Gary Colman - Zurich, Switzerland

It's been a whirlwind year...

2007-07-21T23:42:00.000+02:00

It's been almost a year since I last posted -- time really flies. I've been extremely busy at work (more about that soon), and have managed a little bit of travel in the last 12 months too.

Where do I start - we have much ground to cover:

So, as you know, I started working for Google last year. We spent 3-and-a-half months in Mountain View, California where I learned the culture, the tools of the trade, and the names of a handful of my colleagues, afterwhich we returned to Zurich; not, however, before we managed a short trip up to Calgary to spend some time with my brother and his family.

Getting back to Zurich was quite welcome - D loved living in California but I find the American way of life somewhat superficial (then again, she's currently ready People magazine, I'm reading Bill Bryson's book about his European travels -- kinda says it all, eh?). Things worked out well for us, as I'd rented out our apartment while we were away, but the tenants didn't take occupation -- the protagonist of the clan was dispatched to Frankfurt instead of Zurich -- so we received a bit of income for "free". I started working in our Zurich office in late October, 2006.

Cue December, and D fell pregnant with kid #2. February I attended a Google even in Courmayeur, Italy (1 day of presentations, 1 night of late-night revelling, 1 day of skiing). Fast forward to March, when she and A flew to Cape Town. I embarked the day after she left, on a business trip to Nairobi (Kenya) and Kigali (Rwanda), returning to Zurich in time for attendance of the Google European Engineering summit in Davos (once again 1 day of presentations [I presented twice] and 1 day of skiing), and then joined them towards the end of March to attend my cousin's wedding. We stayed for Passover, and returned to Zurich in mid-April.

By this time, I had some results to present on one of my projects, and was summarily despatched to deliver them to some of the head honchos at work (Founder, CEO, 2 VPs etc), so I once again packed my bags and travelled back to Mountain View where I spent days at work, and weekends crossing off shopping lists for D.

End of May was time for a much-needed vacation, so we spent 10 sunny days in Israel - a welcome break from my daily routine. We visited most of the major cities in the northern half of the country, and went only as far south as Masada (went up the cable car) and the Dead Sea (A and I splashed about a bit, I floated). Other destinations included Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Netanya, Ra'anana, Rechovot, and Jerusalem (old and new cities).

Beginning July, my manager informed me that my request to manage a group has been acknowledged, and in addition to my daily tasks, I'll now be managing a small group of engineers working on local projects. I've always said that people make their own fate and that my employer offers good career prospects if one is self-propelled ...

Also, since we're soon going to be four instead of three in our home, we bought a bigger place earlier this year -- new build, and only ready in May 2008, but it can't come soon enough. We need to sell our current apartment before we move, but it remains to be seen whether we'll be able to move directly into the new place, or whether we'll have to move twice. I'm hoping for the former, even though space will be an issue for a few months (we have only two bedrooms here).

I've been cycling a bit this season (sometimes to work and back, sometimes just out for a spin on a weekend with Aron in his kiddie trailer, sometimes alone) and can feel my body yearning for me to return it to its former state of fitness ... that which it experienced in my late teens when I was cycling reasonable distances 3-times a week ... I need some peer motivation to get myself "out there" -- so if anyone reading this is in Zurich and wants to go cycling, *PLEASE* contact me :-)

And so we're running on cruise-control until the end of September when baby #2 pops out to greet us, afterwhich it will once again be turmoil and chaos in the Colman family ...

California Dreamin'

2006-08-07T07:06:00.000+02:00

Sorry for the silence ... It's been quite a ride.

So, I left you last in Vegas.
We had a wonderful meal at Bouchon restaurant in our hotel - not cheap, but definitely better than the foodcourt or fastfood we'd been eating. Dvora had chicken, I had trout. Delicious!

The night before we left, I popped down to the casino to do the necessary. I played the 25c slots (means my money lasts longer before the inevitable)... Turns out, the inevitable, isn't.
I walked away around $40 richer, leaving as soon as I struck the windfall.

We left Vegas really early Wednesday morning, and flew to Los Angeles, where we got a car. Drove to our downtown hotel, and dropped off our luggage. During our stay, we saw Beverly Hills, Bel Air (magnificent homes!), Santa Monica (we walked along the beach, and had lunch at the pier), Venice Beach, Hollywood (photographed the sign, visited Mann's Chinese Theater) and Malibu. We wanted to visit a studio, so stopped at Sony Studios but they don't permit children under 12 so we were turned away.
We also tried Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits, as recommended by a few friends ... unanimous (amongst Dvora and I, anyway ;) ) is that KFC wins *hands down*, no contest!

After 3 nights in LA, we drove down to San Diego, where we spent the afternoon at Sea World. Wholesome family fun - highly recommended. That night we went to dinner with Searle, a school friend of mine, and his girlfriend.

Sunday morning we departed with much time to spare, heading for the airport. Of course, using my uncanny sense of direction we got hopelessly lost and I raced into the terminal to be told we'd missed our flight. I then unpacked all our luggage, took the rental car to its depot, and returned, only to find out that there was an earlier flight into San Jose - we were on time for ours. Yay!

Arrived at San Jose, got a lift with another passenger to the rental car depot (was going to take a cab, but she offered...). And we've been in Mountain View for 4 weeks now.

Life here is pretty good - the weather is great, and work is really good. Learning loads, and the content is nicely challenging. I'm working with some really smart people.

I bought a bicycle (Marin - aluminium frame, carbon forks/seatstays, tiagra components) after a week, and have been a two-wheel commuter since. It's great. For the past three weekends, I've joined colleagues on a leisure-cycle in the local hills. Last weekend we tackled a stretch called "Redwood Gulch", which rises at over 18% incline in parts. Yesterday I did "Old LaHonda" during our 3+hour stretch, which while much longer than the Gulch, is much easier on the knees (and the lungs ;) ). I definitely want to do both again before we leave.

We've had take-aways from Subway and KFC a number of times [yum], had lunch at Olive Garden (mediocre) and joined a colleague and his wife yesterday for lunch at an Italian restaurant on Castro Street (quite tasty).

D joined a friend's wife and her kids for a trip to Gymboree, and to the beach. They meet once or twice a week for playtime. She also joined up with a few local mums in a park one afternoon.

I opened a local bank account with Wells Fargo, and received a debit card. This makes local purchases much easier, as we don't need to use our Swiss cards nor carry around wads of cash.

I'll upload some pics to our Flickr account in the next day or two, and hopefully will keep it a little more up to date, so be sure to check back there frequently.

We made it... eventually

2006-07-04T15:46:00.000+02:00

Beaming live from The Venetian hotel foodcourt (casino level) in Las Vegas from my Nokia Communicator (thanks Monzoon) over free hotel wifi.
Where do I even start - so much has happened.

We finished packing just in time on Saturday, and sat ready at 09h45 for our arranged taxi.
09h55 we were still waiting, so I phoned the company (private chap who advertised in our municipal paper, and on flyers at the post office), and he FORGOT... said he'd be at us in 10mins.

So, stirred but not shaken, we headed for the airport 30min later than planned.
We were dropped off at Terminal 1 where the Star Alliance flags were flying, to be told that United leaves from Terminal 2.
No problem - off we go. Stand in line, get to the counter, and we were charged $25 for a suitcase that weighed 24kg where the allowed weight is 23kg (even though another bag was only 7kg) - a bit unfair.
With no time to argue, we ran to get to midfield Terminal E.
All sweaty and smelly we arrived to board last, and the flight departed quite surprisingly at exactly the scheduled time.

We got to Dulles (Washington DC) airport, grabbed our cabin baggage, picked up stroller (now somehow minus the chocolates and sweets we had in it on loading) and headed to immigration... realised we had left a thermos flask in our seat... no time to get it. Got to the front of the LONG immigration line for non-US citizens only to be told that we were missing some forms (United misinformed us on the plane). so, step back, complete the forms, and pass through.
We collected our luggage, and raced to customs. passed through pretty quickly (not counting all our luggage toppling off the trolley), dropped off our bags at transfers, and hot-tailed it to our gate, to see the airbridge moving away from the plane.
Very calmly, we arranged to get to Vegas via Denver instead, and walked down to our gate (again, sweaty and of course smelly :-) ).
We boarded the flight, and uneventfully tranferred at Denver, finally arriving in Las Vegas after 10pm. We headed down to get our luggage, but of course it wasn't there... turns out, our bags were still in DC and the car seat went to Los Angeles?!

So, we left the terminal buildings and found a shuttle to our hotel (The Venetian), arriving closer to midnight than we originally had planned. Checked in, and we were assigned a room on the 3rd floor overlooking a loud air-conditioning compressor. Aron by this time was ready for breakfast (9am Zurich time) and had trouble adjusting to our new timezone. It was a wonderful 2 hours when he finally did sleep.
6am local time Sunday morning, and we went for a stroll around the hotel and attached shopping mall (all but a coffee shop was closed). Later, we found a food court and had a pecan-topped cinnamon bun and a bottle of apple juice.
I wanted to call to check on my baggage, but this phone had switched on in my pocket, and too many invalid PIN entries had locked the SIM card. Thank you Andrea for saving us - I got the PUK number and unlocked the SIM.
Then we headed out to walk the strip...

It was warm in Zurich when we left, sweaty and smelly in the 25-30 degree summer sunshine.. but nothing prepared us for the 40+ temperatures that we were to enjoy here in the Nevada desert. Inside, it's cool if not somewhat frigid. Outside, it's blazingly dry, and the ground radiates the latent heat back upwards. We walked past the Wynn hotel, and stopped in at the Fashion Show shopping mall for lunch (steak burrito and large root beer for me, a chicken dish with rice for D, and Aron ate his usual "mush from a jar" :-) ). The portions here are huge, and neither D nor I finished our food. It's no surprise that Americans are, by and large (hehe) overweight. We then continued onwards up the strip to a Walgreen's, where we bought some snacks, toiletries and drinks, before heading back to the hotel to rest. Dinner was from the foodcourt in our hotel - D had a chicken burger, I had beef with broccoli and steamed rice which we took to our room.

This time Aron was on a better schedule, and after a bath went straight to sleep, while we ate. Our luggage arrived just as we were falling asleep, at about 10pm. Aron awoke once in the night, and slept till 06h40 local time, which was great - we all felt very rested. The fax/printer in our room sprang to life too, for no apparent reason (sounded like printer head alignment or cartridge cleaning) sometime in the wee hours so I unplugged it.
I took Aron for a walk to the lobby where I got information from the Concierge, then informed check-in about the printer issue and the airconditioning compressor outside, and we were given a new room - nicer than our 3rd floor suite (all the rooms here are suites) on the 32nd floor. Now we have a great view of the strip, the pool deck, and can see the airport and mountains in the distance.

Yesterday we walked the North strip, so today we headed South. Passing each hotel, we'd pop in for a quick look around (and a chance to cool down), before meandering onwards. In every hotel entrance, one is greeted by the ringing & chiming of slot machines, and the air of hope (or perhaps it's despair) hangs over each player. We haven't yet made our donation to the casino lords yet, but I anticipate being a handful of coins lighter before we leave. No high rollers in this family, fortunately.

One of the highlights today (other than a refreshing Italian ice cream - Pina Colada, and Mango flavours) was seeing the fountains at the Bellagio. Check it at at www.youtube.com - it's brilliant... much bigger than I had expected (then again, here everything is massive!) and brilliantly choreographed to classical music.

Contemplating dinner at either Planet Hollywood (unlikely), Outback grill next door (more likely) or a restaurant in our hotel (most likely). More once we know.

40kms of rolling terrain....

2006-06-20T21:16:00.000+02:00

Arranged with our neighbour a while ago to go cycling together, and have been threatening for a while to arrange something. Finally yesterday we went out - and we're a good match for one another. He's pretty strong on the flats and downhills compared to me, and definitely much much fitter (windsurfs a *lot*, cycles on avg 10000km per year although this year has been slow, etc..). Being 20kg lighter (and 20 years younger), I'm quite a bit faster on the hills - but he kept his heart rate below 150 the whole time [I should mention at this point that he has a triple chainwheel], whereas mine was - as usual - hovering around the 170-180 mark on the hills (granted, I was going about 50% faster than him on the uphills). I really need to work on my fitness.

So, thanks to my trusty Polar Heart Rate Monitor which is also my cycling computer, I have nice stats about altitude, speed, cadence (pedal rpm), etc...

Our route took us from home (Binz is *just* above Zumikon on the top-left of the map linked here) through Zumikon, and parallel to the highway heading east towards Egg. Just after Egg we turned southwards, and over the Zollikerberg down towards the Zurich lake, joining it somewhere between Obermeilen and Männedorf. Then head north-west along the lake to Meilen, and back up the hill to Egg, and track back to home. 40km in all, with around 600m of climbing (I started my clock a little way into the ride because I was fiddling with my wireless chest strap for heart rate pickup).

Here's a PDF ouput of the ride, all nicely graphed

As you can see, I'm not the fittest cat on the block, but I can "comfortably" maintain 180bpm for quite a while going uphill so I suspect my lactate threshhold is at least at a decent level compared to my heartrate. A couple of these rides a week and I'd have no trouble with it at all, and could probably increase my pace considerably.

As Greg LeMond said: "(It) doesn't get easier. You just get faster".
True words.

10 days left in Zürich

2006-06-20T13:02:00.000+02:00

10 days left in Zurich ... 8 working days... then we're off to USA.

It's looking reasonably positive workwise, in that I'll get all my major projects completed before I leave (the reason I stayed on until the end of June rather than leaving mid-May as per notice period).

Going out for dinner with colleagues on Tuesday night - I know it's going to be a sentimental time for me [as will Friday next week, my last working day].

Weather here is a bit dodgy - really hot recently, rain and thunder last night, and probably again tonight ... I'm supposed to be cycling with my neighbour this evening, so it'll be interesting whether that transpires or not. Either way, if it's not raining I need to get out and do a lap of my local loop ... I haven't cycled since Thursday!

We're in the process of packing up some of our stuff, and will have to make a concerted effort this weekend to purge our drawers, cupboards and shelves of things we need to pack away before we leave (either to take with us, or to leave in the cellar until we get back, as we're renting out our apartment during our absence). Still need to organise with a neighbour or a friend to mow our lawn while we're away... And send out details to companies that we'll be away... I plan to prepay all bills (health insurance, mobile phone, Cable TV/Internet, and so on...), but if I miss something glaring it would be nice that they're preinformed and can just drop me an email as necessary.

Google Puzzle Solver (1-14 in shape of a G)

2006-06-17T12:11:00.000+02:00

Wei-Hwa's latest puzzle follows, along with - once again - a solver written in Perl.
The puzzle is as follows:

The image on the right shows 18 available positions for placement of the numbers from 1 to 14. Of course, 4 positions will remain unused. The trick is to place the numbers incrementally such that the distance between each successive increasing pair is larger than its predecessor.

ie, the distance between 1 and 2 must be smaller than the distance between 2 and 3, which must be smaller than the distance between 3 and 4, and so on, until you've used up all the numbers.

I won't give the solution out here (unless you ask for it), but I will attach a piece of code I wrote in Perl (as always? :) ) that solves the puzzle through recursive brute-force attempts. A puzzle like this is perfectly suited for using recursion, and lets face it - these days so few people even remember recursive programming (LISP / Scheme, anyone? :) ).

Download my code here

Have fun!!!

Cycling

2006-06-17T00:02:00.000+02:00

Considering the great weather we've been having, I had to get out in the saddle a few times this week again.
Monday I commuted to/from work by bike - it was quite enjoyable, and definitely a much more pleasant way to get to work than sitting in traffic on the highway.
Thursday, with the pending rain forecast for Friday, I went on my standard loop around the Greifensee - anticlockwise (I seem to alternate directions each successive ride).

Here's the output from my Polar heart rate monitor:

As you can see, I'm not the fittest cat around (my heartrate is an indication of the exertion, and I'm in my top zones a little too often), but my speed is reasonable and I'll improve as time goes by.

One thing I do notice, quite markedly, is how much more comfortable I feel going up our local (roughly 7% gradient) hill. It's 3km of man-vs-machine, and after a very long time off the bike I certainly feel its effects.. but ride a few times within a couple of weeks, and it's no longer such a meanie. Yay progress! Yay me!

Now I just need to ~~force~~ motivate myself to get out there more often and spend time in the saddle, where it counts.

Population + 1, Tour de Suisse cycle tour, baby carseat

2006-06-12T11:06:00.000+02:00

Last week my sister-in-law (brother's wife) gave birth to a girl -- Zahava Ariella.
I'm now an uncle three-times over.

I'm slowly managing to get back in the saddle - went for a ride on Thursday night and Saturday morning, around the Greifensee, and cycled to work today... The weather being what it is, it's too-good an opportunity to pass up. I'm still looking for a commuter to use in California - not wanting to pay more than a few hundred dollars, but I don't want a rust-bucket either. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll be riding something with far less lustre than what I have now - which is fine ... but I definitely want to get something that I'll still enjoy taking out for the extra hour a few times a week, if for no other reason than to burn off the calories I'll be consuming in extra food while we're there (staff canteen, eating out, etc). That, and a bicycle is such a brilliant way of discovering an area.

snip snip

2006-06-08T10:40:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we went to the Bris - a Jewish circumcision - of the son of our Rabbi. We're finding more and more that the community here is a good one, and people are inclusive and quite friendly... moreover, everyone speaks English (pretty well, if not natively) .
The weather played along nicely, and it was warm and sunny. We had to park about 700m away though, and were running late on arrival (I missed the turnoff to the right road), so we were a little warm on arrival ... soon remedied though.

Today marks 16 working days left at Monzoon :-o
I will complete the last pieces of code in my software development upgrade, and over the next couple of days I need to migrate a server or two... Then I'll have reached my target before I leave.

Remembered recently that another school friend now lives in San Francisco. I dropped him an email, and we'll meet up when we're over there ... Seems we may have ourselves a mini reunion of sorts ... or at least, I'll catch up with lost friends if nothing else.

Chicken, Meat Pie and Donuts ...

2006-06-05T22:15:00.000+02:00

Time for some food pics ...

A couple of weeks ago, I made a meat, potato and veggie pie that turned out to be delicious. It was wholesome and filling and truly delicious.

Here's the recipe:

Coarsely chop two large onions, and fry in non-stick pan without oil
Add beef (just to seal the meat, not to cook through)
Transfer into pressure cooker (meat comes out *SO* tender)
Add peas, mixed ratatouille veggies, large cubes of potato and mushroom, and large slices of carrots

Always ensure that there's a small amount of water in the base of the pressure cooker, as it's the steam that generates the pressure

Cook in the pressure cooker for ~25-30 minutes

Line base of casserole dish with a thin layer of peach chutney and tomato sauce
Add stew mix
Cover with puff pastry, and brush with egg
Bake for 30 minutes

Chicken, vegetables and cous-cous from last week:

Once again, I made use of the pressure cooker, where meat is cooked healthily and comes out *SO* tender and soft.

I simply covered the bottom of the pot with a thin layer of water (the chicken was frozen, so it will release quite a bit of moisture itself). Add a large onion cut into halves, green beans (I used frozen - you can use fresh vegetables too), and top with assorted mixed vegetables with spice/sauce.
The pressure cooker takes care of the rest.

Prior to this, I had peeled potatoes and sliced them into halves, and cooked them in the pressure cooker to save some time. I then placed them in a grilling pan in some oil, and into the oven to crisp and brown.

While all the above was taking place, I boiled up some hot water with a dash of olive oil, and cooked the cous-cous accompaniment.

The results are visible on the right.

Finally - I just made a batch of donuts. Recipe is as follows (note - I used a QUARTER of the recipe, as the full recipe makes far too many donuts for two people to eat comfortably):

1kg flour
1teaspoon salt
60g live yeast (Instead, I use 14g of dry active yeast from a sachet)
120g sugar
50g oil
4 eggs
50g Vodka (3-4 tablespoons)
350g warm water (1½ cups)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, and let froth. This should take no more than a few minutes.

Mix all the ingredients (including the yeast) in the mixer (it kneads far better than doing it by hand). The result is pictured on the left.

Leave the dough to rise (I preheat the oven to 50°c, switch it off, and place the bowl inside the oven ...this provides a warm cosy place for the yeast to do its thing. On the left you can see how the dough mixture has increased substantially in volume.

Roll the dough onto a floured surface to no less than 1½cm thick, and using a cup punch out circles. Repeat with the remaining dough until it's all used up. Set aside for a further 15 minutes to rise a little more.

Warm oil in a deep pot - temperature between medium and high (but not too hot or the donuts will burn). Lower the donuts into the oil, and turn when the underside is a honey colour. Remove with a slotted spoon to drain the oil.
I rolled mine in sugar, as you can see, but if you prefer you can let them cool and fill with jam or custard, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

All that sparkles ...

2006-06-05T22:04:00.000+02:00

A few days ago, Dvora found a small diamond lodged in a hole in the grouting of our tiles... Turns out a friend was over a few days before, and it fell out of her ring. Lucky find. They were over for lunch yesterday, and we returned the sparkly..

We were all supposed to go cycling, but weather put a damper [hehe] on that idea. Made lunch - garlic bread, fried fish, baked fish, grilled rösti croquettes, spinach, and mixed veggies; cornet ice creams (chocolate in a wafer cone) for dessert, along with freshly baked apple strudel.

We also watched Ice Age 2 - pretty funny, but preferred the first one.

Car tyres changed

2006-05-31T10:49:00.000+02:00

In Switzerland, most people who own cars have two sets of wheels - or at least two sets of tyres - "Summer" and "Winter". The winter tyres are made of a different compound that works best at temperatures around and below freezing, massively increasing stopping power relative to summer tyres. However the tread compound wears a lot faster and is not made to withstand the summer heat as resiliently, so summer tyres are used in the warmer month(s). There are also all-weather-tyres available ... jack of all trades, master of none solution.
I keep a set of winter wheels+tyres (steel rims, narrower than the summer ones) and summer wheels (stock aluminium mags that came with the car).

So, when I went to have my summer wheels mounted about 10 days ago, I went to collect my car a few hours later and the old wheels were still on ... the mechanic pointed out how totally worn my tyres were, and said I needed a new set (to be fair, I've never bought new summer tyres in the time I've had the car). So I ordered a set of Bridgestone Potenzas (lowest price of the highest rated tyres) and had them fitted yesterday.
What is it with mechanic workshops and pics of skanky women on the walls? It seems a universal trend.
So, new wheels are now mounted with the new tyres in place, and we can drive around safely once more...

I loooooooooooooooove puzzles

2006-05-28T18:51:00.000+02:00

Leading up to the launch of The Da Vinci Code movie, Google ran a series of related puzzles and riddles - which I thoroughly enjoyed. As many others did too, and informed Google so, they are now running an on-going puzzle section, led by Wei-Hwa Huang, a soon-to-be-fellow-colleague and four-time world puzzle champion.

The most recent puzzle was a good one.
Here it is, for your enjoyment:

Using the numbers 3, 3, 8, 8 (in any order), make a mathematical expression that equals 24. You can use only addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division (and parentheses), but in any order you wish. Note that you have to use all four numbers; otherwise 3 times 8 would be valid -- and that wouldn't be much of a puzzle, would it?

I wrote a little perl script to brute-force the answer, available at http://colmans.net/blog/puzzle24. Help yourself to the code, but acknowledge me if you pass it on please (or just send them the link to my code directly) - comments are encouraged.

Home preparation for our foreign sojourn

2006-05-28T12:41:00.000+02:00

Made a decision to get up early yesterday, and head out to Ikea to buy a much-needed storage solution for the study. Landed up getting a double-height set of shelves, with aluminium/glass doors, which I'll wall-mount above the desk.
I still plan to buy a set of shelves for the main wall, and will bring some books and papers up from the cellar, as well as my Roland electronic piano.
As anyone who has been to Ikea is aware, one cannot leave empty-handed, or even with just the intended purchases. We also bought a wooden toy for Aron (magnetic crane on wheels, with trailer and cargo), a packet of serviettes, two contour foam pillows, and a bicycle helmet for Dvora.

We then popped up the road to Carrefour, where I looked for a new drill (the battery on mine is dead, and it's cheaper to buy a new drill) but they were out of stock of the smaller model and the larger is more expensive and unnecessary. Did a decent-sized shop considering we're here for only another 5 weeks, and included a packet of cable ties for our suitcases, so we don't have to sacrifice padlocks to the TSA mafia during our airport runs.

Stopped by our local supermarket on the way home to pick up the fresh rolls we like, so I could make garlic bread ... and while Dvora stayed in the car, I bought not only rolls, but a litre of Macadamia & Pecan ice cream too, which I hid in the freezer on arriving home. So much for the surprise for my wife, though - not only did she discover the ice cream, but she took it out of the freezer to get access to something behind it, and forgot to replace it again... so I arrived at the scene of the crime at lunchtime today, mouth watering, espousing the virtues of good ice cream, only to find it was neither ice nor cream, but more of a curdled mush in a still-sealed container ...
We therefore had vegetable burgers, potato croquettes, and fried onions, with a pickle ... sans dessert.

I'm being watched ... but not enough

2006-05-22T13:05:00.000+02:00

Every now and then I Google myself. I used to be the top-ranked Gary Colman (without quotes) link, until Gary Coleman's IMDB entry overtook it. Hrmph!
Can't people spell?!!
I am not Gary Coleman (ha - see, I linked to myself to give the engines a boost for my profile).

Let's put things into perspective:

Me: Not Me:

While we may have an enormous amount in common, we're just not the same person. For one thing, I'm African ;-)

Anyway, moving on to my point. So, I Google myself. And usually there's nothing new and exciting to report, but just over a month ago, I found this. Not only did I find it, but I found it quite amusing, too... Speculation is rife out there. *I* don't even know what I'm going to be doing at the Big G, so it's inconceivable that the folks who misspelled wireless have some sort of concrete idea.

ps. link to my blog with the tag "Gary Colman" to help me regain my position at the top of the Google food chain. It's important. :)

Hurray for South African humour

2006-05-18T14:20:00.000+02:00

This Leon Schuster "RDP toll road" skit brings back memories, and is hilarious!

Buy the video if you can - it's an hour of all-out laughs.

Aron's first tooth

2006-05-15T11:24:00.000+02:00

Aron has cut his first tooth... It's not yet properly visible, but running ones finger over his lower gum, one can quite clearly feel the new toothy material poking through finally. YAY!
It'll be a while before he can chomp on biltong, though.

On Saturday, we went for a cycle with a friend - D on her mountain bike, friend on mine, and I took my roadbike with kiddie trailer. Both our son, and friends' son were strapped into the trailer, along with toys, blankets, bottles, snacks, camera, etc.. I felt like a pack-horse, and could certainly notice the load considerably more than when I had one kid and was on my mountainbike. Had a great cycle - we were out for an hour. Stopped to buy some fruitjuice on the way - another 13kg for me to carry (12 litres of applejuice plus packaging). I still whipped the competition though ;-P

This week is National Skin Cancer Awareness week in Switzerland. As I have a black spot behind my ear, I figure this week would be a good time to have it checked out, at no charge.
Just had this conversation over instant messenger with my wife:

[11:18] Dvora: is the black spot still behind your ear?
[11:19] Gary: lemme check..
[11:19] Gary: nrgghhhhhhhhhhhhh
[11:19] Gary: ghrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
[11:19] Gary: uggggggggggggrmphhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
[11:19] Gary: damn. can't see

I took my car to the garage up the road from work today to have my summer wheels mounted. (I have two sets of wheels - one for winter with winter tyres, one for summer with summer tyres. Saves having to change tyres every season, and the profiles and widths are different too).

Tomorrow I have a half-day off. We're taking Aron to the US Embassy to get him a visa for our trip. Tomorrow evening is the Lag Ba'Omer barbeque & schwarma evening, organised by Swiss Chabad. Hope it doesn't rain.

Do the airlines think we're stupid?

2006-05-13T11:33:00.000+02:00

If you've read my rant about United Airlines, you'll get an idea of my affinity for the companies (I have stories to tell you about SAA frequent flyer program too, but I'll save you the bore).

Someone on a mailing list said they found cheap RyanAir flights from Friedrichshafen to London Stansted ... I figured I'd see what all the fuss is about - just for fun - as we have a public holiday approaching in early June.. I figured if it's one of those 10 euro deals, perhaps it's worth looking into..
I found the departure airport listed in the "specials" frame, and duly clicked..
Then I read the conditions (you *DO* always read the conditions, right?), which stated:

Travel Period: Sat 01st Jul - Thu 31st Aug
Blackout Period: 01st Jul '06 - 31st Aug '06

Now seriously ... ~~who throws a shoe??~~ what do they take us for??
Some special, indeed.

Our dishwasher has been repaired

2006-05-11T14:36:00.000+02:00

On Saturday, we started receiving an error "F70" displayed by our dishwasher, which indicates an error with the waterproof system. Needless to say, the dishwasher wasn't working. A Mielé representative arrived today to fix it, and after removing the entire unit and fiddling a bit (I don't know what the problem was - I wasn't home to probe), it's once again working.
YAY.

Joke of the day: preach to the bear

2006-05-11T09:16:00.000+02:00

A priest, a Pentecostal preacher and a Rabbi all served as chaplains to the students of University of Colorado's Denver and Health Sciences Center campus.

They would get together two or three times a week for coffee and to talk shop. One day, someone made the comment that preaching to people isn't really all that hard. A real challenge would be to preach to a bear in the Colorado wilderness.

One thing led to another and they decided to do an experiment They would all go out into the Colorado woods, find a bear, preach to it, and attempt to convert it. Seven days later, they're all together to discuss their experience.

Father Flannery, who has his arm in a sling, is on crutches, and has various bandages, goes first."Well," he says, "I went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found him I began to read to him from the Catechism. Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him and, Holy Mary Mother of God, he became as gentle a lamb. The bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and confirmation."

Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, with an arm and both legs in casts, and an IV drip. In his best fire and brimstone oratory he claimed, " WELL brothers, you KNOW that we don't sprinkle! I went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read to my bear from God's HOLY WORD!
But that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So I took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill, UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek. So I quick DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul.
And just like you said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the time praising Jesus."

They both looked down at the rabbi, who was lying in a hospital bed. He was in a body cast and traction with IV's and monitors running in and out of him. He was in bad shape.

The rabbi looks up and says, "Looking back on it, circumcision may not have been the best way to start."

Our dishwasher is on the blink

2006-05-06T15:20:00.000+02:00

Came home today to find our dishwasher showing an error message F70.
It's a Miele G2220 SCi model, and the error message indicates that the "Waterproof System" was activated. ie, there may be moisture in the circuitry or some water-release valve has ruptured, or ... well, you get the idea.
Needless to say, I called the retailers from whom we bought it, and they told me to call on Monday morning to inform the right people (no tech support folk there on Saturdays). We bought it last year January, so it's still under warranty [2 years], and someone from Miele Switzerland will hopefully come over sometime this week to fix it ...

Heard a funny joke ...

2006-05-05T10:11:00.000+02:00

Q: What's the capital of Zimbabwe?

A: $2.75

Sex Toy or Baby Toy

2006-04-27T09:13:00.000+02:00

A friend sent me this, figuring I'd know the difference between a sex toy and a baby toy.
I scored 9/15 ... can you do better?

Take the quiz

Bike Tube Vending Machine and Yiddish

2006-04-26T10:09:00.000+02:00

Been meaning to note for a while - there's a bike store in Fällanden, at the bottom of the hill where we live. Recently (about a month and a half ago), they installed an spare-tube vending-machine outside the shop. This means, any time of day or night, one can mosy on down to the store and buy spare tubes. Nifty!

Also, it transpired that Google Search doesn't yet know about the Yiddish phrase:

ווס וייס איין חזר פון לוקשן - Vos veis ein chazer fun lokshin? / What does a pig know about lokshen ...

ie. Pork is the stereotypical non-kosher food. Lokshen is a typical Jewish food. Thus, the rhetoric implying "what does a non-Jew know about Jewish matters"?

There - now the Goog can index it for posterity.

Our hotels are booked

2006-04-26T00:14:00.000+02:00

Our hotels are now booked.

Las Vegas:

The Venetian

Los Angeles:

The Westin Bonaventure Hotel

San Diego:

Sheraton Suites San Diego

and we'll be settling in for just over 3 months at the Residence Inn in Mountain View, California:

I didn't book a car for Vegas, but we'll get one in LA, drive to SD, and then get another in San Jose for our stay there. Things are finally coming together.

Passover, Flights, Work...

2006-04-19T09:19:00.000+02:00

[written a week ago, but put on hold and forgot to get back to it ...]
So, Passover is almost over, and it seems like I'm only just getting into it.
I don't think it's ever been as uneventful and easy as this year - and I was expecting the worst, since it's our first ever completely in Zurich (I/we always went home to Cape Town this time of year to spend it with family).
First night seder we spent at friends. Second night at our Rabbi. We were expecting a very long seder, but although it was late, it wasn't "long" at all ... Aron slept fantastically, and we enjoyed the whole seder in peace. About 20 people in all, good food, good company, and a really pleasant environment.

I forgot my lunch at home today, but fortunately I had a slab of chocolate in my notebook bag, and didn't drink my can of Sprite from yesterday, so the sugar buzz will have to see me through the day...

[rant mode on]
Well, I sincerely hope the pen is mightier than the sword, because there are a lotta people in line for a pokin' with something sharp (perhaps my wit will have to suffice? :) )... and I couldn't kill anyone ... ummm.. and - I don't have a sword.
But semantics aside, I am seriously peeved with United Airlines. I selected flights for us, and informed Google which to book for me. Once I got confirmation from them, I booked the same flights for Dvora online, and phoned United's call centre to add Aron to the reservation. I chose United, because of the price, and booked on a code-share (operated by Swiss) flight because I had good reports about Swiss planes and service. I got through to what must be a decent-sized call-centre in India, because I didn't speak to the same person more than once. I added Aron to the reservation, changed my seats so Dvora and I would be seated adjacently, and was then put through to the accounts department for billing and issuing. I was given the choice of having them post the tickets to me, or collecting the tickets myself from the airport - I chose the latter...

Roll on Saturday, and we make a trip out to the airport early Saturday afternoon, around 2pm. I park near Terminal 1, which is from where the Star Alliance [Swiss, Lufthansa] airlines depart.
While looking for the United terminal, I was informed by a Star Alliance assistant that the United desk is in Terminal 2, but is only open until midday ... so home we went, only to return early the following day. A real rocket-scientist sat behind the counter, and asked me what I needed. I told her I was there to collect tickets, and that I had a reservation number. She asked what kind of tickets ... I said, jokingly, "flight tickets". Somehow that was an adequate answer for her because she began typing away at her terminal, and told me she could see that the tickets had been issued ... but she didn't know where they were, and that I'd have to call the support centre the following day during office hours!!

Another day passes, Monday rolls around, and I call the support line.. Get through to India again, where they inform me that reservations are held for only 24 hours, and that since I didn't collect the tickets on Saturday, the booking had expired. How they were planning to post the tickets to me is still a mystery! So I went back to the website to re-book the tickets, but now the flight was full ... Another long call to my Indian compatriots and they said, basically, "tough luck dude" and that I'd have to book my wife and infant son on a different flight! Of course I resisted most politely, and didn't let up until my request to speak to the supervisor was honoured. She (her name is Jasmine Douglas, in case anyone from United is reading this) told me initially there's nothing they could do, then later said she's speak to Swiss about re-instating my initial reservation... A few hours passed, I called again, asked to be put directly through to her and despite meeting with initial resistance, she somehow became available once they realised I wasn't going away. I was told there's nothing they could do, because the flight I was booked on, was now quite overbooked and my wife and son would have to fly on another flight.

Far be it from them to recommend any compensatory alternatives (ie, that they screwed up and could upgrade us, or even upgrade someone else to permit Dvora onto the flight)... Eventually I suggested them booking Dvora and Aron onto the United-operated flight and new connection that leaves 30 mins earlier, and gets to Vegas 40 minutes later than our original schedule ... and to change my ticket to put me onto the new itinerary ... After much delay, I was assured that the reservation was changed, and that the tickets were available for pickup at the airport ... and that the ticket office would be open until 21h30. So after work, I went home, collected my tickets, and headed straight for the United ticket counter at Terminal 2... which was closed! I went to the Lufthansa (Star Alliance) desk in Terminal 1, where a really friendly woman called the United helpdesk on my behalf ... She got through to Poland.
Words were exchange ... for 30 minutes ... afterwhich I left, still without tickets, and a directive to call the callcentre the following day for details - but assurance that the new reservation was in place.

So now it's Tuesday - remember, I booked online on Friday. I called United's 1-800 number again to find out what I was supposed to do. India. The assistant found my reservation, took my details, and ASSURED me that now all was in order, and the tickets would be posted to me.
Being old, wise, and very sceptical, the following day I phoned the 1-800 number again, this time via Skype so the call originated in the USA. Presto - I get through to a super-helpful American woman (no disrespect to the penny stock helpdeskers in Bangalore, BTW) who says to me "bottom line - if you don't have a US billing address, we can't issue the tickets unless you're present at the ticket counter". So she confirms my reservation won't expire, and tells me the real opening times of the United ticket counter at the airport here, and sends me on my way.

Thursday, and on my way to work I stop off at the airport to secure my place at the counter during hours of attendance. I was there for about an hour, during which a long phonecall was made to United on my behalf, and reservations were confirmed. Of course, leaving with tickets in hand would be too easy - they don't issue tickets at the counter, they simply get the details of the customer and tickets would be posted. Sound familiar?
I insisted on a printed confirmation of my itinerary before leaving.

It's Tuesday today, and the tickets arrived in the mail. I was charged full price for both Dvora's and Aron's tickets, *AND* they slapped on another 90 francs in processing fees because I issued at the counter, not online. Needless to say, much of the content from this rant will be transcribed in a friendly letter to the United administration "team".
[end rant]

On the plus side, at least it's sorted out and we're guaranteed of our trip.. I think.

Food: took a few days off from cooking (you'd be amazed how one can happily live on chocolate muesli :) ). Friday night we had friends over for dinner.
I made a curry: fry onion, fresh ginger and garlic, basil and cinnamon, masala curry, chunks of beef; then combine with potatoes, sweet potato, carrots, zucchini, brocolli and peas. Put into pressure cooker, and about 40min later a wonderful curry emerges. I served it with slices of avocado (with black pepper and lemon juice), and a mixed salad with a mixture of basilico vinegar and olive oil as a dressing.
In the meantime, I made gefilte fish (boiled with carrots and celery salt), which I served as a starter.

Last night I grilled salmon, with black pepper, basil, celery salt, and onion salt. Rubbed fresh garlic on foil, wrapped the fish in the foil, and grilled for about 35 minutes. Served with steamed butter herb veggies.

This evening, I made sloppy joes:
Dice an onion, and sautée. add mince, diced tomato, and chilli spice. I add a very small amount of water at this stage to help the mince absorb the spice nicely, and then cook until reduced. Serve on a fresh soft oversized bun - like a spicy hamburger, but without the formed burger.

Vegas, baby!!

2006-04-13T10:44:00.000+02:00

Our flights are now booked!

I wanted to fly with one of the Star-Alliance airlines so we'd get usable miles, so our choices were United or Swiss... more than one person said United is very cramped for international flights, and that Swiss had far superior service ... but United prices are lower.
Fortunately I found a United codeshare flight operated by Swiss, so we're booked on that...
We fly via Chicago, to Las Vegas, where we'll spend 3 days and 4 nights, including an aerial trip out over the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam. Yeeeha!
My boss was recently in Vegas, and on his return gave me a $1 Hooters casino chip, so I guess I'll see if I can get lucky in Hooters (bet you never thought you'd hear me say THAT :) ).

Then it's on to Los Angeles for 2 days, and San Diego for a day and a half before we settle into our long-term temporary apartment in Mountain View. We'll be staying there from July 9th until October 21st.

Turning to more current events - it's Passover. We went to friends last night for the first seder - quite a mix of nationalities/ethnicities/languages there, which made for a really nice evening. Tonight we're going to the Rabbi for 2nd night seder, and we've been warned it's going to be a long event.

shell script to count characters in a string

2006-04-06T13:13:00.000+02:00

Someone on irc was looking for a way to count the number of characters in a string, in Bourne shell ... so I wrote the following for him, all nicely commented and everything (which he didn't use anyway! hrmph!).

countchar.txt

booking for USA

2006-04-06T12:18:00.000+02:00

So it seems there won't be a problem with using the corporate housing offered by Google while I'm in training, and my wife and son will definitely join me ... moreover, we'll definitely go for the full three months. YAY!

I already have an American business visa, and my wife has a visa for visiting the USA, so all that remains is for Aron to get his US visa (good thing we got that temporary passport for him - but he should have his full passport by the time we leave anyway), and we're set.

I need to look into specifics of IRS Tax issues, H1B and/or green card information etc too (because I'll be there for 3 months ... so I don't know whether I will be liable for any US-based income tax) - but I'm quite certain that my business visa should more than cover me for a 3-month stay, and since I'm still employed by a Swiss company and paid here, I think I'll be fine. I'll check with the American Embassy later today nonetheless.

Decided possibly to rent out our apartment - the money would be quite useful towards the mortgage, especially since the apartment would otherwise just lie dormant for over 3 months.
May as well put it to use ... anyone want to rent a wonderful modern "luxury" Zurich apartment for three months over the summer? contact me :)

Speaking of mortgages - I went to see an agent who assured me they could beat my current rate.. so schlepped out, 2 hours away from work in the middle of the day ... I was there for 5 minutes, showed him my current package I negotiated with Credit Suisse, and this sheepish look grows on his face when he admits it's a spiffin' good deal and that they cannot beat it.
Hrmph!

Been looking at our options wrt flights, and it looks like we'll do the following:

Fly Zürich to Las Vegas
Fly Las Vegas to San Diego
Drive to Los Angeles
Fly Los Angeles to San José (Mountain View)

Once again - if anyone has recommendations about accommodation or must-sees/dos in the above locations - let me know!
I'm listening...

News closer to home ... two days ago, I rushed home because D slipped on the stairs while carrying Aron, and knocked his head on the wall (she told me his head was bleeding). I *RACED* home, to find a truly minor superficial scratch on his noggin .. he was asleep when I got there. I'm very grateful it was nothing serious.

On the food front, I did some shopping for passover last night ...
Bought drinks, kneidel mix, matzah, pickles, meat, gefilte fish, salmon, uht milk, chocolate, wine for sacrament, etc etc... will get the refrigerated perishables next week (cheeses, margarine, etc)
. This will be our first full passover outside of South Africa - we've been invited to friends for the first night seder, which was nice of them. Second night we'll probably be home alone.
Nice also that it's a long weekend, so there should be good opportunity to go for a nice drive out someplace, too... and I have a lot of paperwork and cleaning up still to do (did I mention that I'm KING of apathy when it comes to organising administrative things?).

... and that's a wrap!

Morning Brunch

2006-04-02T20:27:00.000+02:00

So (why do people begin a piece of writing with 'so' ????) friends of ours came over this morning for brunch. It was great - I really enjoy preparing food (as many of you know), and what better time to eat it that than starting in the morning [and continuing through the day - that's what leftovers are for, right?].

The menu this morning was:

chocolate muesli
assorted yoghurts (papaya, pistachio, peach melba, pear&chocolate, chocolate)
omelette containing fried onions and diced veggie sausages
white bread (plain or toasted)
rye bread
smoked salmon
assorted cheeses (cottage cheese with chives, garlic and herb cheese spread, and yellow cheeses: gouda, some italian hard cheese, and a swiss hard cheese)
apricot jam
apple juice
orange juice
multivit juice
tea (earl grey, rooibos, vanilla, ceylon)
coffee (just decaf, I'm afraid ... we don't drink the stuff ourselves)
fruit salad (apple, pear, orange, strawberry, seedless grapes, papaya, kiwi, banana)
chocolate-lined kelloggs wafer tubes

This afternoon, I updated some scripts for our new landingpage (I work at http://www.monzoon.net/) and popped down to McDonald's to test them (no I didn't eat anything there, yes the scripts all worked as expected). Other friends (also with a young kid - 8 months older than Aron) came over this afternoon to collect speakers I'd stored in our cellar for them while they moved apartments. We were planning a walk, but it started raining while they were here, so we stayed indoors and let the kids play while we chatted.

Just finished making a stew for Aron [and us :) ], of course using the pressure cooker once again - beef, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and peas, with a hint of basil, rosemary, garlic and ginger, oregano, and 2 bay leaves.

Chicken in the pressure cooker

2006-03-31T12:30:00.000+02:00

So, last night, as I do every weeknight, I got home and started making dinner for us.

Two chicken thighs, defrosted in the microwave.
Pop 'em into the pressure cooker (I have a WMF 4.5litre as seen here, that is perfect for making a full meal for 4 - more if it's a stew, since items don't need to be separated). While preparing the veggies, I had the stove plate on high, to bring the water in the pot to the boil (always!! ensure you have liquid in the pressure cooker - the steam must escape slowly while cooking - it's what generates the pressure).

I have a little sieve-like insert that raises the ingredients off the base, out of the water - fantastic for steaming. So - I placed the chicken pieces on it, and generously seasoned them with chicken seasoning (original, eh? :) ). Added 3 peeled whole carrots, 2 peeled onions, 4 peeled whole potatoes (not too large - you want them to cook through nicely), and a few thick slices of aubergine. Then I put that on the stove too do its thing.

Meanwhile, I put luke-warm water into a pot, added rice, threw in a handful of masala curry, and brought that to the boil. The rice cooked, and when the water had been absorbed/boiled off, I dished it out onto the plates. By this time, the pressure-cooker had completed its cooking process. Moist, succulent, flavourful chicken pieces on curry rice, with accompanying steamed veggies.. Delicious!

Dinner: beef stew and fruit salad

2006-03-28T21:22:00.000+02:00

Gentle reader(s),

In the interests of keeping this blog current and dynamic, herewith a detail of what I made for dinner:

beef stew, made as follows:
sautée onions
add cubed beef, and fry just enough to seal the meat

I then popped it into the pressure cooker (we have a wonderful WMF 4.5l pressure cooker), and added sliced carrots, zucchini, sweet potato, potato, aubergine, and threw in a little bit of water (remember, the pressure cooker doesn't lose nearly as much liquid as when you simmer it for ages), and presto ... 30min later, a hearty beef stew..
Thing about the pressure cooker is that meat is *SO* soft and juicy.
I *highly* recommend this method if you're able (and love the WMF design, too).

Then, dessert comprised a fresh fruit salad:
apple, orange, papaya, banana, pear, strawberry, kiwi

Peel fruit as necessary, cube, and chill ... presto!

While on food, while shopping yesterday I bought the ingredients for Tiramisu. Will let you know how it goes, and post the recipe in the coming days.

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair ....

2006-03-28T10:28:00.000+02:00

It's official - we're going to San Francisco!

As mentioned, I start my new job with Google in July. Being the great company that they are, they train one properly before letting one loose on their systems -- this means training in a major centre. So I'll be going to Mountain View for 3 months, along with my wife and son.
Quite exciting really... live in a foreign (yet quite familiar) country, experience life in the suburbs of an English-speaking westernised environment, I'll be only a few kilometres from one of my good friends from school, and all without major commitment because we know we have our home to return to after all is said and done. And all the while, pounding my brain with information and experience unattainable anywhere else in the world.

I'll have to start developing my shopping fund ASAP :D

Where have I been...

2006-03-27T15:03:00.000+02:00

A while back I titled a post "Where am I going?"..

This is a nice facility to show where on earth one has been.
It's not entirely comprehensive, but it gives a nice visualisation of where one has travelled:

You can get your own World Map here

Moreover, it has an option to display US states visited,too.
In my list, I've included the states I passed through on Car/Amtrak from NYC to DC, as well as on Amtrak from Chicago, IL to Seattle, WA (it was a LONG ride...):

You can get your own US Map here

Vacation to Cape Town

2006-03-25T18:48:00.000+01:00

Dear reader(s) [I'm still not convinced there's more than one out there, and it's probably just my wife checking I don't write about her].

Time to catch up with the events from the past few weeks:

Vacation:
Last month we went to Cape Town for 17 days (24 Feb - 14 Mar). We most certainly did not travel "light", by any stretch of the imagination ...
° 3 checked suitcases
° bicycle
° my notebook bag
° Aron's nappy/change bag
° my camera bag
° 1 cabin suitcase
° Aron's stroller

Surprisingly, we were not charged overweight nor was there an issue with the luggage being checked in, in spite of our meagre official 20kg limit being exceeded. (The bike was transported free by SAA, as they are co-sponsors of the cycle tour I was to do in Cape Town).

Weather in CPT was warm... a few days after we arrived, it hit 38° celcius!
I managed to get a few rides in nonetheless (temperatures around the 25° mark in the mornings when I rode), see friends, dine out a few times, and generally do everything but work.
My brother was in town from Canada for the first 10 days we were there [for my mom's birthday], so it was good to catch up and see them again.

12th March was the Argus Cycle Tour. To summarise, I did a couple of rides with friends while in Cape Town, one 62km organised funride (which was considerably hillier than I anticipated - I was unaware of the route beforehand ... for those who care, it started in Constantia, up Ou Kaapse Weg, through Kommetjie, up Red Hill, up Boyes Drive and back up to Constantia). Then there was The Tour... a bit of rain, somewhat of a stiff breeze in against us - and I finished in 3:46:14 - a little faster than I was anticipating, considering my fitness. I hope to be back next year, able to start in a seeded category and improve on this time.

We did some good eating out (Mr Chan in Sea Point, Cattle Baron, Spur, KFC, Nandos, and I discovered that Steers make a fantastic steakroll, and a picnic at Spier wine estate - which, incidentally is where we got engaged).

While on vacation, I received a call I'd been anticipating - Google made me an offer.
Roll back to December last year, when I received an email asking if I'd be interested in interviewing for a role at the Big G. A couple of telephone interviews, an in-person interview in Dublin (in February), and then the wait.
So, I've accepted the job, and will be leaving my current position in June, having been with Monzoon for almost 4 years.
If anyone out there wants to apply for my position at Monzoon, let me know - we're hiring :)

Not much other news, really ... I went cycling yesterday - first time since the Argus. Did about 68km, 1300m of climbing. Was good.

Yesterday, we were lying in bed watching LOST, and I found a chocolate chip from a pecan choc-chip cookie I'd had the night before ... I offered it to Dvora, who accepted it with suspicion.. smelled it.. looked at it.. rolled it... smelled it again, and surmised it was no choc-chip, but a remnant from when Aron was changed on our bed earlier!
Needless to say, we now use a "fixies" mat on our bed when changing him in our room.

And that's a wrap!
(for now ... I'm sure I'll remember more to write about later today)

Rate my life

2006-02-18T09:31:00.000+01:00

Ash over at Stitched in Holland said I should take this test...
so..

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.9
Mind:	7.3
Body:	8.8
Spirit:	6.4
Friends/Family:	6.3
Love:	5.5
Finance:	8.8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

How do you rate?

bad news comes in 3s.. no 4s... no 5s..

2006-02-13T09:20:00.000+01:00

It's just not my year...

As you know, the engine of my car died. I took it to Volvo, they assessed the damage and said it needs replacing, and found an engine elsewhere that could replace mine. I gave them the go-ahead to install it last week. They just informed me that the engine is invalid, and I'll have to go with a more expensive overhauled engine directly from Volvo. Hrmph!

Saturday evening, I opened our glass cabinet to put away some shiny things for display, and the door fell off... all-glass, bigger than me, and very pretty when it's sprinkled across the whole downstairs floor area in thousands of shards.

Had the day off on Friday. Of course while I was out of reach, our main server died (out of drive space ... weird, but true. Apparently sysadmin isn't monitoring all partitions.).

Haven't cycled in over 2 weeks now ... need to get back into the saddle - cycle tour is in 26 days time ...

-6° in Zurich today. 11 days until vacation-time, summer sunshine, and fine dining.

Where am I going ...?

2006-02-09T09:42:00.000+01:00

After work yesterday, I was sent by the Mrs to buy more nappies (diapers)... So off I went in rush-hour traffic to the middle of nowhere, where there happens to be a nappy factory that sells direct to the public.
Good thing I have the company car (stationwagon/estate/kombi - depending on your language), as - even with (or perhaps because of) the satellite navigation system - I managed to make one or two "creative directional choices". Still, I made it there before they closed, and left with a wagon filled with almost 1500 nappies... roughly 8 or 9 months worth. Saved around 300 francs by buying direct, too.

Then this morning I had to make a detour on my way to work to drop something off, and while not concentrating, took a wrong turn ... needed the kind German lady on the navi CD to get me out of my predicament yet again.. For someone who has piloted an aircraft with precision around South Africa... twice... I have a remarkably bad sense of direction.

Car decision

2006-02-08T16:06:00.000+01:00

So as mentioned (if I recall), our Volvo decided to die a sudden death. Not all of it, mind you - just the important part - the engine. The garage still cannot explain why it died, and have sent off the engine oil to Castrol for analysis. Meanwhile we had to make a decision about whether to replace the engine and keep our steed, or see what we could get for the Fred Flintstone car..
As it happens, Volvo made me a really disappointing offer on the body, so I elected to pop a replacement engine in and keep on truckin'.
I suppose we'll sell the car later this year and get something a little bigger and better suited to our needs.

For eg - we now - as of Sunday - have a kiddie bicycle trailer that may need schlepping (along with our bikes) down to the Greifensee. It won't fit in our current vehicle, so short of cycling it down and back up our hill, we'll need a larger car.

After buying the trailer (got it from an expat returning to Canada), we went for a walk on the frozen Greifensee... Quite an experience walking on 12cm of ice, knowing that if it should break, you'll be plunged into the middle [literally] of a large body of really really cold water 10s or 100s of metres from the shore. How many out there can say they've walked on water? ;-)
It was a pretty nice atmosphere - many 100s of people, stalls on the shores selling carnival-type stuff, hot foods, glühwein, etc...

Snowing again at the moment ... looking forward to our vacation in Cape Town in 2 weeks time. Haven't had a holiday since .. umm... about May last year... Worked through end of year too.

Food and things

2006-02-03T09:11:00.000+01:00

Well, still waiting on news regarding cost of repair of our car. The garage said that cylinder 3, the crankshaft, and some casing is all damaged, resulting in engine replacement as our only option. I'm REALLY hoping Volvo Switzerland gets wind of this, and says "hey, that's not right?!" and provides SOME financial supplementation ... replacing a whole engine is an expensive exercise - even more so in Switzerland where labour is ridiculously expensive. I'll call later today to find out whether there is any news for me.
(For reference, I got a quote from the UK for a remanufactured engine ...GBP1600 including parts, labour, fitting, and warranty! Wonder how far off the mark Switzerland's price will be).

Aron didn't sleep well last night at all - D was up too many times to count [apparently .. I only woke up at about 4am when she was all stressed and moaning at him to go to sleep, but she said he didn't sleep longer than 20min at a time]. I sympathise with her - it's very frustrating indeed.

Food ... on Tuesday I decided it was time we had a fondue again ... a meat fondue, since we'd not had something like that in the last couple of years!
But by the time I got home and got preparing everything, I was too tired to teach each individual block of meat to swim, so I fried them all beforehand and we simply took the pre-cooked goulash chunks off a plate. I made a potato salad (potatoes, finely-diced pickled gherkin, mayonnaise), grilled veggies (slices of aubergine, zucchini, sweet potato, yellow bell pepper drizzled with olive oil and placed under the grill), and four sauces (tomato sauce + mayonnaise; commercial sweet chilli sauce; commercial tartare sauce; mustard+mayo+worcester sauce). It was delicious, and filling.

Wednesday I made baked fish (crumbed with a veggie filling), fried fish (crumbed), spinach, and peas.

Last night I made Quorn stir fry (using Quorn chunks) with asian vegetable mix (sprouts, sliced peppers, mange tout (peas in their pods), etc etc), and a dash of sweet chilli sauce. Served with rice, of course.

It's still cold here - nicely below zero, and extremely foggy.

I'm back!

2006-02-01T13:33:00.000+01:00

Well, it seems there *IS* life out there after all ...
So - may as well jump straight back in from where I left off many moons ago.

Family:
Aron is growing bigger and heavier every week. He's 5 months old on Sunday, and weight close on 8kg already. We started him on solids a couple of weeks ago as it appeared that milk was no longer satiating his large frame. So far he's had: Apple, Pear, Banana, Potato, Carrot, Fenchel, Pumpkin.

Travel:
While we've not really been _anywhere_ since Aron was born, we're heading off to Cape Town in 3 weeks time. We'll be there for 17 days, coinciding with a visit by my brother and his family (they live in Calgary, Canada). Will be nice to be all together for about 10 days.

Work:
Things are going well - pretty busy really ... I'm migrating our systems to a new release of software I wrote, and as always, finding interesting never-before-seen bugs in obscure places (ie, a few VPNs suddenly don't work no mo' - I narrowed it down to the ipfw pipe in ipfw2, which isn't an issue in ipfw1 ... go figure).

Life:
Last week our car started making a rattling sound, as if something was loose .. A day later, it sounded worse - like a diesel. I thought perhaps there was a hole in the exhaust. Called the garage, took it in on Monday, and they said it looks like the whole engine needs to be replaced!
The car is only 6 years old, 116000km, original owner, properly serviced, etc....
I took it back today to be opened up, and am awaiting the final verdict as to whether it's salvable. If not, it'll be rather an expensive exercise indeed.

Went cycling on Sunday, but it was around 0°C and I was underdressed ... I'm now sick :-(

Anyone out there?

2006-01-31T21:08:00.000+01:00

POLL: Should I continue blogging ?

Contact me privately with your answer.
More than three unrelated respondents and I'll give it another go.

No pressure, people ... :-)

poignant moment

2005-08-02T09:02:00.000+02:00

As you know, I'm a keen cyclist ...

I'm sure you all know who Lance Armstrong is - 7 times consecutive winner of the Tour de France. And I'm sure you all have seen him on TV, or in the news, in his cycling gear. And I'm sure you all know that he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, which had spread to his lungs and brain. But he miraculously overcame that, and went on to become the most successful Tour de France victor ever.
This picture is an advert from one of his sponsors - Nike. It really needs no explanation whatsoever - just some quiet time for reflection on life. Your own life. For his story is in some way, inspirational to us all.

With the right key, you can sing in any flat ...

2005-08-02T08:27:00.000+02:00

A friend of ours is visiting from London, as she has some business to attend at 16h00. I'm going to assist her with translation, so I came into work really early this morning.
The positive about coming in early is that the traffic is free-flowing.
The negative about coming in early, is that one tends to be more asleep than usual.

I forgot my office keys at home, so had to wait 10 mins outside before someone let me in, and another 35 mins sitting on the floor outside the office waiting for a colleague to arrive to open up.

Still, at least I get to leave early :D

And ... it's raining here again :-(

my new old bike!

2005-07-21T14:57:00.000+02:00

2 weeks have gone by since my last post.
I bought a 2nd hand Cannondale on Monday, which I've taken out once ... beautiful ride.

I did the Zürich triathlon on Saturday (still only had my old bike), and had loads of fun.
600m swim
20km cycle
5km run

... I completed the swim quite easily [albeit slowly], and the cycle was quite easy ... but a few hundred metres into the run, I had to start walking - the impact of running has never been kind to my knees, and this was no exception. The pounding of my sensitive right knee joint resulted in excrutiating sharp shooting pains when I attempted to run, so I landed up walking/limping most of the 5km. Still, no regrets, and I thoroughly enjoyed the event. There was amazing camaraderie - everytime someone passed me on the run they'd say "Come on Gary" (our names were printed on our race numbers).

Our garden is looking wonderful and green and lush. We'll need to buy a hosepipe, sprinkler, and lawnmower soon ... and a box/shed of sorts in which to house it.

It's summ...er, wint...er summer.

2005-07-06T10:24:00.000+02:00

Weather here is ridiculously changeable at the moment - last week we had numerous contiguous days where the mercury hit 30 degrees+ [86F]. Yesterday we had flash downpours and lightning. Today started off with promise, but it's turned overcast and looks like rain again...

Last week I did some final shopping around, and ordered our mountain bikes...
A Trek 6500 for me, and a Trek 4500 for Dvora. They arrived on Friday.
I was supposed to go cycling with Adel (Canadian guy, originally from Croatia) on Saturday, but he SMSed me on Friday to say he had to work ... so I went out alone, and veered off my normal round-the-lake route to head out towards Wetzikon where there's a bike shop... It took me a while [I'm super unfit], but I got there .. walked around, bought a cheapie [12 francs] cycling computer, and headed home. Nice thing about living on the top of a 7% gradient 3km hill, is that it makes the return home all that more enjoyable :-)

Saturday afternoon we went to see our bikes, and I paid for 'em ... Yesterday I collected mine and also got a pair of cycling shoes [I got click pedals] for almost half price, and tomorrow evening I'll collect Dvoras bike.
This evening I'm going cycling [road bike] with an American chap who answered my call for a cycling partner ... tomorrow I'm going with the friends with whom we bought the MTBs - so I'll ride my MTB for the first time. YAY.

On another note - our grass has sprouted, and there is a green fluff where the lawn will be ... not unlike the fuzz on an adolescent's face... only ... greener.

The grass is always greener on the other side ...

2005-06-27T13:58:00.000+02:00

YAY!
Garden folk are at our apartment today ... They are planting the grass, and will mow it in 4 weeks time... thereafter, it's up to us to take care of it. At the same time as mowing it, our building will be getting a set of swings, a sandpit, and a bench.

It'll be nice finally to have a lawn of our own to use.

The fast and the furious...

2005-06-27T09:33:00.000+02:00

Well, the summer weather has finally returned, and we've had a number of consecutive days around 30 degrees (86F).
Last week I went to take another look, and test ride mountain bikes ... Probably going to place the order for three Trek 6500>Trek 6500 bikes this evening - buying for myself, and two friends are also getting... and will get something for Dvora too ... I've organised that we receive 10% discount for buying together.
I posted a note to the Expats in Zurich mailing list requesting a cycling partner - while I have the will to get out there and get back in the saddle, I lack the motivation to actually go and do it... I get home from work and am tired... and getting out of bed in the mornings is a chore in itself. It's the same in winter with skiing - unless I prearrange to go with people, we always switch off the alarm and go back to sleep. So three people have responded thusfar - two MTBers (Mountain Bikers) and one with a road bike. I met up with one of the MTBers on Saturday and we did a lap of the Greifensee and a jaunt up the Züriberg [didn't think I'd make it up the 3km-long uphill stretch, but I led the whole way]. It was great, and I felt fantastic the whole day. I really need to get out there more often and punish myself. I'm hoping the road cycling will be a little more of a challenge for me [she used to race in Australia], since MTBs are generally a slower than road bikes, and these guys seem to prefer offroad anyway. I'm still a road-cyclist at heart, even though I'm succumbing to getting an MTB [which I'd need for trips with a kiddie trailer anyway].

Last night we went to a couple I met on the expat list, for a fish barbeque. Nice people [He's Danish, She's half-British half-Greek, and they have a 15month-old son born in Switzerland], pleasant evening, and enjoyment had all around.

I'm hoping I'll get another ride or two in this week... I need to start piling on the distance to build stamina, before working on the speed/sprint components ... So hope soon to be doing double (or more) laps of the Greifensee - each lap is only 20km (I like the route because there are bike-lanes for 90% of it, and it's more-or-less flat).
I'm hoping to be able to pop out today for a drive up to the Bodensee during lunchtime [bit far, but there you go], to buy a kiddie trailer .... the manufacturer is having a sale, and selling them at ridiculously discounted prices, so I figure I should get while the getting is good.
Also found bed, change table, shelf and closet at almost half-price at an opening sale of a baby store, so will pop over there later today to grab one of those sets, too (or rather, to buy it but ask them to keep it until September if possible).

settlement on our taps - the result

2005-06-14T11:35:00.000+02:00

Well, it seems the settlement we received was better than expected. They covered the FULL costs of our taps, not just two-thirds. Hurray!
I received the final mehr-/minderkosten list (it details excess/rebate costs for our apartment, based on customisations we've done), and we're gonna get a nice chunk of moola back (for eg, we bought our own appliances from Germany - much better value than from the developers, etc..).

Also, we were informed (after our complaints) that the developers gave the garden company a 2-week ultimatum to complete our garden - grass, trees, etc.. Also, we'll have new neighbours from end of next month, as the Spanish couple who bought one of the other garden apartments are moving in, and the remaining garden apartment will be completed and has a tenant waiting to move in. They will be cleaning the garage before that time, too. So finally the builders will disappear and we'll be properly part of suburbia.

Oh - the projector arrived this morning ... I'm really keen to play with it, but I want to set it up properly, and in place, so will have to organise the stand for it ASAP. Also need to move the TV out of the way to maximise the wall real-estate for projection.

Birth Prep Class...

2005-06-14T09:34:00.000+02:00

Well, a bit of a lull in blogging there - usually I reserve blogging for worktime ... a few minutes here, a few minutes there when my brain needs a break. I prefer not to blog at home, as there's precious little time in the evenings to spend with my wife as it is, and I always seem to get caught up making dinner, catching up some email, sorting paperwork, doing household chores, or whatever... So as work was rather busy the past week, I kind didn't put pen to pa... err, fingers to blogkeyboard. But that's behind us now :D

This past weekend we had our birthing prep classes, given by an Australian midwife (we opted for the English class, since German classes would be absolutely wasted on us). Medical insurance picks up the first 100 francs of the course, which is nice too. Nice group of people, very informative classes, and definitely recommended. We covered assorted breathing styles, different stages of labour - and how best to (attempt to) control them, what hospital procedure is for arrival...details of methods of intervention, pain relief, and different birthing positions and apparatus. We covered feeding details, and who to contact in times of trouble. She gave indications of what we our entitlements are from the mandatory medical aid, and proposed exercises for before labour. We also brainstormed partner roles, and situations that may arise... We also watched a video on labour.
I'm sure I've forgotten to mention much of what happened, but suffice to say - it was most informative.

We think we've decided on the colour and pattern of our stroller, and will be placing the order. Yes, it's blue. No, we don't know the gender of our sprog. No, I don't think it's a problem for a girl to be in a blue stroller. I think blue is a nice calming colour, and is suitable for babies of either gender.
We also need to order a bed soon, since there is a delivery time of up to 12 weeks, and will probably buy the car seat soon too - gotta have something to bring sprog home in.

On another note, I signed us up for a "Sephardic culinary evening" on Thursday, where assorted Sephardic titbits will be served. 15 francs each, excluding drinks. It's done by the same chef with whom I did a "pasta art" course - he was born in Morocco. Should be interesting - and I'll try get the recipes if anyone's interested...

The menu:

First serving:

small pita bread rounds filled with hummus (Lebanon/Syria)
The pita bread is sliced in half, and each half is filled with hummus then topped with paprika...both the bread and hummus is homemade.
Israeli couscous salad ( Israel)
The couscous here are larger than normal - about the size of a pea. The salad will be served with sun-dried tomatoes, orange zest, roasted almonds, and mint. A lemon vinaigrette will dress the salad.
marinated mushrooms ( Morocco)
These cumin-marinated mushrooms are a favorite from Morocco.
Mediterranean green salad ( Greece and Turkey)
This salad is an inspiration from the Balkan states. It will have spinach greens, toasted walnuts, and Turkish sheep's-milk cheese. The dressing will be a refreshing combination of lemon juice and orange-flower water.

Second serving:

bacalao empanadas (Spain)
Little pies stuffed with paprika-spiced salt cod
albóndigas ( Spain)
Little meat balls lightly coated in tomatoes
cigars à la viande (North Africa)
A typical dish from North Africa, these little phyllo-dough pies are filled with highly aromatic ground lamb
warm bulgur pilaf ( Turkey)
Tomatoes, feta cheese and green onions flavor the bulgur
chermoula ( Morocco)
A very popular hot and spicy salsa made from garlic, tomatoes, fresh coriander, and plenty of spices

Sweet selections:

cardamom cookies (Iraq)
an Iraqi specialty
apricots filled with rose-scented mascarpone cream ( Turkey)
a Turkish specialty - very refreshing!
ginger cake ( Egypt)
a rich and moist cake with a strong taste of ginger - quite delicious and refreshing!

Yum!

settlement on our taps

2005-06-07T12:08:00.000+02:00

Well, good news ... the tiler has accepted fault and is coming to replace the broken tiles in our place on Monday morning.

Moreover, the developer has accepted two-thirds of the costs of our taps that we had to replace due to their negligence, and I get to resell the taps and keep the difference up to the original purchase price, so I'm not out of pocket at all. Any profit made from the taps, we'll split with the developer... fair's fair after all.

On the cash-outflow side of things, it's going to be an expensive month:

video camera+associated peripherals
video projector
hopefully Sky satellite TV (we get 2 English channels for free here :-()
probably mountain bikes for Dvora and me

Decided to get Sky TV, since Dvora will be home a lot, often without her own transport, and it's nice to lie down, and watch TV and understand it :)

A decision has been made

2005-06-06T09:45:00.000+02:00

Well, another weekend gone ...
I took measurements for shelves on Saturday, but after bouncing between bike shops and baby shops (3 x bike, 2 x baby), we ran out of time and inclination to get shelves.
The results of the day, however, are that we now know what stroller and other things we want...
Bikes - I visited a number of bike shops, and took one for a spin ... some Swiss brand.
Quite a nice ride actually - very comfortable, and easy to get moving. I want to test-ride a Trek 4500 though, as that's the bike I currently have my eye on.

Went cycling again last night - 45 minutes exactly, around the Greifensee.. For the 20km route, the average speed of 26km/h is rather lacklustre, but it's a start ... I aim to be averaging 30-32km/h at LEAST, by the end of summer.

Dvora got dispensation from the doctor to work only 50%, so she's taken today off. She'll be cleaning the glass display cabinet so we can populate it this evening.
Shelves for the study, and shoe rack, and built-in-cupboard -- I'll have to pop over sometime myself after work to buy shelves, and install them this weekend one evening (This Saturday and Sunday during the day we have our antenatal classes at the clinic, operated by a Swiss-Australian midwife in English).
We've decided to get spots for our kitchen, that match the lounge and upstairs landing ... I need to measure to ensure that the cupboard doors won't hit the light fitting when open, then I'll go buy it.
The shower doors are still in storage - but this week I'll make the time to bring them upstairs ... I'll have to borrow an electric drill to bore holes for mounting it though, since I don't trust my rechargeable drill for drilling into our tiles.

Please leave comments

2005-06-03T13:25:00.000+02:00

Hi

If you do read my blog,*PLEASE* leave me a comment - it's a way I get to know who's out there and reading about my life ...
Simply click on the "comment" link just below the post, and speak your mind.

a kugel to die for ...

2005-06-03T00:16:00.000+02:00

Went to the traffic department yesterday to get forms for Dvora - she needs to exchange her South African drivers licence for a Swiss one [and do a practical test]. While there, I found an ATM/debit card on the ground outside from the Post Bank. So I went to the post office to hand it in... The back wasn't even signed yet, and already lost!

Last night we went to a friend to learn how to make potato kugel... This is a traditional Jewish dish which tastes fantastic, and is actually quite simple to make ....
ingredients are an onion and 2 eggs, blended. grate 5 or 6 potatoes, and mix in the onion/egg.. add salt and pepper ... and bake in a deep rectangular cake tin at 180 degrees (160 if you have a fan-assisted oven) for about 2 hours, until golden brown...

She also showed us how to make swissroll, and delicious chocolate-glazed chocolate-cake squares...

Guess what we'll be doing over the next few weeks :-)

On the plus side - my legs are no longer so sore - so I guess I'll be back on my bicycle again this weekend [although rain is forecast], for some more training..

I've decided to order the Sony DCR-HC42E video camera, an extended battery (5 hours recording time), and an SVideo cable. This means we can take videos of our apartment, our lives, and our bébé when it arrives, and store/edit the footage digitally. Moreover, with the SVideo cable, we can record the ultrasound sessions at the doctor taking the output directly from the scanner (I have video footage, but it's fuzzy as it was taken with my digital camera pointing at the ultrasound screen). YAY!

This weekend I hope to achieve some of the following outstanding things:

buy wood for shelves to setup our built-in cupboard and for the study
price glass shelves for the alcove in our dining area
setup our glass cabinet and populate it with our display items
fit the shower doors [we've been showering in the bath, with a shower curtain]
price mountain bikes for Dvora and me (and two friends who also want)
hopefully find lights for kitchen and dining area

100 things about me

2005-06-01T12:10:00.000+02:00

Inspired (or silently and implicitly challenged ?) by Ashleigh and her list, here are 100 things about me:

I am approximately 1.78m tall
I weigh 70kg (154lbs)
I was born on Saturday 7th December 1974, making me 30 years old at time of writing
I hold a South African passport, and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa...
... but my paternal grandparents came from Lithuania...
... and my maternal great grandparents from Latvia
I am Jewish
I got married on 17 December 2003
I moved to London (UK) when I was 22, to pursue my career
I moved to Zürich (Switzerland) when I was 24, also on offer of a job
My first computer was a ZX Spectrum 48K, in the early 1980's
I represented my school numerous times at math olympiads, and got four distinctions for first year engineering, but failed mathematics in first year university... this was due to laziness and lack of work
I dropped out of university to pursue my career - my highest qualification is matric
I wear glasses while at work - but not always ... only infrequently.
I joined MENSA to see if I would qualify
I have visited 24 countries in my life - not counting transit countries where I remained on an aeroplane:
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Cayman Islands
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Haiti
Hong Kong
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Mexico
Monaco
Netherlands
Singapore
South Africa
Sweden
Switzerland
United States of America
Zimbabwe
I attended a private school
We are expecting our first child (by due date) in 101 days from now
We don't know the gender of the child (by choice)
I have only ever bought one car in my life - the one I currently drive
I hold both South African and Swiss drivers licences
I speak English fluently, and can hold a very basic conversation in Hebrew, Afrikaans, German, and Swiss-German
I do almost all the cooking at home
I don't watch a lot of television...
... but I more than make up for it with time online
I enjoy silence way more than I enjoy noise
I'm one of two children - I have an older brother
I'm married to an identical twin
My father died when I was 15
I nibble on my fingernails - a habit I've staved off at times, but somehow always seems to get the better of me.
I hold a private pilot's licence, and have around 250 logged hours in assorted single-engined aircraft
My favourite colour is blue
I have brown eyes
My favourite drink is fresh fruit juice - but not orange... probably apple
I am a dog person, not a cat person
I was religious/observant for just under a year - but decided I didn't agree with the principles and ideals on which it is founded
I have familial hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), so I take lipitor
I have never smoked - not even one drag
I have never "done drugs" - not even a taste
I sang in a choir for 11 years
I was in two professional musicals as a child
I learned to play violin as a child
I played piano as a child
I can play neither violin nor piano anymore
I bought a Roland keyboard to learn to play, but I've been too apathetic to learn again
I think the results of the majority of parenting decisions become apparent as the children raise the grandchildren
I prefer Coke to Pepsi
I've never had a cheeseburger, or a meat pizza, due to keeping some semblance of kashrut (kosher)
For the same reasons, I've never tasted seafood or pork
I love to travel
I could read and write before I started school
I used to love reading... now I read the newspaper and some news sites, but very little else
I'm rather an untidy person
I have a terrible short term memory ...
... but can recite PI to over 50 decimal places, and first 50 or so elements from periodic chart in order
I've shaved my legs before ... for cycling
I have size 7 (UK) / 6 (US) feet
I don't swear
I've been thrown from a horse (fortunately into snow)
I fear sharp knives if being used close to me
I hold a NAUI Open Water 1 SCUBA certification
I enjoy snow skiing
... and cycling - I used to cycle 3 or 4 times a week
I use my mobile phone while driving, without a headset ... but almost always on speakerphone
I've driven at [indicated] 260km/h (162mph), legally [German autobahn]. I was alone in the car at the time, and the road was relatively clear. I'll probably never do it again though
I've never had a crash while driving
I need around 8 hours sleep per night, but I seldom get it
When I was about 2 years old, I accidentally caused a fire that burned out a room in my parents' house
My favourite movie genre is comedy,followed closely by action/suspense
I have a truly lousy sense of direction
I've worked in large and small companies, and prefer small [I'm currently in a company with 6 employees]
I bought a motorcycle when I was 16, brought it home, and had to sell it because of disapproval by my mother
A table collapsed on me when I was young - the corner left a nice gash in my forehead, blood poured out, etc .... so now I have a nice scar there
I prefer summer to winter
I've appeared on radio and television, and not as part of a passing crowd
My jokes and puns are often misunderstood
I don't like salt on my food
I started a computer hardware+software company while I was at school, to earn extra money
I would rather go without something, than get into debt to buy it (eg, I like to pay off my creditcards every month)
I made a H2S stinkbomb in class once at school
I'm sometimes unnecessarily and unjustifiably overly generous (according to my wife), whether financially or in kind .. but I think she's just a selfish tightwad ;-)
I iron my own clothes
I'm level-headed and unemotional when things turn sour ... I see this as a small character flaw, because I'm TOO unphased by some things where most people would explode, and rather just give it some time and then think about it. I think for the same reason, I don't feel euphoria or jubilation where most would.
I have a passion for supermarkets - in any new country I visit, I have to visit a supermarket there
I don't pay attention to fashion, and happily wear the same clothing for years as long as it's not damaged or stained
I did karate for a few years, stopping just before reaching brown belt
When I was cycling frequently, I had a resting pulse rate in the high 40 bpm.
I use the standard factory-provided cellphone ring. I've never downloaded any ringtones
Biggest prize I've ever won was a bicycle, in a lucky draw
I have 5 cousins, and 2 nephews
I dislike rap and heavy metal music, preferring pop and easy-listening
I have terrible handwriting
I'm fiercely independent
I don't get pleasure from rollercoasters
I am a blood donor, with O-negative blood type
My best friend from Junior School emigrated in Standard 5 (grade 7); I've been trying to track him down ever since
I enjoyed school and was sad to leave ... my favourite subject was physical science
I don't know where I'll be living 5 years from now, but I hope that it's still in Zürich
I've never been hospitalised for anything
It took me almost a whole day to complete this list

Swim, Cycle, Run ...

2005-05-30T14:40:00.000+02:00

The Zuerich Triathlon..

I'm keen to enter this year - although I swim like an anvil, so I'll enter the short distance and see how it goes... I still will need to get training a little, though ... Perhaps cycling and running in the mornings before work isn't such a bad idea, and this may be the motivation I've been looking for. Moreover, I'll have to find a swimming pool where I can train a bit, either at lunchtimes or (more realistically), a couple of times a week after work ...

I'm so excited ... I hope this isn't another pipedream!
I really need to get exercising again.

Switzerland to vote on Schengen

2005-05-30T14:17:00.000+02:00

On 5th June, the Swiss will cast their ballots on whether to join the Schengen agreement or not. If I was Swiss, I'd likely vote no ... as I don't see a net benefit to opening borders to neighbouring countries. As a South African passport holder, however, it would mean I would not need a visa to visit most of the rest of Europe. As it is, I currently need a visa just to drive 40mins away to do some shopping in Germany!

Strangely enough, the local free newspaper 20min did a survey, and 61% of the respondents (4004 votes) plan to vote Yes!

Of course, Switzerland being the democracy that it is, not only does a countrywide majority of people voting yes need to be reached, but also a majority in number of kantons voting yes, too... so let's see what happens.

Hot Town, Summer In The City

2005-05-30T10:04:00.000+02:00

When people think of Switzerland, somehow they picture snowy alpine peaks and icy rivers of chocolate and gold...
However, it's not at all like that - and not only because of the lack of chocolate rivers. We just had four consecutive days reaching 30 degrees (86F) or higher - and it was great. Zurich managed 26 or 27 degrees on Thursday and Friday, but the weekend was at least 30.

On Friday night we went to a community synagogue service, followed by a dinner [it takes place approximately every 6 weeks] - great social event, and we've met quite a few new people.
Saturday we went browsing baby strollers, and I popped in to Media Markt to enquire about features of a specific digital video camera. Saturday evening, once it cooled down a little, I went for my first cycle of the season - once around the Greifensee. You'll see "Binz" in the top-left of the pic - that's where we live.
I hope to get back in the saddle properly this year (after a break of many many years) and get out there at least 2 or 3 times per week, if the weather permits.

Yesterday, we loafed at home. I got the home PC working [it died on Wednesday last week - hard drive melted a chip (literally), but surprisingly I got it to work again after a few resets! :-o].

No more Mr Nice Guy ...

2005-05-27T10:25:00.000+02:00

After we moved out of our apartment, we received the bill for "damages" totalling CHF1700. They wanted me to sign a declaration of acceptance of these costs, to receive the remaining CHF2300 from my deposit.
I contested most of the contents as being unsubstantiated, and wanted proof that things were new when I moved in ... I also challenged the heating costs as being a "convenient round number" (CHF350), and considerably more than previous heating cost reconciliations for similar periods of time.
They acknowledged that the heating cost reconciliation amount was "a mistake", and lowered it - however they then dredged up a plumbers invoice for a replaced faulty tap from over two years ago, totalling over 900 francs, and added it to our amount, bringing the total in demand to CHF2700 ... and if we didn't accede within 5 working days, they'd pursue legal action against us, and we'd be liable for their costs.

Yesterday evening, we went to the Mieterverband (renters association) to seek legal counsel regarding this matter.
We joined the Mieterverband on arrival (95 franc membership gets us unlimited free consultations until the end of the calendar year), and waited about an hour-and-a-half until we were called (there are no pre-bookings .... simply arrive during consultation hours, and you'll be helped in turn). After showing the paper trail I've kept, the consultant immediately said that WE should sue THEM (first round is free - simply lay a dispute claim and they'll receive a summons to appear). He said that legally they CANNOT charge us the full amounts for certain things (for eg, painting - they wanted to charge 100% costs for repainting the bathroom, whereas legally they cannot charge more than 45% of costs... moreover, I indicated in my response to their original letter that the bathroom was not designed with adequate airflow [no extractor, window must be shut while showering else neighbours can see in], thus I don't accept the costs at all... He said we should have a case there.

So - he gave us a "klage" (grievance) form, filled out most of it for us (indicating that we're pushing for our deposit to be returned, with interest!) and we signed and dated it. I'm sending it registered-mail to the court today, and let's see what happens...

This is so exciting! :D

After the meeting, we went to a community barbeque held at the lake, which was also a nice social event. Got home late, as usual ...I need to catch up some sleep this weekend.

what's in a name?

2005-05-24T10:23:00.000+02:00

Just for interest-sake ...
Pronuncation of the name of the blog is "bloggary" ... like "buggery", only it references my name :-P

The Weekend That Was

2005-05-23T16:28:00.000+02:00

Saturday we went browsing at the myriad variety of strollers around. There's far too much choice available for my liking ... and whatever we buy, it'll be unsuitable for certain situations.

For eg:- it's recommended to get something light, and easily collapsible for lifting into the boot of a car (by someone other than a former member of the East-German womens powerlifting team ...). It should fold like a sock, able to be tucked away into a small crevice within the mighty boots that our cars have.
However, in addition to being of the antigravitation persuasion, it needs to be sturdy and rugged, conquerer of rough terrain, impervious to the elements [all 103+ of them?]...
It also needs to be visually appealing, maneuverable with one finger through insane rush-hour pedestrian traffic, and affordable.

Yes, that last word there kinda slows down the whole momentum, doesn't it ?
No more aircraft-grade anti-matter that can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
After talking to friends with 4-wheel strollers, many indicate that they work perfectly-well on dodgy surfaces, and that a jogging-stroller may only be necessary if you actually do run with it..

So we're still undecided about what we need.

Sunday we went to friends for lunch, and then popped over to Germany to buy some meat with them. MUCH cheaper than buying here in Switzerland. We bought close to 7kg of chicken and chicken pieces for about CHF95 (EUR61).

Sunday night we watched "Spanglish"... it's pretty good.

let there be light!

2005-05-20T18:48:00.000+02:00

Last night I finally (we were waiting for the painter to finish doing his thing) installed a light on our stairway [looks great .... pics to follow], and I just installed a light on the upstairs landing.

I got sneaky and managed to organise a wifi hotspot installation at 15h30 near where I live, so I got home before 5pm today ... YAY - long weekend ... :-)
(beat the rushhour traffic, too).

I got tagged by Ash for a book-related survey ...
Let's see whether I even have answers for any:

1. Total number of books I've owned.
Does this include school books???
I guess, excluding prescribed reading, I've owned fewer than 100 books.

2. Last book I bought.
jeez, how'm I supposed to remember that?!
Could it be the map book I bought a year ago when I was lost on the highway leaving Munich?
Do the manuals that arrived with my appliances count ?
I suppose it's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, last year.

3. The last book I read.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - but I haven't finished yet.
I've taken a sabbatical for a while, and will resume in due course.

4. 5 books that mean a lot to me.
I share no kinship with my books... they are simply printed words. But, depending on how far I may stretch this definition, I suppose my matric yearbook has some sentimental value in a weird kinda way. And ... ummm... I enjoy my cookery books, although I need to haul them out from the cellar sometime and make space for them downstairs near the kitchen.
So that's two so far ... *scratches head*

I used to be SUCH a bookworm in junior school ... wonder what happened.. Shakespeare and Bronte, perhaps?
but I digress...

My Passport! woohoo.. that's three..

and I'll use poetic licence and pretend that I've listed five :-)
So, moving on...

5. Which 5 people would you most like to see fill this out in their blog?
Saddam Hussein, Dalai Lama, George W. Bush, whoever the most recent nobel literature prize winner is, and Oprah (not that I care about her, but she apparently has a book club and I wonder if she has some financial interest in everyone buying the book she recommends ... so if I knew what she read in her spare time, I'd buy shares in the printing companies of whatever may be announced next. HA!)

Phew ... that was arduous!

Sign here, Mister Jones ....

2005-05-19T10:09:00.000+02:00

I've now added comments to the blog...
So feel free to leave your John Hancock if you want to heckle...

rock paper scissors .... metal glass!

2005-05-18T13:43:00.000+02:00

Painter and kitchen chaps came over at 8am today to fix some defects.
Painter spent about 4 minutes scraping and replastering what he'd already scraped and plastered, and then left ... he'll be back either tomorrow morning or Friday morning to paint over all the sections that need it.

The kitchen chaps were sent back here because of the bad job the did initially, installing our mirror backsplash... the one piece of glass had a scratch, and the silicon work was appalling.
They replaced the damaged glass, and re-siliconed (marginally better than before, but still not brilliant IMHO)... and hottailed outta there, leaving a nice visible scratch on our fancy glass hob!
When I brought it to their attention, they chuckled and said it must have been there before they came. Funny how it looked so fresh and deep.

Paper beats Rock
Rock beats Scissors
Scissors beats Paper

and Metal beats Glass ... I suspect it was their tools that left a lovely indelible reminder of their handywork.
Pity Gary didn't beat workmen with a clue...

Builders are the same the world over ...

weather check: still a bit overcast, and it was cold this morning, but the outlook is for 21 and 24 degrees on Friday and Saturday resp... followed by massive showers ...ugh!

I promised myself that this summer I'd get back in the saddle and get properly fit again .. (ie, cycling 3x/week as I did way back when ...).
Now if only summer would play along so I can get started.

It's alive!

2005-05-17T16:09:00.000+02:00

Well, I've finally joined the '90s .... except it's 2005!

More as and when I have time,and when I remember to update here..

:D

G