Video games

I read a wikipedia page about Jack Thompson, and boy, that man is KAH-RAZY. Someone even likened him with Don Quixote, fighting his eternal battle against magical evils and dragons(aka games and game developers).

And i hereby declare that Video games is one of the BEST entertainment solutions since Orson wells "War of the worlds" on radio. TV is brain killing, we all know this, it doesnt ask you any questions, only talks and talks and talks. Infact, TV is like that 14 year old girl who just thinks her side of the story is soooo much more interesting then anything else, more interesting infact then any thing else.
Books are good, at least they call upon your imagination.
But, Games(tv ones or computer ones, same same) are atleast getting you engaged, thinking, and interacting. Ill go as far as saying that Violent computer games are good for moderately violent people to calm down a bit. Ofc, crazy ppl(like Jack thompson) have always existed, and murders and random violence has always existed, games or no games. This is just the latest scapegoat for the white middle aged(good chance of Christianity, not a defining factor, but these crack pots just always seem to be) to blame the state of the youth on. It even all started with the Space invaders game. When in fact, if you put the table for the amount of crime victims per 1000 citizens(i guess this is america) and put over the release dates for different violent games.
well, this is the effect!

[picture snagged from http://www.surprisinger.com/]


Kinda makes you chuckle huh.

Thats it.

At long last

I have finished my first watch!! *loud cheers*
Yes, thats right, My first 470 000 euro watch is ready. Its the Girard perregaux Jackpot. Im quite happy with it. Got very good marks on quality(aka how clean and well finished it was. also in regards to how it worked). And im very well pleased with that. Ofcourse.

My parents are coming for my fathers 60 year birthday. I just hope that we have good enough ativities laid up for them, the right food etc.

Ive decided to try and revive this blog a little, with smaller but more frequent posts >.<

So! hopefully see you soon :)

whats this?

Is this a blog?
Oh well, better blog then.

Started building my movement now, its going forward. It is kinda hard, because allot of the things im doing are new to me, but at the same time allot of the things are things ive done before. So those things i know are allot fun, because even if i know them, they take concentration and precision to become like it should be.

What am i doing now?
Im doing premontage(it seems ive said that allot on this blog). A whole deal of watchmaking on this level is premontage, getting the pieces ready, making sure they work in the watch(this can sometimes be very time consuming, for example, almost the whole day yesterday went into a big cross slide. Making sure it was completely free in its slide but not having a big shake in said slide). This is very cool and fun because when my boss is telling me what to do with X piece or Y piece, he explains a bit about what it does in the watch, what powers are working on it and what i need to be careful off and what to be extra perfect with. At the same time i get a bigger feel for the whole mechanism, which is of course totally awesome :P

Tomorrow me and my wife are going to see the alps. A colleage of mine and his girlfriend are going on a road trip to the alps, and they invited us with them. If the weather is anything like today it will be really nice and hopefully a relaxing but enjoyable ride.

Offbeat, I am finally getting a good hang of the french. Getting some of the jokes, even making some of my own now :P.
Relations at work are getting smoother and smoother. Even being able to drop into some workshops and just chat a bit. That feels very nice, to be able to participate in normal banter.

p.s. im gonna see what photos i can take of this movement, the platine(main plate) is very revealing so im not sure if thats allowed or not.

Happy New YEAR!!

2008 is here!

And im back in switzerland.

X-mas was great, see the family, go around town, meet friends and, EAT FOOOOOOOD!! omg, ive never managed to be full for 12 days straight before, like the WHOLE TIME. geez, need to find something to do to get rid of some excess fat.
And 2 weeks is almost too short when you need to meet all your family for the year. so when i came back to work i was tired as hell.

Im actually having huge problems with my last tourbillion, both me and my boss have looked at it a few times now and we just havent been able to find anything that should give this tourbillion so low amplitude :(

Until late today, my boss saw that the incablocs werent moving back into position like they should. so tomorrow im gonna change those and see what happens.


Just a short post today, gonna try and write more soon :)

p.s. and x-mas photos are to follow soon'ish

sorry.

Yes yes, i know, ive been lazy writing new posts on the blog.

And well, now i have a few reasons to write something again :)

First, my old teacher/headmaster was on a course for teachers at the WOSTEP foundation in neuchatel, so we took the chance and met up ofc.
We agreed over telephone that i should come to neuchatel by train and should arrive 3ish, and that i did. But, i hadnt eaten very much that morning, so i was hungry as hell already at 3. He had been busy doing something else so he hadnt eaten either.
So, Situation : we were both hungry
Solution : Eat!
Problem! In switzerland, restaurants dont start serving food untill after 6'o clock at the soonest. But, both me and him had eaten at this really good pizza restaurants in the past before 6'o clock. We walk to this restaurant *MEEEEP* half past six they start serving food.... ok, what else?
we walk around for 30 minutes maybe. At this point i was having trouble containing my hunger-irritation, i always get very irritated when i get too hungry. But i managed to contain myself :P
After those 30 minutes, we decide to eat kebab, because all the kebabs ive eaten in switzerland have only been snacks, littly tiny things to tease your appetite, i thought that would do us good for 2 hours and then we could have a pizza.

*kaaPLAMOOoo* the biggest fucking thing ive seen since Borensberg. this kebab was enough to feed a hungry family for 3 weeks if cut up right. So, that scratched the pizza plans. oh well.

We talked allot about the education i got and what he wants to change in the school, it was really nice to see such fire in him.
But what was really important was ofc that he brought me my Ring(linky)
Had a few beers and some glasses of wine, all in all it was a nice evening.

I Have also _almost_ completed my first tourbillion, Its all polished and ready for final fine-tuning. Today i also completed my first movement. Ok, its just a movement travaille(a movement to put the tourbillions in to test and regulate). It was great fun to recognize the parts from premontage and to get a sense of completion to what im doing. I also got told what im going to do after X-mas, but im not telling you :P


And Rebekka took some awesome pictures of when it snowed a few days back

Ill try and be more active in my posting :)

David out!

Around we go!

Tourbillion : means Whirlwind literally, is an escapement device in a watch, its very delicate and very brittle. so this takes specialized tools and VERY strict guidance if you want to do this. Last but not least, you need the talents.

Lucky for me, my boss thinks i have all of these now(the tools i made, linky at top), the guidance i get from my boss and the talent i got somewhere else(mom? dad?).

Anyway, i am now in the process of making my Very first Tourbine cage, you pronounce the french cage similar to cache, but with longer a, like caaache.(or tourbillion cage(this is the english cage, like bird-cage), the complete thing is called a cage, beats me why). ive taken as many pictures as ive remembered to take, be cause, to be perfectly honest, im quite swept up in this work and easily forget to stop and take pictures.

Its great fun, especially since i can for the first time sense that im getting close to my first "product". Its very challenging though. Small brittle stuff that easily break or if i take a 100th of a millimeter to much here or there, it simply wont work and *woosh* back where i started on last wednesday( wednesday-ish atleast).

Other news :

Were going to IKEA again now on saturday, it sucks to have ALL your clothes in one biggish closet with 3 shelfs, that makes all my pants in one big pile in left corner of shelf, all my t-shirts in a big pile in the middle, some t-shirts spill over to the pants, some wander off to the sweaters, which also have a specific corner to be in. Now, add some pull-overs and polo(?) shirts and its all a big mess. this needs fixing.

My French is coming along, im almost able to totaly understand my teacher soon. this will hugely boost my learning capabilities(sarcasm intended) No, but seriously, my french is picking up and coming along nicely. Last word i learned was "fois" (which means "time" as in "Due fois par semain" = "two times per week".) Rebekkas french is, ofc, brilliant, she just doesnt get as much practice as i do.

Working on workphotos

Now that im finaly done with most of the pre-montage for the other guys in the attelie, My boss asked me to do some possages(dunno how to spell that, but its to put parts on for pollish and/or work in the lathe.) for a tourbillion. so that probably means that i will start working on the Tourbillion soon.

Btw, before i can start working on the tourbillion, i have a 7 page how-to, just step by step, without any theory on how or why(thats a few books of material). and i needed to make 7 possages to hold different parts for specific steps(or what the hell you call it, things-to-do-before-its-finished).

Even if the tourbillion is really not many parts at all, it is the beating organ of any watch its put into. and being handmade. everything becomes very touchy-touchy. if i dont keep my tolerances while doing the pre-assembly on the tourbillion, the finished product will be a bitch to get right.

Im really looking forward to this. i havent been in a rush getting here though. ive been savoring the feeling of anticipation, and knowing there are more, better things to come then pre-montage. i think that every step of building my own watches(the ones i get assigned at work i mean) will be very fun and very interesting work for me.

Im growing quite confident in my skills now, at the same time i am starting to realize the amount of stuff i have yet to learn, and that amount gets bigger and bigger for the day. "Learn the answer to one question and have two more questions" kind of thing.

In closing, i need to talk to my boss before i add more pictures, i want to get a permanent deal so that i can just keep posting without being afraid of being sued or something for leaking industrial secrets >.<

And here is a slightly hazy picture of a Tourbillion in a watch for those who didnt know what that is.