Run to catch the bus

480 pages assessment delivered.

After a long long time I am back to express myself in this blog. To be honest, during this period I’d written two articles but I postpone their publication because I am not sure if they are offensive or they can create some uncomfortable situation to some friends of mine. Eventually, taking an MSc course isn’t the easiest situation you can deal with. Hours of study, countdown to deadlines and… running to catch the bus (for people who doesn’t know that, my principle “never run to catch a bus, another one will arrive shortly” was busted here in York, twice!).

Finally, the Practical Software Engineering & Management of Software Engineering module ended yesterday followed by a fest in the local pubs. 4 months working with 4 people from 4 different countries. Deal with 4 different cultures. A lot of 4s or a lot of lessons learnt? I strongly believe the second one. Let’s do some maths:

• 7.648,42 are the kilometers between Athens and Beijing.
• 5.009,51 kilometers from Athens to New Delhi.
• 2.481,57 kilometers from Athens to Tehran.
• 2.422,30 kilometers from Athens to London.
• 1500+ hours of team working. 841 hours spent on defined project tasks.
• More than 100 liters of coffee (= 300 pounds spent in vending machines)

What about culture?

• Capital punishment is the penalty to Iranians if they declare that they are not religious.
• In contrast, English people really don’t care about God.
• Chinese boys have to buy a house to their girlfriends.
• Indians smoke a lot, like Greeks.
• Never bet against Iranians.
• In China, you have to work at the place that you were born.
• If an English man wants to speak real “everyday” English you cannot understand him, even if you hold a PhD in English language from the Cambridge University with the title “Understanding everyday English from English university students”.
• ...

And finally, general stuff:

• Conversation between two Greek boys is very sexy (yes, someone told that. WTF?).
• Greeks can speak for boring things very passionate.
• Democracy in software engineering sucks.
• after 4 months Gu Zi became Gu Zili and got his glory back (sorry Steve ).

That’s all. It’s time to start my final project. Another 4-months experience starts from now. For the previous one, I want to thank Lyla, Steve, Ehsan and Vipin.

Human vs Nature

River Ouse (18/3 @ 16:30). This photo was taken from Liana.
(Click to enlarge)

I am back after a week break with no blog activity. The last 10 days in York were very difficult as I had to study hard in order to deliver three open assessments for my university course. Today I "escaped" from this hell in which I will return in 2 days to continue with two very difficult assessments.

I am writing this from the York's Starbucks shop located in Coney st. Today, the weather in York is really nice. The sun is shining and the temperature is raised to 10 degrees Celcius. It may sounds strange for the people reading this from Greece, but 10 degrees is thought as warm here. I have nothing in my mind right now as I am really tired. The only thing that I can say is that I am very sad about the Japanese people. They are living a real nightmare.

I hope that this will end soon. Nature proved once again the its powers are unlimited and people should not underestimate them.

Take care!

Over the rainbow

This time I will not write about my thoughts or my beliefs. I will make a tribute to my hobby, that is flight simming. If you think that this is not as thrilling as bungee jumping or not as impressive as soccer, then please read the whole article. Maybe I can manage to change your view.

First of all, I introduce you Air GREECE VA (VA stands for virtual airline). Air GREECE is a partner in a gigantic VAs network called VATSIM. VATSIM provides the networking that allows as to fly in real time with pilots and Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) from all over the world using Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 & X. Imagine that at the time this article is written about 1000 virtual pilots are flying simultaneously, executing real flightplans under real weather conditions. It mays sounds boring but it isn't. You can fly a short route, ie from London Heathrow to Paris Chars De Gaulle airport (approximately 1 hour) or a really long and challenging route, ie from New York JFK to Athens El. Venizelos (approximately 10 hours). We are talking about real time flights so you have to stay in your virtual cockpit for every single minute. There are real people whose hobby is to control the air traffic so you have to communicate with them and follow their orders like in real world.

I am in Air GREECE VA for about 3 years and I have 700 hours in my flight record. I am currently a Senior Captain in this company. Before Air GREECE I was flying with Aegean VA and I had more than 1000 hours of flying. My longest journey was a 13 hours flight from Athens to St. Maarten (the most thrilling airport in the world. Just type St. Maarten airport in youtube).

What's the point? I can't analyze it to you so much. It's a really big community out there and I made some good friends. We organised in the past group flights in which 20 people took place flying together. I can remember the best moment in Air GREECE when 20 pilots flew the 1 1/2 hours route from Athens to Innsbruck. The place where this airport is located and the big amount of traffic that we created led the traffic controllers to order me to execute a holding pattern (imagine it as making cycles above a specific point at the same height) for almost 2 hours. I landed having the minimum allowed fuel in my tanks.

I love virtual flying and I love real flying, too. I had the luck to fly 2 times a Cessna 182 in Makedonia Airport and execute some landings and take-offs. My dream is to fly, over the rainbow, so high. Flight simming helps me to fulfill my dream virtually. I hope that in the future virtual reality will become reality.

The first video is a video I created, recording one flight I made from Heraklion to Thessaloniki. The second is a video form the CEO of Air GREECE VA. Watch them and enjoy the flight. If you are interesting in finding details then visit www.airgreeceva.gr and www.vatsim.net. If you want to fly with us then e-mail me ASAP!

The perfect balance

I always hear people protest for some bad luck or some lack of capabilities that they may have comparing themselves with others. I don't know anyone that is happy of what he has. We are always be jealous of things that we don't have but we never think of what we possess. I am thinking of that since I was five years old. I remember myself claiming new toys saying to my parents names of my friends that have more toys than me. But, mysteriously I was forgetting the friends of mine that had less toys than I had. In contrast, there are people thinking that they are better than the others. That they have more knowledge, more money, generally more positive characteristics that the others. Two different views that are both wrong.

No one is in better situation than you are and your are not in a better situation that the others are. Trust me. Every single person in this universe has the same amount of positive and negative features in his life. And responsible for that is an unknown power that handles these "resources". Many people call this power "God" while others just "Destiny". I will simply call it "Universe" to avoid any misunderstandings. If you think that you are unlucky because someone seems to have more than you, then have in mind that there are things in everyone's life that are hidden. So you can't judge if he is what he looks or what problems he may have. On the other hand, if you think that someone is not good as you then have in mind that he may have some hidden features that you simply don't know. Always remember that the "Universe" knows everything and it will balance everything. 

But, what's the point of that? Firstly, I want to express that people should be happy of what the "Universe" selected for them because the selection was totally fair. Secondly, there are no people in this planet that are bad or that they are worse than the average. All of us have some positive characteristics. It is your responsibility to find the characteristics of each person that are positive and disregard those that are negative. Have in mind that you are not perfect because no one is. Do you remember the "Universe"? It is responsible for that. It is here to control that no one is perfect. To control that no one is better that the others. To set the perfect balance!

The dream of "bring them back"

Melina Mercouri (1920-1994)

Many of you may know Melina Mercouri. Melina was a great Greek actress, singer and politician. Andreas Papandreou in 1981 anointed her Minister of Culture, a position that she held for 8 years. She had a dream. Today is completed the 17^th year after her death. Her dream hasn’t yet fulfilled.

I hope that all of you know the Parthenon located in the Athens’ Acropolis. It’s a great historic monument, which millions of tourists from all over the world visit every year. It was built with marble in the middle of the 5th century BC. This construction is so huge that is very difficult to understand how it’s built having in mind the restricted technology that people had 2500 years ago.

Around 1800, Greece was under the Ottomans possession. Ottomans let Elgin, a British Lord, to move almost the half of these marbles to Britain. Since then the monument of Parthenon is expecting the return of these marbles. Melina fought to bring them back however she didn’t manage to do that. Many people after her had the same dream but it is still a dream for them.

Now the marbles are located in the British Museum, in London.  I always had in mind that it is not so bad that the marbles are hosted in Great Britain. It is a very good advertisement of my country in such a big museum. Why do we want the back? I visited this museum 2 years ago. I left the hall where they are hosted in almost five minutes. I left because I was bored. I saw some hundreds of well sculptured marbles in a cold room. Then I realized why Greeks want them back.

These marbles are losing their importance, their merit away from the building of Parthenon. People can’t understand what they animate because their animation is strongly connected with the rest of the building. I was never a big fan of the “Bring them back” movement. But, I think that Melina’s dream should be fulfilled as soon as possible. The marbles don't belong to Greeks, to British, to Ottomans. They belong to Parthenon and to the citizens of this world.    

Parthenon

ACAB? ACAHT!

Today morning, when I woke up I found my Facebook wall full of posts regarding the police. I wasn't informed on what happened but I easily realized that something bad was happened in Greece the previous night. The news portals had the assassination of two young police officers (22 years old) at the top of their newslists. The story can be found here. 

My facebook wall continued to grow with messages of friends who were declaring their opposition to the death of these two guys. However there were some messages of people who were happy because two cops were killed. The "ACAB" acronym (All Cops Are Bustards) was written at the end of each message of that type. 

I am not going to talk about the dead policemen. They are dead and our religion says that now they will be judged by God and not by humans. Nevertheless, I will write four statements for people that are supporting that a death is welcomed if is a death of a cop.

1) Each of these guys was a son of a mother, whose life in now ruined. She is now in pain and she has no difference from your mother.
2) Each of these guys was a son of a man, who sacrificed his life to let his children become useful members of this society. He is now in silent pain. Remember, that he has no difference from your father.
3) Each of these guys was a brother. His brothers and sisters can not even sleep from now on. It's like your brother.
4) Each of these guys was a friend. A friend of people like you.

So, if you believe that ACAB then I say to you that ACAHT (All Cops Are Humans Too).

Over the hill

Well, I cannot really understand what's the meaning of the song. I think that it's about love and a girl that is left alone. Or maybe a person that is old and alone, as the phrase "over-the-hill" is used to declare the past of the youthful vigor. So, I decided to write about what I firstly understand when I read the title of the song which is not related at all with the above. 

Let's imagine that life is a trip with a bicycle. In this trip, unfortunately the road isn't straight and the biggest problem is that the road has a lot of uphills. In uphills, you have to spent a big amount of energy to manage to reach the top of the hill. This effort is awarded by a downhill in which you don't even need to pedal. The bike is moving all alone and now you can enjoy the trip. Until you reach a new uphill and face the new troubles that you have to surpass. It is something like a giant roller coaster which lasts many years, going up and down all the time. But you know that the great effort is awarded. 

Sometimes you get the award really fast. Sometimes it takes many years to grab your award. You think that you are trying but nothing changes. But if you really try and there are no results then a magic hand will push you to ride the hill. If you don't try the result is obvious. The bicycle will go down the hill, but this time backwards. 

And when you reach the top of the hill then a new era begins. Try for this moments. The moments that you are on the top of the hill. Ride with passion your bike over the hill.

PS. The explanation of the real meaning of the song is welcome!