Switzerland

I learned last week that there is at least one other person who reads my blog, other than the two who are obligated to. My excuse of being too busy and "nobody reads it anyway" doesn't work. Therefore, a quick update to all my followers ;-)
The previous week I moved to a house in Ireland and, after dropping my belongings at the new place, headed for the airport to spend last week in Switzerland. I'm about to go back to Dublin for a couple of days and then head to the States to visit Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, and New York. I am looking forward to that trip.

I came to Switzerland to celebrate Ayla's confirmation. She is my brother's daughter and I am her godfather.

I also wanted to reconnect with some of my school friends who were having a Swiss-style BBQ in the woods the weekend after the confirmation. The pictures of that event are on picasa.

There was also some time to visit with Stefan and Ursula at whose house I got to stay. Most of the pictures in this post are from a walk we took near their house in Muenchenbuchsee. The kitchen and bathroom at my Mom's apartment were being remodeled, so that was easier

It's pretty much like Ireland but with mountains, and cows instead of sheep. And the sun shines here once in a while ;-) There is even a farmer's pub! It's a self-serve stand in case you get thirsty on your hike.

Supermoon

Supermoon partially hidden by clouds.

First (this has nothing to do with this post), do you know what it means when the Irish label something spicy? Take for example the spicy beef pizza I just threw into the oven. What makes it spicy? The bell peppers and the onions on it! I'm sure the people from Albuquerque are laughing now. On my next trip I'll bring back a jar of medium green chillie sauce and let some people here try it. The jar marked hot, would be considered weapon grade here.
Maybe there is a connection to this blog entry after all; via New Mexico. I just did an easy four-miler  thinking about my training plan and how to fit it into my upcoming travels when I realized it was pretty cold. I wanted to run faster to warm up quicker, but didn't want to go against my training schedule so my body would get a chance to recover enough for tomorrow's long run. Freezing, I was thinking about the radio show the other day I heard while driving around.

View from Skerries at the Supermoon the day before.

It had been nice and sunny for a few days in a row. This is not nothing but blue sky type sunny; after all, we're still in Ireland. No, this is you see reasonably large patches of blue sky with an occasional direct view at the sun type of sunny. Nevertheless, people kept calling into this radio show and argued whether this was a good thing or not. Some advocated caution, that this much sun would cause a major outbreak of skin cancer among the Irish, while others warned that too much of it would just cause disappointment when it would invariable go away again. The opposite camp suggested to accept it as is and enjoy it. While I sided with the second view, it also felt dumb. None of these people had any chance to influence the weather, so why discuss it?
Now that we're back to normal: overcast and cold (sub 50s) that discussion seems even more ludicrous, but it brings me back to the connections of this blog entry's topic. A while back Anika alerted me of the supermoon that occurred a couple of weeks ago. Of course I had to go out and take pictures, and of course, the Irish thought it would be fun to throw some clouds between me and the moon. I anticipated that, so I went the day before and the day after. On the actual day it poured cats and dogs!

Sunset before moon rise. In Ireland, even the sky is green!

The day before the moon's closest approach to Earth, I went out to Skerries because I thought seeing the moon over water would provide for good picture opportunities. On the day after I went to the Glasnevin cemetery because I thought it would be cool to have some Celtic crosses with the full moon behind them. More people, including historical figures, are buried at Glasnevin than currently live in Dublin.

The hatch pattern on the ground is from the fence that barred me getting in.

I was there near midnight with my camera equipment and tripod, but all the gates were locked and I couldn't get in without some suspicious-looking climbing. Plus I didn't have time because the huge moon -- which appeared much smaller later, higher up in the sky -- was already coming out. So I used the so, so locations available and headed towards the city center in hopes of a good shot. I didn't really get a good picture of the moon in the city, but I did get a couple nice pictures of the Grattan and Ha'penny bridges late at night. You can see my best pictures on picasa.

Grattan bridge near city center.

Royal Canal

The SC deadline has passed, we submitted our paper, and I had a three-day weekend to recover. I slept a lot and started planing my training schedule for this year. I'm thinking of doing the Dublin Marathon at the end of October. It is relatively flat, although not completely so, and I'd like to come in under four hours.
I have been biking to Phoenix Park and running there, which is nice, but by now I know most of the deer by name. There are also often a lot of cars in the park, especially when they have events, which happens often on weekends during the Summer. So, I was looking for something away from cars, nice and long, and an alternative when I don't want to run in the park.

The 7th (or 6th?) lock

From the pictures, you can tell I found it. Two miles from here is the Royal Canal that connects the river Shannon in Western Ireland with the river Liffey in Dublin. It has an interesting history, is about 200 years old, and was shut down around the time I was born. It has been rescued and is now a great, 90-mile long recreational area, with wild life, houseboats, no cars, and a path along its entire length. Perfect for running.
Today I rode my bike, starting at the twelfth lock at Castleknock to the sixth lock at the boundary to Dublin city center. The first lock is in Dublin where the canal meets the Liffey, and number 46 connects it to the Shannon at Clondara.

At the outskirts of Dublin city center

About fifteen minutes after I took these pictures, I was drenched by torrential rain. Ten minutes after that, steam came off my clothing because the sun had come back out. The Irish say expect to experience all four seasons; each day. During the brief rain, I was freezing and hail was coming down!

Movie Star

I only had very vague memories about this, but when I was in high school we made a short, short movie and I got to "act" in it. We had a substitute teacher for a while and he created it on 8mm film and using us as actors.
Some of my school mates thought it would be fun to watch it again and, with a lot of luck, were able to locate that substitute teacher, and luckily he still had the film. The husband of the woman who organized the class reunion digitized it and added a sound track. I must have borrowed that tie and have no idea where the shirt came from.

The class room is where I spent my last three years of high school, and the building is where I spent the last five. My father went to school there too, and I recently learned that my grandmother had gone there as well. During World War II, the gym was used to house soldiers. They ruined the floor with their heavy boots. When we were using it, it was warped and had little pits the size of boot heels all over. I didn't care for sports, but that gymnasium didn't make it any more attractive.
By now they rebuilt it and renovated the main building, but it is basically still the same as it was back then.

Sunset

I have been very busy lately with work and have not had much time to blog. Last week I was first in Dallas for a funeral and then spent a week, mostly working, in Albuquerque. Within the last year both Lee Ann's parents passed away. My condolences Michael, Lee Ann, John, and Stacy.
March was a beautiful and warm month here. People dressed in short sleeves and enjoyed being outside. This month has been quite a but colder and also more rainy. Since I have been back, the day would start out sunny and then produce a heavy but quick downpour of rain in the afternoon. In the evenings, with the dissipating clouds, we would have beautiful sunsets.
So, yesterday evening, I hopped into my little car and went looking for a good spot to take some sunset pictures. I came across the cemetery above just after sunset. The sky was beautiful and the crosses and trees were large, looming shadows.

It was a nice evening and I drove around a little bit to find the perfect spot. I have been meaning to do that, but never seem to have the time, and, until recently, no convenient, quick transportation. I need to do more scouting to find a really good place.

I did manage to get a few decent shots.

But of course, I was not alone out there. This one was watching me the whole time I was standing there snapping pictures. Although I was probably about 200 yards away, she (he?) noticed me right away, kept two eyes on me, and did not move until I was back in the car.

Crazy Phone

The other day I payed my phone bill and was wondering why it was twice as high as usual. I use my land line as my DSL umbilical cord to the life-sustaining rest of the world; and the occasional call to Switzerland or the US. After some navigating the phone company web site, I found out that I had made couple of longish calls to Switzerland that would have made it almost cheaper to just fly there and talk in person.
So, I created a table of what the costs are to call the US and Switzerland:

Destination		Type		Cost
to USA				0.09/min
to Switzerland		Landline		0.35/min
to Switzerland		Mobile		0.75/min

Calling the USA is cheaper than calling Switzerland, which is closer. The Irish have more relatives and connections in America than Switzerland, but this is still strange. The costs above are in Euro, so calling a cell phone in Switzerland would add up quickly!
Then I looked at the cost of using my pay-as-you-go cell phone:

Destination		Type		Cost
to USA				0.15/min
to Switzerland		Landline		0.15/min
to Switzerland		Mobile		0.30/min

It is cheaper to call Switzerland from my cell phone, than using my land line!

I took the pictures, had notes on costs, and was going to blog this weekend, but didn't have time: Supercomputing paper submission deadlines are looming!
This afternoon, Vodafone, my cell phone and land line provider called and asked whether I would like to get a better deal when calling mainland Europe, including Switzerland, from my land line! I am 100% sure I had not typed any of the above thoughts and information into any computer; so that was kind of spooky!
The deal is this: I enter a contract for a year to keep them as my provider, and they give me 60 calling minutes to Switzerland per month. I pay nothing for this for the first six months, and then 8.99 per month.
I am gaining new respect for the Irish: This is pre-preemptive.

Malahide

I took my spiffy new car out for a spin today. This one, not the one above I photographed in front of Malahide castle. Lee Ann saw a house on daft.ie that looked interesting to us, so I drove to Malahide to walk around the neighborhood it was in. I called the agent, but it is not yet ready to be shown.
While I was there, I walked to several other locations where there are houses and apartments for rent, and took some pictures. You can look at all of them here.
Malahide is a small town just North of Dublin. It is picturesque, has good public transport, and is not very far from Dublin center. I would have to drive to work, but it should be possible to that in 20 to 25 minutes.

There are lots of little shops and restaurants. There is a huge park that surrounds Malahide castle. The castle has been expanded over the years, but the core of it is 800 years old. And, it has belonged to the same family for almost the whole time.

On the way home I stopped at the Swords Pavilions shopping center which is very close to Malahide. It's a large mall and very crowded on Saturday afternoons, but it has two very nice grocery stores. The best I have seen yet here in Ireland. One is a Superquinn and the other a Dunnes. I bought Simply Better Luxury Muesli and some strawberries at Dunnes. Waiting in line to pay, so I could go to Superquinn and get the rest there, a woman approached me and told me that I could go to the 10-item-or-less checkout further down and be out much quicker. I wasn't in a big hurry and just looking around at all the hustle and bustle, and so hadn't even noticed that. The Irish are friendly.

Sorry for the blurriness

Speaking of speeding things up. At Superquinn they have these handheld scanner you can checkout with your frequent buyer card. As you shop and put things into your cart, you scan each item. At the checkout, you hand over the scanner, pay, and off you go. No need to take your stuff out of the grocery cart twice.
By the way, to get a grocery cart, you need a one Euro coin. The carts are all chained together, and by inserting a coin, you can release it. At the end, you get your coin back, iff you bring the cart back to it's designated area. In other words, you pay a Euro, if you leave your cart parked at the tree next to your car.
In Switzerland, and most other European countries, there are no grocery baggers. You do that yourself. And, you had better brought a (reusable) bag, otherwise you may have to buy one. This keeps cost down and is good for the environment.
In Ireland, some stores have baggers. They are not high-school kids. I read somewhere that they are volunteers; they are not employed by the store; and you are supposed to tip them. On the other hand, tax drivers do not expect a tip, but gladly take it in these economic harsh times.

Back from Switzerland

This year I spent St. Patricks Day in Switzerland. The taxi driver on my way home had his cab decorated in a Catholic theme: Maria figurine on the dashboard, rosary with a picture of the pope hanging from the fare meter, and holographic cards depicting Jesus laying around. He told me the weather had been great and the parade in Dublin outstanding this year. During a News segment on the radio about the Vatican report (also here) on the abuse scandal in Ireland, my driver didn't say anything. Church attendance here has fallen dramatically in the last few years.
I did visit the IBM research lab in Zurich, but the main purpose of my visit was a class reunion. I had not seen my classmates in almost 35 years and only in the last few years, through facebook and a web site that specializes in reuniting high school students, have I been able to reestablish contact with some of them.

My class in in 1976

There are nine mandatory school years in Switzerland. You start at 7 after kindergarten and finish with 16. Most kids then do a three or four year apprenticeship or go to a prep school for University. My class had more or less the same composition for the final five years, and some of us knew each other even earlier. We spent our early teenage years together and grew up knowing each other.
There were a couple of people who could not be found. A few people who did show up, had had no contact with any of us for even longer than me. Even our homeroom teacher of the last three years came. The organizers went through a lot of trouble bringing us back together and trying to unearth artifacts from back then.

There aren't many pictures of us from back then. Few of us had cameras and none of us had a cell phone. Apple was just being founded!
A day after the class reunion I went with Stef to the transportation museum in Luzern where I took the pictures you see sprinkled throughout this post. I thought they would fit nicely with this nostalgic story.
The reunion started at two in the afternoon and I didn't get home until four in the morning. Not all of us stayed that long, but many did. There where several hundred years worth of stories to be told among us! It was fun, interesting, sad, thought provoking, and emotional. I'm still trying to digest some of the stories I heard.

My last 35 years have been interesting with many ups and a few downs. Some of my friends had had interesting times as well. Several of them horrific, with a boy dying of cancer at four years old, a grandchild born in an American prison, addiction to drugs, and extreme cases of marital problems.
Most of the evening was very upbeat, though: counting who had the most grand children, finding out who had an eye on whom back then, who recognized whom with today's body and face, and lots of stories which are now, that many years past, pure fun.

James Bond's car in Goldfinger which was partially filmed in Switzerland. Note the gun nozzle behind the direction light, and the tire shredder sticking out from the back wheel.

I'll go back to Switzerland in June to attend the confirmation of my goddaughter. Once again in church, I will think back when it was my school friends' and my turn to be up front and start, what we then called, the second life. I hope I'll get to see some of my old and new friends and hear more stories.

A Car

Sitting on the right, driving on the left, shifting with your left hand!

Last week I bought a car. It's four years old and because it just had its birthday, it was time for the NCT: The National Car Test. Cars must pass it when they have been registered for the first four years and every two years after that. They check emission but also tires, breaks, glass, lights (including aim), mirrors, instruments, alignment, suspension, rust on structural elements, and other safety related things. You can see the 92-page manual here.
I bought my car from a dealer so they did a service on it and made sure it passes the NCT. One reason I chose a dealer is that it is hard to buy a car, when you don't have a car. I found this car on the web and then rode my bike to the dealer to go look at it and test drive it through Phoenix park. The whole time we talked about triathlons because the dealer did the Dublin City Triathlon just like I did last August and then got sick, just like I did.
Cars are expensive in Ireland. One reason is that they get taxed quite a bit when they are first registered here. Then you also have to pay a tax to drive it every year. Until 2008, the tax used to be based on the size of the car's engine. Since then, the tax is based on the CO2 emission. My car is in the lowest class and gets 50 miles to the gallon. Petrol too, is expensive here.
In my search I did see a couple of sporty cars that were relatively inexpensive. Insurance, gas, and road tax are high for those, because most of them have big engines. Even if they don't emit a lot of CO2, the 2008's and older are now very expensive to drive around, hence the good deals available. I was tempted to have a midlife crisis, but my budget calculations sobered me up again.

My calculator from 8th grade.

There is no publicly available Kelley's Blue Book or an edmunds.com to look up how much a car should cost. But there is a way to cheat. In order to calculate the vehicle tax when a car is first registered here, its value is taken into consideration. The revenue service offers an online tool to perform this calculation. You enter the car make, model, mileage, age, etc. and get back how much it is worth and how much the tax is. You can try it out yourself here.
I paid a little bit more than that at the dealer, but get a year's worth of warranty, road side assistance, a full service, and the NCT. Insurance is another matter. It's pricey as well, but goes down with each no-claim year and as long as you don't have any traffic violations. I qualify for all that, except, of course, I'm in none of their data bases. I have no driving history here. I'm trying to get some kind of statement from my US car insurance and hope an insurance company here will accept it.

The first insurance company I called would not even insure me until I have been here for at least two of the last three years. The next one wanted 1,700 Euros. I'm glad I didn't go for that sports car!
I have gotten some more reasonable offers by now, but it still seems like a lot of money. It reminds me when I first arrived in the USA. Same thing: no credit history and no driving history; premiums were sky high. I remember walking into a Sears and Discover had a stand setup there. They told me I should get one of their credit cards and it would help me build a credit history. I didn't really want one, but after a while let her convince me to fill out an application.
A few weeks later I received by mail (that's how things worked back then) a notification that they would not issue me a credit card because of my missing credit history. Ever since then I gleefully tear up offers from Discover. Now they would love to have me as a customer. Sorry guys ;-)

License plates in Ireland encode the year when the car was first registered, in the first two digits. That is usually followed by one or two letters that indicate the county where the car is registered: D for Dublin, KE forKildare, etc.
So, by looking at the license plates you can see how old the cars are. At work, it seems, many are between three to five year old on average. Where I live, most of them are around ten years old or older. Ever since I learned about this, I had this urge to drive around various company parking lots and see which ones pay their employees the most.
The other neat thing you can do is to take the license plate info and enter it here or here. You'll get back some basic info about the car (brand, model, color, diesel or petrol, etc.) If you pay them, you can get more information: whether it has been in an accident, whether there is a loan and a lien against it, how many owners it had, and other useful information about a car before you buy it. Like car fax in the States.

 

Not About Houseboats nor About Exercise

See the "Next Blog" link above? Blogger puts it there and takes you to a random place in the blogsphere. But, it tries to take you someplace you might find interesting. I don't know what the algorithm is, but it looks at the blog you are reading and tries to find another, similar one.
Last Summer when I kept writing about my training schedule it would take me to blogs where exercise nuts had pictures of cast iron stuff they found in junk yards and were now training themselves to lift with as few fingers of their left hand as possible. Last week, when I wrote about houseboats, it took me to Mom's pages with the latest advice on how to decorate your house and garden for Valentine's day.
This week, I wanted to write about my washing machine, and I fear the worst. That's why I gave it a misleading title and will write about exercise in a minute. We'll see what google's similarity algorithm does with that.
My apartment has a great, albeit a little small, washer/drier machine (above). You stick your clothes in there, and they come out clean and dry. I have no clue how it works. But it is fascinating.
There is no lint catcher, for one thing. (Lint should trigger a whole bunch of interesting blogs above. Maybe I should throw in the word bellybutton as well and emphasize it!)
It took me a while to get the machine to do what I want it to do, but it is still a mystery on how it does it. It takes for ever to wash and dry your clothes: four or five hours per load. When it is in the dry cycle, it keeps adding water all the time. You hear this high pitched whine like it is spinning at hyper-sonic speeds, but the drum inside the window is barley turning. Then you hear a slow rhythmic whoosh-whoosh, making you think of rocking chairs, but the thing is spinning at escape velocity.
When you take your clothes out, they are wet. You shake them once with a snap, and all of a sudden they are dry! You can't touch them; they are burning hot, even on the lowest dry setting. If you touch a zipper or the rivets on your jeans, they will leave burn marks on your skin! The leather flap on the back of your jeans that says whether they are relaxed fit or straight, and what size your belly is, is soft as rubber. As it dries, it curls up, and you can't get your belt in anymore, and the waistband feels weird back there with this wad-up knot of a leather label.
I've been meaning to look up the technology behind this process before I wrote this blog. But it is time to reveal the existence of this mystery, even though I cannot explain it yet.
About exercise: I didn't do mine today. I did taxes and FAFSA. But, I started on a program to do 100 push-ups and another to do 200 squats. I'm on week four with my push-ups, even though I started last August. I'm doing better with my squats and have another week to go; i.e. sometime later this year.
Despite the setbacks and interruptions, the exercise schedules actually work and I am making progress. You should try them and then, just for fun, click on the "Next Blog" link above.

Houseboats

Even though Arun suggested it, I don't think we'll be living on a houseboat anytime soon. I was nearby a place today where a bunch of them are moored, and thinking of his comment I could not resist taking a picture of one. Traveling with one of them through Ireland involves going through locks like the one below. Most places you have to operate the lock yourself, since there is not enough traffic anymore to employ full-time lock wardens (or whatever they are properly called).

I was near the lock and the houseboats today because it was on my way to go look at a house for rent. I took the bus to Castlenock and the train from there to Leixlip.

See? ;-)

Unfortunately, one of the tenants had gotten sick and they would not allow visitors today. It would have been nice for them to call yesterday, before I went on this journey, but at least I got a few pictures and another blog entry out of it!
Of course, then I had to come back again:

See? ;-)

By the way, Dublin bus now has a phone app that shows you where the buses are and how much longer it will be until ones arrives at your stop. This improves life greatly.
I have seen the above bus before (I didn't actually ride in it). I guess you can rent it, if you'd like to have your wedding in a Dublin bus; or at least move your guests around in one. I think I'd prefer a houseboat!

House Hunt

This week Lee Ann was here. We rented a car and spent some time driving around trying to identify neighborhoods and towns we would like to live in, where the cats and kids would be happy, and finding houses large enough and with enough bathrooms to accommodate guests. It's time consuming and difficult to satisfy most, let alone all, constraints. The picture above is from a place a little bit North of Dublin. We like that area a lot, but the affordable places are far enough from Dublin's center that commuting would be a problem.
There are trains going into Dublin, but they are not very fast or very frequent. We don't know yet where Lee Ann will work, but city center is a high likelihood. Driving in there and parking is a nightmare! I wish they turned the center into a huge pedestrian zone and established park and ride spots around it. Then the buses would become useful. Now as it is, the buses get stuck in rush hour traffic just like everything else.

This house in Skerries is not for rent but it is typical for that area. Walking distance form the town square, the ocean, and a number of restaurants and shops. It's really not that far from Dublin, but we would spend 40 minutes in a train or in traffic.
We'll have to spend more time looking and exploring. It helps to know what the neighborhoods look like and where they are so that when a house becomes available, we can pounce. It seems the nicer ones that are affordable go fast, and sometimes don't even get listed on daft.ie.

There was a house for rent near the Skerries Mills, but it was too small. Europe is freezing, but Ireland is nice and balmy (relatively speaking ;-) Unfortunately, it was also raining quite a bit this week. We still have long dark Winter days which makes house hunting even more depressing when you can't find quite the right thing.

I have also started investigating getting a car and Lee Ann and I spent Friday afternoon looking at a bunch and test-driving a couple of them. Sometimes I think maybe we should just get a boat. The coast is nice and there are plenty of rivers and canals. Maybe the commute will be a little longer, but a lot more fun!

We parked near one car dealer and on our way to the store we walked by a building that had the statue below in almost every window. Some of the figurines were painted or were dressed, but they were all the same, and lots of them. After we drove away from that area we saw more of those ladies in windows.

Found here

It was a little surreal and we were wondering what the reason behind that window decoration was. What do they mean? We are not the only ones wondering. On this bulletin board there is a long thread of people trying to guess where these statues come from and why there are so many in the windows.
Part of the answer comes in the form of a short video documentary. The film won a price at the Dark Light film festival in 2010. During the making of the short film, the maker asked for help finding windows that had the statues on display. People responded and created a Google map of lady sightings.
It seems to me that this is something like those pink plastic flamingos on wire stilts everybody used to have in their front yard for while....

Pub Bathrooms

This is the mirror in the Halfway House pub men's room. A couple of coworkers and I were there Friday night to have a beer and some dinner. The other side of the room was less pretty but equally antique looking. It seems that Irish men have the same problem with aim as their neighbors across the Atalantic; the floor was quite sticky.

Other than that, a very nice pub. I promise to start taking nice pub pictures soon.