A look at Air New Zealand's 747!

Alright, so I'm an airline and aviation geek. But you all knew that already. I haven't talked about that too much here so far, haven't I? The other day I came across a video which I want to share with you. It's an interesting video from a CBS show ("Amazing race") where tv host Phil Keoghan will demonstrate the in's and out's of a Boeing 747-400 of Air New Zealand. It's a very interesting look especially inside the super comfortable business class where he explains how the seats work of the ingenious fishbone design business class (that also e.g. Virgin Atlantic uses). Who wouldn't want to travel like that?



A hug.

Training at Zurich.

I have been quiet for the last weeks. But that had a reason: I was away for two weeks. My company had sent me to Zurich in Switzerland to undergo a training. Why? Because since the 15th of November we are handling the ticketing for Swiss Air Lines and they work with a completely different computer system than the one we have at our airline. So all our ticketing staff have to be trained for that. So, together with my colleague Gaby I went to Zurich. I had a great time I must say! It was really a lot of fun with Gaby and we enjoyed the training and having the possibility to learn something new! We were really lucky with our hotel which was brand new and after a fabulous breakfast every morning (with real good fresh bread, soooo good!) we felt prepared for a long day of training ;-) Swiss had a great training facility and the course was really interesting (though I must say that we felt like going back in time, their system feels so outdated and complicated and way too lengthy). What I always like about these trainings is the international atmosphere. This time, we met colleagues from Yaoundé, London, Florence, Montreal, Copenhagen, Zurich (but native japanese), Auckland, Nairobi and New York! I really enjoy this every time I attend a training. Beginning of next year our own facility will reopen (after some years of rebuilding) in Seeheim in Germany (close to Frankfurt, our main hub) and everybody is already looking forward to the new trainings there! ;-) We ended our training with a test, luckily though we were allowed to use all our materials so it was not that difficult. But still I managed to make a slight mistake in something (that's at least one thing I know for sure already) and I am really mad at me since I had all the time in the world to check it or avoid it but unfortunately I didn't realize it... oh well, I hope I still passed... :-D

Besides the trainings 

we did not have much time to do anything in Zurich. In the first week Jelle visited us and together with him and Gaby we had a great dinner in the city center. During the weekend break (in 

which 

we could fly home) I opted for a short visit to Madrid to my lilbro Dani but I will tell you later in a dedicated post about it. At 

the end of the second week Gaby and I decided to "celebrate" the end of our training with a nice dinner in town (all other nights we ate in or close to the hotel in the airport's food court or at the staff 

cantine). It was a great evening out and a good end to our two weeks. It truly was a pleasure to have had the possibility to attend the training together with Gaby, a first for me to go on a training together with a colleague. It was so much more fun and you also had the possibility to exchange your thoughts and worries about the system and problems. I would not call it a vacation as some colleagues but still it was a great experience and I enjoyed it. ;-)

Thanks Gaby for the great time together, I enjoyed your company a lot!

Thank you for the music, Sera!

The other day when Dani, Sera and I were at Sera's house before we would go over to Dani's place and while Sera was getting ready, Dani and I listened to some music on Sera's iPod. Suddenly Dani played a piece of music that I knew for so long and didn't know what it was. So immediately I got excited because I wanted to know what it is but when Dani told me what Sera's iPod claimed it was I knew it wasn't the right title. But god bless modern technology: I asked Dani to use his iPhone's smart app Shazam (which Jelle recommended to him, just for the record... :-D ) to listen to the music (and occasionally lilbros do obey their bigbros wishes) and within a few seconds it returned the answer and I finally was able to download this wonderful piece of music! I think I know it from my childhood as the opening tune to some famous Radio Luxemburg show (back then, RTL was a very popular radio station in the Cologne/Rhineland area but broadcasting on FM from Luxemburg, it even had cult status especially amongst the younger audience - at that time, Germany did not know any private radio or tv but only public stations so RTL was a popular alternative to the dominant public Cologne based WDR).

So thank you so much Sera for bringing back this wonderful tune and with it some great childhood memories. May I present it to you? Here it is:



Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra - Love's theme

If you want to know more about the song, there's even some wikipedia info on it! So much for the seventies, welcome back to 2008!

Kisses to Sera and Dani, hugs to you all. ;-)

Elvis lives!

If it wasn't so sad it actually would be funny: a hacker was able to fool the system that reads electronic passports at Amsterdam airport. He was able to let the system read a manipulated passport and the system did accept the false ID without any problem. So all the security hype (especially of the americans) about stricter controls with electronic passports is basically for nothing... it does not even seem too complicated to do that as the hacker even demonstrates on his website in a video:

When I see this it really makes me angry as the authorities always make you believe it's for my own best and protection and blablabla... but it's not safe and it's only costing a lot of money for nothing - it's all about pure cosmetics to simply fool the general (especially american travelling) public to make them think all became much safer and the government has everything under control - not...

A hug.

Google for gays?

A german site that looks like google and works based on google aims to be the google for (german) gays: Schwuugle (pronounced like 'shwoogle'). "Schwul" (pronounced like 'shwool') in german means "gay" so it's a nice play of words for the site's name. There is a team that screens all the sites to make sure their content really is gay and but not only about porn. 

At the moment, 1.250000 sites are included that are somehow related to gay men. For the time being, the site restricts itself on gay men but claims to be working on a  lesbian version (or inclusion?) too. I thought it's kind of interesting though I don't know if it's really necessary and if I cannot find what I am looking for in google as well, with more or less the same effort. I haven't tested that. The only "advantage" seems to be that schwuugle-sites are sure to be gay, obviously... if you must have that assurance.

Finally, my iPhone

Yesterday, my boyfriend Jelle and I finally picked up our new iPhone 3G, after a very long wait (we waited that the first hype vanished and we received a mail from t-mobile telling us normal availability of the gadget in their stores). Since we were already t-mobile customers the change of subscription was a breeze, the people in the t-mobile shop were very friendly, it all went without problems and our new iPhones are already activated (and quiet, my fans, my mobile number hasn't changed). There was not much homework to be done in iTunes to prepare for the big day so I am up and running right away.

I am happy with the new phone (I chose the black one, 16GB version): everything works (almost) perfectly and all those things (like internet on the go, GPS) are absolutely fascinating to me, especially since it's in such a small and most elegant device. During the next days, I will test which modes I will use as standard to optimize battery usage. Oh yeah, I tried and it even can make calls and send SMS... so fascinating....... hahaha
One thing I am struggling with is the synchronization with my address book on my iMac. The phone and the iMac have exchanged data but the content on the phone definitely differs from that on the iMac and I haven't figured out yet why there is a difference. I already experienced this with my iPod touch before but didn't look into that too much yet.

As for third party applications I started to add apps for facebook, flickr and the Apple remote. I have managed to add ringtones without paying for them. I have to inquire with my lilbro though to see how he does that 'cause I'm new to the whole "assign ringtone to specific callers" thing... ;-) I also added google talk and reader and an app for AIM. Though I would prefer a one-in-all app like Adium that I use on my iMac (I know there is one but that has some disadvantages...)

I am not going into details of the prices but I can say that we both took the most popular subscription plan which gives unlimited internet access within Holland, free access to all t-mobile hotspots in Holland, includes 150 minutes of calling and 150 SMS for about 30 Euros. On top of that, you pay the price for the iPhone like announced months ago by Steve... ;-) It may be a lot to some but I love it, I like being able to access internet when and where I want and am willing to pay the premium for it. Interestingly in the shop yesterday, one after the other bought the iPhone, it's like there are no other phones... funny.

My baby, the great Jelle, also already has his iPhone (though he has a white one) and we are now iPhoneconectados. I think he was looking forward to yesterday to finally go get it at the shop.

For my part (and that of Jelle) today we are happier than Marco after finding his mother (hell, I have no idea what this is about but for the sake of parody I had to include this into my post - after all, I join Finnegan in a parody of my beloved lilbro's post).  :-D

Disruption.

For those of you who actually come on my blog site directly to read it will notice there is some content missing on the sidebar. I was trying to change the look of my blog and that resulted in the loss of the content. I am currently trying to fix and repair it but that will take some time.

Sorry for the somewhat "unfinished" look. ;-)

For all reader users there should be no change or problem.

Ugly.

The following video shows a new built yacht of a young russian millionaire. The ship was designed by famous designer Philippe Starck but honestly: I've never seen a more ugly private yacht! So if you had a few hundred spare millions, would your private yacht look like this...?

I know, this is something very special and most of you might not be interested in it - but I think this is amazing, very fascinating. It's about Royal Caribbean's latest cruise ship that at the moment is being built in Finland under the project name "Genesis". It's going to be the world's largest cruise ship and the company has now released more details about what will be featured. One stunning new innovation for cruise ships will be what Royal Caribbean calls "Central Park" - basically a little mall in the center of the ship under the open sky, with lush (real!!!) greenery, little cafés, small restaurants, boutiques and rooms that have a balcony towards this mall out in the open! For a quick glance have a look at the video below which gives a first impression. To read more about this, head to Royal Caribbean's site. Awesome, is anyone sailing with me on this ship? ;-)