Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year

Nothing much to say today so I will share a list of 50 things that we didn't know last year at this time.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/dec/22/50-things-we-know-now-we-didnt-know-time-last-year/life/

Here are 5 I found interesting in no particular order.

1. The use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace on company computers leads to increased productivity.
2. The virus that causes AIDS most likely emerged around 1908 near the African town then known as Léopoldville, now known as Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
3. Searching online is better than reading books for increasing the brainpower of middle-aged and older adults.
4. Excessive flip-flop wearing leads to a much higher risk of developing skin cancer on the feet. Only half of patients with foot melanomas survive.
5. Mexican scientists discovered a way to make diamonds from the carbon and organic compounds found in tequila.

Annual Friends Reunion

Today we are having our annual friends get together. We usually get together at a local resturant & bar for a couple of hours and sit around and chat and have a few beers. People come and go as they please. It is a nice time and convinient way to get to see everyone. This year we haven't gotten too much response so I don't know what the turn out will be.

For the first time this year we moved the meeting to the late afternoon instead of the evening. Now that more and more of our friends have kids we figured it would be simpler to do a late afternoon event in case people wanted to drop by with their kids.

As always I know there are a few people I would have liked to have invited but I don't have their e-mail addresses or contact information with me. It is tough to keep everything in one spot with all of the different communication tools we have today.

This year for the first time in addition to sending out e-mails to friends for which I had e-mails I also posted an "Event" and a couple of "Notes" on facebook. I did get some comments and feedback but overall the facebook responses were limited. I guess I'll have to wait and see this afternoon how the turn out is. Some times additional people that I didn't directly invite show up through word of mouth. It is those friends that I really enjoy seeing because I didn't expect them in the first place.

These yearly get togethers are usually a little strange at first in that alot of my friends know more about me that I do about them because of my blog. While it is easy for them to ask about something I did sometimes it takes be a little longer to warm up the conversation for me because I haven't been as in touch with them for a while. But in the end, catching up is exactly what these gatherings are for and thats what we'll do.

Christmas Continues: Day 3

For us today marks the 3rd day of Christmas. Since I missed a post on the 25th due to all of the family activities I want to wish everyone a merry Christmas today. I still have a few minutes before we pack things back into the car for another trip to yet another, and the final Christmas party of the season.

One striking difference between Europeans and Americans is the American capacity to drive what Europeans called 'huge distances' in a single trip. Today we will be making one of those such trips. We and driving a little over 100 miles (160 km) to visit family in the neighboring state of Wisconsin. The trip will take about 2 hours. And yes, we will drive home today.

One thing I do like about Wisconsin is their cheese. Much like Switzerland, Wisconsin is America's state known for making cheese. One of my personal favorites in the cheese ball. My wife's Aunt never fails to server a cheese ball with crackers and I usually attack it with a passion. First off because I like cheese and crackers, secondly, because I can't get yellow sharp cheddar cheese in Switzerland and I love it so.

So I have to run, I have about 2 minutes before we leave and I don't want to be late for my date with the cheese ball. Merry Christmas.

Men's Shopping: European Fashions in America

At the risk of sounding a bit metrosexual I wanted to post about a recent shopping experience that I think many U.S. men living overseas in Europe might face. Where the heck can we buy clothes?

As I have posted before differences in sizing, styles, and cuts of clothing, particularly in work attire vary drastically between North America and Europe. A new job in Europe means new clothes, and potentially a new image. So how can an American man prepare or update a wardrobe to fit Europe? The answer is simple, find the right stores in the U.S. and stock up while the prices and cheap.

As my wife will attest, I am not the prolific shopper, however, when I do find the right combinations of style, price, and sizes I am known to splurge a bit. Yesterday I had such an event so I thought it was time to share some thoughts about work clothes and fashions from my experience.

First before shopping consider the styles being worn at work in Europe. As a general rule Europeans dress much better than Americans in the office. Dress pants and crisp ironed shirts are the norm, not the exception. The days of ragged polo shirts, and ratty kahkis will be long gone if you are moving to Europe from the U.S.

Black is in. Everything is black in Europe. Pants, Shoes, Belts, Jackets are all black. Brown has it's place but focus on black. To update your closet I recommend you start with a couple of pairs of basic black dress pants. Get rid of the American kahkis, they are only good for gardening and the weekend hike in the mountains once you get to Europe.

Shirts need to be fitted. Men's shirts are not as billowy as the shirts in the U.S. People in Europe are not trying to hide a gut under baggy clothing and prefer cleaner slimmer lines in their shirts. In the U.S. such cuts of shirts are refered to as 'fitted' in most stores. Give a fitted shirt a try, at first it will seem a bit tighter than most American shirts, but in the end I actually think they look much better than most Sears, or Kohl's shirts that American's may be accustomed too.

If you want to add color do it with a tie. Yes, I said tie. Can you believe it. This trend differs from office to office but ties are much more common in Europe than the U.S. so prepare yourself by brushing up on your tie knots.

So next you need to know where to get such styles and fashions. While it is easy to get such clothing in Europe you will pay the price. Good clothes cost money, and even more money in Europe. With the current financial situation and exchange rates I always bring empty suitcases with me to the U.S. and stock up where prices are cheaper, and I understand and kind find the right sizes of clothing. Below are some of my picks for where you can find European styled clothing in the U.S.

1. Express for Men

Express for Men has a good selection of dress shirts and dress pants that fit right in in Europe. Their MX1 line of shirts is a great choice. Some of their casual clothing may appear best suited for the 20 something crowd but their pants are shirts will look at home in a European office setting. Express can also be found in most larger malls in the U.S. so no matter where you are on business or travel you are usually within striking range of one of their locations.

2. Kenneth Cole

I like alot of the Kenneth Cole line. Kenneth Cole can be expensive but if you can get to one of their outlet locations you can get great deals. I was at their store at the Chicago Prime Outlet's in Aurora Illinois recently and the enitre store as 36% off. I can gaurentee you I got some great deals on shirts and shoes.

3. Calvin Klien

Calvin Klien in another line that has a good selection of styles that will fit well in Europe. Again the key is to find a good sale, or visit an outlet store to get the best deals. CK shirts are fitted, and have the right cut. Dress pants are also nicely tailored and are a great updated to you closet.

4. Gap

Now some people would question my addition of the Gap to the list. And I would agree that they are not the best place to get dress clothes for the office. However, you will probably want a few things for your leisure time outside of the office. The Gap has some great deals on pants, and basic solid sweaters that are a perfect fit for the weekends in Europe. As Jeans aren't the most common weekend fashion something like their charcoal grey surplus straight fit pants are great. Such pants in Europe would be something like 50-80 USD. While back home in the U.S. at the Gap you can get such pants on sale for about 25-30 USD.

To wrap up good luck preparing you closet for Europe and hopefully you'll have some ideas on where to start while at the same time saving some money.

Fa(s)t Food

I have been eating. Eating things that I can not get in Switzerland. Panera soup in a Sourdough bowl, White Castle's jalepeno cheese burgers, Chicago deep dish pizza, Dunkin Donuts, and Al's italian beef sandwiches. And I Love it!

I have been eating my way through the flavors of my homeland and it has been nothing less than a delicious experience. The change of diet from my traditional Swiss diet does come at a price. I have to admit that my stomach was not very happy the first couple of days I was here. But thanks to wonderful suppliments like Tums I managed to make it through the first week until I re-adjusted to my former basic food groups of cheese, grease, and fat.

The experience reminds me of just how poorly Americans tend to eat. I am not suggesting that I am eating any better than most, but seeing the options we have as compared to what we choose to eat it is no wonder that Americans are obese.

The statistics are clear, 33% of Americans are 0bese as compared to 17% of Europeans. This fact shows up in everyday life as well. In Europe clothes are smaller, larger sizes are difficult to find, grocery stores stock more fresh foods, and have much smaller freezer sections, and fast food isn't as predominant.

While America is a democratic society it seems that we as Americans have a difficult time saying no to fast food. It is adverstised to us everywhere, fast and simply is the way we live. If we could just learn to exercise a little self control we as a nation would be much better off.

The difference in Public Transport: US and Switzerland

Yesterday due to a logistical issue with our car here in Chicago I decided to take a train from my parents suburban town, to the town of my in-laws to meet them for dinner. As the two towns are on the same train line about 15 miles apart you would think this would be no problem.

Well, think again, things in the U.S. aren't as smooth as I am used to in Switzerland.

The original plan was for my wife to take a train for a 1:00 lunch with a friend but the train schedule would only allow here to arrive at the proper destination at either 11:30 or 1:30, neither of which would work. It seems that outside of rush hour the trains almost completely stop running. This as compared to Switzerland where the trains run on the same schedule hourly from about 6:00 in the morning until about midnight.

So we reworked our plan and my wife took the car to go for lunch with me taking the train later in the day.

Of course when I got to the station there were no windows open to buy tickets, and we don't have ticket machines so I had to just buy the ticket on the train. That is one thing I do like about American trains. If you don't have a ticket when the conductor comes by he simply sells you one. On the Swiss system, if you don't have a ticket he'll sell you one too, for 80 CHF (about 70 USD). It is a fine for not having a ticket.

The other thing I noticed was that there are no signs or clocks anywhere to be seen from the train platform. You don't know which train is arriving at the station or what time it is unless you have you own watch. I have just become too reliant on the Mondaine train clocks in Switzerland and the fact that a brief glance overhead to the electronic sign will tell me exactly which train is arriving and where it is going.

All in all, I made it to my destination for a meer 3.80 USD. A similar ticket in Switzerland probably would have cost me 10-15 USD. So for the cheap price I get a mediocre experience. You get what you pay for I guess.

In general I think this experience highlights why personal transportation in the form of cars is so popular here in the U.S. It is just too difficult, and requires too much fore thought to use public transportation to go any length of distance in the U.S.

Work Around The House

When I manage to make it back to my parents house in Chicago my mother often has several 'projects' lined up for me. I have a suspicion she keeps a list all year long, and then upon my arrival out comes the list and all the work that goes with it.

Today I had a couple of things to do including fixing the spring on the back screen door, taking apart a hammock due to a product recall so my mother could get store credit, and yet to be completed setting up a digital converter box on an analog TV.

In February 2009, US over the air TV signals will switch from analog signals to digital signals. My parents already bought a new digital LCD TV for the living room but there are a few others around the house that they would like to install the converter boxes on.

The picture on the digital over the air signals is really amazing. I was really surprised at the quality. It also seems that some channels are actually know broadcasting 2 or 3 channels over the same signal. As an example on Channel 7 in Chicago there is now channel 7.001, 7.002, and 7.003. With a lot of channels doing this there is a lot more free TV to be had for those like my parents that never decided on cable.

With the financial situation and the fact that there are now more channels available to over the public airwaves I wonder if cable companies will see a slight drop in customers as a result of the new digital signals. The picture as far as I am concerned is just as good as anything that comes through a traditional cable line.

Geeze It's Cold

Many people assume that Switzerland is cold. I don't necessarily think that is true. Yes it can get cold when you are up in the mountains skiing on a windy day but in general in the low land areas around Zurich it is not nearly as cold as it is in Chicago.

I got my first reminder of that yesterday. There was an eary morning ice storm followed by one of our classic wintry and windy Chicago days.

As an example today in Chicago it is 13 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 C) At Zurich airport today it is 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 C). With the wind here in Chicago it just feels plain cold. Your face starts to sting after a minute or two and if you don't have a good set of gloves it isn't long before your fingers start to go a bit numb.

When I had my first winter in Switzerland I wondered how all the people could be wearing these stylish, relatively light leather or wool winter jackets. No where to be seen where the thick, heavy North Face, or Eddie Bauer ski jackets. Jackets so large and overstuffed that sometimes one had trouble sliding into their car behind the steering wheel. In Switzerland such jackets are reserved for the ski slopes. Partly because they aren't fashionable enough for wearing on the street and partly just because people don't need them, because it is darn warm over there compared to Chicago.

The Grocery Store

I was in a Dominik's grocery store this weekend. Dominik's is a local chain in Chicago that has stores across the area. Typically big, huge, American, grocery stores. With selection, lots and lots of selection. As this is the first time I have been back in the U.S. in about a year I found it a bit overwhelming.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the chip aisle, and the soda aisle, wow! I don't know why I was so overwhelmed. I guess it is because I am used to the largest grocery stores being about one sixth the size of anything I would see in the U.S.

All the selection and choice makes it a bit difficult to shop. What do you choose? What is the best? I can't tell there is just too much. And, as you go from aisle to aisle there is more and more that you can buy, more and more to take home.

At the end of the usual shopping trip in Switzerland I am usually walking out with 1 or 2 bags of groceries. In the U.S. things seem to multiple 3 or 4 fold. Gotta love it.

Some time before I left on vacation I was telling some friends about twinkies. As Europeans they had never heard of the things. I need to be sure to remember to buy a box before I go back to Switzerland. I just hope I will have room for them.

The 'Whale' a the Porsche Museum outside of Stuttgart

When I was younger I had a unhealthy fascination with Porsche automobiles. I don't know if it was the snob appeal, the speed, or the pure engineering that inspired it. I would like to think it was the idea of the high tech engineering since that was the discipline I choose to study in college.

For the longest time I used to spend hours in my basement as a kid meticulously constructing and painting small models of the Porsche classics. The 356, the 304, the 935, the 959, and the classic 911.

So when we were in Stuttgart for the Christmas markets I couldn't help but make a trip to my personal mecca and visit the Porsche production facility and museum just outside of Stuttgart in Zuffenhausen.

Porsche is in the processes of opening a new, huge museum that was supposed to be open in 2007. Unfortunately it is still in progress. So, we only got to visit the previous, and much smaller museum that only houses about 15 vehicles.

Of course the vehicles that are on display are all the most amazing models. All the ones that I have at home, just in 1:16 scale.

For the enthusiast the museum was great. The new larger museum is set to open January 31st 2009. So not to much longer to wait. Guess I'll have to schedule another trip to Stuttgart next year for the Christmas markets.

Baden Christmas Lights

The Christmas lights have been up in Baden for a few weeks now. I finally had a chance to get out last night and takes a few photographs. My wife was brave enough to grab a tripod and come with me. I was surprised she wanted to head out into the cold. For me the evening was a great opportunity to be a little artistic and try out some of my HDR capture techniques.

The image above was created from 3 images over-layed using the picturenaut tool. Final edits were done in Photoshop CS3.

I am not completely happy with the color tint of the image. I have to play with it a bit more but I think overall the picture turned out pretty cool.

For those that are interested the image was made of a -2, 0 and +2 exposure biased images.

Getting And International Driving Permit In Switzerland

I had a recent need to get an International Driving Permit for an upcoming trip back to the U.S. Since my last visit to the U.S. my U.S. license has expired. Instead of going through the DMV lines when I get back and taking tests I decided to see if I could get an International Driving Permit.

These permits are essentially a paper that with translations of you driving privileges based on your current driving license and the permit is sometimes useful when trying to rent a car. I did some investigations and found that the Swiss Touring Club www.tcs.ch can issue such permits.

If you have a valid Swiss drivers license your local TCS office can issue you a permit very quickly. All you need to bring is a passport photo and your Swiss license. The permit will cost 25 CHF and takes about 15 minutes to process. Be advised that the TCS office can only issue International Drivers Permits for Swiss Licenses that were issued in the same canton as the office.

Swiss on Cleanliness: Clean Your Darn Desk

Sign Left on My Desk

My wife had told me stories, funny stories, about the cleaning lady at her office that complained that her co-workers left the office in a state of disregard. The office kitchen was just way to dirty at times. It seems a bit ironic that the cleaning staff was telling the office staff to shape up and keep the place clean, after all, their dirtiness was keeping them employed.

Well today I realized this is an issue not isolated to my wife's office. I arrived at work to find a small neatly place sign in a plastic holder on my desk. The sign had a picture of my office's cleaning lady. The sign kindly asking me to straighten and clear my desk so that she could clean it. I found this hilarious. Especially due to the fact that my desk is probably 3 times as clean as most U.S. office desks I have seen.

As the custom is to not put personal items on your desk in Europe the only additional elements to the required computer hardware like computer keyboard and mouse pad is a small pile of 3 or 4 neatly arranged file file folders and a coffee mug. My co-worker that sits next to me also had the sign on his desk this morning. We had a good laugh over it.

But that does not top what we saw at lunch today. Often times we will go to a local place called the Trafo Hall which is a large building with a couple of small restaurants in it. It was an old warehouse converted into a retail space so there are the typical iron beams and large open spaces in the airy foyer. As we were sitting in one of the restaurants I looked out in the open hall to see a man walking across the rafters with a vacuum cleaner. He was literally walking across the I-beams vacuuming dust.

What are these people thinking? Is this level of obsession with cleanliness healthy? It is one of the strange quirks of the culture that I still can not understand.

Watch For Falling Glass

Sign in Esslinger, Germany

The world has come to a sad state when we have to post signs asking people not to through glass bottles on the heads of others. That was my first thought when I saw this sign posted in Esslinger, Germany where we spent some time visiting a Christmas market this weekend.

What kind of behavior would warrant posting such a sign. Secondly, how often must this have been a real problem before the community requested, or the authorities decided that such a sign was necessary.

It is obviously a problem of epic proportions in Esslinger because even the man who is the target of the apparent bottle attack is depicted with one arm. He must have lost the other the last time he walked along the wall.

I was also thinking what would it be like to be the graphic designer responsible for designing this sign. Your boss comes in and says, "Hey, I have someone asking to make a sign to stop people from throwing bottles on people, can you put something together for me?"

As much as it is funny, it really is a bit sad.

Stuttgart Christmas Market

We spent a long weekend in Stuttgart, Germany this weekend to take in the Christmas market. It was an impressive event. Much larger than I had imagined. It was a great trip to kick off the Christmas season and get into the spirit.

Most of the time was spent shopping, eating, and drinking glühwein. More about that later.