.meeting the summit

.it could be called reunion after a year ;). Yesterday I've met some of my ex-colleagues from the Summit Media, where I used to work. And it was a great fun, as always. Every place where Roman and Miro are together means laughter ;). We drank some wine and did some deep analysis of current Summit projects ;). This is the thing I miss about my previous work, the people from the Summit...
I've currently nothing to do (just waiting for supervisor's remarks about my thesis). But maybe this status quo will change soon, as I've sent some applications for a jobs related with computer graphics. So I guess, we'll see...

.japanese garden

.as I'm trying to do as many interesting things as possible to regain strength after thesis writing, I've decided to visit a bonsai exhibition in Prague's Botanical garden. I had exactly 2 hours to accomplish this deed (bus from Vienna arrived at 5 PM, exhibition was closing at 7 PM, this was the last day of exhibition)...
I was really tired after the journey, but the call of green beauty was undeniable :). So I only left my bag at student residence and went straight into botanical garden. The weather was beautiful and added to the exotic charm of bonsai trees. Their placement in the Japanese garden only accentuated their elegance. Walking along all the exhibits under the sunny sky and mighty trees I felt refreshed and overwhelmed by the power of natural beauty...

It was definitely worth it! Everybody who was not there can only regret this lost opportunity of recharging the batteries.

.danube beauty

.there were huge plans for this weekend. I visited Vienna, where I was supposed to meet with my classmate from the times long forgotten (91-94 in Kiev!). We've not seen each other for 14 years but this blog enabled him to find a contact on me. So I guess blogs are good for something ;).
Jurij is currently on internship in the UN centre and therefore we went for an interesting dinner with many more students the first night. Restaurant chosen was specializing on grilled ribs and everybody tasted it. I have to admit, it was not bad at all :). Evening was nice, with all the new faces, I've never seen before and probably won't see again... Once again I was forced to use foreign languages for a couple of days (English, Russian and a bit of German), so it was an inspiring training session ;).
Saturday was set to be warm and sunny. Thus we decided to do some sightseeing (as I knew only a little about Vienna from my previous visits). Luckily the public transport is quite comfortable, you can get whenever you want fast enough... Plan of the day consisted of visiting Schonbrunn, Belvedere, Stephansdom, Votivkirche, Hofburg, Rathaus, Museum Quartier and many more. I'm quite proud to announce that we did it :). It took a lot of energy and one sunburn, but everything was covered. We were accompanied by a beautiful girl Natasha, so the whole day was brighter ;). Because this trip was so short, we decided to see also some nature and leisure zone of the capital and walked along the Donau Insel, where many bars are, people are sunbathing, roller-skating, biking or just chatting and relaxing.
On Sunday I was leaving at midday so not much was possible to visit any more. Yet I've taken some photos of the famous Hundertwasserhaus (really not an ordinary block of flats) and the river Danube. From what I've seen, Vienna is a really nice place to live, with plenty of exciting places to visit, enough possibilities to relax and spend some time with friends. Maybe I'll visit this town soon again :)...

Some more photos can be found here.

.work done?

.finally it looks like, I've finished my thesis! At least I think so, now I'm eagerly waiting for some supervisor's comments. Hopefully there won't be too much of the contents to rewrite.

It took me approximately 4 months to complete both accompanying application and the text. In case you're interested, the application is based on C++, OpenGL and Cg. It is a presentational work to compare some of the currently used realtime soft shadow algorithms. Whole code is about 4,000 lines long, thesis text has 90 pages (including tables, figures and code examples). Maybe I'll put it on the internet, once approved...

And now I need to rest a bit ;)!

.surprise, surprise!

.it worked :)! After a brilliant organisation and cooperation of a bunch of people we did succeed in preparing a fully surprising birthday party for my little sister Sasa ;).
She is 21 today, so no more jokes about being little, please ;). We envy you a lot, you know? Because we are only a months ahead of real grown-up life... Work, weekend, work, and so on :(. So enjoy these university years while they last!
Anyway, the gig was taking place at Kajetanka residence. Everybody (around 15 people) arrived in advance to avoid spoiling the surprise by meeting Sasa in public transport (she was invited for a little chat, tea drinking with 2 friends living here). And all the fun started at 8 PM...
She entered the door and surprise! Instead of having calm friendly evening "happy birthday" shouts ripped through the air :). I think the surprise was genuine. And that's how it should have been! Fun have started (with a little fire alarm start ;) after blowing out the candles on the cake...). Presents, wishes and essential kisses mixed with a little bit of tears. After that some wine (white, rose and red, everybody could choose) and friendly chat, laughter. As almost nobody knew full crew also many new acquaintances were forged :). It's always nice meeting even more Slovaks studying in Prague ;).

So once again: Happy birthday, 'lil sis'!!!

.end of a dream

.this is it. Our road through the tournament ends in quarter-finals. Again... This time against Sweden. After 7 goals in our net :(. And it started so well...

First period was only starting when we scored for the first time. We were playing nice, offensive hockey. After Swedish equalizer there came another goal to keep us on the winning side. Solid play with stellar goaltending was a promising start with the image of semifinals waiting eagerly on our team.
Yet the hockey is played for 60 minutes and the second period was a disaster. Huge pressure of Sweden was inevitable. Yet after a quick goal they completely overwhelmed Slovak players and the ice was only theirs. Another bull's eyes were coming shortly afterwards. Score was switched from 2:1 into 2:4 and hope was slowly waving its good bye.
The third period was about our enormous will to do something with the result. But every goal in Swedish net was quickly followed by some major mistake in the defence... Sport luck was not on our side today (some big chances leaving the net by a centimetres, not valid goal, some penalties, etc.). Still it's good to add that Sweden was definitely better.
So now it's about the big hockey teams. Russia, Sweden, probably Canada and Finland. Who will be the new champion? My humble guess is: 1.Russia, 2.Canada, 3.Sweden...

.sad times

.sun is gone. Its place has been taken by full surprise by rain and wind. Everything looks sad, hopeless... All happiness disappears, giving away its position to the damp bleakness of surrounding world.
Streets are empty, everybody is in a hurry, taciturn, longing to be home soon. Longing to see familiar face, hear soothing voice. Yet seconds are changing into minutes, minutes into hours. Time is slowing its pace. Why is it so only when you wish the exact opposite? The only thing left is to hope it'll be over soon...

Let's hope!

.czech scalp!

.finally, the bad luck that goes along all our games against the Czech Republic was broken!
This game was really important (for both contestants), for us the victory was a ticket into quarter-finals, for Czech every point meant the same (on the other hand, the loss could bring them complications). We also needed some win to forget last two losses with northamerican teams...
First period was not very encouraging. Czech played their style of game and managed to score a goal in power play. We almost didn't send a shot on Czech goalie (and without shooting activity it is hard to win ;) ).
Second period reversed the roles. After the tying goal (scored by Demitra with some luck) we're more active and had some good scoring chances and pressure. It resulted in another goal. This was what we needed. From that moment on, the pressure to create the game was on our opponents (and it is tough to play when you desperately need to score...).
Final period was filled with Czech enormous effort to tie the game. Our defence was luckily against it. After surviving the penalty killing we struck a winning goal (by Gaborik, our first killer line is finally awake!). Our glee was not lasting long, as a minute later it was 3:2. Yet we managed to sustain great pressure in the last few minutes and not even pulling the goalie helped the Czechs.
Victory is ours! Yet the most important part of the tournament is still only to begin...

.relaxing day

This day was really full of interesting things and surprises. It all started with second lunch, when I was invited to taste some fried carp (neighbour caught it just yesterday). It was really delicious.

But after such overeating, some (sport) activity was really needed to get rid of all the fat ;). I've chosen squash, because I've not played it for a long time and I like it. The only problem left was to find some willing person, to join me (as you may know, it's not fun, when played alone ;) ). I had some luck, Eva agreed to come with me. It started to rain, so we were quite happy for this indoor sport :). After 60 minutes of play, totally tired and sweated, catching breath it was over. Yet it was quite nice and served it's purpose to cost me a lot of energy...
Evening was closing in and so was an important hockey game on world championship in Moscow. Slovakia - Czech Republic. To release the tension (in front of the TV set) and bring some luck for our team, we decided to cook something typical, 'bryndzove halusky'. This is such a delicious meal, yet so easy to prepare! You practically cannot ruin it in any way. And so also today they were great and evidently did help a bit, because we won ;)...

.overseas trouble

.oh man, oh man! I've not seen Slovak hockey in such a deep trouble for a long time... Two losses in two days. It's true, that against tougher teams (Canada 4:5 and the USA 2:4), but the problem is our inability to play anything at least similar to ice hockey... Lack of speed, lack of coordination, unwillingness to fight for puck, really bad penalty killing and pathetic penalty killing with a bonus of not very good performance of both goalkeepers in our team... I could continue like this, but is it needed?

These results make our position and chances to get to the quarter-finals a lot more complicated. I lack the team spirit in this squad. There are only few players, who are doing their best (for example Uram, he almost didn't make it into final roster, yet now is the most valuable player...). Superstar trio from the first line is playing absolutely nothing, 'nada', 'nichts' :(... We'll hope their time will still come. Maybe on Saturday, when we are facing Czech Republic, our big rival (moreover we have some 'weakness syndrome' when playing against them, resulting in very few good results over past few years)... If not them, we'll have to beat Belarus to even get into play-off phase. Otherwise we'll witness the worst final placement in last 11 years :(...

.okor marathon

.day was nice and just asking to go outside and do some sport activity. As for me the best way to relax is bike, I've decided to do some longer lap covering beauties of shores of river Vltava, castle Okor and also miraculously wonderfull valley of Divoka Sarka (summarized it gives about 80km of all types of terrain).
I was going alone (which si typical :( ), at least it gives a man the possibility to work on condition, look after tempo, etc. (no need to adapt yourself to abilities of others...). Anyway it's still better to ride with someone.
As this was my first ride after illness, I was afraid of being totally slow and weak. Fortunately, it was not that bad and the whole track was covered almost without breaks in 3,5 hours. Yet there is a large room for improvement. But the season is still young ;)...