Freedom, Excitement and Harmony
My life values :)
Flying
Can you imagine how it feels to realize life dream of all human beings, a dream to fly? Can you feel fresh breeze, feel the freedom of being a pilot, soaring in deep blue sky, alone between white clouds, with no noisy engine? Looking for thermal streams, enjoying the fun to see human beings from above?
Well, I can imagine, since I am glider pilot :-)
I have also the paragliding license and some flying hours on parachute too. Paragliding is not bad but a 'real' Glider is what breaks my heart :-)
Mountains and Nature
Did you ever woke up early morning in the middle of Alps or High Tatras, seeing just mountain peaks and snow around, you and The Ultimate Sunrise© ?
Great, wasn't it?
I simply love mountains, maybe because I am born in lowland and flatland, maybe because they are simply perfect. I like hiking, climbing (To be fair I am permanent beginner, no Reynhold Messner) just walking there, paragliding, photographing, woodcraft and scouting. One of the most impressive places I have ever visited was The Grand Canyon at Arizona. Now, I moved to the USA, but there is not much of a mountain here at the east coast.
I have never seen mountains in Asia and Australia but be sure that they are on top of my list.
Books, Photography and Art
I admire talented people, love nice paintings (pointillism or impressionism are my favorites), some films, but my 'real' obsession is literature in any form, books and reading are important part of my life since ever and as I really like smart and intellectual people. Sometimes I do write a poetry. (but do not worry, I do it rarely :-) )
And finally, since my Dad is photographer, I somehow inherited this hobby too, you can see if I am good or not, here are some of my photographs.
Sports
I am not the big fan of mass sports as soccer, it feels boring. Indeed, I really like Ice Hockey (of course, I am Czech) and I do sports which I like, such as swimming, shooting, kayak and canoeing.
Once I moved to America, I started with running. I found great help, the iPod Nano from Apple makes running far less boring than I expected.
Technical Toys
Most men loves them and I am not an exemption, I have recently bought my second portable computer (Apple iBook G4) and GPRS cell phone Sony Ericksson T610. The iBook keeps fascinating me, it is my second Apple, since I have switched. I used to use SuSE Linux and Ubuntu Linux but in January 2004 I decided to switch to a Mac. I somehow feel that it is system I have always dreamed about. Why?
The operation system used (actually the Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger) is just excellent. It is based on rock-stable UNIX based kernel (Open Source Darwin) and nice, cool, super user-friendly (or idiot-proof if you want) window manager (Cocoa and Aqua) and it works amazingly well. I am expecting next version (Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard) with questions, since there is very little I would like to change in Tiger.
One have to admit that high usability is also due to the fact that OS X is running only (or mostly) on Macs, so Apple does not have to bother with some minor, strange, broken, uncompliant or just silly-designed hardware.
As the experienced user of multiple versions of Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux, I can say that each of them is different and have it's pros and cons, but for me, the Apple's Mac OS X beats them both. OS X is what Linux aims to be and Windows will never ever be – just simple, working, and usable system for normal people.
I do not understand how comes that it is so rare to see at Europe. Why does well managed, growing and profitable company ignore 50 millions of potential customers at central Europe alone? Bad price policy of Apple in Europe? High Taxes? Localization? Poor Marketing? Bad Karma?
I am not Apple or Linux fundamentalist, if you can offer me such stable, cheap, simple, and virtually virus and spyware free, Linux or Unix compliant system, with the support of major company which makes it perfectly usable, I would be happy to switch. So far I am happy with Apple. There is endless free and comercial software to buy or download, if you want you can start searching, try the www.versiontracker.com
But you might feel, that Macs are way too expensive, right? Well, try to judge yourself.
Or, you might say, that Macs are too slow. Well, maybe you will find out that Macs are not slow
So, to conclude, the only swich I am considering at the moment is to buy new MacBook with Intel Core 2 Duo.
Tea, Pipe and Relaxation
As I said I like harmony, and there is only few things better than sitting in a tearoom and having a nice conversation with friends, feeling the connection, sipping hot Tea, …
Tea is something I can hardly live without (just as without girls). I prefer Chinese red Yunnan, Earl Grey, Darjeeling and Oolong, but anything without sugar is fine. I hate so-called 'fruit' tee, bleeeee.
I do not smoke cigarettes, but once in a while I like to smoke one of my favorite pipes, sit with friend and drink some old Scotch or Gin with Tonic.