Sunday, January 31, 2010

BBQ not BobBQ

Life is good; Brian picked up 2lbs of BBQ from G-Daddys on I-95 in Georgia. 

EDIT: My favorite BBQ joint has changed owners.  The new owners removed the large smoker from the side.  Removed the tables and the sin of all sins - changed the BBQ sauce.  The Dairy Queen two doors down is in such repair that exit 3 has no more appeal to the Wagner's. 

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Size matters

This is a Celebrity ship inside the Baudock II building.  This ship is 50% larger than our current fleet.  This should help you get a scale for how large the building dock is.

Home at last!

I returned to Orlando after 16 hours and 30 minutes of travel.  That does not include the 2.5hrs from P@penburg to Dusseldorf. I will be updating the blog which may inlude some back dated posts so kepp coming back!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010



This is a photo that is in one of the restaurants in P@penburg. All ships coming out of the yard are towed to the North Sea via the river Ems. There are bridges that offer just centimeters of clearance. Locals come out along the route while the ship is being towed to bid farewell the latest ship.  Some clearings next to the river fill up with campers days ahead of time.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Map of Where I Am

This is my current location on the autobahn as we head to Dusseldorf.






http://maps.BlackBerry.com?lat=52.69599&lon=7.16445&z=4&label=Where+I+Am



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Windmills

On our way to see the Aida Blu ship in Elmden, Netherlands.  There are a lot of windmill farms in the countryside.



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Butcher's do not like cameras



Melanie and I decided to walk around a grocery store.  I took these pictures of the different types of meats and the butcher threw a fit. He spoke no English but let us have a piece of his mind for 3-5 minutes.  Who knew?

 

Abigail (“Abby”) Sunderland


Monday, January 25, 2010

European elevators

 
Floor zero? Yes in europe the ground floor is always zero and then each floor based off of that. At the Park Inn I had to take the elevator up to floor 1! 

European Hotel Beds

Here is a grump thought!  What the hell are european hotels thinking? You can only get rooms with two single beds.  Then they do not use top sheets. You get a bed with a flat sheet on the mattress and a single duvet.  You lay between the duvet  and the top sheet.
 
Cast members that are going over to Germany are making the mistake to think that you sleep in the duvet like a sleeping bag. This is an easy mistake if you are not use to such  a setup. 



Duvet pulled back like sleeping bag.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Wise men do not urinate into the wind or on the floor




This post is on the personal side.  I go into what Americans would call the "restroom" tonight after dinner.  The door had a sign called WS with the universal icon for a man.  Carefully I enter and see a row of urinals. Once at the urinal I noticed a fly etched into the porcelain. Here is the story.

But I don't know what WS stands for nor can I google it. Follow this link to a blog that has a lot of info but no real mention of my quandary.

Map of Where I Am/was

This is my current location or my previous location depending on when you read this!
After getting off the train from Hamburg to Leer Blaine picked us up. Blaine recently relocated to Germany and was driving his brand new Audi A4.  The four of us took the road to P@penburg

This is Bob and Melanie on the train:



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Friday, January 22, 2010



Multiply by 2 and add 32 for F

Jelly Candy



There is a fascination with Gummy bear type candy. At our all day meeting there were two large plates of gummies, in the hotel room there are cans of gummy candy.  It is everywhere!





Edit-1-23-2010
In the train station in Hamburg were more gummies!



This last picture was taken in my P@penburg hotel room where a package of gummie sheep were laid out for me to count myself to sleep.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Groninger Brivat-Brauerei

Great Northern Germany dinner at a local Brewhaus.  Gruenkohl, Sausage, skillet potatoes, beans, ham, turkey and so much more. You buy beer in 10 Liter kegs that are filled with beer brewed the evening before.

Here is Bob pullin another glass from the tap.

Hamburg the culture of Germany

Hamburg the city is home to 1.8 million people with a metro population of 4.5 million. Dirk our Project Manager turned city guide was full of information.  The harbor is what makes Hamburg one of the largest transporation centers, the port here is very large. It was dark but we could make out large ice packs floating in the harbor. The ferry plowed over the ice making loud scraping and clunking noises. The water was almost gelatin like as the swells from large ships moved onto shore.  Dirk mentioned the river here is tidal and is such up to 150 miles to the north. It was about 19F so standing on the dock and our 20 minute walk to dinner was an appreciation of Florida's mild winters.  There were 11 people total and we walked through downtown.Entertainment and media companies are prevelant and like New York; Hamburg has a large number of 'Broadway" type shows.  The Lion King is in a large opera house near the harbor.

Thursday 1/21/2010 Lufthansa

The day was spent at the Lufthansa Teknick office. Today's discussion revolved around the infrastructure needed to support 2700+ cabin and admin desk phones, 3000+ DECT wireless phones and special need phones.  Everything on the ship communicates over the IT network. Phones, Data, music, TV signal, environmental controls...  Bob and the network enineers have to balance all this data and make sure everything will work as planned.  DCL has to setup the rules for who can dial who, who gets charged for outbound calls to voicemail setup.  This was our second meeting and the open items were on a 19 page spreadsheet.  Hopefully we knocked it down to 2 today.  We met at what is called Deutsche Lufthansa base. The 5th largest airline they also have a separate business called Lufthansa Systems which is a  full IT integration service that revolve around transportation communications and entertainment. Daylight here is from around 7AM until 5PM. We were inside the whole day so I do not have any pictures.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Arrive Hamburg

After an hour flight from Frankfurt and 15 hrs from Orlando I arrive in Hamburg. 25 degrees and snowing the pilot announces. Melanie flew in an hour earlier from London and is waiting on me.



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Near empty flight


Happy flight, seat next to me is open!



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

2nd trip to Germany

I hope I do not jinx myself but I made it from curb to Outback by gate in 16 min. Walked up to LH counter and through security with Zero waiting.

Now some Alice Springs chicken before my flight to Frankfurt at 8:35est.
LH465



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

TV prediction

I am going to predict that the Wagner's will cancel their cable TV subscription Q1 2011. My prediction revolves around some services that are ramping up on the internet.We will be using a standard internet connection to stream video to our TVs. These services are somewhat disparate now but should start to morph into cohesive services.
*Boxee
*Hulu (D1sney is a stakeholder)
*Netflix on demand
Even today the PS3 and Xbox offer full streaming entertainment. You can buy a Boxee box soon or many DVD players offer the Netflix stream. My buddies that went to CES say that many TVs are being built with small Linux systems built in to allow the ability of streaming.


Today my family primarily watches network television. Stephanie is a huge watcher of YouTube and Hulu. The switch should be easy :)


Saturday, January 9, 2010


Sally, Chance and I volunteered to work the DCL water-stop for the WDW 1/2 marathon.   Stephanie went to bed with a fever and sore throat so we left her home.  We did this two years early and it was a great experience. This year the temperatures were below freezing with light sleet.  There are thousands of runners and the atmosphere is inspirational.  Our water-stop is the third one so we start filling cups at 4:30AM and the first runners come by a few minutes after 6AM.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

NewYears week vacation


This year we did a mountain vacation. We met Mom and Dad unfortunately Suzy had to work in the middle of the week. We broke the ride up by stopping in Savannah and visiting with Will and family. The Bobbitt's let us use their cabin which is between Lenoir, NC and Boone, NC. I cannot put in words how remote but full of every feature you need (with the exception of direct internet). Three sleeping areas, beds for 10+ full kitchen, game room and wrap around porch.


We learned the day before we left that an ice storm left a lot of people without power near the cabin. We were able to get through to the cabin's answering machine so we pushed ahead. The secondary roads were not plowed. We pulled Dad's van into an unused driveway and used the FJ as a ferry back and forth to the cabin.








Once settled in we enjoyed ourselves. We enjoyed the cabin view, the town of Boone and snow skiing at Sugar Mountain.








Our big debate, which side is the front? The side facing the road or valley?

We departed the cabin on New Years and drove to Atlanta to see John and family. On the way down Chance rode his bike up and down into "Happy Valley".