Archive for category holidays

Sunday Column (17)

Posted by Volker in Baby, Sunday Column, buddhism, family, holidays, personal on 21/06/2009

This week was overwhelming. What should I say?

I cut down on the interviews a bit because I really want to enjoy the time with my wee boy. He is growing so quickly and is VERY cute! We decided to put pictures online and on Facebook but not making them all publicly available. So please contact me or my wife if you want to see some more.
Monday night was a hail storm. I put pictures of that on Facebook too. Crazy weather for early June, I have to say!

Tuesday we went back to hospital. Colin was diagnosed with over 10% weight loss (10.7%) and jaundice. Both are relatively normal and after many tests and endless waiting in the hospital, we got the “all ok” stamp. Jenny needed to stay in hospital with the boy and I went home. However, after we had such a good experience with the hospital, Princess Royal in Farnborough, we were highly disappointed with this stay. Each midwife said something different, confusing the new mother and father, stressing us out and pushed us beyond our comfort zone. I would have expected more empathy, care and respect from professional midwifes. Some midwifes even admitted that their colleagues are “bad“. Anyhow, we are home again, and we are happy again and wee Colin is well. He is eating a lot and already has put on a lot of weight. I so love him!

This episode resulted in me taking the decision to cancel another meeting with a recruitment consultant. I have to say that there are very good ones out there that really care about you and the job you want to get into. Some just ignore you, don’t care and play with you, knowing you might be desperate to find a job. I am not overly, so got really annoyed with some. One of the biggest agencies in our industry, didn’t even manage to get back to me although I applied to 2 jobs, phoned twice, and added them on instant messenger. Funny enough they have a few jobs going I was put forward through other agencies. Really bad. Once I have found a job, I might just write a bit about my experience and tell you which recruitment consultants are good and which ones I did not like :-)

Thursday and Friday we managed to chill out a bit and prepare the house for the arrival of my mother in law. She arrived late Friday and we had a really good time. 3 generations in one little house for a weekend. What a brilliant time we had.

The amount of presents we got is overwhelming. People are so generous and caring. This is so fantastic. Thank you all so much for your pressies and cards. We will respond asap.

Colin on Fathers Day

Colin on Fathers Day

Besides the immense time I am spending during my paternity leave to help Jenny and little Colin, I still go for interviews. This is a shame but needs to be done, e.g. I am very thankful to have the opportunity to get interviewed by great companies and hope to have a new position soon. I keep you posted. Hopefully, once I have a decision, I can take another week off – just for the family.

On my Balamadana project, the blog I write with the Buddhist monk, I wanted to give you an update. Marcelo who was a monk when I met him and then left his monk hood in London, and we then started the blog to write about Buddhism and Management. He now decided to go back and become a monk again, he is being re-ordained in Brazil. I am very very happy for him and think it is a great step for him and he will truly enjoy it. Unfortunately, this means the project Balamdana will be on hold for a while and I am thinking if I continue there or continue to introduce a Buddhist column into this blog. I keep you posted.

Wish me luck for next week. Fingers crossed and I keep you posted.

Love and Happiness from all of us,
Volker

, , , , , , ,

No Comments

Sunday Column (5)

Posted by Volker in Baby, Sunday Column, cb consulting, family, holidays, personal on 29/03/2009

Weeks seem to pass quicker, don’t they? Must be the daylight saving. March is almost over and I don’t believe it to be honest.

It seems like yesterday that we entered 2009, that we planned so many things we wanted to do and so many friend we wanted to visit. Sorry, we just don’t get around to do everything we should. I sleep longer, I need longer to plan and the house needs a lot of attention.

And, of course, we are getting ready for the arrival of our wee baby in June. Not really wee, still being bigger than average. But what would you expect with a daddy like me ;-)

Summarising the week is fairly straight forward. A good phone conversation on Monday that put my reality back on track. There is a lot happening in the industry, great new technologies that are being developed. So good to hear that at least one part of the economy is striving: Online Marketing. It is measurable, it is affordable and you get your ROI. Why not start it tomorrow?

Tuesday I met a fellow MBA graduate in London. We had a nice time out in London town catching up about developments in job and life. Despite the recession there are so many buzzy things going on. There are so many things I would love to get involved in. But, you can only be hosting one party at a time. Almost anyways :-) Good to see that there are so many people with so much positive energy out there. Good to see that things are still moving, people are not giving in or up.

Wednesday was one of the slowest days ever. Nothing seemed to move all day. Thursday was double busy with a big pitch and presentation, a Friday full of meetings and….then there was the weekend.

My parents came up from Germany. They brought us a lot of baby stuff from my brother and stuff I used to have when I was a child. So much fun to play with my toys, some dated back from 1972, e.g. before my time, and I still love it ;-) Men never really grow up, do they? But, do we need to?

So we had a wonderful weekend. Good chats, a good catch up on everything and another great night out in London town.

We went to St. Martin in the Fields Church in London where we visited a concert where the London Concertante were playing.

Besides the Brandenburg Concerts, at least parts of it, the concert by London Concertante had some interesting pieces of music on, e.g. some are self composed and we got a CD called “Gypsystrings”. Very interesting, new music they are playing, but very good on the old stuff too (Barock).

On Sunday we went to Leeds Castle in Kent. It was a cold but dry day (surprise) and made it a really nice round up of the weekend, followed by a lovely curry from our local Indian!

So it was a wonderful week, a very nice weekend and … off to another week, another month. The month in which I turn 32 and a month that is filled with Easter and a long weekend at the end.

Have a great week everyone.

, , , , ,

No Comments

Christmas Catch Up

Posted by Volker in family, holidays, personal on 28/12/2008

Hello,

Here is a quick Christmas Catch up with some pictures. I hope you enjoy them.

Comments are welcome as usual.

Volker

, ,

No Comments

Scottish Hospitality

Posted by Volker in holidays, personal on 15/09/2008

I forgot to mention on Sunday that we stayed in a really really nice Bed and Breakfast in Scotland. It was fantastic. Our hosts, Paul and Rhona are so lovely and make you feel at home.

So, anyone going up to see Robert Burns or the west coast of Scotland, have a look if you like to stay in this Bed and Breakfast.

, ,

No Comments

Zoom Airline collapses and IE8 problems

Posted by Volker in SEM, cb consulting, holidays, personal on 29/08/2008

Hello,

There are two things to mention here:

1) I am sad that Zoom Airline collapsed. We used it to get to Toronto 2 years ago and it was a good flight, nice staff and great atmosphere. Shame that a “no frills” international airline needs to shut down. Ach well, that is capitalism for you :-)

2) I openend the link from the BBC News website in the Internet Explorer 8 which I downloaded yesterday. The result is that some of the frames do not show up and some text is blended into the pictures. Works fine in firefox!

I tried opening my gmail account on IE8 and could only get the standard view. Shame Microsoft offers programms that do not work with very popular email accounts, then again competitor email accounts, and with one of the most favourite news sites….ts ts ts

I recommend Firefox and Gmail – but that is my very personal opinion.

, , , , , ,

No Comments

Spain pictures online

Posted by Volker in holidays, memory, personal on 09/08/2008

Just to let you know that the spain pictures are online at Picasa.

I am busy this weekend, having my parents for a visit. So here are my favourite pictures from  the album:

a) I liked the little old towns in Spain, like Segovia, with the little roads. Cannot think of the German word for “Gasse” but I am sure you see what I mean – Google translates it as “Gasse” ;-)

b) Salamanca has one of the most famous (so was I told) squares. The plazas in Spain are great. They offer the opportunity for everyone to come together after the heat at night and have a few vinos and some nice food.

c) Astorga has a nice cathedral/church designed by Gaudi. Gaudi is very famous for his cathedral in Barcelona. Here is a link to Wikipedia from where you find more links if you are interested.

d) There were 3 Angels outside the Gaudi church in Astorga. I really liked their image.

e) Along our way we passed a village called Castrillo de los Polvazares which has been left in its original state. I found a video online from a group called Areaturistica. Information on Wikipedia seem to be only available in Spanish. There is a fantastic shot on Flickr. Amazing!

So anyone who can contribute some content to this in English, please comment!
I believe I read a sign on the roadside saying it either is or will be a World Heritage Site soon. However, looking at the Unesco Website I could only find the following sites that are named world heritage along our way:

f) Now, last but not least, a picture of myself :-) I admit the shorts just don’t go with the top but I did not wear that out like it was anyway…., or did I?

Have a great weekend!

Volker

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Pictures from Spain

Posted by Volker in holidays, memory, personal on 07/08/2008

I know, whilst my wife usually handles all the picture uploads….I am sitting at home on holidays, finished my tax return and thought to myself “why not upload a preview of some of our Spain holiday pictures?” – so here we go, more to be seen soon on Picasa.

Also, you find one more picture on our website.


, , , , , , , ,

1 Comment

Spain, summer and a week off

Posted by Volker in food, health, holidays, personal on 06/08/2008

Yes, I have been away. Whilst probably not too many people noticed it, I have been to Spain for almost a week. I wrote some blog entries in advance so you ain’t getting bored.

Let me start with Spain.
We flew down with Easyjet to Madrid, hired a car from Hertz (sorry, really recommend Hertz) and drove up to a place called A Coruna from where we flew back last night. Clickair does a fantastic low cost flight from there to Heathrow.

From Madrid we drove up to Segovia, a lovely little town with an amazing aquaduct with a lovely little succulent pig to eat. Nice Rioja wine and a high food bill. Our hotel/hostel, chosen by a good Spanish friend, was decent and good enough for a night. We had a lovely evening in the old city and from there started early morning to Astorga, our 2nd stop.

So, leaving the town of Segovia around 11 in the morning with a slightly heavy head, we drove to Salamanca where, besides a nice cathedral, you can find a frog on a skull at the old university building. Very interesting.

From there we drove north to Astorga and slept in a nice little motel. That place also offered nice steak and Jen ordered “half a cow“, famously a steak the size of the rip of a veal (or whale, I do not remember :-) ). Wow, very lovely, but since we speak little to no Spanish it was difficult to explain we wanted to have it “well done”. However, well done for my wife to finish most of the cow! Here is a picture I found on Flickr which shows about the size of the steak!

The next day we took some back roads with lovely curves from Astorga to Ponferrada and then back on the motorway to A Coruna where we stayed the next 4 days. We had 4 days of fiesta, the big summer fiesta, with our friends and family who live down there and also came over from Scotland. That was absolutely fabulous. Even if I do not clearly remember how I got down the hill one of the nights, but och well, the fiesta was amazing.

So thanks to everyone in A Coruna for our lovely time. Spain is a friendly place with friendly people and great landscapes. Just far too hot for a German. And, too many mosquitos.

Surely we will put some pictures on Picasa soon.

Here is a map of our way: map of Spain trip on Google Maps.

Now, I wanted to write about the summer and my remaining week off. I do that later I guess.

Speak soon,

Volker

, , ,

No Comments