Happy New Year everyone, hopefully this is the dawn of another great year...

It's still the holidays, but with the 2 weeks of partying before having returned to Canada, a 10 day stretch without posting combined with some extra wireless time as I plant my butt down to have drinks with family and watch the World Junior Hockey Championships opening game between Canada and Slovakia (Canada up 2-0 in the first), it's time to get the ball rolling on some business and non-business related posts and links from around the web again. So here goes...

An interesting arguement on the folly of moving to a labour intensive, resource conservative economic model. I doubt very much that this will convince environmentalists. The main flaw in his arguement of technology as the means of creating resources is those resources that are natural necessities of current life. Yes I agree that a red hill is just a red hill until technology development which allows the construction of a sword makes it a resource however there are resources which are made as such by the non-technical "utilisation" of living organisims. A tree is not just a tree until technology allows the development of paper, coal, furniture etc, it is also a mechanism for the production of oxygen, a balencing force against climate change, soil erosion etc, all benefits derived not from technology, but from natural utilisation. This "natural utilisation" as I've defined it here is much more important as it pertains to the preservation of life than technological resource creation as explained in the article.

I think this is a great strategical marketing move on the part of Airbus.

One of the best parts of being at home is seeing the new beer commercials. In Canada's time of need (current NHL lockout means no NHL hockey), Molson Canadian has stepped up to the plate. Go here for the link but you have to register to the site first to be able to use it... it's worth it, I almost peed my pants. Update: Actually here's a link where you can download alot of the cool Molson Canadian (that's a beer brand for those not familiar) commercials. The "Do you really want to hurt me" one is the new one I hadn't seen until today, hilarious! Here's three quotes from I sponged from the site:

"In a world darkened by ethnic conflicts that tear nations apart, Canada stands as a model of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and mutual respect." - Bill Clinton

A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe. - Pierre Berton

There are few, if any, Canadian men that have never spelled their name in a snow bank. - Douglas Coupland

There's a new infra-red telescope in Hawaii called (drumroll please), the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). It's supposed to find pics of the closest systems outside our solar system as well as the farthest objects from it. Yadda yadda, seems like their always building a bigger/better telescope every year, but I found this post interesting because of its initial pics of the Orion system, a personal favorite :-)



It's too bad these telescopes can't see this happening until it's already too late. Ummm makes you think eh!

With the cuming of New Year you may wonder what the most popular cultural issues, political influences, scientific discoveries and knowledge creation happened in 2004. Googles zeitgeist gives us a glimps into the most popular social issues by tracking the most popular searches, this year's winner... Britney Spears. Our civilization is doomed ;-)

And finally looking towards the future, a glimps into what that might behold...

Wherever you are, whoever you're with, whatever you're doing, I wish you a Merry Christmas.
Smile Charlie Brown, it's Christmas time :-)



A special season's greetings to all my friends and family. To the one I love, you have changed my life, I am thinking of you...

In the words of 50 cent:

"Go, go, go, go
Go, go, go shorty
It's your birthday
We gon' party like it's yo birthday
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's yo birthday'
Cause you know we don't give a fuckIt's not your birthday!"

But it IS my birthday!! Happy birthday to me! And Merry X-mas to everyone and yours, especially everyone in Germany who celebrate their Christmas today instead of the 25th. A brutal flu is ripping it's way through the household so we're all hanging out in the family room by the fire, eating, drinking, I'm surfin the web wirelessly on my new Netgear wireless router (geeking it up), life is good. We've got church later tonight and then our traditional drive around town to look at the Christmas lights and decorations. The best part about this year is that instead of a light diner like usual (because it's X-mas night) we're having my favorite roast on the BBQ! Sweet!

I've been good this year so I hope Santa reflects this accordingly :-)

Anyways, I'm sorting through e-mails today and I came across a forward from Denmark and had to post a couple of my favorites. The tagline is "Why women live longer then men" but could have just as easily been "Why guys are total idiots". Way to go Denmark for getting this in, Merry X-mas eh!





I'm also adding a perma-link to Marta's photo album from the parties, alot of good shit in there, thanks for posting Marta! Anyone who has other pics from the parties etc please shoot me an e-mail, I also go a few from Franky baby who just so happens to have started a blog of his own, check it out over at www.frankyfhp.blogspot.com!

PS> Anyone else have anymore Amsterdam stories, I had totally forgotten about the pigeon "incident". Pigeon 1, Jenny 0 ;-)

Update: I'm going through all the pics I've recieved in the last month, some are just too good not to post. This is a club in Amsterdam, yes it must be my new favorite ;-)

I'M HOME!!!

Well it's been quite a whirlwind since the MBA Amsterdam trip, lots has happened, lots to catch up on, so let's get right to it!

First of all it's amazing to be back home, the food, the people, everything! When you go abroad at first you're so excited that you don't even miss home. Everything's new, different, like a vacation. Anything that takes you away from the reglar rigga-ma-roll of your life is cool and fresh. After the initial excitement wears off (that should read: after the initial buzz of term opening parties wears off sometime in November) you get into a regular groove. You go merrily on your own way for a while until things start to grate, you start to miss a particular meal or friend, some cultural reactions which were interesting at first start to quizzle etc. By the end it's all replaced with a conflicting combination of sadness of leaving and happiness to go back home... but it goes by oh so fast. I can't believe I've already been gone for almost 2 full years (with a short trip home for Winterlude and hockey last winter). Words can't explain.

Anyways, Germany was AMAZING, truely, truely AMAZING! It's just great to get back and catch up with the gang! Note to gang: I've made a ton of calls tonight already, I'll try and get to the rest as well as all those e-mails over the next couple days, but here's the sched for the next week until I rock on down to Utah:

Dec 24th: My birthday, for all of you who still do not know my age I will be turning 35... or is it 15? ;-)

Dec 25th: Christmas Day, fucking A on the turkey diner!!

Dec 26th: East Sides in the loo for lunch/beers/football, move to Al's for the rest of the days matches, finish up with some big time beers and partying.

Dec 27th: The party moves to T-dot at Stevie's sweet pad, hot tub, sauna and I think a risk board will be involved :-)

Dec 28th - Dec 30th: I have to hit home to finish a project I took on when I got back (hence the minimal contact since I returned on Monday).

Dec 31: New Year Eve Party's at Al's place!! (and this isn't one of those times that I announce a party at Al's place without her knowing... really!)

Jan 1: I've never actually been awake to confirm the exsistance of this day before :-)

Jan 2: Prep for Utah

Jan 3: Rock to Utah for the fourth and final MBA semester, sweet!

So I hope to see you all out and a'boot these holidays! You all know my home number but because I'll be bumming around, e-amil will probably be easiest if you need to get ahold of me, and please do since it's been almost 2 years since I've seen some of you!

I see that this has been the longest non-posting session since the blog began (10 days), and looking back at the crazyness of the last couple weeks (combined with a broken laptop and limited internet access) I can certainly understand why. Things should be back to normal following the holidays and move to Utah for the final MBA semester. I wonder if I should change the name of the blog from EuroRoss since I'll be in the States, or leave it since in all probability I hope to go back to Germany for at least part of the summer for the completion of my thesis and graduation [mixed in with some travel and personal "business" ;-) ]

So the week after Amsterdam (what a spacey great trip!) was busy busy getting asignments and exams out of the way on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday went out during the day for some beers with the hockey team, then to my place to watch the VFB game (we won easily) then of course last Irish Pub Wednesday. This was truely a night to remember, unfortunatly I can't. Just joking, it was awsome! I want to thank everyone who showed up and for the surprise gifts! I think the final song count that I sang on stage was 4 but someone a little more sober will have to confirm that ;-) Thanks again to everyone, you made it truely special. (Pics for all days to follow after I wade through e-mails and archived CD's)

Thursday we hit the Butcher in Kirchberg, a tradition on arrival and departure of sorts. Thanks to the small group (including the representatives of the Russian mafia) who made it out to the middle of nowhere, especially my Paris Partisans who came all the way throught the middle of the night just to make it, I don't know how you did it but it was awsome! Can someone tell me how a 5 minute walk up to the hill for some star gazing beers at 3AM turned into a 1 hour DRIVE back at 6AM?? Hilarious.

After recovering on Friday morning I spent all afternoon and night packing all the stuff I couldn't fit nor afford to bring home (although I did, more on how Air Canada sucks my balls in a later post). Three boxes, a hockey bag, a mountaineer backpack and a laptop bag for the flight as well as 4 boxes and some furniture for storage later I was finished. We rocked over to Karlsruhe to show the city around a bit before the French delegation had to go back, then it was off again to finish an amazing weekend and then finish it all off with my best friend. As always, I promised myself not to have a huge hangover for the long plane ride home and yet again the combination of tasty beer, a 6AM bedtime with a 7AM wakeup and a 10 hour flight day (which turned into 15 hours, dam you Air Canada!) did not bode well for promises :-( Saying goodbye was painful and difficult, but I finally made it home, and in one piece. Reflections to follow in the next weeks.

Well another great thing about being back in North America is that TV rocks again, so I'm off to watch back to back episodes of the O.C., SWEET! My picks for best new programs of the season are "Desperate Housewives" for her and "Viva La Bam" for him, although a healthy dose of West Wing, Survivor and NYPD Blue are definatly in order!

I leave you with this quote scammed from Starkdavingmad who ripped it from Ida Scott Taylor, it's similar to a philosiphy I live by:

"One day at a time–this is enough. Do not look back and grieve for the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled by the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering."

See y'all soon!

Amster-BAM! Great roadie with a bunch of the MBA's to Amsterdam this weekend.

The killer sauna 12 hour bus tour certainly took its toll, especially with the "friendly" bus driver even pulling the bus to the side of the road to give us all a spanking once. Hilarious. We finally got there though and it didn't take long to get into the groove. Combine the fact that drugs are available 24/7 and there's a frigging Irish pub or two on every single corner of the city and you're definatly going to have some good times. Saturday night was a blast, many of us were totally blasted, best place to check out was "Rookies", sweet pool, music and atmosphere... followed of course by "Cock Ring" for which I will have a photo posted soon :-)

(Hey gang, please shoot in the pics from the weekend so I can make them available online eh)

Sunday chilled out a little, checked out the Van Gogh museum, had sweet "happy" ribs for diner and then rocked back on the bus. A tremendous weekend that seemed to "fly" by ;-) A special thanks to Anutter who set everything up and handled the weekend like a prostar, even having to deal with stoners and retards like me. Thanks from all of us!

PS> Space muffins rock :-)

Now the light at the end of the tunnel fast approaches. I'm outtie on Friday, but don't forget about Irish Pub Wednesday and for some of you Thursday night at the butcher. Both will be total barn burners!

If anyone is looking to upgrade their place they should gimme a call ASAP since my place will be available, 149 euros a month (including all water, heat and electricity), 5 mins to both bus stops, 5 mins to centertown, 1 min to bank and grocery store, deposit includes use of desk, futon bed, TV stand and 21" TV, small fridge, dressor and drawers for clothes, private washing machine and dryer, microwave, stove, dishes and utensils, and a whack of other stuff I'll be leaving behind like clock radio, carpet, lamps, BBQ, patio chairs, etc If you reserve then you can either move in anytime in December or February/March at the beginning of next semester (just call if you want to check it out). Sweet place.

Last exam tomorrow, then just a presentation and a couple papers away from closing the chapter on this semester. Lookout Utah, here I cum!

Well the secret's finally out, not that there wasn't already a couple close calls! We rocked down to Grenoble yesturday to surprise Old Man Aussie for his b-day. I guess he was getting pretty confused as to why none of us were answering his e-mails for the past couple weeks (for fear of dropping a clue).

HAPPY B-DAY OZ!!

Because of a delayed start we didn't get to check out any classes, but initial impressions (and highly superficial at that) on Grenoble are that it's a tech hub (building a miniturization institute and they even have a friggin particle accelerator there!), socially backward (bars close at 1AM and there is no, and I mean NO, food, stores or anything open after 1AM either!!) and quite quaint nesstled in a flat valley surounded by hughmungous mountains.

The night rocked in a familiar way which we haven't felt here in Pforzheim for a while. We had the usual, darts, Irish Pubs, shots dropped into beers (is that usual?), police closing down our bar due to noice complaints, "fake" last call bells, barkeeps at the last place giving us plastic cups to take our beer on the road (hint hint), midnight directions*, a little guitar Hotel California and a nice rock hard all wood floor bed :-) But it was the people, the company that made the night. Good times gang!

It was also great to see Stuttgart K there, and the other students we met were cool (alhtough the two Canadian girls didn't make it out). I only wish we had a picture of Oz's face when we walked into his room, total uncomprehension at first which soon turned to total elation. Probably one of the few times we've ever seen Oz for a loss of words ;-) And what's this I hear about summary's and concised slides and presentations without heavy reliance on PowerPoint? I think I've heard that before, maybe sometime last year, well at least until those arguements were drowned out and discounted by the Oz man himself as being totally heretical... "how can you have a presentation without 500 pictures and 20 paragraphs of information on each of the 4000 slides!?!?! Not Possible!!!" Perhaps I exagerate a little... perhaps not :-)

Anyways, got back late today, hit hockey with the Pforzheim team for the last time tonight. I don't think the beers helped my game, 6 breakaways, only 1 goal to show for it, or maybe I'm like Bure, you've got to be good to get breakaways right? ;-) Ladies if you're lucky I think some of the team is cuming to next Wednesday's Irish Pub... try and control your hormone's :-)

Ok, it's almost 4AM and we've got Innovation Management tomorrow (great work on the slides Marta, you PowerPoint geek, yes Karlsruhe Kris you might actually have some competition upon your return next semester!!). MBA getaway weekend to Amsterdam starts tomorrow night, SWEET ROAD TRIP!!! Let's get it on!!




* Actually the highlight of the night: I asked some "madmoiselle" walking on the street if she new of any places to buy food, of any kind, at that time of night. She shook her head repeating that there was definatly no way to buy any type of food until the stores all opened at 6AM in the morning and even if it was a starving life or death situation there was no way to get any type of food, no matter what. I then asked if there was an open gas station around that might sell stuff.

She stopped, starred at me with her jaw dropped and a completly blank stare that masked the internal collision of world's occuring within her mind and said with utter amazement (as if I had discovered Plutonium) and complete sincerity: "Wow... [pause]... you're really smart... [pause]... there's one two blocks over and they have snacks".

The scariest part is that she almost certainly hadn't had anything to drink, smoke or otherwise that night. Hilarious.

Once again ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Stevie J. He usually gets one or two in a month that's worth posting:

Xmas gift Idea for a stupid Blond:
[ed-actually let's not discriminate and just say for a stupid "person" ;-) ]

Well I see that my last couple posts didn't make it onto the site, I'll have to check into what the problem is later this week. At least you didn't miss much, more of the same, work, party, work, party, party, work, party...

I just around to reading this e-mail from a buddy of mine who works in the marketing dept. at a large company (identity hidden to protect the guilty). I pee'd myself when I read it:

"[Company] Corporate sent me an email on Monday asking me to submit a quote on the successful marketing campaign within the Canadian market for an editorial that is being compiled, so I submitted the following:

"[Company]'s marketing team has once again done this company proud. We now stand a good chance of bringing in some serious greenage. Now I won't feel quite as guilty when the Accounting Department is tallying up all those expense receipts for my time schmoozing with potential customers at such prestigious clubs as "Twin Peaks" and "Hole in One" and "Whorehouse" and "Walk-In Clinic". Moreover, as the Marketing Coordinator for [Company]'s Equipment and Rental Division, it's a great thing to see the [Company] name gaining greater awareness. Personally I liked my idea of streaking the quad with the [Company] logo painted on my back, but some dude in Legal had other ideas. But thanks to [Company]'s hugely successful print, radio and television campaigns, customer awareness has shot through the roof, as has employee awareness of the need for a hefty Xmas bonus!"

Hilarious!

Well German customer service does it again. I sent in my cancellation for my high speed internet service a coule weeks ago specifying a December 18th termination date. So I wake up Dec 1st, fire up the laptop, double click the internet connection wizard... BAM, user name or passowrd not accepted. I knew exactly what had happened.

After 2 days of calling, a newly created user account, $13 in charges, 2 name corrections to my account and a direct deposit re-application I'm finally back online. Thanks Tiscali, you suck.

At least this little experience has reaffirmed my assertation that I'm a total geek that would rather (that should read "prefer") live without cable TV, a telephone or even my left testicle than without high speed internet access. Ladies... please line up for your piece.

On another note, the VFB Stuttgart game is tomorrow and I'll be buying tickets this afternoon (the train ride to and from Stuttgart is free with your advance ticket) so shoot me an e-mail pronto if you wanna go (penis event only, sorry gals).

No links today but I guess I'm on Ista's forwarding list or she knows how much of a sucker I am for pics of the stars or space cus I found this in my box, thanks Ista, here's looking at you kid ;-)