Defekt Water Closet

Not what I wanted to see right now.



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

From the german country side.

Just left Munster, Germany


Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Map of Where I Am 05-06-2010 10AM

This is my current location.

http://maps.BlackBerry.com?lat=51.42979&lon=6.77711&z=5&label=Where+I+Am



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Train station

I am traveling from Dusseldorph to P@penburg via train.  From airport I took the skytrain which is a Star Wars looking transport that moves humans to their parking decks and Bahn train station.

I guess today will be a plane, train and automobile day.

Weather is 8C and raining.  The station is covered but escalators open up to drafty conditions.

My fleece was in the lost luggage.


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Inside Skytrain

Skytrain



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My plane to Germany

My carry-on barely fit on the MD88, how am I going to get it on this jet?

Seems like a full flight as well.  DCL arranged a driver for me but they got me to aeroporte over 2hours early and there is no free wi-fi. 

I need black jeans so I can kinda fit into europe look :)



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What to pack??

I have one rolling carry-on and a medium-large back-pack for a 10 day trip.  Why would I not check-in luggage??
Bags get lost.

 Many people asked me to carry things to the ship. I packed 80 ipod earbuds, 100 RAM memory sticks, a 3 ring binder and other small things into a DCL duffel. I get to my carousel and the duffel does not.  Trying to communicate to the local lost luggage specialist and provide all my info was a 45 min challenge. 

Three days and still no bag. It had a luggage tag, delta tag and an itinerary and my business card.



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Priorities! Cafe con leche

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Pictures

Dinner at Divinus

 

 This machine would make some ladies very happy!

Now here is a bottle that MIGHT last more than two nights at our house

Tapas you never know what it is until you eat it.. well you still may never know

Warm Apple pie with cinnamon ice cream - Who knew?

Getting lost has benefits

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Google maps on bb

I have been running between three hotels today. It looked easy on map but streets lack street signs. Google maps on bb make finding them and starbucks easy!

This is my lunch and I only need to stop for 10min so I went with a known commodity



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Tapaps and Hamburgers

We went to a tapas bar tonight. The site of all the food laid out caught our eye as we passed down the sidewalk.  I have pictures but I didn't bring a usb cord to pull off pictures from Stephanie's camera.  All seemed well until our waiter suggested a sample plate.  I have no idea what I ate but some was good and some was bad.  At lunch I ordered beans, sausage and rice; Matt ordered a hamburger.  My sausage was a odd shaped piece of meat with an equally odd taste.  The beans were terrible  and instead of rice I was given a fried egg.  Matt's hamburger was probably veal.  When trying to figure out what meat was in the patty we both realized that the name hamburger has nothing to do with beef??

Bull fight stadium

This is a bull fighting stadium that is being converted into a shopping center.  We wish the rain would go away!

Rainy, rainy day

We purchased two additional printers for the operation today. That was a three hour ordeal finding a store with a printer that met our requirements and had a flyer we could point to what we wanted.  Nothing like walking around town with printers in the rain.
 We were undaunted by the constant rain and climbed to a museum only to find it closed.

Off to dinner to dry out

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Obama pub

While walking in the rain we stumbled onto this pub???



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Grammar

Please read my 1st post - the recap is EXCUSE my grammar and typos. I do not try to hack the English language it is just a low priority before hitting the send button on my bb




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Traveling alone again!

The recluse in me is always happy when the seat next to me is empty.

For some reason Matt was put on a different flight. I was totally expecting my business partners to be on our flights. Maybe they went over early and are site-seeing?


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New york shore and germs

This is my first look of the shoreline of NJ and NY.  Very similar to the florida coast and A1A.
The gentleman next to me was like Howie Mandel.  He touched nothing with his hands, he used sanitizing cleaner at least 6 times on a 2.5 hour flight. 
I love Delta's Biscoff!!



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Heinzelman

Or however you spell it.  Normally team Peace is riding this road watching the plane take-off.  I didn't see any bikers today



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Barcelona then P@penburg

Sunday May 2nd
I am off again on another international adventure.   This time I am heading to Barcelona to support the Disney Magic's 2nd Mediterranean turn.  Myself and an application developer will be setting up the computers for Hotel check-in, Gangway, Port Check-in and back-office operations. Our infrastructure team mapped out where everything goes so this should be a lot of fun.  This is the 1st time I was not an integral part of the away port team. Seems weird that I am following instructions that are not my own.   In total we have ~40 PCs, 4 wireless access points and loads of network connections.  We will then assist the onboard IT officers during the embarkation process.   The hotels check-in guests two days before so we will need to travel around town making sure everything is running smooth.

Thursday May 3rd I will be traveling to P@penburg to meet up with the new build team.

Currently I am waiting in the Orlando International to board my flight to JFK an airport I have never flew into. In all my travels NY has never been a place I have flown into.  The airport in Orlando is a lot busier today than in the recent past.  It looks like there are a number of High School groups here.  Tons of teens in the lines and sitting on the floors.

Who would have thought this would happen

An excursion in Tunis on the Disney Magic.

Training for the fight against MS

We have formed a team of people from our church that bike.  Five of us will ride in the Bike MS ride of central Florida. This is the ride Chance rode in last year.  He is a old pro at long distance riding.  Two of our group will be doing the 50 or 75 mile ride while the rest tackle the 100.  Please help support this ride by donating to our team. More info will be coming soon.

We all rode together yesterday I clocked high 60s while Ed and Chance pushed out another 10+; they are just nutty.  The cool weather is officially over.  91 in the shade and I got burned on my forehead even after Melanie brought sunscreen to us.  I hope I can keep active on my upcoming travels because I have three days to be ready after my return.

Capt Hiram's Resort in Sebastian Florida

 

 

Sally and I highly recommend The SandBar at Capt Hiram's Resort in Sebastian Florida. We had a great evening together at dinner and then a few drinks at the sandbar! Next time we will stay with the Capt. as well.

Introducing Remy, a new French-inspired restaurant,

Disney Cruise Line (DCL), at an event at Le Bernardin restaurant in New York on Thursday night, said it would introduce Remy, a new French-inspired restaurant, on Disney Dream, the 128,000-ton, 4,000-passenger ship set to debut in January 2011. Remy will be DCL’s first premier dining option. The top restaurant on both Disney Magic and Disney Wonder currently is Palo, featuring northern Italian cuisine.

Disney Dream will also feature a Palo restaurant, as well as three innovative rotational dining restaurants – Animator’s Palate, Royal Palace and Enchanted Garden. But the new Remy is clearly aimed at taking DCL’s culinary offerings to a new level. The restaurant will feature menus created by a team of two top chefs – Chef Arnaud Lallement from L’Assiette Champenoise, a Michelin two-star restaurant located just outside Reims, France, and Chef Scott Hunnel, from Victoria & Albert’s restaurant in the Grand Floridian hotel in Walt Disney World, an AAA Five-Diamond establishment. Also contributing to the cuisine will be Master Pastry Chef Erich Herbitscheck of Victoria & Albert’s and Chef Mattieu Gerard Siegrist of L’Assiette Champenoise. French-trained Chef Patrick Albert, executive chef for Remy, will oversee the onboard culinary team of 15 chefs and sous-chefs dedicated to the restaurant.

“Remy, a first-of-its-kind onboard experience, takes Disney Cruise Line dining to new heights,” said Ozer Balli, vice president of Disney Cruise Line Hotel Operations. “The extraordinary success of Palo on the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder encouraged us to create this elegant, upscale and even more intimate dining experience for the Disney Dream.

Dinner at Remy will start with a signature chilled champagne cocktail made tableside, followed by eight to nine small courses complemented by a selected wines. Lallement’s cuisine is described as modern, simple and stylish, featuring such selections as roasted lobster with cream and fresh asparagus with black truffles and vin jaune. Hunnel’s innovative dishes offer small tastes of everything from wild caviar to Kobe beef and Japanese Wagyu strip loin.

Remy is named after the animated character in the Disney film “Ratatouille.” In the animated film, Remy is a rat who lives in Paris and dreams of becoming a master chef. The restaurant Remy, which will be located on Deck 12 next to Palo, will seat 80 in a room designed Art Nouveau style with a palate of soft greens, deep reds and rich gold. The restaurant features classic French design, including sinuous lines on chair backs, etched in glass and in wall treatments. The Remy character will be integrated into the design. Tables will be set on Frette linens with Riedel glassware, Christofle silverware and china made exclusively for Remy.

Remy also will feature a private Chef’s Table dining room seating 16, with service from the kitchen staff and a special multi-course menu. The room has its own entrance to the kitchen to allow chefs easy access to dining guests. A glass-walled wine room with marble flooring will have seating for up to 16 guests amid more than 900 bottles of wine.

Guests of Disney Dream will be able to make advance reservations at Remy 75 days in advance. If they are members of Disney’s Castaway Club, DCL’s past cruiser group, they can make reservations from 90 to 120 days in advance, depending on their club level. There will be a surcharge for Remy though that has not been determined yet. Surcharges for top restaurants aboard most cruise ships range from $20 to $35. The surcharge at Palo is currently $15. There will also be a higher surcharge for dining at the Chef’s Table, though again that has not been determined.

Disney Dream will offer three- and four-night sailings from Port Canaveral to Nassau in the Bahamas, including a stop at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island. In summer, the ship will offer slight longer sailings of five and four nights. For more information about DCL, travel agents can call 888-325-2500

Wired's GeekDad

5 Ways Disney’s New Cruise Ship Will be Wired for Family Fun

Read More http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/03/disney-dream/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29#ixzz0mA6LWeB9

There seems to be a particular affection for most things Disney within the geek community. I love the title of this section. 

Gadgets and Tools

Why did you never tell me about that? I hear this all the time so I will start posting info on gadgets and tools I use.

Google Search
Search for anything on Google with any text phone. Send a SMS text message to 46645. In the body enter the search phrase and hit send. In a few seconds Google will return responses via text messages.  You may receive more than one text message back.

For the text challenged I have trick for you. Call 800-466-4411 an automated voice will ask for your search query and it will tell you the search results.

New show

 

Well this was a good secret, I heard about a new show but did not know the details.

The show is called “Villains Tonight!” and it is the first full-scale musical production dedicated to the Disney villains. The show is a family-friendly comedy that places our famous evil-doers in some irreverent funny moments.

Some new pictures that were posted on DCL's facebook page

 

The ice was this bad the last time I was at the yard.

  

This last picture is the bridge being lifted and moved into place.  In the FAQ I created below it talks about the ship being made in blocks.  The pictures above show two of the blocks that make up the ship.

FAQ on the ship

Well DCL released some more public information so I can share it here. I will use this post to post Q&A of common questions.

What Shipyard was chosen?

Meyers Werft   in P@penburg, Germany. Meyer-Werft is a world-renowned shipyard with incredible  attention to detail.Their long shipbuilding history and covered docks along with the incredible technology makes them standout.

Where is Papenburg? It is located in Northern Germany on the Ems river. Population is around 35,000.  Map below is interactive.

View Larger Map
How does the ship yard put the ship together.
  The ship is built in 83 individual blocks which, when finished, are welded onto the ship's structure in one of the world's largest covered dry docks (Baudock). Two ships are usually being assembled at the same time in this baudock. The hull is made in two pieces at a separate facility and brought into the baudock at two different times.  Each cabin is made off site as well and when ready is slid into place as a complete unit.  Wiring and plumbing are then hooked up in a common access panel shared by the two adjoining rooms.  When the ship's ready, half of the building is flooded to float the ship onto the Ems River.  The build process takes almost 15 months, the total project is much longer. A new build team was assembled in 2006.  Right now the Cast living in Germany will return in 2013.

Once out of the building then what?
On Halloween the ship will be floated outside of the baudock and sit alongs side the building.  It is customary for the locals to camp out and watch the sail out.  It will be highly publicized.  It is then loaded with around 500 tons of equipment, supplies and items needed for sea trials.  


Sea Trials?
I have to admit I do not know everything that is done during trials but here is a Wikipedia link with information.

How big is the Dream?
The third ship in the fleet. Boasting 14 decks, a ship length of 1,115 feet and a maximum width of 125 feet, the 128,000-ton vessel includes 1,250 staterooms and has the capacity to comfortably accommodate 4,000 passengers—along with the over 1,458 Crew Members who tend to the needs of every cruise Guest each and every day. (from website) The Magic class ships are 83,000-ton vessels with 10 decks and are just shy of 1000 feet. The Magic and Wonder have a guest capacity of ~2700 and little over 1000 crew members.

Chance went soaring

The picture below is a link to Chance soaring with the birds.  His girlfriend, Angela, bought him a ride on a tandem glider for Christmas.   We showed up at Wallaby Ranch at 8:30 and my parents joined us.  It was a great Central Florida day.  How odd it was for me to reach for the liability form and instead Chance was able to sign it because he is 18.  It was a great experience and the owner Malcolm puts on a great experience.  The ranch is really for solo fliers but they pulled up a lot of tandems today.  Once on the ground Chance's pilot radioed how rough the turbulence was and the day was over. Malcolm came out and worked out a plan making sure the people that had not yet flown were accommodated by coming back in the later afternoon when the winds normally die down. I have been to Wallaby before with the Land Cruiser club I am in.  Malcom's property houses Hummer's and Land Rover's proving courses.   

2010_02_21_Chance_Hanggliding

Family in town

Work is crazy busy as we try to get financing on our final projects.  If this does not make sense you are in good company. As strange as it seems, all of my business units executives agree on our plan to get the new ship up and running.  All the money comes from our business unit's budget. Yet my team has to create complete financial documents to justify our projects; but I digress.
Family; this weekend my cousin came down from Buffalo, NY with his family. His mother came up from Palm Beach area.  My parents came down as well.  We spent Saturday in Epcot and Hollywood studios. The park is moderately busy.   Friday we ate at Angelina's and then downed some beers at the Tavern in Celebration.   My Pennsylvania family is spread out and as I gracefully age I realize it is important to spend as much time with them as possible.

Weather and ships

It is a given that during the hurricane season there is a high likely hood of our operation moving to an alternate port. This is a huge deal as Disney tries its best to accommodate our guests.  This weekend was the first time we moved to another terminal outside of hurricane season.
The Magic pulled into Castaway instead of backing in as usual.  The winds were high.  When she tried to leave the winds and waves kept pushing her into the mooring poles. 24 hours later the winds and waves subsided enough to get out.  This put her behind in her schedule as she arrived into Canaveral with the Wonder.  So our normal team had to tend to the Wonder while people from Orlando managed the Magic. The local Port Authority allowed us to use one of the old casino boat terminals.  In perspective our normal terminal can hold 1100 people this building capacity was 250. 
Shore-side management was asked to help out so we were onsite at 6:30AM.  We (from the president on down) laid luggage down and then assisted guests debarking.  I then worked the Troll station which puts the guests onboard.  Our gangway housed the majority of guests.  Long day and now we are fighting data issues. That will be another story.

See story here-
wesh news

BBQ not BobBQ

Life is good; Brian picked up 2lbs of BBQ from G-Daddys on I-95 in Georgia. 

EDIT: My favorite BBQ joint has changed owners.  The new owners removed the large smoker from the side.  Removed the tables and the sin of all sins - changed the BBQ sauce.  The Dairy Queen two doors down is in such repair that exit 3 has no more appeal to the Wagner's. 

Size matters

This is a Celebrity ship inside the Baudock II building.  This ship is 50% larger than our current fleet.  This should help you get a scale for how large the building dock is.

Home at last!

I returned to Orlando after 16 hours and 30 minutes of travel.  That does not include the 2.5hrs from P@penburg to Dusseldorf. I will be updating the blog which may inlude some back dated posts so kepp coming back!

This is a photo that is in one of the restaurants in P@penburg. All ships coming out of the yard are towed to the North Sea via the river Ems. There are bridges that offer just centimeters of clearance. Locals come out along the route while the ship is being towed to bid farewell the latest ship.  Some clearings next to the river fill up with campers days ahead of time.

Map of Where I Am

This is my current location on the autobahn as we head to Dusseldorf.

http://maps.BlackBerry.com?lat=52.69599&lon=7.16445&z=4&label=Where+I+Am



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Windmills

On our way to see the Aida Blu ship in Elmden, Netherlands.  There are a lot of windmill farms in the countryside.



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Butcher's do not like cameras

Melanie and I decided to walk around a grocery store.  I took these pictures of the different types of meats and the butcher threw a fit. He spoke no English but let us have a piece of his mind for 3-5 minutes.  Who knew?

 

Abigail (“Abby”) Sunderland

Follow this 16 yr old circumnavigate the world here

European elevators

 

Floor zero? Yes in europe the ground floor is always zero and then each floor based off of that. At the Park Inn I had to take the elevator up to floor 1! 

European Hotel Beds

Here is a grump thought!  What the hell are european hotels thinking? You can only get rooms with two single beds.  Then they do not use top sheets. You get a bed with a flat sheet on the mattress and a single duvet.  You lay between the duvet  and the top sheet.

 

Cast members that are going over to Germany are making the mistake to think that you sleep in the duvet like a sleeping bag. This is an easy mistake if you are not use to such  a setup. 

Duvet pulled back like sleeping bag.

Wise men do not urinate into the wind or on the floor

This post is on the personal side.  I go into what Americans would call the "restroom" tonight after dinner.  The door had a sign called WS with the universal icon for a man.  Carefully I enter and see a row of urinals. Once at the urinal I noticed a fly etched into the porcelain. Here is the story.

But I don't know what WS stands for nor can I google it. Follow this link to a blog that has a lot of info but no real mention of my quandary.

Map of Where I Am/was

This is my current location or my previous location depending on when you read this!
After getting off the train from Hamburg to Leer Blaine picked us up. Blaine recently relocated to Germany and was driving his brand new Audi A4.  The four of us took the road to P@penburg

This is Bob and Melanie on the train:

Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Multiply by 2 and add 32 for F

Jelly Candy

There is a fascination with Gummy bear type candy. At our all day meeting there were two large plates of gummies, in the hotel room there are cans of gummy candy.  It is everywhere!

Edit-1-23-2010
In the train station in Hamburg were more gummies!



This last picture was taken in my P@penburg hotel room where a package of gummie sheep were laid out for me to count myself to sleep.

Groninger Brivat-Brauerei

Great Northern Germany dinner at a local Brewhaus.  Gruenkohl, Sausage, skillet potatoes, beans, ham, turkey and so much more. You buy beer in 10 Liter kegs that are filled with beer brewed the evening before.

Here is Bob pullin another glass from the tap.

Hamburg the culture of Germany

Hamburg the city is home to 1.8 million people with a metro population of 4.5 million. Dirk our Project Manager turned city guide was full of information.  The harbor is what makes Hamburg one of the largest transporation centers, the port here is very large. It was dark but we could make out large ice packs floating in the harbor. The ferry plowed over the ice making loud scraping and clunking noises. The water was almost gelatin like as the swells from large ships moved onto shore.  Dirk mentioned the river here is tidal and is such up to 150 miles to the north. It was about 19F so standing on the dock and our 20 minute walk to dinner was an appreciation of Florida's mild winters.  There were 11 people total and we walked through downtown.Entertainment and media companies are prevelant and like New York; Hamburg has a large number of 'Broadway" type shows.  The Lion King is in a large opera house near the harbor.

Thursday 1/21/2010 Lufthansa

The day was spent at the Lufthansa Teknick office. Today's discussion revolved around the infrastructure needed to support 2700+ cabin and admin desk phones, 3000+ DECT wireless phones and special need phones.  Everything on the ship communicates over the IT network. Phones, Data, music, TV signal, environmental controls...  Bob and the network enineers have to balance all this data and make sure everything will work as planned.  DCL has to setup the rules for who can dial who, who gets charged for outbound calls to voicemail setup.  This was our second meeting and the open items were on a 19 page spreadsheet.  Hopefully we knocked it down to 2 today.  We met at what is called Deutsche Lufthansa base. The 5th largest airline they also have a separate business called Lufthansa Systems which is a  full IT integration service that revolve around transportation communications and entertainment. Daylight here is from around 7AM until 5PM. We were inside the whole day so I do not have any pictures.

Arrive Hamburg

After an hour flight from Frankfurt and 15 hrs from Orlando I arrive in Hamburg. 25 degrees and snowing the pilot announces. Melanie flew in an hour earlier from London and is waiting on me.



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

Near empty flight

Happy flight, seat next to me is open!



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

2nd trip to Germany

I hope I do not jinx myself but I made it from curb to Outback by gate in 16 min. Walked up to LH counter and through security with Zero waiting.

Now some Alice Springs chicken before my flight to Frankfurt at 8:35est.
LH465



Please excuse brevity and typos as this message was composed on my mobile device.

TV prediction

I am going to predict that the Wagner's will cancel their cable TV subscription Q1 2011. My prediction revolves around some services that are ramping up on the internet.We will be using a standard internet connection to stream video to our TVs. These services are somewhat disparate now but should start to morph into cohesive services.
*Boxee
*Hulu (D1sney is a stakeholder)
*Netflix on demand
Even today the PS3 and Xbox offer full streaming entertainment. You can buy a Boxee box soon or many DVD players offer the Netflix stream. My buddies that went to CES say that many TVs are being built with small Linux systems built in to allow the ability of streaming.


Today my family primarily watches network television. Stephanie is a huge watcher of YouTube and Hulu. The switch should be easy :)

Sally, Chance and I volunteered to work the DCL water-stop for the WDW 1/2 marathon.   Stephanie went to bed with a fever and sore throat so we left her home.  We did this two years early and it was a great experience. This year the temperatures were below freezing with light sleet.  There are thousands of runners and the atmosphere is inspirational.  Our water-stop is the third one so we start filling cups at 4:30AM and the first runners come by a few minutes after 6AM.