Next topic at the agenda will be Kiev, Ukraine next week. And it is also a place, I will visit for the very first time in my life.

The info I got in advance, does make me looking forward to this trip very much and finally the info about the chosen  accommodation there does make it fancy alone. But that is not already all of the news really …. Right the week after I will head off again, then even visiting three countries within only one trip. More news to come!

Yeah! So to say: It really could become more dragging than actually.

Heading there you need a special Visa and for getting it quickly you need some business invitiation first. You can get some easily even by the booked hotel if you want, but even them processing will need up to 10 days though.

Now flying there is not really different than to any other place in the world though. Even air traffic controller there made us wait up in the air for nearly 45 minutes. 

Now Russia for me so far was only Moscow and one day driving out of town to see one single remote location only. But Moscow for sure is worth some trip and I even made it up to see the Kremlin and the Red Square right on the first evening being there. 

Traffic there is killing and as a pedestrian you better always look carefully twice. Driving a car is not at least a bit better and so I was rather happy getting droven around.

Being there with a few others guys  (one Danish, one British and finally another German) we quickly hooked up to a team and especially the evenings after work, we’ve used to stroll the town on our own were rather enjoyable. Yes! Boys we had heaps of fun during this trip.

Now for work it seems different. Even being called for turning up, it looks like not everywhere and with everyone we were welcome first. The answers we got were often contradictive and at first they never ever give you a clue really. But even that did improve over the days….. as always it needs to get familiar with each other first!

Not sure I should mention that on the way back to the airport we’ve passed a car hijacking and a few guys fireing after a car which tried to escape with spinning wheels????   Yeah, thats Russia as well! And I guess you have to be aware about!

But anyway! Being back now I personally see it as an "Adventure"! And giving the fact I was told to fly to Kiew, Ukraine in about two weeks, it looks like it will remain interesting for a while. 

To be honest … something I would never have thought about myself to be possible to happen.

Now I have to say that I very much liked this trip and even it was for work only and rather rather busy, it had some touch of heading off and flying out there to somewhere fancy and starting to discover new things there. Luckily, I was even able to make some friends there and therefore eitherway, for work or for leisure, I’m expecting myself to head there again someday.

In general my actual work (project management) is very interesting at all and as for the project does include overall EMEA, I’m looking forward seeing Russia and Poland soon. People around are even start kidding asking me whether or not I’m doing this all for pleasure saving money, I would usually spend for vacation instead.

Now I for sure confirm it is working only! And everyone saying or thinking something different is …. simply a liar! 

I just not hesitate to confess, that it has some attraction as well. It’s just sad I can’t share more about my trips though.
At least I will update you with my impressions about the new countries I’m going to see soon.

Besides that conditions over here are actual lovely and sunny and besides the usual work getting things around the house in shape again, the time over the weekend was short doing a few fun rides with Suzi again. Yeaaaaaaaah!

Last time I was there was back in 1992 and for a duration of 3 weeks. Doing a roundtrip there I had the chance to get quit a good impression about the country itself and the people living there.  What I’ve found there back in 1992 was a very interesting country and a lot of rather friendly people living there. Nontheless many things were different and a lot of them remained strange to me though.

Now this time I’ve headed to Istanbul only and therefore I’m for sure not able to give you an overall feedback of todays situation there. But once again I met very very friendly people there and enjoy my short and sweet diving in there very much.

The general appearance is still the same, but people appeared much more "western" alike today to me. Since years the Turkey is keen and willing to join the EU and the majority of people there really seems to be willing and happy to do.

I had quit a few really enjoyable conversations besides work, even scratching this and a few others similar topics and really enjoyed the ideas and argument I got to hear. Sure, I’ve mostly dealed with people my age and also mainly with folks working in my area of expertise or generally within the IT business. But for my feeling really the general background has changed there.

And therefore thinking about their wish to join the EU I have to say .. why not?

Sure there might be still things not fitting in very well or other things (in our eyes) which still needs to get improved! But I rather like to deal and talk with friendly people again and again, trying to improve or adjust things, than to bounce and maybe turn them grumpy instead.

At the end that is why I call todays posting "waiting"! Waiting, is plainly what I do actually.

But friendly people over here at Singapore have turned nearly all the town and the Airport in some huge Wifi – Zone where you have internet access nearly everywhere (ok, it needs a carrier contract though).

But back to the trip. It was for sure a fabulous trip to do and I very much enjoyed my time off. Most of the time I had company by oversea friends travelling with us. And to be honest that was what I’ve enjoyed most.

It is a great thing to do such a long and exciting trip. Seeing things other people might never get to see in their life. But the companie of friends and sharing this experience with them is some real priceless experience for sure.

It is really not like I could see or speak them all day long. Virtual perhaps, but personally nearly never. Now seeing, touching and interacting with them day by day was like a dream for me. Sadly even the most beautiful time in life is meant to end some day.

Nontheless, thanks to all my friends making it possible to travel with me. You taking time was a priceless pleasure and gift of life for me.

Thank you!

Michael

The day after booking there were some questions and at first they insisted on placing my wife and me into two different aircrafts, but after talking with them again all was solved soon and I got the obvious email confirmations send by them.

Now this was in early february … 

Since then they called me at least up to ten times re-scheduling flights and time lines again and again. One time they told me that now daylight saving was adjusted in their systems and therefore the departure time would change one hour.

Since when do we have this confessed "senseless" daylight saving time change?!

Anyway, they are friendly, helpfully and do care …. Just I wonder why the hell it is that difficult to arrange some flights – especially when i give them so much time in advance.  And what I really do not understand is why they call me and make me confirming and repeating the info that a flight departure time has changed 5 minutes. Hey, I could and would read it within their emails of course, no need to treat me like a 5 years old.

Guess it is just to ensure I can’t sue them in case I would miss the flight though.

Using time off best possible, we drove away catching up with a few couples at Bavaria close to a town called Bamberg.
Bamberg itselt is a lovely town directly situated at the River Main, with a picturesque "Old Town" and a lovely surrounding around.

 The folks we were going to see are all friends we did meet first, once back in 1993 during a trip at Greece we did all start as strangers to each other. Since that time we are committed friends and year by year we make effort coming together and seeing us again.

It is a strange and fascinating thing and for sure a strong relationship between all making it possible, all coming together on an ongoing base again and again.

Catching together this year,  even had a pleasant more reason on top, as for Astrid one of our friends living there had given birth to Kilian their 2nd son only 4 weeks ago.

Guess you are able to imagine, that catching up first, more or less were a wild "hallo". Over and over we had heaps of things to share and about a few things we did there together, spending time with each other was the aim. And you can be sure that we had a rather good time there together.

Curious topic besides…. little Kilian the one or other time feeling and being grupmpy with things and life in general and having the tendency to cry as the appropriate way to share this news with us … always relaxed and smoothed again when I started to hold him. Quickly recognised by his mum I soon started to become her "preferred method" of choice to become little Kilian quiet again.

Not I would have mind that in general, but not being used to it in general, I could not say I would mind no longer being in charge anymore.

Ok, since last year I do own two bikes now, but everyone will certainly understand that I’m actually speaking about the real bike for sure. Apr, 1st and the seaon does open for me and as for weather forcast isn’t bad for next week, it was of course a real "must" for me going out and awake Suzi.

Having slept now for 5 month it is always a bit of work getting her alive again. But once again in days I recognized how good it is to know people or things and their little peculiarities.

So knowing abou Suzi does like a slow and smooth start for sure, I went out and did take her out of the garage for fitting in the battery first. The battery was charged all time by a perment battery loader and therefore it was nothing I had to worry about.

Fitting the battery in was done in minutes and being aware about it is a good thingy, I did put the tank valve in "pre" position then strolling for the car and the wires to give Suzi a jump start though.

Even charged the little bike battery did the one or other time not last until Suzi had decided to start the engine again after the winter break and so it got more or less a well known procedure connecting her with the car for the very first start of the engine again.

Having all connected, I decided to wait another half hour or so to give the carburettors (Is this the correct word? I’ve looked it up) a chance to get flooded with fuel. Then finally coming back from a relaxed cup of coffee it needed me 3 or 4 tries and the engine did run.            (comment: Guess neighbors were also happy about!)

And in about two days – given the weather is fine – Suzi and me will be out for the very first ride of this year! Thats tops!

So I have spend a few days thinking about my next vacation trip, planning places to vist and the schedules between them into a most pleasant itinerary and finally checked flights and airfees to get there. Right now I’m very happy with all and nearly can’t await these few month until then will pass by.

The trip itself does include a very special catch up, I’m looking forward to happens since ages. During the past for a very strange little and sad moment it had looked like such a catch up would never be possible again! And so you might be able to imagine how happy I’m now about having the sureness it will now certainly take place in a not too far future from now. Yeah, that rocks!!

But there was also enough other stuff I had to work through and being on schedule to visit an intensive SAP Training over the next two weeks does not really make it easier to get all things done in time.

And finally I picked up bad news about Erika, the wife of a guy I know and value, got bad news about her breast cancer turned worse again (after radiation and chemo therapy) and it needs a final and radical treatment to give her another chance (guess you get it?). She is nearly four years younger than me. How sad is that?!

But besides that I’m fine and promise that I will again make more effort again thinking about things to share here with you.

During this last week I also had to deal with some nasty Trojan and Spyware on my main Windows Workstation. For years now I had no trouble with that anymore and being on MAC since a while I nearly had forgotten about such things exists first. But related to my researches looking for tools for to use dumping my SMS messages from my old mobile phone I had touched the one or other questionable site and surely one of them did honor this with infecting my workstation with Virtumonde (e.q. Virtumondo, Vundo or MS Juan).

Boy I tell you that is really nasty stuff! First I’ve tried it with the ususal Antispyware tools and Virus Scanner like F-Secure, Avast, Avird, Spybot and Ad-Aware, but even they reported it … None of them was able to remove it finally!!

It is a real shame that all of this products failed and even the knowledge about is is some really clever coded Malware can not balance that. I’m glad about I’m not really depending on this system and so I had the chance to "play" with this situation for a few days running the one or other search and tool over the system … without success! But when I was nearly about to incline and give up going to reinstall the system from scratch, by coincidence I found the info about some really great and free spyware removal tool. It is called Combofix and can get downloaded from that side here: http://virus-protect.org

I used it in German version and I’m not really aware about there is an English equivalent available, but impressively it did the job within minutes while all others scanned and failed for ages. Whoever this might read desperately looking for help removing Vundo … Feel free to contact me in case you should have trouble with the German dialog. I will not mind speaking you through it. It is worth it for sure!

Getting this fixed again my mood already started to lift, but finally the info about some free and ready to use Navigation System (GPS) for the iPhone available through Cydia (http://cydia.xwaves.net), which I immediately did install and test successfully, made the difference and the weekend could start!

Sure, this xGPS is no real replacement for normal GPS, but given the case you are on the road with a rented car or desperately in need to get your direction, I’m sure about you will feel happy about having such a "light" version GPS at hand. Guess it will be hand on the motorbike as well putting the iPhone on top of the fuel tank in front of you.

Thinking about, I guess that were all of the actual news to share …. except the rather good news about: My fishes out in the pond did survive! Yeah!!! Thats Tops