A quick moment for some initial impressions of Graz.

It's a nice city. An interesting mix of semi-historical burgh and college town. There are 4 universities crammed amongst its 150,000 or so regular (not student) inhabitants. Consequently Most of the people I've dealt with thus far have been students, and barring events of a serious nature I don't see that changing. The circles I move in here have a pretty small diameter (largely due to ethereal grasp of German). One consistent feature of the area in which I live (dorm) are drunken serenades occurring with stunning regularity at 2300. The consistency is similar to chiming of clock bells, though the tone is rather more sporadic. It's cool though, apparently a MAJOR activity here is to get jammed and then wander around singing with your friends... I shall call it alco-carrolling. We wish you a drunken wednesday we wish you a drunken....

Given that most of my time has been spent in the "office", I'll talk about it for a little bit. Actually, most of it is better seen than read. Thusly I refer you to http://picasaweb.google.com/pbrune/YeOldeOfficee
One thing about office supplies in Austria, they're quite similar, but differ in a sneaky way. Instead of 3 ring binders, they have 2 ring binders. When I ask about a hypothetical third ring, I'm looked at like I just asked the person how they would feel about drinking toilet water... Also, the paper clips have a sort of blunted-triangular end shape, instead of semi-circular. I guess that's all I have on the office... mainly I just wanted a vehicle for the photos link.

I guess there's one more thing I should mention. Arnold Schwarzenegger is from Graz. If one seeks precision, he is from Thal, Austria, which is a small village that is a suburb of Graz. When I say I'm from California, which I often do, all conversation is immediately funneled towards Der Governator. Most of it concerns an incident a couple years ago, whereby the city of Graz named its main sports stadium after Arnold, but were put under pressure to change it when Arnold supported the continued use of the Death Penalty in C to the A. To save them the trouble, Arnold demanded his name be removed. This bothers people to this day. They are like the disgruntled employee, who complained about stupid company policies over and over until finally they were just going to quit, but right before they quit they got fired. The end result is the same (excluding consideration of severance pay) but they have been deprived of their free will... relegated to the role of reactor, rather than actor. Which sounds about right, given the parties concerned.

I just tried to post a photo and the result was abysmal. The blog will not be used for photos. Go here, instead:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pbrune/

Note: The future of this blog is again jeopardized.

The original email: for those who didn't receive it:

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Dear Friend,

I would like to share the following brief update on my life with you:

http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2905

My goal is not to accumulate congratulatory responses, but rather to provide an overview of what I've been devoting most of my efforts to and what (where) i'll be continuing to do (so) in the future. I feel somewhat guilty, because this is a mass-Email and therefore devoid of any personal sentiments. Still more damning is the fact that the document referenced above is written by somebody else. But, among other things, I've learned that something is usually better than nothing.

I hope you are all well in the ways you want to be, and promise to respond personally to any responses.

your friend (to one degree or another),

PHiL
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