Thanksgiving in Edisto, SC

We drove up to Edisto Island, SC to be with my Mother's side of the family. On turkey day Chance and I rode around the Island. We woke up to 43 degree weather but it warmed up into the 60s. Chance rode for 15 miles and then picked me up. The Island is beautiful but the pavement is not made for road bikes. The wind is high which makes for a tough ride. The state park has really nice hard packed dirt trails; again not made for road bikes. The trails were fun as the sand sometimes caused the bike to go wonky! When your clipped into the pedals you either recover or fail completely. We both exited the woods without being owned by the sand.

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Atlanta, one of the best cities I have lived in.



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45 minute delay

Oomph, we will be delayed 45 min due to "German" paperwork. Sunny skies 19C perfect plane and we are held-up by bureaucracy. 


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Smoking may reduce blood flow and cause impotence

They take smoking cigarettes very serious but it does not seem to deter smokers.
This is at Duseldorf airport




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Funny story... Embarrassing for me.  After about 45 minutes of seeing road signs pointing to roads going to ausfarht I said "dang all roads lead to the town of ausfarht" when the whole car burst out laughing and telling me ausfarht means EXIT. 


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Map of Location101

Playing with BB gps while on autobahn.

You have received a map location.

http://maps.BlackBerry.com?lat=52.78520&lon=7.16725&z=9&label=Location101



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5AM and we are heading to Dusseldorf to catch a flight home.  The GPS showed how close to London we are.



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Get it right or there are consequences

Little things like power adapters and checking transformers before plugging them in make international travel interesting.  If you plug in a device that is 110 only there will be something not working. Either the power in your room or your device.



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stargate bowling alley.

We found the perfect nerd place tonight. A stargate bowling alley.  From what I am told it is a TV show followed by nerds.  The cast pic is on the wall.  No, we did not bowl just looked.



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Look zach german ice cream!



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P@penburg the sleepy town

Here are some pics of the quiet little town of P@penburg at dusk. I have yet to see it in daylight. We are at the Yard before 8AM and return after 7PM. Work, eat and discuss the next day is the routine.

Yard picture of Hull

Another peek shot- This is the hull steel cross section. Next year there will be water on the lower dark side and insulation on the top.

Pepsi NOT Beer

Look, Dad is drinking diet pepsi tonight. Steph would like it here no ice!
We are at WirtsHaus a German restaurant. I am taking the waitresses advice and having und Schweinefilet Mit Krauterbutter. For me German food is not that different from the food I grew up with. meat, potatoes, beans with subdued spices.

Sadly there is a burger on the menu called Big American Burger. Why are we always referred to as big?

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Bikes, bikes and more bikes

Bikes and more bikes: many employees ride to the yard.

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Well it was very cool to go see the ship. I have been advised to not post pics so I will just do this one low res photo.
The ship is being built in multiple sections called blocks. In the same building is a full Celebrity ship that floats out in February. Some of the Hull sections will have temprary plates put on the ends and then floated to their final destination for final assembly. Some blocks will be lifted into place once the Celebrity moves out. There are massive cranes that straddle the whole building allowing them to pickup the sections.

We found the server room and saw the AC cold water pipes and electrical connections. Crew cabins are pre-built units and we saw a few of them. Actually all cabins are built off-site and brought to the yard and then put in place. Each cabin has its own self contained fans, wiring and plumbing just waiting to be hooked up to the mains supplies.

More too come,


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This is in the small building, a Aida cruise ship 4 months from delivery.



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Espresso in the office!

Hmmm real espresso


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At the yard; the camera cannot do justice to the enormity of the buildings.  The wind is brisk this morning. Temp is around 10C or 50F.
 


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What do Americans do in P@penburg

After one night it is clear a regular night would be very different for me if I lived here in Germany. BBC, CNBC and CNN are the only English channels on the hotel TV. Websites come up in German unless it is a site you have an English account setup on. So what do these 35+ Americans do? Learn to be a nerd and buy a Slingbox. In the simplest terms a Slingbox allows a user to view their television that is in the States anywhere with an internet connection. Either over their laptop or right on their TV. Brent showed me his on-screen BrightHouse remote that allowed him to control his FLORIDA DVR and record and view his BrightHouse Florida TV right in P@penburg. The remote was an exact copy of what my DVR remote looked like. The quality of the picture is quite good . Everyone seems to have a setup that is streaming their video from home back to Germany. People from the UK are wanting american TV. Seems like everyone from VPs to individual contributors use a slingbox. Everyone seems very happy to be here and are figuring out ways to make their time here an experience they will not forget.


Here is a small segment of a Canadian cartoon in German