For various reasons, I was required to update my server. The update effected a number of things, in particular rails, ruby, all gems etc. This is/was bad news as I don’t really have the time to do this properly at the moment, so I am forced to hack my way around the issues. I originally developed evomatics under rails 1.x (!!!), so the jump to 2.3.5 is like jumping in time – as you know, time travel isn’t possible, and this jump was no different. But, at least in this case, wormholes do exist and I found an awful lot of them (most of them in the last hour). So, with breaking seams held together by spit and chewing gum, I was able to make the transition. No washing for the next weeks, the dirt that sticks is good at this point. Some major movements have to follow in the near future. Anyways, not only to test functionality, but to express my rejoice about being back online and because the song fits the jolly instable state of evomatics…read more

This is just a quick tunecast. On a random Thursday evening I decided to drop by the Gleis, in need of some loud n’ live. Before leaving, I quickly checked the listing and stumbled over a norweigan band that goes by the name of Katzenjammer (literally cats wail). It sounded kind of exciting, advertised as Folk-County-Balkan-Gypsy-Klapperrockpop, and as I only have the best of experience with norwegian live acts, this was a mild must-see. With no tickets at hand, and no real idea what kind of sound to expect, I made my way over to the Gleis around 2100 (which is the normal procedure). To my surprise, there was quite some commotion in front of my local gig palace and it started to dawn on me that, a) Katzenjammer is well known in the sub scenes and b) I was probably going to miss a must see gig. And, sure enough, the crowd was mixed and interesting and the sold-out sign propped up beside the d…read more

Today is the anniversary of the accident that killed my granddad some 42 years ago. During the summer of 1967, a mean heat wave hit British Columbia. My granddad, a pilot for the RAF during the second world war, had been recruited by Alex Davidson, a former WWII ace and Fairey test pilot, to join a young start-up known as “The Flying Firemen” (which, after being bought by some chap named Alex Wood, grew into the largest amphibious waterbombing outfit in the world until it was forced to submit to the competition of the federally-subsidized CL 215 waterbombers built by Quebec-based Canadair in 1996). The company was founded to address the need for fire-fighting aircrafts along the west-cost. On Sunday, July the 16th at roughly 1630PDT, a fire erupted on Skirt Mountain (close to the apparently controversial Goldstream park). Apparently, my Granddad had his day off that day, but happened to be lingering around the hangers. My granddad im…read more