It's not a "fill in blank", it's an attitude

Couple Weeks in Munich

It has been awhile, and actually, I am at work at the moment, so I can't really write. Am debating again if I should shut the blog down, or at least change it to a more "professional" blog. Meanwhile, I send so many emails to colleagues and former colleagues talking about what I am doing or some interesting article I read, that I wonder if it is simply better to post the messages. My personal life can mostly be followed on Facebook anyway, as my status messages change frequently enough that you know what I am doing just by checking things out there. Or Twitter. Although I am not great at keeping up with Twitter. Totally annoying Twitter.

At the moment, I have the pleasure of working in Munich. Currently booked to a project at O2 until the second week of May. (Then back to the UK for a week to work at BSkyB and then on to India for three weeks for VACATION.)

Some photos from this morning's client meeting...or rather, from the building in which this morning's meeting took place. :-) Really lovely. We had coffee together at the bar after the meeting. Can't complain about that. Will be working on site part time.

Easter weekend in Bodenheim

A four day weekend just ended here in Germany and everyone returns to work a bit sluggishly today, looking forward with anticipation to the month of May, when the Catholic church (at least here in Bavaria), rewards us with a bunch of (usually) Wednesdays or Thursdays off. The weather is not helping the malaise, as the sky makes a last attempt to spit out the remaining nastiness on us before hopefully realizing that we deserve better. Now. Shall I say that again?!?!?

Nonetheless, if you put on your rose coloured glasses (more like your rose coloured ski parka), you can ignore the frigid temperatures and enjoy the nice sunshine we had as we strolled through the vineyards of Bodenheim on Sunday afternoon with our niece Victoria snuggled away in her baby carriage and even roosters busy cockadoodledoing.





Victoria was baptized on Monday morning (Victoria Katharina Schimanski) along with two other babies during the course of a family service, which involved much snapping of fingers, clapping of hands, singing (me listening..as I do not know any of these German psalms..), and acting like you are a little seedling that grows up with lots of rain and sunshine (acted out by the congregation out there...). I was thinking Saul and Theo would definitely have liked getting up there in front of everyone and growing from seeds into plants...

While we were in Bodenheim, we stayed at a cute little vineyard that produces ...I don't know..a hundred different wines. A nice family owns and runs the whole operation, and the first evening we were there, Hans, Dorothee and I took advantage of the opportunity to sit in their cosy kitchen room and taste a dozen before we went to sleep. Andreas and I ended up buying a couple mixed cases - the vineyard makes a really stellar Riesling, and a Chardonnay that is not bad. The surrounding village must be totally gorgeous in the summer and fall harvest season. Quaint and lovely. We will have to go back in a few months.

Just came across this little YouTube ad for Beringer Vineyards in Napa Valley. Beautifully done. :-)

Money

Ok, I am distressed. But I have a solution.

I am distressed because of this:
Amsterdam currency exchangers won't take US dollars
Currency exchange outlets in Amsterdam won't to trade US dollars for euros because the value of the dollar is dropping so quickly they're afraid of losing money, even with the outlandish vigorish the sleazy little joints usually tack on.

The U.S. dollar's value is dropping so fast against the euro that small currency outlets in Amsterdam are turning away tourists seeking to sell their dollars for local money while on vacation in the Netherlands.

"Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here," said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. "It's hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office."


and thankfully, I have a solution because of this:
How to make fake gold bars
Now that the economy is collapsing, investors are becoming more interested in gold. Here's an item from PopSci that says it wouldn't be too difficult to make convincing fake gold bars out of gold-plated tungsten (which costs $30 a pound compared to $12,000 a pound for gold).

"start with a tungsten slug about 1/8-inch smaller in each dimension than the gold bar you want, then cast a 1/16-inch layer of real pure gold all around it. This bar would feel right in the hand, it would have a dead ring when knocked as gold should, it would test right chemically, it would weigh *exactly* the right amount, and though I don't know this for sure, I think it would also pass an x-ray fluorescence scan, the 1/16" layer of pure gold being enough to stop the x-rays from reaching any tungsten. You'd pretty much have to drill it to find out it's fake."

Want one...

...but kitties would be too jealous i think.
Andreas says Myhase goes before this guy shows up. :-)
Am discussing with office colleagues...maybe we'll pool money to get one wandering around the office...
Sophie sounds a little bit like the dinosaur....when she's happy.



www.pleoworld.com

Quick Pics

Having a lovely time here in the UK...
Two nights ago went to a pub with the guys I am working with at the moment after work. There are Nick, David and Ralf. Bunch of David's friends from "outside work" and Nick's girlfriend joined us as well. They all went to see a movie afterward, but I was afraid I'd be dead tired the next day and begged out - would have gotten back to my little room after midnight most likely....

Last night ended up near Picadilly Circus with a colleague from the German office who is working on another project here in London. He wanted to eat Chinese food in China town but didn't know where to go. So I walked up to a Chinese woman on the street and asked for a recommendation. And...she gave us a great recommendation. The waiters there suggested a really yummy dish of eel in a honey and black pepper sauce.

Finally, a shot of the tube this morning, which was a TRIAL. It took me 1.5 hours to get to work, which was ridiculous. I had to wait for about 5 trains to go by before I could get on one that wasn't full!!! wow. London is a beehive in the morning and evening during rush hour. You can barely move, but somehow everything seems to be a well-coordinated system (when it doesn't break down) of streams of people buzzing their way to and from work...

Deja (%&$$%#§"$) Vu

Yesterday, on the way to London. I thought that last week was trying on my patience with all the bumping from one flight to the next and then sitting around the airport for 5 hours. Ha.

This time:
In taxi on way to airport, collegue also headed to London on an earlier flight calls to tell me first 1) his flight is cancelled, then 2) my flight is delayed and then....during course of conversation, 3) my flight is cancelled. Great.

Got to airport, got on next available flight scheduled for two hours later.

Went to lounge to work. (Remember the lounge? If not...just look at last blog. Imagine me sitting there...again.)

Next (new) flight delayed...and delayed....and delayed. (Weather in London yesterday was horrific - lots of flights cancelled and delayed all day.

Finally, got on a flight around 3 pm that actually left the ground.

As we were landing, plane was shaking so badly that pilot decided it was too dangerous to land and pulled the nose back up and let us circle for another 30 minutes until storm calmed down.

Finally down on the ground at around 4 pm. Account Manager decided to have me fly to Heathrow in order to save some money (rather than the more optimally placed London City Airport). Which meant a minimum 1.5 hour commute into work. I called the office and asked the team if they still wanted me to come in. Answer: don't bother.

Oh well. Today is more productive. And as one of my favourite bloggers writes a week ago: Travelling is Fun. ;-)

Lovely photos from the London Tube as I was tubing into Victoria station. You get an idea of how great the weather was. Munich, on the other hand, was gorgeous yesterday.

Strike!!!

Well, I can't say I wasn't warned....

A huge union here in Germany, Verdi, which I guess most airport personnel belong to, as well as various public transportation employee groups (train drivers, bus drivers, etc.), has been battling it out on wage issues and declared that they would strike this week - likely on Wednesday. Andreas heard it on the radio on Monday morning.

And today is Wednesday. And I am flying to Duesseldorf today. So I dutifully changed my flight the first time last night when I heard my 8:50 am flight was cancelled. And I checked the airport website before leaving this morning for my 10:35 am flight. I got to the airport and was met with the bitter news that my second flight had been cancelled.

Got in line to find out options, calling travel agency while I waited. Travel agency put me on another airline for a 12:05 flight. I left the line, went to terminal 1 to jump on that flight. On the way, passed lots of strikers marching around airport blowing whistles...


Got to next airline to check in. Waited in line. Was told at the front that next airline had cancelled thier 12:05 flight. Called travel agent. Rebooked for a 15:05 flight. Actually have a boarding pass in my hand. Am now working in airport lounge and crossing fingers that I will be able to get on an airplane later.

Update later if I get bumped again. Probably will just go home.

But I am getting a lot done at the nice quiet airport lounge, so this is really not so bad. Maybe I should come work here every day....

Cerebration 2008

I've been giving pointers to one of the NUS teams that have been competing in this year's Cerebration contest (National University of Singapore's Business Case competition, the world's largest business school case competition...).

And they just made the finals. :-)
I got the announcement from one of the organizers on Facebook last night.

Off to Singapore the last week of March to watch? ....Am thinking about it....maybe NUS will sponsor a plane ticket....

Lang Lang

I don't know.

Will try again...

Although this may crash and burn right away. I start a really tough project on Monday with a lot of travel. So I am not sure how much time I have.
____________________

I am VERY excited about Sunday. Because of that photo there.



On Tuesday I was listening to a favorite pianist - Lang Lang - his newest album is called Dragon Songs and has compositions he wrote that are somehow a fusion of an Asian/Chinese sound and what I know of as traditional Western/European classical music. They are really great.

On a whim, I googled him so I could watch a few videos of him on You Tube, and in the process figured out (by looking at a couple other links) that he is playing in Munich on Sunday night. We've tried to get tickets in the past, but he's always sold out before we get a chance to buy. So I figured it would be an exercise in futility to even bother looking. But in fact...it was not. There were 5 seats left. He's playing at the Gasteig - a concert hall which is a 5 minute walk from where I work. And basically it was a 2 and a half minute run when I saw there were a few tickets still available. (After a 20 second phone call to the husband "honey, can we blow a whole bunch of money on tickets? yes? ok, great. bye.") I got to the ticket counter, and asked for tickets. The guy shook his head. "I don't think there is anything left." Me: "I just checked online. 2 minutes ago. There are tickets." He pulls up his screen. Surprise. Indeed. 5 tickets left. Some of the best seats in the house. I cringed at the price and handed over the credit card.

So....looking forward to Sunday night. :-) He will play mostly classics, but the last bullet on the program suggests he might play something from Dragon Songs, which I really look forward to.

Here he's playing a piece (Liszt/Horowitz, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2) that we will hear on Sunday night. I love watching his face as he plays. He's so emotional and funny and it's so transparent, that it makes listening to the music even more of a pleasure when you can "see" what he is thinking to some extent.

Losing Blog Steam

I am losing interest. Or perhaps past tense is more honest.

I like to write. I think there are interesting things to tell you. Or tell someone anyway. But this model isn't working for me. I know...it's my fault too. I have to actually write something worthwhile. But I have this mixed audience and everyone seems to have different interests. It was a strange model to begin with. It worked more in Singapore where everything was new, fresh, different and it didn't really matter who was reading - there was something there for everyone. More importantly, these days, I am a bit afraid (maybe the wrong word - I am feeling a little bit too protective about) what I am really thinking about, which is really the problem here. So what you end up getting is watered down nothingness. I do understand...it's hard to comment on that. But then we are simply left with nothing. Sad, but true. At least for now. We shall see what happens later.

Falke...Marienplatz

Was at an interesting event the other night at the Rathaus at Marienplatz on Monday. Mobile Monday - an interesting forum where professionals in the mobile industry come together and talk about their projects, network with one another, etc. The event this past Monday featured some interesting talks. Google was there with a short presentation on Android. Seemed to be interesting for the press who were snapping photos. On the way there, I walked past Ludwig Beck, a big department store at Marienplatz. Falke was sponsoring a live fashion show of some of their new products in the window. A crowd was gathered to watch the models walk around in Falke underwear....couldn't help but take a snap.

Rocket Launcher in the House!

omg, and it is aimed at me. GASP!

Super Geek Day

Doing home office today. Hoping to be a little more productive than I was yesterday. Yesterday was "thinking" day for me on my project. But didn't really come to the conclusions/solutions I was hoping for. So today need to get a move on.

I really am using almost every device on the desk in some way. It's not just because I want to look like a super geek. ;-)

Sophie is helping.

Oh! Baby Baby

So once again, it's been awhile since the last blog. Apologies.
In the interim, we were busy buying last minute Christmas and holiday presents, running into strange advertisements for Segways (!!! what target audience is that nun on the segway supposed to appeal to, please tell me?), visitng the US, and getting addicted to a couple television shows (Andreas is threatening to give me an iTunes allowance now that I have discovered Weeds and Lost and Mad Men and...all available online for a measly $1.99 fee per episode - come on people, dollars are like Monopoly money these days).

This is a somewhat random assortment of photos from the last two weeks. The non-random part are the three babies that we got to play with. There were actually even more than three, these were the three I snapped photos of. First off is Victoria, Andreas' niece - bundled up in her snowsuit. Next is Theo, who is growing up faster than a speeding toddler (8 months already!) - my nephew. And finally, Ms. Julia there, who is already a charmer at 10 months, Gino and Kate's daughter. In all our interactions, we recognized how much fun babies are again...and how much work. Yikes. :-)

And thrown in for some amusement (after the nun-Segway photo)
Schupfnudeln! in all their Schwabian goodness. I get to eat these little German-style gnocchi about once a year. Dorothee made them for us while we visited them for a few days before leaving for California. Served with mounds of sauerkraut, blood and liver sausages, and a special kind of smoked ham, the dish is really not something you should be eating more than once a year. :-) Looking forward to next year now.

Next we have the anti-food and drug beagle that always meets us as we get off the plane in San Francisco. Thankfully he missed the Christmas cookies in our luggage as we zipped through customs...

Next is a photo of my parents' beautiful porch. It was rainy and foggy for a good part of our trip, but it didn't bother me at all - still good in its California beauty.

Finally, a quick trip to market hall in Berkeley is always good for seeing fresh produce eye candy and I couldn't resist snapping a photo of those beets.

Now back to the hum-drum of daily life here in Munich now. Except that I am working on a great project.

More soon.

Christmas Market Munich

Today was the last shopping day before Christmas because in Germany, nothing will be open tomorrow or Monday (well...maybe a few shops on Monday morning...). I.e., most stressful day to have to go out and get gifts. And needless to say, we were tasked with at least 4 gifts to manage, and ideally about 10. (We made it to 4, the rest will simply come late or are for my family so we have a few more days before we fly off to see them. :-) )

But thankfully, Munich Christmas markets are a fun place to hang out (with limits), and when good friends from Singapore are in town to hug and kiss, a warm mug of gluewein is in the hand, or one has a chance to munch on a giant marshmallow, it certainly helps make the time fly. Here are some photos of our afternoon, which we got to spend with Volker and Alex and their kids, gossiping about the old times in Singapore, and enjoying the frigid air (compared to the 35 degree swamp, which Alex was very happy to be away from...)

Tomorrow we head off to Pforzheim for the coming week.

On tippy toe among the Porsches

I'm waiting for the husband to get out of the bathroom so I can continue getting ready for work. And because I only left work at 10 pm last night, I just left work computer there, which means that while I SHOULD be hacking away on a presentation for a pitch we have this afternoon, I can't. Which means I have the luxury of posting one quick blog.

I've already rolled off my little Duesseldorf project (where I replaced Verena for two weeks while she romped around Thailand with her girlfriends), but this is one photo I definitely wanted to throw in before it was too late. That there is Torsten Schollmayer, one of my many new Sapient colleagues, who will be working somewhat longer term on the project I left.

Why is Torsten leaning against the Porsche of his dreams? What was really strange and funny, is that the client we were working for has a Porsche dealership smack in the middle of the office complex. We walked past hundred of Porsches many times a day. Walk to get coffee, drool drool nice porsche, drool, walk back to office, stare stare, nice porsche...and finally we gave up and of course went in and pretended to shop for a few minutes on our lunch break.

Yeah, well, when I win the Lotto. :-)

for vivek, from my new iPod touch

hi vivek, thanks for your SMS. I'm sorry it has been so long since I've written a decent blog. There are a combination of factors that contribute to this situation. Too much work at the moment is one. Then challenges with owning too much technology at the moment is another. I am carrying around two phones and sometimes even two laptops and also working with too many networks (home, work, client) that I can barely keep all the combinations straight, let alone try to blog using what I have. So here is a brand new experimental moment that is at one time super simple with no photo and only one finger typing, but at the same time incredibly brand new (for me) because I am blogging using my new iPod touch. Which is really blowing my mind. More blogging soon, I promise. We are headed to San francisco soon to celebrate the new year with my family. But I hope to get a few blogs in before we leave. Cheers.

Emma

Those are photos of Marcel and Emma. :-)
It's nice to work in a pseudo-agency environment. Marcel (new colleague of mine who works in Duesseldorf), brings his pup Emma to work two or three days a week. Sooooooo cute. She snuffles and grunts her way around the room and gets boiled vegetables as treats. I only got a few minutes to hang out with her because I was working on the client premises, but a cute little doggie adds a whole lot of character and fun to an office. And she's quite well behaved, so I guess completely unproblematic to bring in. Now I need to think about bringing Sammy and Sophie in to work when I am in Munich, I guess. :-)

You know, it's winter here

The snow has started to fall. Quite early this year. And while it gets wiped away a day or two later by a warm slushy breeze, it's quite impressive in its white lacy grandeur for a fleeing hour or two. The trees outside our windows get painted with the white stuff and take on a whole new character. It's like they have seasonal personalities.

We went to see American Gangster on Saturday night (Good! Except for I hated the scenes with the needles and shooting up and the scene where the bad cop shot the dog). As we walked from the strassenbahn stop to the theater (about 300 yards), a teeeeeenie tiny little BMW pulled up alongside us. I stopped in my tracks and asked Andreas, "What's that?" The tiny thing was barely bigger than the woman sitting in it. "Isetta," said Andreas. "Made just after the war cause they were cheap." CUTE! Probably ridiculously dangerous. But I grabbed my phone and stole a shot. The woman inside the car smirked and watched me shoot her. She probably gets photographed all the time in her little lawnmower.