2001
In January we started our new job at Siemens. I may have mentioned it last year, I can't remember. At the interview they offered us UMTS design work, if we would agree to help finish off testing their GPRS protect. We agreed and, during the fist week, our immediate boss told us that we would be testing GPRS for 6 months, then we'd be out!
At the same time, our landlord came back after spending 5 years in Hong Kong and announced that he couldn't find an apartment in Munich & we might have to move out at the end of February. After some discussion, we agreed to signing a new 3 year rent contract at a higher rent. It was that or move out (which might have been sensible with only 4 1/2 months work in front of us), but we couldn't bring ourselves to leave our lovely apartment.
In February, BSE hit Germany. Suddenly there was no beef to found in the shops, nor in the work's cafeteria. At the start, the supermarket was selling wild boar & deer (poor little Bambi). Then we had ostrich for lunch at work. After that the supermarket was offering large packs of chicken hearts, as if that was a reasonable alternative to a T-bone steak! Then it became more serious, with the supermarket selling ostrich and even kangaroo meat and, finally, horse flesh. Well, one expects that sort of thing from the French or the Swiss, but hardly from a civilized nation.
In March, foot & mouth disease followed BSE. We laughed when we heard that some countries were washing the feet of people arriving from the UK. We chortled when we heard that the Australians were using hand held sprays like bicycle pumps on arriving flights. We positively chortled to hear that the Americans were spraying laptops arriving from the UK (can you explain it?). We had the smiles wiped from our face when leaving London to return to Munich when we were told that absolutely no animal products whatsoever could be exported and we had to surrender our large bag of chocolate Easter eggs!! (I wonder, did the Germans suspect that we intended to feed them to German pigs & cows?)
In April we made our annual pilgrimage to Homg Kong, to visit old friends and my tailor & load up on pirate CDs ;-) This year we added on 5 days in Singapore too, staying here in Hoing Kong and here in Singapore (although we seemed to spend more time in Raffles than in our own hotel ;-). There are a (very) photos here.
It wasn't purely a pleasure trip as we had dinner with representatives of a few companies with whom we had had contact. Unfortunately, the job market was as depressed as the stock market, so that came to nothing, but we still have hopes of a return to Asia and continue to search.
We did take a lot of photographs, but I (still) haven't gotten round to making a web page yet. Anyone who is interested should check this page in a week or two, as I will have it done soon.
At the end of May we used a bank holiday weekend to make a quick visit to Venice. Some photos are here.
As already indicated, this year was to the telecomms software job market what last year was to the stock market. - *really* bad.- massive freezes, layoffs, renewals only on acceptance of a 'voluntary' 20% rate cut, etc. By mid year JobServe had only about a thrird of the number of (relevant) jobs which it had had in January. In July, when our contract wasn't renewed, we accepted a position with Siemens in Ulm, about 80 miles west of Munich. Unfortunately, it's too far to commute daily, so from Monday to Thursday we stay in an Aparthotel in Ulm, commuting on Monday & Friday, giving us three whole nights at home in Munich.
The work isn't exactly fascinating, but it's C++ on a UMTS project, so I suppose that I shouldn't complain. Once again, the depressed job market rears it's ugly head - when we started, they were (only) offering 6 month contracts; adter a while, those renewing had to accept a pay cut; then one lad had choice between 6 months with a pay cut or 3 months at his current rate; when our renewal cam around there was only a 3 month extension on offer - at the same rate, at least, so a reasonably happy ending to the year(?). Now we hear that Siemens have asked all agencies to take an across the board 25% cut, effective from January 1st! tune in next year for more of this exciting saga. In the meantime, I hope that all of you are reasonably secure in your work.
For the first time ever, we weren't allowed to work between Christmas and new year, so we decided to get away from the snow drifts and seek the sun. For some reason a flight to Singapore would have cost about 3 times as much as it had at Eatser, so we went to vist Mickey (at this point I offer apologies to those of you in Florida; it was all very last minute and we just didn't have enough time to get down to Boca and disturb you all at the holiday season).
"Get away from the snowdrifts" - hah! I think we arrived during the coldest Florida week on record. On the first day we headed for Dinsy in T-shirts, to find the temperature in the low 40s and we had to buy fleeces! The folks in the hotel told us that the temperature had been mid-80s the previous week and promised that warmer weather had been forecast for the next day. So, once more we sallied forth in T-shirts and once more we had to buy fleeces! We didn't get caught that way again, going out every day warmly wrapped. The skies, at least, were clear and blue and it warmed up (as was to be expected) on our last day, when we lay by the pool all day. Disney itself was just as I remembered, with the addition of a few new parks, and more crowded over Christmas than it was when I went on July 4th! Those of you who have been there will know just how tickered out we were at the end of each day. Plum! that's how. Here are some photos of Animal Kingdom, Boardwalk (just round the corner from the hotel), Downtown Disney, Epcot, the hotel, the Magic Kingdom, MGM studios, Pleasure Island, teh Osborne family's amazing Christmas lights and, finally, some of Graham & Chrissy. Note that most of them are just reminders fro Chrissy & I and will bore most readers. For those who are not too squeamish, here's the inspiration for my diet this year.
On return from Florida, we stopped over in England in order to spend Hogmanay at Leeds Castle. And what a night that was! The castle itself was included in the Domesday book and was the residence of Henry VIII amongst others.. It is beautifully preserved, sitting on an island, with panoramic views. We arrived to valet parking and a bagpiper playing the guests into the castle. Over pre-dinner drinks in the library, Chrissy's father & I noticed that we were the only two not in dinner jackets (or kilts)- oops! A cosy little 7 table dinner in Henry VIII's dining room was a five course affair, lasting two hours. At 11:30 the piper appeared again, piping in the haggis, which was duly marched around the room before the 'address to the haggis' (which lost me at "sonsie" (scottish insider joke)). After the champagne tase at midnight, it was coffe and brandy on the terrace to watch the fireworks. I tell you, I could get used to that sort of thing. Check back in a week or two fro some photos.
Well,, that's us up to date. I'm crossing my fingers for 2002 and hope that you all have a happy, healthy & prosperous year. Please drop me an e-mail to let me know how you are (with recent digital photo, if avilable (here's one of me)).
As always, feel free to forward this mail to anyone with whom I have previously worked, but whom you don't see on the mailing list. Once again, I would ask you all to provide me with a personal e-mail address, not one from your employer. You would all be well advised to visit Bigfoot and get a forwarding address; that way, when you get a new address, you just have to change it once, you don't have to write to a few hundred people, telling them of your new address & almost certainly forgetting someone. I'd hate to lose touch, so ...
If anyone has e-mail addresses for any of the following, please let me know and/or forward my mail to them. Thanks:
Firstly, those to whom this year's mail bounced...
Claes Berg, Kurukawa san, Esther.Hageraats , Bram Brammering, Geroge Glasgow,
Magnus Persson, Diana Jiang, Bryan Sullivan, Bernhard Koegle, Alex Kolbeck,
WInfried Wirth, Holger Jauch
and those from earliet times...
Kevin Glencross, Alex Watt, Neil Anderson, et al
Derek Blacklock, Dave Kennard, Mandana Salehi, et al
Anyone at all from STC, East Kilbride, 1980 - 1982
Pat O'brien, Lou Caltrider, Jack Beauchain, Jennifer Rodeniser, Toni Crowe, Jimmy G. Blythe, Hershy, etc
Henna Nadu, Pam Brown, Steve Levy, Peter Prosen
Paul Van Teefelen, Claes Berg
Karsten Schmidt
Steve Jones
Johnny two hats
And, don't forget, if you only read one book this year, it should be this one (just a little test, to see if anyone would bother reading all the way to the end :-).