Bijbaantjes

Recent tijdens de val van Harry Borghouts was het weer een nieuws item: bestuurders met teveel bijbanen. Ik ben geen bestuurder en mijn aantal bijbaantjes kan ik nog steeds tellen op de vingers van één hand dus ik voelde mij niet onmiddellijk aangesproken. Toch begon ik eens na te denken hoeveel tijd er mee gemoeid is, maar ook hoe zinnig het nog is om sommige te blijven doen. Zinnig voor mij, voor mijn omgeving, voor mijn werkgever, maar ook voor de organisatie waar ik mijn bescheiden bijdrage aan lever. Zou het niet beter zijn enkele op te zeggen en anderen, nieuwe mensen het te laten overnemen?

En als je daar zo over nadenkt dan valt het op dat het moeilijk loslaten is. Bijbaantjes zijn gewoon leuk! Een keerzijde is natuurlijk het beslag dat zo’n extra tijdsbesteding op de uitoefening van de reguliere baan kan hebben. Het is vrijwel onontkoombaar dat je niet ook af en toe wat zaken afhandelt onder werktijd. De baas is daar niet altijd blij mee, maar daar tegenover staat een positieve spin-off zoals bijvoorbeeld: verbreding en/of verdieping van de werknemer en extra informatie bronnen en een positieve uitstraling voor de werkgever.

Afbouwend bestuurslid, penningmeester, webmaster FABIAN
Stuurgroep lid European Bioanalysis Forum (EBF)
Stuurgroep lid Interest Group Macromolecules van het EBF
Redactieraad lid Laboratorium Magazine

DL 838

It can not be my post of 25 August last year and the few subsequent posts, but sort of ever since that time I seem to have seen some improvements flying Delta on the AMS <-> ATL route.
But most substantially since the merger with Northwest. The plane is newer: better seats, better video displays - which even seems to work all the time - and a younger and more agile crew. Suddenly the average age of the flight attendents is below 40 instead of above 50! And they even know how to serve a decent wine or a glass of port.

So earlier this week I was enjoying all those improvements and silently praising Delta for reacing a higher level of sophistication. That was untill we landed at Schiphol airport. "Welcome to Amsterdam ... blabla .... blabla ... and thank you for flying Northwest Airlines."

Hurray for Northwest! (must be the KLM influence :-))
Oops. Sorry. Thanks Delta, for improving.

Het is (bijna) zomer

Zodra de eerste lentezon zich laat zien probeert bijna de halve bevolking elke gelegenheid te nemen die er is om haar benen lekker te bruinen voor het zomer is. Ok.....

Maar waarom trekt dan de helft van die helft prompt een witte broek aan zodra het echt mooi weer begint te worden?

Dunglish

This is to make a correction to the name Steve Xxxxant. backname is Xxxxance

= Dit om een correctie door te voeren in de naam Steve Xxxxant. De achternaam is Xxxxance

> This to correct the error made in Steve's family name. Correct is Xxxxance, not Xxxxant.

Dunglish

Expanding the collection:

I broke the heater button from my car
= Ik brak de verwarmingsknop van mijn auto
> I broke the heater button of my car

Thanks, P, for sending me in the weekend with a big smile.
= Bedankt P om mij met een grote glimlach het weekend in te sturen
> Thanks, P, for sending me into the weekend with a big smile

I'll set myself left now.
= Ik plaats mijzelf aan de linkerkant
> I will put (place) myself on the left now

It is 5 minutes for eleven
= Het is 5 minuten voor elf
> It is 5 minutes to eleven

I was very pleased with the information of X and will deal this with my colleaques as well
= I was zeer tevreden met de informatie van X en zal het met mijn collegaas delen
> .... will share this ...

Bronze Drake Mount

Dunglish

Weer enkele zinnetjes met frapant engels om aan de verzameling toe te voegen:

We are a little bit still at X
= We zijn een klein beetje stil bij X
> We are a little bit quiet at X

You are married with Jérôme?
= Je bent getrouwd met Jérôme?
> You are married to Jérôme?

I phoned up the guy
= Ik heb hem opgebeld
> I (have) called the guy / I (have) phoned the guy

I am looking you
= Ik hou je in de gaten
> I am watching you

Announcement

"Attention please! We remind you that for security reasons it is forbidden to accept any luggage from anyone!" (Basel/Mulhouse airport 23 Jan 09)

I have been thinking a lot about this announcement. There is something terribly wrong/illogical about it, but can not really put my finger on it. If everyone at the airport would adhere to it, no piece of luggage will can be checked, moved from the desk to the plane or put onto the plane. Or do they mean that when you buy something at the Duty Free (=no taxes, but triple profits) you are not allowed to accept your purchase? So the announcement can not refer to these kinds for inter-person movements of luggage.

Thus we have to conclude that when you are traveling with a friend, family member, colleague or whatever other relation, you are not allowed to accept any suitcase or bag they want to hand over. Imagine you traveling with your grandmother. According to Basel airport officials you are breaking the law (who's law btw?) when you accept her luggage while walking to the gate. The Swiss may be conservative and xenophobic, but they love their grandmothers, so also this can not be the reason.

Ils sont fous, les Helvetians.

EuroAirport

Ja zo hebben onze Zwitserse continentgenoten de luchthaven van Basel gedoopt. En dat zal wel zijn omdat je van de luchthaven zo Frankrijk, Duitsland of Zwitserland in loopt. Maar het staat ook vreemd. Zwitserland zo'n beetje nog het enige land dat zich niet bij de EU wilt aansluiten heeft een vliegveld genaamd EuroAirport. En bedenk, je bent een wat naieve en onschuldige zakenman uit bijvoorbeeld de VS en je gaat op reis naar Europa. Hij komt aan op EuroAirport - mocht dat toevallig mogelijk zijn - en denkt "WTF, what is this place? EuroAirport? The airfield of our county crop duster is bigger!"

Nog leuker is dat er nog steeds, januari 2009, posters hangen die leunen op het EK voetbal: "your gateway to football". Met daaraan toegevoegd: "a bien tout. bis bald". Gaan we het EK overdoen? Ook grappig is dat de wervende tekst in het Engels is, terwijl het "tot ziens" alleen - of juist? - in het Duits en Frans is. En geen Italiaans. Blijkbaar tellen de Tessiniaren niet mee.

Rare jongens die Helvetiers.
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Sent from my iPod

LX 707 -> LX 729

For the background story see my previous post.

Did I end in stating that from now on I would avoid Swiss as much as possible I now realize I was to mild. What happened? What happened was that the replacement flight to Zurich was not operated by Swiss but by this 'price fighter'/charter Edelweiss Air which was founded when Swiss Air went down. Sort of phoenix that rose from the SA ashes. Is Swiss out of airplanes? Out of money to pay for the fuel?

Funny thing is that there was an article in EA's flight magazine 'sunflyer' (I told you it was charter company: airplanes smelling of sun lotion and cheap disco booze) in which Edelweiss Air was showing off to Swiss how good they are. As if they were prepping haughty taughty Swiss personel for their future new job. Me not flying with Swiss again? Chances are that pretty soon Swiss won't be flying anybody anywhere anyway.
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Sent from my iPod

Veilig vliegen

Een mijner grootste ergernissen is al die veiligheidsprocedures waar je je aan moet onderwerpen voordat je zelfs maar in de buurt van die vliegende buis komt. Alstublieft ondernemers richt "fly at your own risk airlines" op. Kortweg: FAYORA, klinkt erg goed vind ik.

Dit keer vroeg ik mij af tijdens de onzinnige "Please turn of all electronic equipment" of dat nu ook gold voor electronische horloges? Is best wel eng. Er kunnen wel 50 mensen met e-watches in een vliegtuig zitten!

Gelukkig gebeurde er niets. En dat terwijl ik ook nog eens mijn telefoon en iPod Touch aan had laten staan. Pfoei, dat ging dus nog maar net goed....

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Sent from my iPod at 25,000 feet

Swiss Crises

Switzerland well known as freehaven for large piles of money and for that same reason home to many and large banks and insurance companies got and did his part of the credit crises as well.

Today I had to go to Basel (Basle?) and best fitting with my time schedule would be the Swiss flight of 13:10. Arriving at the airport at around 12 it again struck me how quiet it was. Like last week Monday morning. And again I was the only one at the check-in counter. Killed some time inbetween before walking to the gate. And there was a nice surprise waiting for the passengers: CANCELLED. WTF as my kids would say.

At checking-in, less then half an hour ago, nobody said anything and there is no plane at all! They should have known that. Either they are to stupid/badly organized to warn the passengers or they do it on purpose. Anyway a 5 minute walk to the transfer desk only to find out we had to go back to the gate and wait for someone to take it furter. That person showed up shortly after 1 and the solution provided was to transfer all the 40 odd passengers to the 14:55 flight to Zurich. Same gate she said. Of course it was not. Another nice walk was the consequence.

So 40 passengers could simply be added to the Zurich flight. That must mean that that plane was only half full. Which leads to the conclusion that Swiss has become cheap&mean: just cancell a flight if there is another one some time later going to somewhere in the region of the original destination. That a large portion of their passengers will be missing appointments and are in no way interested in an extra train trip Zurich-Basel is apperently of no concern.

Well, dear Swiss if I can avoid it in anyway I will not be travelling with you again. Second time out of 3 trips! And, dear Lufthansa, shape up! Story I hear from fellow travellers is that you are not an inch better.
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Sent from my iPod

Crises, what crises.

I had to make the cross of the Atlantic again this week, so Monday morning I headed towards the airport. It was cold and chances were there could be some ice and snow so I did not want to go by public transport. Even in 2009 the train is still pretty unreliable under non-standard weather conditions. Non-standard being anything outside a calm dry 10 - 25 C day.

I was a bit late getting to the airport as traffic was unusually bad at a couple of spots. Nevertheless still pretty much well within time I arrived about 70 min prior to departure at the check-in. And nobody was there! Was I at the wrong desk? Was the flight cancelled? Was I much to late?

Luckily I found a lady behind one of the counters who was sort of sorting out her stuff. And she even could check me in! While I wandered through the airport it became more and more apparent to me that this was actually a very quiet Monday morning. Could it be that the looming crises already had so much of an impact on air travel?

The thought did not leave me and I came to the conclusion that it really was much quieter then on any Monday morning since nine-eleven. The business class of the airplane was full, but peeking into economy revealed some empty seats. OK, not a full plane, but still far from ‘empty’.

Atlanta Hartsfield airport and the boring burden of the slow immigration process is always good for ruining my mood of being happy to walk on solid ground again after a 10 hour flight. The only nice thing about the whole process is that you can study your fellow travelers. This time it struck me that there were actually a lot of backpackers in the queue. That was new. A few are always there, but 10-20% of the few hundred people long queue, that is something different.

I guess the financial crises leads to cheap coach airfares and the declining dollar (70 cents to the Euro) makes staying and traveling in the US quite affordable. If this is true and if it progresses along these lines then soon we have another ‘cheap labor’ country in the world. Off-shoring to India or China? No, set-up your next call center in the US. Cheap and some of them even speak decent English.

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Sent from my iPod

Dunglish

Enkele recente nederlands/engels hybride zinnetjes die ik oppikte:

"Can I see inside" (kan ik naar binnen kijken)
"What a fine time I picked for it" (ik heb hier weer eens een mooi moment voor uitgekozen)
"I am going to try something out on my warlock" (ik ga iets uitproberen op mijn warlock)
"No flight behaviour" (geen vluchtgedrag)
"They come over as noobs" (ze komen op mij over als noobs (beginnelingen))