Notes from a bemused canuck
Last night, before leaving for home, my boss asks me to come to his office for 5 minutes. My 6-month probation period ends at the end of October and he needs to send the paperwork in soon. Thus, my evaluation. Words like “immediately productive after arriving”, “perfectly happy with your work”, “can't think of any criticism to say” were spoken. This makes me happy.
The salary raise I will be getting in October makes me happier.
I slept badly last night because I'm worried about the Katygirl. I woke up every hour or so, and my sleep was filled with the most weird-assed dreams I've had in a long time. One that I remember vividly was one where my apartment was invaded by the people I went to the Geneva meeting with. There was a foot of water everywhere and my boss was practicing the zen art of fish tickling.
Woah.
Geneva pictures here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/geneva-sep2005/
I got home at 1am last night. I am le tired.
Luton sucks ass as an airport. Customs control has to qualify as a lower level of hell. It's always the same. Since I don't have an EU passport, I have to go to the special queue with the rest of the foreigner scum (as we're treated).
Two fully loaded 737 planes landed at the same time. That's a few hundred people. There were maybe 20 people in front of me in that queue. The rest, EU nationals, in their separate queue WERE ALL PROCESSED BEFORE I REACHED THE FRONT OF THE LINE!!! In the half hour I was waiting, I was hot, was lugging my laptop and other carry-on luggage, had a screaming baby bawling right behind me, a jerk that kept hitting me with his bag in front of me, my feet hurt because of all the blisters on them and I needed to pee.
There was only one customs agent checking passport for non-EU residents. He shall henceforth be known as Mr. Efficiency. He was reading every page of each passport. When all the EU residents were processed, the four other agents started processing the people in my queue, so that started going a bit faster. Sod's law being in full force though, when it was close to my turn, another plane landed so we were forced to wait on Mr Efficiency again. Grrr. Finally, I'm at the head of the line and what should happen? Two security guards come up and start chatting with Mr. Efficiency. At this point, all that was needed to make this the lowest level of hell would have been that his tea break was due and he'd just get up and go. Finally, it was my turn.
It's always the same, and this is the most frustrating bit. The chat with Mr. Efficiency and his brethren always goes something like this:
Mr. E: Where did you travel from?
Me: Geneva
Mr. E: Where are you going in the UK?
Me: Cambridge
Mr. E: Do you work in the UK?
Me: yes.
Mr. E: *stamp* NEXT!
30 seconds of fun for 30 minutes of waiting in line.
Joy.
A DIET recommending you eat 100g of chocolate a day and drink red wine, which will add six years to your life. Scientists in Australia and The Netherlands have come up with a diet they claim will cut a person's risk of heart disease by 78 per cent. And the good news is, you'll want to be on it.
The diet focuses on seven foods that have been proven to reduce cholesterol and blood pressure. It involves daily consumption of 150ml of red wine, which has been found to cut heart disease risk by 32 per cent. Chocaholics line up, because you have to consume 100g of dark chocolate per day, an amount the scientists calculate will reduce blood pressure.
You have to eat four meals of fish each week (each 114g), which is said to reduce your heart disease risk by 14 per cent. The diet also includes a daily total of 400g of fruit and vegetables, also proven to cut blood pressure, and 68g of almonds to cut cholesterol. You also have to consume 2.7g of garlic per day to reduce your cholesterol levels.
In a paper published in the British Medical Journal, scientists claim that if all these foods are combined in a diet they will lower the risk of heart disease by 78 per cent. The research shows men who stuck to this diet would gain an extra .6 years of life and have an extra nine years free from heart disease. Women would gain an extra 4.8 years of life and have an extra eight years without heart disease.
The proponents, including Anna Peeters from Monash University, claim the only adverse effects from the diet would be body odour from the garlic and raised mercury levels if more than the recommended amount of fish was eaten each week. But they don't calculate whether it will help you lose weight. And they warn that extra alcohol above that prescribed by the diet could reduce the effectiveness of the diet.
They say you can add extra ingredients to the diet to boost its effectiveness, including olive oil, soy beans, tomatoes, oat bran, cereals, nuts, tea and chickpeas.
Link: http://www.news.com.au/story/print/0,10119,16514149,00.html
Nothing makes you bond with your coworkers better than closing two bars with them. The first little pub chucked us out at midnight but were kind enough to direct us to an irish pub, where we were politely asked to leave at 2am. We lurched our way back to the hotel where, instead of going to bed, we found that the night manager opened the bar for us (and didn't charge us for it!!). In a word, well three, we got pissed. This is bad. This is establishing precedent and will have to be rectified. Attending conferences hungover isn't productive and worse of all, it isn't fun. I'm getting too old for this shit (and the people who are with me are in fact older and in worse shape, which is also an incentive to break the pattern now). The conference ends in a few hours, when I will slowly make my way back to the lakefront for some last pictures (no, not the topless beach… pervs) and then slowly mosey back to the airport to wait for my flight.
I had two cups of coffee at the hotel this morning. It's been one hour now and my heart rate is still at 110 bpm, sitting down.
Whoa!
1. There's dogshit everywhere on the sidewalks. The Swiss have been badly influenced by the French. Le poo. Literally.
2. Campeed blister bandages work quite well but they melt if your feet get warm enough after two hours of walking in the hot sun. Picking wax out of your socks is a really nice way to spend the evening.
3. The morning session of the meeting lasted 3 hours. The content of what was said can be distilled down to a very simple powerpoint slide. The consensus is that “we're going to do it”, but the *it* part still needs to be defined properly. Joy.
4. Walking around a topless beach with a camera might not be the brightest thing I've ever done.
5. The chairs in the conference hall add strength to Sod's Meeting Law that stipulates that the comfort of a chair is inversely proportional to the length of time you spend in it.
3:45am is not a civilized time to have to wake up to go to the airport.
My Munich pictures are online. Lookee here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/munich-sep2005/