Charles Betz Blog

Daat hei ass en Bericht fir all die zukünfteg Studenten die sech eng eegen Wunneng wellen ariichten......

Sait lo genee 8 Deeg dreit dem Fabienne an main (Lisa) Alldag sech just nach em ustraichen, Ikea Miwel zesummen bauen an daat ass schon eng Wessenschaft fir sech.

Jojo denkt der elo bestemmt: Fra'en an Miwel zesummenbauen kann jo net klappen, awer ech schwieren ierch dorun leit et net! Die eng Kéier sin keng Schrauwen mat an den Tuten, dann sin keng Läscher firgebuert oder se sin net déiw genug, sou dass een se net dran kritt..............

Mä wéi wann daat nach net genug wier, verbrengen mer, wann mer net an der Wunneng eis ze doud schaffen, mol relax 6 voll genervten Stonnen beim MOEBELLIFERANT!!!!!!! Dann ass et och schon mol normal, dass een d'Halschent vergesst, en Regal um Fouss lannt, die falsch Saachen keeft oder se halt einfach net do sin, sou dass een halt nach eng Kéier goen kann.

Waat awer daat allerbescht un allem ass, iergendwann neicht sech all Chaos dem Enn zou an sou ass et och, dass meng Wunneng sou lues a lues färdeg gett an ech dem Fabienne hellefen kann.

Domadder en ganz schéinen Bonjourn vun eis zwee aus Bréissel.
Fabienne an Lisa

Once again I will be gone for some time, 3 weeks to be exact! The last couple of days were quite stressful, for one the shitty ECS server from our scouting site is not working as it is supposed to, I went with Line to Brussels and later to the IKEA to arrange and find some things for her studies, then the packing, and today had a photoshooting at the KUFA (Kulturfabrik Esch sur Alzette) for a play (more on that in a later post) etc...

One tip though: Never go to Belgium for your studies! As far as I have seen in Line's case, there are so many obstacles, mistakes and complications by the government (among others) that it can hardly be worth the effort... Maybe it isn't that hard if you choose not to study ergotherapie, but anyhow, every minute I spend there helping Line reminds me of how easy and smoothly thing are back in good old Switzerland...

So for the next two weeks, I will be in the Bretagne on the Presqu'île de Crozon near Camaret, then the third week we move on to our luxurious rented house with private beach and pool in the Charente Maritime, near Meschers... I hope I will find some time writing (if not posting) during the next weeks...

No, of course the last two and a half weeks were nowhere near being a bootcamp, but on the other hand they were not allways what we had expected...

The campsite Rakov Jarak from the Split Scout Association turned out to be really small for our terms... The last couple of years, our camp were more in the football field range, and we allways carry tons of tents for our kitchen, eating room and our material (plus 6 or more 12 person tents from Alpina). Next we were told that we could only use 2/3 of the site because some other German Scouts would arrive later... But as allways, we did the best out of it, used the ready made outdoor kitchen and some other facilities, that we otherwise would have build ourselves. There was only place for a medium sized tower, but that too was no big deal.

We had big trouble with the weather, being cold and rainy (I'm speaking of torrents here) most of the time... Some tents were flooded even after a trench digging action at 3 am so that most of the kid's clothes were all wet... We evacuated them into a smaller building and spend some days of drying the clothes in front of a big fire in the kitchen. Another story was that of our premium bus driver, Lex (Ohh what a beautiful morning...) who had a horrible tooth ache so that we had to call in the late evening the emergency to find out where to take him to... On the official number (94) there was no response, and on the international on (112), we were told to go to the next village into a restaurant or bar to maybe find a dentist sitting there... Otherwise, we could simply ring the bell on the houses to maybe even get some pain killers... Great advice, wellcome to Croatia... Our Speleo/Cayaking activity had to be aborted because it turned out to be so dangerous that some of the kids had bruises after 5 minutes...Wellcome to Croatia part 2... But otherwise it was really fun, despite of the bad weather we all had a great time, it felt so good to be on a summer camp again!

Pictures are to be found HERE

Today is the day, my 35kg worth backpack with attached tripod, trekking shoes and sleeping bag are standing at my back, along with some smaller bags and boxes... At 15:30 we'll meet at the Glacis, a central place on the Limperstberg, Luxembourg. Later I will do a final check and go once more over our schedule and I hope that we haven't missed anything. I'm really looking forward to this, and with some luck, I'l even break last years record of taking 4000 pictures on a scout camp...

So don't worry if you don't hear anything from me for the next two and a half weeks, except maybe for a post card. Maybe I'll even discover an internet cafe somewhere near Fuzine (near Rijeka) in Croatia... Our Campingsite's name is Rakov Jarak... See you...

Link: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=en&u=http://www.betz.lu/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=3&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcharles%2Bbetz%26hl%3Dfr%26lr%3D

Give it a try, I've just tried out the Google translation service, you'll laugh yourselves to death!

Dest ass den Rapport vun eisem, Fabienne an Jim, Roadtrip 2006 duerch 11 verschidden Länner!
Letzebuerg -> Belsch -> Frankreich -> Andorra -> Spuenien -> Frankreich -> Monaco -> Italien -> Schwäiz -> Liechtenstein -> Eisträich -> Däitschland an rem zreck! Hei kent der eis Aventure noliesen an puer Fotoen kucken!

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For our Camp in Croatia next Thursday, I had organized over the last year a small quiz on our Scout Site to get the motivation even higher... I made one for the Scouts (12-15 years) and one for the older ones, with no Wiki-like questions. I had decided with Georges Krombach, one of our group leaders and an ingenious caricaturist to design a Tshirt for the two best scout competitors... Geo made the drawing, and I handled analog to digital conversion, layering and colorizing the grafic... It was the first time I've done that with Photoshop, but I think it is quite a succes, many thanks to Geo!

The other part of the work was finding the right Tshirt printing service, that could offer proper quality at a reasonable price. I finaly came down to tshirtstudio.com, which I must admit offered a superb service, at a price of around 20€ per Shirt...As the two lucky winners are Annik and Julie, I decided to let print the template onto some sort of girly shirt insetad of always the same boring Tshirts...

The Original Scan

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The layered file (still reduced)

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And the final Shirt:

Front:

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Back:

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Haut den Owend hate mer och eng méi gemütlech Theaterversammlung bei mir doheem am Gaard. 6 vun de 7 Scouten déi en Theaterstéck fir am Hiersch opzeféiren geschriwen hun, ware bei mech lanscht komm a mir hun am Gaard bei engem Thüringer a Kotelet iwert hiert Stéck geschwat an hun et spéider dunn och e besselchen geprouft...

Et fannen et ganz gudd, mat e bessen üben wert et och sëcher e vlott Stéck gin, Energie an Witz stiechen se zumindest genuch dran...
Click weider fir puer Fotoën vun eisen Auteuren ze gesin...

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This noon, we gathered at our scout depot on the Cents to load the whole junk into the transporter we loaned for our camp next Thursday in Croatia. Trying to do achieve such a task during this kind of wheather situation can be sort of unmotivating, as you can probably see from these images.

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As I've mentionned earlier, this Sunday, we planned going to Lultzhausen (Lëltz) to the Pont Flottant, sort of a metal floating bridge of about 300m over the lake in the Ösling. Everything was allright, I had prepared the sandwiches (Canard Curry, Duck with a Curry Sauce) and was wating for Marc to pick me up in front of the Palais de Justice, the building of the Justice Department where I live. Which is always a bit odd, ass the Police Officers pass in front of me sitting in swimwear with my air mattress and huge bags filled with beverages and our picknick, wondering what the heck I'm doing there...

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Well anyway, I was waiting for quite some time because Marc hadn't got my message, (crappy phones!), so that Line and her sister Jill had to wait for nearly an hour in Saeul, as I had thought that they would better find the place with our guidance...

Next surprise came in Lultzhausen, as we found out that our beloved bridge had disintegrated it self and completely vanished...Crap! So we moved on to the lawn/beach in Liefrange, where we had to wait for some time for the sun to appear behind the cloudy sky...Well finally it came, back with a vengence, as 3 of us had a sunburn afterwards... Anyway, it was fun, living is so easy without worrying about the studies :-)

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Just got home from Basel, which means that I finished my exam and can finally start looking forward to my holidays...

My continous head ache has not yet vanished, probably because of the heat, but that's not what's important now... It has been a long time that I could really speak of holidays, the last couple of years I always had some exam afterwards, so that you could not really enjoy the whole thing... But this time it's different (hopefully), and I think that I really deserved it! Let's see what the next days will bring, an Sunday I will go op de Stau, a big (in the Luxembourgish sense of the word) reservoir dam in the Eisleck or Ösling, the northern more natural part of the country near Lultzhausen (Lëltz)... Hopefully we will have great wheather (forecast: Guess what : Burning Hot!, here are some apetizers to show you that de Stau means fun!

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Tomorrow I'll return to Basel to my Borromäum (my Wohnheim) and on Friday I'll write my examn... Not sure yet when I'll be back, surely before Saturday... So see you then, hopefully I will be in a much better mood... Hurray hurray, it's (nearly) a holi holiday...

What the water wants is hurricanes,
and sailboats to ride on its back.
What the water wants is sun kiss,
and land to run into and back.
I have a fish stone burning my elbow,
reminding me to know that I'm glad
that I have a bottle filled with my old teeth.
They fell out like a tear in the bag.
And I have a sister somewhere in Detroit
She has black hair and small hands.
And I have a kettledrum
I'll hit the earth with you.
And I will crochet you a hat.
And I have a red kite;
I'll put you right in it.
I'll show you the sky

Link: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/

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Some months waiting has finally be rawarding: Adobe Labs has after some frustrating months released their Public Beta 3 of their new workflow enhancing application Adobe Lightroom. Most of the photographers nowadays are working with 'monsters' lika photoshop. This is a fantastic program, I really love working with it, but fact is that it has never been developed for the purpose it is used today... Photoshop was never really ment for developping RAW files, cleaning up and processing pictures from the chip to the end product (=workflow). It has acquired over the years so many functions, many of them very useful, but the whole idea of the program was not to make life as a photographer easy...

This fact has been recognized by many developers, e.g. Apples Aperture... But as I said a lot of photographers have developed a rather intimate relation to Adobe, and I think that is why this software can be a huge succes. Photographers have aided right from the beginning in designing this application which is of course very helpful...

The program in itself looks very Vista-like (for me not being familiar with Mac OS X), right now I cannot really say much about working with it, because I'm still in the process of adding all my photos to its library (with some 60'000 that will take a while) and it only crashed 3 times... More on working Lightroom later...