Steam Train Wedding - Music Video

As we were driving by a railway station in the Berner Oberland (Switzerland) we saw a steam engine being prepared for a trip. I screamed that we had to stop and go back. We got to the station in time to see a wedding party boarding the steam train for an excursion.

I just had to write a song about the experience. It's on YouTube: Steam Train Wedding.

Friends on Facebook Tribute

Altoids "Curiously Strong Awards" from Marc Ritzema on Vimeo.

Just in case you have not seen this yet. I seem to know all these people.

Die Prinzen: Mein Fahrrad - My Bike

I just heard the song "Mein Farrad" (My Bicycle) by Die Prinzen on the radio. It's a very catchy tune and the words are lots of fun. I thought I would translate it for my English speaking bicycle friends, so here goes:

The other day I was going 120 (kph)
Riding round town on my bike
And as usual I could only hope
The police wouldn't catch-up to me
Because they'd give me a ticket
And take me to the station
And my poor little bike
Would be left all alone out front
Oh how I love my bike
Although I really don't know why
To her I'll always be faithful
In contrast to my wife
Never will I leave her
Never will I give her away
Because we fly together on the clouds
And understand each other perfectly

Every grandpa drives his Opel
Every monkey drives his Ford
Every idiot drives his Porsche
Every asshole drives his Audi Sport
Every crazy man drives his Manta
Every complete idiot his Jaguar
Only connoisseurs are cycling
And they're always faster there

My bike is surely not purple
That's not my color at all
And it's certainly not brown
Because I can't stand brown
No, mine is painted blue
From head to toe that shade
Blue's the perfect color for me
Because sometimes I'm blue too

Every grandpa drives his Opel
Every monkey drives his Ford
Every idiot drives his Porsche
Every asshole drives his Audi Sport
Every crazy man drives his Manta
Every complete idiot his Jaguar
Only connoisseurs are cycling
And they're always faster there!

I took a few liberties with the lyrics, but I hope it does justice to the great song! Feel free to add improvements to the comments.

Psycho (Social) Networker

My newest music video on the perils of on line social networking. Hope you like it.

Vienna Tram Day 2009

On Saturday the Wiener Linien (Vienna Lines), the city's public transport operator held its annual open house at the main workshops. It was a nice day and a great party. Here are a few photos.

Inside the railway vehicle maintenance area. The Wiener Linien had set up displays of interesting information (how the new real time passenger information system works, etc) with various types of public transport vehicles interspersed between the displays.

The new Ring Tram was on display. The tram lines that used to run on the Ring (#1 and #2) were recently re-routed so they only go on part of the Ring. The Ring tram is designed for tourists and has information in several languages available on headphones. It has a special (higher) fare, but it's well worth riding.

What is it about kids (of all ages) and trams?

No Austrian event would be complete without food and drink. Below is my Goulash lunch at the employee cafeteria ... not as good as mine, but quite good.

Back to work ... here's a photo of several rail vehicles being maintained. On the left is one of the old trams, on the right (up in the air) is one of the old subway (U-Bahn) cars.

I don't know how many public transport operators have their own Blues Band, but the Wiener Linien does: the Wiener Linien Blues Band. They were playing Mustang Sally, I don't know why they didn't play Tramway Charlie ... but maybe next year!

Swiss Travel System Video Contest - Bad News For Andy

Unfortunately my video entry for the Swiss Travel System Casting competition was not selected. Since I won't be heading to Switzerland, maybe somewhere else would be nice? Check out the video.

By the way, the Swiss Travel System Casting competition was lots of fun and congratulations to the winners! You'll really enjoy Switzerland and its fantastic travel system.

Swiss Travel System Video Contest!

Here's my entry in the Swiss Travel System's video casting contest. Please take a look and rate the video highly ... extra points for those who know what I am alluding to ... send me a comment! Thanks, Andy

Oh Lord, won't ya buy me a cobra tram?

Finally a new music video. Just before heading out to dinner with friends in Zurich I heard Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz song. All I can say is that it was inspiring ... and I am not the only one, there's lots of versions on YouTube.

We went to dinner at a great little neighborhood restaurant with big windows on one of Zurich's public transport priority streets. All night long trams passed by until finally it clicked ...

Cobra trams are Zurich's new low floor streetcar. They were a bit undependable when they first arrived although seem to be doing well now. They are quite elegant: big windows, lots of room around the doors to move in and out, nice seats, clean lines and quiet. Their wheels are independent (in other words there is not a common axle between wheels on either side of the streetcar) which make them very quiet.

Unfortunately as the public transport vehicle manufacturing industry has consolidated over the last few years the major manufacturers have discontinued the "cobra" design, so Zurich's are unique. Here's a press release by the manufacturer Bombardier describing the cobra trams (PDF).

Uncle Jay Explains: Year-end! 12-22-08

Great video by Uncle Jay explaining all the news in 2008 in about 4 minutes. Here it is:

School of Life - Heathrow Holiday

I participated in an interesting "holiday" last weekend. I went to Heathrow Airport to attend a class given by the School of Life on Heathrow Airport. The class was led by one of my favorite authors, Alain de Botton (How Proust can change your life, Status envy, The art of travel, ... ). In the class, we looked at airports from several different perspectives, most of them new to me.

Heathrow Airport class photos on my flickr site. Sorry, my camera wasn't working so well and many of the photos are blurred.

We took a walk around the new Terminal 5 (T5 to Heathrow cognoscenti) with Stephen Barratt, one of the architects involved in the terminal's design from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. He explained how complex airports are to design, particularly on very congested sites like T5. The firm also helped design Madrid's new terminal, which was built on a totally unconstrained site ... the differences are quite extraordinary.



We talked about airline food while eating sandwiches from Gate Gourmet served to first class passengers ... unfortunately they did not provide any Dom Perignon to wash them down. We talked about eating on planes, why? our best experiences? our worst experiences? websites dedicated to food on planes (why not?) ...

Next we had a presentation on airport baggage handling by Edward Quinton, one of the system managers. It was interesting to learn what happens after our bags disappear on that conveyor belt never to be seen again until they arrive on a similar conveyor belt at our destination (hopefully). Quinton also gave us practical advice on how not to lose our bags (e.g. always put your name inside the bag too!).

We went out to visit some of the people who watch planes land and take off. We talked with Craig, a veteran plane-spotter, to learn what is involved and why they do it. They keep track of actual plane numbers, underlining the ones they have seen in books that list all the planes owned by all the airlines. It was a peek inside a unique society.

We learned about the history of Heathrow from Allan Gallup, author of ‘Time Flies: Heathrow at 60’. Then we heard from a representative of Plane Stupid, a group opposed to expansion of Heathrow. The airport owners (BAA) want to build a third runway at Heathrow. Plane Stupid opposes the runway on the grounds that our society needs to fly less. Following the presentation we separated into four groups and role-played different positions regarding construction of the new runway (airport owner, member of Parliament, local citizen, and anti airport activist).

For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant frequented by airport workers, although it didn't really feel connected to the airport. The taxi ride back to our hotel was interesting, we were able to see the new T5 lit up in the night ... cool and impressive. We stayed overnight in the Sofitel luxury hotel at T5. The place was a bit spooky, so quiet and calm, yet a two-minute walk from the airport. Our 'class' met in one of the deserted hotel bars.

On Sunday we discussed how travel can change one's perspective and give you a chance to think about your life. Alain led the discussion that expanded on some aspects of his Art of Travel book. We talked about Edward Hopper's travel paintings and the feelings they generate.

Then we did a couple of exercises, first, observing people and creating short plays around them. After that we completed an 'emotional audit' of T5. That consisted of walking around looking at people and trying to assess their emotions. We marked them on a map and discussed what we saw.

In between these exercises visual artist Dryden Goodwin showed several films he made around the idea of airports. My favorite showed quick images of planes passing directly overhead (at low altitude) ... one was of a Concorde ... so different from all the others.

On Sunday afternoon we discussed airport security with Lee James, a retired security officer and had a presentation from Rev Pascale Ryan, the airport Chaplin. Both quite interesting in the sense that these are people who you never really get to talk with in your normal trip to the airport.

Our holiday ended with a presentation by writer and performer Julian Fox on the connecting bridge between the Sofitel and the T5 parking garage. We sat on the floor and laughed at his stream of consciousness descriptions of trips to airports, different cities, and songs. Fox ended with a song he wrote about the architect of a new airport terminal ... it's always been my dream to build such a building ... please don't change it too much in the next 50-years ...

With the sound of Fox's accordion and slightly off-key voice in my head, I headed downstairs to the inter-terminal train on my way to Terminal 2 and back to Vienna.

CERN Superconductor Video Rap

I just saw this music video on what the new supercollider at CERN is supposed to do (it was on a Wired Blog posting) of the top 10 physics videos. Finally, science presented in a way I can understand. Here's Wired's explanation of what happens in the LHC and what theories they hope to understand better and, here is the video - I just hope that the dancers don't give up their day jobs:

Easter Gift

Here's a funny difference between Austria and America. Yesterday I received a gift from the University of Applied Sciences where I am teaching a class in Logistics English. The gift was a CD of music called Hymnen der Fachhochschule des bfi Wien. It made me think what CD some of my US employers might have given out as a gift ... "The Santa Clara County Congestion Management Agency March" ... "The CalTrain Polka" ...

Best of 2007 List

Mark Morford from the SF Chronicle had a great list of the best 12 best of lists for 2007. Some great stuff there!

iTunes and Blogger

Did you know that the Blogger software flags iTunes as a spelling error. Seems strange.

Legal Tender

Legal Tender from the B-52s (Whammy) just started playing on the iTunes. I was reminded of how clever their songs are and how it's pretty much impossible to work when listening to their songs. If only my fingers could dance (accurately) over the keyboard ... unfortunately my fingers on the keyboard do as well as my feet on the dance floor (just ask my long suffering wife).

Dancing School

My wife was amazed to learn that I went to dancing school for five years when I was growing up in Buffalo New York. We were required to wear white gloves so as "Not to soil the young ladies' party dresses." In some ways it was torture, but maybe that helped prepare us for real life as much as the manners instruction that was part of every class. Also, Mrs. Driscoll hired a great combo to play the music, dressed in tuxedos ... all the great jazz tunes like "Take the A Train" and "Satin Doll" are etched somewhere in my unconscious. I was reminded of dancing school when I heard the Wang Chung song Dance Hall Days recently.

WHAM!

I must admit that in searching the internet for Last Christmas I realized that WHAM! also did a cover version of "Wake me up before you go go" which I really enjoy. But can anyone tell me how the hair works?

Last Christmas

On Sunday I heard the WHAM! song "Last Christmas" for the first time this season ... actually the radio station played it several times (why I did not get up to change the station is beyond me, but ...), anyway, I found myself thinking about Nick Hornby's book "About a boy" whose hero seems haunted by the fact that he is living off the royalties of an awful Christmas song that his father wrote (something like Santa's Christmas Sled).

Another of Hornby's books, "High Fidelity," is one of the funniest books I have ever read, I laughed until I cried over several passages, particularly those taking place in the record shop. Both books have been made into movies (also good) but the books are great.

Back to "Last Christmas," it's just one of those syrupy songs you just can't get out of your mind. The only thing worse is the truly awful music video that goes along with it. We saw it on an AirBerlin flight in 2003. I am sorry to say it seems to have been filmed in Saas Fee Switzerland - great skiing, no cars.

I wonder if the WHAM! folks will be haunted like the Hornby character, and I wonder how many more Christmases we will be hearing the song. Not only from WHAM! but from everyone who's covered the song!