Travel musings, BMI have gone downmarket

The sights you see when you dont have a gun....as my Parents are known to say..

I went from Schiphol to Heathrow yesterday and its was ( as usual) a marvelous experience in people watching.

Schiphol has an unusual way of doing security checks, they let you go all the way to the gate with only a passport check and then make you queue. When I arrived at the gate its was open so I went in to have a sit down ( no nice wee cup o tea but never mind) After 5 mins the security people arrived and made us all go back outside to queue to be checked. But obviously because we had all been inside they first had to do a security sweep of the chairs, radiators etc.. what a waste of time. After what was obviously AGES we were allowed back through and we were all checked.

Everything you had, had to go on the plastic buckets to go through the x-ray machine, including belts. Its a strange site to see very over sized people trying to put their belt back on while gathering all their belongings and rushing to stand in another queue for boarding. I was one rather large person pick up his iPhone as soon as he got through security, he stood there fumbling with his belt, while on the phone for at least 5 minutes, after finally getting is to go back and hold up his even larger trousers (who wears walking boot like shoes in the summer, sweat sweat anyway??) after all this time he stands in the boarding queue - still on the phone - ands after another wait he shuffles off back though security as he must be at the wrong gate..... I wonder if he caught his flight, he gave no indication of being remotely aware of the time and clearly didnt know the correct gate/carrier/flight number...

I am obsessive, I check everything a million times. I had booked Lufthansa, but it was a BMI flight so i had to make sure it was all OK, I could never be so casual. I would never talk so long on a mobile either mind.

I went back to playing Crayon Physics on the ipod, I am now stuck!

The flight was fine but BMI have started SELLING refreshments, thieving swine. When did they become a budget airline? I paid ( well my company paid) a full price and I didnt even get a coffee. I alos thought I was flying Lufthansa with German efficienfy , I ended upo flying BMI efficiency.... cabin staff must not be allowed to have tattoos as one of the crew had a tonne of cover-up on hers, it just made it more noticable.



The taxi trip to the hotel...I was picked up by a Caddillac monster. It was a silver grey colour, inside there was grey leather!, grey carpets, grey plastic door trim(!) and what I can only hope was real wood handle, I doubt it though. alltogether a YUK car. They would have been better with a Mercedes. There was little room in the back for peoples legs...

Enough of this, off to breakfast...I wonder if they have porrige

Printers & networks

I bought a new printer yesterday and was obviously dead keen to get it installed. It came with a WiFi printer server and this was the start of my problems. I consider myself IT savvy but it took a considerable amount of my time and effort to get all 3 networked PCs to be able to see the printer and print to it.

Why is it always so difficult? I installed via the software provided and it went OK for the first one until I tried to install the server. After much heartache and firewall fiddling, I could see the server and it all worked via WiFi.. Marvellous!! or so I thought.

Next was the HP machine which recently came back from being fixed with the language settings in Dutch. Everything is Dutch. It went to be repaired with all English settings, somehow managed to transform itself to Dutch when it came home. When bought new I could choose, when HP fixed it they chose for me and there you have it. It is OK most of the time as I do understand it but when instructions are in a different language than the system, menus don’t always contain the same things. Everything started out in English anyway ( at least Vista did) which makes trying to work out what the Dutch term would be a challenge…..

I installed the server and all was well until I realised I had installed it to access the printer via my laptop......;-(... start again with laptop switched off to avoid the same mistake...

Finally its all OK them upstairs to daughters room. Hours later.... finished here too.... what a day.

This is the culprit

I have never had an Epson printer before so lets see how it goes. Its a scanner too so KR can draw her pretty things and get them into her PC without the need to take a photo!!!

Onwards and Upwards

Cricket..who knew??

I know you were as surprised as me to discover the Netherlands played so much cricket that they had professional cricketers. Then to hear the stunned reports that they had beaten England in their Twenty20 match was a bit surreal. Its all too much for me, next I'll find pipe bands and kilts. Its all too scary.

http://www.novdb.nl/

http://www.schotsewinkel.nl/winkel/winkel.html

My family and other knitters....

I came from a long line of knitters... for years I had to put up with every jumper I had being knitted and (sometimes) a bit scratchy.... I saw all these women knit, crochet, sew and all I could cope to do was knit a square. I have no patience for this stuff. My sister was creating crocheted blankets at 14, I was thinking it was all boring. After many attempts I finally found something I could do too, which was knitting toys. I made loads. They were perfect for me, they didnt take long and you rarely had to make the same thing twice... What gets me about knitting a jumper is the fact that after all the effort of creating a front or an arm with a Raglan sleeve was that you just had to go and do it again.... what a pain...so I never did.

My toys were stuffed with cut up old tights.... I cant still feel the pain in my fingers from cutting them all up.. none of your Kaypok here.. we had to make it ALLLL ourselves.

Today my daughter showed me her new socks which had been sent by my mother. They are fantastic. I am amazed its possible to make something so marvelous with only 5 pins and 2 balls of wool.

Good isnt it!

I wonder now if I should dust off those pins and try to make some myself. I can knit and I can follow instructions all I need now is the patience and practice. I will post if I ever do it.

So, kudos mother you did brilliantly

Mind Maps

I have been using this type of software for a few months now and cant imagine what I did without it... oh yes I can.. that was when my life was ruled by lists. I had lists for everything. I book called 'things to do today' kept them all for me. Then, horror of horrors, my book was used up and there were none left in the stock cupboard.... so I reverted to lists again on anything I could write...

I also used Outlook and any other task list manager I could find and it helped. My problem was still that I went over everything in my head at 4 in the morning.  Not good.

I tried Mind Maps because people at work had been on a BrainTraining course and they thought they were good. Me, ever the impatient and not at all artistic, decided that drawing them would be no use so software had to be found. I tried Free Mind and that was OK but I wanted something a bit more colourful. After much 'googling' and trial versions of MindManager & iMindmap I decided on NovaMind.

www.novamind.com

I have V4 but cant wait for the upgrade in the autumn. It looks like its going to be a good improvement.  The current version is easy to use and intuative.

I sound like an advert. 

I also have MindBerry on my BB. Its great for creating on the go.

I now have a better overview of what I need to got done and it helps me plan projects. I find it much more useful than MS Project. I dont have resourses to apply or work to a real date & time plan and thats what Project needs. With my Mind Maps I can keep my overview and play at the same time.

Here's one I made earlier, as they say on Blue Peter

Liberty Park Overloon

We went today.

It has an enormous collection of machines and its all set up in a huge display. 

There is a large exhibit on the build up to the war, the occupation and then the liberation of the Netherlands. We were there for 5.5hours and I didnt see all of it. I only saw the history display till 1942 so we need to go back to see the rest. As it is part of the Museumkaart scheme entry was free too.

Well worth a visit. I didnt visit the War Cemetery, next time I think I will.

Tomorrow, something not related to the war I hope.  

Eu-ro-vis-ion !!!!!

Its such a great laugh the song contest. I remember listening to it on the radio when I was little in the 70's. I always liked it even when the UK entry was DIIIIIRE, as it was for years. Last night they improved the standard enormously! Well done to Lloyd Webber. The song was a ballad and not just bum-chink bum-chink EuroPop froth as has been churned out before. Given that I hate these talent programs like Idols etc and didnt watch the selection of the singer I was impressed by what came out of it. I admit to voting for us too. I also voted for the Sweden entry as I was blown away with her voice. What a set of lungs this girl has. 

The other entries were varied. I hate to say it but the Dutch entry was boooooring. Why do people insist on singing in English? a good catchy song is one irrespective of the language. All these summer sun hits tells you that... never mind the fact that I have never understood ( or wanted to) Opera words or the things we sang in a choir in Latin. The melody and the exprossion get you, or they dont. Understanding the lyrics is not essential to a good song.

I saw a comment on a website that said Frans Bauer wanted to go to Eurovision with a Dutch language song HE SHOULD or Barsato or Blof... why not. They are hugely popular here, nearly always sing in Dutch - more power to them. 

I am probobly ranting with the convicton of the converted.. I am surrounded by people who use Nederglish  and hate it. Why use combination words when you have perfectly good words of your own. Good  example is ''geforward''  As in Ik heb de email geforward........

Anyway back to EuroV- last night was a great show, Graham Norton did very well and Tel was fading after all this time anyway, Shame he went off in a strop but it allowed others to get involved. I hope he got to speak to the backing dancers from Ukraine at the after show party cluck cluck.

See them at the dress rehersal image 19.

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/multimedia/photos?gal=2585

As for the winner last night... if he could just stop himself yelling down the mike it would be fine .. I seems to have forgetten he is singing not shouting.  Apparently my opinion is not a common one.. good that I have a day job.

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/home

Go see the videos, enjoy!!