rolisz's site

Drei Jahre in der Schweiz

Collage of my third year in Switzerland

Three years ago today I started my job at Google. I had moved to Switzer­land two days before, with two suitcases and a backpack. Then followed a lot of adventure.

The third year was different. I started learning Swiss German, so that I can better integrate and it payed off: I am no longer completely clueless as to what Swiss people speak around, I am only mostly clueless.

I also got married to the most beautiful, loving and kind girl in the world, Roda, who happens to be an amazing cook as well!

I also just did my 100th flight two days ago. I have flown more …continue.

How to organize a wedding - in 20 easy steps

Roda and Roland wedding

So you decided to get married. You need a wedding for that. It's a lot of work. Given that I just got married two weeks ago, I'll try to jot down some step-by-step in­struc­tions (with par­tic­u­lars about Romanian bu­reau­cra­cy).

  1. Find a partner who is willing to say "Yes". Trivial exercise, left as homework for the reader.
  2. Decide on the style of wedding. Do you want a fancy, shiny, super modern wedding in the middle of the city? Do you want something in nature, far from civ­i­liza­tion? Do you want a smaller, cozier wedding? Do you want to invite …continue.

Evaluating goals - 2017 edition

Another half a year has passed, so it's time to review my goals from January.

Around March something came up, so I dropped some goals or reduced their intensity. That something is called setting a wedding date for July, so I'll excuse myself for being busy with that.

Scoring will continue by the same metric: 1 for goals fully achieved, 0 for complete failures.

Get to 82 kg by June
I am currently 83 kg. I was 90 kg in January when I posted this, so this is a 0.875 score. Not bad. We'll see how my suit fits on Saturday :D
Exercise three times a week
I exercised 63 …continue.

I believe I can fly!

About a month ago I started believing I can fly, so I proved it by going for a gliding session. A glider is a light­weight plane, which doesn't have an engine, so it's pulled by another plane until it takes off. After that, you glide through the air, like an eagle, looking for thermals which lift you up. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it was a too nice day, with no clouds, so we didn't find any good thermals, so my flight was quite short. But it was still nice to see Uetliberg from above :D And I piloted the plane for about 5 minutes :D

Two weeks ago I had …continue.

The Piano Guys

Playing I want you Bach

Playing I want you Bach

Last Friday The Piano Guys were in Zürich. I found out about it from an ad on Facebook. It's probably the second time in my life where an ad­ver­tise­ment there is actually useful and relevant for me.

They started by playing Batman Evolution, which goes through most of the Batman movies sound­tracks and weaves them together.

They explained how they like to combine their love for old classical music with modern songs that are well known by young people. For example, they take every kid's favourite song: Let It Go! and combine it with Vivaldi's Winter.

The duo likes to make fun of each other. Jon …continue.

Istanbul, land of turbans, spice and carpets

Entrance to small market

This is the land of cheap layovers on the way to Romania. Thanks to the invisible hand of the market, tickets to the airports that are close to where my fiancee lives were 50% cheaper when flying through Istanbul, with an overnight layover, than more direct flights. It was still cheaper when buying two nights in a hotel. So through Istanbul it was. I figured it might be my last trip alone, so it should be fun.

And it was. Istanbul is a very colorful and diverse city. You see all kinds of people getting along. And they have something us in the "west" don't have: time. Everywhere …continue.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my dear mom! I love you! Kisses from New York!

Look what I found on Uetliberg

Hands with rings

Scarcely had I hiked up Uetliberg when I found the one my heart loves. I held her tightly and I put a ring on her finger! (to paraphrase Song of Solomon 3:4)

Indexing IM logs with Elasticsearch

Remember my old project for processing instant messaging logs? Probably, because I wrote about it five years ago. Well, the project is only mostly dead, every once in a while I still oc­ca­sion­al­ly work on it.

I mostly use it as an excuse to learn tech­nolo­gies that are used outside of the Google bubble. One thing that really impressed me with how well it works and how easy it is to set up was Elas­tic­search. Elas­tic­search is a search engine. You give it your documents and it indexes them and enables you to query them fast. There are other projects that do this for you, but ES can …continue.

Silence

Silence poster

Silence is a movie by Martin Scorsese about two Catholic priests, Rodriguez and Garupe, who go to Japan in the 17th century to find their mentor, Father Ferreira, who is rumoured to have lost the faith.

It's a really good movie, even though it's extremely brutal. It makes you think about some really hard questions, such as where is God among suffering and when He is (or seems) silent, despite all your prayers.

It's based on a book by Endo Shusaku. I read the book when I was 12 or 13. I found it too long and boring, but I forced myself to finish it. I …continue.