The Caretaker Chronicles

Just a Friday.

2012-01-27T03:21:00.001-08:00

It’s pretty hard not to notice that there’s been a few gaps in the last little while.

Sorry ‘bout that. Not much going on.

Travelling Companion is plugging away, and I’m just “here”. It’s more or less a form of “stasis”, whereby we are now waiting. Mostly for spring.

As it was bound to happen, winter has decided to finally pay us a visit, although I do think I prefer it to be clear and bright out, even if that means the temperature is below freezing. The only thing is, whatever temperature we start out with in the morning is just about the same one we end up with for the rest of the day. This isn’t like the Arizona Desert, where it might start off with a bit of ice in the dog dish in the morning, but by two in the afternoon, everyone is peeling off their jackets. I vividly recall being in Vegas in October (once upon a time), and it would get pretty danged hot in the afternoon, but by nightfall it would cool right down. The other thing too was, if you did happen to find it a little too hot, all you had to do was step into the shade. For someone who had come down from a mostly always humid Southern Ontario, that was quite the novelty. We seem to either be boiling or freezing.

The other day I mentioned something about the scaffolding type of arrangement that has been getting put up a few blocks from our front door. They’re moving right along of course:

So, what’s to keep that guy from taking a header down to the hard, hard sidewalk? Hm?

And you’re thinking, who cares, right?

Well, the thing is, I was going on about safety this, and safety that, and how we have these somewhat draconian rules that get shoved down our throats, and I think you may have got the impression that that was somehow a bad thing? Not really.

See, if I’m sauntering along, lose my balance and end up getting a close up look at the ground, the worst that can happen is that I can rip my trousers, maybe get some road rash, possibly bump my nose, and generally just be somewhat unhappy about the whole situation.

If however, I’m mucking about on a forty meter crane and lose my balance, maybe it might be a novel idea to have a safety harness?

This was coincidently in yesterday’s free “rag”:

So “Bruno”, who was just about my age (I’m 55 in case you were wondering) was trying to open up the “Montageschutzbühne”, so he could then proceed up into the operator’s cab. That great long German word basically describes the screen that gets locked in place on the ladder to keep folks from getting up into the crane. So my guess is that he was holding on with one hand, and slipped. The article says he “lost his balance”, but I’m pretty sure the reporter didn’t go up and take a look for himself. Would you?

Here’s a little primer:

So whether you have a clue as to how high forty metres is or not, that’s a fall from which you do not recover. Bruno died within minutes of impact. I’m not going to translate any of the article, since it’s just a tad grisly.

The last sentence simply says that his coworkers were in shock. I could well imagine.

Sorry if this seems to be a bit of a downer. Didn’t mean it that way, I was just intrigued with the coincidence of having seen that article, right after wondering aloud about the safety of the dudes just down the street.

I just stand there and shake my head for a minute or two, take a quick photo, and continue on.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Watch your step.

Thanks for stopping by.

Just a glimpse.

2012-01-25T02:46:00.001-08:00

And then I’m done.

Saw this fellow setting up one of those over sidewalk construction safety zones this morning.

I wasn’t sure just what was going to keep him from falling through the frame work though. He had just walked along carrying a big plank, moments before I took this photo. He had to step gingerly from one support to the next. The Ontario Ministry of Labour would have a conniption. If we worked any higher than 10 feet, we had to wear a harness. I could totally see if you were roofing or up on a lift changing lamps in a gymnasium, but after the “harness ruling”, I wasn’t really supposed to even get up on a ladder.

By the way, if you happen to click on that link and go to the Ministry website (or the one I linked to just there) you can see all the fines they’ve doled out in the last little while. Apparently they’ll even fine you for being stupid. Very unfortunate that he happened to run over one of his coworkers though. I shouldn’t make light of it. But ya, if you’re backing up, and your “helper” disappears, it’s a good idea to simply stop. Is there ever that much of a hurry? The wheels go round and round, and they can crush you.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Long after there were rumblings about workers and supervisors potentially getting fined for being dumb, we still continued to go up on the roof of school buildings to fetch wayward balls, or hang off ladders to attach banners on the walls of the gymnasium and such. Much to the delight (and sometimes amusement) of the staff and students. That was all fine and dandy, until one day when one of my coworkers decided to take a couple digital photos of some roof damage during a semi-annual roof inspection. By the way, these “roof inspections” were the only times we were supposed to go on the roof. None of this going up there every Friday morning to get the balls down, with quite frequently the result being that they’d get punted up there later that afternoon anyway.

It’s a funny thing about digital photos in an intra company email system. They can get spread around faster than the common cold, so it didn’t take long for someone in the know to have a look at these roof pictures, and ask the simple question, “What was this person doing so close to the edge?” along with, “Have they not had any training?”

Oh boy. I’m sure you could have heard a pin drop.

See, it’s all about the “training”. If we train you, and you still do something stupid, then at least we’re partially off the hook. Somehow in all the information that had been dispersed, and all the “fall arrest” training that we had under gone, nobody pointed out that going on the roof was a no-no to start with, and that even when called upon to do so, there was no going within 10 feet of the edge.

Fine by me, by the way. I’m not a big one for hanging off the roof, unless maybe it’s the roof of my shed, and even then I’m just as likely to lose my balance and take a header into the flower bed.

Speaking of digital photos, I do wish I had picture of the look on the Principal’s face when I told her that I’d no longer be going up on the roof each and every week to “fetch the balls”. Out of my control. Really. So sorry. *snort* I didn’t actually laugh out loud. That would have just been mean.

Here’s the curious thing. The kids learned in very short order that, if you were going to be a bit of an idiot and punt your soccer ball onto the roof, you wouldn’t have a soccer ball to play with.

Who knew? See, I could get off on a whole philosophical tangent here about setting “boundaries” and what not on children’s behaviour, but I’ll let you come up with your own version of just how discipline in general has gone straight into the toilet in the last, oh I don’t know, 30 years?

Once upon a time, if you did something stupid, there would be consequences. I vividly recall getting the strap in grade four, for “running” in the hall. I say “running” since, I’m sure I didn’t make it any farther than about six paces, when I got nailed. See, there was “NO RUNNING" in the halls. And they weren’t kidding.

I got two on each hand. I’m reasonably certain that the Principal was going easy on me, since it was my “first offence” and all. Either that or my hands were toughened up from simply living on a farm, I’m not sure. Either way, I didn’t offer any suggestions as to his technique. I just made sure I never ran in the hallway again. Simple really. I won’t get into the reasons why I thought it prudent to “run” in the hall in the first place, but it did involve a particularly cute young lady, and some sort of tag or something. That part is all kind of a blur. The part where I got the strap, not so much.

I’ll now let you talk amongst yourselves.

Thanks for stopping by.

I used to be an Ectomorph.

2012-01-22T04:48:00.001-08:00

And that’s not like saying, “Oh, I used to be a heroin addict”, but just the same, it’s been a long, long time since I’ve actually seen my ribs.

I’m pretty sure I still have them. Otherwise well, it would be hard to sit up I suppose. They’re in there somewhere. Fortunately the restrictions of my belt fall well below where my ribs used to end. The more accurate word should be “constriction” though. Just saying.

I look at skinny people now and think, “Ah, those were the days”. No doubt young ladies think that if I’m looking at them, I must be just some old lecherous dude (although I wouldn’t completely rule that out) but it mostly has to do with seeing someone living in that carefree “Calories? We don’t worry about no stinking calories!” stage of one’s life. *sigh*

Travelling Companion is presently labouring over something or other that she wants to figure out before tomorrow, and she just used the word, “shrinkage”, which I thought was a bit odd. Am I talking to myself? Actually, “shrinkage” is some sort of business term. That was just a coincidence. *phew*

I’m never 100% sure when exactly I’m being spoken to, but I decided a long time ago that, unless there’s “eye contact”, any and all alleged communication is “null and void”. If there was no third party to “bear witness”, a recording or other physical proof, then it never happened.

Besides, if I thought I had to actually pay attention, I’m not sure what help I could be. I mean, when I hear, “Oh, I saved that file, now where did it go?” Or, “Oh shoot, I just printed that at work” or when printing here at home has been sorted out, I then hear, “Oops, that’s 37 pages!”

Do we even have 37 blank pages? Better check. Thankfully there’s that little feature called, “pause printing”.

I just put in the earphones and go to Youtube, or play a music file. Just sitting quietly here in my little bubble.

******

There was a suggestion recently by way of a comment that maybe I should have a “Bob’s yer Uncle” cooking blog? I think the short answer of “NO” will be a good start. I’m barely hanging on here tooth and nail as it is. There’s enough useless cr*p in blog land. The guilt of contributing more cr*p to what I could very well be summarily convicted of adding up to this point would be too much to bear I’m afraid. Not going to happen.

Just go to allrecipes.com. There’s something there for everyone.

Thankfully, foolishness is not an indictable offence, or I’d already be in a heap of trouble. Can you imagine? “Excuse me sir, but this is the “no stupidity zone”, and I’m afraid you’ll be getting a citation.”

Speaking of which, I received a reply to my email that I sent off to my son-in-law with the subject line, “no words”.

This was a photo that was taken while back, but it fits. It looks as though my nephew Greg on the left is saying, “Did you hear that Uncle Bob actually did some computer maintenance on his own?”

And then you can see the response:

And that ladies and gentlemen, would be your measured dose of foolishness for today.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bit of a nail biter.

2012-01-21T08:12:00.001-08:00

Well, for most folks I suppose it wouldn’t be, but since I’m only working with about a half a brain here when it comes to computer stuff, I’m never really entirely sure what the heck I’m doing.

See, back before Christmas some time, my son-in-law renewed our virus protection software, having purchased a plan that allowed for three computers to be protected. As an early Christmas present, he sent me the key code some time in mid December, so that this computer could be number three. There’s a “number two” joke in there somewhere…

By the way, and I only mention this in passing, but these are the type of gifts that I think TOTALLY ROCK. Sorry to use that rather lame expression, but it pretty well sums it up. My supply of socks and underwear is up to date, along with my supply of a particular type of underarm deodorant. I can’t think of anything else I could possibly need. I’m pretty sure I have enough “stuff” in my life, at least at the present time, so getting me anything in the way of a gift can be a real challenge.

Anyway, there was a bit of a mix up and the code didn’t want to work for me when I did the routine back in December, and I think it was because I had jumped the gun somewhat. My memory is a bit dim, and I’m not going to bother going back through the emails. As a stop gap measure, I downloaded the “trial” version in the interim, but it was getting a bit down to the wire, since it was only a 30 day program. And besides, The annoying pop up every so often telling me how many days I had left was getting to be a bit of a pain.

So today was the day. Well, the last message told me it was going to expire in two days! (so annoying) I figured that was close enough. My son-in-law had offered to help me through the whole process if I managed to bugger it up, but that too is a challenge, since there’s that six hour time difference. I’m sure as hell not going to roust him out of bed some time in the middle of the night, nor can I stay up long enough to wait for him to get home from work. He had given me some brief instructions in a note, so I just figured I’d give it a go.

I sent him an email. This was all I put in it:

and the I added this one for good measure.

It truly is an odd thing how some trivial thing like installing a computer program can actually make a person a bit giddy. Well…..me anyway.

We’ve used free virus software in the past such as AVG, but I have to say that this particular breed is just about the best. It turns out you DO get what you pay for, but just the same, we gave up on Norton years ago. Those guys are asleep at the switch. Or as I like to say when our internet here in Wienerland decides to take a little rest, “I think someone tripped over an extension cord when they left work today”. That’s because it always seems to come to a grinding halt right around six p.m. Um, which would explain why, right about now when I just went out to the net to look something up, not a damned thing is happening. Apparently the signal I’m getting from my wireless router is “Excellent”, but that doesn’t mean a blessed thing.

*sigh*

Oh wait. It’s working now. I’d better get this uploaded right quick.

So there we go. Good for another year in the virus protection department. I can unclench my butt.

For some of you, bundle up. For others, don’t be afraid of the sun block. You know who you are.

Thanks for stopping by.

Practicing for a purge.

2012-01-20T08:04:00.001-08:00

I had this idea for another one of my elaborate examinations of what normally should be a simple task, but it’s the middle of the afternoon, and I’m starting to feel a little pooched.

In typical fashion, there are times when T.C. gets back quite late from her little jaunts off to foreign lands, and last night was no exception:

I didn’t want to tell her what the conditions were like on this end, since it had been raining off and on all day, with some crazy wind gusts. What that meant was, the flight was delayed before departure, and that was mostly since they were backed up at this end of things. So even though the flight was due to arrive at 9:40, that didn’t really happen.

I couldn’t help but notice one passenger explaining to whomever was waiting for her by means of some crazy flying hand gestures, just what kind of a flight she had been having. I think most everyone had a similar experience. I heard reports that there was some circling involved as well. There wasn’t too much of a “post flight debriefing” I’m afraid. Some things are just best left unsaid.

I seem to recall looking at the clock next to the bed and the time started with a zero. It’s a 24 hour clock. Then it turns out she wanted to be at work this morning well before 8:00.

The good part though was that she was able to get out at a reasonable time this afternoon, so that’s at least something. Oh, and I did the chauffeuring to and fro.

So what about the minor purge? It was more like a “reorganisation” to be honest, since we had run out of room in our little folding file holder thingy that we’ve been keeping all our little papers in for the last four years. Mind you, I had taken a bunch of stuff out already and squirreled it away in a box when we left the Netherlands, but the space in which all the tax related stuff was getting beyond that horse choking stage. Can’t throw that stuff away. What is it, seven years? Plus, after going from Canada to the Netherlands to Austria, there’s a whack of it. I’m not really sure how many years behind we are at this point, since there was an awful long wait for the Dutch to sort out their end of things. The whole process is backed up worse than the planes flying into Vienna last night.

I don’t even bother worrying about it. There have been a couple massive cheques sent off to the Revenuers, but that’s all I’ll say about that.

So I did manage to turf a few things out going back to the bunch of pamphlets and such that was given to us by the relocation lady, and then I came up against this “package” that came with the car.

Now, the thing is, there’s a perfectly serviceable manual in the glove box of the car, in German of course, so I’m not sure why there’s this whole extra ‘thing’. My instructions were to throw it out. I think though that it should be left with the car whenever the time comes for it to go back from whence it came.

I’m not sure if the dealer decided to include it, but it has all the different options that are available if say, you’re about to order a new car.

But we’ve already GOT the car. We did all this picking and choosing on line. Of course, I completely forgot to order cruise control, but that’s another story.

I mean, conceivably I could meander into the BMW dealership and pick up a bike rack, but then what? Once our time is up, and we move on to other pastures, do I sell it on EBay? Do I have to make sure we buy a Beemer to go under it? Um…no.

Not to be outdone by any of their competitors, BMW has decided to add an additional unique feature to this particular “package”. Take a listen:

I’ll have to admit, the first time I opened it, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say, “Oh, that’s cool”. I think it was more like, “Oh…. that’s different”. I’m still not sure what to think of this. What’s the point exactly? Is this a marketing thing? Trying to be hip? It’s kind of like one of those nasty birthday cards that plays music for you. Usually very annoyingly.

You know, if this is one of the reason these cars are so pricey, do you think maybe we could cut out some of this um, “stuff”? Just a suggestion. Especially since it’s kind of “lost” on your target market?

So that was the extent of my Friday. Did the usual Friday chores, but other than that, big whoop.

Does any of this make sense? I think I need a nap.

Enjoy your weekend, in case I forget to pass that on later. Thanks for stopping by.

Do I NEED to go out in this?

2012-01-19T03:58:00.001-08:00

Well no. I could probably get by in the usual manner that I do when T.C. is out of town. I have been known to cook something when I’m holding down the fort, but it’s a rare occurrence, and is usually done for effect. Sadly, I tend to get by on things like toast, or sandwiches, or whatever happens to jump out of the fridge. Pretty lame, I know.

In my defence, I know that Travelling Companion doesn’t do much better in that department when she’s on her own either. In the two and a half years that we had our apartment in Horseheads, N.Y., (where she stayed during the week on her own) I know she used to work late and then get home and snack. This isn’t good. So in that respect, we’re certainly better off together. But let’s not get off on any nauseatingly “feel good” tangents here, shall we?

Thankfully this winter coat I got for Christmas last year did it’s job.

Warm, and waterproof. Yay!

I mentioned yesterday that it was a nice day? When Travelling Companion called last night around six, she said that coming in over Lucerne and the snow covered mountains was really quite the spectacle. It was a crisp clear day, with unlimited visibility. Just try to imagine all those snow covered mountains.

She also lucked out, since she didn’t have to take the train to her hotel, as one of her colleges who had come to Vienna for a meeting or whatever, and who was on the same flight, had left his car at the airport. So once again, she got the chauffeur treatment. I know she’s capable of taking the train, since she has done it in the past. Just much less stressful to saunter out to the parking garage and get driven off to your destination is all.

Somehow I guess I didn’t realise that we were going to be set upon by some sort of huge nasty system this morning, so when the wind and rain woke me up some time around six, I was a little bit puzzled. It doesn’t look like it’s going to go away any time soon either, which means that T.C. will be flying through it later tonight. This is one of the reasons why the whole air travel thing is starting to wear on her just a tad. And that’s an understatement.

But enough of that.

I was actually going to talk about soup. It would be a good day for soup, except that the only kind of soup I might have if I’m by myself would be the kind out of a package that gets mixed with boiling water.

What I’m referring to is the home made kind. It so happened that on the weekend, we were going to make potato and leek soup, but never really got around to it (something to do with laziness) so I figured I’d give it a go on Monday. This one isn’t really my “deal”, since T.C. is usually the one to make the potato and leek soup, but I figured I’d give it a go. Besides, what the heck else am I going to do with two honkin’ big leeks?

This, by the way, is pretty much the extent of the ingredients. Oh, with the exception of the potato, maybe some salt and pepper, and about a half cup of milk at the end. Kind of important.

And no, I can’t chop leeks like Julia Child used to chop onions. If I tried that, I’d be missing a couple finger tips, and there would be a huge change in the colour of the soup. Believe me.

In the pot it goes, to be sautéed in butter.

No need to be shy on the butter either. Me like butter. Use a good couple table spoons full.

What about the carrot you ask? Well, I know you didn’t, but stay with me here.

Turn it from this:

To this:

This is another of the handy dandy appliances that we had to buy shortly after coming to Europe which, since it too operates on 220v, will end up being given away or whatever, whenever we get to leave. This, by the way, is the reason I wasn’t willing to pay much more that about €10 for a toaster. The iron and that gismo above were the only two exceptions. Most everything else was purchased on the cheap. The coffee maker for example, was only €14, and I’ll probably just give it the heave when we bug out. Who wants a used coffee maker, really?

So what about the potato you ask?

That’s just about the biggest potato that you should use, otherwise your soup is going to be too “potato-e”. Not sure if that’s a word.

Cut it up, and add it to the pot once the leeks have been sautéed.

La patate coupée.

(no more French, I promise. Besides, my spell-check just goes bananas)

Oh wait. Not exactly part of the recipe, but it hasn’t hurt my cooking abilities in the least. Well, it’s all a matter of perception isn’t it? But let’s not get all “existential” here.

So next we need a little bit of this:

It’s only 11 seconds, don’t freak out.

Now, this is where the handy dandy Bosch ‘chopper upper’ switches to a blender of sorts.

And yes, that is Santa over there on top of that wine bottle. He never seems to get put away with the Christmas stuff. Has a job to do.

After mixing/grinding away, it should be somewhat creamy.

And there you go, Bob’s yer Uncle. Ready for the bowls:

Yummy!

But wait! you say. What about the broth? Shouldn’t there be broth? Yes, and I’m getting there.

It just so happens that this is where the “Bob’s yer Uncle” part comes in.

See, it was a bit of a coincidence that one of my nieces had posted something on Facebook on Monday that she had made Leek and Potato soup, and that it was way too “potato-e”. So….I reminded her that she needed to only put in one (preferably) small potato.

There was one online recipe that I was checking where they said to put in a POUND of potatoes! Are you kidding me? Where do the leeks come in? Don’t believe everything you read on line. Except for just about everything you’re reading here of course. Would I lie to you? Please.

So then I went on to suggest that she should not forget the chicken broth, at which point she tells me that she and one of her daughters has switched to only vegetarian nourishment, so they only used water.

Huh? There were no other suggestions that I could make at that point.

Isn’t that like having a wheel barrow without the wheel? That sucker ain’t going anywhere. The recipe calls for chicken broth which, along with the carrot, adds a certain amount of flavour. Not sure why you’d make the soup if you’re going to leave out one of the most important ingredients. But hey, what do I know?

I’m not entirely sure just how that kind of soup would taste, but that white glue we used to use as kids comes to mind. And oh, what about the butter and milk? They ain’t vegetarian. Are they? I didn’t think so, but I’m never too sure about these things. Sooo, soup that’s kind of pasty with no flavour. Hm.

I suppose this is why I take a dim view of these kinds of “conditions” that one imposes on oneself, since there are just too many things to consider. How do you justify being a member of PETA, for example, when you don’t know for a solid fact whether or not there are things in your life that have come about as a result of the slaughter of some animal or other? I mean, if you’re using a leather belt to hold up your trousers? Hello? What kind of shoes are on your feet?

Let’s just not go there shall we? There’s something about hypocrisy that just makes my head start to throb.

And don’t get me wrong, I can perfectly well understand that there needs to be a system of checks and balances when it comes to what we put on our plates, but let’s not get carried away.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll take out some of that sliced ham I bought yesterday and make a sandwich.

Thanks for stopping by.

“How many trips…”

2012-01-18T06:42:00.001-08:00

…have we made to the airport?” was a question I had for Travelling Companion this afternoon. I’ve lost count.

Last year she figures she was in the air roughly three times a month.

The good news is, the airport is only a half hour away. More or less. It can be more depending on the time of day.

Oh look, we can follow the whole flight. Now she’s just south of Munich.

Fine, I’ll stop now.

Other than that, it’s a nice day, bla bla bla.

Take it easy. Until tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by and all that.

Need to feel better?

2012-01-17T07:17:00.001-08:00

That will depend on just where you might be at this particular moment I suppose. If you’re already somewhere warm, you may not need to feel any better.

Unless you had to put on a sweater or something equally as daft.

This is what we woke up to this morning.

And now that it’s mid afternoon, we have considerably more.

And that’s all I have, really. No complaints, just an observation. Which reminds me, I have to go down to the storage locker and bring up my *shudder* snow shovel. I like to keep it tidy out there.

The other slight “issue” that arises when there’s a given amount of snowfall, is that Travelling Companion gets ever so slightly stressed at even the thought of driving in it. Much to her credit, and this coincides with the switch we made from “all season radials” to actual winter tires about 8 years ago, she has been much more courageous when faced with driving in the snow. She’s had a few experiences in the Czech Republic, among others. But she does get stressed, which meant that I drove her this morning.

I’m not even sure what it is exactly, with the possible exception of spending the first ten years of my life in Nova Scotia, but it doesn’t bother me in the least. Maybe I’m too dumb to let it bother me? I don’t know. Admittedly driving in a snow storm in the dead of night is another story, and that has more to do with visual acuity than anything else. Just like my memory, my eyesight is also getting dim.

Coming back up Mariahilfer Straße this morning:

Bleah!

One of the other “joys” of a snow fall:

I thought it was a little cooler than usual when I went out for my morning jaunt, so it wasn’t much of a surprise to see one of the windows in the stairwell had either not been closed properly, or simply left open. Who does this? I’ve opened the one on the floor just below us in the summer time, but would never consider it when the temperature drops.

It will shortly be time to head out again to fetch T.C. I can well imagine that the traffic will not be in top form, so I’ll probably give myself a good hour. Yes, an hour.
“Gee, what do you do all day, Bob?”

This next photo will be a test. Study hard.

Travelling Companion is heading out tomorrow, so I did a quick check to see if she had enough local currency for her destination. She’ll have plenty enough for cab rides, although some times she comes back with all the money she left with, depending on the circumstances.

She mentioned that, the last time that she was there, she took a cab to her hotel, and it turned out it was probably 400 meters. She could have walked. Not a huge deal in terms of our personal resources, since the Company That Cannot be Named reimburses her for these things, but nobody is particularly fond of getting hosed. I suspect this time around she might just walk. I’ll find out tomorrow night.

There has only been one time where I’ve knowingly taken a cab for a distance where we most likely could have simply walked, and that was in June of 08, when T.C. and I were spending a week in the Netherlands in order to look for a place to live. (I know! A week?) They were having one of the hottest days of the year there, the temperature was something like 32°C, we had just stepped off the non air conditioned two hour train ride from Amsterdam airport to Enschede, and had to get to Europcar to pick up our rental. That was after the usual overnight flight too, so I had no desire to walk. By the way, Enschede is pronounced, “Enskeday”, with the accent on the last syllable. I had to have someone tell me how to pronounce that one, since I would have never figured it out on my own. Actually, the “sch” part is more like the “ch” in the Scottish word “Loch”, but that’s only a minor technicality.

They say one of the ways to determine if a person is a native speaker (this seems to have started during the second world war) is to ask them to pronounce Scheveningen. Many a foreign spy was ousted after that failed attempt. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of that one, but it could be true.

I think that will be it for today’s geography, meteorology, linguistics and history ‘lesson’.

Thanks for stopping by.

So…we bundled up.

2012-01-16T05:02:00.001-08:00

For later…

OK, not really. I just thought it was amusing.

Since we absolutely didn’t go anywhere last weekend, we made an effort to get out on both days this time around. It was considerably colder, but we do have the proper equipment for such outings. Speaking of gloves actually, my finger tips were starting to get a bit numb, but I think that mostly has to do with having pitiful circulation. I’ve always had issues keeping my hands warm in wintertime, whether working outside or just going for a stroll.

Also, I just noticed something on yesterday’s post. My usual routine is to post an entry, and then out of some sort of navel gazing type of behaviour, I’ll read it once again, even though I might have read it a couple times already when it was still in Live Writer.

I didn’t quite manage that yesterday, since our time was fleeting and we were heading out. I just now looked and there was a whole chunk of one of the “spam” messages missing. Bit of a mystery but I think it must have something to do with the type of font it was in? I dunno, but I shoved it back in Live Writer, made a couple changes to the html, reposted it and it appeared. I think I learned something, but that’s doubtful, since I’m still never quite sure just what I’m going to end up with after I hit that “publish” button. Even then if I proof read until the bitter end, I still sometimes miss things.

Anyway, let’s press on shall we?

It so happens that the scenery is once again being changed in front of Vienna’s city hall, and we thought we’d float on down there and check it out.

So far we’ve had the circus back in the fall, then there were the Christmas markets leading up to Christmas, and now they’re working on a huge ice rink extravaganza. I’m not really exaggerating here either. This whole endeavour will open on the 19th, and will be quite elaborate.

Take a look:

Where the Christmas tree used to be, there’s now a bridge over one of the skating rinks:

I’m not entirely sure what the deal is with all the plywood, unless it’s so you can hobble over to the toilets or one of the vendors without having to put on your skate guards? Just an idea.

So if you don’t want to confine your skating to a proper rink, you can go booting around the “track” they’re making!

Note the lines for the refrigeration. Last year they said the ice rink/track/whatever was perfectly fine up to 15°C! I’m sure it will be the same this year.

There wouldn’t have been too many problems yesterday though, since it was hovering around zero.

Remember the bridge? This is looking out from the corridor in front of city hall:

That would be this corridor. They’ve got everything fenced off for the time being…

There wasn’t a whole lot of activity going on but still, there were guys working on a Sunday plugging away.

Just another view. Hey, if I don’t put these pictures here, what the heck else am I going to do with them??

I suspect it’s going to look like this when they’re done:

And yes, I pinched that off one of their webcams.

Here’s another one I pinched. Like I said. Amazing!

Click on it for a larger view.

I always enjoy the whole “ambiance” of Vienna’s city hall. There’s a brief wiki article here if you’re remotely interested.

That’s it for today’s missive kids.

Thanks for stopping by.

Fun with Spam

2012-01-15T05:25:00.001-08:00

OK so, I know I said I’d mention something about this yesterday, but some days I just don’t “feel like it”, in the blogging department.

I skipped a day. So shoot me.

Travelling Companion and I actually went out yesterday in search of an elusive pair of shoes she had seen a couple weeks back, and she did manage to find the same ones, but not in her size. We figured that was the reason they were on sale, since the only shoes they had on offer were for ladies with exceedingly small feet. We’re talking size five here. My sister takes a size five or six, and usually has a heck of a time finding shoes. Apparently she needs to go shoe shopping in Vienna?

Since we didn’t have any success in the shoe department, the idea of meandering around on the streets yesterday wasn’t overly appealing, since it was cold and blustery. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

I haven’t had cause to go out yet today, and I’m not sure if I’ll even come up with a reason. It’s sunny, with the temperature hovering around a balmy zero. Doesn’t matter what system you use, 0°Celsius is the temperature at which water freezes. That’s all you need to know.

So in that instance, “sunny out” isn’t enough of a reason to go anywhere except possibly, and only possibly, out on the terrace. We’ll see.

As a further diversionary tactic, I submit for your perusal the following:

First of all, if you have the ability to actually read the words on this page, you’re quite likely familiar with the sight of this object. I realise not everyone drinks wine of course, but this is still a fairly common tool. Take a good look. Do you see anything wrong?

Being at a certain point in one’s life, I can safely say that, breaking a corkscrew is no longer a big deal. We probably have a dozen or so scattered between two residences. Some are simple. Some not so simple. Some are so confusingly complicated that they’ve remained in their lovely little gift boxes to this day.

Just as an example of how these things multiply, I should mention that, after we had signed the lease for the house we rented in the Netherlands and I then flew over to join Travelling Companion in August of 2008, not only did I make sure to bring a cork screw with me, but she had made sure she bought one to have on hand as well. See how this works? Opening up a kitchen drawer without being able to find a corkscrew is no more a possibility than going out of the house without wearing proper undergarments. Either of these things might possibly have happened some 30 or 35 years ago, but not these days. And actually, that’s not even a proper simile, since I’ve never been able to go “commando”. Some little kids have “security blankets”. I feel a certain comfort in a pair of snug fitting Stanfields, and being able to yank a functioning corkscrew out of the kitchen drawer without hardly looking. It’s all a matter or priorities, and I find these two things to be of equal importance.

*****

Now onto this whole “spam” thing.

First of all, there was a comment about luncheon meat. You know, I had completely forgot about luncheon meat! We’ve become so used to spam referring to annoying cr*p on the internet that the meaning of the term has taken on a major shift.

As a result of that comment though, I thought back to a particular dish that we used to have years ago when the kids were small. Coincidently, so was our bank balance. I seem to recall that it was a product called “Klik”, which was a type of luncheon meat available in Canada. Turns out (with a little help from Google) that it’s still available.

So here’s the way it worked. Start by boiling up a pot of macaroni, and when that’s just about done, sauté a finely chopped onion (or maybe it was a half, I don’t recall) and when the onion has started to brown, add your by then diced luncheon meat. You may need to fend off anyone hovering around and helping themselves to the pieces of luncheon meat however. I’ve been known to add a little garlic salt at this point as well, along with any other seasonings that might strike one’s fancy. Remove your macaroni from the water and add it to the sautéed mixture. Stir it up a little to mix all the flavours and serve immediately. The only condiment needed is copious amounts of Heinz ketchup. The kids lapped it up. AND it was a cheap meal. We didn’t tell them that part though, nor would they have cared. We haven’t had it in years, since we possibly got tired of it along the way at some point. Fried luncheon meat and macaroni once a week for a few years is going to start to lose it’s charm at some point.

*****

There must be something wrong in my head, since every so often I see something that otherwise would be annoying, but instead makes me giggle. I forget that blogger will separate any comments that have a “Spam like” air about them, but once in a while I’ll take a look, and there will be a half dozen or so messages that have been corralled for my perusal.

Along with a very small amount of “comment spam” I do get about three messages a week in the more run of the mill ‘appendage enhancement’ category.

I’m putting in these few pre-emptive words, since I need you to realise that I’ve copied this subject line just exactly as it appeared in my junk mail folder, AND I had to make sure not to subconsciously correct the poor grammar…and spelling….and syntax. Gah! Never mind.

So here we go:

“Viiagra offers! Take a glance of Viiagra abatement!”

What?

Whoa! Is that even English??

OK, presumably you can get an “abatement” on your rent, but I’d still be more inclined to just use “reduction”, or maybe “discount”? I actually had to look up “abatement”, since it made absolutely no sense in the message.

I could go on and on but really, aren’t they trying to actually sell something? I just don’t get it.

And it continues….

And I quote,

“Go and buuy Vigar@ at grand cut rates.”

(And this was in blogger….)

“hey thecaretakerchronicles.blogspot.com blogger found your website via search engine but it was hard to find and I see you could have more visitors because there are not so many comments yet. I have discovered website which offer to dramtically increase traffic to your website (I took out the link) they claim they managed to get close to 1000 visitors/day using their services you could also get lot more targeted traffic from search engines as you have now. I used their services and got significantly more visitors to my blog. Hope this helps :) They offer url service online seo backlinks backlink booster Take care. Jay

*****

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Ouch.

OK, at least that last one was something that I could read without wanting to punch something, or getting a big headache.

I hear that the amount of THC in today’s marijuana is the highest it’s ever been, which might explain some of this silliness.

What’s the point? Really? I’d like to meet up with the guy who actually decides to get an “abatement” on his, what was it again? “Vigar@”? (I think the goofy spelling is a lame attempt at getting around the filter. T didn’t work.)

I’m lost here. Just give me a moment.

Wait! I think I’ve figured it out. Here’s what they’re talking about!

There we go. It all makes perfect sense now.

I *promise* I’ll never bring it up again. Promise. I’ll just quietly delete this cr*p and never speak of it again.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and thanks for indulging my silly little meanderings.

Stupid stupid stupid.

2012-01-13T05:56:00.001-08:00

Weather.

Why is it that, even though “they” said we were going to get snow, it still seems like such a shock?

We run around when we’re kids, all excited and yell, “It’s SNOWING"!”, “Yaay” I remember the “how”, but I fail to remember the “why”.

Only a distant, selective memory. Now it’s more like, “Ew cr*p, it’s snowing”.

*grumble*

Travelling Companion just called to ask about the conditions, but to also point out that she has calls until 4:30 p.m. On a Friday!

*grumble*

I suppose it’s just as well, since the traffic last night was pretty abysmal, and she couldn't even get on to the highway, let alone get stuck in the traffic on the Gürtel.

I’ve decided on burgers for tonight, so it looks like I’ll be grilling in snow flurries. Hey, we’re CANADIAN! We can take it! Although, those conditions aren’t exactly my first choice. Shorts, sandals, and only having a shirt on out of a sense of propriety would be preferable.

*grumble*

Speaking of stupid, I was going to have a whole post about SPAM, but I think I’ll leave that for tomorrow or a later time, since we have absolutely no plans for the weekend.

Enjoy yours, wherever you are.

Thanks for tuning in.

Tidying up.

2012-01-12T07:52:00.001-08:00

That is a word, isn’t it? We’ll just say it is.

Snow is being predicted for the weekend in these parts, so the full on sun from today was certainly appreciated. It’s a pitiful admission really, but the whole “sunny day” thing has an indelible affect on me, in a positive way of course.

This was taken at the corner of Neubaugaße and Mariahilferstraße this morning at about 9:00.

Not a cloud…

(oh wait, I just saw the clock, it was 9:30. My bad.)

As soon as I walked in the door yesterday morning, I went right on out to the balcony and took down the rest of the Christmas lights. Just one of those little solemn activities at the end of the festive season. They’ll no doubt go in with a few of the other items that we’ll have no use for in Canada, due to the whacky voltage requirements. I might consider rewiring a couple of the strings with new transformers, but I seriously doubt it. I’m sure Canadian Tire will have an ample supply of Christmas lights if I somehow feel we’ve come up short in that department. (doubtful)

The stores have been actively removing their Christmas ~~junk~~ decorations as well:

Here I’d like to add a third example of “tidying up”.

It doesn’t quite fit in with the Christmas theme, but I need to post these photos somewhere.

I think it had more to do with being parked in a “Handicapped zone”? It’s not like it was hard to see or anything. Also note the sign on the side of the truck that says, “Sorry!”

As if.

By the way, this is NOT a lengthy process. 10-15 minutes tops.

I really haven’t a clue where cars that are removed from where they’re not supposed to be ultimately end up, nor do I care to find out. All parking areas are clearly marked, and if you think you’re going to get away with simply leaving your car there, think again. It doesn’t seem to take long for a car to get snagged either. Zero tolerance? Not sure, but fun to watch. One of these fine days I’ll try and shoot a little mini video. I’ll have to be quicker on the draw however.

I can never quite understand why folks get upset when they get a parking ticket or get their vehicle hauled away. Even if the sign isn’t right before your eyes, or in this case, directly over your windshield, you just have to look around for either a ticket machine or something. Reading the signage is a big part of the whole “driving experience”.

I’ve only managed to get one parking ticket since coming here, and it was out in front of the immigration office in November of 09. Kind of like a little, “Welcome to Vienna, here’s your ticket!”. I didn’t get upset, I was more mystified. I just figured I’d missed a sign somewhere. Since then I’ve been back there several times, and with a little care, and by that I mean parking on one of the side streets, I’ve been able to avoid any repeat transgressions. Or I’ve been lucky. I’ll take lucky, I’m not proud.

I just went into the bank the next day and paid it. It was €21, and if that’s our “cost of driving a car”, then so be it. There’s blessed little else that we pay for in terms of “car ownership”. The city very conveniently puts a deposit slip right in with the ticket.

I’ll take pity on you now and stop making you move your eyes back and forth…

Just another day. We’re grinding them down.

Thanks for stopping by.

If there were no news.

2012-01-11T06:23:00.001-08:00

We’re really rather isolated here weather wise it seems. It’s turned into a rather pleasant partly sunny day (can’t exaggerate here, the sun comes and goes) and that’s all fine and dandy.

Now, you should immediately realise that, as soon as I even mention the weather, that quite likely means, I got “nothin”. There’s nothing going on, it’s just another day. If you stop reading right now, I’ll understand completely.

Just the same, I do have a couple snippets for you.

Apparently the record snow is still hanging around to the west of us. There were about a hundred kids who had to be taken off a mountain by helicopter. Now I ask you, as a kid, would that not be awesome? Can you imagine the buzz at school when you got home?

I have to think back to what might have been exciting when I was a kid. Driving the tractor? Cleaning out the barn? Playing with my border collie, “Blackie”? It was that or name him “Rover”, but our neighbour down the road had a dog named “Rover”. In his entire life, this older gentleman probably had a dozen dogs, they were all named “Rover”.

Right. I guess none of that compares to getting plucked off a mountain by helicopter. Lucky little buggers.

Of course you also realise that I’m going to burden you with the latest on the scale saga. I had to pitch out the old one. A new battery didn’t bring it to life. I seem to recall it was a present from one of the kids. Maybe, I don’t remember. Never did take a picture. I think it must have lasted at least twenty years. I’m OK with that. If I’ve used something for longer than I can remember, then I’m thinking it was a half decent value, whatever the cost.

I hoofed it down to Leiner yesterday and fetched a new one. I think it was yesterday, maybe it was Monday? See how it’s just so exciting here? I’m just….overwhelmed.

The new scales were a hit with Travelling Companion at least, since her first pronouncement was, “Oh I like this one, I lost weight”.

Turns out I weigh exactly the same.

And no, that’s not anyone we know on the cover. And I ask you, if you look like that, how often are you going to be weighing yourself? I went from some point in time when I was in my twenties for about an additional twenty years there without ever stepping on a set of scales. Mind you, that did mean that I was in for a wee bit of a surprise when the doc finally had me get on the scales in his office that one fateful day. Suddenly I was no longer 145. I’d prefer not to say what the new number was, but the doc seemed OK with it. What’s the deal with weighing you if you’re going for surgery? I mean, if you’re rather on the huge end of things, then maybe some weight reduction leading up to surgery might be in order? Other than that, I don’t really get it.

Being the blithering idiot that I am, I of course forget to take along my glasses to the store, and I had to make sure the scales could be switched from kilograms to pounds. The clerk didn’t know what the symbol was for pounds. I suppose I could get used to kilograms, but I’ll stick with pounds. I can handle Celsius and meters, but leave kilograms or “stones” out of it.

Um ya, I can see how many “stone” I weigh if I prefer. Like that’s gonna help me.

While I was there, I grabbed a new sprayer hose for the tub, since I had been meaning to fetch one at some point in time. For whatever reason, and I think it was because the old one was way too long, the one that was in there had started to leak like a sieve. It’s really kind of hard to get the water to come out of the spray head when most of it is coming out of the hose.

I never thought to take a picture of the old one, except after I had pitched it into the garbage. Because I mean, that’s important. The picture, that is.

Here’s the new one:

The quality is exactly the same as the old one. It’s plastic, not chrome. The only difference is in the length. I really don’t know why it would need to be any longer than that, and the previous one was so long it needed to be wrapped up around the spigot. Annoying. And maybe the reason it started leaking. There shouldn’t be any reason to stand OUTSIDE the tub to use the sprayer.

Of course, I think the contractor simply buys them by the truck load, with very little attention being paid to the practicality of the length.

Well that was exciting, wasn’t it? I’ll end your misery now, while I’m ahead.

Remember, bend at the knees.

Thanks for hanging in there, and stopping by and all that.

Staying home.

2012-01-10T06:18:00.001-08:00

And for the record, yes things are looking much better in the head cold department, although it seems that it’s made the tinnitus just that much worse. I could have sworn yesterday that, in addition to the normal buzzing, there was a computer fan operating somewhere nearby. It was literally “all in my head”. I suppose it’s a result of the nose blowing? Whatever.

Moving right along…

There was a brief plan afloat in the early part of last week to nip over to Salzburg for the weekend, since there’s a new train service that we thought we’d try out. At the time, Travelling Companion was in the throws of her own head cold conundrum, so I suggested that we should wait and see just how she was feeling on the weekend. Little did I know it would be my turn.

It so happens that staying well away from most any place west of here is a pretty good idea for the foreseeable future. Good luck and God bless to all the people who not only don’t mind making their way through the snow, but can’t wait to get out on the slopes. I’m not one of them. The really, really good part about that phenomenon though is, the traffic here in Wienerland has been quite light over the last week and a half. They’ve all gone skiing! OK, maybe “quite a few”, not “all”.

You don’t have to know exactly how high a metre is to know that five of them is a LOT of snow.

You have to understand that this is up in the mountains for the most part. But that’s the thing, other than “Lower Austria”, (note where it says “Wien, 0 Meter”?) pretty much the rest of Austria consists of mountains.

There was a two page spread talking about folks gone missing. Cars being completely buried. Avalanches. High winds. That kind of thing.

One of Travelling Companion’s associates, an avid skier and snow boarder who was somewhere out there over the weekend, said that the roads are all cleared by the afternoon, no matter how much snow comes down. If you get that much snow, I suppose you have to have the equipment to handle it. He spent his afternoons snowboarding with little difficulty. I’m not sure exactly where he was, but it seems that some areas are harder hit than others. I think the main thing is to stay on the groomed part of the slopes, as you’ll see in the later of the article below.

I somehow suspect that this isn’t necessarily on the nightly news in some of the areas from which many of you might be tuning in, so please bear with me. I’m going to make you move your eyes back and forth now, since I’ve plugged in a snippet from one of the online news rags. Hyperlinks sometimes go by the wayside.

06. 01. 12. - 12:00

Ski resorts forced to close as a result of too much snow

Ski resorts forced to remain closed by a lack of snow in December have now been forced to close many runs because of too much snow.
Ski resorts across Austria and Switzerland say they are now struggling to cope after metres of snow combined with high winds and stormy conditions over the past 48 hours left runs blocked or in danger of avalanches.
Changeable temperatures combined with high winds and new snow has put many ski resorts across Tirol, Salzburg and Vorarlberg on high avalanche alert. Temperatures are expected to drop dramatically over the weekend and winds today (Friday) have already reached over 170 kph making conditions even more treacherous.
Avalanche experts are working around the clock to assess the risks and where necessary and possible are carrying out controlled detonations. Rudi Mair, manager of the avalanche action team in Tirol said: "With winds peaking at 170 kph we can safely talk about a hurricane. Heavy new snow, freezing temperatures and the hurricane we are talking about high risk. The avalanche risk across Tirol is high and it will rise.
The high winds in particular are a threat to ski lifts which have been forced to close as the winds from "Hurricane Andrea" are too high - making conditions highly dangerous. The high winds also risk dislodging snow from high peaks.
Herbert Kaufmann form Dornbirn Seilbahn AG - the lift company in Dornbirn, Voarlberg said: "We have around twenty people stuck in the restaurant at the top of the mountain still as we are unable to put the lifts back into action. But at least the chef is stuck too and he can make food."
Winter safety expert Erich Schwarzler from the Austrian province of Vorarlberg said: "We are on high alert, we have army helicopters and avalanche teams on 24 hour standby.
The avalanche risk in Tirol is already on the second highest risk level 4 and is expected to rise over the next 24 hours possibly to the highest risk level 5.
There has been a high number of avalanche deaths over the past few days in Austria and many others injured. Earlier this week a group of four ski guides from Vorarlberg, Austria, were buried beneath a mound of snow whilst skiing in Graubunden, Switzerland and two of them died as a result.
Meanwhile Tirol rescuers reported yesterday (Thurs) they were attending an emergency call out nearly once a minute between 17.00 and 18.00 in the Austrian Alps due to the severe weather conditions. Police in Tirol confirmed thousands of households have been left without power as a result of the weather conditions.
Many roads have been blocked and passes are completely impassable in popular ski areas such as Lech, Zurs and Warth. People have had to be rescued form cars including four people who were rescued from their snow covered car in Upper Austria last night (Thurs).
Rescuers expect a busy weekend. Anton Mattle, mayor of Galtuer and Paznaun in the Tirol has assured the region "is ready to cope with the conditions".
"In the worst case scenario we are ready to evacuate people living in affected areas. We have rescuers and helicopters on standby if the conditions deteriorate to dangerous levels in affected areas."

Austrian Times

OK then! Just a normal day in the mountains! (Well maybe not quite.)

I’m content to sit here and read about it, thanks.

We’re not exactly in need of any sun block in these here parts, but just the same, I’ll take a little dreariness compared to those conditions. Jumpin’!

I mean, I spent the first 10 years of my life in rural Nova Scotia, and we used to think we “got snow”. *pfft* What fools! Five metres?? Are you kidding? (I don’t think they are…)

And there you have your latest useless update from Austria. Glad to be of service.

If you’re shovelling remember, bend from the knees.

Thanks for stopping by.

Thinking of Liza.

2012-01-08T04:49:00.001-08:00

And I don’t mean Minnelli either. No, I’m thinking more along the lines of Doolittle, which would of course be “Eliza”, and not “Liza”, which is an apt demonstration of just how muddled up my brain is today.

In the nearly four years of living in Europe (so far) I’ve managed to avoid any hint of a head cold. It finally caught up with me. The hedgehog that was hanging around in my throat the other morning has thankfully decided to migrate, but I was pretty sure a couple times in the night that he or one of his buddies was sitting squarely on my face.

So why Eliza Doolittle? Something to do with the pronunciation of the word “phlegm”, and there’s not going to be a corresponding link to go with that. I think you get the idea.

Stupid thing is, the first though that flashed across my pea brain yesterday morning was, “How do I get hold of some Amoxicillin in these parts if I get a sinus infection?” Curious too, that the wiki article I just linked to mentions that Amoxicillin is mostly given to children. Hm. That wasn’t my impression. Maybe the last time the doc prescribed it, he thought I was being a big baby? Nah.

Typically, for me anyway, an infection only develops if I’m working in some sort of dusty environment, and that certainly hasn’t been the case this time around. One of the ironies of enjoying the hobby of woodworking. Sometimes it gives me a headache.

Thankfully, when we’re cruising along here without guests, we have some alternate sleeping arrangements, and last night I chose to lumber off to the “West Wing”.

It’s not really a “wing” at all, but the apartment is arranged in such a way that I can be separated by four closed doors from Travelling Companion if I choose to sleep there. Her cold is starting to ease up, so having me hacking and gurgling next to her isn’t all that conducive to a good night’s sleep.

Just to demonstrate that I was actually out and about yesterday morning, (shopping for food is a bit of a priority) as opposed to lying around like a big lump, I snapped this quick photo of the same spot from the other day. I couldn’t help but notice that there’s now no evidence whatsoever of the Christmas market that had been there for the last several weeks.

*Poof* Gone.

You’ll also notice that there’s a wayward tree sitting out at the curb? Probably blew there with the wind, since the area just in front of the church we be used as a Christmas tree drop off over the next few days. My guess is they’ll come along and take down the one that’s standing and add it to the pile.

That’s all I got.

It’s back to the gurgling, sniffling, coughing, wheezing, sneezing….drooling.

OK, maybe no drooling. I’ll draw the line at drooling….

Keep those sticks on the ice.

Thanks for stopping by.

Putting it together.

2012-01-06T04:31:00.001-08:00

I was going to call this, “Confessions of a nitwit”, but I might have used that one.

It’s Friday, and that’s just fine since, among other things, that means Travelling Companion will be coming back down from the hinterland. Well, Gmünd isn’t exactly the “hinterland” in the Canadian sense, but it is in an area they refer to as the “Waldviertel”, or “Forest Quarter”, although we would probably use the term “district” or “area”, but let’s not get too far off course here.

So in addition to the usual Friday chores, I figured on my way out this morning that I’d turf out the old set of scales, which would then force me to look for something new. Before doing that though, it occurred to me that even though I had put in a new 9 volt battery, I had never really tested the thing. Somehow I missed that step, which isn’t really like me, since I usually will test a brand new battery just to make sure it’s working properly. Of course I had to brave the winds and go to the upstairs storage to fetch my tester, which meant bundling up, which meant putting on clothes, which meant taking a shower before putting on clean clothes.

It’s never that simple.

Well. I’m pretty sure I can put out more energy with a mean look than that stupid battery! And it was a new one. Unless I mixed it up with the one I took out, but I don’t think so. So somebody sold me a crap battery! I can’t believe I didn’t test it when I put it in! I should know better. Quel bonehead.

That changes everything. Now we don’t know if the scales work or not. Have to go out for a new battery. No biggie, there’s a place right on the corner. Less than 20 metres from our front door.

You know that “purposeful walk”, when you’re on your way out somewhere, and you KNOW exactly where you’re headed and you know what you want? Yup, that’s the one.

Off I went, just a truckin’ out the door, until I couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t very busy out on the street. AT ALL.

My thought balloon looked like this:

“Oh, where is everybody?”

“Oh wait, it’s a holidaaaaay.”

And then I can’t repeat the next couple words that popped into my head.

I’ll just say, “poop”, and leave it at that.

THAT explains why my neighbour lady had done the big shop yesterday morning and was quite happy to let me help her get her stuff in the elevator and to the landing outside her door. That ALSO explains why the church bells were ringing so annoyingly long this morning.

Well shiver me timbers, it’s Christmas. Well, it would be if you happen to be in say, Russia. Or anywhere where religious holidays follow the Julian Calendar.

In these here parts, it has more to do with the Epiphany, (or Three King’s Day if you prefer) and even though I’m sure not too many of the Austrians are flocking to church this morning, it’s still a holiday. They like their holidays.

We used to only observe January 6th as “Put away the Christmas Stuff Day”.

So that changes things a bit. I’m not too worried about the grocery end of things. I learned a long time ago to have a few things as back-up. T.C. won’t be home any earlier than she normally would be, since she has some presentation or other to do this afternoon. So much for the “Austrian Friday Afternoon Program”. Austrians don’t like to work Friday afternoons either..

I’ll root around in the freezer and come up with something.

I’m thinking now that the set of scales has been spared it’s fate for at least one more day, and I’ve just now gone down to the basement storage locker to fetch the bins for the Christmas ornaments. Time to take down the pitiful tree.

I’ve been putting off any kind of photo evidence of said pitiful tree due to its, well…. glorious ‘pitifulness’.

It’s this stupid plastic thing that will quite likely never see the light of day again. We really should have bought a real tree, and used the new stand that I have intentions of using once we’re back in Canada. (You remember the nifty German one?) The real trees here were actually not that expensive, but I just didn’t want the additional bother that comes with a real tree. In an apartment? Um, no.

So today it’ll go back in its box, and the ornaments will get put away in the two totes you see there on the cart.

The other slight irony of “Three King’s Day” also falling on “Put away the Christmas Stuff Day”, is that the Three Kings don’t really get to hang around for very long. They don’t come out until today (naturally, right?) and then get put away again for another year. Or to never see the light of day again. It could go either way.

I’ll explain.

You might be wondering just where the heck we got two totes of Christmas “stuff”?

Well….

On July 18th of 2008, the movers showed up at our house back in Canada, with all their boxes and bubble wrap and such. There were three of them. A fellow and his wife, and his brother. My impression is that perhaps the brother wasn’t necessarily the brightest bulb in the pack, but I certainly wasn’t going to supervise him, that was his brother’s job. My job, or actually OUR job, since I made sure Travelling Companion came home for that event, was to sort out and put out all the “stuff” that these fine upstanding individuals were supposed to ship.

Here’s what our living room briefly looked like.

The picture really sucks, since I was using this really crappy HP camera. Don’t get me started….

..and later loading up the truck.

Oh look, there’s even a date stamp.

In the turmoil of purging a few things up to that point, there were these two totes sitting out on the upstairs landing, and I suppose the brother number two was setting items out there to be catalogued and taken away, and so we ended up with some Christmas ornaments when our shipment arrived. This year we finally put them on a tree.

The rather simple little manger scene that we bought years ago at Canadian Tire hadn’t seen the light of day for quite some time, since there’s a whole other set that we had been using for the last number of years. You’ll notice that poor old Balthazar is missing his head? I think it’s Balthazar, you can correct me on that one. Go ahead. Somehow I seem to recall that an extra tree had been set up in our basement apartment, and there was some need of a spare manger scene? Or maybe (and more likely) Daughter Number One was rooting around in the attic and failed to put away some things? My memory is dim, but my guess is that one day many of these things will need to find a new home. There’s only so much room for so much “stuff”.

Oh! I almost forgot! Right along with the extra Christmas stuff that got shipped, I ended up with three brand new door knobs that some day will get installed when ever I finish renovating the house.

Still with the receipt from Canadian Tire.

Needless to say, unpacking everything when our shipment arrived in the Netherlands was at least entertaining.

It’s not like I was looking for some sort of volume discount or anything, it’s just that at one point when I went back to Home Despot to fetch yet another one of the door knobs that I was working with, they were no longer being carried! Yikes! Fortunately I still had the previous receipt with the UPC code, so I was able to nip over to Crappy Tire and get some more. I just bought as many as I knew that I’d eventually need. I hadn’t really counted on shipping them to Europe though.

And before you say it, yes I’ve had this thought of taking them home in my luggage so at least they would be within a few metres of their final resting place. The thing is though, I usually don’t have room in my luggage, nor do I have any huge desire to explain to Canada Customs just what the hell I’m doing with three door knobs from Canadian Tire. It could very well be too complicated for them to grasp. They already have problems with that whole, “Duh, you live in Europe??”

Best not to complicate things.

We’ll just ship them home again whenever we bug on out of here.

Have a fine weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

Sharing.

2012-01-05T07:52:00.001-08:00

Travelling Companion and I share many things. Sometimes she shares information about the Company that Cannot be Named, which can make it a little difficult for me, since I don’t know what I shouldn’t know. Get that?

For example, I recall once upon a time at a “gathering” being introduced to a very nice person (I’m trying to be as vague as possible here) and thinking to myself, “Right, you’re the one they’re going to be punting out shortly”.

See? Not something that a spouse should know, and certainly not something one should blurt out. And no, I never blurt sh*t out. That would never do. So that brings the conversations around to either the weather or offspring. And really, who gives a rat’s tiny behind about either?

Other than those minor pitfalls, I don’t mind sharing certain things, within reason. I do draw the line at personal effects, and when it comes to certain circumstances.

It just so happens that T.C. woke up the other morning with a bit of a sore throat. For this reason, certain protocols were put into place, with the “no kissy-kissy” protocol being at the top of the list. For her it turned into a full blown head cold which, for a person with high blood pressure, really and truly sucks. I think that’s the medical term? She can’t take the usual pseudoephedrine, which is normally found in most over the counter head cold remedies. Elevates your blood pressure. Mind you, it’s getting harder to find these types of drugs in Europe, since it’s been known for some time that with enough of this stuff on hand, there’s some way of manufacturing methamphetamine.

I know. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either, but somebody must have figured it out. I can’t make this stuff up. Click the links, and read up to your heart’s content. I made sure I stocked up at our local Shopper's Drug Mart the last time we were home, but I haven’t had to dip into my supply just yet.

Emphasis on “just yet”.

I was therefore a little bit peeved when I woke up this morning at 4:00 with what I thought for sure was a hedgehog firmly lodged in my throat. Ouch.

Fortunately for me though, I can medicate. Up to this point it’s only been a matter of throat lozenges (those are widely available) and acetaminophen to deaden the discomfort. I don’t want to get overly dramatic here, since I’m certainly a long way off from the dreaded “head in a vice” routine. It could go either way.

Generally speaking I’ve been quite fortunate to avoid most any kind of head cold type of thing since moving to Europe in 08. This too in spite of all Europeans being the “kissy-kissy” types. Bob doesn’t kiss strangers. Sorry.

I found that I’d get nailed on the order of about once a year when I was in the school system, as most everyone else does. This in spite of enthusiastic hand washing, general avoidance of being in anyone’s personal space, and quite happily being taller than most everyone else in the building. When kiddies sneeze, it’s usually best if they’re down around belt height. I’m just saying.

I forgot to mention that Travelling Companion is once again travelling. She left yesterday morning for the Czech Republic, where she’s making a three day visit to one of the manufacturing plants to give them a little month end mentoring. She did forget to call when she arrived, but I don’t get my panties in a knot over that kind of thing these days. We’ve become used to first of all being apart from time to time, and also coming to terms with letting the chips fall where they may. Sitting anxiously by the phone isn’t going to get her to her destination any safer.

She did call later on in the evening when she was back in Gmünd, (and I could tell her cold had worsened) as she was about to head downstairs for some dinner. It seems the driving conditions for that part of the country were not the best last night, with high winds and snow flurries. Not a good combination, especially after dark. Imagine if you will, wet black roads with no lines.

Neither one of us are particularly enthusiastic about driving after dark, which is something we discovered going way back to some of the first times we spent any time away from each other. Of course it’s always just that much more fun when you have a head cold too.

My apologies that I’m coming up somewhat short in the picture department today. The skies are grey, and I only went out briefly for a couple errands. Something to do with food, and a refill for a pen.

OK fine, here’s a sunrise from some time back in October. We had sun then.

Don’t you expect to see some dude with a fiddle up there somewhere?

Thanks for stopping by.

And on we trudge.

2012-01-04T04:44:00.001-08:00

It was back to the salt mines for Travelling Companion yesterday, and I agreed to drive her in. I didn’t really have any particular need for the car, but it just so happens that our bathroom scales has decided that it’s no longer willing to cooperate. There’s only a couple places that come to mind where I can find a new one, and any of those destinations would involve getting there by car, or convoluted, time consuming public transit. You may have gathered by now that I’m not overly keen on time consuming, convoluted public transit. I’m not even all that thrilled with straight hop on, hop off public transit.

So my little agenda then became one of seeking out the aforementioned bathroom scales, but when the phone rang at about 2:00 p.m., and T.C. told me she was done and could I come and fetch her?, that sort of put that plan into a tail spin. She originally thought she’d like to stay until 5:00, so I just figured I’d leave a bit early and do some shopping. Didn’t happen.

We’re still short in the bathroom scales department. Not such a good idea, especially after Christmas. I’m not going to mention any facts or “figures” that were brought to the “forefront” after having spent a year in Puerto Rico without a set of bathroom scales, but lets just say that, up until then I had considered beer a “summertime” drink? I ask you, what’s the temperature like year around in Puerto Rico? Right. That was a slippery slope.

And a bit of a shocker when I did get back on the scales after a year in Puerto Rico. Yikes!

So for this “Ex-Pat” assignment, I made sure to ship along the bathroom scales, just to keep an eye on the situation, so to speak? Have I mentioned how cheap the beer is here?? The pastry? The chocolate? Having to have my suit pants let out when we went home in August?

Oh wait, I don’t think I ever did talk about that. Maybe a subject best left alone, with the minor exception that, if you do go to the same men’s clothing store for years on end, there’s at least a good chance that the owner and his trusty long time assistant will have grown old right along with you. This takes any hint of embarrassment out of the equation. Thankfully none of us have turned into little cherubs just yet, but it’s still nice to discover that there is, in fact, extra material left over at the back of a pair of good quality trousers. Who knew?

Something I wasn’t really aware of.

Anyway, since it was the “First Work Day”, and T.C. is at the level where all the various accounting types below her are still sorting out their little song and dance routines, there wasn’t that much for her to do. Apparently there weren’t even any horror stories, but of course, there’s still time for that other shoe to drop. Not even a subject for the blog anyway, except to say that everything is peachy keen. That’s as much detail as I’m willing to provide.

In other “news”, I see the Christmas markets are all being dismantled, and my guess is that they’ll be setting up the ice rink in front of the Rathaus in the next little while.

I took this yesterday morning out on Mariahilferstraße.

This small market was set up in front of the Mariahilfer Kirche. Note the now missing roof tops.

By the way, yesterday was a fabulous day, weather wise. It was hovering around 10°C and sunny. Today, not so much so. I did see that “red sky at morning”, and sure enough, it’s clouded over and the wind has picked up. Not sure we’ll get to avoid winter for much longer.

****

I couldn’t help but notice the cops giving this one fellow a bit of a bum’s rush this morning. He sits in his wheel chair just outside the elevator that takes you down to the subway. He’s there every day “selling” some sort of magazine. Seems his papers weren’t quite in order. Begging in Vienna you see, is neither legal nor permitted. You’ll still see them, but they’re not allowed to be aggressive in any way, which means many beggars will sell a magazine called Augustin. Sorry, but that website is all in German, but Augustin is a magazine that has been sold by the homeless crowd in Vienna for a couple decades now. They pay very little for a bundle, and can sell them for whatever the market will bear.

I’ve only ever noticed this guy with some other magazine in his lap, plus he always has a cup shoved out in front of him, with an incessant, “Bitte….bitte…” (please…please). Vendors of Augustin will usually ask you to buy the magazine, and not just beg for money. It’s a finer point, but an important one if you want to keep the cops at bay.

It figures of course, that just as I’m about to snap a surreptitious shot, this old girl walks in front the camera, but here he is wheeling himself back to the elevator.

I think that’s where he was headed, since I didn’t hang around to see what happened next. My guess is that he was given a warning. One of the merchants may have complained. No way of knowing.

And such is life here in the big city.

That’s it for today’s missive. Looks like this week will be a bit dull, so unless I have something come crashing into my brain, (and I won’t feel a thing, trust me) I might not have too darned much to say.

Bundle up if you have to. If not, be sure and use proper sun block, and keep those sticks on the ice.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Chores!

2012-01-02T11:56:00.001-08:00

OK, maybe it’s really only a chore, and not that big of a one after all.

Before we take the car out onto the roads in the New Year, there’s a little bit of windshield cosmetic work that needs to be sorted out.

What that actually has to do with the theme from “Green Acres” is a bit of a stretch, but that stupid tune has been going through my brain for most of the day. Even when I was out in the parking garage sorting out the Vignette.

For those of you who might have been born in this century (which would make you what? Twelve?) and who may not know the show to which I am referring, here’s a little sample:

So was there some relationship between the idea that his name was “Oliver” (well, “Olivah” if you go with the Eva Gabor version) and the possibility that he’s driving an Oliver tractor? Actually no, it was a Fordson model “F”, but that was fun while it lasted. And yes, on the show it was referred to as a “Hoyt-Clagwell”. Not a real make. I can’t make this stuff up kids.

And what’s with the suit? C’mon Dude! Buy some coveralls!

So here’s what we had on the windshield:

You’re probably wondering why I had two, and not just the one for the whole year? Maybe you weren’t, but I’ll tell you anyway. In August we had the windshield replaced when we were home in Canada. It was a convenient time to sort out the rather large “star” we had acquired that was right in the line of sight of the driver. I’m not 100% sure, but I think that wouldn’t pass muster when it came to inspection time. Best to avoid those types of surprises. Besides, it was bloody annoying.

When we arrived back here in Wienerland at the end of our vacation, I had everything I needed (or so I thought) to go and get a replacement at the ÖAMTC. That barely pronounceable acronym stands for “Österreichische Automobil-, Motorrad- und Touring Club”, in case you were wondering, and is the Austrian equivalent of the AAA or CAA, only with the addition of an air ambulance service.

The only thing was, the ownership was actually sitting on someone’s desk, which I didn’t get back until after I had gone down to Slovenia and back to drop off my sister-in-law. So instead of the replacement, I simply bought (well, the company bought) a couple short term replacements until the end of the year. Hey, I TRIED to get the free replacement, but it just didn’t work out that way. The annoying part was that I didn’t find out that I needed the piece of yellow paper (ownership, but not pink) until I had bellied up to the counter at the aforementioned ÖAMTC.

I don’t get upset about those kinds of things any more. What’s that expression, “It’s like wrestling with a pig?” There’s no point really. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it. I just go, “Well, I tried”, and walk out.

So of course, there’s a certain amount of scraping and rubbing involved, but the idea is to put the thing in behind the rear view mirror where it’s more or less out of sight from the driver’s point of view.

The blissful little side effect of having it out of view of the driver is that you tend to forget that it’s there, thereby becoming oblivious to the fact that you had to PAY.

There we go.

*****

Speaking of theme songs that go round and round, we decided today to watch “The Third Man”, which was shot right here in Vienna back in 1949. A few things have changed since 1949, (they cleaned the place up a bit) but it was fun to try and name some of the locations where it was filmed, the main one of course being right across from the Augustinian Church. If you happen to go to the Google maps link, where it says, “Palais Pallavicini”, right across from Josefplatz was the entrance which led to the apartment of Harry Lime. This was also the location where he was supposedly run over and killed, just after coming out the front door. Bit of a mystery, and I won’t spoil it for those who may not have seen it.

Anton Karas played the theme song on the Zither, which is OK for about the first, oh I don’t know, twenty minutes?. However, it does start to get a little tiring after a while. Thankfully there was no way for him to play any sort of “suspense” music for the sewer scenes. That whole sequence was adorned with blessed silence.

Not giving any more away. You’ll have to watch the film some time. It’s a little hokey, but fun just the same.

Especially if you live in Vienna.

Keep it between the ditches.

Thanks for stopping by.

New Year’s in Vienna.

2012-01-01T10:03:00.001-08:00

I have to preface this by saying that we’re not really New Year’s Eve party people.

If we had been anywhere else, we probably would have simply gone to bed, but this was a “Once in a lifetime”, and I don’t mean that in a negative way either.

It’s already dark here well before 5:00 p.m., and the fireworks had already started. Not in a big way mind you, but just a steady blip here and there.

Around 8:00 p.m., we headed down to the first district, just to see what we could see. I decided against public transit, since I had no intentions of having a single drop of libation, and had no desire to share public transit with those who had. Returning from late night ball games from Toronto comes to mind, and that’s never a pretty picture.

Speaking of pretty pictures, I did manage a few. I think.

Outside the State Opera, it’s fairly normal to be able to stand outside and watch the proceedings inside. “Die Fledermaus” (The Bat) was being performed. I had guessed “The Merry Widow”, (Die Lustige Witwe) but some times I get mixed up. Either way, I knew we had seen it at some point in time, so it was vaguely familiar back in the recesses of my pea brain.

Then we moved on into the fray.

The estimate was that there were something like 750,000 people hanging around Stephansplatz.

Travelling Companion decided she wanted some Glühwein, mostly since she really wanted a cup with 2012 on it. I had a sip. Not my thing.

She’s going to complain bitterly that I’ve put her picture on here, but I kind of like this one.

There were a couple attempts to take a picture of yours truly in front of Stephansdom, and I think in this one I’m about to ask just when that’s about to happen:

If I look a little cold, I was getting there. So after a couple hours of wondering just what it is that entices people to be there, I was quite happy to head off to the parking garage at around 11:00 p.m. I know, we weren’t right there at midnight, but remember, we live in a “Dachgeschoß”, and I figured we could watch fireworks from the terrace.

Interesting to note that by then the parking garage outside the Staatsoper was pretty well full. We couldn’t help but notice the plates from all the different countries. Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, The Czech Republic…..there were even a couple from The Ukraine. Crazy!

I have to preface this next little bit by saying that we’ve seen “orchestrated” fireworks displays before, most notably New Year’s Eve in Vegas of 03/04. That was quite something, with a synchronised display that was set off from the top of something like 10 casinos up the strip for all of 10 minutes. Impressive. But only 10 minutes!

Fireworks had started in Vienna just as soon as it got dark, as I mentioned, and I would say 90% of it is individuals setting off fireworks from their balconies or from the street. Our neighbours must have dropped a bundle on fireworks. I’m just saying.

This I know. It’s not easy taking decent photos of fireworks!

So instead, I shot a few short videos. I’ll spare you by only putting up a couple of them.

This was at around 11:30 p.m., but this type of activity had been going on just about non-stop all night. It was hard to know where to look….

The first few seconds of this one are out of focus, since my little camera was a tad confused. Just hang in there.

This activity kept up until well after 1:00 a.m., but both the battery in my camera, as well as my own had run down by then. Besides, by about 12:30 or so, there was so much spent gun powder in the air, it was getting a tad overwhelming, and I was getting chilled to the bone.

But truly “Once in a lifetime”.

One final blurb from the local free rag:

And there you have it kids. Hope yours was just fine.

Thanks for stopping by.

What’s with the pigs?

2011-12-31T07:37:00.001-08:00

Seems like everybody and their dog is letting off fireworks too. Something about keeping away the evil spirits. Right.

I’d wager that if asked, half the people wouldn’t know where that one came from, since any excuse to let off fireworks is usually met with a certain amount of enthusiasm.

Like most everything else here in Absurdistan, fireworks are regulated, with there being four different “classes”, with class three and four being those used by the professionals. The other three classes are broken down presumably by their level of danger, with the rules being that you have to be a certain age to buy whatever type of firework it happens to be. Kind of like one of those signs at the amusement park that states, “You must be this tall to go on this ride”. You must be 16 to buy bottle rockets, for example. Nothing in there about letting a younger sibling light them up though…

This also explains why there were remnants from the aforementioned bottle rockets on our balcony when we came back here last year after being in Canada for the holidays. I think if I dare go outside I’d best be wearing some sort of full body armour. Or at least a hoody.

I really didn’t have a whole lot to say today, but I seem to be going off at the fingers here.

I’ve been seeing every possible size and example of swine out on the streets, (little stuffed piggies, not the inhabitants of Vienna) and there are now even vendors that have set up who are selling little tiny figurines for New Years. The figurines are still a bit of a mystery, but the I did sort out the bit about the pig end of things. It seems that first of all, Austrians will quite often have a roast pig on New Year’s day, so as a result, the pig is somehow a sign of good luck. This is making very little sense as I type it, but it’s true. Really.

I found this snippet on the web: “The suckling pig is the symbol for good luck for the new year. It's served on a table decorated with tiny edible pigs. Dessert often consists of green peppermint ice cream in the shape of a four-leaf clover.”

There ya go. One more piece of totally useless information.

There is some sort of plan afoot to actually GO OUT tonight and head down to Stephansplatz, although I’m reasonably certain we can see the fireworks from our balcony. I mean, it wasn’t for nothing that we moved into a top floor apartment after all.

So I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, or as I’ve heard said in there here parts, “Guter Rutsch ins neue Jahr!”, which is kind of hard to translate. “rutschen” is to slip, skid or even crawl, so to wish someone a good “Rutsch”, doesn’t really work in English I’m afraid. “May your skid into the New Year be a good one”? Something like that. That’s all I got.

Thanks for stopping by.

You may already be a Wiener!

2011-12-30T06:19:00.001-08:00

A recently overheard conversation:

“Look honey, it’s a wiener dog”.

“Ya, but here they’re just called ‘dogs’.”

So now that I’ve got that out of my system, did I tell you what the kind folks at the butcher shop gave me when I picked up our turkey on Saturday? It may very well have been because it was the most expensive turkey I’ve ever paid for in my entire life, or maybe it was because I spent over a certain amount. I’m not sure.

But I ended up with a “Viennese Christmas Sausage”.

Well, something like that. I mean, being an “educated guy” and all that, I really should have a bit more self control, and just point out that “Wiener” in this case is an adjective, meaning “Viennese”, but I’m sorry. There’s just too much of a gag in there to let it go. I had even put this in the fridge and forgot about it, and Travelling Companion hauled it out yesterday afternoon (get your minds out of the gutter) and asked, “Are we gonna eat this?” Turns out it has an expiry date of January 8, 2012. Yikes! That’s just around the corner.

Getting free food and then leaving it in the fridge is some sort of venial sin I’m sure. We’d better get busy, even though red meat and I don’t always get along.

In other “news”, (‘cause that last bit was important), we’re just spending a quiet afternoon here getting readjusted to there being just the two of us. It always sucks saying good-bye to the kids, and visitors in general.

Traffic on the way to the airport this morning was surprisingly fluid, considering it was a Friday morning, but a little later I happened to notice something in one of the local rags about practically all of Austria being on the ski slopes right about now. Apparently there’s not a spare hotel room to be had in places like Kitzbühel. Now it all makes sense. THAT’s where the traffic jams are. I thought maybe we had missed an air raid siren or something. I’m new here. Last year at this time we were in Canada.

Something else recently overheard:

“Oh Gawd, it’s only 8:30 and he’s taking our picture!”

(Um, you’ll notice clicking on that one only gives you a SMALL image? Discretion is, after all, the better part of valour)

Not sure what the fast hands was all about, but there was no chance for a second photo.

The departure photo at the airport is kind of a tradition, so that one will have to do.

And that, as they say, is that.

Oh, I should mention, I discovered a rather neat website earlier today when I was trying to figure out if they had left on time. If you click on this link, it will open up and show an area close to where ever your IP address is located. At least I think that should happen, I’d need to clear all my cookies and try over to see what happens the first time around. I’m not about to do that, since I want my cookies right where they are for the time being. What I’ve also noticed is that flights that are too far out over the ocean are not getting picked up. At first I though that was a bit odd, until I looked to see how the information is gathered. It’s a platform called ADS-plane finder.

You’ll notice there has to be a “base station”, which explains why I’ve lost track of them over the North Atlantic for the time being. Fun stuff though. We don’t realise just how many planes are in the air at one time. It’s busy up there!

******

And so, life goes on.

Travelling Companion has a few things to sort out before heading back to the salt mines next week.

For my part, the kids have left, the beds have been stripped, and there’s gonna be laundry.

Enjoy your Friday.

Thanks for stopping by.

Many thanks.

2011-12-29T06:51:00.001-08:00

Just thought I’d mention how much we appreciate all the wishes that have been sent our way for Christmas. I’m sure there are more cards that may have arrived at the house in Canada that we’ll get to see at some point in time. I think though that the word did get around that we were staying here for Christmas, since many more cards have arrived over the last few days as well. Always fun.

Rather than go all crazy with photos from out jaunt down to Slovenia, (I think it’s “down”, seems that way on a map anyway) there’s a way to post a bunch of pictures on Facebook and then provide a link for anyone who is remotely interested.

It would be this one here…link

Go nuts.

(hey, somebody’s server has to have room for all my useless photos, it might as well be facebook)

Our days have been spent generally being in each other’s company, which has been quite fine so far. The only possibly exception, for me anyway, would be a couple excruciating games of Scrabble. I usually reply with a terse, “NO”, when asked if I’d like to play, but in the spirit of having some company after all, I thought I should be a good sport and play along. Fool.

I hate to admit it, but I suck at Scrabble. It’s possibly since I have the attention span of a gnat. I’m not sure. What’s even more embarrassing, I’m the only one in the group with a “liberal arts” education. Guess that was a waste. I somehow have the innate ability to confuse golf with Scrabble when it comes to my score.

The “kids” are at this very moment somewhere down in the first district, since one of their objectives today was to climb the steps of Stephansdom. I should point out that there is a lift (OK, elevator) on the other (north) tower, which we’ve taken, but if you’re up to it, there’s a better view from south tower, but that involves ascending something like 343 very narrow steps. Actually, it’s more like exactly 343 steps, but whatever. I did the 90 some odd steps up the Arc-de-Triomphe a few years back on a visit to Paris. That was enough to last for a while I figured.

Other than that, there’s not too darned much happening. It’s that post-Christmas, pre New Year’s Eve lull, only I’m not at home to go out and futz around in my shop.

Our weather has been surprisingly mild, with it being almost sunny every day, with temperatures that are at least above freezing, even if only in the single digits. For December, I’ll take it.

Tomorrow we have to do the dreary trip back to the airport, since our visitors will be heading back to Canada.

*sigh*

Keep those sticks on the ice people.

Thanks for stopping by.

And just like that, it’s Christmas.

2011-12-25T09:50:00.001-08:00

I don’t have much to say today, since I’m too full to actually make my fingers move on the keyboard.

There were only the four of us, and yes that’s a lot of turkey.

I ordered it a couple weeks ago from Radatz, which is a chain of butcher shops in these parts. It’s an Austrian turkey. It was a good turkey.

That’s about it. This is for the “kids” back home.

Thanks for the stuff. I’m already well into the Randy Bachman book. Very simply written, but a fun read.

Hope everyone has had, or is having a fine Christmas.

Once I recover, I’ll do a bit more about Slovenia. Might take a day or two.

Thanks for stopping by.

We’re in Slovenia, really.

2011-12-22T13:55:00.001-08:00

After dinner the other night, we were walking back to our hotel (which was all of maybe 100 metres from the restaurant) and I spotted this white truck parked outside.

Couldn’t help myself but take a couple pictures, and my daughter said, “Pretty sure that’s going in the blog”.

Well, t’ya!

My apologies to anyone who might own one of these “pick-up trucks” (note the quotation marks) since it’s a Honda “Ridgeline”, but there are two things going on here. First of all, it’s goofy looking. It might be all practical and everything with a storage area under the truck bed and all, but I’m sorry. Goofy. Apart from that, any pick-up truck in Europe already looks somewhat out of place, but this one is extra “out of place”, and here’s the kicker. Check out the license plate.

Just click on it if you can’t make it out.

Are you kidding me? This was taken outside the Sava Golf Hotel in Bled, Slovenia. If you prefer, you can check out the hotel’s website itself.

We never did get the story on this truck. I see the plate is good for an entire year, since the tag doesn’t expire until December 2012. I think this just might prove my theory of “more money than brains”, since I’m not too sure just who would buy one of these things, and then SHIP IT ACROSS THE OCEAN? Right.

Anyway, I’ll sort out my pictures and put up a choice few in a day or two. Sitting at a desk in the hotel here is not something that I find particularly comfortable. I need my comfy digs back in Vienna.

Tomorrow we’ll hang around Ljubljana for the morning and then head out to see the cousin in Sava for 2:00. p.m., and then we’ll make a beeline back to Vienna tomorrow night.

Keep those sticks on the ice. See you all back in Vienna, and thanks for stopping by.

The Christmas Markets

2011-12-18T14:24:00.001-08:00

We thought it would be worth while to make a visit to one of the many Christmas Markets that pop up around this time of year in Vienna.

Now, you have to understand that I’m not a huge fan of being in the midst of crowds, but I try to be a good sport when it comes to these things. I drive. I park. I go along. Simple. Oh, and I keep my mouth shut.

So you have to understand that, when the first words out of Travelling Companion’s mouth were, “There’s too many people here!”, I wasn’t really all that upset? Mind you, it’s still not a terribly good idea to jump on that particular band wagon right away with a suggestion that you head back to the car. That’s just not prudent. It’s best to let the situation just play itself out. Show some restraint. Go along. Be patient. You’re reprieve will come soon enough.

The last time we were at this particular place in Vienna, there was a circus in town. I think I made some snide reference to the circus being somehow in close proximity to city hall as some sort of natural association, even though that may not have been entirely fair. I’m still a foreigner here and probably shouldn’t offer any sort of disparaging opinions as relates to the political goings on in these parts. I can easily make fun of Canadian politics if it comes right down to it, so there’s no need to go all “international” or anything.

So there’s city hall in the background, along with half the population of the city in front…

I only took something like four pictures, and I’m putting them all in here dammit.

I could have gone to each and every hut and taken pictures of all the ~~junk~~, wonderful little things they were selling.

Oh my.

Of course, there were some items that were more tempting than others, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had my quota of sweets in the first half century of my life to last me well into the second half.

Just best not to go there.

Besides, I don’t even think I could even eat ONE of those huge things, whatever they were. (just click the picture, you can figure it out for yourselves)

It didn’t take us long to get far away from the Christmas market, but we weren’t quite done for the day. The time allotment mostly has to do with how much more time Travelling Companion has left on here “knee-o-meter”, since all festivities must cease when her knees get to be too painful for her to bear. I suppose it’s more like a “pain-in-the-knee-o-meter” if I wanted to be a little more accurate.

Next stop was the parking garage outside the Opera. Sometimes we’ll take public transit. More often than not, we don’t. It can be a bit of a gamble when it comes to how much we end up paying for parking, but at the first stop it was €4,00, and in the second garage it was only €1,90. You have to pay more than that for a bag of dirt, so I figure that’s a pretty good deal. Plus, down and back by subway would have been €7,20. Some times it works out. Plus, I like my “own space”, even if it means I have to steer.

I didn’t have any huge desire to take pictures at our second stop either, since it was mostly just a slightly thinner hoard on Kärtner Straße. This is another huge shopping area, much like Mariahilferstraße, only in the first district. A lot of shops are closed for Sunday, but it doesn’t seem to matter. People are still out there!

I was somewhat taken by the honkin’ big bow on the side of this building however. I thought that was photo worthy.

Where the hell do you store something like that for the rest of the year?

We had this fleeting idea to get some “Sacher Torte” at the Sacher Hotel, but just about every time we go by that place there’s a line up out the door. There’s no way I’m lining up to shove something in my pie hole. Even if it’s pie. Well, it’s “Torte”, so it’s not exactly pie, but certainly not something I need in order to sustain life or anything. We opted instead for coffee at Starbucks. That place was slightly mobbed as well, but at least there wasn’t a line up out the door.

About half way through the wait to get my coffee I always have these thoughts that I really have no business being there, and that I really don’t NEED a coffee, and whose idea was this anyway?

Then of course we had to take our coffees to go, since there were no seats (and they have a huge upstairs seating area) which was just as well anyway, since I was getting warm as it was, and had no desire to start peeling off clothes to be comfortable.

We decided on one more stop, which was going to be the “Kaisergruft” since it was just over on the next street.

In the whole time that T.C. and I have been here, we’ve never been to the Kaisergruft, and even though we had been to the church, we somehow completely missed the entrance to the crypt. Such intrepid tourists! Rather than get into some great long explanation about this crypt, I’ll simply direct you to the Google search page here. That’s much simpler. You can read as much or as little as you’d like. You could spend a considerable amount of time reading it all though, so just be warned.

What I notice that seems to be missing from the photos on line is any mention of Otto, who was entombed there this past summer. He was the “Last of the Habsburgs”. I did a little synopsis back in July.

Don’t you just love all these links?

Anyway, here’s his sarcophagus.

He’s in there, but his heart is in Hungary.

Isn’t there a song title in there?

Never mind.

Just about at that point, the time had run out on T.C.’s knees, and my coffee was due to ‘find and outlet’ so to speak, so we opted to head for home.

That was our “big outing”.

Fascinating, I know.

My suspicion is that tomorrow there will be some baking going on (I baked banana bread today, but that’s kind of old hat) and then Tuesday morning we’re heading off to Slovenia for the rest of the week. I haven’t decided if I’ll take the laptop or not, but probably will. I mean, no blog for four days? The horror!

I certainly hope everyone has had a fine weekend. Ours wasn’t too shabby.

Thanks for stopping by.

There’s Here!

2011-12-17T05:28:00.001-08:00

And I’m probably going to go for a nap.

Seems that SOMEBODY had that Christmas morning kind of excitement going on this morning, and was up and had turned the coffee on not too much later than 5:30.

Normally that whole coffee program is my deal, but with the caveat that well, I have to get out of bed first?

Checked on the flight on line, and saw that it was going to arrive a bit early, at around 8:05, which turned out to be somewhat optimistic in the grand scheme of things, but no matter. There’s always a certain amount of waiting around when it comes to these things. Usually it’s me waiting for T.C., so it was nice to have some company for the wait.

It didn’t seem to be all that busy at first, but as the international flights all started to arrive, the arrivals area was getting to be more and more crowded.

If you know whom to look for after you click the pic, then good for you. If you’re not one of the chosen ones, I’m sorry.

Leading up to the arrival, all the while watching the arrivals board, waiting for the flashing lights to indicate when the plane had finally touched down etc., I was approached by a young lady asking for directions. This might be because I tend to hang back? Maybe I look like I could be approachable? Not sure. She was very pleasant, both in her demeanour and looks, and was speaking a language that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at first, but I got the idea she was looking for Gate B. That part made even less sense, so I thought maybe she was just a wee bit confused.

Since we just happened to be in a German speaking country, (and I still didn’t really know where the heck she needed to go) I proceeded to try and give her some directions to either the outside taxi stand or to the trains. That didn’t seem to have the desired effect, as I was getting that blank look of a person who has no clue what you’re talking about, so I said, “Perhaps English would be better?” Well yes, she did speak a little English, and was wondering where Gate “B” was, (see, that’s what I thought, but it was some Slavic tongue that wasn’t quite lighting up all the lights in the ole language centre….) since she had to catch a connecting flight to Düsseldorf.

Um ya see, if you’re out in the arrivals area, past the point of no return, you can either rent a car and drive to Düsseldorf, or take a train, or maybe there’s a bus? But getting back on a plane means you need to stay on the other side of that “point of no return”? I wouldn’t say that and stress the person out even more than she already was, but it was a thought that briefly crossed my mind.

All I said was, “Oooh, that’s a good question. I’m not 100% sure, but I think you shouldn’t have come out through those doors.”

I don’t even think she said anything at that point, since there was that moment of realisation that she had taken a wrong turn, and that was why there were no signs to the gates! After that second or two when I could quite clearly see her come to this realisation, she made a hasty retreat back through one of the doors, never to be seen again. This was good, since if she had re-emerged, that would have meant I was dead wrong. We didn’t want that.

Oh, and if you’re wondering how that’s at all possible? Well, security is done at the gate. There isn’t one big “Cattle Call” like at some airports, where you have to line up with each and every person who is ever going to be flying anywhere that day. No, here in Vienna and in most of the other airports I’ve been in so far in Europe, you only have to line up with the clowns who will be on your flight. It’s a good time to size up just who the idiots are, since T.C. and I always breeze through, (knock on wood) get a good seat in the departure “pen”, (kind of reminds me of preparing livestock for transport) at which point I quite enjoy watching all the shenanigans as people who apparently have never been to an airport in their lives, proceed to do all manner or really dumb things as they attempt to go through security. Quite entertaining really, but only if you’re not behind them.

Speaking of being entertained while in your comfy seat, our departure from the parking lot was somewhat memorable because of the freakin’ wind chill! I swear I put two, two Euro coins in that stupid machine, and then it had the nerve to tell me I still owed €1,90. The total cost started out at €3,90! Grrr. Somebody owes me two Euros! The thing was, the wind was just pickin’ things, my eyes were getting kinda watery, and I just wanted to get out of there. Ya, that was fun. It seems it was quite entertaining for my three passengers as they sat nice and toasty in the car. “We couldn’t figure out what you were doing.” Right. Well, apparently neither could I. Glad you enjoyed the show.

*******

I seem to have a number of pictures of guests in the back seat of our car.

Just for fun, they brought along a can of Tim Horton’s™ coffee. Always good. Along with a copy of Friday’s Globe and Mail. I think I know what I’ll be reading for the next few days!

We already have fly swatters and cling wrap, what more could I want?

Well, at this point it seems I’m the only one who is awake. We’ll have to see about that.

Keep those sticks on the ice.

Thanks for stopping by.

Just a Friday.

2011-12-16T06:49:00.001-08:00

Not too sure just how long Travelling Companion is going to be tonight, since there are a heap of things to sort out before she leaves her office. As it is she realised that there are a couple HR related items that she needs to plug in by the 31st, which is why if I were a betting man, I wouldn’t have taken that bet that she’d be able to leave work alone between now and the end of the year. There’s no point in doing the “I told you so” however. Not conducive to marital bliss.

~~We’d be home for almost a week at this point, and I’d be thinking about just what time I’d like to head out to the Big Bang Boozerama~~

Let’s not go there. We’re here. The kids will be here tomorrow. It’s all good.

Just wish the other two could have made it, but I’d sooner see them both gainfully employed, even if our only Christmas contact might be by way of Skype.

I just now looked up and noticed it’s started to rain. That wouldn’t be any kind of a big deal, except that all morning it’s been rather pleasant and sunny, which was the reason why I thought I’d try hanging out one of the bed sheets. That plan didn’t quite work out. Should I say again how much I miss our dryer?

We did have “red sky in the morning”, so that should have told me something. I was just blissfully unaware. I also find it somewhat troubling just how quickly it gets dark at this point in time in the afternoon. It just seems to be way, way too early. I go through this every year. You’d think I would figure it out. The days get shorter Bob, it’s no big deal.

Speaking of taking a while to figure stuff out. (gotta have those segues!) For as long as we’ve been here in Wienerland, I’ve been going to the honkin’ big pharmacy around the corner from our front door in order to pick up prescriptions for Travelling Companion. The thing is, they never have the stuff in stock, always have to order it, which means I have to go back the next day. That wouldn’t be so bad, but there’s always a huge mob at this place every single time I have to go there. And yes, if you’re picking up, you can go to the dedicated “pick-up” area, but there’s always a line-up there too.

So then I finally had an epiphany and realised that, if I have to go back the next day anyway, I may as well order these things from the tiny little “Apotheke” that’s down the street. Sure enough, I went in there yesterday morning, and there was ONE person ahead of me. I placed my order knowing full well that they wouldn’t have it on hand. Got my little claim ticket and left. Went back this morning and there was NOBODY ahead of me and I was in and out in about five minutes. I’ve gone to this small place a couple times before, which is why it’s even more vexing that I hadn’t figured out the ordering part beforehand. What a bonehead.

It so happened that when I was in there yesterday, the one person ahead of me was speaking English to the lady behind the counter, (I guess they’re called a “druggist”?) so when I got up there, I said to her in German that I supposed that we could either speak German of English. She preferred German, (“Mir geht’s besser Deutsch”.) so that was fine. Good to know one’s limitations.

I only mention this, since the fellow who went to retrieve my order this morning, (I never seem to get the same person twice.) thought he’d try out his English with me, even though our conversation up to that point had been in German. He quite possibly noticed that I had “Bronte Harbour Yacht Club” on the front of my jacket, and something to do with St. Andrew’s golf course on my hat? Not sure. Well, I did pay with my Scotiabank visa, so I guess there were some definite signs.

I don’t know why he thought he’d switch to English, since his English was pitiful. Try thinking of Sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes? These people just don’t get enough practise. “Sank yoo, haf a nice dey.”

Ya, spell check doesn’t like it when I try to write à la Sergeant Shultz.

Most of you in North America quite likely know who Sergeant Schultz is, since you probably watched Hogan’s Heroes, but just for kicks and giggles, I’ll put up a brief video as a bit of a retrieval cue.

Don’t for a nano second think that this silly show was in any way shape or form based on the reality of being a POW. There was no laugh track in any of the Stalags, trust me.

The accent however, isn’t that much of an exaggeration. Mind you, I’ve met a few Austrians who have a fairly reasonable command of some semblance of a “Broadcast Standard English”, but then you find out that they’ve lived part of their lives in an English speaking country. I guess that’s the only way they can do it.

A somewhat trivial but nonetheless pleasant by-product of my visit to this small Pharmacy this morning was that they gave me some free stuff!

Always good to get free stuff. There have been a couple times when travelling by air when I’ve wished I had my shaving cream along, so the middle one just might come in handy. Not so sure about the outside two. “Wash lotion”? Meh, don’t think so.

Mind you, I think I spent enough. Did I mention I had to use my visa? It’s no big deal however, since the Company that Cannot be Named will give us back all the money. (So yes, it really is “free stuff”.) That’s the nature of our “plan”. They tried using an actual insurance company when we first moved to Europe. That didn’t really work all that well. Good blog fodder though! Especially when some outfit in Connecticut sends a cheque drawn on a US bank. (Oh, I guess I should say “check”, whatever). I don’t know what they thought we were going to do with it? It’s just a piece of paper with some numbers and letters on it. Ever heard of a direct deposit?

First of all, they don’t use cheques in Europe. Besides, we don’t use a US banks since, (here’s the biggie) WE BE CANADIAN. I want to say I’m not sure what the thought process is, but then I realise, there was no thinking. Or the thinking was, “That’s the way we do it, so that must be right. Right?” Don’t get me started. I realise I just now rolled my eyes.

For the most part, that’s all water under the bridge, but then every so often there’s just that hint of dimwittedness, when you say to yourself, “but I thought they figured that out?”. We’ve been here since about the middle of 08, so the learning curve shouldn’t be quite so shallow? It got to the point a few months ago where the big kahuna over in Switzerland was getting so annoyed at the way these kinds of things were being handled, all the while threatening to use another relocation firm, that after some serious butt clenching, they’ve been trying to clean up their act somewhat.

Names have been omitted to protect the stupid.

It’s a unique experience, this Ex-pat thing, I’ll give you that much.

Hope you all have a fine weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

Two more sleeps!

2011-12-15T04:13:00.001-08:00

And that too could be a previous blog post title. I’m never really sure.

Plus, it’s a funny thing what one tends to find acceptable as “family vocabulary”, since I would think twice about using the number of “sleeps” to count down to an event with a total stranger. Try this out and see if this works for you: “Nasa has confirmed that their new rocket will launch in two more sleeps”. See? There’s something just wrong about that.

So when Travelling Companion said those two words last night before she crashed at about 9:30, it didn’t sound strange to me at all. This is a person who has more than just a couple letters behind her name, yet has also been known to use another bit of family jargon, which is “bake to hork”.

OK, so now you’re really confused.

I guess I have to explain that one. But if I do, and if I read it somewhere in some scientific journal (as if), I’m going to be really pissed, and I’m going to want to track down whoever blabbed. So keep it to yourselves.

See, many years ago, when I worked afternoons, I transferred to a school that was even closer to our house than where I been working up until then. During my entire time as a Caretaker, I had always tried to have a commute to work that was never any longer than about 10 minutes. Twenty minutes MAXIMUM, and that only happened because we moved across town. As soon as I could, I transferred to a closer school. Hey, there’s something to be said for “seniority”.

I think it was some sort of overreaction to my previous experience in the restaurant business where, within the span of one year, I put 100,000 km on a company car. That’s a lot of driving. Didn’t want to do it no more.

All transfers are done towards the latter part of May, on into June. What that means is, one typically finds oneself in a new school just in time for the dreaded “summer clean up”. *ugh*

“Summer clean up” is just about the worst part of the job. It’s hot. It’s humid (this is Southern Ontario remember) and there’s gobs of work to do. There were very few air conditioned schools in the system, and in most cases, the stupid air conditioning was shut off in the summer anyway. That’s a whole other story.

It so happened that the fellow I was going to be working with, and who is still working as a Head Caretaker for the Board, is originally from the Azores. That link will take you to a wiki article, just in case your geography is a tad weak.

The thing was though, this fellow had only made it to about grade three in the Azores, so you can well imagine that, not only was his written Portuguese not that great, but his English was even worse. I didn’t realise it then, but there would be many times later when I’d have to “translate”. And we were ALL speaking English.

I seem to recall, just after being transferred, that I worked with him for a few days, at which point he was taking some vacation time, and then he was coming back in after a couple weeks. So there I sat, all by my lonesome, in our tiny little office next to the boiler room on the first Monday that I’d be working there by myself, knocking back coffee number two, and trying to come to grips with the situation, when I happened to notice on the calendar over the desk, that he has written down our “vacation schedule”. You can well imagine that I’m using the term “written” in the most broad sense. Here’s why:

I could decipher where, for his vacation time, he had put in the word “off”. “Off” is pretty easy. But then on the following Monday, he had written in “Bake to hork”. Sound it out a few times. I did. And after about four tries, I realised it said, “Back to work”! Eureka!

So there you go. Our immediate family has been using “Bake to hork” ever since. If we’re with strangers or those who are not ‘in the know’, we get looked at like we’re a bunch of complete idiots, but we don’t really care.

There’s a segue in there, since the thing he used to do before getting a job as a Caretaker was cut hair. He would regale me with these stories of how many heads of hair he used to cut, back when he first came to Canada. As best as I can recall, and as best as I could figure out, (it’s that “translating” thing?) it got to the point where he was physically no longer able to comfortably hold the required hair cutting equipment for all those hours. It’s possible it was carpel tunnel syndrome, but I’ll never know, since that wasn’t part of his English lexicon.

Um ya, there were times when I had no friggin clue what he was talking about.

So, that brings me to one of this morning’s chores: It was time for Bob’s pre-Christmas hair cut. The pre-Christmas hair cut turns out to be no different than any other haircut, but it just has a nice ring to it.

It’s always good to have pictorial evidence. I had no clue what I was taking a picture of, since I would need to put on my glasses to actually check. I was just pointing and hoping.

Both Travelling Companion and I have been going to "Frau Gabi” since arriving here in Wienerland, Not only is her salon within a city block of our front door, but she also has a passable grasp of English. She and I always speak German when I’m there, but the English comes in handy for T.C.

I don’t know how we got on the subject, but she was telling me a story about a hair dresser (or perhaps more accurately, it was a “Barber”) whose name she wasn’t about to divulge, in the sixth district, the bulk of whose customers go to him so they can all have a drink!

Oh, I remember. It was because I was telling her about my Dad taking me to his brother-in-law (my Uncle Merrill) to get my hair cut when I was a kid. It was only twenty-five cents! I remember that part, but I also remember him being drunk most of the time. Actually no, it was all the time. Not my Dad, he hardly touched a drop. I mean my Uncle Merrill. And this was during the daytime, well before the sun had ever come over the yardarm.

And man, did he stink! And I remember one time how he managed to cut me. Bled like a stuck pig too. Funny the things we don’t ever forget.

So…. drinking and cutting hair? I know from personal experience that it’s not a good combination. “Frau Gabi” went on to say how all his customers (men, presumably) would come out of the place looking like their hair had been cut by a drunk. Pretty much the way my hair looked for roughly the first ten years of my life. Not a pretty sight, believe me.

And no, there will be no pictorial evidence. I hope there are no old photos lying around. Gawd help me.

Oh, and the “two more sleeps”? What? You thought I forgot? We’ll be picking up daughter number one and her main man at the airport Saturday morning. Hehee!

Almost forgot to mention, and this was a pleasant surprise, “Frau Gabi” likes to give out little Christmas presents in the days leading up to Christmas.

I got me some hand cream.

Right.

Because I mean, I really need hand cream. Admittedly there might have been a time when I’d slather on some hand cream, back in the day, but it’s been a while.

Don’t worry, I was very gracious in accepting my hand cream. I’m not that much of an ingrate after all.

Does your hairdresser/barber give out a Christmas present?

I didn’t think so.

So just remember, be careful with sharp objects, or better yet, no cutting hair while drunk.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Inspection.

2011-12-14T03:03:00.001-08:00

That does sound a tad ominous. It’s not, really.

Once upon a time, back in August it so happens, I was checking my emails, as I do from time to time, and there was a note from someone at the Landlord’s office.

It went like this:

“Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

Wir teilen mit, dass am Dienstag, den 30.08.2011 ab 9.00 Uhr eine Wohnungsbegehung durch einen Sachverständigen stattfinden wird.

Dieser wird einen Ortsaugenschein zwecks Feststellung von etwaigen Baumängeln durchführen.

Wir ersuchen Sie, zu dem genannten Termin in Ihren Räumlichkeiten anwesend zu sein um den Zutritt zu Ihrer Mietfläche zu gewährleisten.

Wir ersuchen bitte um Kenntnissnahme und Veranlassung.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen”.

Oh right. It’s is German. For anyone whose first language is German, you can just skip the next part, since I’ll briefly sum up.

Seems they were sending someone on over to have a look around, just to see how the place was holding up. That’s a pretty loose translation, but I’ll not bore you with specifics.

The supposed appointment was going to be for the 30th of August. Now here’s the thing. First of all, I pointed out to this chimp that giving me a week’s notice was really rather unacceptable and secondly, that it just so happened that we were in Canada at the time. And August? Half the country is still on vacation in August, we were no exception.

So the next note had something to do with “several of the parties are unavailable….bla, bla, bla,” and, “Der neue Termin wird voraussichtlich Mitte (sic) September stattfinden und wird Ihnen zeitgerecht bekanntgeben.”.

OK, see the word “September” in there? You get the idea. I think I replied. I don’t recall.

So the bottom line was, they got around to doing this “inspection” today.

It was fun. Trust me.

I tried not to get too carried away, and hopefully I was able to curb my enthusiasm when it came to describing the door installer Dude with his Coke Bottle glasses, and missing finger, or how somebody managed to completely miss using drywall tape in one of the bedrooms. Y’know, stuff that they never ever would have gotten away with if I had been doing the “inspecting”? Hanging doors plumb, and wiring up light fixtures that actually have power going to them is kind of the way it should be done? But hey, what do I know?

I’ve heard of “plumber’s crack”, and I suppose this is some sort of “drywaller’s crack”? That will be the extent of the crack remarks. Let’s just nip that in the bud, shall we?

See the ‘black line’? That’s where the dry wall installer didn’t use enough (or any) dry wall tape, and the joint (seam) has subsequently opened up. Oh, and just for kicks and giggles, here’s a three minute video on using dry wall tape. Again, ‘been there, done that’.

Little Dude on the right was making notes in his little book. I didn’t offer him a little coffee, even though at the moment, the bigger Dude on the left looks like he wouldn’t mind one.

At that particular moment I think he was asking me if we had a humidifier, so I’m not sure what the “coffee grasp” had to do with it. Possibly some unique Austrian hand gesture that I haven’t yet learned.

Curiously enough too, little Dude on the right sort of reminded me of George Costanza, but that’s probably since I watched a couple episodes of Seinfeld last night. My mind can be a mysterious and frightful place.

At this precise moment I don’t recall the word for humidifier in German, but I knew what he was talking about. That sort of “German by osmosis” thing is what has been working for me all along. When it comes right down to it, I really haven’t a clue.

And the answer was no, we don’t have a humidifier. We don’t even use one back home where it can get heaps colder, and heaps dryer in the house. Break out the ChapStick!

He was intrigued by the fact that our neighbours have more areas of their hardwood flooring that have opened up than we do. It has nothing to do with the inhabitants, I’ll tell you that right now.

I went on to describe the ins and outs of installing hardwood flooring (been there, done that, got the sore knees to prove it, trust me) with particular attention being paid to something called “directions” that most every manufacturer will include with each and every package of hardwood flooring that they sell. And on these directions, if you’re not too proud to read them, it clearly states that the material in question has to “acclimatize”, for some times as long as 48 hours. Minimum 24. Minimum.

So here’s what I think happened. We know that our neighbours moved in in August of 09. I found this out from my neighbour a couple floors down, since it seems they were trying to move in on the same day. That must have been fun. Anyway, my guess is that the flooring would have been installed some time in July, and if their floor went in first, that would have given the packages of flooring for our place more time to “acclimatize”. The verb in German is not too hard to come up with, it’s “akklimatisieren”. Again, German by osmosis.

That would explain why their floor has more places where there are now cracks. The cracks that we have in our flooring opened up the first full summer we were here (2010) and have never really moved since. No crack jokes. I implore you.

So that was the inspection. They were very polite. Took no more than 20 minutes I’d say. Didn’t go up on the terrace, and didn’t seem to be too interested in anything outside at all. We said our good-byes, and I sent them on their way.

******

Meanwhile, in spite of getting home this morning at about 12:30, Travelling Companion was on her way once again to her other office up in Schrems. She was picking up an associate at 7:30, so it was another early morning. After this Friday, she has promised that she’s not about to do another stitch of work until the first week in January, so of course that means that all the work has to be compressed into this week. Judging by the fog outside, I don’t think her trip will be all that enjoyable. At least there’s a second set of eyes travelling along with her.

I recall that when we were home last year at this time, she did have to go on a couple conference calls from there, with the time difference being the one truly huge annoyance. After the first one or two times on previous occasions when she’d have to get up for a 3:30 a.m. call, (9:30 a.m. in Wienerland) they started scheduling these calls for a little later in the day. That was at least a consideration. So the work from this particular week did continue, even though we were in another country at the time. Whether or not she can go until the New Year without turning on her crackberry or computer? I’m afraid I’ll need to experience that first hand to believe it. Stay tuned.

Happy Trails!

Thanks for stopping by.

The package is away!

2011-12-12T04:34:00.001-08:00

Getting tougher for me to come up with titles. Obviously.

Even though yesterday was a “Silent Sunday”, I’ve used that one. Never to be used again.

Since it’s Monday, and December, that must mean I was at the post office this morning. There were a few more cards to be sent off, a couple of which are headed for spots within Europe, along with a box of “stuff”. I shouldn’t even allude to the contents, since it’s Christmas related. Might only be bubble wrap! I’m not telling.

Man, that would suck, wouldn’t it?

It turns out that if the box was being sent as a “package”, it was supposed to go by December 5th. BUT, if it’s being sent as a “letter”, then it’s all good. Confused? You’re not alone. I mean, it WAS a box, but I sent it as a letter. Right. Welcome to Absurdistan! I had to pay something like an extra €10 for this little parlour trick, but I did get a tracking number and the faint hope that it would arrive at its destination by Christmas. “Nicht garantiert”. But is anything guaranteed when you send it in the mail? Seriously.

So I think I’m done with the post office program. I seem to get the same lady each and every time I go there, and I told her it was my intent that she wouldn’t have to lay eyes on me again until some time in the New Year. If ever. Since she normally has a somewhat glum demeanour, I wasn’t actually sure whether, by making her crack a smile, she was being charitable, amused, or was genuinely happy at the prospect of not seeing my ugly mug for a while. Now I’m full of doubt. I guess we’ll never know.

Speaking of the post office, I think I’ve alluded to the somewhat sketchy delivery service we’ve received at our Canadian location over the last 20 years or so? Quite often we’ve had to do a “mail exchange” with an elderly gentleman about twenty houses away on our street. Something to do with dyslexia. Well, I received an email from a friend back home on Friday, saying the Christmas card I had sent the previous Tuesday had already arrived at her door! That’s four days folks! What the hell planet are we on?

I’ve known it to take longer to get mail from our place to Toronto, and that’s only a 40 minute drive from our front door. I don’t understand. I notice they put that little “priority” sticker on each envelope, but I just thought that was to make me feel important. I guess it does mean something.

Of course, that’s only one recipient. I have no way of knowing if any of the other cards arrived at their destinations. Maybe they’re sitting in a bag in a freight car off on some railroad spur in New Brunswick? We’ll find out some day I suppose.

Speaking of December. Wasn’t I? We realised on Saturday that it was the 10th. Well, I did anyway. See, last year on the tenth of December, we were on our way home. It was a Friday. I had tried to lobby for a Thursday departure in the naive hope that I could make it to the pub on the Friday night. Fool. I’m a complete mess for almost a week after we get home, so I don’t know where I got the idea that I could function any time after about six p.m. on the day of our arrival. *pfft* Go out again? C’mon!

Anyway, it was just a thought that crossed my mind, since were not doing the “home for Christmas” program this year. I suppose the good news for daughter number two is that she didn’t have to fret about cleaning the house for the week leading up to our arrival. The other slightly ironic thing is, had we gone home, we would have to go and visit daughter number one and her main squeeze at their new house for Christmas, or they’d come and see us, or whatever. Whereas over the last few years, it was only a matter of them coming up a flight of stairs to join us for Christmas. The other twist is, they’re coming HERE for Christmas. So there won’t even be a “first Christmas” in their new house. I guess there will never be a return to “normal”, whatever that was.

It’s all too confusing.

Since we’re staying in Vienna, did I mention I put up some lights?

Freaky, huh?

They’ve actually been up for a few days now. I had to go out and buy another timer for the bottom (white) string, since I got tired of traipsing out there in my slippers each night trying to unplug the stupid things. One thing about European style plugs, when you plug something in, the plug isn’t going to come out all that easily, so going through that routine on a daily basis wasn’t working.

I certainly hope the weather is considerably better where ever it is you find yourself at the moment.

Keep that stick on the ice, and thanks for stopping by.

Wandering aimlessly.

2011-12-10T12:40:00.001-08:00

And that’s about all I have to say. It was another “shopping day”, which was more like a “shopping, couple of hours”, since I had pretty well had enough after about the first hour or so. It was like being at the Vatican at Easter. Seriously, it seemed like half the world had decided to head to Vienna today.

There was no point in taking the car, since the objective was to go down to the first district, and we really didn’t even know where we wanted to end up. That meant taking the subway, getting off at Stubentor and making our way back until well, we couldn’t take it any more.

If I tell you all the streets we were on, it wouldn’t matter anyway, so I’ll just put up some pictures.

Ah, and see the clock? T.C. didn’t want to believe me that we got such a late start. She wanted to “go early”. Hm.

And if you want to overdose on Viennese Schnitzel, this is the place. Didn’t go today, I’m just pointing it out.

The Schnitzels are bigger than a dinner plate. Of course, that’s pretty much all you get, but that’s OK, since that’s about all a person can eat. There’s a pretty good description of various types of Schnitzels here.

We actually went in and bought something here:

A person could seriously haemorrhage a bank account at this place. Men’s clothing by the way. Youwzah.

The store we were actually looking for was this next place.

Yes, that’s Spiderman hanging off the wall. It’s a sort of claustrophobic kind of merchandising store that I had to get out of after about 10 minutes. I can handle it when things are nicely displayed, but this place was just way too busy. I didn’t take a picture inside, since even if that were OK, it wouldn’t have made much sense anyway. Besides, it wasn’t only about comic books. I could have handled only comic books. They just had way too much junk for my liking. When you start buying things like Star Wars slippers, or a Simpson’s loofah? Please. I’ll admit I just might be making up a couple things here, but you know what I mean. There’s a nice little video that sums up the silliness of merchandising here, if you’re so inclined. My apologies for the humour of Mel Brooks, but it’s your own fault for sticking around this long.

Now, speaking of things that make you go, “whoa”, there was this fellow zipping on by with a furry hat on his head. There’s a story about those hats. They ain’t cheap, and wearing them has something to do with tradition.

Why am I suddenly whistling the theme from “Fiddler on a roof”? Wrong bunch, I know. Indulge me.

The name of that particular hat by the way, is a either a Spodik, or a Shtreimel. I’m more or less at the outer limits of my research capacity here, you’re welcome to find out on your own.

Anyway, we didn’t find anything at all in the Comic store, mostly since buying something there for the intended recipient is like buying a hand tool for yours truly. I either already have it, or the one you picked out is perhaps not quite what I had in mind.

What will follow is a succession of pictures I took right up until we decided we needed to go home.

And if you can believe it, there were actually tour groups making their way through these hordes! For the most part, with the exception of the tour groups, making our way through the throngs is almost tolerable. People aren’t overly rude or anything, and do tend to make way, or whatever. Once in a while though, you get the ladies and their baby buggies, and when the frequency of tour groups and baby buggies reaches a certain threshold, that’s when I start to formulate a plan to get out of there and go home.

I’m afraid I’m not clever enough to come up with a mathematical formula to demonstrate this urge to slap somebody silly, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. It would be something like: Frequency of tour groups times baby buggies, times the square root of the increasing pain in my neck and shoulders, equals Bob get’s really crusty. Time to go home.

Don’t try to make sense of that, but I think you understand the “formula”.

We had this naive idea that we’d go out again this evening and take in some of the sights, but after dinner we just no longer had the ambition for much more walking around, standing around or higher math.

The night time crowd must be heaps younger than yours truly.

Hope you’re enjoying your weekend so far.

Thanks for stopping by.

I feel like Willy.

2011-12-09T05:34:00.001-08:00

Although, now that I’ve started reading up a little bit about Willy Nelson and his tax troubles, I realise he was in the BIG LEAGUES. Whoa. Those are some scary numbers. No no, we’re not even remotely close here…

See here’s the deal. When you’re an “Ex-Pat”, the Company that Cannot Be Named will do whatever they can to “keep you whole”. So what that means is they hire the lawyers and tax people to sort out all those little details, and we just make sure we sign the papers in the right spots. Some times there are pages and pages, but it’s been working so far. The Puerto Rico gig was OK, but the various entities that are supposed to be handling these little issues have been dragging their heals a bit when it comes to our European Experience.

The Dutch government in particular has been pretty slow in getting their end of things sorted out, and it was only just recently that that whole mess was put to bed. We moved here (i.e. left the Netherlands) in 2009. Just thought I’d mention that. Doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, since it all has to be dealt with by the hired hands.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our good buddies over there at Revenue Canada, (yes, I know they call it something else now and I don’t care, “The Revenuers” OK?) have been getting a wee bit anxious. See, for a while now, Travelling Companion has been telling somebody in the Company that Cannot be Named, that not enough was being deducted from her pay. See where this might be headed? Scary thought, I know. We have been dutifully setting aside our shekels for a quite a while now. We knew. Oh ya, we knew them chickens was comin’ home to roost.

It’s not supposed to be this onerous. The Company that Cannot be Named sent some dough off to the Revenuers to keep them happy, and then when all the dust settled, they wanted their money back. That’s the way it works. Sucks, I know.

I thought we should offer some sort of monthly payment plan like, oh I don’t, Fifty bucks a month? T.C. didn’t think they’d appreciate that.

Well, we don’t have a cheque book lying around in these parts, but thankfully we gave daughter number two signing authority at the bank. There are simply some things you can’t do from half a world away. My impression is she had to practise a little in order to get all the words into that little line on the top of the cheque, but she managed. I mean, even when you get a mortgage, you don’t actually have to write the cheque, so writing those bigger ones can be a challenge. The other slight wrinkle was, she naturally wrote the cheque on our Canadian bank, and we weren’t too sure if the fine folks at the Company that Cannot be Named would even know what to do with it. Several days passed, *several*, but much to their credit, and to the detriment of our bank account, they did figure out how to cash it. *groan*. That’s the thing with on line banking, you can find out any time day or night just what kind of shape your finances might be in. So much for being blissfully unaware.

So for anyone out there who thinks, “Oh those executives, they don’t pay their share”? You can just bite me. That’s all.

I guess it’s like having a tooth pulled. Once it’s over with and the pain subsides, life goes on and you get over it. Sort of.

So no, we won’t be going “On the road again".

***********

Last week some time I guess it was, I noticed this ad for a production of “Carmen” that will be put on next summer.

Had no clue where this open air theatre was, and couldn’t for the life of me decipher where it was from all the bla bla in the ad. I guess they figure you should know? Well, it turns out it’s a former quarry that goes back to Roman times, (in German, a Römersteinbruch)which is now used as an amphitheatre.

It’s also under an hour’s drive from here, which you can see by clicking on this map link. I have my suspicion that this isn’t necessarily something that is a draw for the average tourist in these parts, and that’s mostly since the tickets were not as overwhelmingly expensive as most opera tickets tend to be. The total amount came in under €200, for both of us. This will sound a tad silly, but that’s “cheap” for opera tickets. Well, unless you want to stand at the back, but I think I’ve explained how that will never be an option.

Not only that, but the quarry itself if quite something, so we’ll get there a little early, have a look around and go and enjoy an opera. This isn’t happening until next July, so there may even be a chance to take a drive down there in the mean time.

We’ve seen Carmen, (back in 1991 I think?) and this isn’t like we’ve seen all the operas we’d ever want to see in our lives and have now decided to go back to the beginning. That’s not the way it works. It’s here. We’re here. We have to go. That’s all there is to it.

Now back to my regularly scheduled Friday activities.

Hope you enjoy your day.

Thanks for stopping by.

It’s a Holiday!

2011-12-08T06:05:00.001-08:00

Big whoop. All that really means is that some of the stores are closed, making it just that much trickier to figure out what to make for dinner. It’ll be chicken soup I’m thinking.

Speaking of dinner, there were a couple questions about what was in the other three pots. They weren't just for show, by the way. The little one had some sautéed pine nuts, the one to my immediate left had about five cups of chicken broth that I was slowly adding to the rice concoction, and the other big one had the shitake mushrooms, that had been added to the sautéed onion and garlic.

I think.

Hey, it was two days ago. That’s already ancient history when it comes to the stuff I can remember. Hope that helps. Further details will not likely be forthcoming.

So ya, about that holiday. It’s the Immaculate Conception, and we won’t even touch that one with a ten foot dogma pole. It’s only 17 days until Christmas. Hello? We won’t go there either.

Back here in the real world, that means Travelling Companion is supposed to have the day off. That never happens of course, since there’s always somebody working somewhere who doesn’t know if their hind end is bored or punched, but at least she was able to work from home. No commuting, which therefore translates into sleeping in just a wee bit.

I was surprised to see Mariahilfer Straße was closed when I went out for my morning jaunt. There are a fair number of stores that are open, so I’m not sure what the set of criteria might be in terms of who closes and why. The folks at the bakery mentioned yesterday that they would be open, and even though I didn’t really need to go, I went anyway just to get the blood flowing. I did find it of note that only the franchise owners were working, which tells me that the “help” would be getting time and a half or double time. Hm? I remember having those little puzzles to figure out once upon a time when I was in the restaurant business. Sometimes it’s not worth it to open up if all your take is going to pay staff. Good for them. Not good for the business in the long run.

In typical fashion, there’s always something going on out on the street. No clue what these guys were up to, but when I came back, there was a small film crew there.

Somehow I don’t think the heater was all that effective? Too windy.

The temperature out on our terrace is about 7°C, but the wind is pretty brutal again today, and I had a sharp reminder of just what “wind chill” is all about on my way back. Gah! They don’t seem to talk about something like wind chill here. Too temperate I guess. I know it enters into our lexicon as Canadians on a fairly regular basis.

Wish it didn’t.

I’ve included a chart for home study purposes. Knock yourself out.

Not too much else happening today in Wienerland. Travelling Companion has taken a little break and is in the bedroom watching yet another episode of "Cold Case". I think she’s going to run out of stuff to watch soon. Not sure what we’ll do. There’s always the stuff she missed after falling asleep during any given show. This is an oft repeated conversation when it comes to this phenomenon.

Me: “We’ve seen this”.

T.C.: “No we haven’t”

Me: *sigh*

“Yes. We watched this last year some time.”

T.C.: *silence*

Me: “Oh right, you fell asleep”.

I try not to roll my eyes.

On a positive note, an hour of programming can turn into about three, so that’s good economy. But that’s usually why I’m not in there watching too, since I’ve probably already seen it. TV keeps me awake. Puts her to sleep.

We had a similar “Are we strange?” kind of moment on the weekend, when she was cleaning the bathroom and I was baking banana bread. See, the last time I cleaned the bathroom, apparently it didn’t quite meet expectations, and the last time she made banana bread well, you can fill in the rest. It’s tricky, but it needs to be cooked. I’ve been managing that chore ever since. I refuse to throw out over ripe bananas is all. Some sort of “farmer boy” mentality.

Tomorrow, more opera stuff. Betcha can’t wait?

and…

Remember to close your mouth when the wind picks up.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cooking Alone.

2011-12-07T06:29:00.001-08:00

And that’s really the only way to do it, since I don’t know of too many cooks* who really want anyone else hanging around.

Or, as one of Travelling Companion’s former associates used to say, when he meant “hanging around”, he’d say, “Hoovering”. He was trying to say, “Hovering”, but his first language was Dutch, and there was the odd time when some things would come out a wee bit wrong. Like the Bay of Foondy (Fundy). We never did offer to correct any of these little slips, since it was so entertaining. Was that mean?

And besides, correcting folks who are using another language other than their mother tongue to communicate all the time is just rude I think. Who gives a shit, really?

Having said that, (the cooking alone part that is) there are times on the weekends when Travelling Companion and I will muster up some sort of joint effort. Last weekend wasn’t one of those times. Some times we’re just not hungry. I think it’s some sort of lack of discipline during the day, as we tend to graze just a little too much. All I seem to recall was the steaks we had Sunday night.

This is what they look like before adding some Denninger's Steak spice and Worcestershire sauce.

(Click that link for a clue as to what exactly Denninger’s is…)

The butcher actually cuts them from a tenderloin, and will cut them as thin (not good) or thick as I’d like. Thicker is better, since then we don’t end up with insoles instead of steaks. Travelling Companion likes hers a little more done than me, so hers might just be a little thinner. That’s heaps easier than trying to stagger cooking times. Staggered cooking times! Ha! Please, are you kidding?

See, I took that damned picture, and I had to figure out a way of sticking it here. So there you go.

*ahem*

Speaking of simple. I was, sort of, right? I usually try and keep meals simple. Because well, I AM. It’s taken me a lot of years to realise that I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and after I came to that contusion (I mean, conclusion) everything got easier. Believe me. Just accept it.

Which is why preparing last night’s meal was a bit of an undertaking. It’s one of those that is usually at least a joint effort. Well, either that or I just stay safely off to one side. It’s a one person kitchen after all.

This is a recipe that we got from my sister-in-law from WAY around on the other side of world, off there in West Vancouver. Thanks “L”!

Yes, I was actually using FOUR pots! Jumpin’! There’s only four burners, so I suppose that’s pretty much the limit.

Now, I just realised that I’ve run out of segues. It’s an unfortunate situation really, but I haven’t a clue how to make the jump to this next idea. I must have used them all up in November. Sad, really. I apologize.

******

There’s an expression that one should be mindful of whenever you find yourself on a boat. (this will make sense, just wait)

And I’m not really kidding around here. Whether it’s a sailboat, powerboat, doesn’t matter. It’s simply this: “One hand for the boat”.

What that means is, whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re moving, you need to be hanging onto something. One hand or the other. Boats can do some unpredictable things. Sailboats even more so. Trust me, it saves a great deal of blood letting or having the rest of the crew do a “man overboard” drill.

Mind you, if you’re tying a bowline in the clue of the headsail, and need both hands, my preference is to be right down on the deck. But that’s just me. Tougher to get hurled overboard that way.

As an example of the mumbo jumbo confusion that I’ve long ago realised is the best that I can possibly do when it comes to “thinking”, this was a thought that occurred to me as I was stirring the rice while whipping up the Chicken Risotto..

“One hand for the glass.”

Not that I wanted to make the whole procedure more complicated or anything, it’s just that the recipe calls for white wine. I figured, to be on the safe side, I should really test it. We must err on the side of caution after all.

But then, really and truly, I think it’s a pretty good cooking motto! “One hand for the glass” people! Look sharp!

I can’t see why that wouldn’t catch on.

I’ll alert the media.

With that, I’ll bid you a pleasant day.

And, as usual, thanks for stopping by.

*I’m using that term “cook” in an overly generous fashion when referring to myself of course.

Back to the post office.

2011-12-06T05:51:00.001-08:00

It’s always a busy place, and it doesn’t seem to matter what time of day it is, or the season. Well, except possibly in the summertime when most of the Austrians are on vacation, but I coincidently never seem to go to the post office then.

Seems like an archaic kind of thing. Sticking these little bits of paper onto bigger bits of paper. Kinda fun to get those bits of paper in the mail I suppose.

In answer to the question a couple days ago as to whether or not we actually bought something on Saturday, I thought I had said that, yes we did. The thing was, I couldn’t say what it was, since it involves Christmas presents, but I think I said that too. So today’s “mission”, was to try and come up with some combination of box or boxes in which these items can then be shipped home. I think I may have found something, but there will be no pictures. Hello? Christmas presents. Remember?

We need to work on our comprehension skills here people.

I’ve always been an advocate of gift certificates myself, and just last week I ordered something from the Canadian version of Amazon that has already been delivered to the recipients. They’re now on their honour to not peek, put it under the tree and open it on Christmas morning. My idea of Christmas shopping.

My total today at the post office was only €15,50. I have a few more on my list, but they’re within Europe so I can put those off for a couple days. The post office lady asked if I wanted stamps or to just put it into the computer? (I know, I was a bit confused too) I simply said for her to do whatever was easier for her. So she then proceeds to go to the stamp book and rip out the appropriate number of first €1,00 stamps, and then €,70 stamps, moisten them all, and stick them on the envelopes. That took forever. I was hoping that I didn’t have to do that chore, but still. The girl yesterday did it differently, and much more efficiently I thought. Nothing like the “old” ways! Shouldn’t there be some automated way of doing that? Just wondering. Besides, they have those peel and stick stamps these days, or at least I’ve used them in Canada and the Netherlands. Not sure what’s up with the Austrians. Maybe licking is cheaper. So it’s no wonder there’s always a line at the post office. And handling post is less than half of it. They sell cell phones, DVDs, CDs. I suppose they’ve had to diversify. You can even do you banking with them, although they were bought out by BAWAG in 2005. BAWAG is a proper bank. Not that you care.

As is the case with any metropolitan area, we have our share of beggars and other homeless types. We’re certainly not going to enter into any philosophical discussions regarding that situation, but I did want to point out this one individual that I see from time to time. He/she tends to hang around on Neubaugaße for the most part, and is a bit of an enigma.

He/she was sitting off to the right of the “Blue Tomato” store. By the way, what the hell kind of a name in “Blue Tomato”? (wait, just looked it up, apparently it’s a snowboard and surf shop, who knew?)

Anyway, I pretended to take a picture of the boys on the scaffold, and zoomed in on him/her.

Yes, he/she is wearing a helmet. The only time I’ve ever seen that is when there’s a danger of epileptic seizure. There never seems to be any interaction between this person and anyone else, so it’s not as if he/she is a beggar. Although, maybe the cup off to one side is for a collection? Not sure. Just the same, a little troubling.

OK, on a less troubling note, I thought I’d include this picture of a rather nice Triumph that’s on display at the front of the Gerngross. One of my nieces has a “scooter” of some sort, so I figured I’d put it here for her.

I can just hear her now saying, “Scooter? scooter? I don’t have no damned scooter!!”

See, this is her bike. It’s a crappy pic, since I stole it from her Facebook profile.

Hers is the red one. Pretty sure that’s not a scooter. So just calm down. She and her hubby have “his and hers”.

I think that’s it for today’s missive. Nothing too exciting going on. Just waiting for those kids to arrive.

Keep it between the ditches, and thanks for stopping by.

Hold on to yer hat!

2011-12-05T05:05:00.001-08:00

This will sound silly, and I know it doesn’t work that way, but it’s almost as if we’re getting the tail end of the winds they had in parts of California over the last couple days.

I took Travelling Companion to work this morning, since I have a couple errands to run, and there was no wind when we went out the door, but as we got half way to our destination it sure picked up. They’re calling for gusts up to 80 kph. I realise that’s no where near the 80 mph winds of California, but you know, it’s California, they can’t be outdone.

To quote an oft used down east expression, “The wind is just pickin’ things”.

We won’t get into just how grammatically incorrect that is, too hard to explain. It’s that whole “transitive/intransitive” thing.?

Managed to drop €25,50 on postage this morning for Christmas cards, and we haven’t quite wrapped up the Christmas card program just yet either. Those were just T.C.’s half of things. She does her family, and I do mine. That’s the deal. Of course, I end up doing all of my/our “Pub Buddies”, which isn’t quite right, since her handwriting is considerably better than mine. Somehow I don’t think that would be a convincing ploy to try and get out of it though.

Since the traffic was extra heavy coming back into the city this morning, I took a shot of the heating plant on the way in.

I sit in traffic. I get bored.

(um ya, there were a couple more, but they kinda suck)

This is a site where household waste is incinerated and then the the heat generated (hot water in this case) is piped out to roughly a quarter million customers, both residential and commercial.

Bit of an odd looking thing, what? I’ll not repeat the word we use when we refer to this particular landmark. It’s a family blog.

The building was designed by Hundertwasser. That link takes you to a wiki article, but suffice to say he was NOT an architect, but more of an artist. Other than that I have no opinion.

All the articles are in German of course, but I did find this nifty little diagram, it might help:

I did find this video on Youtube that’s only about a minute and a half long..

Thanks there “Manfred”. Nice and short.

As you can see, Hundertwasser had a unique take on building design. The scuttle butt is that, the “Hundertwasserhaus”, which is a housing/office project a little farther down along the Danube canal, is having some structural issues since well, this guy wasn’t an architect. Didn’t I just say that?

On a positive note though, I do tend to admire the guy, since he figured that even though a family might have to live in “public housing”, that shouldn’t mean living in some cinderblock jail cell.

Now let me just say this about that. In our extended family, we have a couple architects. Comes in handy, I might add. One of these days I dig up some pictures of our shed back home. It ain’t too shabby. Not designed by me by any stretch of the imagination, but by one of my brothers-in-law, who just happens to be an architect.

But here’s the thing, architects can some times come up with some really nifty ideas, that builders have a shit of a job building. One of the aforementioned architects has bounced ideas off me on more than one occasion, just to get the point of view from somebody who has swung a hammer from time to time. I’m about as creative as a post, but I can tell you within a couple minutes of looking at your design, whether there’s any way in hell it can be built. Well, and not fall down. And don’t get me wrong, I mostly don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground, but sometimes just asking questions can lead to solutions. And besides, it’s fun to be asked.

Speaking of holding on to your hat, did you see the size of that bomb they defused yesterday up in Germany? Holy crap! It was the size of a forty gallon hot water heater, weighing in at 1.8 tonnes! It was called a “Blockbuster”, since it was big enough to take out an entire city block. Gah!

It’s something that we do tend to take for granted in Europe, but when you host a war, there’s going to be some left over crap. It’s surprising to see the amount of ordinance that gets unearthed every year. The war ended some 65 years ago.

I’ll leave you to chew on that for a bit.

Thanks for stopping by.

Shopping!

2011-12-03T07:00:00.001-08:00

Or maybe I should say, “shopping?”

Never really my favourite thing, but the decision was made to brave the crowds. Turns out it wasn’t all that bad.

Earlier on though, the forces were out closing off the main drag again for the second “Advent Saturday” on Mariahilferstraße.

The whole notion of turning the entire street into a pedestrian zone is still a little lost on me, since even by 1:00 p.m. when we were on our way back, there still wasn’t that much of a crowd that the whole street was needed. But hey, what do I know? Maybe next Saturday it’ll be busier.

We decided to head over to the train station to do some shopping.

No, I don’t smoke any of that “whacky tabacky” either. They’ve been renovating the west train station since some time in 2008 and there was a grand opening last week. There’s now a multi-level shopping mall with some 90 shops. It was actually a reasonably pleasant experience, and that’s as far as I’m willing to go when it comes to describing shopping. Can’t say what we bought, since there are Christmas presents involved, and we won’t go there.

On the train station end of things, it’s kinda large.

Not really a well thought out photo, but there were people sitting right there in a café of some sort, and I didn’t really want to shoot over their heads.

The building itself if quite impressive, although I’m not so sure I’d want to be right up there in that corner during an earthquake. There hasn’t been a quake here since 1590, but I still think I’d want something under me besides a lot of sky.

Here’s a pic I took back in October from another angle.

Not feeling very chatty today, so you get off easy.

Enjoy your weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

The big difference.

2011-12-02T06:33:00.001-08:00

It’s pretty much the usual Friday here in Wienerland, with the slight exception that it’s the “second work day”, which in financial terms, means all the results for the month of November will be filtering in to Travelling Companion over the course of the day. Kinda sucks that it’s a Friday, since the “second work day” also means it’s going to be a long day. I can’t really comment on the competency of those providing the results, since that would get me into trouble, but if it’s a long day for T.C., you can draw your own conclusions.

So, let me explain “the big difference”.

The first time that I ever came to Europe, it was as part of a “third year abroad” program when I went to McMaster University. Of course, these days they have a website, everyone and their dog has a website. You’re welcome to click on the link there and snoop around.

Each of the two terms that I did, was basically only for three months. I spent the fall of ‘78 living and studying in Paris (um, the one in France? not Ontario), then went home for Christmas, went back to work in the New Year and worked my butt off in order to have enough money to then head off to Germany some time in April. There I did a stint at the University of Freiburg.

By the way, I had only met Travelling Companion the previous summer, we weren’t yet an “item”. Just so you know.

Fortunately for me, one of my brothers, the one I mentioned yesterday that lives in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, was in the Canadian Air Force, and was stationed in Baden-Söllingen. If you happen to go to that link, you’ll see that it was about an hour’s drive away from Freiburg, and if you zoom in to the airport, you’ll see that the streets have some crazy names like, “Toronto Avenue”, Winnipeg Avenue” and “Victoria Boulevard”, and that the neighbouring town is called “Klein Kanada”? (little Canada)

Right. Well, it was the Cold War, and the Brits, the Yanks and the Canucks all had armed forces right there nice and handy to the Iron Curtain. But let’s not digress.

I say “fortunately” since, unlike the situation in France where I was lucky enough to find a dormitory sort of arrangement, in the Freiburg area I was only able to find an apartment. In my room, which was thankfully separate from the common area, I did have a bed. But that was it. So… sheets? Blankets? Nada.

Good thing my sister-in-law was only an hour’s drive away and was willing to lend me some stuff. I guess I would have had to buy something, but there was only so much money, and only so much room in my luggage, so it would have had to stay behind when I left.

Life was great. My room mate Lutz and I did live more or less like monks, but he at least he did have a car, and since I had my “international driver’s license”, which is another antiquated concept, we would decide ahead of time who was going to drive, and who was going to be doing the drinking. (there’s zero tolerance in Germany) Once in a while we’d cross over into France for cheap smokes and wine, and I learned all the dos and don’ts of crossing European borders. They had them back then. Things like, put out your smoke, turn off the radio, and whatever you do, have your passport out and handy, since you don’t want to reach under the seat for anything.

So think about that, I was driving in Europe as far back as 1979. Who’d a thunk?

So like I said, we lived like monks, and if I was “missing” something, then I knew that at certain point in time, I’d get to go home, and then whatever it was that I was missing, I wouldn’t be missing it any more. I was a student, and it was all about going out, meeting new people, studying new things, and just living life. And if there was say, no decent peanut butter to be found, well that was no big deal. Three months.

But here’s the thing, we’ve now been living in Europe for over three and a half years. So if we’re having guests and they ask, “Is there anything I can bring”, you can bet your bippy that I can come up with one or two things that I just can’t find, and I know that I want. The fly swatters and the plastic wrap come immediately to mind. I just might ask for some decent peanut butter when daughter number one comes over in a couple weeks. We’ll see.

So last night, Travelling Companion said, “I had a craving for that Ham and Pineapple thing that we used to make”.

“Oh?” (he said, all “deer in the headlights”)

I actually didn’t recall ever having seen pineapple here in Wienerland, so I really didn’t hold out much hope of finding any. I remembered I had a can of something in the cupboard, but it turned out to be peaches. No idea where I got those. Maybe I’ve had them since the Netherlands? No clue.

So then that triggered another thought, and that was that she could make trifle. I’m sure there are as a many ways of making trifle as there are States and Provinces, but the way that Travelling Companion makes it is with peaches, custard, and a few other things which don’t come immediately to mind. I think there’s some booze in there, but never mind. Oh, and you need “angel food cake”.

So I set out this morning to find a total of four things.

Pineapple. Angel Food Cake. Custard, and dental floss.

Yes I know, “one of these things is not like the other”. The last item was from a previous conversation a few days ago.

In typical fashion, I was two for four. Found the dental floss, which is good news, since that tells me that at least some people in Austria use the stuff, and I also found the pineapple. Custard? Ya, right. Angel Foo….what? No.

I mean, I KNOW they grow pineapple in Puerto Rico, since we used to buy it fresh when we were there. As a matter of fact they grow a LOT of pineapple in Puerto Rico, which was why I was really and truly dumbfounded to discover that the Pizza Hut in Mayaguez had RUN OUT OF PINEAPPLE when I ordered my Hawaiian pizza. Only in Puerto Rico, could they grow acres and acres of f**king pineapple, and then run out.

But again, let’s not digress.

For anyone reading this who is NOT somewhere in North America, I just want to point out that this:

was not the brand I expected to find.

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to find it. But Del Monte? In Europe? How can that be?

Turns out it’s a product of Kenya. Wow. They grow pineapples in Kenya?

There’s a “knock knock” joke in there somewhere, with the punch line being, “Kenya believe it?”

*snort*

After that, I got nothin’. I’m done.

Thanks for stopping by.

What do you say?

2011-12-01T07:39:00.001-08:00

I don’t mean when it comes to the here and now, I don’t often have any difficulties coming up with something to say, even if half the time it’s dreary drivel.

Like right now!

What I’m talking about is one of those chores that I feel I need to do from time to time, as relates to keeping in touch with certain outlying members of my family. By “outlying”, I mean geographically.

Most everyone has internet. Even one of my brothers who has a hobby farm in rural Annapolis Valley uses Skype to see his grand-daughter way out in Washington State from time to time. By the way, that previous statement would be like me saying, “Yes, tomorrow we’re going to the moon”, and meaning it. It was not too many years ago that there wasn’t even a hint of a computer in their house, so I’m always ever so slightly amazed at these technological developments.

See, Christmas Card season is upon us, and the question always come up, “Aren’t you going to put a letter in that one?”. *groan* This is for another brother who lives in a remote little spot way down past Digby. (Nova Scotia).

It’s a little place called Meteghan, and I have been known to use some colourful phrases to describe it, but I won’t be putting any of those here. That would just be mean. He doesn’t have internet. I think he has a phone, but since he’s as deaf as a post, calling him would be fraught with frustration. Even when he had a hint of hearing say, ten years ago, the timbre of my voice was such that entire chucks of speech would be missing. I gave up.

So earlier today, I sat down here to write him a brief letter. (funny, but the German word for letter is “Brief”, neat, huh?) The tricky bit is of course, you don’t want to end up with one page and a bit, or even (God forbid) two pages, and a bit, since these are printed pages after all, so you have to try to get whatever it is you want to say into the body of a reasonably full page. That is of course, if you have anything to say at all.

Here’s the thing. Many years ago, when I was perhaps in my teens, it wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch to say that I had looked up to this particular brother. He seemed to have it together. Or so I thought. I mean, he was always buying and selling stuff, and making money (or at least I thought), and that was the way it was for a number of years. Skip ahead a few years, when it just so happened that Travelling Companion was working on her degree in Economics (Honours, by the way) and he came to our place for a visit. At some point during that visit, he basically let on that he didn’t think that that sort of higher education was worth the effort. Hm.

I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I remember standing there watching my estimation of him sadly fall to the floor.

So do you see my problem? What do I say to the guy? Do I ask, “Hey, how’s life in that shack you’re living in?” (and it is) “Did you get enough wood cut for the stove?” “It’s sure nice here in Vienna. We just went to an opera, (took the BMW of course) and MAN was it FAN-TASTIC”.

Again, that would just be mean. Although I have been tempted.

Talk about “writer’s block”. Holy Moly.

I did send off a letter last January I think it was, since I didn’t put anything in with the Christmas Card. My bad, I know. We DID get a Christmas Card from him and his lady friend, so that was something, but when it comes to getting any kind of response to a letter, it’s a big black hole. One time, I even sent a letter to the other brother up in the Annapolis Valley, since I had heard that they were paying a visit to take their semi-annual bath, and figured if the letter were hand delivered, then at least I’d know it had arrived. Still no response.

That’s probably just fine and dandy in the grander scheme of things, since the last time he ever wrote to me, it was a 12 page hand scribbled bunch of rambling gibberish written in PENCIL. This was when we were living in Puerto Rico, and that letter arrived at our house in Burlington. Not really understanding the difficulty involved, I asked my daughter if she would please transcribe it into an email and send it to me. She’s never forgiven me. In hind sight I think she would have been more willing to clean out the gutters on the house instead, even though she’s deathly afraid of heights. Just a hunch.

Anyway, I got that chore out of the way for another six months or a year. We’ll see. The rest of the Christmas Cards are still sitting on the table.

I see by my trusty word count thingy that we’re getting dangerously close to the “snooze zone”, so that’ll be it for today.

Keep those sticks on the ice. And it’s probably a good idea to be careful what you say?

Thanks for stopping by.

Can’t let this go.

2011-11-30T00:04:00.001-08:00

Well.... that didn’t take long.

Now, what I’d like to do here for your amusement, is to simply inject a couple comments into this article that I saw this morning on the CBC website. I’ve changed the font colour to green, in the hopes of it being different yet legible. (no “magenta”, thank-you)

You can go to the website and read the article there if you wish, (along with all the goofy comments) just to verify that I haven’t left anything out. I’d prefer to make my comments here for a select audience.

OK, here we go:

“Sports balls are making a rebound at an elementary school in the city's east end following parental outrage over a controversial all-out ban.

The decision to lift the temporary moratorium on soft sports equipment such as tennis balls, Nerf balls and basketballs came out of a parent-teacher meeting Monday night at Earl Beatty Public School.

While a ban on hard balls had been in place at the school for more than a decade due to the small size of the schoolyard, staff only began to enforce the rule earlier this month.

An incident involving a parent who suffered a concussion earlier in the month after being struck in the head by a soccer ball triggered the ban.

Um ya, I still think that whole “concussion” thing is B.S., but whatever!

Under the revised rules, softer balls will be permitted on school grounds during school hours.

Toronto District School Board trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher was astounded by the level of fuss the ban had caused, saying it seemed to make the "the earth tremble" and even made international news.

Wait wait wait! Sheila! Sweetie! Ever heard of something called the internet? I mean, it’s a mixed bag, there’s ~~some~~ a lot of junk out there intermixed with a some pretty neat stuff, but the main thing is, IF YOU DO SOMETHING REALLY STUPID, there’s a chance it’s going to end up on the internet. Welcome to “modern times”. Oy. (And hope that nobody has a cell phone with a built in camera, and you don’t end up on Youtube!)

Oh, and by the way folks, to be a “trustee”, you just need to get elected. That’s your only skill requirement.

Safety a 'double-edged word'

"This is one of the biggest tempest in the teapot I've ever had the pleasure of working with," she said.

*sigh* This is when you need to stop talking?

Among those who disputed the Code of Conduct that restricted sports balls was Chris Stateski, a parent of a student at the school.

"Safety is a double-edged word here, because safety to what extreme?" Stateski said.

Parents and teachers spoke on Monday about solutions for schoolyard safety, including staggering recess and lunch breaks.

Hold on! You mean they’re not staggered now??

Maureen Hall, a mother of a student at Earl Beatty, attended Monday's talks and said there were wide-ranging opinions on the topic.

"Listening to these conversations, there are some very extreme responses to this, so this is a first step," she said.

The challenge, according to school officials, was to create a playground that would be safe for all age groups, as some 350 children ranging from junior kindergarten to Grade 8 currently share the space.”

Didn’t we talk about this? I can’t really determine from the way this is worded whether or not all of the 350 kids are on the playground at once, but surely to goodness that CAN’T be the case. 350 in that space? Please let it not be so.

*********

I realise that it’s almost a national pastime for many, many Canadians to make fun of Toronto. Even Torontonians make fun of Toronto, and the problem is, their politicians and other decision makers keep doing stuff to make so easy.

Do we need to talk about their mayors that they keep electing, or the way they handle snow removal? Just a couple examples folks. I’m not making anything up.

I’ve said my piece about this and it’s been fun. Thanks. I’m done.

********

Do you know what this made me think of? One of my sisters-in-law decided to rejoin the workforce after being a stay at home Mom for a few years, and her attitude was this: “There are a lot of really stupid people out there with really good jobs making decent money, and all I have to do, is be slightly less stupid than them, and I’ll get a job!”

And you know what? She did! She had to take a few courses on “cost estimating” or something like that, and now works for a huge construction company in some sort of related capacity. Has to wear a hard hat once in a while, but it seems like it’s a pretty decent gig. And…she makes a pretty decent buck too! Good for her!

Apparently it’s all a matter of being “slightly less stupid”.

Once again, feel free to talk amongst yourselves, and thanks for stopping by.

Monday night at the Opera.

2011-11-29T05:46:00.001-08:00

You may recall that I had taken this gratuitous photo of the opera tickets I had ordered a while back. I might just keep them now as souvenirs, even though I don’t really do that.

It’s going to be hard to describe the experience without sounding like a complete fool. We’re pretty sure that La Bohème is now our very favourite opera. Ever.

I’m also pretty much convinced that Puccini wrote just about the most compelling music of any composer who ever thought about writing an opera score. Travelling Companion said it gave her goose bumps. For my part, I’m sure there was someone peeling onions nearby, since I was having some difficulty with my eyes. So was the old fellow next to me as it so happened. Silly old buggers.

I mean, we know going in that Mimi dies at the end. Where’s the surprise? All three of the operas that we’ve seen by Puccini end with the death of the female protagonist. Madame Butterfly, Tosca and now La Bohème.

For those of you who have been remotely curious, here’s a peek at Travelling Companion. This was during intermission.

And yes, one does get dressed up a bit for the opera.

We have no desire to queue up for overpriced water or libations during intermission, although we did get there early enough to sit down and each have a glass of wine. I was actually a little surprised that the price was comparable with café prices. It’s so much nicer to arrive early enough to actually have time on your hands.

The slightly silly thing is, we never bothered to get a program, and now I’m not even sure who it was that was singing the role of Mimi. It was supposed to be Maija Kovalevska, but when I went to her website, it said that she had been ill. Huh? So who is this chick?

Her understudy, presumably. I guess we’ll never know. She was awesome, that’s for sure. Maybe that was her big break? Who knew?

*******

Now, in a completely unrelated vein, I had to take a quick pic of these boots I saw today on my out and about.

Wow.

Lucky for you though I didn’t take a picture of the ~~creature~~ woman who was wearing them, or it would have been, “whoa!”.

Life in the city! Gotta love it!

Thanks for stopping by.

We don’t always get along.

2011-11-28T06:50:00.001-08:00

I’m talking about me and a computer program here. What were you thinking?

I’m sure it’s really and truly dependant on something along the lines of “operator error”, but each and every time I go to add any new music to Travelling Companion’s IPod, I just want to punch something.

Again, if I did this little procedure every day, or even a couple times a month, maybe it wouldn’t be so frustrating, but the whole “user friendliness” of Apple products is somehow lost on me. It’s more like, “it has to be our way, or no way”. I’m not even going to stress about it any more. I figured it out, that’s the main thing. And why is that any time you find an “online tutorial”, it never quite matches the settings you see on the computer screen in front of you, hm?

How do you “eject” without an actual “eject” button? What, are you trying to be cute? F**king programmers.

It seemed like most of yesterday (which just so happens to have been, “Silent Sunday”, if we want to keep with the alliteration theme) was spent looking for one particular package of gold coloured Christmas bulbs. Never did find them. We eventually convinced ourselves that we hadn’t in fact seen them here anywhere on this continent at all, but quite likely saw them last Christmas when we were at home, and only thought they were here. That’s our story anyway. There are not that many places for things to hide here. I looked in all of them. I even made sure to have a second set of eyes “check my work”. I ain’t that dumb.

This was also the reason for the IPod fun. As a happy by product of looking in every possible tote we own (well, at this location anyway) we did come across a couple CDs of Christmas music. Only a couple. The rest, and I’ve long ago lost count, are back in Canada.

We could go down and listen to them in the car I suppose, but other than that, we don’t actually have a means of playing CDs here. I can copy them. I can play them on my computer. Neither of which is really a viable solution. So that means somehow extracting the music, putting it on to, and then playing it on this mysterious little Apple device. I think I could do it again right this minute if I had to, but that’s the thing, I might not want to change the music on that thing for another six months. By then it won’t be user friendly again. It’s that CRS.

*sigh*

*******

Travelling Companion just called to say she’ll be home at 5:30. I hope that works out. She was originally going to work from home again today, but realised she had an important pow-wow. A Board meeting of all things, or maybe it’s more like a “bored meeting”? I’m sure she explained it to me, but it doesn’t matter anyway.

Tonight is opera night, and that was the reason she wanted to work from home. I always get a little nervous when it comes to being in the building where the opera will be taking place in a timely fashion. It’s a funny thing, but they won’t wait one minute. If they say they’re starting at 7:30, they’re pretty good about starting on time I find.

********

Saw these kids this morning when I was out and about. Seems one of the banks will be having Saturday hours, and they’ve been hired to hand out flyers. It’s a job I suppose.

Hm, Saturday banking hours. We’ve had that for what, twenty years?

That’s it for today. I’m empty.

Keep those sticks on the ice.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sunny Saturday.

2011-11-26T09:40:00.001-08:00

Yes it’s true. The sun actually made an appearance today. Wasn’t sure what it was at first, since it’s been a while since we’ve had that experience.

Today is the first “Shopping Saturday”, also referred to the first “Advent Saturday”, but I don’t think the shoppers were too concerned with any kind of religious reference. Just a hunch. At least I think it’s the first Advent Saturday, I could be confused.

What that means for the main shopping drag, is that it becomes a pedestrian zone for most of the day.

Not much happening though at about 9:30 this morning when I took this:

Not only that, but human nature being what it is, it takes a while to get people used to the idea of being able to walk on the road. When I first rounded the corner, I thought I had set off a little too late for my morning jaunt, since the sidewalks were a little crowded, but that was because nobody was walking on the street. I did soon realise that there was some protection from the wind if you were in close to the buildings, but that was hardly a consolation.

Travelling Companion and I did go out in the afternoon and hit a couple stores. No more or less crowded than any other Saturday I found. Mariahilferstraße is usually mobbed most any Saturday. Divulging any of our purchases wouldn’t be wise. Never know who is reading. I did place a little “Black Friday” order on Amazon.ca yesterday. That should be delivered in time for Christmas. I sure appreciate that whole “free delivery” concept. If I could do all Christmas shopping “on the line”, that’s all I would do. Even in the pre-internet days, a fellow could haul out the Sears catalogue, get on the phone, place an order and then whip over to the Sears catalogue pick up area during a break in the evening, they were open until 9:00 p.m. This was when I was working afternoons. Man that was handy!

I just now went down and took a couple more pictures, and everyone is still on those sidewalks. Seems to be mostly working out to be a pain in the ass for the car drivers as far as I can see. Hm?

Those shots certainly aren’t the best, and there’s probably some setting or other that I could have used to make them ever so slightly better. Wasn’t willing to dig out the big camera, but I think you get the idea.

The rest of the day was filled with a whole lot of nothing. Not sure if the term “delicious” could be applied to nap taking, but I seemed to have a had a pretty good one in the late afternoon.

We had originally planned to nip out in the car this morning, but when I discovered the closure of the street, that put an end to that idea. Makes it tough to get back into our parking garage, unless I’m willing to go a short distance the wrong way up a one way street. I had to do it once, the first November we were here, but I’d just as soon not push my luck. Vienna’s finest are out in convincing numbers when there are that many shoppers around. Always on the lookout for the pick-pockets, and possibly knobs going the wrong way up a one way street.

Here’s hoping for a little more sun tomorrow, and that everyone is having a fine weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

Fabulous Friday.

2011-11-25T05:36:00.001-08:00

I’m trying to keep with the alliteration theme here, and that title is a only just a slight exaggeration.

I’m certainly not talking about the weather. There was a German adjective that just popped into my head, and that was “scheußlich” (ooh, spell-check doesn’t like that one), which I would like to loosely translate into the “Caretaking Vernacular” as “shitty”. That’s close enough.

I’m not complaining. Yet. It’s just an observation. We’ve had some really fabulous weather back in the summer and spring time. A little bit of crap once in a while is inevitable. I haven’t had to dig out the snow shovel. So that’s a good thing.

See, when Travelling Companion came in the door last night (at a pretty good time too, I might add) the first thing she said was, “I’m working from home tomorrow!”

So what that means is, since there is a certain amount of evaporated time that gets lost getting ready for, and then having to drive off to work, we both get to sleep in, I don’t have to pack her a lunch, and generally speaking, life is nothing short of “fantastic”.

Oh wait, my mistake, I meant, “fabulous”.

Take your pick.

Now, having said that, one of the things she has to do this afternoon is go on a conference call. I may have to put in my earplugs, or make myself scarce. There’s too much talking, most of it loud. I must say, she does seem to be able to understand all the instructions from AT&T, which are all in German. Typically anyone on the call starts out in German, until they realise T.C. is on the line, and then they switch to their barely understandable English. Of course, it’s not that much worse than whatever version of “English” that the Brits use. Some of those guys are pretty bad. And I’m not referring to the “Queen’s English” either. Very few people in the UK actually speak the “Queen’s English”. It’s too bad they don’t really, and the different versions of spoken English is so varied that people from towns that are no more than a few miles apart have different ways of saying the same word. I mean, it’s easy enough to tell the difference from someone from say, Boston as compared to someone from Indiana, but in the UK it can be literally a few miles. Fun to study, hard to understand.

Much to their credit, I would say the Dutch have the best handle on speaking an English that can most readily be understood by all parties. Something along the lines of a “broadcast standard”. I think it’s a direct result of their exposure to English being spoken on TV each and every night. I’ve gone on and on about this in the past, but the Germans and Austrians like to translate (i.e. dub) everything that ends up in front of their audience on the boob tube, and that’s not the way to help the population learn a second language. The Dutch use subtitles, leaving the programming in the original. The fact of the matter is, people do watch a lot of TV, and if you want to influence (and possibly educate) the masses, it’s the perfect medium. Just my humble opinion, but one that was shared with my highly educated German teacher from a while back.

I think that’s going to be about it for today’s missive. We’ll probably meander downstairs later and eat with “the boys”. It’s either that or grilled cheese sandwiches and pickles for dinner. Not too sure I’m overly enthusiastic in that respect.

Try not to get mobbed on “Black Friday” if that’s your thing.

Thanks for stopping by.

Turkey Thursday.

2011-11-24T07:31:00.001-08:00

My alliteration is suffering somewhat, but that’s the best I can do.

It’s just a regular day here in Wienerland, which was also the case back in October for Canadian Thanksgiving. We’re in a foreign land here kids.

Since 1957, Canadian Thanksgiving always falls on the second Monday of October. In terms of the weather and whether or not it’s going to cooperate (see what I did there?) I think I like the Canadian version just a wee bit better. It gets cold up there you know. Mind you, the year that we were in Puerto Rico, it certainly didn’t matter to us that Thanksgiving came along in November, their weather is pretty much the same, all year around, whether you like it or not.

*chortle*

For the last few years before we buggered off to Europe, for Thanksgiving we would have a gathering at Bronte Creek Provincial Park, where having a group 30 or 40 people get together wasn’t a problem. The curious, and somewhat satisfying thing was, a little report came back to us that the kids really looked forward to Thanksgiving, and for a couple of them, they were the only ones in their entire class that had any kind of enthusiasm for Thanksgiving at all. Sure made us feel pretty good, but I kind of felt bad for anybody’s kids who don’t look forward to Thanksgiving.

How much would that suck?

I guess it’s not all that much fun to get dragged off to Aunt Zelda and Uncle Slomo’s and have to sit around and be bored. With our Bronte Park program, there are literally acres and acres of places for the kids to run. Off you go!! Not to mention the play barn. I think that was what it was called. All I know is, the kids would all vanish after dinner, leaving the adults to sit and quietly chat. Bliss.

A perfect symbiotic relationship between Man and Nature in my view. Not only that, the pavilions that were available had running water, electric outlets, and also a fireplace for a fire! Not just a camp style ring, but an honest to goodness fireplace. Chimney and everything. Nice to have the heat, not so much the smoke.

I do realise that there was always the issue of squatting at the pavilion from the early hours to make sure you had the place for the day, (first come first serve!) and we would more or less draw straws to see which poor unfortunate person would be sent off to ward off the hoards. That was still a minor inconvenience compared what we did in previous years. Cleaning the house for days on end, trying to locate enough tables and chairs, and then trying to figure out how the hell to get that many people in the house. Then of course, having to clean up and get everything put back over the next day and a half.

So if the Canadian Thanksgiving were in November? We’d be screwed. I’ll stick with October, thanks.

Now, since we’re not going to be having turkey today either, I figured the closest I could get in the fowl department was to make chicken soup.

Besides, it’s easy peasy.

Start with a bunch of stuff:

There’s chicken in there, trust me. It’s actually better to use as much dark meat as possible, for the flavour, but I end up having to buy the thighs and drumsticks together. It seems to work.

And yes, I will add water. Bring the whole concoction to a boil and then let it simmer for a while. The pot should not be covered! I have it on good authority that this is a no-no. Makes the broth turn a dark colour. I’ve never witnessed this, since I take the warning of “authorities” seriously. A key ingredient to marital bliss, or failing that, tolerant cohabitation.

You end up with this:

The only parts that you keep are the chicken and the carrots. That’s a whack of carrots I know, but I like them.

I suppose you could put in most anything you’d like, but we put in carrots, celery, salt (sea salt is best) pepper corns (a few, whatever) a couple peeled onions if small or one big one, and a bay leaf. I also put in a clove of garlic, and this time around I sprinkled in some oregano.

So after you’ve removed the chicken and carrots, and strained off the broth, the next part is kind of tricky, bordering on painful.

You then remove the meat from the bones and set it aside. Care must be taken to leave behind any of those little tiny bones that chicken is notorious for, or any little bits of gristle. Not good.

If the chicken hasn’t quite cooled off enough, you’ll figure out the painful part right quick.

I try to have enough broth at this point to be able to freeze about half of that. Works great instead of water if you’re cooking up rice, or making say, leek soup. I just wish I had more room in the freezer.

At this point, everything gets covered and goes in the fridge.

Then come supper time, haul out the pot, put the chicken and the carrots back in, bring it to a boil, and add your noodles.

Care should be taken to not add too many flippin’ noodles. If you add too many noodles, you’ll end up with something more along the lines of “Chicken noodle stew/gorp” or something like that. You should NOT be able to set your spoon on top of your soup and not have it sink. You also shouldn’t have to use a fork.

I know this. Don’t ask.

So there you go, “Bob’s yer Uncle”. Chicken soup.

******

Oh, and for those of you south of the 49th, Happy Thanksgiving!

Try not to over do it.

Oh, what the hell, go crazy. (just, no paramedics, please?)

Thanks for stopping by.

Witless Wednesday.

2011-11-23T07:39:00.001-08:00

Some folks call it “hump day”. There’s a tiny part of me that finds that ever so slightly rude. Something an overzealous male dog might try to do to your leg. That kind of thing.

Speaking of rude…

Gawd I love the way these segues pop into my head.

I was about to head out this morning for my usual morning (and lately somewhat frigid) jaunt down Mariahilfer Straße, (that’s pronounced “strasse”, with the “s” like the hissing of a snake, if you’re new here. And the “e” isn’t completely silent. It’s hard to explain, but I thought I’d try.)

…when the doorbell rang.

It’s not all that difficult to get into this building, since we do have at least one Doctor who has some sort of varicose vein practise, along with a lawyer or two. Plus half the time the bloody front door is open as a result of the twits from the Quick Green joint around the corner having to get into their storage room. And even if the door is locked, chances are that you can hit any number of door buzzers and someone will just pop the door open for you. This is why it’s nice to have a peep hole.

I should also mention that there was a break-in last winter on New Year’s Eve. We were in Canada at the time. It was in one of the apartments down below, and although their doors are huge, they’re only made of wood after all, and the thieves simply used a cordless drill to drill past the deadbolt. Apparently there’s a certain amount of noise making going on over New Year’s here, and nobody really noticed the noise that the crooks were making. Bastards.

Getting in to our humble abode here wouldn’t be that easy, since anyone wishing to drill through the door would need to make a hole big enough to climb in and out, since there’s not only a key only operated dead bolt from both sides, but seven additional bolts that get thrown into the frame around the perimeter of the door. Three on the hinge side, and four on the lock side. Those are in addition to the dead bolt. A bit of a “Fort Knox” theme going on there, but I’m OK with it.

I’ve taken a picture, but I’m not sure it helps.

See the little nubbies?

And, if I leave my key in the lock like that, then Travelling Companion wouldn’t be able to get in this evening. Just saying.

Anyhoo, I peeps through the peephole, and it looks to me like there are two ladies standing out there, so I have my suspicions, but figure I’ll open the door to them anyway.

I should mention that, hardly anyone just shows up at the door anymore, but in the first year of living here I had all manner of unsolicited “visitors”, including Jehovahs, some guy wanting me to pay my TV tax (not happening) and even a couple Catholics from one of the bazillion Catholic Churches around here.

Yes. Not kidding. Catholics.

I explained to those two, who were very pleasant by the way, that they didn’t have a hope in Hell of getting us in their Church, since they were competing with St. Augustine. And for me being the non-Catholic type, you’d better have a pretty good choir, a couple top notch singers, and maybe a twenty piece orchestra.

I realise that’s a pretty tall order, but if you’re going to make me freeze my feet damned near off, sit on a hard pew, and pony up €5 for the collection, you’re going to need to entertain me. Sorry.

I know I could put in less, and in many areas I am indeed a cheap bugger, but the sound of “coins” being dropped into the collection has always bothered me. Not sure why that is.

Just to be clear, I didn’t say “hope in Hell” to those two. That would be rude after all. But I did explain it in those terms. They understood.

I’m starting to really get off topic here. Presuming there ever was one.

So I open the door to the old ladies.

Oh that’s right, they weren’t exactly young snappily dressed, radiant beauties, since that might have actually held my attention for more than about five seconds. And as soon as the one on the right went to peel off one of their “this is a message that will change your life” type of pamphlets, I basically said, (in German) “Oh right, we have your types back in Canada, just let me show you the technique I use there too”, and at that moment I pointed to the lock on the door (it’s a distractionary tactic) and proceeded to close it.

If, by the way, you ever find yourself sitting in front of a really good salesperson, you may notice that if they want to draw your attention to let’s say a contract they want you to sign, they might take their pen out of a breast pocket (this is in the case of a man, obviously) and then use it to point to a line on the page. Human nature is such that your eye will follow that pen, thereby distracting you from whatever objection you might have had to the proposal. Works every time. As far as female sales types are concerned, I won’t get into the use of cleavage, hand wringing or any of that crap. It’s not hard to figure them out either.

Now, you might consider that to be a bit rude. (closing the door. Not the cleavage.) But here’s the thing. If you’re going to show up at my door without an invite, we’re not quite sure what’s going to happen. You’d certainly better not show up empty handed. Some pamphlet, or a copy of the “Watch Tower” isn’t going to cut it. I should have asked, “Did you bring chocolate?” but I didn’t want to get involved with them even that much. Plus, I would have been ever so screwed if they had said, “Why yes, yes we did, and it’s the good kind.”

Crap. Then what do I do?

But see, that would be one helluva an angle. Just hand out chocolate! Put your message inside. I might even read it. But a couple of old gals? Not happening.

My apologies to any of the “older gals” out there, but at least you’re just sitting there reading something on your computer, and not out bugging people at their front door. Good for you.

When we first moved into our house back in Canada, we had a host of people showing up at our front door. Uninvited.

I’ve even been known to ask for their address, just so I could show up at their house during dinner, uninvited.

The first summer we were there, I was out cutting the grass with the old lawn mover that the previous owner had left behind, and out of the corner of my eye I see two ladies coming up the drive. With a little bit of a sigh I shut off the machine, waited for the smoke to clear, and got ready for the “pitch”.

“Oh, where’s the older gentleman who used to live here?”

(See, we bought the house from the estate of my late father-in-law)

“We used to have such lovely chats with him” Those were her exact words. “Lovely chats”.

(Well of course you did, he lived there by himself and, not unlike my father, he would sit and talk the ear off an elephant. They probably couldn’t get away from him.)

So I kindly explained to them that, that was my late father-in-law, and that he had passed away the previous December, and that we were living there now.

Also, that I would love to sit and chat, but since I had to go to work later that afternoon (Afternoon shift Caretaker) somebody was going to have to cut the grass, and which one of you would that be?

There was a lot of silence.

Since neither of them volunteered to cut the grass for me, we said our good-byes.

And here’s the thing about that particular old lawnmower, the exhaust pipe of which just happened to be pointing in their general direction, when you first fired ‘er up, there would be this great blue billowing cloud of smoke that would come belching out.

I think they got the idea. They didn’t come back.

Was that rude?

I actually have several more stories like that, but I can see by my word count that you’re probably starting to nod off, so we’ll leave that alone. For now.

Be nice to your neighbour.

Thanks for stopping by.

Meatloaf Monday.

2011-11-22T04:53:00.001-08:00

This isn’t really about the meatloaf, although I did make meatloaf last night.

And no, there’s not going to be a “Turkey Tuesday”, or a “Wasabi Wednesday” either. I haven’t given any thought to the rest of the week. You’re on your own.

I just like the title.

It’s actually going to be “Meatloaf Tuesday” as well, since Travelling Companion didn’t make it home until some time around nine p.m., and that’s a little too late to put on the major feed bag. Even if I stay up until midnight, which sometimes happens, if I eat that late there’s a whole festival going on in my nether regions for far too long to allow any kind of less than fitful sleep.

Once upon a time I could drink a gallon of coffee in the evening and lie down on a bed of nails and still be asleep in about 15 seconds. As time marches on however, it would seem that there’s a certain amount of “due diligence” involved when it comes to actually getting to sleep at night. Getting old ain’t for sissies.

The meatloaf was/is very tasty, but I didn’t take a picture. Sorry. I find those types of things are really not very photogenic. The disclaimer that, “it tastes better than it looks!”, will only go so far when it tends to look like a big loaf of dog poo. I’m just saying.

It did smell wonderful when it was cooking, and I’m sure some sort of “smell–o-blog” function would be the cat’s pyjamas when it comes to that sort of thing, but I don’t think we’re quite ready for that leap in technology? A reference back to the “smelly man” story will suffice.

It’s a decidedly grey and cold day again here in Wienerland, and depending on when you tune in, you’ll be able to take a gander at the temperature off to the right side of the blog. I really doubt that it’ll get much above the freezing mark. I broke down this morning and put on my winter coat, and dug out a scarf. Oh the humanity!

I was going to wear the gloves but thought, “No dammit, I’ll just stick my hands in my pockets”. That sort of worked.

One of the other minor side effects of getting a wee bit long in the tooth is, one does tend to come to terms with certain “facts of life”. Fact: I really don’t like winter. Don’t misunderstand, I’ve had my share of fun on snow machines, snow shoes, in snow drifts, etc., but when it comes right down to it, all of those things could remain in my long term memory, and then I could fondly reminisce, all the while sitting on a warm beach somewhere with a cool drink. Or at least some place where I could step outside without looking like Bibendum.

********

The News.

I almost never comment on the news, unless it’s some goofy thing that I spot in one of the local newspapers that has some sort of entertainment value.

However, and in keeping with the “goofy” theme, I came across a story yesterday of an Administrator of a school in Toronto who decided to ban a number of types of balls from the school playground. Let’s not get side tracked with any “balls” joke here people!

Apparently, it was even mentioned on Saturday Night Live. Hm, not really a way I’d want to make a name for myself but hey, I’m not a school Principal.

You may or may not have heard of this, and it all depends of which little nooks and crannies you happen to read when it comes to internet news. My preference would certainly be to watch either the National on CBC or the CTV news at eleven. Sometimes I’d even watch Irv Weinstein out of Buffalo, just to see how many fires there were that day, or how deep the snow was. None of those choices are really an option here.

So just go to Google and plug in “Toronto School bans balls”, and you’ll get all kinds of hits. Have fun.

Now let me just say this about that.

After working some 22 years in a school system, I can safely say that I’ve seen some pretty goofy things. I’ve had some thoughts going around in my head concerning a couple stories about some of the “higher-ups”, and I’ll spill those beans one of these days.

Out of curiously, I plugged the address of the school into Google maps and had a look at the situation from the “street view” feature. I’ll save you the trouble, you can click on this link and take a look.

Somewhere in amongst all the “bla'-bla” I read that they have something in the neighbourhood of between 325 and 350 kids, and that it’s a “Kindergarten to Grade eight” school. I suspect that means “Junior Kindergarten”, since Ontario schools have had “Junior Kindergarten” since about 2001. My memory is a bit dim when it comes to the exact year when it was introduced, I just remember that it was a major pain in the ass for Plant Operations, but that’s another story.

School hours are up to the discretion of the Principal, and can vary from a start time as early as 8:15, to as late as 9:00 a.m., with the school day ending anywhere from 3:00 p.m., to as late as 4:00 p.m. These are all times off the top of my head here people, and are only from what I’ve seen in my working days. There may have been schools that started earlier or ended later, but none that I knew of. A lot of it had to do with bus schedules and the like.

Here’s the thing, if you take a gander at that playground, there’s no way in the name of Aristotle that there should be that many kids outside at one time. That’s just silly. I once worked in a school where there were three different “nutrition breaks” (um ya, they don’t call it “recess” anymore? Go figure.) just to keep the big kids from murdering the little guys. It ain’t rocket science! It just takes some planning. That way, you don’t discover that after a couple months of school, things aren’t really all that peachy keen on the playground. If I could use the “hen house analogy”, if you put a 100 hens into a henhouse that’s only built for 75? You’re going to have some attrition. Plain and simple.

So naturally, for her at least, the only option this principal thought she had was some silly knee jerk reaction when one of the parents on the playground was no doubt chatting with her buddies over coffee, not paying attention and got beaned by an errant ball to the head. They said it was a “concussion”. I don’t think they understand what that means. Was this individual removed by the paramedics? Lost consciousness? Ya, whatever.

And trust me on this, I’ve seen my share of do gooder parent volunteers supposedly helping with playground supervision, while blithely chatting with their neighbours, completely oblivious to their surroundings, large “double-double” in hand, having a glorious time. Right up until they get hit in the head, of course.

I never had any desire to be out there for the carnage. My job was to keep the tarmac free of debris, litter off the playing field, hang up the tether balls (oh ya, they’re a source of getting beaned in the head, trust me) and stay the hell away from the playground when it was in use. That sort of thing isn’t exactly in the “Caretaker’s play book”, but it’s something you learn in due course.

Anyway, feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

Hope you all have a fabulous day. Keep your eye on the ball.

Thanks for stopping by.

The things you see.

2011-11-21T03:19:00.001-08:00

Or maybe it should be, “The ‘things’ you see”? Not sure. This will be revealed in a moment.

The weekend was very, very quiet so there wasn’t too much of interest to add here. Travelling Companion basically took it easy. Can’t say I did much more than that.

LAST Sunday we did the Church thing, and my lower extremities darned near froze, so I wasn’t too upset to not repeat that this week. It goes without saying that the Churches like St. Augustine's are huge, and therefore not heated. In some of the Churches they do heat the seats, and that’s always nice, but your feet still freeze.

Or at least mine do. Last winter I actually started wearing my winter boots to church.

Anyone who knows me at all, understands that sitting on uncomfortable Church pews isn’t one of my “Sound of Music” type “favourite things” to start with, and then if my feet start to freeze as well? Oh ya, good times.

*****

Anyway, there is this one gas station/service centre/car wash/restaurant that I pass by from time to time when I’m in the Gmünd area, and this time around, when I found myself in need of their “services”, I remembered to take my camera. Always best to be discrete of course, but this isn’t the first time I’ve taken a picture or two in such a location.

It’s these ladies here that can give a person a bit of a “start” at first.

Yes, you can click on her.

If I show you the second one, you can see exactly where these photos have been placed.

Right.

Somebody certainly has a sense of humour.

I just noticed the conveniently placed ashtrays. That’s clever. Keeps the butts out of the urinal I suppose.

I’ve mentioned the idea that you can get used to anything, but I tend to forget from one visit to the next, and most any time I go in here, I tend to get a bit of a jolt. Thankfully they’re just pictures, or I’d still be standing there trying to go.

Talk about “stage fright”!

We’ve pretty well had four days of dreary weather, and this morning isn’t much different.

The only sun we saw was on Friday afternoon as we were coming into the city. Even then it went down so fast I didn’t get the camera out in time.

Keep those sticks on the ice kids!

Thanks for stopping by.

Short Shrift.

2011-11-19T05:02:00.001-08:00

After I checked out of the hotel yesterday morning, I realised that I had presented a really abridged version of Gmünd and the surrounding area. I’ve posted lots of pics in the past of the area, but that may have been as long ago as 2009. Seems hardly possible.

But here’s the thing. This:

…is somewhat representative of the excitement in a town like Gmünd.

Here’s another angle.

Fascinating. The stupid ducks must have thought I was going to feed them, since they all started to swim frantically in my direction. Silly buggers.

I didn’t get a picture of the rapidly approaching ducks, since I figured it was more sensible at that point to simply leave. Did I also mention it was a whopping 1°C?

So are you starting to get the idea that I might be getting a tad desperate for something, anything of interest? Oh, here’s the backside of some old Dude on his old tractor.

Taken through the windshield of the car, with the resulting pitiful results.

Love the fedora hat. It ain’t just some “costume”.

So I just figured I’d go for a little drive, and maybe something would jump out at me.

There was a time when we lived in the Netherlands, when I got so desperate that I actually took a picture of a log that had been felled and left at the side of the road. I was taken to task for that, and I’ll be darned if I can find that actual entry at the moment. But I do recall that one of my “pub buddies” did have a few words of admonition for me. I suggested he might want to start his own blog. The thing is, as a woodworker, I sometimes find myself doing a double take when I see logs. Especially if they’re just sitting there at the side of the road.

So you can well imagine how I get a little ga-ga when I drive by this place. Even though these logs are all spoken for:

Suffrin’ cats, that’s a lot of logs!

Well, this isn’t quite the same, but the good folks of Breitensee dug up a log out of the muck, and decided to put it in it’s own shrine! I almost drove right on by, but the sight of a log in a glass case made me do a bit of a double take.

Here ya go:

Yup, that’s a log that has been housed in it’s own little (well, big really) display case.

I’m going to include a couple snippets of the details, but for those who may be inclined to skip ahead, the abridged version is, it lived for some 250 years, and keeled over some time around 650 A.D. If you’ve ever wondered what the term “old growth” is, this would be a pretty apt example.

There are some woodworkers who would simply drool over the prospect of being able to make something with the oak from this log. Lake Superior happens to be one location where old growth lumber has been salvaged, and if you have enough money, you can buy some of the lumber. The thing is though, you really and truly have to have the creativity and skill level to build something worthy of such a find.

You’re certainly welcome to wade through all the bla-bla that they’ve put in the display, but what I found curious about the whole thing, is the typical way in which they’ve tried to milk this log display for all they could. You can see this type of well, for lack of a better term, “desperation” in just about any small town on the face of the planet. “We’re special and we want to show you why”. You’re welcome to come up with your own answer to that assertion.

I mean, I do appreciate the effort, and the old log is definitely neat and all, but somebody went to an awful lot of trouble to try and embellish the simple fact that they hauled some old log out of the goop. I’m just saying.

It so happens that this elaborate little display was off to one side of the fire hall. I’m not sure what the significance of the Roman Dude is, and you can draw your own conclusions about the quality of the artwork.

For my part, my first thought was, “Now why would you do that?” No budding Rembrandts in town I guess.

*****

And now for something completely different, I was tooling along on one of the roads that follows the border between the Czech Republic and Austria, and I spotted a business that, from what I gather, was selling stone? Actually, I haven’t a clue what they were selling, but what was interesting was this little cabinet that they had out on display.

See the stone piece over behind the display? There were lots of them lying around, and I think they were selling these things. Planters? Watering troughs? No idea.

This display was obviously outdoors, and about 20 meters from the roadway. Maybe there was video surveillance, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it hadn’t been vandalised. Maybe I’ve forgotten what country life can be all about? And maybe it’s a pretty sad thing when the first thing I think of is vandalism.

I suppose some folks have these kinds of items on display in their house, or maybe tucked away in a drawer or two. These people decided to put it out there for all to see.

Of particular note is the ticket for a motorcycle race that took place in May of 1936 in Gmünd. The cost of admission was one Schilling. I’d bet that was an exciting day.

The bottom line on the ticket states that it had to be worn so as to be visible. Judging by the way the town is so compactly built, I can see how easy it would be to close off all access to the roads, and only let people who had bought a ticket in to see an event. Only a guess mind you. I’m sure you’d be able to see some parts of the race, but to get to see from the really good vantage points, you’d need to cough up that Schilling.

Well I certainly hope this has rounded out the educational portion of your day.

You’re now ready for the New York Times Crossword.

Good luck with that.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Caretaker Chronicles

Just a Friday.

Just a glimpse.

I used to be an Ectomorph.

Bit of a nail biter.

Practicing for a purge.

Do I NEED to go out in this?

“How many trips…”

Need to feel better?

So…we bundled up.

Fun with Spam

Stupid stupid stupid.

Tidying up.

If there were no news.

Staying home.

Ski resorts forced to close as a result of too much snow

Thinking of Liza.

Putting it together.

Sharing.

And on we trudge.

The Chores!

New Year’s in Vienna.

What’s with the pigs?

You may already be a Wiener!

Many thanks.

And just like *that*, it’s Christmas.

We’re in Slovenia, really.

The Christmas Markets

There’s Here!

Just a Friday.

Two more sleeps!

The Inspection.

The package is away!

Wandering aimlessly.

I feel like Willy.

It’s a Holiday!

Cooking Alone.

Back to the post office.

Hold on to yer hat!

Shopping!

The big difference.

What do you say?

Can’t let this go.

Safety a 'double-edged word'

Monday night at the Opera.

We don’t always get along.

Sunny Saturday.

Fabulous Friday.

Turkey Thursday.

Witless Wednesday.

Meatloaf Monday.

The things you see.

Short Shrift.

And just like that, it’s Christmas.