My new House in Massa

Here are a few pics of the little house i have managed to find to stay in over the summer, not sure how hot it is going to be but it is close to town and the shops and bars, and onl 4 Km to the beach for my wife and the little girl to go playing on the beach

Funniest Story i Have Read In a Long Time

The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family.

On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife goodbye and said, "Well, I'm off now; the man should be here soon."

Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale.

Good morning, Ma'am", he said, "I've come to...''

"Oh, no need to explain," Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, "I've been expecting you."

"Have you really?" said the photographer. "Well, that's good. Did you know babies are my specialty?"

"Well that's what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat "

After a moment she asked, blushing, "Well, where do we start?"

"Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there."

"Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn't work out for Harry and me!"

"Well, Ma'am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results."

"My, that's a lot!" gasped Mrs. Smith.

"Ma'am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I'd love to be in and out in five minutes, but I'm sure you'd be disappointed with that."

"Don't I know it," said Mrs. Smith quietly.

The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. "This was done on the top of a bus," he said.

"Oh my God!" Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.

"And these twins turned out exceptionally well - when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with."

"She was difficult?" asked Mrs. Smith.

"Yes, I'm afraid so I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look."

"Four and five deep?" said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.

"Yes", the photographer replied. "And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling - I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in."

Mrs. Smith leaned forward. "Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh ....equipment?"

"It's true, Ma'am, yes.. Well, if y ou're ready, I'll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away."

"Tripod?"

"Oh yes, Ma'am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It's much too big to be held in the hand very long."

Mrs. Smith fainted.........

Life in The Tourist centre of the Old World

This place must have been a tourist centre for centuries, but the reason they come is because it is so beautiful and the weather is so nice. I have been eating such nice food, fruit and croissants for breakfast, lovely light sandwiches of cured ham and nice cheese, drinking lots of fruit juice and a ferw beers, even the beers are healthy as i am eating lots of olives and break and i had a meal of ham and some wonderful mature cheese, it may have been parmesan, but i was in heaven with the cheese, what i havent had alot of is wine, not a drop yet, but i will once i get my own apartment. I have found a nice little apartment close to the testing centre and i am looking at moving in very soon so i can get it all sorted out for when Jenny and Emma get over here from Costa Rica.

The job is easy as i am inspecting the new equipment to be shipped out to Singapore and this is a nice relaxing time compared to being the tester who has to prove this equipment is functioning OK, I like being the customer and not the vendor, more pics and info to come over this next week as my jetlag is virtually over and i still need more sleep but i am getting better. Tonight i am going out for a nice salad and maybe a glas of wine to start the new week in the square infront of the Medici palace in central Florence. Ciao ciao amores

This is the Medici Palace surrounded by fine eateries

New Job Heaven

I have been reborn and all the previous disappointments of lost jobs are all behind me. I have signed my new contract and i am bound for Italy for the next 5 months and then onto Singapore. I cannot believe it has really happened and I am still in denial that I am heading for Italy for the summer and i will be working with the company and people I have just left behind. I am not expecting any bad treatment but they may demand their brand new laptop back as they have only just sent it to me.
Florence is a nice place to stay but millions of tourists make it difficult to enjoy it totally plus all the nigerian fake Rolex sellers also makes you irritable while your trying to visit all the great places. I will update when i get to Florence this week.

The Great Duomo in central Florence

Cultural Differences

A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and cancelled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly, the End.

Yemen Heaven or Hell

I arrived in Yemen after a relatively short flight of only 7 hours, i was shocked as i watched the plane come in to land by the underbelly camera and saw that Sanaa the capitol was a green valley in the dry mountains and also very big. The airport was small and immigration was probably the worse i have ever had to suffer as the 100 people on the plane took about 1 hour to get all the passports stamped. it was a farce they were waving their hands about and shouting at each other and really the business of taking information for the security of the country was only a minor consideration.

The sheraton Hotel in Sanaa the capitol of Yemen



The oil company had got a couple of drivers for the 4 poeple going to our hotel and the 30 minute drive to the premier hotel in Sanaa was a tour of probably the poorest place i may have ever been. It was a desperate place of poor haphazard concrete block building with garbage everywhere and the feeling of Mogadishou kept srpinging to mind, i felt miserable and despair that i had travelled all the way around the world to see this craphole. I knew there and then that i didnt want to work here and never ever come back. The hotel was nice and clean but i was feeling like crap and the jetlag was worse , i got to the hotel and went to the swimming pool at the back and sat around in the shade as it was very hot in the sun but if a cloud came across the air temp was particularly cool, the altitude was a about 6000 feet and this makes the nights cool and the winters cold and they doo get rain here as i found out 20 million people live here and you cant live without water and crops, that was a surprise. Anyway the pool area was full of locals bringing theri kids to scream and shout in the swimming pool and for the guys to ogle the white women who were in costumes. the average Yemeni wears a long white shirt a jacket that is many sizes to big for him, a large belt and a dagger right at the front, i felt this was to try and hide the usually large gut that was behind it



well i had the barbecue that was served at the poolside and it was OK apart from the meat being raw and the sausage made of lamb that made me fart like i was a methane plant for the next 24 hours. i went to my room about 1pm as i was crashing from the letlag and fell immediately into a deep deep sleep until 7pm, i was goosed and felt like crap i did manage to get some more sleep but awoke at 3am, i watched some crappy TV and then showered for my interview at 8.30am. It was a strange affair done like the civil service interviews, i was asked some strange questions like i had never worked on plant before and i realised that these people were clowns and didnt really know what the hell they were talking about, i was grilled about safety and team leading, and basically nothing about my engineering abilities. I asked how many brits were being interviewed and told 10 total. This was the killer for me, can you imagine going to work in Yemen and finding only peasants and strange folks from all the corners of the world to work with and rely on not to kill everyone inside the plant becasue they dont know anything. I felt misery at knowing i had travelled all this way for nothing and i had to keep smiling. The trip was turning into a nightmare as i knew i had a shitty route back with a night spent in the airport in Dubai. I took the afternoon around the pool sunbathing and managed to burn the skin off my lips badly, in only 1 hour. i went back to my room and managed to keep my eyes open until 7.30pm and then slept only until midnight. I did manage to get about another 2 hours sleep later but i was totally done with the jetlag, my brain was hurting with the hours sleep i had lost. I left yemen with a sigh of relief and a knowledge that Yemen is not fit for human kind, it is full of dangerous looking individuals and lots of sand and heat, i knew that Singapore was for me and my wife even if the money is much less, i need some creature comforts for the next few years to care for my aging body and to get some sleep with jetlag.

Singapore Town

I have been here for 3 days at this point and i can say this place is a buzzing place, but a little expensive, it is very safe and very exotic, plus this is the Houston of the far east, it is the oil capitol of this half of the world and i have a good feeling about being here which isn't normal for me as i dont really like cities, but here is different a small honely feel about it and you can talk to anyone here at anytime and everyone is freindly. I reckon i could work here for a year or two and see this part of the world plus make some money, only drawback is the tax, i would be paying but max it is 16%, so we will see what the other job has to offer in Yemen but it cannot offer one thing and that is being able to be home every night with my wife plus she would be able to get a really fantastic job here, life could be good or you could get addicted to the crazy lifestyle, we will see

City Centre with the worlds largest Ferris wheel being built




The old church and cricket ground from the colonial times




the concert hall that looks like a giant fruit




The second largest container port in the world and all the ships queueing up to load and unload




The spaceship on this building is actually the main parliament building




Just another angle from the office i would be working out of