My name is Sven Schirmer, born in 1975 in the former German Democratic Republic. I grew up in a safe & good environment :).

After living in Germany for 25 years I decided to move to Ireland where I lived from August 2000 until December 2002. The main idea of this move was to learn English as well as getting the Irish & their culture to know. I also wanted to improve my knowledge in a professional way. So I started with simple HTML coding and went over some Java & PHP scripting into Networking. Before I left Ireland for my big Asia adventure I successfully certiefied as Microsoft MCSA. Dublin, the capital of this country is well known for all these pubs, pints & a fast growing IT business. Live is different there, compared to Germany. But if you are interested in that you have to come and feel yourself. For myself I really enjoyed living and working here as well as the little journeys around the island during weekends.

End of 2002 I quit my job in Ireland and went for a long trip to Asia, eventually ending up dwelling for 12 weeks on a hill on a small island in Thailand. And then, roaming arround Japan for 7 weeks. After a long time circumstances brought me back home. Reality reached me quickly. My country seemed to have lost illusions & perspectives, morning about Euro - inflation, industries resettling in Eastern Europe and far East. Or is it just mourning on high level? Without any descent job or carrier opportunities I decided to study computer science in my home area. Even though it was fairly hard stuff after all these years off school I did enjoy this experience and graduated with best results after less then 4 years.

Economy was good in those day, and I decided to go back to business. In my first project with Siemens, I developed a complex test framework for multi layer PLC testing with my collegues. After two great journeys to India and France in 2009, I decided to leave job, flat and country again and went cycling in Japan from August until December 2009. With my friends, I spend sunrise on Mnt. Fuji on my 34st birthday. Cycled in the Japanese alps, and on on the West coast on my own. Cycled the Shikoku Henro pilgrimage and then the ancient Shinto spots on Kyushu. Hiked the primeval forests of Yakushima and snorkeled with man and sharks on Amami Oshima.

The website itself is named by a Leonard Cohen song I really like.  Originally it was set up in 1998 or so mostly for testing reasons, where every single thing used to be coded with notepad. After year of growing content and mess, I decided to move onwards to Joomla CMS in 2010, taking my chance to work with something more professional and sophisticated than Notepad.

I hope you enjoy,
Thanks and cheers!

Sven