Muhammad Farhat Kaleem's weblog
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Funny!
posted by Farhat @ 5:20 am
I have been in Hamburg for the last almost six years. Which is quite a lot of time. During so much time one tends to grow roots at the place where one lives. Now that I am getting prepared to leave in a few months, the very thought of winding up everything is overwhelming. Not to mention that it's going to be a reasonably big logistics operation, moving accumulation of six years from one continent to the other.
posted by Farhat @ 8:47 am
Below are the entries from the previous blog.
I'll be writing my blog here from now onwards.
--30.07.2004 10:08:20
I am using my spam tool to block a number of domains, including msn.com.
If you sent me an email, and expected a reply, it might have been filtered. In this case you can send me an email at the alternative address I have, which is my-middle-name(at)gmail.com.
--23.07.2004 11:06:54
Today there is the final match of the football european championship. Its between Portugal and Greece. The greek team won against the czecks in the semi-final match. The czeck team played some real nice pool games. I was for them, but in the semi-final they missed some real easy chances, and despite dominating the game for most part, couldn't help stop the silver goal.
--04.07.2004 11:38:37
I have recently bought a Canon camcorder, the MV 700, from this online shop. I did not do any background checks on the different camcorders available out there, but the MV 700 seemed quiet small, and also relatively cheap among the MiniDV camcorders. One thing that stuck me very early was, however, the loud motor noise, which gets picked up easily by the microphone. I thought about returning the camcorder, but checked the internet for reviews etc, and the general consensus was that Canon camcorders are more noisier than others, and more or less all MiniDV ones have some kind of motor noise. I also then played back the recorded tape on TV, and though clearly hearable, the motor noise was not very disturbing. Plus our usage of the camcorder is to make simple home movies, for which such distraction is not very significant. So then we decided to keep the Canon camcorder, since it is pretty much cheap for its size and feature category.
--28.06.2004 10:38:21
I would have thought so. But I have had it crashing multiple times in the last 2 days. This is Office 2003, with the latest update applied as well. I have just started a document, and was trying to adjust the Bullets and Numbering thing, and the software would just crash. Unbelievable!!!
--15.06.2004 14:31:22
As part of a student project, a student at our department has created an implementation of the Web Services Business Activity Framework (WS-BusinessActivity) specification. Further details about this project are available here.
--09.06.2004 14:49:00
This blog entry contains announcement for two Diplomarbeit topics from the firm InfoDesign. These Diplomarbeits will be supervised by Dr. Gerald Schroeder, whom I know since the days he was a research assistant at a TUHH department, and supervised some of the courses I took. I consider him to be a really good mentor, and have had contact with him eversince.
The topics can be read here and here.
--10.05.2004 08:55:20
...the book Diana: Her True Story. Found it pretty uninteresting. Luckily its not that thick, so not much time went wasted reading it :-)
--06.05.2004 17:27:33
Last week I went to the city of Poznan in Poland to take part in a conference. It was a nice trip all in all, and I hope to be able to post more details here soon.
--27.04.2004 16:27:18
This weekend is going to be a long weekend due to the easter break, and tomorrow (Friday) and the coming Monday are off.
I had placed an order for the book Diana: Her True Story using the inter-university library catalog system, and the book has been sent from a library outside Hamburg, but hasn't yet arrived at our library. So it seems that it will arrive after the holidays.
--08.04.2004 12:26:02
...Taken on Trust by Terry Waite. A pretty interesting book, the kind that is also easy to read. However, perhaps due to the complexity of the situation as it may then have been, there is not much dwelling on why the author was taken hostage.
--22.03.2004 10:17:13
...Taken on Trust by Terry Waite, who was held captive in Beirut during the late 80s. The book is captivatingly written, and last night I spent most of the time reading it rather than checking the load of exam papers still to be corrected.
--17.03.2004 10:12:19
...Living History by Hillary Clinton. There have been other books that made difficult reading for me, but this one stands out. Additionally, there are a number of gems in the book, but the following one, though attributed to some Hungarian president, Arpad Göncz, is priceless:
"...In what turned out to be a prophetic comment, he warned about Islamic extremists and argued that the same expansionist impulses that had led the Ottoman Empire to the gates of Budapest in the sixteenth century were again thriving among Muslim fundamentalists, who rejected the secular pluralism of modern democracies and the freedom of others for religious belief and women's choices."
This one, somewhat less priceless, is about Tony Blair:
"...both of us rooted our political beliefs in our faith...".
--01.03.2004 09:57:36
...Living History by Hillary Clinton.
--02.02.2004 10:39:10
I am back in office since 12 Jan, as planned. The last 3 weeks have been a bit hectic, and it seems it will be like this till the day I submit my thesis.
--02.02.2004 10:37:37
I'll be going back home tomorrow. I'm flying by Emirates, but before that, comes a 4 hour long train ride from Hamburg to Düsseldorf airport. Plus flying by Emirates means an almost 5 hour stop over at Dubai. I'll be leaving home here in Hamburg early in the morning, around 7:30ish, and should be at Lahore airport at around the same (local) time.
I'll be back in the office on the 14th of January next year.
--18.12.2003 10:04:54
Across the building we are in, there is lots of construction activity going on. Two new buildings for the university are being built. The construction site can be viewed through this webcam, which is placed in one of the offices in our department.
--11.12.2003 14:00:27
Since last weekend, the weather has (finally) turned towards the cold side in Hamburg. However, the present forecast says that the next week will be less cold again.
A colleague of mine has a service that plots the daily temperature. It takes the readings from a thermometer placed in the open outside an office window in the department.
--10.12.2003 14:07:11
yesterday the film What Lies Beneath" was shown on TV. I found it quite interesting. Funnily, its name in german was Schatten der Wahrheit, which, if literally translated, would mean Shadows(or Shades) of Truth. Not a very accurate translation of the english translation. A search on google led me to this review of the film on the internet (this is from where I learnt the english title).
--01.12.2003 10:33:58
The Meatrix is quite funny.
--21.11.2003 10:19:00
I came to Germany exactly 5 years ago today. Initially it was for a 2 years M.Sc. course, but later extended into a 4-year research assistantship. My great wish at the moment is to finish up successfully here, and be back home within the next 2 years.
--20.10.2003 16:28:00
For the past some time, I had been regularly charging up my PocketPC. I don't use it much, so once-a-week charging up was okay. Then day before yesterday, I used the audio recording function of the device, which presumably takes up too much battery power, and forgot to check the battery levels yesterday. In the afternoon yesterday, as I wanted to use the pocketPC, I found that it won't turn on. This meant that the battery was completely down, and this also meant, that all the data on the device was lost :- (
I was able to retrieve the contacts list and the calender, since I had recently synchronized them with the laptop, but some other nice files I had created, and had not backed up, were lost. Actually, I did not know, and had fatally not cared to find out, how file items (e.g. pocketWord and pocketExcel files) could be backed up on the lap/desktop. Now I know, but a little too late.
--15.10.2003 13:01:15
...the movie Forrest Gump. It was shown on TV last evening, and had it recorded (since at the same time was watching 3 Engel für Charlie on another channel). The last time I saw Forrest Gump was back in 1995, so watching it again brought back memories associated to that time, plus the movie is pretty good.
--06.10.2003 10:50:43
...the pictorial book The People of Kau by Leni Riefenstahl, who died recently, and was (in)famous for her films made during the Hitler era.
--01.10.2003 14:07:27
Since 3rd October happens to be the german re-unification day, its a holiday. Conveniently this holiday falls on a Friday :-)
--01.10.2003 14:05:54
...Reel Bad Arabs - How Hollywood Vilifies a People by Jack G. Shaheen. An interesting book to read.
--02.09.2003 11:36:01
Canon have launched a new SLR digital camera, EOS 300D, at a very attractive price. The press release calls the camera " the single most important consumer SLR since the AE1 in 1976" and that "..just as the AE1 triggered an SLR revolution by being the world’s first camera with an embedded microcomputer, Canon believes the EOS 300D will be seen as the point in history when the SLR market shifted irrevocably to digital".
This is an interesting development. I use the EOS 300V, which is good, and, importantly, affordable. The EOS 300D is priced at around 1100 Euros, and hopefully in about 1.5 to 2 years time the price will drop a bit further, and, depending on my financial situation then, I might want to have a go at the EOS 300D.
--26.08.2003 12:43:05
Analagous to a coordination context in transactional systems, a composition context © can be very helpful in the composition of web services.
--08.08.2003 15:24:36
The temperature today in Hamburg is a little more than 30 degrees. With an office on the 4th floor, in the line of the sun after midday, it is certainly not much fun :-)
Tomorrow the temperature is expected to be 33 degrees.
--07.08.2003 15:59:44
We are looking for students who would like to work as tutors for the labs accompanying the Transactions Processing (TP) lecture. Those students who have attended the TP lecture and passed the exam are eligible to apply. In case you might be interested, send me an email.
--06.08.2003 16:17:36
While back home, I bought a Canon zoom lens for my EOS 300V. It has a focal length from 28-90 mm.
Yesteday I bought a tele-zoom, from Sigma, with a focal length 100-300mm. This model is being phased out, so I got it quite cheap.
I would really like to have a fixed focal length telephoto lens, but they are so damned expensive. Like in the thousands of euros!!! Even the zoom lens with focal length more than 300 mm go into the plus-500 euro range.
However, now I have a set of lens which should pretty much cover all my needs.
--03.08.2003 14:36:28
Over the weekend I watched Charlie's Angels. In German it is called 3 Engel für Charlie. Nice combination of comedy and away-from-reality action.
--27.07.2003 17:09:39
... Show-stopper! : the breakneck race to create Windows NT and the next generation by G. Pascal Zachary. It wasn't that entertaining, but wasn't bad either.
--25.07.2003 09:30:59
I am now back in office as of today.
--22.07.2003 10:24:46
What is the difference between a contract and an agreement, seen in the context of composition of web services? I would say that contract means a tight-binding between participants, e.g. the composition provider and the service provider (two important roles), and needs a monitoring and management infrastructure, whereas agreement is loosely-coupled, which means there is an agreement (e.g. based on what the WSDL of a service enhanced with WS-Policy assertions promises) between participants, but the nature of the interaction provides ways out as well. If the ways out are covered by the agreement as well, then the web service composition is more reliable.
--25.06.2003 10:41:44
... Blood, tears and folly : an objective look at World War II by Len Deighton. Quite a long time ago, I read a couple of books from this author. Despite a british slant, his books are relatively objectively written.
--22.06.2003 13:37:40
I will be on vacation from June 30th till July 14th, both days inclusive.
--20.06.2003 17:43:31
here is a pic taken with a digital camera.
--16.06.2003 14:06:21
a picture taken in Hamburg.
--15.06.2003 15:34:38
In case you have ever wondered when to use which and when to use that in your sentences, here is a good explanation.
--15.06.2003 12:36:10
This is a very interesting read.
--12.06.2003 10:53:59
I have also installed SharpReader today. Its user interface "is a combination of that of a web-browser and an email program. Like a browser, it has an address bar at the top that allows you to view a feed without forcing you to first subscribe to it. Like an email program, it has a familiar three-pane user-interface with subscribed feeds on the left; item-headlines at the top-right, and item-contents at the bottom right."
It seems pretty likeable, and I think I will now switch over to it from amphetaDesk.
--09.06.2003 15:28:29
I think I might change from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firebird. From having used the latter browser a little bit, it does seem that there might actually be an alternative to IE.
--09.06.2003 15:25:22
the shops used to close at 4 pm on Saturdays in Hamburg. Not any more, it seems. Some shops, including supermarkets, were open till an unbelievable 8 pm, quite many were open till 6 pm, and a lousy few till the usual 4 pm. I don't know if this is just for a few Saturdays, or will be a permanent feature, but I do know that longer opening times on Saturdays mean a lot more convenience for shoppers. I hope it stays like this.
--09.06.2003 14:37:37
watched the new matrix film. Dubbed in german. Though watching it in german did not make Keanu Reeves superman antics any less funny. The film is entertaining. But I wouldn't spend any more time thinking about it.
--08.06.2003 11:19:40
For the past two or three days I have been mostly rushing through news headlines, instead of reading the details and the commentaries and columns and all the paraphernalia associated with news. And the sky hasn't fallen if I haven't kept myself well-informed. Maybe no news, or lets say, very little news, is even healthy!
--01.06.2003 16:14:32
Today is proof that it can be warm in Hamburg as well. 26 degrees now and rising. And, with an office on the 4th floor, facing the sun (well almost), its easy to think of cooler times, the wish for warmer times in cooler days notwithstanding :-)
--30.05.2003 14:13:30
yesterday's match between Juventis Turin and AC Milan was good to watch. Too bad that it went to penalties, but there too the decision was close.
--29.05.2003 09:41:43
...Bowling for Columbine, the documentary by Michael Moore. Very interesting. Hopefully will be able to watch the almost 50 minutes left today. But today there is Pulp Fiction on TV. The last time I saw this movie, also on german TV(i.e. dubbed in german), I really liked it. Hopefully watching it the second time around would also be nice.
--25.05.2003 17:26:57
A paper of mine has been accepted at the First European Workshop on Object Orientation and Web Service (EOOWS) in Darmstadt, Germany. Its title is A Classification Framework for Approaches and Methodologies to make Web Services Compositions Reliable.
--23.05.2003 10:53:27
Somehow I am not good at reading specifications, at least the technical kind. It takes me too much time to make sense of what might be written in any particular specification. Today I spent quite some time on the Web Services Policy Framework (WS-Policy) specification, and two associated specifications, Web Services Policy Assertions Language (WS-PolicyAssertions) and Web Services Policy Attachment (WS-PolicyAttachment). All may be read here.
I do seem to have made some sense of these specifications. The idea presented in these is quite good. Basically you can use these to define the requirements or properties of your web services, and attach these policies to, for example, the WSDL description. The clients of the web service can then learn about the policies, and act accordingly. Pretty nice.
--22.05.2003 17:03:49
Endnote is an excellent piece of software that allows you, among other things, to manage references while writing a paper/article/thesis/report etc in Microsoft Word. Highly recommended.
--21.05.2003 14:43:58
now this is something interesting.
--15.05.2003 09:36:38
...is available here.
--12.05.2003 15:42:28
...Europe's Myths of Orient by Rana Kabbani. Nice book. Explains how the Orient has been represented in western writings, wrapped in biased contortions or untruths. However, oddly, this book quotes writings from French authors in French, and does not offer a translation. Pretty strange for an English book, unless the author intended the audience to be able to read French as well.
--11.05.2003 13:48:28
This is an interesting story.
--09.05.2003 15:14:38
These days I am trying to make sense of the BPEL4WS specification. Luckily I have sorted out some confusion with respect to asynchronous callbacks, but making the whole big picture clear still remains. Hopefully this will happen soon.
--09.05.2003 12:18:54
Europe's Myths of Orient by Rana Kabbani. I read this book sometime in 1991 or 1992, but remember it being good enough for a second read.
--04.05.2003 13:24:23
...The Longest War by Dilip Hiro. Quite informative and well-written book, objective and impartial. Worth reading.
--04.05.2003 13:22:19
the Independent newspaper's online site has started charging for its content. This is bullshit, I would say. They have separated out Robert Fisk's articles, but these are not for free reading any more. I think now I'll be turning to alternative sites to see if any of Fisk's articles can be read for free anywhere else.
--28.04.2003 12:16:08
last weekend we went to Holland, to the city of Lisse, to see the tulips. These can be seen in Keukenhof, which is a huge and wonderful park full of flowers. We stayed at the Golden Tulip de Nachtegaal hotel, which, though expensive these days (due to this being the high season), is very near the tulip fields, and quite good for a hotel.
Some pictures of the flowers are here in this file.
--28.04.2003 11:24:02
...The Longest War by Dilip Hiro.
--24.04.2003 14:35:52
watched the match yesterday between Manchester United and Real Madrid. The guy Ronaldo is unbelievable.
--24.04.2003 10:17:32
... Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk. An excellent book, and very objectively written. Now am waiting for The Iran-Iraq War by Dilip Hiro to arrive at the university library.
--22.04.2003 11:49:02
The easter weekend was good with respect to watching TV. Watched a number of movies, including Matrix, Die Hard 2 and Gladiator. Today there is Lethal Weapon 4.
--21.04.2003 11:40:09
I have made some updates to my web page. You can read about it here. If you would like to work on developing the tool mentioned, please contact me by email.
--18.04.2003 11:05:26
yesterday, as I wanted to withdraw some cash from Citibank's ATM, I did not forget my PIN, instead I remembered the wrong PIN. Pretty sure that I was entering the correct PIN, I did so for three times, the third attempt being always fatal, since after that the bank card gets locked, in other words is useless. Luckily the bank was open at that time, so I reported the locking of my bank card, and got a new PIN wrapped in layers of paper. But it will only be usable after two working days, which would be late next week, since from today, i.e. Friday, till Monday, we have the easter break here.
Funnily, I also pushed my Visa card in the ATM, and the same thing happened again, i.e. I remembered the wrong PIN. This time I did not make the third attempt:-)
I think this (remembering the wrong PIN) happened because I remember the PINs of both cards in association with other PINs/numbers. For example, the PIN for the bank card is (was) similar to the PIN for the SIM card in the mobile phone. Similarly, the PIN for the Visa card has similarites to my roll number at university. I think that maybe all these numbers got mangled up somehow.
--18.04.2003 10:03:39
...this represents. Alas!
--15.04.2003 13:03:41
It definitely pays to save your notes :-)
--10.04.2003 14:34:14
...I used to look like this (July 02).
--09.04.2003 14:25:40
Pity The Nation by Robert Fisk of the Independent.
--07.04.2003 15:04:19
This is worth reading.
--06.04.2003 17:55:34
IBM developerWorks has an interesting interview here.
--04.04.2003 09:28:16
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Bush is president
read from Elliotte Rusty Harold's site in his report of a conference.
--03.04.2003 11:00:13
This is just too distressing to read.
--02.04.2003 16:13:52
This page does not have good things to say about Google.
--31.03.2003 10:50:09
This is the answer to Coca Cola from a company in France (seems the link only works with IE browser). Tastes pretty good, but is 50 percent more expensive than Coke, and available here in Hamburg only at big desi shops.
--27.03.2003 17:01:53
Islam in Britain, 1558 -1685, by Nabil I. Matar.
--27.03.2003 09:50:58
Compared against the kind of obscene propaganda coming out of the likes of CNN, the reports from the veteran journalist Robert Fisk in the Independent are refreshing in their truth and objectivity.
--23.03.2003 19:45:28
here is a pic taken with the camera I mentioned in the last item. It was scanned into Adobe Photoshop (which I don't know enough to use effectively) and the Autlevels (don't have no idea what that is) were adjusted, therefore the scanned version of the pic appears a bit brighter than the original printed one, which is a bit underexposed.
--19.03.2003 10:30:42
given the dreadful events taking place in the world, and the way this thing creeps up continuosuly in your thoughts while you are trying to concentrate on work, I thought about reading about photography, and looked up what books on photography the university library has. It seems there are quite some books, so I borrowed one that was readily available, which is John Hedgecoe's complete guide to photography. Its from 1990, and at around that time, and a little later, I started photographing a lot with my sister's Canon A1 camera with a standard lens with 50 mm focal length. Reading the book brought back many things that I had learnt at that time, about aperture opening, shutter speed, depth of field, panning. I had absolutely forgotten about panning, which is moving your camera along a moving subject with a relatively slow shutter speed, so as to highlight the effect of motion in the picture. Incidently, one thing that I had never thought about, despite the high school physics and all, was the relationship of focal length of a camera to the depth of field. It had absolutely eluded me that a 28 mm lens will include more view than a 50 mm camera. This is high school physics, but somehow I never noticed it.
I have now reserved some other photography books in the university library, and hopefully would be reading them. The weather here in Hamburg will also hopefully stay sunny like it is today, and then on the weekend I could take some outdoor photos as well.
The camera I now have is a Canon EOS 300V with a Sigma 28-300 mm zoom lens. Compared with the A1, the newer camera has become technically more advanced, but the features are more or less the same. Does this represent an evolutionary deadend? I don't know.
--18.03.2003 09:40:11
A nice whitepaper about some new web services specifications can be found here.
--17.03.2003 14:07:14
excellent article here.
--17.03.2003 12:45:54
Saw a really disturbing video here. Somehow such things leave you really depressed.
--17.03.2003 10:24:10
Yesterday I went to CeBIT in Hannover, which is at about 1.5 hours train drive from Hamburg. Previously I had been to CeBIT in 2000, and the main difference this time was that it was not as boring as 3 years ago. This time at the west entrance there was a stall where you could download a goodies program into your PocketPC that had a map, the exhibitors, their information etc. Plus there was a lot more hardware to put your hands on and try out, e.g. digital cameras, tablet PCs, mobile phones etc. I tried out the tablet PC, and from a first impression its just a bigger version of a PocketPC. Whether or not it is useful, I can't say. Also, for the first time in my life I saw SLR digital cameras in reality, the previous intro having been limited to flashy photos in print or on the web. And I must say that I was not that impressed. I am pretty satisfied with my simple SLR camera, a Canon EOS 300V with a 28-300 mm zoom lens, and a Canon speedlite 420EX flash gun.
Overall the exhibition was nice, and it was time well spent. Plus I collected a number of the fancy bags for my wife, who is an incredible fan of these.
--17.03.2003 10:12:47
Somehow I have never been able to remember the formula for converting centigrade to fahrenheit. Today I looked it up on the internet and decided to note it down here:
fahrenheit = centigrade * 9/5 + 32
centigrade = (fahrenheit - 32) * 5/9
--14.03.2003 10:32:29
The article here makes a good distinction between orchestration and choreography for web services:
"Orchestration imposes order and timing individually on a set of Web services and their outputs in order to produce a desired process result, just as a musical director imposes order and timing individually on a set of musicians and their outputs to produce a desired musical result. Variations and errors in the musicians' outputs are frowned upon by the director but do not change the order or timing of the process. Orchestration of Web services reflects workflow's automation roots.
In contrast, choreography, by defining behaviors for handling varied and unpredictable interactions among a set of Web services, is more complex than orchestration in the same metaphorical sense. While a troop of dancers and an orchestra of musicians both perform their "tasks" in a coordinated manner, dancers in a choreographed performance move around in their workspace and physically interact with each other. Variations or errors in a dancer's movement can cause changes in the movement of other dancers, which in turn changes the dance performance itself. Choreography of Web services reflects workflow's people-based roots."
--07.03.2003 12:10:09
I spent almost three weeks in February being sick :-( and that too because of a simple throat infection. That despite taking so many different tablets as I never have before. Somehow the lesson from this is that one should see the specialist doctor as soon as possible (in my case it should have been the ENT specialist), and not rely on the general practitioner alone. I first went to the GP, who gave me some mild tablets, which did not help, then gave me antibiotics, which too did not help, then gave me stronger antibiotics, which too did not help, then I called my sister in Pakistan, who is a cardiologist by the way, who told me to go to an ENT specialist as soon as possible, which I did, who luckily diagnosed the infection just by looking down my throat, and gave me further antibiotics for 10 days, which I did take, though had a terrible week due to the worsened infection which I survived by taking pain-killers, not to mention the two weeks before that which were also not that pleasant !!
--05.03.2003 10:48:26
I got myself a Toshiba Pocket PC last Saturday. Its model e330, and is a pretty sleek and lightweight toy. This is the first time I am using Toshiba's hardware, and I was surprised to find out that this pocket PC was considerably cheaper than comparable models. But that's maybe because this is made in Taiwan. Whatever the reason, the real thing is that the price was within my range, and I have started taking it for a spin in fits and starts. I haven't installed the software required to synchronize it with the PC on my notebook, but have so far been just using it standalone since yesterday. The real thing would be, however, to what use I can put it. I think a pocket PC can be really handy, though I'll be more qualified to say this in a few weeks :-)
--06.02.2003 21:57:49
I have written an introductory level article about the Web Services Coordination and Web Services Transaction specifications from BEA, IBM and Microsoft. It is available here in pdf format.
--03.02.2003 09:55:58
I rarely have luck while installing Windows. Yesterday I installed Windows 2000 on my home laptop, after having upgraded its RAM (its really amazing how cheap RAM has become, even for laptops!!), and the installation went okay, but then the configuration of the PCMCIA card just stuck in the way. Only today in the evening, after having spent quite some time, was I able to get that working. Its always like this with me. The installation may proceed okay, but then something gets stuck, and then costs lots and lots of time :-(
--01.02.2003 21:57:07
I would be interested in a 3 months project (Studienarbeit) that investigates "web services conversations". Student who are interested in the topic, and can start soon, should contact me by email.
--07.01.2003 10:24:31
I had gone back home to Pakistan during the Xmas and new year holidays. The flight from Frankfurt to Lahore, my home town, was okay, being only 3 hours late. However, the return flight was really a mess. It started 3 hours late due to lots of fog in Lahore. Then it flied for 8 hours to reach Amsterdam, its first stop. Usually the plane stays in Amsterdam for about an hour, during which time the passengers get off, the plane is cleaned, and new passengers come in ( in this order), but this Sunday (05-01-2003), we had to wait 3.5 hours in the plane, since we couldn't take off because Frankfurt airport, our next stop, was closed due to security reasons (this being due to some deranged chap flying a small plane atop Frankfurt). Spending 3.5 hours in a non-moving plane is really hard, I must say. We reached Frankfurt at around 10 pm, at which time the airport, usually bustling with people, seemed very quiet. I then rented a car for the onward journey to Hamburg, and having left Frankfurt airport around 10:40 pm, reached home in Hamburg at 4:45 am in the morning. Driving at night was not very pleasant either, mainly because I really had to struggle to prevent myself from falling asleep while driving, and also because of the falling snow at some places. The lesson learned from all this: travelling in winter can be quite unpredictable!
--07.01.2003 10:12:27
Buried my father on the 7th of December. Losing a parent is really very hard. May Allah bless him, and be with him in the real life that only begins after death.
--19.12.2002 10:08:40
From now on I intend to put any daily stuff I may write here. For writing this stuff I am using a home-grown tool written by a student at TUHH, Marianna Lasprilla.
--28.11.2002 08:14:36
posted by Farhat @ 11:10 am
Canon seem to have made a mistake, or a deliberate publicity stunt, by releasing photos of a new DSLR camera named 20D. The links to these photos were picked up by many photography sites (e.g. this one), but seem to have been taken off the internet now.
posted by Farhat @ 10:15 am
