Sluglifetag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//52008-10-29T23:27:54ZMovable Type 3.31Memory Walk 2008tag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.7262008-10-29T22:51:28Z2008-10-29T23:27:54ZMake sure you scroll down, because there's another post below (wedding stuff!) -- two posts in one day! I'm getting caught up, you see. October 18th was the Wine Country Memory Walk, the penultimate day that Anna has been building...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
While final setup commenced, Gary and John went over to a local golf course to get the golf cart that was donated for the event. Working hard, or hardly working, you be the judge:
Really, though, they worked their asses off. We all did.
Here's some more setup of the stage:
And the "Memory Pavilion":
The site itself was the back parking lot of a company called WorkRite, and was one long strip. The sunrise was from one end of the strip, and here's looking back, just in front of the stage:
Our friends Jennifer, David (Eric), and son, Brayden, are here ready to help with registration. Not in the picture (in fact he was out directing traffic) was Josh:
Once things got underway and the pre-walk ceremony had started, Anna gathered her route monitors at the trailhead to pow-wow and figure out where everyone would be.
I mentioned that the Walk setup and such took place in the parking lot of WorkRite. The actual walk was around Shollenberger Park in Petaluma. The walk is about three miles and is gorgeous for bird gazing -- hey, look at that, a cool hawk!
Told you it was good for watching birds!
Meanwhile, back at the event epicenter, everything was in full swing -- both sides of the strip were tables of sponsors and information booths, and non-profits, clowns, refreshments, even a unicorn petting zoo. Okay, I'm making up the part about the unicorns. Not the clowns, though. They were real. Too real.
Here's a view from just next to the stage during the ceremony:
And the rest was a blur. Walkers headed out. They came back. We tore down, stacked everything. Collapsed. We all went to bed around 8:30 and slept until.... about 8:30 the next morning. It was a loooooong, hard event. But it went off splendidly!
Four years ago we walked in the Treasure Island Memory Walk -- we had absolutely no clue that Anna would organize and execute a Memory Walk herself. And Treasure Island is a juggernaut -- the largest Memory Walk in the nation if I'm not mistaken. By contrast, Anna's walk wasn't quite of the same scale, but a) There's a staff that puts the TI walk together. The Wine Country Walk is organized by Anna and, in the last couple months, her minion. Throw in a dash of help from the North Bay Alz staff at large, and you've got a huge logistical ball of wax in Anna's paws. b) She doubled the number of walkers this year over last -- despite the fact that this is the first time at this location. I could go on and on because I'm extremely puffed up with pride over the amazing job that she did. Instead, I'll leave you with pictures of basset hounds:
These guys were the cutest of the myriad dogs at the event. Hopefully their cuteness is captured in this lousy picture -- I was exhausted by this point, but felt I had to get their picture.
So that's all for now! We're recovering.]]>
We've Been a Bit Busytag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.7252008-10-29T22:25:04Z2008-10-29T22:48:01ZSo, yeah, I posted some pictures from the wedding prep and then... what? We kind of left y'all hanging. No more! Where to start, where to start? Wedding Here are a few photos below. There are a whole lot more...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
Wedding
Here are a few photos below. There are a whole lot more at the "Wedding Photos" link here . Or, if you like your pictures more professional-like, the photographer's pictures are here . But, here's the Cliffs' Notes version:
First, the ceremony. Based on Rachel and Shawn's recommendation we decided to have it not on the lawn behind the "Lucky Bend" house, but in the little grove next door, in the yard of the "Graystone Place" house -- I think that's what it's called (they're both rental properties and they have names so you can say "Oh, remember when we stayed at the Purple Platypus house? That was wonderful!" I don't think there's a purple platypus house, but there should be)
If anyone is interested in the ceremony I could post it here. Post a comment and let me know.
After the ceremony, we went back to our yard and things got under way -- here's the cake Anna made (anyone who was at our wedding knows what this tastes like):
Misha and Evan came up and played lovely cocktail music during the reception. It was really, really cool -- and I mean "cool" in the "It was neat!" as well as in the "woah, man, that's really cooooooool" sense. Because it was.
I call this one "Self Portrait with Bride and Groom":
Here you have the reception completely underway and Rachel passing out favors (which you saw them finish in the prep post -- scroll down, you'll find it):
Shawn, Anna, and Rachel -- aww!:
And, the side of the wedding no one saw (but us): the aftermath. This was post-wedding, post-cake cutting.... and this was representative of the rest of the house as well. Disaster area. But we got it cleaned up in record time!
As the evening grew darker, Shawn had rigged up a sheet over the office window and had a projector showing pictures and, when it was quite dark, he showed the video he made to propose to Rachel. Twas awesome!
So there you have it! The wedding in a nutshell! I highly recommend checking out the above links, as there are many, many more pictures. If you go to the photographer's website, check out picture 411. :)
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Wedding Preptag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.7152008-10-10T16:35:50Z2008-10-10T16:43:46ZAs I mentioned before, one of the things that's keeping us super busy has been Rachel's impending wedding which is going on... here. And it is just about upon us. Tomorrow, Saturday, is the big day, but last night Rachel,...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
Inside Rachel and her sister finished up assembling the favors:
And Anna worked on the cake:
Me? I stayed out of the way. But, seriously, watching Anna make that cake was impressive. She's done it a few times, but just the level of planning for everything... okay, she is an event coordinator at her job, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Surprise isn't correct -- amazed. Like watching the internals of a fine clock move. It just does. To a level that I couldn't imagine emulating.
So that was last night. Tonight we have setup, the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, cake assembly... everything. :)
One last cooking picture:
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Woah, how come it's already October?tag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.7102008-10-07T05:51:10Z2008-10-07T06:11:09ZSo, yeah, our last post was in September... about a trip in August. And now it's October -- we're not even in the same season. What are we up to? We're tired. Exhausted is a better word. Here's Winston to...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
season. What are we up to? We're tired. Exhausted is a better word. Here's Winston to demonstrate:
Excellent.
What's brought us to this point is the Perfect Storm of event planning: next weekend is the wedding for Rachel and Shawn, and it's here. By "here" I mean the wedding itself is actually going to take place in the back yard of one of the rental places next door. Here, maybe this map will help:
Okay, maybe not. But rest assured the ceremony will be beautiful -- we'll take pictures. And then the reception is in our yard. This last weekend -- yesterday -- we worked in the yard to get it ship-shape for the reception. Wow. I wanted to take pictures of the before and after, but the "before" slipped my mind, and for the "after" I was too tired to press the button down to actually take the picture, so... But we filled our green waste can and a neighbors and when I say fill, I mean if you were to turn the cans upside down you'd get a perfect green-waste-can-shaped solid mass of ivy and lawn trimmings. It would stand on its own probably for all of eternity. Think of Stone Henge in ivy. Like that, times two.
So, this coming weekend is that. Then, what? Time off to recover? Hell no, that's not how we roll. Seven days after the wedding comes the Alzheimer's Memory Walk, that penultimate event that has been building to a fever pitch.
After that then we hibernate. Seriously, don't even attempt to call the following weekend. We're disconnecting the phones, drawing the shades, and we might open the door to snatch pizza from the delivery guy, but otherwise you won't see or hear from us that weekend.
But before we get there, we've got two weeks of frenzy. I hope to post occasionally, and hopefully we'll get through it! :)]]>
Final Swiss pictures -- Oh yeah, I'm home!tag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6702008-09-05T06:08:55Z2008-09-05T06:09:49ZFirst things first – I’m home! It was a great trip, I learned a lot, worked my ass off, and had a fantastic time. I hope everyone has enjoyed the pictures. I’ve got one last big update to do. It’s...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
On Wednesday, August 27th we went with Bernard V out to Montreux to have dinner with a former employee, Ali, who Dave worked with quite a bit.
As it was, we didn’t get there until the evening. We did get some great sunset shots, though:
and
This one, too!
We could tell we barely scratched the surface of Montreux, but what can you do? We only had so much time. This is one of the famous hotels along the waterfront:
The following day, Thursday, we went out with Jocelyn, another IT person. Before going to the restaurant, we drove east out of Lausanne into the vineyards above and around. This is looking back west, towards Lausanne:
And east towards Montreux, which is just behind the hillside here:
And another picture just to get a scope of the vineyards – these are the same ones that Bernard F took us to but I didn’t have my camera for.
And then, wouldn’t you know it, it became Friday, our last full day in Switzerland. So I decided to try to capture a bit of our workday. Each morning (except for the weekend) we began our day at 7:30am in the cafeteria. The cafeteria staff set out our breakfast every morning:
Then to work!
At lunch, everyone in the IT department would go down to the cafeteria together and sit together. I’m all for department cohesiveness, but this seemed a bit ridiculous. Here’s the IT table:
And what did we eat? We had some dishes that, for our tastes were a bit exotic. After the beef tongue incident, David adopted a don’t-ask-just-eat attitude. I was too curious for my own good, which didn’t serve me well when we had horse stew. Yup, I ate Seabiscuit. On our last day, however, nothing so exotic. It was pork with a gravy, noodles, a broccoli dish, and some cabbage dish. It was quite tasty, I must say.
It was odd at first having an entire meal like this at midday, but one thing we noticed during the first week is that they don’t snack. No one in the department had any snacky items whatsoever – no candies, chips, fruit, nothing. They took a fairly regimented coffee break twice a day, but other than that no sodas, no waters on the desk. It was certainly a change.
And where did we spend most of our time? I mentioned in a post below that IT is split into administration and development. I spent my entire time up in development and 95% of that time next to Bernard V here:
If the other guy in the picture looks a little young, that’s because he is. They have an apprenticeship program where they take a student at 16 and have him work in the department for the next four years. They’ve got a girl down in the administration group who’s been there for three years, but Mateo here just started Monday. I can’t imagine going into an IT department at 16. But what great experience!
The other half of the development team to the right:
Through the glass is Bernard’s office, where David is working. Here’s a better picture:
The building is extremely distinctive – as if you couldn’t tell from the shot of the bulbous, rounded exterior from the beginning of my trip posts. Inside is just as distinctive, but to get an idea of it, I cribbed this shot from Google’s sat maps:
The overlapping squares are the HQ building itself. Just above and to the right is the little house where our apartments were. Below that in the picture is a big green field where they’re planning on expanding into in the near future. The Xs crossing the squares are skylights. And in the middle of the center square you can see it opens up. Well, that is where the offices we were in are, and the central hallways reminded me of those habitrails for hamsters:
And it makes for some odd angles, which you can see through:
And also some pretty courtyard spaces:
At the very center of the top square is a central shaft that the elevator runs up. Around it winds a staircase. This is looking at it from the third floor:
One thing you notice quickly is the very last stair:
It might be a little hard to make out in this picture, but that top step is noticeably thicker than the rest of the stairs. I only managed to trip on my first time up the stairs, but it’s not something you’d expect.
On the bottom floor, here’s the elevator and stairs:
And the lobby:
So it’s Friday, our last night in Switzerland, and we were supposed to go out with Bernard F for one last night, but it turns out he had a prior engagement and we were on our own. We hopped into the mule and headed into Lausanne
For what? What would be our last meal out in Switzerland?
Kababs!! This is the place across the street from the laundry. We wanted something tasty and, most importantly, fast. We wanted to get packed, so while we didn’t want to literally eat on the run, we didn’t want the usual two to three hour event that we learned was dinner. So David had the mighty Kabab Burger:
And I had the same Kabab-burrito thing from our first visit to the Kabab place:
After a delicious meal, we bid our Kabab maestro adieu and headed back to pack
Saturday morning. Our plane leaves shortly before noon. Bernard F picks us up to take us to the train, but first, what else? Engines!
The one place I really really wanted to go but we kept missing the opportunity is the Speedy garage, which is owned by the same guy as Lemo. Bernard decided we’d swing by there on the way to dropping us off at the train in Morges. So it was we parked the mule (note the cute carwash sign in the background):
Here’s the outside of the main showroom:
While there are many marquees represented, Speedy garage is the only Spyker dealer in Switzerland:
Spyker what? If you’ve never heard of the Dutch supercar builder, don’t worry – they don’t sell them here in the states, and rumor has it they’re not doing terribly well financially. Don’t mention that around the garage, though. Part of the love of these cars is that Alex – the owner – also sponsors a LeMans team which drives Spykers. The other part, well, just look at it:
And:
In addition, however, you also had all kinds of beautiful automobiles. A stunning Ferrari:
Some classic cars, too:
And this beautiful Jag E type:
Two from Lotus: the Elise:
And it’s more hard-core brother, the Exige:
If Spyker isn’t a make you’re familiar with, then you probably don’t know Wiesmann, either. That’s fine – they’re extremely rare. The important thing isn’t the BMW-sourced V8 under that stunning matte-black hood, but just the body itself. What a stunner!
In addition to the unobtainable cars, they also sell quite a number of everyday cars – a full complement of Alphas lined the parking lot outside, and inside they had a pair of these adorable Fiat 500s, which we will likely see stateside to compete with the Mini Cooper soon. This model is actually a little special, it’s the Aberth model, so it’s been hopped up a little more:
If I were to drive out of the shop, though, one car stole my heart that morning – the Maserati GranTurismo S:
Far from the most expensive, but nonetheless, meow.
On our way out, we passed Alex’s Airstream – he bought this in the States and had it brought over so he could take it to the LeMans races. However, he ran into a snag in that the Swiss government wouldn’t license it because, they claimed, it’s too reflective! No word on the resolution of that issue, but here’s the trailer:
And with that, we headed to the train, and then to our (not full!) flights home. Jetlag recovery was minor, and now I’m back home with Anna and the cats and Winston! Thanks for looking at all my pictures! I’ll leave you with David and my bags packed, ready to head home:
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Lausanne, Le Grand Café, and that Steak-on-a-brick place, revisitedtag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6592008-08-26T21:30:09Z2008-08-26T21:31:22ZLast night Bernard F took David and I out to dinner at the owner of Lemo’s restaurant. But first we did a little sight-seeing in downtown Lausanne The view from above showed some of the cool buildings and streets that...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
The view from above showed some of the cool buildings and streets that make up this neat city
and
And when you looked up, the skyline stunning skyline will quickly demand your attention
I tried the “stitch panorama” function on the camera, but I haven’t quite figured it out.
Behind us was some sort of government building, or so said Bernard.
Here’s a view of one of the turrets
Near the bottom of the above photo there’s this cool sundial which says something like it only marks the clear days. Très bien!
Walking down from the government building this cute cobblestone road leads to an ancient cathedral.
But we felt like we weren’t alone…
Okay, the above two were from the door to the cathedral:
This is part of our “Switzerland: This Shit Be Old” series, a sign indicated the work on this bell tower commenced originally between 1190 and 1235. That’s old, yo!
If it looks in great shape, that’s because they’re refurbishing the whole thing. I didn’t get any shots of the un-refurbished back part, but the stone looked like my 4th grade sugarcube Mission after I thought spraypainting it would be a good idea. I guess that’s what you get when you’re in the heart of a city, melting stone.
From there we headed to dinner at Le Grand Café. The whole place reminded me of the owner – who owns Lemo as well – it was impeccably elegant without being at all pretentious. How do you pull that off?
The restaurant resides in a building that housed a casino. Half the building is the restaurant and half is the Swiss film museum, so the menu has cute section headers like “Opening Credits” for appetizers – only it’s in French, so it’s like much cuter
The view from the terrace, like most places we’ve eaten at is absolutely fabulous. It was a little hazy, but please draw your attention to the arrow below.
Yeah, that’s a road. And if it weren’t for a lake between me and that road, I’d so be all over it! Oh, and the fact that driving either La Predator or the donkey really up or down it doesn’t seem very appealing. But with a motorcycle? Oh yeah, I’d so be right here:
Back to the shore we were on, here’s the view from terrace:
For dinner I had the locally-caught perch:
And for dessert, three little crème brulees -- One was orange blossom, one was gingerbread and the other…. I don’t remember. Oh, wait, it was nom nom nom nom flavored
Here’s the three of us, David, myself, and Bernard F.
And the entrance to one cool restaurant
Tonight we weren’t feeling like going out so we left the cars behind and walked into Saint Sulpice. It’s a lovely little village, and we decided to revisit the steak-on-a-brick restaurant. And this time I brought my camera!
Yeah, doesn’t look like much, does it? I don’t even know the name of the place. I could have looked at the receipt, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is 1) the view (please note the cool wind sculpture across the lake there):
2) the awesome dining accoutrements; witness, dork number 1:
And dork number 2:
But as I mentioned in my post down below – don’t worry if you skipped over it because there were no pictures, I can’t blame you – they were actually functional. Because after an eternity of waiting, the waiter wheels out his cart and lays your plate in front of you containing fries and a hot brick and a barely-seared steak.
Dude. Steak on a brick is frickin’ awesome. And if you need more, how about that view again?
It sounds like we’re being taken out the rest of the week, too, so I should have some more cool pictures soon!
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MatterWhat? MatterWho? Matterhorn!tag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6562008-08-24T22:00:40Z2008-08-24T22:04:09ZOkay, so say you’re visiting Switzerland on business. And, let’s just say that over, I don’t know, two weeks while you’re there, you’ve only got one single day off. What do you do? Where do you go? What do you...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
Hell yeah, you go see the frickin’ Matterhorn!
And how do you get there? When last we spoke of Le Predator, it was AWOL. Well, turns out it was down in the garage (the same one as that Ferrari, by the way). That didn’t do us any good, because we couldn’t get in there after hours anyway. But IT had the brilliant idea of getting a GPS unit so visitors could get as lost as they wanted and reliably find their way back. For whatever reason, they didn’t install it in Le Predator. They installed it in the Volkswagen MultiVan – you know it as the EuroVan. But since we’re in Europe, it’s the MultiVan. But that’s a stupid name. So we’re calling it le ânon, the donkey. Why the donkey? Because it’s a diesel beast that makes a lot of noise, goes reliably, but takes its time getting there and always with a lot of braying. Le ânon:
So, we’ve got the transport for this Swiss road trip, where’s the rest of the cast? Well, here’s me:
There’s David at the wheel for the out-journey:
And introducing GPS. It speaks in a nice English woman’s voice, which we found quite soothing when she was sending us piloting le ânon down a single lane road with an anxious Renault coming up the other way. Silly gaffes aside, she was crucial to our successful road trip:
So, on a sunny Sunday morning, we took to the freeway above Lake Geneva and headed east
The clouds and rain from the day before had all but faded, with just a few wispy clouds left over the lake.
While the scenery around the greater Lausanne area has been stunning, not until heading out today did we start to see the towering mountains that Switzerland is known for:
But as we turned off the freeway and made our way away from the lake, we passed through some stunning scenery
This next picture shows two things we saw a great deal of. The first being the grapevines terraced over the hills at insane, unreal angles. Everywhere!
The second is the round-about. From the first day here behind the wheel of le predator, we were quickly schooled in round-about 101. GPS would helpfully announce their impending arrival and which exit to take. Oh, we’re round-about masters.
Past cypress trees, we passed amazing castles perched precariously on tiny mountains – alas, foliage and buildings along the freeway prevented me from getting a lot of shots of some of the more ancient scenery, and we didn’t want to deviate because we were on a mission. But it did make for our first slogan for our Visit Switzerland ad campaign: “Switzerland: There Be Old Shit Here!”
Soon enough we started into the mountain valleys. At some point around here we crossed the invisible line into the German-speaking section ,which led to our second slogan, “Switzerland: Get Lost In Two Languages!”
Look! Ahead! There’s snow on those mountains! Head that way!
And into the village of Tasch, which would be as far as le ânon could carry us.
Nope, from here a train would take us up to Zermatt
And here we are! The station is there to the left. The cute building ahead is a very forgettable Italian restaurant where we’d eat a very forgettable late lunch and wait an insufferable time for a check which we hastily paid and fled. Quickly. Dead center is a cute little horse-drawn carriage that would run up the narrow cobblestone streets unhesitatingly, forcing tourists to scurry for safety. It was cool!
So what’s Zermatt like? It’s a tourist Mecca, and all the good and bad therein. The narrow cobblestone streets were lined with every chotchke store you can imagine. A billion stores hawking over-priced tshirts, tacky stuffed replicas of saint bernards and beavers, Swiss Army knives, and anything else you can imagine. Times two. Yeah, it was pretty cool.
We headed up the narrow streets seeking a clear vista of the Matterhorn. Up one little byway we came across the cutest little garden.
Swiss chard!
Okay, there was other stuff there, too, but I couldn’t resist.
Hey, maybe we’ll get a clear view up that stairway. Wait, that looks pretty steep…
Oops, no, doesn’t go anywhere we want to go. Wait, we have to go back down?
At least there’s a nice view of the valley from up here! Zermatt is a little over five thousand feet, and going up the stairs we certainly felt it.
So we went down and around and up another path and then, wait, what’s that?!
It’s the Matterhorn! Wait, here’s a better picture:
This isn’t technically the end of the line. You can continue on and either hike up to the base of the Matterhorn or take a tram up there. But we didn’t have the time to continue up, so we took our pictures from there. Pictures like this
And just to prove I was really there…
Not a very flattering picture of me, I must say. This one isn’t much better – I’ve got the Matterhorn poking up through my head! I guess you could say I had the Matterhorn on my mind
And what could possibly be better than the Matterhorn? How about a beaver fountain?
After that we headed down to get the aforementioned forgettable lunch, David bought some chotchkes and then it was back down the mountain on the train. We retrieved le ânon from the parking garage and with me at the helm, we headed back.
As if to say, “We know you miss home,” we ran into traffic just above Montreux. Already down to one lane, someone broke down inside one of the tunnels (the Swiss love tunnels), and traffic came to a halt for about a half hour. Time enough to enjoy the stunning view of Montraux below:
And:
Oh, by the way, this isn’t far from La Tour-de-Peilz which is where Shania Twain’s chateau is. Nice.
Oh yeah, and me driving:
This is not Shania Twain’s place, but I’m thinking about moving in soon. You know, a small place to call home when visiting Switzerland.
Back into Lausanne we attended to business. What business would that be?
Just across the street (behind me when I took this picture) was a kabob place where we had these delicious kabob-burrito thingies. Nom nom nom.
So that’s our day off! Tomorrow it’s back to work. Now, though? I’m going to sleep!
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Working on Saturdaytag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6552008-08-24T19:57:11Z2008-08-24T22:03:54ZIt’s Saturday, and that means the day off, right? No, not for us. David and I came in with the Bernards to work on some server stuff. I took a lot of pictures, but 99% of them aren’t interesting to...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
He is the guardian of the server room and has been there since before Bernard V started.
There. That’s enough of server room for everyone. For lunch, Bernard F took us to a little restaurant in the middle of Ecublens. Apparently each village has a restaurant which is considered the village restaurant, and this is theirs.
I had tortellini pasta carbonara and it was wonderful.
I’m cutting this short because We’re about to head out for our one and only day off!!
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Groceries and Take Outtag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6512008-08-22T20:49:10Z2008-08-22T20:50:16ZSo after I posted the below photo-less post, I managed to take pictures later today! This is the view out the window of the IT offices. Yes, you read that right, IT is not in a dungeon. No, they have...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
This is out the same window, but to the right. This is the apartment where we’re staying and the window there at the top is my window! (David’s is obscured by the tree there).
At lunch one of the IT ladies took us into Morges to a grocery store – a real grocery store! It was cool! And we returned with the goods: milk, beer, chocolate, a little banana bread, Diet Coke, yogurts, and frosted mini wheats:
Oh, and the bag in the background? You have to buy your bag. That’s awesome!
And as for the chocolate…
The Lindt on the left is dark chocolate with cherry and chili filling – sweet, with a little (very little) spice on the back end. The silver-wrapped Cailler purports to being a milk chocolate, but it’s the best milk chocolate I’ve ever had – creamy, not cloyingly sweet like most milk chocolate. The last, the black-wrapped Cailler “Frigor Noir” is a dark chocolate with a little hazelnut filling. All were amazingly creamy and a great sampling.
After work we just wanted to chill on our own, so we headed out towards Lausanne to find something.
And off we went!
The building in front apparently is a technical college (We were down this way with Bernard F the other night and he mentioned that).
And on we drove.
Laid back…
And we turned around and drove some more…
And to what exotic locale did our jaunt take us to? You don’t want to know…
Yup, McDonalds. Truth be told, we wanted to find something fast – the slow pace of dinner is nice, but we just wanted to grab something and take it back and just rest tonight.
So if you’re in the French-speaking section of Switzerland and you’re in a McDonalds, what do you order? A Royale with Cheese, of course!
Uh… it sounded so much better in the Tarantino movie! Oh well, I’ve got diet coke and chocolate. It’s Friday night and we both have to work tomorrow, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings!
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Dinner, without pictures (Sorry!!!!)tag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6502008-08-22T08:44:04Z2008-08-22T08:44:34ZYesterday Dave and I started to feel the toll of the week. We’ve been working nine-hour days here, and then going out every evening with IT folks. Their hospitality has been great, but we started feeling a bit run down....Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
Yesterday Dave and I started to feel the toll of the week. We’ve been working nine-hour days here, and then going out every evening with IT folks. Their hospitality has been great, but we started feeling a bit run down.
One thing that’s very different about working here is that they’ve got a fairly large IT department – about ten people – but they’re split into two groups: Administration and Development. At home we’ve got four people dealing with everything, so while developing an application you might get interrupted because a printer isn’t responding and you have to head up to the third floor to take care of it. On one hand it can be annoying to change tasks, but I never appreciated how nice it is to take a break from slaving over code all day. And that’s the case here – I’m hanging almost exclusively with the development cats, and it’s staring at a screen in a poorly climate controlled room all day. I’m don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining – this is a fantastic opportunity -- but it’s quite a change from what I’m used to and comfortable with, and the coping with that has added up.
On top of that, yesterday afternoon at work I started feeling queasy and clammy, so I cut out right at five. Back in apartment I took an hour nap and started to feel better. No one offered to take us out last night, and both David and I were largely grateful. There was only one problem, however. When I got up David was just getting in from work – remember I mentioned 9-hour days? – and he reiterated an observation I made on the way back to the apartment; Le Predator was nowhere to be found. We’re not exactly out in the sticks here, but at the same time, the only thing that seemed remotely nearby was the Chinese restaurant we went to the first day we got here, and neither of us was feeling that. Dave looked up restaurants on his GPS-enabled Crackberry, and it indicated that, yes, the aforementioned Le Gran Dragon was indeed the closest thing. However it also showed a café in St. Sulpice not much farther -- .6 of a mile (or roughly a kilometer, since we’re in metric-land). Getting out seemed like it would do me some good anyway.
We never found that café. It might have been there, we probably just walked past it. We ended up at a restaurant next to Le Skipper, the name of which I can’t remember and don’t have handy at the moment. When we came down here Monday this place was closed, but not tonight. Same story as Le Skipper – tiny little smoky bar in front, but a patio with a stunning view in back. I managed to leave the camera back at the apartment, which turned out to be a mixed blessing. On one hand, I’d copiously photographed the view from the patio of Le Skipper, and this being just next door didn’t offer terribly different vistas. On the other hand, though, it was a much clearer day than Monday. Also, having been up at the other end of Lausanne we could see the grape vines we stopped at and the harbor with the cool wind sculpture, so taking a picture from that vantage point would have been nice.
Then there was dinner. When we arrived the entire service staff consisted of a grumpy middle-aged Frenchman who spoke no English. When we sat down, he gave us menus and mumbled under his breath as he turned away. It was one of a number of experiences where I was looking for the subtitles where he is mumbling expletives and we nod politely completely unaware of what he’s actually saying. Conjecture, yes, but he seemed grumpy enough for it to be true. The menu, too, was completely in French. Most menus we’ve had generally provided English translations for some if not all items. Nothing here. That’s okay, though, we figured we’d go with the boeuf (beef) which, judging from the number of times it appeared on the menu clearly seemed to be a specialty. And, holy cow, it was. First we were presented with bibs. I’m not making this up. They were over-the-head bibs, roughly the size of a life preserver, and were printed with a tuxedo front and a lobster and the optimistic, “Bon appetite!” Of course we donned the bibs; the table next to us which had three very dapper-dressed 20-somethings also wearing the bibs. Turns out, they weren’t merely for humiliation purposes. The boeuf consisted of a decent size filet which was seared on the outside and – here comes the cool part – served sizzling on a red-hot brick. Picture your favorite sizzling fajita experience. Okay, now turn that up to 11 and add the delicious aroma of sizzling meat. About this point I was REALLY sad I forgot the camera. Only once our plates were removed did I recognize the functionality of the bibs, as the sizzling meat did thrown a fine aura of grease from its brick-perch. It was seared on the outside, but the inside was very rare bordering on raw, which is fine because, a) I don’t mind extremely rare meat, but mostly b) you could cut a piece and then lay the rare/raw side on the brick, searing it yourself. I tell you, the novelty of this did not wear off.
One more thing we’re trying to get used to – dinner is an epic event. Everywhere we’ve gone, don’t plan on eating and running, you’re there for the long haul. We finished dinner and waited. And waited. And waited. In other restaurants we have been offered dessert and coffee with complete expectation that we would partake because, well, dinner is an epic event not to be lightly undertaken. It might have been our over-worked grumpy French waiter, but we waited and waited. Granted, the view made it a lot easier – I mean staring across Lake Geneva isn’t exactly the roughest view in the world. But the chairs were uncomfortable, it was getting dark, and we still had a mile walk home ahead. We finally got the bill and headed back.
Again, sorry for no pictures! I have no idea what today has in store for us – either at work or after. We have to work at least half of Saturday – server stuff – and then I think Bernard F is taking us out. Finding a place to do our laundry is quickly becoming a priority. Sunday, which we have completely free, looms with possibility. Bernard V suggested we go to the frickin’ Matterhorn, but cautioned that it’s easily an all-day excursion, and neither Dave nor I felt comfortable making the trek in the 20-year-old Chrysler (sorry Le Predator!). Much more likely is a trip to Montreux which isn’t far away and apparently is quite touristy. We’ll see.
Whatever we do, I promise I won’t forget the camera again!
Out and Abouttag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6462008-08-20T23:11:14Z2008-08-20T23:11:31ZFor our second full day in Switzerland on Tuesday, Bernard F took us out to the Redel factory. While Lemo is known mostly for metal-shelled connectors, Redel has always made amazing plastic-bodied connectors. The drive is about an hour from...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
The views all around are just beautiful hills and valleys
On the factory floor, there’s an amazing mix of cutting edge manufacturing equipment and generations-old tooling machinery set in this brightly lit building.
This is one of the fairly recent machines that mills the stainless steel bodies for many of our fiber optic connectors.
In goes the steel, out comes this:
They just added a couple new machines which make the tiny contacts for the plastic connectors. Here one is open for servicing.
And a closer up view:
When they close the door and start it up, the oil splashing inside the shell cools during the incredibly precise milling.
And then you come around the corner and one of the doors is open to the amazing hills
Some of the equipment is just cool to look at. This is one of the injection molding jigs set up and set aside for the next run.
Another view of the windows.
Our guide for the tour of the factory was the director, an incredibly passionate man. His enthusiasm for their workmanship was contagious. After the tour he took us deeper into the hills where we stopped at a beautiful tiny village and this place, Auberge Du Marais.
It was an amazing place – straight out of what you’d imagine the Swiss hills to be like – a couple had their dog below the table chilling while they chatted over coffee. There was no menu, just what they were making for the day. It was a rustic mix of locally grown vegatables and sausage and chicken grilled on skewers. Unforgettable.
After lunch, we went back to the factory where Bernard F gave a presentation on the new version of our database software and then we headed back down the hill
When we parked the Volkswagen van in the underground parking at HQ, I couldn’t help but notice the unmistakable shape that haunts any car lover’s dreams. Yes, that’s a Ferrari 250GT. It’s one of cars the owner of Lemo has. This one he happens to keep down here. He has a shop of exotic cars in Lausanne and I hope we can make a stop there before the trip is over.
That night, Bernard F took us out for dinner. I’m sad I didn’t take my camera – it was pouring rain – because we first stopped along the grape vines north of Lausanne, which grew at staggering angles above the shoreline. Hopefully we’ll make it back out there in better weather.
After work tonight, Bernard V too us out to dinner. We went to a place called, I kid you not, Speedy Gonzalez. We had a Spanish wine, and I felt obliged to take a picture of the label because I know someone would ask what it was:
For the record, it’s made from Tempranillo grapes, and went very well with their second speciality, pizza:
I say second, because Bernard V indicated their first specialty was horse steaks. Mind you, for lunch at the cafeteria I had beef tongue, so after that I just couldn’t bring myself to eat Sea Biscuit, you know? The pizza was good, though!
After dinner Bernard V took us down to the waterfront by the Olympic headquarters in downtown Lausanne. We walked past the scenic Hotel Aulac:
While it rained yesterday and last night, today it started to clear, and the clouds in the gathering dusk made for some beautiful pictures over the water
A picture of boats in the harbor:
At the outlet of the harbor stood this beautiful wind that turned with the wind
We stopped at a little café and had milkshakes and watched the cute swans in the harbor
I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but whatever it is it will be scenic!
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Dude, I'm in Switzerland! tag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6432008-08-19T22:12:51Z2008-08-19T22:16:22Z So, if you don’t know, I’m in Switzerland. Specifically, Ecublens, Switzerland at the headquarters of Lemo for two weeks. This is my first time out of the country, so that passport and international driver’s license are both spankin’ new....Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
So, if you don’t know, I’m in Switzerland. Specifically, Ecublens, Switzerland at the headquarters of Lemo for two weeks. This is my first time out of the country, so that passport and international driver’s license are both spankin’ new.
We flew from SFO to New York’s JFK on United. That was a ghetto flight. It was a 757 and it felt like the first 757. And in front of me was an Asian woman and her two kids. The kids interpreted their time on the plane as an opportunity to leap around the chairs, shriek, and just be obnoxious. It was bad.
From New York, we flew Swiss Air to Geneva. The plane was the Airbus equivalent of the 757, but it was much nicer. Despite the cattle-car conditions in coach, the flight was uneventful. I didn’t get much sleep, though.
When we arrived in Geneva, we made a bee line for the money changing area:
Once we had money, we grabbed the first train for Morges. The plane got in a half hour early, and we managed to grab an early train. So once we took a cab from Morges to Lemo, the caretaker of the apartment wasn’t here! We didn’t have to wait very long, fortunately. Right next to the factory, there’s a house with two apartments upstairs. One of the workers lives in an apartment downstairs as the caretaker. The apartments are really nice – here’s my bed:
This is a bit farther back, looking across the room:
Both apartments have full little kitchens, and the caretaker made sure to stock the fridge with odd foreign fruity beverages.
This is the view out the window from the apartment. They’re planning to expand the factory into this field in the not-so-distant future, but until then it’s pretty!
And this is our headquarter’s building. If you’ve seen the building in Rohnert Park, then you know they’re not afraid of unique architecture. And this is certainly…. Unique!
We were given use of one of the company cars – a poor decrepit Chrysler minivan. It’s a manual transmission, but rowing the gears is awful – there’s so much play in the gearbox that the shift gates are hardly a suggestion. I suggested we give it some fierce sounding French name like Le Predator or something, just to make it feel better.
On the other side of the factory there’s another field with horses – apparently these horses are used for riding therapy. That’s cool! Plus they’re really cute.
That Sunday when we arrived, we drove Le Predator as far in almost every direction as we felt comfortable without getting lost. We drove back to Morges, to the outskirts of Ecublens proper, and to the outskirts of Lausanne. When we finally decided we had to actually stop and eat something, we managed to find a Chinese restaurant near HQ. So, yeah, our first dinner in Switzerland was Chinese. Go figure.
Monday after work we asked where we should go eat. Our boss recommended we head the one direction we didn’t go, down to the little village of St. Sulpice:
This. Did. Not. Suck.
We found a little place called Le Skipper. From the street it didn’t look like anything, and we weren’t sure there was going to be seating. Well, they’ve got a patio. Here’s David, my coworker, at our table:
And that view? Yeah:
And…
And…
The lake is Lake Geneva, and the other side of the lake there is France. One of the guys in IT here commutes by ferry across the lake. He lives in Evian – where the water comes from!! :)
The food was good – we got there relatively early (6:30) and they were only serving pizza. It was yummy though! We’re still getting used to the fact that dinner here is epic. I guess we’re just in some sort of an American hurry – we’re done eating, we’ll take the check and you can turn the table. Nope. They were in noooooo hurry to bring us the check. It was the same the night before at the Chinese place. However, the Chinese place didn’t have a view like this:
And that’s it for my first 48 hours in Switzerland! A storm blew in shortly after we left St. Sulpice, and it’s actually pouring right now. I’ve got more pictures from today, but it’s 11 (another epic dinner tonight, and then I called Anna), and I have to be at work at 8 tomorrow. So I’ll hopefully post again then!
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The Ears...tag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6282008-08-05T16:54:38Z2008-08-05T17:00:20Z I don't think we posted about it, but last Monday we brought Winston in to the vet to look at his eyes (there was some goo) and his ears (he'd been shaking his head quite a bit). Turns out...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
I don't think we posted about it, but last Monday we brought Winston in to the vet to look at his eyes (there was some goo) and his ears (he'd been shaking his head quite a bit). Turns out his eyes were fine -- goo was normal. But the ears... both were infected so bad that a) they had to sedate him in order to try to look at them because they hurt him so bad, b) they were infected so bad the vet couldn't look all the way down, and c) because they had to sedate him, we had a vet bill that was dog sized (oh, and he's 72 pounds now). We were given some medicine to use in his ears, but if he doesn't get better they may have to surgically drain them which meant a vet bill as big if not bigger.
We applied the medicine religiously, and waited. Yesterday was the dread day. Fortunately, the picture above says it all -- the vet said his ears looked great!
As y'all know, Winston is a quite a mix. Unfortunately, his ears are not water dog ears, and they don't drain properly. So we've got a mix of alcohol and vinegar to put in his ears after he swims to make sure that we don't end up in this position again. For now, though, we have only one Dog-Sized vet bill instead of two. Yeah :)]]>
Biscuits And Gravytag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6272008-08-04T04:31:14Z2008-08-04T04:31:31ZIn my house, biscuits and gravy rules. J and I have it often when we go out to eat-it’s something I’ve loved since I was a kid. It’s actually really easy to make at home. You have to follow a...Annahttp://www.sluglife.net/
Do NOT use fancy-ass artisinal sausage. Please! Jimmy Dean Original or Hot, if you like, bulk-style only! You’ll also need AP flour, whole milk, black pepper, kosher salt and biscuits. Yes I’m using biscuits from a can. You know why? Because I stayed up the night before making homemade jam until 2:00am, and also, I know how to make a proper biscuit from scratch. I have nothing to prove. So if it’s easier to use biscuits in a tube, then by all means do so.
You need a cast-iron skillet. If you don’t own one, please go buy one. They’re so cheap. This is my grandmother’s--it's probably well over 60 years old at this point, and so seasoned it’s totally non-stick. It’s really not hard to take good care of your cast iron, and it gives food a flavor like nothing else can.
Get you sausage sliced up and lay it out in your pan. I like to do two patties per person. Brown it up real nice (make sure it’s cooked all the way through) and take it out and let it drain. You can also crumble up some sausage bits and brown them off--I like to do this. Put your biscuits in the oven at this point.
See how much fat you have left in the pan. You’ll want 2-3 tbls for 2 people. I don’t have enough, so I’m going to add about a tablespoon and a half of butter and melt it together over medium-low heat.
Once your fat is melted, add in about 2tbls of AP flour. Sprinkle it in while whisking constantly and very quickly, or you’ll get lumps.
Your flour and fat should be smooth-almost like heated peanut butter. If the flour is dry or sandy, add in more fat little by little. You want a nice, medium-thick roux going.
Let it cook until it gets golden brown and kinda nutty smelling. If you want a pure blond gravy (white, like in restaurants) only cook your flour a minute until the raw taste goes out. But I like mine more homestyle-the darker the roux, the deeper the flavor.
Now, crank the heat to medium and add in 1 cup of whole milk. This is not health food. Don’t use low or non-fat--you’ll have a runny, weak gravy! Add it in a thin stream and whisk constantly and quickly, less you get lumps. You should have a nice, creamy mixture now-if it seems dry, add in more milk a tablespoon at a time until you get where you want to be. Turn the heat down to very low.
Want to know the secret to really good milk gravy? LOTS of salt and TONS of pepper. For this skillet I probably have a good teaspoon of salt and probably a tablespoon of coarse-cracked pepper. Get that gravy to where it throws heat in your mouth. Taste and re-season. Stir in your sausage bits if you have them, and keep warm over low heat, stirring often. If your gravy gets too thick while you wait for your biscuits to finish, thin it out with a little warm milk.
The biscuits are out-split them open.
Now lay the sausage patties upon their glorious death beds and smother in gravy. That’s how to feed your man proper!
How do I feed myself proper? Oh sure, I have a biscuit with gravy. But then…
I get a second biscuit and slather it with butter. And I mean slather.
Then I slather it with homemade blackberry jam.
That, son, is how it’s done. With style!]]>
Anna on the Mic!tag:www.sluglife.net,2008:/blog//5.6202008-07-27T05:41:20Z2008-07-27T05:55:53Z NOTE: NOT A RECENT PHOTO. Thought I'd throw that disclaimer up since that's a 2006 photo of Anna recording one of her voice-overs for our Master's thesis. But it's got Anna speaking into a microphone, which was the image...Jordyhttp://www.sluglife.net/
NOTE: NOT A RECENT PHOTO.
Thought I'd throw that disclaimer up since that's a 2006 photo of Anna recording one of her voice-overs for our Here is an mp3 -- ANOTHER NOTE: that link goes to an mp3 file, so whether you'll be able to click on it and simply listen to it depends completely on the particular deity who controls your browser. If you click and nothing happens, then try right-clicking and choose "Save Link As" or some such thing. Save it to your desktop and use whatever media playing program to make the magic happen.
Or just call me. You know the number :)]]>
While final setup commenced, Gary and John went over to a local golf course to get the golf cart that was donated for the event. Working hard, or hardly working, you be the judge:
And Anna worked on the cake:
Me? I stayed out of the way. But, seriously, watching Anna make that cake was impressive. She's done it a few times, but just the level of planning for everything... okay, she is an event coordinator at her job, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Surprise isn't correct -- amazed. Like watching the internals of a fine clock move. It just does. To a level that I couldn't imagine emulating.
So that was last night. Tonight we have setup, the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, cake assembly... everything. :)
One last cooking picture:
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On Wednesday, August 27th we went with Bernard V out to Montreux to have dinner with a former employee, Ali, who Dave worked with quite a bit.
As it was, we didn’t get there until the evening. We did get some great sunset shots, though:
and
This one, too!
We could tell we barely scratched the surface of Montreux, but what can you do? We only had so much time. This is one of the famous hotels along the waterfront:
The following day, Thursday, we went out with Jocelyn, another IT person. Before going to the restaurant, we drove east out of Lausanne into the vineyards above and around. This is looking back west, towards Lausanne:
And east towards Montreux, which is just behind the hillside here:
And another picture just to get a scope of the vineyards – these are the same ones that Bernard F took us to but I didn’t have my camera for.
And then, wouldn’t you know it, it became Friday, our last full day in Switzerland. So I decided to try to capture a bit of our workday. Each morning (except for the weekend) we began our day at 7:30am in the cafeteria. The cafeteria staff set out our breakfast every morning:
Then to work!
At lunch, everyone in the IT department would go down to the cafeteria together and sit together. I’m all for department cohesiveness, but this seemed a bit ridiculous. Here’s the IT table:
And what did we eat? We had some dishes that, for our tastes were a bit exotic. After the beef tongue incident, David adopted a don’t-ask-just-eat attitude. I was too curious for my own good, which didn’t serve me well when we had horse stew. Yup, I ate Seabiscuit. On our last day, however, nothing so exotic. It was pork with a gravy, noodles, a broccoli dish, and some cabbage dish. It was quite tasty, I must say.
It was odd at first having an entire meal like this at midday, but one thing we noticed during the first week is that they don’t snack. No one in the department had any snacky items whatsoever – no candies, chips, fruit, nothing. They took a fairly regimented coffee break twice a day, but other than that no sodas, no waters on the desk. It was certainly a change.
And where did we spend most of our time? I mentioned in a post below that IT is split into administration and development. I spent my entire time up in development and 95% of that time next to Bernard V here:
If the other guy in the picture looks a little young, that’s because he is. They have an apprenticeship program where they take a student at 16 and have him work in the department for the next four years. They’ve got a girl down in the administration group who’s been there for three years, but Mateo here just started Monday. I can’t imagine going into an IT department at 16. But what great experience!
The other half of the development team to the right:
Through the glass is Bernard’s office, where David is working. Here’s a better picture:
The building is extremely distinctive – as if you couldn’t tell from the shot of the bulbous, rounded exterior from the beginning of my trip posts. Inside is just as distinctive, but to get an idea of it, I cribbed this shot from Google’s sat maps:
The overlapping squares are the HQ building itself. Just above and to the right is the little house where our apartments were. Below that in the picture is a big green field where they’re planning on expanding into in the near future. The Xs crossing the squares are skylights. And in the middle of the center square you can see it opens up. Well, that is where the offices we were in are, and the central hallways reminded me of those habitrails for hamsters:
And it makes for some odd angles, which you can see through:
And also some pretty courtyard spaces:
At the very center of the top square is a central shaft that the elevator runs up. Around it winds a staircase. This is looking at it from the third floor:
One thing you notice quickly is the very last stair:
It might be a little hard to make out in this picture, but that top step is noticeably thicker than the rest of the stairs. I only managed to trip on my first time up the stairs, but it’s not something you’d expect.
On the bottom floor, here’s the elevator and stairs:
And the lobby:
So it’s Friday, our last night in Switzerland, and we were supposed to go out with Bernard F for one last night, but it turns out he had a prior engagement and we were on our own. We hopped into the mule and headed into Lausanne
For what? What would be our last meal out in Switzerland?
Kababs!! This is the place across the street from the laundry. We wanted something tasty and, most importantly, fast. We wanted to get packed, so while we didn’t want to literally eat on the run, we didn’t want the usual two to three hour event that we learned was dinner. So David had the mighty Kabab Burger:
And I had the same Kabab-burrito thing from our first visit to the Kabab place:
After a delicious meal, we bid our Kabab maestro adieu and headed back to pack
Saturday morning. Our plane leaves shortly before noon. Bernard F picks us up to take us to the train, but first, what else? Engines!
The one place I really really wanted to go but we kept missing the opportunity is the Speedy garage, which is owned by the same guy as Lemo. Bernard decided we’d swing by there on the way to dropping us off at the train in Morges. So it was we parked the mule (note the cute carwash sign in the background):
Here’s the outside of the main showroom:
While there are many marquees represented, Speedy garage is the only Spyker dealer in Switzerland:
Spyker what? If you’ve never heard of the Dutch supercar builder, don’t worry – they don’t sell them here in the states, and rumor has it they’re not doing terribly well financially. Don’t mention that around the garage, though. Part of the love of these cars is that Alex – the owner – also sponsors a LeMans team which drives Spykers. The other part, well, just look at it:
And:
In addition, however, you also had all kinds of beautiful automobiles. A stunning Ferrari:
Some classic cars, too:
And this beautiful Jag E type:
Two from Lotus: the Elise:
And it’s more hard-core brother, the Exige:
If Spyker isn’t a make you’re familiar with, then you probably don’t know Wiesmann, either. That’s fine – they’re extremely rare. The important thing isn’t the BMW-sourced V8 under that stunning matte-black hood, but just the body itself. What a stunner!
In addition to the unobtainable cars, they also sell quite a number of everyday cars – a full complement of Alphas lined the parking lot outside, and inside they had a pair of these adorable Fiat 500s, which we will likely see stateside to compete with the Mini Cooper soon. This model is actually a little special, it’s the Aberth model, so it’s been hopped up a little more:
If I were to drive out of the shop, though, one car stole my heart that morning – the Maserati GranTurismo S:
Far from the most expensive, but nonetheless, meow.
On our way out, we passed Alex’s Airstream – he bought this in the States and had it brought over so he could take it to the LeMans races. However, he ran into a snag in that the Swiss government wouldn’t license it because, they claimed, it’s too reflective! No word on the resolution of that issue, but here’s the trailer:
And with that, we headed to the train, and then to our (not full!) flights home. Jetlag recovery was minor, and now I’m back home with Anna and the cats and Winston! Thanks for looking at all my pictures! I’ll leave you with David and my bags packed, ready to head home:
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and
And when you looked up, the skyline stunning skyline will quickly demand your attention
I tried the “stitch panorama” function on the camera, but I haven’t quite figured it out.
Behind us was some sort of government building, or so said Bernard.
Here’s a view of one of the turrets
Near the bottom of the above photo there’s this cool sundial which says something like it only marks the clear days. Très bien!
Walking down from the government building this cute cobblestone road leads to an ancient cathedral.
But we felt like we weren’t alone…
This is part of our “Switzerland: This Shit Be Old” series, a sign indicated the work on this bell tower commenced originally between 1190 and 1235. That’s old, yo!
If it looks in great shape, that’s because they’re refurbishing the whole thing. I didn’t get any shots of the un-refurbished back part, but the stone looked like my 4th grade sugarcube Mission after I thought spraypainting it would be a good idea. I guess that’s what you get when you’re in the heart of a city, melting stone.
From there we headed to dinner at Le Grand Café. The whole place reminded me of the owner – who owns Lemo as well – it was impeccably elegant without being at all pretentious. How do you pull that off?
The restaurant resides in a building that housed a casino. Half the building is the restaurant and half is the Swiss film museum, so the menu has cute section headers like “Opening Credits” for appetizers – only it’s in French, so it’s like much cuter
The view from the terrace, like most places we’ve eaten at is absolutely fabulous. It was a little hazy, but please draw your attention to the arrow below.
Yeah, that’s a road. And if it weren’t for a lake between me and that road, I’d so be all over it! Oh, and the fact that driving either La Predator or the donkey really up or down it doesn’t seem very appealing. But with a motorcycle? Oh yeah, I’d so be right here:
Back to the shore we were on, here’s the view from terrace:
For dinner I had the locally-caught perch:
And for dessert, three little crème brulees -- One was orange blossom, one was gingerbread and the other…. I don’t remember. Oh, wait, it was nom nom nom nom flavored
Here’s the three of us, David, myself, and Bernard F.
And the entrance to one cool restaurant
Tonight we weren’t feeling like going out so we left the cars behind and walked into Saint Sulpice. It’s a lovely little village, and we decided to revisit the steak-on-a-brick restaurant. And this time I brought my camera!
Yeah, doesn’t look like much, does it? I don’t even know the name of the place. I could have looked at the receipt, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is 1) the view (please note the cool wind sculpture across the lake there):
2) the awesome dining accoutrements; witness, dork number 1:
And dork number 2:
But as I mentioned in my post down below – don’t worry if you skipped over it because there were no pictures, I can’t blame you – they were actually functional. Because after an eternity of waiting, the waiter wheels out his cart and lays your plate in front of you containing fries and a hot brick and a barely-seared steak.
Dude. Steak on a brick is frickin’ awesome. And if you need more, how about that view again?
It sounds like we’re being taken out the rest of the week, too, so I should have some more cool pictures soon!
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So, we’ve got the transport for this Swiss road trip, where’s the rest of the cast? Well, here’s me:
There’s David at the wheel for the out-journey:
And introducing GPS. It speaks in a nice English woman’s voice, which we found quite soothing when she was sending us piloting le ânon down a single lane road with an anxious Renault coming up the other way. Silly gaffes aside, she was crucial to our successful road trip:
So, on a sunny Sunday morning, we took to the freeway above Lake Geneva and headed east
The clouds and rain from the day before had all but faded, with just a few wispy clouds left over the lake.
While the scenery around the greater Lausanne area has been stunning, not until heading out today did we start to see the towering mountains that Switzerland is known for:
But as we turned off the freeway and made our way away from the lake, we passed through some stunning scenery
This next picture shows two things we saw a great deal of. The first being the grapevines terraced over the hills at insane, unreal angles. Everywhere!
The second is the round-about. From the first day here behind the wheel of le predator, we were quickly schooled in round-about 101. GPS would helpfully announce their impending arrival and which exit to take. Oh, we’re round-about masters.
Past cypress trees, we passed amazing castles perched precariously on tiny mountains – alas, foliage and buildings along the freeway prevented me from getting a lot of shots of some of the more ancient scenery, and we didn’t want to deviate because we were on a mission. But it did make for our first slogan for our Visit Switzerland ad campaign: “Switzerland: There Be Old Shit Here!”
Soon enough we started into the mountain valleys. At some point around here we crossed the invisible line into the German-speaking section ,which led to our second slogan, “Switzerland: Get Lost In Two Languages!”
Look! Ahead! There’s snow on those mountains! Head that way!
And into the village of Tasch, which would be as far as le ânon could carry us.
Nope, from here a train would take us up to Zermatt
And here we are! The station is there to the left. The cute building ahead is a very forgettable Italian restaurant where we’d eat a very forgettable late lunch and wait an insufferable time for a check which we hastily paid and fled. Quickly. Dead center is a cute little horse-drawn carriage that would run up the narrow cobblestone streets unhesitatingly, forcing tourists to scurry for safety. It was cool!
So what’s Zermatt like? It’s a tourist Mecca, and all the good and bad therein. The narrow cobblestone streets were lined with every chotchke store you can imagine. A billion stores hawking over-priced tshirts, tacky stuffed replicas of saint bernards and beavers, Swiss Army knives, and anything else you can imagine. Times two. Yeah, it was pretty cool.
We headed up the narrow streets seeking a clear vista of the Matterhorn. Up one little byway we came across the cutest little garden.
Swiss chard!
Okay, there was other stuff there, too, but I couldn’t resist.
Hey, maybe we’ll get a clear view up that stairway. Wait, that looks pretty steep…
Oops, no, doesn’t go anywhere we want to go. Wait, we have to go back down?
At least there’s a nice view of the valley from up here! Zermatt is a little over five thousand feet, and going up the stairs we certainly felt it.
So we went down and around and up another path and then, wait, what’s that?!
It’s the Matterhorn! Wait, here’s a better picture:
This isn’t technically the end of the line. You can continue on and either hike up to the base of the Matterhorn or take a tram up there. But we didn’t have the time to continue up, so we took our pictures from there. Pictures like this
And just to prove I was really there…
Not a very flattering picture of me, I must say. This one isn’t much better – I’ve got the Matterhorn poking up through my head! I guess you could say I had the Matterhorn on my mind
And what could possibly be better than the Matterhorn? How about a beaver fountain?
After that we headed down to get the aforementioned forgettable lunch, David bought some chotchkes and then it was back down the mountain on the train. We retrieved le ânon from the parking garage and with me at the helm, we headed back.
As if to say, “We know you miss home,” we ran into traffic just above Montreux. Already down to one lane, someone broke down inside one of the tunnels (the Swiss love tunnels), and traffic came to a halt for about a half hour. Time enough to enjoy the stunning view of Montraux below:
And:
Oh, by the way, this isn’t far from La Tour-de-Peilz which is where Shania Twain’s chateau is. Nice.
Oh yeah, and me driving:
This is not Shania Twain’s place, but I’m thinking about moving in soon. You know, a small place to call home when visiting Switzerland.
Back into Lausanne we attended to business. What business would that be?
Just across the street (behind me when I took this picture) was a kabob place where we had these delicious kabob-burrito thingies. Nom nom nom.
So that’s our day off! Tomorrow it’s back to work. Now, though? I’m going to sleep!
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There. That’s enough of server room for everyone. For lunch, Bernard F took us to a little restaurant in the middle of Ecublens. Apparently each village has a restaurant which is considered the village restaurant, and this is theirs.
I had tortellini pasta carbonara and it was wonderful.
I’m cutting this short because We’re about to head out for our one and only day off!!
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At lunch one of the IT ladies took us into Morges to a grocery store – a real grocery store! It was cool! And we returned with the goods: milk, beer, chocolate, a little banana bread, Diet Coke, yogurts, and frosted mini wheats:
Oh, and the bag in the background? You have to buy your bag. That’s awesome!
And as for the chocolate…
The Lindt on the left is dark chocolate with cherry and chili filling – sweet, with a little (very little) spice on the back end. The silver-wrapped Cailler purports to being a milk chocolate, but it’s the best milk chocolate I’ve ever had – creamy, not cloyingly sweet like most milk chocolate. The last, the black-wrapped Cailler “Frigor Noir” is a dark chocolate with a little hazelnut filling. All were amazingly creamy and a great sampling.
After work we just wanted to chill on our own, so we headed out towards Lausanne to find something.
And off we went!
The building in front apparently is a technical college (We were down this way with Bernard F the other night and he mentioned that).
And on we drove.
Laid back…
And we turned around and drove some more…
And to what exotic locale did our jaunt take us to? You don’t want to know…
Yup, McDonalds. Truth be told, we wanted to find something fast – the slow pace of dinner is nice, but we just wanted to grab something and take it back and just rest tonight.
So if you’re in the French-speaking section of Switzerland and you’re in a McDonalds, what do you order? A Royale with Cheese, of course!
Uh… it sounded so much better in the Tarantino movie! Oh well, I’ve got diet coke and chocolate. It’s Friday night and we both have to work tomorrow, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings!
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On the factory floor, there’s an amazing mix of cutting edge manufacturing equipment and generations-old tooling machinery set in this brightly lit building.
This is one of the fairly recent machines that mills the stainless steel bodies for many of our fiber optic connectors.
In goes the steel, out comes this:
They just added a couple new machines which make the tiny contacts for the plastic connectors. Here one is open for servicing.
And a closer up view:
When they close the door and start it up, the oil splashing inside the shell cools during the incredibly precise milling.
And then you come around the corner and one of the doors is open to the amazing hills
Some of the equipment is just cool to look at. This is one of the injection molding jigs set up and set aside for the next run.
Another view of the windows.
Our guide for the tour of the factory was the director, an incredibly passionate man. His enthusiasm for their workmanship was contagious. After the tour he took us deeper into the hills where we stopped at a beautiful tiny village and this place, Auberge Du Marais.
It was an amazing place – straight out of what you’d imagine the Swiss hills to be like – a couple had their dog below the table chilling while they chatted over coffee. There was no menu, just what they were making for the day. It was a rustic mix of locally grown vegatables and sausage and chicken grilled on skewers. Unforgettable.
After lunch, we went back to the factory where Bernard F gave a presentation on the new version of our database software and then we headed back down the hill
When we parked the Volkswagen van in the underground parking at HQ, I couldn’t help but notice the unmistakable shape that haunts any car lover’s dreams. Yes, that’s a Ferrari 250GT. It’s one of cars the owner of Lemo has. This one he happens to keep down here. He has a shop of exotic cars in Lausanne and I hope we can make a stop there before the trip is over.
That night, Bernard F took us out for dinner. I’m sad I didn’t take my camera – it was pouring rain – because we first stopped along the grape vines north of Lausanne, which grew at staggering angles above the shoreline. Hopefully we’ll make it back out there in better weather.
After work tonight, Bernard V too us out to dinner. We went to a place called, I kid you not, Speedy Gonzalez. We had a Spanish wine, and I felt obliged to take a picture of the label because I know someone would ask what it was:
For the record, it’s made from Tempranillo grapes, and went very well with their second speciality, pizza:
I say second, because Bernard V indicated their first specialty was horse steaks. Mind you, for lunch at the cafeteria I had beef tongue, so after that I just couldn’t bring myself to eat Sea Biscuit, you know? The pizza was good, though!
After dinner Bernard V took us down to the waterfront by the Olympic headquarters in downtown Lausanne. We walked past the scenic Hotel Aulac:
While it rained yesterday and last night, today it started to clear, and the clouds in the gathering dusk made for some beautiful pictures over the water
A picture of boats in the harbor:
At the outlet of the harbor stood this beautiful wind that turned with the wind
We stopped at a little café and had milkshakes and watched the cute swans in the harbor
I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but whatever it is it will be scenic!
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Once we had money, we grabbed the first train for Morges. The plane got in a half hour early, and we managed to grab an early train. So once we took a cab from Morges to Lemo, the caretaker of the apartment wasn’t here! We didn’t have to wait very long, fortunately. Right next to the factory, there’s a house with two apartments upstairs. One of the workers lives in an apartment downstairs as the caretaker. The apartments are really nice – here’s my bed:
This is a bit farther back, looking across the room:
Both apartments have full little kitchens, and the caretaker made sure to stock the fridge with odd foreign fruity beverages.
This is the view out the window from the apartment. They’re planning to expand the factory into this field in the not-so-distant future, but until then it’s pretty!
And this is our headquarter’s building. If you’ve seen the building in Rohnert Park, then you know they’re not afraid of unique architecture. And this is certainly…. Unique!
We were given use of one of the company cars – a poor decrepit Chrysler minivan. It’s a manual transmission, but rowing the gears is awful – there’s so much play in the gearbox that the shift gates are hardly a suggestion. I suggested we give it some fierce sounding French name like Le Predator or something, just to make it feel better.
On the other side of the factory there’s another field with horses – apparently these horses are used for riding therapy. That’s cool! Plus they’re really cute.
That Sunday when we arrived, we drove Le Predator as far in almost every direction as we felt comfortable without getting lost. We drove back to Morges, to the outskirts of Ecublens proper, and to the outskirts of Lausanne. When we finally decided we had to actually stop and eat something, we managed to find a Chinese restaurant near HQ. So, yeah, our first dinner in Switzerland was Chinese. Go figure.
Monday after work we asked where we should go eat. Our boss recommended we head the one direction we didn’t go, down to the little village of St. Sulpice:
This. Did. Not. Suck.
We found a little place called Le Skipper. From the street it didn’t look like anything, and we weren’t sure there was going to be seating. Well, they’ve got a patio. Here’s David, my coworker, at our table:
And that view? Yeah:
And…
And…
The lake is Lake Geneva, and the other side of the lake there is France. One of the guys in IT here commutes by ferry across the lake. He lives in Evian – where the water comes from!! :)
The food was good – we got there relatively early (6:30) and they were only serving pizza. It was yummy though! We’re still getting used to the fact that dinner here is epic. I guess we’re just in some sort of an American hurry – we’re done eating, we’ll take the check and you can turn the table. Nope. They were in noooooo hurry to bring us the check. It was the same the night before at the Chinese place. However, the Chinese place didn’t have a view like this:
And that’s it for my first 48 hours in Switzerland! A storm blew in shortly after we left St. Sulpice, and it’s actually pouring right now. I’ve got more pictures from today, but it’s 11 (another epic dinner tonight, and then I called Anna), and I have to be at work at 8 tomorrow. So I’ll hopefully post again then!
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I don't think we posted about it, but last Monday we brought Winston in to the vet to look at his eyes (there was some goo) and his ears (he'd been shaking his head quite a bit). Turns out his eyes were fine -- goo was normal. But the ears... both were infected so bad that a) they had to sedate him in order to try to look at them because they hurt him so bad, b) they were infected so bad the vet couldn't look all the way down, and c) because they had to sedate him, we had a vet bill that was dog sized (oh, and he's 72 pounds now). We were given some medicine to use in his ears, but if he doesn't get better they may have to surgically drain them which meant a vet bill as big if not bigger.
We applied the medicine religiously, and waited. Yesterday was the dread day. Fortunately, the picture above says it all -- the vet said his ears looked great!
As y'all know, Winston is a quite a mix. Unfortunately, his ears are not water dog ears, and they don't drain properly. So we've got a mix of alcohol and vinegar to put in his ears after he swims to make sure that we don't end up in this position again. For now, though, we have only one Dog-Sized vet bill instead of two. Yeah :)]]>
You need a cast-iron skillet. If you don’t own one, please go buy one. They’re so cheap. This is my grandmother’s--it's probably well over 60 years old at this point, and so seasoned it’s totally non-stick. It’s really not hard to take good care of your cast iron, and it gives food a flavor like nothing else can.
Get you sausage sliced up and lay it out in your pan. I like to do two patties per person. Brown it up real nice (make sure it’s cooked all the way through) and take it out and let it drain. You can also crumble up some sausage bits and brown them off--I like to do this. Put your biscuits in the oven at this point.
See how much fat you have left in the pan. You’ll want 2-3 tbls for 2 people. I don’t have enough, so I’m going to add about a tablespoon and a half of butter and melt it together over medium-low heat.
Once your fat is melted, add in about 2tbls of AP flour. Sprinkle it in while whisking constantly and very quickly, or you’ll get lumps.
Your flour and fat should be smooth-almost like heated peanut butter. If the flour is dry or sandy, add in more fat little by little. You want a nice, medium-thick roux going.
Let it cook until it gets golden brown and kinda nutty smelling. If you want a pure blond gravy (white, like in restaurants) only cook your flour a minute until the raw taste goes out. But I like mine more homestyle-the darker the roux, the deeper the flavor.
Now, crank the heat to medium and add in 1 cup of whole milk. This is not health food. Don’t use low or non-fat--you’ll have a runny, weak gravy! Add it in a thin stream and whisk constantly and quickly, less you get lumps. You should have a nice, creamy mixture now-if it seems dry, add in more milk a tablespoon at a time until you get where you want to be. Turn the heat down to very low.
Want to know the secret to really good milk gravy? LOTS of salt and TONS of pepper. For this skillet I probably have a good teaspoon of salt and probably a tablespoon of coarse-cracked pepper. Get that gravy to where it throws heat in your mouth. Taste and re-season. Stir in your sausage bits if you have them, and keep warm over low heat, stirring often. If your gravy gets too thick while you wait for your biscuits to finish, thin it out with a little warm milk.
The biscuits are out-split them open.
Now lay the sausage patties upon their glorious death beds and smother in gravy. That’s how to feed your man proper!
How do I feed myself proper? Oh sure, I have a biscuit with gravy. But then…
I get a second biscuit and slather it with butter. And I mean slather.
Then I slather it with homemade blackberry jam.
That, son, is how it’s done. With style!]]>