.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'!!!