Told you I won't stay silent for too long.....

Here are a couple of facts I've learned in the past couple of days about which I would like to voice my opinion. Now, keep in mind that this is solely my personal opinion (says in my profile description that I'm opinionated) and does not reflect that of Blogger or anyone else.

That said, here we go:



1. "Jessica Simpson goes country."

Great! About time too. She sure has the dumbness level required and necessary for it. Not dissing country music here or anything, but I mean, who sings about comparing people to property or guys who are most likely too drunk to take off their boots at the door so they have to leave them under the bed where they'd stink up the bedroom just lovely. Mind you, it must be trendy or something to compare people to objects because other 'artists' (although I use the word unwillingly) in other ganres of music are doing it too. Like, "If you were a sail boat, I will sail you to the shore. If you were a piece of wood, I'd nail you to the floor." If I was a piece of wood, I wouldn't give a damn what you do with me because I wouldn't have any feelings! God help us! And God bless DJ Tiesto and other geniuses who provide us with a much needed breath of fresh air!

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2. "A top golfer earns more than a top Formula 1 driver."

Don't understand that. Just don't. Let's see, a top golfer can hit a tiny ball with a stick into a tiny hole. Yeah, not everyone can do that, I agree. A top Formula 1 driver can take a sharp corner while going 260 km/hr and being crushed under heavy G-force, oh, and all that while trying to excersise a clean pass of the driver ahead of him and/or trying to avoid being overtaken himslef.

Quote: " In corners, F1 drivers typically experience sideways forces of 4g, and about 5g on braking. As they accelerate out of the corners, they'll feel a 1.5-2g pull. "It's extremely exhausting," says John Nixon of the motorsport group at Cranfield University." ....

"Few F1 drivers will experience a worse pummelling by g-forces than at Becketts at Silverstone, where a rapid series of corners pulls 4g one way, then the other, then back again. "It's a real battering," says Nixon"....

"The effect of dealing with such high g-forces is noticeable in drivers. "If you compare an early picture of David Coulthard with how he looks now, his neck and the muscles on his jawline look very different," says Nixon. To exercise his neck muscles, former F1 driver Damon Hill fashioned a Heath Robinson-style system of ropes, pulleys and weights to pull sideways on his helmet-clad head."

Awhhhh, did you get an itsy bitsy tiny grass stain on your polo shirt??? My, that's the price you have to pay for being a top golfer.

Enough said.

References: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/mar/03/thisweekssciencequestions4

Making Sacrifices

Hi Everyone,

As many of you have noticed, I haven't been keeping up with this blog as of late. The reason for this is our recently made purchace. The biggest one in my life so far.

We've bought an appartment in a challet which is being built right now. My husband is part of the building project, so he's pretty much MIA for six out of the seven week days. I get to see him for a couple of hours in the evenings and on Sundays. It's like before we were married when we lived in different cities! I also have to do my part, so I'm now working a lot more to help pay the ever escalating and rapidly multiplying bills. And I'm still in charge of the house work. Grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, etc, etc, the work that's never done and never ends.

Hence, something has to give. And that is, unfortunatelly, this blog. As most of you know, my life's an open "face"-book. Facebook is where ALL my friends and family live. It is where I get to see what's going on in their lives, check out their pictures and videos, chat and play games, and just plain and simple stay in touch. But I do get flustered when I have too many things I have to keep up with, too many sites to check out or keep updated, too many passwords to remember. I was able to do Facebook and the blog but that was already my limit. When Twitter came along, it tipped the scales and I couldn't keep up. Twitter had to go. Now it's the building and the work. They are not gonna go. So that leaves the blog.

I will still keep it active however. I'm not giving it up altogether. I am sure I'll find a few minutes now and then to write a quick update or complain about something, lol, but that'll be the extent of it. However, once the building is complete, and we've settled in, and I've cut down on my working hours again, I will be happy to revive my blog life.

Until then, I wish everyone all the best and happy blogging!

Sincerely, (and a little sad)

Laney

An "Un"-Comfortable Co-existance

Flies. Who would have thought there are so many different meanings. http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=flies

My definition: gross, winged creatures who terrorise me all day at work!

Summer in the Alps of Switzerland is characterised by lush, green pastures covered with colourful wild flowers beneath snow covered peaks stabbing through the blue skies and cute cows grazing peacefully, bells kling-a-ling-a-ling. What one doesn't see in that picture are the pestering flies. Wherever there are cows, there are flies. They pester the poor animals constantly. And they get into people's houses and go on pestering them too.

Well, we've solved this problem at our house by installing nets on our windows. The odd fly still manages to get in from time to time (like when my husband suddenly remembers something very important to tell me as he's walking out the door, so he proceeds to stand in the doorway with the door wide open and tell me that very important thing which couldn't wait till he got back) but I take care of them. Quickly and efficiently. Work was a different story. There were no nets on the windows/french doors, so flies were common in the office. Gross. But that all changed last summer. My dear boss installed sliding net screens on all the french doors and he also installed air conditioning, hence eliminating the need to even open the doors.

You would think that that would have solved the problem, end of story. Not quite. Swiss people hate air conditioning. (I am not a fan myself, but I prefer it to the flies!) They love fresh air. They love opening doors and windows. Together. So it creates a draft. That's not healthy. But what's worse is, in order to create a draft they need to open the front door. It has no sliding net screen. It's a welcome invitation. The flies swarm the office.

Our new associate was resourceful enough to solve that problem. He brought a super duper state of the art fly killer thingie. It looks like a tennis racket with a nob on the handle. You swat the fly like it's a tennis ball simultaneously pushing on the nob which creates an electrical current through the mesh of the "tennis racket" and zaps the fly dead. So humane. And did I mention it makes a very loud cracking noise?!

I keep the door to my op closed at all times. And either my french doors open, with the sliding net screen keeping the flies out, or the air conditioning blasting, depending on how hot it is outside. Unfortunately, my clients and I need to go in and out of the op, so, again, the odd fly comes in. I promptly ring the front and instruct one of the assistant girls to play a little tennis with it.

I have never used the fly killer and I refuse to do so. Ever.

So we're back. Have been for a week and a half actually. But life grabbed us by the you know what right from the start and I haven't had the chance to come on here until today. I'm working a lot more now. First, I increased my work load by one day from three to four days a week, and second, I'm working my holidays off since I had used them all up for this year before we even headed on to Canada. And since I can't afford to be unpaid for three weeks this month, I am working away.

I miss everyone back home, but it sure feels great to be back in the land of all good things, Cow and Snow Country. Well, there's no snow at the moment, at least not where we are, although there are still places up in the high Alps where the snow never, ever disappears. But plenty of cows though. Farming season is well under way and the farmers are busy milking, cutting grass for hay, and making cheese. Often times the air smells of cow manure, but it's a thing one gets used to when one lives in the mountain farm land. My parents-in-law are included in these activities. They're stationed up high in the Alps at the moment with their cows. And they're busy making cheese for the year. We paid them a visit this past weekend and we had a great time up there. Got to relax, rejuvenate, and recharge our batteries.

But summer season is also construction season. The government's project to make our village a car-free village has begun this summer. They're digging a tunnel which will bypass our village and send traffic around and away from us. The project is estimated to be completed sometime in the first quarter of 2009.

There is construction going on along the railway tracks as well, which is causing some delays in the otherwise impeccable Swiss Train System. They pride themselves on their regular schedule so much. I mean, you can set your watch by it. They've posted all kinds of signs up at all the train stations letting people know about the delays and apologising for it, but that wasn't enough. They have now taken it upon themselves to serve free croissants and juice on the morning trains as compensations for the delays. I get free breakfast almost daily :)

Definitely good to be back.