Oh My God, Nudists Everywhere

Sunday we went to the beach, the little Tinker was sad that the hotel didn't have a pool so we had promised her a trip to the beach, so we went to this very big beach just in France called Hendaye, it was an hours drive, and the scenery amongst the outer Pyrenees was fantastic, huge Valleys and mountains, the beach was very busy it must have been 5 Kms long, and as typical for Europe it had many topless women, this was the first time the Little Tinker had seen a topless woman outside of the house, the first one she saw and she came running at full speed to tell us both, and after that she really didn't bother, after about an hour of roasting on the beach we thought a nice walk along the beach would be good for us all. So we strolled along with every shape imaginable for the human form, but as we neared the cliffs along the beach we were confronted by maybe 500 totally nekkid folks, walking about in and out of the water and sunbathing, usually it was older people, this is repulsive as they were fat and wrinkly, not a beautiful sight, we quickly got hold of the little tinker and told her that there would be some nekkid folks and that again this was normal for Europe and she again thought nothing of it, but she hadn't seen any of them by this point, so we carried on walking and she was confronted by one after another coming in and out of the water, they were in front of her face, there was no way she couldn't have missed them all, huge fat old women and old fat men and young women, just all of them, we went to the end and then came back and when we sat down, we asked her if she had seen them she refused to answer the question, totally refused to answer, not sure what this means, prehaps she was so embarrassed that she didn't want to mention it again or what, not sure i think it is good for her to know that this can be normal and that the human form can be beautiful, but not the fat old ones.

Wifey and The Little Devil have arrived in Time for the Running of the Bulls

Last Saturday my wife and little girl arrived in time for the Fiesta of San Fermin, now this Saint must have been a miserable shit for wanting bulls tortured and killed in his name. Anyhow on arriving Jenny knew that life would be a little bit boring during the day while i am at work, so her daily routine is going to the Gymn and then taking a huge breakfast and trying to hold on until i get back at night, but my routine is at odds with this as i take a huge breakfast and huge lunch and then I am not really hungry at night other than taking a cocktail from the hotel bar at 9pm. we we are struggling with the eating arrangements already. We went out on the following sunday to the most amazing picturesque tourist route in Navarra, up along the Pyrenees over into France and looking at all the vultures and hawks and countless birds that were patrolling the skies. As we rounded a hillside we encoutered an eagle that was landing on a fencepost. it was so impressive to see it flapping its huge wings as we went passed, That was the best part of the day, the weather was so much colder than when i went up with Oscar, it went down to 10.5 C whereas it was 22.5 the week before. Jenny has been to downtown Pamplona a couple of times on the bus and wlaked around some Japanese gardens and been relaxing , as she doesn't need to do any washing or shopping or cooking, so life is easy for them but trying to get the eating arrangements sorted is difficult, I don't want to eat at night and she does, the little girl eats hardly anything anyway apart form French fries, which we are trying to wean her off. she doesnt eat anything that has colour, fruit or vegetables, totally out of the question, anyway, this coming weekend we are looking at going to the beach near the French border.

Climb Every Mountain, Ford Every Stream, with Vultures

Sounds like a plot to a movie
well this sunday was a day of adventure, we drove out to just travel into the pyrenees, it is pretty easy as Pamplona sits at the base of the mountains, we actually drove along the same road we go to work everyday and then turned north directly into the upwardly spiralling roads, we went passed the Foz De Lumbier which is the Vulture nesting grounds close to our site and after 15 Km we found another Foz( Canyon), the Foz De Ardeyun, it was bigger and more spectacular and probably had more birds nesting in it, when you drive to it, you arrive at the top, unlike the other which is at the bottom, this is so big and so narrow your not able to walk in it, the signs say inaccessible which is probably not true but it keep out the peasants. It was very impressive and the Vultures really like it as the nesting points must be 300-500 feet up, just as they like it, we were close enough to see the birds gliding in and landing into the nests and these Griffon Vultures and Egyptian Vultures are huge birds, with 10 foot wingspans

The Foz De Ardeyun




We spent a while at this place




The Griffon Vulture



The Egyptian Vulture




Then we carried on driving into the unknown, the roads were surprisingly very good to say these are the backroads to nowhere, we stopped at a place maybe 25Km further down teh road for a drink and to stretch the legs, it was a small town on the Salazar River, it was very beautiful and full of really old buildings, and we found one building that had the date carved into the stone arch over the main door, 1758, so this town was around 250 to 300 years old and looked in good shape for the age, we had a tiny Pincho (snack) one potato croquette each, it was laughable, did they expect 2 grown men to use this as a meal,

Little Town of Oggiachioa, Basque town, the spelling was strange




so we left and carried on with our mission, we drove along and found the road that said "France". we carried on up and on for a while and found we had entered the Pyrenees for real, we could see the snow-capped mountains very close and the vegetation had gone to grass only, and the temperature had dropped from 32 C to 22 C, It was amazingly quiet apart from the constant clanging of the bells of the cows and sheep that were grazing all over the hills wild style, with shite littering the roads. we stopped and took many lungfuls of the clean air and smelled the flowers and heard the birds singing with basically no-one else there, it was amazing and almost awesome, but as everyone who knows me that is reserved for when the aliens arrive. We carried on looking for roads to lead us to a road that would take us back to Pamplona, we went on and on and finally found some brits doing some crazy mountain walking and asked them if they had a map we could check, it showed that we were so remote in the mountains that there were no other roads across the mountains at all, it was north for 100Km until we could take a road to the coast or go back the way we came, so no arguments there then, back the way we came. It was a spectacular drive with some amazing scenery and worth all the time it took, i will of course have to take my wife when she comes next week but that is what being a family man is all about.

The Pyrenees in cloud free glory

Latest Movie Review

As you are all probably aware that the life of a travelling engineer revolves around, work , mostly lots of hours to make money, eating, essential for life, some beer or lots depending on the case involved, and movies. Not that i have much time to watch movies, by the time i get back from work and have a shower and eat, I can chat to my wife and then go to bed. But sometimes when i am sleepless I watch a movie, so this week I have reviewed a couple more for you to think about.

Land of The Lost, 8/10, now Will Ferrel is a funny actor and this movie is pretty typical of his style of movie, it was predictable to a degree but the material about time travel was new for him and it was very entertaining. The story line was very bizarre which added to the movie with lizard men and cavemen and a mini love story thrown in was all good stuff.

Transformers, Rise of the Fallen 9/10, some amazing special effects and a really good plot to say it was written after the original movie. Some wooden acting from the female actor with lips and some good acting from Leboef, he is a funny character, The fact the pyramids of egypt were hiding some giant sun killing machine that no-one had ever discovered and was being destroyed just as i am about to go on holiday to Egypt was a little stressful but all in all a very good movie.

Up by Paxar, 9/10, the start of the movie is a little strange but is building the storyline about a miserable old fart, but as the movie goes along the plot is fantastic for kids and the talking dogs and giant bird are just so funny. I liked the old guys fighting as it picks up on the old age thing really well. a very entertaining movie for kids and for me, funny how all pixar characters are starting to lookalike from different movies.

Clowns of Navarra

I am working for a spanish gas company here in spain and to be honest they have picked two guys to carry out the customer acceptance tests who are the worst possible choices ever, one is an administrator who knows nothing about anything technical and the other is an arrogant engineer who thinks he is God almighty and he is important, this combination has made the task of running this job very frustrating. We have named the administrator the "Clown", he is so stupid that he tells other guys on site that he "knows nothing", and he has to ask for everything to be explained to him, we are at the leading edge of process control systems and he is asking about it all, this man is incapable of understanding anything so why does he ask, he is also terrified of making any errors and probably is desperate to not get fired. He also talks very strange and i can understand almost nothing of what he says. The other guy is an ass and thinks he is important, he makes demands and issues orders, but once again he knows nothing other than the manuals he is reading everything from. They made us carry test after test after test, almost 4 days of tests that prove nothing and as all controls guys know we could have cheated if we wanted to but this unit is working so perfectly that we didn't need to but they think that these units are easy to operate and they are not, They weill find out soon enough when they actually take over the units that they will struggle and will be calling the company asking for help, that will be pay back time.

Third and Final Quote of the Day

"Be content to seem what you really are." - Marcus Aurelius

Second Quote of the Day

"I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there."

Confucius

Quote of the day

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"

Winston Churchill

Travel Worries and Not Dying

I used to fly constantly for work and now I am flying less but still a lot, and every time I see a crash on TV of some airliner I think, thank Buddha it was them, as that obviously increases my chances of not having a crash. This may seem a rather clinical way of looking at someone else's misfortune but it is what happens when you take not dying in a crash for granted. Flying they say is the safest method of travel, many times safer than driving, which I do not do much of these days, but when you have a crash your body is smashed like a soft tomato and you have no chance of escaping, even if you packed a parachute in your hand luggage. Where driving at least you have a chance of avoiding the other object, namely the other vehicle and not the ground looming up at 500 mph. There are on average about 6 major airliner crashes a year and most are in third world countries flying older planes, but to have an almost new plane just fall out of the sky with no apparent reason is very worrying and as I fly to central america quite often now being an official legal resident of Costa Rica I have a genuine reason to be worried. As soon as the star trek transporter is available I will be using it.

Great Article about Who are the Real Pirates

I’m Really Getting Fed Up About This – And You?

As a consumer, I've bought music...on 45 and 33 rpm vinyl records, then on tape (yes, I missed the 8-Track phase as well as the Laser players), and onto CDs. Next stop: MP3 digital on the computer. How many times do I have to buy the same old songs? And, believe me, you "have to” buy it again because copying it from one format to another - well - there's just so much of that a song will stand. I repeat: How many times must I buy it?

The answer to that is: I have to repurchase whenever the entertainment industry decides to "rip off" America one more time by making obsolete the present formats and forcing something new on us. This is not considered illegal - but copying your older stuff from one format to another borders on "cheating" the artists out of their "much deserved revenues"! Oh, and don't dare make a copy of an old song for your friend that’s out of work and can't afford to "repurchase" their collection in the new format - that's pirating!

The entertainment industry can make whole collections obsolete by refusing to sell and or, support the equipment you need to play it with. Somehow, this dishonorable habit flies below the radar of ethics. The Powers That Be determined that re-inventing the industry every few years would help keep the American economy healthy while providing security for Americans jobs – wink…wink! This is how we justified being wasteful with our resources, and for making “sub-standard” equipment that would not last longer than the planned obsolescence of seven years.

But there’s a few flaws in this plan. Look around. The Japanese have taken over manufacturing these new “innovative” machines. And, the support or help-line jobs have been out-sourced to places like India. Many major companies are keeping their main offices “off-shore” to avoid paying their fair share of American taxes. Now, in the “aftermath” of this “wink…wink” understanding, how stable is our American economy? Aren’t we also suffering a severe unemployment rate? Makes one wonder just whose side these Powers That Be are on, huh?

Nevertheless, such is the reasoning that may soon make your CD and DVD collections obsolete! Almost humorously, in direct opposition, news headline bid us to feel sorry for these people of the Entertainment Industry who are complaining about losing billions of dollars in potential profits this past year due to piracy.

When an industry artificially manipulates the availability of equipment - they have no right to moan about loss! After all, when they stopped selling phonographs in favor of tape decks, and stopped selling tape decks in favor CDs, and cut into CD sales in favor of digital equipment – iPods, MP3 players, etc. they callously kicked entire collections to the curb that depended on those earlier formats. And why? So they could exploit their customer base and sell the same old stuff they've sold before - in the "more modern" formats!

Now, it's movies...remember Beta tapes? Remember VHS? Sure, DVDs are still popular, but how long before Blu-Ray or some other format push into obsolescence the very equipment you need to play your collection on now? That’s one of the goals of Blu-Ray – to have all new movies come out “only” in Blu-Ray! So, you will “have to” buy their format or lose out. We, the consumers, continue to sit silently, while the Entertainment Industry shouts about how badly "they" are being ripped off!

Shouldn't we demand that someone start reporting how these "would-be victims" have been victimizing the consumer - under the guise of "new and improved"? Here we are with all digital formats and we're being told that vinyl - the old 33s and 45s - have better sound! Best Buy is actually clearing space to start selling vinyl records again! New and improved - yeah - right?! They're the victims - only in the headlines! In truth, we’re the victims - you and me! It’s time to acknowledge that.

Originally, I had no opinion about “pirating”. But, I’m an American. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that Americans “share”. That’s our nature. We’re a generous people. And, it seems, the less we have, the more we are apt to share it. If someone who has cancer says they wish they could see a particular movie, do you really think someone else won’t rip off a copy of that movie and give it to them ease their suffering? Anyone telling them they aren’t “legally” allowed to do that, amounts to telling them that they can’t show “mercy”! The Entertainment Industry should figure it out – You don’t legislate morality or human kindness. Calling such a person a “pirate” only alienates their customer base and further erodes good will. Having people publicly arrested, fined and imprisoned for piracy, isn’t an effective deterrent to others? That’s creating martyrs! And, changing the minds of people like me who previously had no opinion on the subject.

In the aftermath, I find that I’m not really all that offended by people pirating DVDs and CDs. It means that something is finally being “Made in America” again!

The Golden Rule says that you are to do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Well, then, where is the real basis for complaint against “pirating”? The Entertainment Industry has employed a “wink…wink” strategy that has severely “harmed”, not helped, America. And, they intend to keep right on employing it! They don’t care if we suffer because of it. All that matters is their bottom line! Pirates are children of their own thinking – doing exactly the same thing to them that they are doing to us. So, where’s the problem?

Microsoft gave us Vista…a software that meant you had to replace older peripherals like your scanner, printer, etc. in order to use it. This was a way of “forcing” consumers to buy new equipment. America responded by simply “not” buying Vista! With that, even a company of the magnitude of Microsoft had to stop and listen to the consumer!

It may be wise to think twice about buying a new format. Ask yourself who, exactly, is it profiting? At what ultimate cost? We get fairer treatment and better products when we hold out for fairer treatment and better products. Who knows, someone might even have an epiphany and offer a “free” 5 year warrantee on their product? (Okay, I’m reaching!)

But do remember, whether they like it or not: Your dollars are “your vote”! Use them wisely.

Mary Cahill - age 63 - A Baby-boomer

Saving Baby Snake

As we were driving off the site yesterday we saw a baby snake that was slithering its way on to the road, I was horrified at the thought of it getting squished running away from us, so I jumped out and ran towards it looking at the traffic on the road, the road was full of cars doing fast speeds, maybe 50-60mph, the snake was still running as fast as it could to the road, i stood back and looked away as the cars came close, the poor little thing was jumping backwards as the cars roared past. So I took the decision to be the snake police and stepped out and waved the oncoming cars away from me, they not knowing I was protecting a snake. The last car actually responded and moved around me and avoided me and the snake, so i jumped on the other side of the snake after the car had gone and then started waving my hands very close to it, it was clever and turned around and ran away as fast as its little coils could make it go, I was happy and the snake lived, a little tale of my endeavours in Northern spain, I should have been a vet you know.

about the size of a pencil

Words Not To Use on Your Job Applications

Here are some words to avoid in your resume and cover letter

Awesome, amazing, phenomenal, cool, spectacular, etc. I would personally like to see the word amazing purged from the vernacular altogether; sometimes it seems like that’s the only adjective people know. All of these words, besides making you sound like a teenage girl, are subjective, meaning that they are your interpretation of a skill. Unless the interviewer can see that for himself or herself, it’s not really going to mean much to him or her anyway.

Liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, monotheistic, polytheistic, atheist, agnostic, etc. I’m not telling you to deny your views or leanings, but the resume is not the place to state them. When people are vetting resumes, they’re not above throwing out those that represent people with beliefs that are different from theirs.

Healthy, chronically ill, diabetic, habitually pregnant, or any mention of a physical condition at all. This kind of information is illegal for prospective employers to ask about, so why volunteer it?

Use your Brain when applying for jobs, you know it makes sense