Room with a view

 Note: I did swim once but no more given the swimming pool was not heated and 16-17C water is VERY cold.

Where is everybody?

Hotel is nearly empty.
There must be more people from the staff than customers. This morning at the breakfast there were merely 20 people. Only 1 of the restaurants is open.
As much as I appreciate having the full attention of 3 waiters, it feels wrong.

Traffic is fluid, even during the day. Honking is 2 levels down. We could cross the street without risking our lives between 20 cars.

There is a curfew from midnight until 6am so everybody rushes back home as of 10pm as nobody wants to be still on the road once the curfew starts.

Cairo without its chaos is not Cairo. It leaves me with a sad feeling and the wish to plan vacations in Egypt to contribute my tiny bit to getting the chaos back in the streets of Cairo.

Emptiness

Today I’m flying to Cairo. The R&D event is barely finished and I’m already back on the road to finally conduct the interviews we had to postpone in February.
And this afternoon I’ve been facing emptiness.
Emptiness in Brussels where believe it or not there were more security guards than passengers at the security check.
Emptiness in the plane which was barely a third full.
Emptiness at Cairo airport. I didn’t have to queue at the customs. There were no lines!
Emptiness on the roads as it took only 30min from the airport to the hotel instead of 1 hour.
Strangely all this emptiness is making me feel sad. Where are the people?

March 25th - D Day

March 25th is our yearly R&D event where we celebrate our achievements.
Last year Aurelie and I lead a team to organize it with a different spirit in mind, helping others and giving a bit back as not everybody is as fortunate as we are.
This year, we’ve been asked to repeat and exceed the success from last year.
After 6 months of preparation, today is the day.
2011 R&D event in numbers:
- 6 months preparation
- A team of 15 people to set it up
- 600 participants
- 80 000 products from our company packed in 1-year cleaning/grooming products supply pack for families in need in Belgium
- 20 pallets of clothes/books/toys donated by the employees on site
- 200 talents offered by the R&D employees
- 3500 Euros collected via an online auction system of the talents + 3500 Euros collected during the live auction on the day itself to help 2 organizations to keep children connected with their school / teacher when sick
It took a lot of time and effort to get this organized… but tonight I feel proud when I think of all the people we’re helping.

Meeting on a Friday afternoon

"I don't think it's a good idea to have a weekly meeting on projects on Friday afternoons because, you know, I'm tired on Friday afternoon. After a whole week of work it’s hard to focus on Fridays."

From all the reasons I've heard not to have a meeting, this one is clearly the best one. It left me speechless.



Long series of numbers

Tonight while restarting my work laptop I was faced with an unknown screen asking me for the recovery key for the encryption program.
Quid?
I called IT and the technician told me he would call my voicemail and leave the key there.
After 15min of struggle (not so easy to call Belgium from the US apparently) I received indeed a voicemail in which the technician announced the long series of numbers.
By long, he meant 48 digits, no less.
Had to listen to it twice and covered 2 pages of the small notebook to get the whole collection.
“48 digits, this way it’s really secured”, indeed, there is no way could come up with this combination.

Chocking... at least for some people

This morning I had to bring back the blood pressure monitor to the hospital and ended up spending 90min in the car stuck in the traffic. Having nothing else to do I listened to the radio and in between 12 weather forecasts (seems the sun is not going to stay until the weekend) and as many news bulletins, one of the animators spent 5 minutes talking about a very chocking subject: they have changed the Malabar logo. Instead of the Mr. Malabar, some muscle man, it’s now a cat, Mabulle.
Before:

Now:

For those who know Malabar they used to chew it claiming “quand y’en a marre, y'a Malabar” (when you’re fed up, there is Malabar… it does rime in French).
Clearly  “quand y’en a marre, y’a Mabulle”? does not sound right, really not right. But they claim that the new generation identifies better with the cat vs. Mr. Malabar. No comment.
To finish with what is now memories:

Soooooooooooooo tired

It's one of those mornings where my body wouldn't want to get out of bed. I am simply exhausted. I managed to get up and make it to my nail appointment, but only to come home straight afterwards and take a 3-hour nap.

I guess the double effect of jet lag and a 70+ hour week simply got me down. In case of any doubt, it’s now confirmed I’m not getting any younger and my body needs sleep to recover :)

External flash is ordered

After the frustration triggered by the pictures from the baptism I've been playing with the idea of buying an external flash. I know, something else to carry, something else to load, but something else to get better pictures.

Luckily for me, prices are going down. Most likely a new model is coming out soon, but I don't need a Ferrari.
Even more luckily I've been informed that the Taxes will give me some money back. A bit more than 200 euros, i.e. pretty much the cost of the flash.
So, why hesitate?

PS: for my Mum, I’m not getting the shower cap to put on it. I still have my pride :)

100 000

That's the number of people who signed up within 24h to use Breakup Notifier, an app that emails you when someone you are interested in changes their relationship status on Facebook to "single".
I guess it shows what people really care about...

Source: Time Magazine, March 7 2011

They are Speculoos indeed

On Delta flight they give you a choice of snacks among which I usually pick the biscuits. Biscoff they are called and strangely they taste like speculoos. Today, don’t ask me why, I looked at where those biscuits were from. You would never guess: “Product of Belgium” made by Lotus and imported in the US.

The reason why thos speculoos are so good is because they are real ones, on top from the Lotus company, the best one, and the one located on the same street as our apartment. Talking about a coincidence…

Muffin top

This week-end I was introduced to a new expression: muffin top.

Nothing to do with my Muffin at home but more to do with the real muffins and their impact on your body.
Muffin top is used to describe the body shape of a woman who’s wearing tight pants, so tight her belly is coming out… in a similar way to how the top of a muffin is wider than the bottom part in the paper. Do you get the image?
The more muffins you eat, the bigger your belly, and thus the bigger your muffin top.

Believe it or not, thinking of their potential muffin top gets some women to stop eating muffin or at least stop after 1.

I've got it all

Diligently I’ve collected the different items I was supposed to bring back with me:

- Product samples for work
- Joint soother pills and software package for Wolfram
- Clinique products and Spring pants for Alice
- Long enough trousers and real Oreos for me
and of course a lot of non planned purchases, but how could I not bring back some Easter M&M's :)

I can tell you Santa Claus is coming to town.

99 minutes delay

I wonder whether I will make it to Detroit tonight....

14 gallons

I just tanked 14 gallons in the rental car. In 5 days I completely (or almost) emptied the tank leading to a bill of 50$.

That car is a sponge absorbing gas faster than water.

Red Dog Pet Resort & Spa

On the way back today I spotted an advertisement for Red Dog Pet Resort & Spa. Quid?

“Red Dog Pet Resort & Spa is Cincinnati’s first purpose-built facility specifically designed for your four-legged family member. Your pet is a part of your family. And when you aren't able to be with them, you want to be sure the people you are entrusting them to have the same high standard of care.

Our state-of-the-art care includes:
• 24/7 on site professional staffing
• A wide array of boarding options, including luxury theme suites with webcams
• An indoor Aquatic Center & Daycare
• Animal Pickup & Delivery
• Grooming & Spa Services
• Members only Dog Park"
That's what the website says.

Simply incredible. Not only a Day Care for dogs, but on top a Spa for dogs. As much as I love my cats I will never call for Day Care or send them to a Spa.


Makes you wonder how much money people have to waste and even more whether people have their priorities right.

Like a fish in an aquarium

The swimming pool of the hotel is particularly small. After a couple of back and forth across it, I tried the diagonal and finally settled on swimming around it.


Now I know how it feels to be a fish in an aquarium: turning round, leading nowhere.

“We like it big here”

A US colleague of mine, before entering a Walmart.

I guess she was trying to prepare me to the hugeness of it. Even prepared, each time I enter a Walmart I am overwhelmed: it’s too big, too many things, I feel like I don’t know where to start. As much as I love having the choice when buying, this is simply too much for the European girl that I am.