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It was nothing more than a routine business trip to Munich. Three days using the services of our efficient friends at Easyjet and regular hosts – Holidayinn. All was going to plan and after a night out we thought the plan was pretty good! I recomend the happy hour here http://www.sausalitos.de/ But did we miss the Ash clouds gathering? or was it just an illusion…
Either way it all seemed ok until we get the call. UK Airspace is closed! Well naturally we ignored this until around 4pm on Thursday 15th April. Then as we started to look into how to get home we discovered how many others were doing the same. The Eurostar website seemed to let you believe it had spaces left from Brussels to London but as you went for the book your selection now, it failed and took you back to the menu! Trains had the same problem so we started to look at cars €1700 to hire a car to the UK but then no means to book a crossing! €450 to hire a car to Calais or €250 to hire a car to Brussels. Decisions! We decided the best option was the central train station. The Hauptbahnhof. We could either book the right train or hire a car directly. A short train journey and we would soon know… All 4 main car ire companies just shook their heads. No cars! Europcar had a Fiat Punto! not really enough for 4 plus luggage! Did they have 2 cars? well… no they didnt really want to help as the mere mention of driving 1000KM to Calais made them through their hands up in extra costs que es cialis and trouble!. Ok time to try Deutsche Bahn. Take a ticket and wait a while. actualy 40 others in the queue in front! But eventually we were served. ‘We would like to get to London please?” A wry smile and some intense key tapping… Ok. Friday evening fast train to Paris. Stay overnight and the Calais for 11:00. Hmm that meant a night in Munich and a night in Paris then a crossing. €220 each plus 2 nights hotels. Slight improvement if using the overnight train to Paris instead as this meant we sleep on the train and not in a Paris hotel. Same price. Meanwhile we had split up and the others went to a different hire car centre. Only to return after the assistant could only swear and complain that we were causing her trouble! It was decided to once again go to the Europcar desk at the Hauptbahnhof and see if they would ring round thier depots for us. Success! A 30 minute taxi ride and we were handed the keys to a brand new Zafira. Only 4km on the mileometer. We set off slowly at first and stopped at Dachau for a MacDonalds. It was sometime after 9pm when we finally started the long drive, some 5 hours after we started to work out our return. The route i took is one i know quite well from previous trips and goes something like this… Stuttgart, Direction Karlsruhe, Towards Strassbourg, Metz then up to Luxembourg, Into Belgium, Left at Namur towards Tournai and Lille, Dunkirk and then Calais. 1000KM more or less. Arriving shortly before 07:30. A quick look around found the Sea France Ferry was allowing foot passenger for €50 and it sailed at 10:15. Just time for a coffee and a rest before queuing to board. No maps or GPS were used in the journey. We met others who had also travelled some distance. One guy had flown from Rome to Paris and then driven to Calais. Another pair had also driven from Munich. However, this took them 14 hours as they has a Smart convertible! They also had to change it at Paris. Needless to say they were first at the bar on the Ferry… The route looks like this…
We have a Ferry and the Programme Manager is smiling…
and im ready for a snooze! and a shave. Must be the €50 price for the crossing making me smile.
The white cliffs of Dover were a welcome sight! How fresh we look 😉 Once again it was another hire car. This time rustled up by the office. As ever someone is working on Powerpoint… Before the final push into the UK. Firstly via Heathrow, Then via Stansted and finally for me Northampton. Leaving poor Ray to catch the train to Birmingham and then drive home to Daventry… We still have one member of the crew who is still trying to escape and he is now apparently working in the Holidayinn as an American tour guide and stsand up comic to help pay his way. Table Tennis gets little or no exposure on mainstream TV. It just doesnt seem to attract much interest. But it is a very fast paced and exciting game with tremendous skill. Over the years technology has played a huge part in speeding the game up and making it more technical than ever. Today’s bats are all custom made using a variety of different material for the wooden blade such as Carbon fibre, Hard woods and even glass fibre. The coverings can now only be 4mm think including a sponge layer of up to 2.4mm. Some of this rubber can be so sticky the ball (now 40mm) can literally stick to it! Enjoy the English Championships on video here. or the Chinese masters… here. I hated PE lessons at school where we had to do Cross Country running. I was never very good and it was just a real drudge. Ironic then for me to be jogging! I started in Munich where i could run round the village. Only a gentle pace but it got me out and moving. When we returned i started running round the park but i was surprised at how i hated the air. In Munich i had to run past some farms and didnt much care for the smell of cows and manure. The realisation that i preferred that to car exhausts was quite ironic. After a break of a few years and the concern of being over weight i have started again. Mainly thanks to a new toy Nokia Sports Tracker Beta and my E71. It allows me to track the run on GPS and upload it. Pretty much like Motion Based or Garmin Connect as it is now. The advantage being my phone also plays the radio or music.
Of course the park is very pleasant to run through… Following on from this my occasional jogs can be found here http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/user/profile.do?u=pamalpass I decided i should commit to something so i found a local fun run here http://www.bigfunrun.com/?milton_keynes&locations_id=10 Here is my runners pack!
For those so moved you can sponsor me here http://www.justgiving.com/paul-malpass/ im not expecting huge amounts but the encouragement is worth just as much to me. And my latest run is here http://bit.ly/bWoiV Discovered that i can stream my GPS data live while im running. So you can track me live as i run! 11:00 on 27th September!
I also use Garmin Connect as this allows Heart rate monitoring http://bit.ly/15jrTp and im also experimenting with www.mapmyrun.com After 7 weeks of running or occasionally walking around 3 miles a day I can say I’m really feeling the benefit. Not sure how much weight I’ve lost but it must be 7lbs at least. But the main thing i notice is my overall fitness. My recovery time is quicker after a run and now I dont seem to be so out of breath while running. I was advised to get running shoes and i must admit i never realised why until i was tested. This site explains why… http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/news/article.asp?UAN=481 There is a down side to all this…
Blisters! On the mend now thank goodness! 15/9/09 Training going so well i decided to enter another run. www.the-run.org 10K this time and it looks like fun 🙂 Update: The 5k went well and in a personal best for me. 27:30. I also have my runners pack for the 10K run …
Just need the pain in my calf to go away 🙂 When we first bought the house there was a list of jobs to be done. Rip off all the wall paper and paint, Replace the carpets, Replace the kitchen, Replace the bathrooms and replace the doors! Well it seems that one of the cheapest jobs has taken the longest! all of the above has been done and in fact the carpets need doing again! and i still have the horrible brown doors.
Pretty horrible aren’t they! Well the almost finished article looks like this.
Now i just need time to paint them! BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft in web photo racism row.
I really thought we were past all things like this. Honestly! they’ll be air brushing models next… Some very interesting articles from Andy Abramson http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2009/08/fact-and-fiction.html and http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2009/08/line2-is-all-hung-up-in-google-gate.html It is surely now just a matter of time before these ind of Apps are released. If not for the iPhone then for other smart phones. Apple may try to stop the flow but market forces will eventually dominate. We wil see low cost or even free calls before the years out is my bet. I also can’t wait for Google Voice in EMEA. Now can we please get Google Wave integated with Google Voice… The release of Google Chrome OS brings an interesting play from Google. Microsoft started with the OS with MSDOS and have gradually tried to maintain their dominance by using the browser. For a time this looked certain as they gradually stifled any competition. However, this has suffered a lately with the introduction of Safari and Firefox. Google on the other hand started out with the browser and have gradually moved towards the OS. First came Android and now the Chrome OS. The are also leveraging their huge cloud type capability with Google Apps/Voice/Chat etc. Thier OS is primarily aimed at web enabling netbooks. Apple took a differnet route. Having suffered initially with the dominance of Micosoft they found success with the iPod and learned the value of the user experience. The success of the iPod has also increased the MAC’s popularity and for usability it is untouchable. Along with this of course the MAC does have its own OS but interestingly now it can also run Windows. This is perhaps a classic case of three market leaders with very different areas of competitive advantage. But how vulnerable are they? Each of the players are now exploring the others turf. Bandwidth and connectivity are gradually reaching saturation point. That is for most major cities broadband is now a commodity. Google have been moving into Microsofts space for some time with Google Apps. Apple hardware now runs Windows and Microsoft are now trying to poach some of the search engine market. Added to this are the retailers who are also trying to sell Cloud Apps. It all leads to some interesting possibilities for the future as they begin to steal market share from each other. All we need now is CISCO to create an OS… |
