geneva::information
photography and rant from the middle of europe
As my car decided to take a longer break in the local Renault Dealership, I got time to wander around the place we stay in (with my in-laws).
uhm, well. I’m afraid I could not get along with the style of Nolde, so after two attempts I reverted to what I like better ;)
Jonas did a road, in the end
but..we had fun ;-)
One of the more important trading posts of the vikings was located in Haithabu, south of today’s city of Schleswig. I went to school in Schleswig and have visited the museum a few times already – it’s interesting to come back though.
The vikings were known to be raiding countries, but they made a living as well of trading.
The trade brought goods as far as from Turkey, and talk is that the vikings went over to America in their little dragon boats as well.
Those are pearls made of glass, which was shown hands-on in the museum as well:
This last part of the Museum, added in 2006, consists of reconstructed housing. Based on what was found in the mud, the houses were reconstructed with ancient tools (or the lack of).
(All this is approx. 800 ad)
These houses were used for 4-5 years, typically.
And the boats..there is a canoe as well, which has been made the same way the native americans built canoes. Very funny to see the same style of craftmanship a few thousand miles away, again ;)
Those were however unique to the vikings.
In Wöhrden (Dithmarschen): Wir waren im Oldenwöhrden essen, Bismarck war auch schon da. Klassisch norddeutsche Einrichtung, wirklich angenehm und gemütlich ohne plüschig zu sein.
Das hier ist einer der ältesten Höfe (wenn nicht der) in Wöhrden.
Am nächsten Tag ging’s dann an die Ostsee, erst nach Kappeln und dann nach Drecht an den Strand. Vorher haben wir noch Fischbrötchen geholt und dann am Strand quasi Abendbrot im Abendrot gegessen.
So geht’s!
Erstmal wird man natürlich Mitglied bei XING. Weil der Auftrag vom Boss kommt und einem XING eigentlich am Popo vorbeigeht, sieht das Profil so aus:
Positiv: Es stehen keine übertriebenen Karrieredaten im Profil.
Negativ: Es steht auch sonst nichts (nichts!) im Profil.
Das wird nicht besser, wenn man sich anmeldet:
So zeigt man schon von vorneherein, dass es einem nicht um Kontakte oder sonstwas geht, sondern wirklich nur um professionelles Networking. Also..professionell im Sinne von “hier will ich $Geld oder $Reputation verdienen oder mache das weil mein $Boss das will”. Sicher, man muß da nicht seine Lebensgeschichte ausbreiten, aber etwas Informationen wären ja nicht schlecht.
Beeindruckend auch die Zahl der Kontakte: 36. Und – ganz professionell – die kann jeder sehen.
Dann macht man sich auf die Suche nach seiner Zielgruppe:
Die Powersearch bei mir zeigt dann an:
PR Guy: Premium Member
$Coolname PR-Network GmbH: Search for organizations, “haves”, previous title, title
Ich habe einen der Jobtitel in meinem Profil, die über die CxO-Suchen gefunden werden. Das ist einfach, denn schließlich wissen wir ja alle was ein CxO macht (Firmengrösse und Skills spielen im C-Level ja keine Rolle mehr, das wissen wir alle).
Dann bekommen die Opfer, err, die Zielgruppe eine Nachricht:
From: PR Guy
To: Me
Date: 24 Aug 2010, 12:33 am
Subject: Invitation to the group “CleanEnergy-Project”
PR Guy would like you to join a group
Hello Mr. me
ich möchte Sie gerne in das $Marketing Project einladen, eines der größten Netzwerke für erneuerbare Energien und Umwelt.
Mehr als 20.000 interessierte Mitglieder haben sich dem Netzwerk angeschlossen. Wir betreiben ein Online Magazin, um mit täglichen Beiträgen über Energie- und Umweltthemen zu informieren, organisieren Events und begleiten ökologisch sinnvolle Projekte.
Über Ihre Teilnahme würden wir uns sehr freuen
Herzliche Grüße
$Marketing Project Team
Oh, PR-Guy hat also 20.000 Mitglieder in seiner Gruppe versammeln können? Wow. Und das auf der Basis von 36 Kontakten? Beeindruckend. Sexy finde ich auch “Hello”. Und dass es dann auf Deutsch weitergeht, aber das sind sprachliche Animositäten, meinerseits.
Wirklich interessant an der Einladung ist aber, dass sie weder mit mir persönlich, noch mit meinem Job, noch mit irgendeinem Merkmal meines XING-Profiles irgendwas zu tun hat. Da macht das ja richtig Sinn, dass ich Mitglied Nummer 20.001 werde :-o
Übrigens – das ist nicht die einzige sinnlose Kontaktaufnahme in Xing, aber sie sticht durch ihre beeindruckende Schlichtheit wirklich hervor.
It’s not an official, but the head of the german police workers union who suggested that “it’s not entirely clear if a virtual patrol is possible”.
Well.
I am not very fond of camping, absolutely not. I had my fair share, that’s what I normally answer when someone asks me. And it’s true, I had the ultimate week of camping in an extraordinary campground in December 1994. But as it was my son’s birthday I relented, bought a tent (wow, technology has advanced), sleeping bags (wow, techn..) and off we went on the bike, southwards.
Just one night, but for starters!
Our target was Serres. And on Thursday we took off to get home. Starting at 10h30 we made it home around 20h30, which makes 10 solid hours on the bike..you bet we slept well that night ;)
The alps are terriffic though, south or north.
To be able to actually ride we tried to stay off the main tourist roads, but we succeeded only partially.
But where we did, it was just great.
This, btw, is a full restaurant. They had no place for us to eat anymore. Strange. So if you ever make it to the area of Turriers and look for a place to eat – don’t go to the Hotel Roche Cline or their restaurant. They’re full. Further down the road, if you make it to the lakes, there are plenty of restaurants which are not full and even don’t bother to set a table for you. The reason why that’s nagging me is that I just learned a bit more about why some (american) tourists think that the french are arrogant and unwelcoming. I do absolutely not agree to that. This (above) was the first strange or unwelcoming experience I had since I know France (which is many more years than the nine we live here).
Back to nice things:
That’s the village of Ventavon which seemed to be competely void except for two kids. The village is nice to look at and worth a brief stop.
Fun starts when trucks are forbidden to pass ;-)
The GPZ is now 14y old. On the trip we passed the 99’000 km (I bought it at 45’000).
The cable stuff is the intercom. I could not imagine to ride 10h without it – still, I almost forgot to take it with me.. it was this “sit back and relax, go through the journey and ask yourself what you forgot or which gadget you could take with you”-thing ;)
Going up to ..
Amazing landscape, difficult driving – but fun. And I always again enjoy the air at high altitudes.
Almost home, well, another 2h of riding from here :-)
The city of Duisburg, place in which 20 people died during this year’s Loveparade, tries to suppress publishing of documents which give background information about the happenings.
The documents in question are annexes to a report made to (and paid by) the city to shine light onto the circumstances. A german weblog had published them and received a cease & desist order to stop the publishing from the city today.
Even if the weblog in question does bow into the cease & desist, the attempt to stop the documents form leaking is futile – “the internet” has already reacted and created multiple copies of the files all over the possible filesharing sites..and yet again old-style management of public knowledge and the reality of a truly connected society clash :)
The full story (in german) as well as the links to the documents can be found here.
