front of the main train station here in Winterthur. The central bus depot will be torn down and rebuilt.

Winterthur central bus terminal as seen from the train station

In some ways, it's exciting. I don't mind the old structure, which is not much more than a raised platform surrounded by curb and with a clear plastic roof keeping the rain and snow at bay. However, the modern look they show in the conceptual presentation on the video screens mounted in and about the current place does look appealing. The plan includes a rectangular sloped roof made of aluminum panels with seemingly random sized holes drilled in an array, all jutting out from a central column. The 3D rendering shown morphs into view as a similarly shaped large tree (assumed to be the inspiration) fades. Perhaps even more interesting is the prospect of living here long enough to see a largely familiar landmark removed and replaced by something new, particularly when it will require a good deal of time and effort.

Engineering 101: Introduction to Preload

First, watch this guy's idea.

Sports - American Football

It's possible to find traces of Americana in odd corners of this country, though in strange shapes and forms. Shortly after arriving, I found out that a co-worker was a defensive assistant coach of a local American Football club, the Winterthur Warriors. The club has multiple teams. To fully appreciate how this works, you need to understand a bit about the nature of team sports in Europe.

Sports - Basketball

A number of sports are popular over here, both as spectators and as players. However, if you were to create a list sorted by popularity, you'd find few matches within the top 5 when comparing to the 'States. What are the most-liked sports over here? Soccer is at the top, unsurprisingly. Second place is a mixture of rugby, badminton, beach volleyball, even ping pong. Somewhere down below, is basketball.

The New Apartment

The day has finally arrived. I get the keys to my new place. I haven't seen it since the whirl-wind of a week that I went looking at several apartments, so I can't remember exactly what it looked like inside. The owners of the apartment-house where I was staying have generously allowed me to stick around for a couple days past the night I take possession of the new place. So, while I got the keys on a Thursday evening after work, I didn't have to worry about moving things until Friday/Saturday. It took a few trips with my suitcases, but I finally got everything over here.

The view from my new kitchen window

Uetliberg

Back home, the Pacific Northwest held a number of interesting sights. Still, it was often difficult to become motivated enough to visit even those just a short drive away. The presence of friends makes this much easier. Last weekend I had a visit from a former colleague (great to see you again Bryan!), and this was just the motivation I needed to head outside and try a few things. While we made multiple trips around Zurich and Winterthur, one of the last things we did was take a trek up the mountain of Uetliberg. (I will save the analysis of watching an American-made English-language film dubbed completely in German -and 3D!- for later...)