Stuff Archives

So first stop is Frankfurt. We got in early so I have an extra 30 minutes to wander round the airport looking for things to do, so if anyone wants a sausage, just give me a shout.

Whilst you’re thinking about that, lets rewind for a second. San Francisco airport – ended up having a long conversation with the lady at the check in desk as she was asking me about Africa and telling me that she wanted to go. Coincidentally, as if by magic, she managed to find her way over to the gate to ticket me onto the plane and have another chat. Now, my guess is that this was coincidence, or maybe even normal with the cut backs on staff, but I like to think she was following me. Never hurts to flatter yourself, that’s what I say.

Onto Frankfurt and first impression is strange as it doesn’t seem to have an efficient feel about it. There’s a lot of people wandering round trying to figure out what they are doing. Given that we are in Germany, it’s my guess that it’s the people that are wrong and not the airport. And how correct that statement is – there a lot of old fashioned boards around listing departing flights, so bearing in mind I came in through the back door (connecting flight) and am trying to find out where to transfer rather than coming in through the front door and have someone tell me the gate, obvious thing is to look at one of these boards to figure out where my next flight is leaving from. Well, given the number of flights that leave Frankfurt, the list is pretty long and the boards only cover those leaving in the next hour which, when you think about it, doesn’t make sense as if you’re in the wrong place, you’ve likely missed your flight by now or are going to have the sprint of your life to get from one side of the airport to the other.

So, where’s all the help? Ah! There are these stations marked “information” that have touch screen terminals that you can use to find out where your flight is going to be leaving from. See, knew there would be an explanation.

Only think is, I hadn’t figured this out before deciding to find a Lufthansa desk to ask where my flight would be leaving from. Little sidetrack – my tickets are marked as being booked through Lufthansa, but none of my flights are actually with Lufthansa. The two today are United Airlines from San Francisco to Frankfurt and South African Airways from Frankfurt to Cape Town. Just to make it confusing. Still the Lufthansa person was extremely helpful, insisting on writing the gate number on my ticket. Brilliant, that way I wouldn’t forget to go to the wrong gate as he’d got the wrong one. Fortunately, in the meantime, I’d noticed the “information” stations and decided to play on one. Well, that and the fact that I decided to get a drink in the club lounge.

I note that airlines are now starting to have two lounges – first class and business class. Presumably business class has now turned into common class as there are too many people flying it. The one thing I did note is that the Lufthansa first class lounge in Frankfurt (and maybe for other locations as well) is called the “Senator Lounge.” I wonder if they practice foot tapping in there?

Well, thanks for everything - I'm off!

Not quite disappearing for ever, but I'm going on a trip to South Africa, Nigeria and the UK. Basically means that the entries over the next few weeks may be quite sporadic and may also have a little bit of an African theme to them.

I'm going to try and set vote questions each week, but they may get set a little earlier on some weeks in order that I can make sure the entries are there before the automated email goes out on Monday morning. If, however, I miss the time window, then you will just see the previous weeks question. Sorry, but be safe in the knowledge that I don't care as I will be on holiday.

Right, time to do some last minute packing before 22 hours of flying which I'm not looking forward to. My guess is that by the end of it I will have seen every movie that's out there at the minute.

Had the opportunity to go to one of my friends houses in the North Bay, place called San Anselmo, for a bar-b-que this long weekend. Had a great time, but more importantly it gives me the opportunity to follow up on the aerial photographs bad pun with the following image:

Oh what fun you can have with Photoshop and a couple of hours!

Back to the bar-b-que, it was great as the hosts have this cute dog, Winston. All the kids loved running round playing with him. So did William until the food came out. I'm still trying to figure out which one managed to scavenge the most food, but they seemed to be making a competition over it.

I only had a really old camera with me, so most of the photos didn't come out, but you can see from the shot below that William and Winston are clearly going head to head for Karen's attention to see who can get the next morsel to be offered.

Those of you that know me and have seen the long list of cars that I've let fall to bits on me may be surprised at the title. Don't be, this probably isn't going to result in the most productive automobile maintenance tips.

But first, let me start by saying that I have washed my car this year.

Actually, that's not strictly speaking true. I was rear ended earlier this year and when they repaired the car, they cleaned it as well. Bargain.

In fairness, there's probably another element that needs to be stated here. I got rear ended a couple of years ago. The person who rear ended me didn't want to claim through their insurance so they gave me cash. I decided there were better things to spend the cash on than repairing the car and thought there was a fair chance someone would hit me again. And I was right, so I made a couple of bucks by hanging on in there.

On that note, it's also worth pointing out that I think the lack of money spent on car care far outweighs the additional depreciation. So driving a rust bucket's not too bad.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah! The current jalopy popped one of its warning lights on - “Service Engine Soon.” One quick look at the mileage and it seems we'd done something like 89,790. An odd number, but I figured that I'd tripped some internal clock thing that tells the car to put the light on for the 90,000 mile service.

It's actually quite disconcerting driving round with a warning light on. It got to the point where I was seriously considering buying some black duct tape to put over the light so it wouldn't bother me. Again, being too lazy to go out and buy the duct tape, I applied the “hang on in there” principle. Turns out this was again the right thing to do! The light has now gone out. We're up to 93,000 miles now. I don't know whether I went past the clock trip switch or if the bulb's blown, but the net result is the same - I'm no longer disconcerted about driving round with a warning light on.

Clearly everything's OK as there's no warning light on. And to think - some day, someone out there will buy this well looked after car!

This comes with so many possible titles:

"Who says you can't have brains and beauty?"
"The state of education"

....

I'm sure most of you have seen this. For those of you that haven't, this is South Carolina's answer to a question on "Miss Teen USA"

Enjoy!

Since the inception of this wondrous site, my colleague and author of the OBlogs has pointed out that there is a photo missing from one of the photo sets. I'm happy to report that this problem has finally been rectified.

Unfortunately this is another example of two nations divided by a common language. Sadly this joke will be somewhat lost on those that dwell in the larger of the two land masses on each side of the pond.

Really that means that 50% of the people reading this site won't understand the joke. The other 50% will understand it, but not find it funny.

That's what I like about this job. It's like a broken pencil, completely pointless.

I think it's time to go get something to eat before I think of something else totally unfunny!

Went to Seattle on Monday for a meeting. Was supposed to have stayed the night, which would have been great as the weather was fantastic, but had to get back to the Bay Area for work.

Slightly annoying in itself, but not compared to the annoyance of being subjected to idiot queue jumpers at the airport. Particularly after running a vote on the subject of airport queue jumpers. Haven't these people read this website? Don't they know it's now punishable by death? Guess not. Actually, the worst part of it was that the ticket collecting people didn't do anything about it, so this bunch of about 6 people just stood in the line (between the ropes) and blocked anyone else from getting through anyway. They need to start arming these people with chainsaws so they can cut up these people on the spot. No trial - there's no need.

Amazing how you can make it to the airport, yet not be able to read or count to know when your section is being called.

Now where did I leave my valium .....

I'm really gutted that the photos I took of this didn't come out. Anyway, I was following a car up the freeway that had the license plate CUTNDRY. I'm guessing this belonged to a hairdresser or barber. I'm just hoping that they never transpose any letters when writing it down.

A huge week in sports this week in the US. Yep - seems everyone has been glued to the TV/radio waiting for the big event to happen. I am of course talking about David Beckham's ankle and whether or not he's actually going to play any football in the US. Somewhat reminiscent of the Lineker Japan days with his poorly toe.

In other sports news apparently some guy has broken a record in the inter galactic universe championship of rounders. (AKA the world series of baseball). This is one of the most confusing things to have watched. About a year ago, all the discussion was that Barry Bonds (the guy who's hit the ball a long way to get this record) should be thrown out of the sport for steroid use. That said, I found out yesterday that these are only allegations and that Bonds has not actually admitted to taking illegal substances. Anyway, most people seemed to want him gone, but then when he got close to this record it seemed like everyone wanted him to break the record. I certainly did as every time you turned on the TV they were going on about whether or not it was going to happen today. Now that he's broken it, there seems to be a lot of talk about whether or not it should be valid if performance enhancing drugs were used.

In order to clear up this confusion, see the picture below:



This is a picture of Wall Street in New York. Bonds are traded there.

Police following up on the horrific murders in Maryland caught a lucky break after circulating photos of the suspect. Taffy Nojob from Tinnysomething in Wales saw the picture and saw right through the disguise. Taffy was interviewed, but nobody could understand him. Best we know is that he mumbled something about a sheep and then said "that's Hog dressed as a woman".

Regardless, this was enough for police to make some further inquiries. Hearing about the reported "cheeseburger elbow" (see article below under "Serious Family Illness") police soon figured out it was a rouse to hide the truth. Even though Hog is partial to a cheeseburger or 10, it seems that the repetitive strain injury was caused by repeated bludgeoning.



If you're interested in the actual article that accompanies this picture see this site