View from Solden
February 10, 2008
Sometimes words can never describe beautiful things, and here is one such case.
Last weekend I found myself in Sölden, which had some spectacular views looking over the alps in Italy. Anyway I will be putting up a better/longer report during the week on the skiing site. The snowboard held up well, but I think I need to get it serviced. So 2 days of skiing has left my legs feeling like jelly.
About Sölden
Sölden is in the hear of the Austrian Alps, and is about 2.5 hours from Munich and 45 minutes from Innsbruck. It’s on a glacier, and the highest skiable piste is over 3,000m. It’s something I will add to the recommended apés ski resorts list. The partying was great, we found ourselves dancing until the early hours in a place called Fire & Ice.
Guilty by association ?
November 21, 2007
Here is a picture of what was presented to me when I opened an article on BreakingNews.ie.
In my head I kind of put 1+1 and got 3. I think the way that they have put the image for the headline sometimes can confuse readers, and in some situations associate the wrong thing with the wrong image. For those of you who don’t know who this man is, (i.e joe), it’s the Taoiseach, or Prime Minister, of Ireland. Also isn’t is a bit weird that there is a kid off to the side of the picture ? !
Link to the article : http://breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhmhqleycwsn/
View from the Office
November 15, 2007
Here is a picture from my webcam, facing onto the street near my house in Munich. As you can see we have snow ! I’m off home tomorrow for a sun holiday, where the temperature should be at least 12°C warmer !
Naming People You don’t know
Here is another piece from inside my head. Do you ever find yourself giving names to people you see all the time but you don’t know their real names ? For example, we have two local bums that hang around our area, one guy (Charles) who stands at the S-Bahn ticket area begging and asking for change, and then there is another one (Jasper) who hangs around where our front door and where the newspaper vending machines are. Jasper likes to ask for 20c or 10c. I find that if I can put names on people I see regurally, I feel a little more at ease. There are people who I see probably twice or more a week on the S-Bahn or in work, who I don’t know, but I recognise them from seeing them before. Like there is this one guy (simon) , who is rather small in stature and wears these special shoes that give him an extra inch. I’ve notice this guy many times, and his ‘high heals’, so I gave him a name. Do you mentally baptise people you don’t know ? Or is it just me and my over observance ?
Coffee from your Fridge ?
October 1, 2007
No longer will you have to walk from the coffee machine to the fridge in order to get your daily does of java and milk. Actually I take my coffee strong and black (rarely with sugar)
This beast has a water font and an espresso machine in it. It will be available from January next year under the name “20RI D4 Espresso”. Sadly I won’t be able to add it on to my Christmas wish list this year.
Budget Complaint Part II
August 7, 2007
A while back I had a complaint about Budget Car Rental where I was overcharged $122 (I did receive $50 of it back). But I hadn’t heard anything about the balance, so I called their UK offices with a case ID from when I originally reported this. Some how the case wasn’t fully submitted and there was some information missing so it wasn’t processed. So I explained the “Customer Service Rep” (quotes necessary) about the story to-date. And he gave me a new case ID and explained the process once more. He finished by saying that he would advise me that they are not likely to call me back within the 10-days and that I should call back in 2 weeks. He went on to explain that they had lost a lot of staff and they were under serious pressure in the European Customer Service centre.
I’ve also not heard back from the US side of this dealing
- the customer service email address that I replied to first day hasn’t send a reply
- CEO John Barrows has replied either from his email address.
- And the company that dealt with the first charge back , cendant, their email address still bounces.
So much for Customer Service, eh ? That being said I have rented another car (from Enterprise Rentals) for this weekend, so fingers cross to see how this goes.
It’s funny as there are lots of unhappy people out there with Budget [1] , [2] & [3] are just while looking on Flickr for a pic for this post.
Gripe of the Day : Budget Car Rentals
July 26, 2007
Soon I am going to be getting a name for myself about these things, after my dealings with Sixt….
The Story
Me and L picked up a car for the 12 days we were in the states from Budget Car Rentals. And I noticed there was some problems with the bill. There was a charge for an extra hundred bucks, so I contacted the customer care people and got an email back 10 days later. The funny thing was, I got a refund for 1/2 of what I though I was due. So I looked at the bill again and saw that they was also the associated tax charges of 11.11% and 5% (compounded) so I send them and email (cc’d their CEO) to tell them about my whole experience and asking for the $70 they still owe me. I also showed them my calculations in case they were having calculator problems. 
Picking up the car wasn’t that nice either, here is an excerpt from my mail that I decided to write, seeing as I was already complaining about them not processing my bill properly, I thought I would describe the picking up the rental car ordeal.
The Email Complaint
We had order a “standard class” car, and on getting to your agency they offered us a ’small SUV’ . This turned out to be a dodge nitro, some thing that my 5 foot girlfriend would never be able to drive. I returned to the desk and we were given something akin to a taxi (sadly I don’t know what car model it was). I liken it to a taxi because it was dirty, smelled of cigarettes and had a water mark on the front drivers seat. I didn’t want to investigate what this was from, but it did smell. So the third car, was a nice new Ford Taurus that had only 7 miles on it. But the whole picking up the car process lasted the best part of an hour and was rather unnecessary pressure after flying 8 hours already that day.
So let’s see what these guys say…
Oktoberfest Building gets underway
July 23, 2007
Today there are just 61 days until the magical Oktoberfest 2008 starts. It’s time to drink beer and be merry with 110,000 other happily drunk people. I’ve gone for the past 5 years, and the magic is still there. In fact 2 years ago I had the great luck in meeting L there.
Here is a still from today taken from this webcam.
fast-swing-10 is the new theme
July 22, 2007
Finally I got sometime to fix up the blog and to make it that little bit nicer. It’s called fast-swing-10 and it I must say I like it.
So, back to more important things, myself and L are back in Munich after over almost 4 week long holiday. We hit Boston,NYC ,Athens & the Greek Islands. The flights with BA were much better than with LH the previous year. One the return flight from Boston they even had on demand (which got me hooked on Entourage TV show) !
Heaven knows how far we actually travelled, driving,flying,sailing & walking, we did drive almost 1k miles in the US. The 1 week cruise (with EasyCruise) around the Greek was just fantastic. It’s great to wake up every morning and to have a whole new island (and a few pages of Lonely Planet to read) to discover. Here is a list of the Islands we hit.
- Piraeus (Athens)
- Milos
- Ios
- Amorgos
- Naxos
FolegandrosParos- Serifos
I think that Ios would have to be the nicest place we visited, followed by Naxos. These are the two biggest islands on the trip. EasyCuise was nice for the price we paid, we ended up paying about €200 for the both of us for the week, which was pretty cheap. Or bar & drink (& coke) bill was closer to €350. There was a few situations where the staff didn’t really act so professionally, and didn’t have that polished appearance. Maybe this is due to their lack of training, or maybe it was just a big difference from coming the US to their. One of the strangest things, and most dangerous was on a planned trip organised by the boat staff. There was a mini bus that could hold 18 people. But 19 people had signed up. So these two people were forced to sit on extra chairs brought onto the bus. Once chair was positioned between the driver and the front passenger and the other one was in the gangway in the middle of the bus.
That being said we had a great time, and met some really nice people (hi to Matt & Paula, Chris & Holly, Glen & Lisa). The beaches in Greece were great, and the water was perfect for snorkelling. If you ever get the chance to go to Greece do ! It’s a great place and the people are super friendly. Once on the subway in Athens, L was lugging her baggage down a few steps and a young girl asked her did she need help ! So that’s a few words about the holiday (email me if you want to see the pics).
It’s good to be back in Mucich !
upgrade and crash !
May 28, 2007
For some reason the theme I had “Soleil” was causing problems when I upgraded earlier today to Wordpress 2.2, it wasn’t allowing me to login and post. So for the moment this place is looking rather plain with the default theme (even though I saw something on Digg yesterday, 100 top themes for wordpress so maybe I will check that out). I got some ideas on how to fix the problem [here]. Anyway I’ve about another 4 blogs to update !
EDIT : Here is the list on Digg !
What you should be watching …
May 13, 2007
Here is a quick run down on what I’ve been watching in the last 3 months
- The Sopranos - (season 1 -4 at the moment) great drama, and very entertaining.
- The Office US - great writing by Ricky Jervais and probably the funniest shows around.
- Greys Anatomy - One for L but still a interesting show. I hate the way they do superimpose the main characters problems with patients ones.
- Lost - Another addictive program. There was a bit of a lull in the middle of Season 3, but it’s back on track !
- Heroes - I’ve just started to watch this and it looks interesting. It’s supposed to be the hottest thing on TV this season.
So there you go ! These things (and Joost) make living in Germany much easier.