Some old bikes.

Not sure if the brick road helps for traction..in fact i'm pretty sure it hurts. but it added to the ambience.

it probably shouldnt be street legal...but thank god it is.

if it aint for speed..take it off.

View to the starting grid.

another old car. watch out for that exhaust.

Old...white....car. i dont know what it is.

An old bike. I know it looks strange, but the bike is small, the guy is normal size. not the other way around.

You will be mine. oh yes, you will be mine.

Nothin but the basics.

Buuugatti. The french got these right.

Nice Healey 100

The Big 27

No one can embarrass a child quite like their parents. Whether it's a little spit in the hand to fix that wayward lock of hair, the pants jiggle while school shopping or the jacket with your name inside it, parents seem to find endless ammunition to supply a child's friends with. Luckily as we grow up these things tend to become less embarrassing and much easier to ignore. Every once in a while though, parents still seem to come up with something to remind their children that they're out there, especially on Birthday's.

Today is my Birthday....

NOTE: this pause is to allow you time to click on over and write me a mail saying happy birthday or better yet..send me a gift. I like my corvette's in velocity red please. Black is a suitable alternative too.

Back so soon? Anyway, today is my birthday and I'm reminded of a birthday a few years back in which my Mom managed to embarrass me from over 500 miles away, truly an impressive feat for any parent. I was working in Memphis at the time and as usual i was doing my best to forget the fact that it was indeed my birthday. Another year older with nothing of substance to show for it...my cynical side showing there.

So I'm sitting at my desk and from out of nowhere one of the dudes who worked up on the phone lines comes back and says “Is it your birthday?”

Me “Um, Yeah. How did you know?”

Dude “well your mom just sent a mail to the company inbox telling everyone up front that its your birthday and we should all come back and wish you happy birthday”

Me “Great. Thanks” don't shoot the messenger...don't shoot the messenger.

Looking back now i realize that it was not meant to embarrass me, but at the time i was embarrassed as hell. Ahh but time passes and we get older. Nowadays i get the option of embarrassing myself for my birthday.

I bring this up only to highlight an interesting tradition here in Europe. Here, whenever anyone has a birthday they bring all sorts of food and eats into work and send an announcement to the company list. “come on over and eat my food, help me celebrate my birthday”....something to that extent anyway. I just couldn't bring myself to do that though. It feels a bit pretentious to me. When i told the people here that the tradition in America is the opposite...people buy YOU things for your Birthday, they thought it was just as odd. It probably didn't help when i told them a Rolex was a typical gift.

For everyone that sent me Birthday wishes, thanks! For everyone that didn't and were only going to send after reading this and being reminded...well, i know who you are and i have a long memory.

What was i talking about again? Ahh yes, to drink or not to drink, that, my friends, is the question. It's September and that means Oktoberfest is upon us. I know, doesn't make sense to me either but the Germans don't seem to notice a problem so why bring it up.

Oktoberfest is underway and although i didn't reserve a seat anywhere i got invited to go up this weekend for a few days of, well, drinking. The only problem is there's also a classic rally going on here in Switzerland. It's actually a pretty tough decision. Sure i can drink anytime, but not in 1 liter quantities in a tent with 500 other drunk people. And sure i can see races any time, but this one is only run every four years.

http://www.klausenrennen.com/en/Geschichte/geschichte2.htm

My plan of action is basically to procrastinate until as late as possible and then make a decision.

Will i go to the race?

Will i go to Oktoberfest?

Tune in next week to see the exciting conclusion of “The Weekend of Sept. 23”.

Cant think if a witty title.

...and i'm back. There's nothing like returning home to a nice surprise or in my case, 2.
I've said it before and i'll say it again, Paris De Gaulle airport sucks. Despite flying through there 5 or so times i've managed to avoid running into any real problems beyond it annoying the hell out of me with the general atmosphere and attitude. However coming through Paris this past time was by far the worst time yet....the bus rides were longer, the people ruder and to top it all off, they lost one of my bags. It wasnt a particularly important bag, it had an inflatable bed some along with some books and DVD's, but its the principal of the matter. Murphy's law got me this time.

The other surprise though was a bit better. Normally my company leaves me a little sh*tbox at the airport but this time i arrived to find myself the new destroyer, i mean driver of an Audi A3 Sportwagon. As cool as that sounds it sounds even better when you say it like the Germans.
Shportvagen

Say it with me...Shportvagen.

Ja

Its much faster, handles better and has significantly less plastic than my previous ride, the venerable VW Polo, always a favorite of the ladies. I need to figure out how to keep this Audi...Fast.

As far as my vacation itself, it was great. I know what you're thinking, “Corrigan, isn't two and a half weeks is rather short for a vacation?”. Yes yes, but i managed to fill the time. During the first week I spent a few days in NY getting my haircut, doing some shopping, working on my cars, catching up with Family...all the usual stuff.

The second week brought a few more hours of flights and 7 days of diving in the Caymans. The Cayman islands, for anyone that doesn't know, are basically a pinnacle of coral surrounded by 6000ft of deep, dark water. Needless to say the wall dives are phenomenal and provide ample opportunity to see some big wildlife in some deep water. But despite having 6000ft of water underneath me, I was not able to get the deepest dive of the trip. My 131 footer was 1 foot short. Thanks Doran. Asshole.

I didn't have an underwater camera this trip because 2 other people i was diving with both had housing for their cameras, well, at least for the first half anyway. Who would've thought underwater camera housings were so sensitive to pressure. The dive yielded some good pics but as usual the sharks were the most exciting to see, for me anyway. We did see some stingrays on the trip. I'm not sure what the hell Irwin was doing but i was able to grab on and ride them like a jet ski without any problems. Maybe he forgot his name was the crocodile hunter and not the stingray hunter. Too early? Below are some pics. As soon as i get some of the underwater ones I'll post them too.

And now it's back to the grindstone at work. I've got over 350 mails to delete, i mean read, so i should be able to spend at least the next 2 or 3 days avoiding work. This will be a busy fall with some trips to Italy, Birmingham, Detroit and Koln coming up, but luckily there's a classic Rally in there as well.

View from the dive boat.

Storm at night...thank you long exposure.

Storm damaged mansion. Million dollar view on a (formerly) million dollar house.

Sunset before a night dive.

Home for the week pic 1

Any Stingray's in there? I hear they're friendly.

Home for the week pic 2

Storm Damaged house. fixxer upper??

Crab. They run sideways and bury themselves in the sand. Kind of like the french.

The dive boats.

Sunset before a night dive. Even without the sun the water was still in the 80's.

Europe has nice view...but so does home. Or as brian called it, the "hellhole in northville". Brownie points for kevin.

I think i put more miles on my cars in 1 week than my dad has all summer. Probably didnt help that the brakes hardly work(ed).

Hindsight is...anyone? anyone?

I'd like to personally thank the terrorists for f'in up my vacation.

Thanks

Sarcasm doesnt come through well in writing, but if it did, it'd be dripping off this page. Last wed. I booked a last minute trip to London for the weekend. The weather was looking so bad here for the weekend that i decided to bail on the street parade. Zurich to Heathrow for 4 days of London fun. Yeah well, that was the plan anyway. No sooner had i booked it than the fuzz anounced on thursday that they had foiled a terrorist plot at..anyone? Bueller? London Heathrow of all places.

Again...Thanks

So with the prospect of being out a bunch of money i sucked it up, thought up the best BS story i could and called travelocity. After an hour of arguing with some Indian guy they agreed to refund all my money. Somehow i had them convinced that their website had an error in it which resulted in the wrong hotel booking. Damn i'm good. Well, that or he was just sick of arguing with me.

Equipped with my refund i sucked it up and headed to the street parade despite the forecasted rain. It was actually allot of fun....the rain actually may have helped. White shirts..rain...hey, i'm just saying. One of my friends got some good pics but i need to sensor them before posting.

I do consider myself a nice person though and i'll give you terrorists a second chance. Next Wed. i'm heading to the states for about 3 weeks of well deserved vacation.

Don't 'f it up Osama!

NOTE:if any travelocity representatives are reading this, this is a work of pure fiction. I'm not even a real person.

So..its hot then?

I hear that the east coast is in the midst of quite a heat wave. Well, i'd like to tell you that i feel your pain but frankly, i dont. It's been cold and cloudy for the last 10 days or so with no end in sight. Given the option of hot or cold...i'll take cold.

Not much else going on, next weekend is a 4 day weekend and up in Zurich they have the "Street Parade". http://www.streetparade.ch/ Hopefully the weather is better for saturday.

Here's some random pics of Europe during vacation season.

Brown Swiss...that must be where chocolate milk comes from.

What are you looking at?

See you in September

Friday officially marked the beginning of vacation season ( yes, season ) at my company and in Europe as a whole. Here in Europe there's Winter, Summer, Spring, Fall and Vacation season. Thats five for anyone who doesn't care to go back and count.

When i was working in the states for my current company i found it rather annoying. For 4-6 weeks every summer our European office became a ghost town. Need some cost info, need some quotes, need some prototypes?..forget it. Tell your customer to wait. After all, shouldn't he have vacation season too??? It wouldn't be so bad if it was spread out over a bigger portion of the year, one person taking vacation here, one person there. But no, it's all grouped together between June and September. There are a few people at work who literally walked out last Friday and said “Bis September”....”Until September”.

Wow.

To be fair this vacation season is pretty common throughout Europe. That is one reason they are able to get away with it. When your customers and suppliers are also taking time off then its much easier for you. But don't forget, its not just B2B businesses, it's consumer businesses as well. The bike shop down the street is closed till August 11th and the Kebop place next door is closed nearly as long! In my mind this would be the best time to be a shop owner, but try telling that to the shop owners. Actually I think that the vacation season here is an excellent illustration of the overall mentality towards work here. The world can wait, we've got vacation.

Is it really any wonder that most European economies cannot match the US for growth or output? When you add up all the time off they have allot of catching up to do. I'm an engineer by degree so lets do some math. Take 4 weeks and multiply over 100 years, thats 400 weeks. Now subtract out the average 2 week vacation in the states and that means that Europe's economy is ~2 yrs behind ours!! Rest easily my fellow Americans, our position at the top of the economic food chain is secure. Well, assuming China or our own government doesn't screw it up.

But now I'm on the other side of the fence and i can hear you asking “but corrigan, has my view changed?” But of course, from this side of the pond i can honestly say that it's great! I'm working the next few weeks because i cant afford the time off from my projects, but it should be nice and quiet around work. Come in at 10, 3 hr lunch, leave at 3...and i bet i still get more done than i normally due because of the lack of distractions. I've already taken about 8 days off this year and in September I'm taking about another 10 days. I suppose I'm a hypocrite, but I'm comfortable with that.

I sleep better.

Particularly knowing i have so much vacation.

Now get back to work you lazy Americans!


Oh, one more thing...so the BBQ went well, except for the Margaritas. First, i had trouble finding the Margarita mix. Tequila wasnt a problem, but the mix was nowhere to be found. After a few calls i got a line on a store that might have them but before going i thought it prudent to make sure i could find ice. Believe it or not, this is a huge challenge. When i was at LeMans there was no ice to be found. If i go next year, I'm renting a truck and a generator and carting along an ice maker. I'm telling you, that idea is pure gold!

Anyway, back to the margarita issue, so i called a few people asking where i can find ice. The best answer i got was “try McDonald's, i think they have an ice machine”. Well, i decided that Corona would have to do.