It’s an hour and 20 to Zurich, a two hour drive to Lech and then a gondola into Oberlech where cars are forbidden and only hotels and skiers reside. It’s half term break.
Austria was not on my bucket list. But during the first week of school a friend said that if we want a ski vacation, this is where everybody goes and you better reserve your room. And so if you view this year as an adventure you jump in and rationalize that if you can spend Passover in Dubai, then Austria is part of the ride.
Oberlech is in the Arlberg region, the home of Alpine skiing and a grouping of small towns, many of which are abandoned in Summer, only open for a few snowy months a year.
It’s very Austrian, with big busted bar maids who look like St. Pauli Girl, plenty of Wiener schnitzel, Goulash and Almdudler.
Our 21 year old ski guide is Austrian, she lives in Zurich, she speaks German, Austrian-German, English and she’s very wise. When the children order chicken nuggets and hot chocolate from the Fraulein I lament about American kids. She shares that the Turkish and Russian kids are the worst. “It’s new money.”
Her most astute comment is about the time she was refused a beer in a New York bar. "I had been drinking beer and wine at my parents’ dinner table since I was 16. We have no drinking and driving problems in Austria. We learn to drink long before we learn to drive. Once we start driving we already know how to handle alcohol.”
Another ski instructor, a well-spoken 33 year old kept making Schwarzenegger references as if he were the only Austrian I would know. I’ve heard of the Von Tropps and Kurt Waldheim for G-d sakes.
The specter of the war is here, however. Two ski instructors got into it because one of them had a German mother. The Austrian was bragging that Hitler had to go to Germany to get people to follow him, the Austrians were too smart. It may not be fair, but all the American tourists wonder aloud what the old people in the town were doing during the War.
An odd place to celebrate 45. With half the family in London, bad internet connections and the rest of our life in the US, it has a distinctly distant Austrian feel. Forty five has no great appeal. It is not the beginning, middle or end of anything. But for some reason when you see your birth date up there on a newspaper it still screams, YOUR DAY. Even if that paper is the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Snow Times Two
There is a big metal door that locks our office building at night. So leaving late this huge slab swings open and when it closes all of Lime Street rattles. Every evening is an adventure, is it warm, cold, rainy, clear? But last night, for the second time in a week it was snowy. London gets about one snowfall a year and here was a second treat.
It was a scene from a holiday movie, big fat flakes, a quiet street, a full pub across the way, the windows streaking with sweat.
Our hometown of Washington can’t handle the snow, but at least we have the equipment. In London they can’t handle the snow because their only defense is to ignore it and wait for it to melt.
In typical human fashion, last year’s snow fall, which created havoc at Heathrow, caused them to pull the trigger a bit early this year and close the airport before the full force of the 10 centimeters was felt. The opposite occurred at our children’s school. A couple years ago the headmaster closed the school for a second day after a snowfall and the parents rioted. And so now she is wary to pull the trigger.
Last night as the snow fell, the city quieted, the trains stalled, the cabs swerved and the British went to the pub. Tomorrow it is half term break and we are going to Austria to ski. Who knew we could have skied in our own back yard.
It was a scene from a holiday movie, big fat flakes, a quiet street, a full pub across the way, the windows streaking with sweat.
Our hometown of Washington can’t handle the snow, but at least we have the equipment. In London they can’t handle the snow because their only defense is to ignore it and wait for it to melt.
In typical human fashion, last year’s snow fall, which created havoc at Heathrow, caused them to pull the trigger a bit early this year and close the airport before the full force of the 10 centimeters was felt. The opposite occurred at our children’s school. A couple years ago the headmaster closed the school for a second day after a snowfall and the parents rioted. And so now she is wary to pull the trigger.
Last night as the snow fell, the city quieted, the trains stalled, the cabs swerved and the British went to the pub. Tomorrow it is half term break and we are going to Austria to ski. Who knew we could have skied in our own back yard.
British Humor, Part...
The British are known for their humor, not their dentistry.
A new advert on the Tube has a picture of an orthodontically-challenged young man with the website: www.niceteethlol.com
The tag line is: "Surprisingly affordable smile makeovers in Budapest and London"
A new advert on the Tube has a picture of an orthodontically-challenged young man with the website: www.niceteethlol.com
The tag line is: "Surprisingly affordable smile makeovers in Budapest and London"
Monday, February 6, 2012
Super Sunday or Super Monday
Either stay up late or get up early.
Those are the two ways to deal with the five hour time lag. I thought the mature way would be to tape the Super Bowl, get up early, avoid email, hope to G-d the DVR starts at the right point and watch the game in 90 minutes.
My son can't live in a world where everyone else knows the score but him.
I can't live in a world where I go to bed at 3 in the morning.
So he rests throughout the day, tries to pace himself, finishes his homework. For me it's a normal Sunday, errands, preparing for the Monday ahead.
And at 11:00 PM I climb into bed, making sure the recording is set and he opens up the couch into a bed and settles in with a package of Kettle Corn for the long haul. If it's a blow-out he'll go to bed, but anything close and he'll force himself against nature to see what everyone else is seeing, his own personal fight against time.
I'm up at 6:30 the following morning and ask my wife if the son waited up all night. She said it was a close game.
I go downstairs where he is fast asleep in front of a quiet television. I turn it on and begin. Pushing past the inane commentary, we don't get the American commercials so there is no need to slow between timeouts. Through the first half, slowly over the Madonna show, the slog of the third quarter and then the full tilt ride of the fourth quarter.
A 44 year old needs to be well rested for work, the practical side of starting the week off right, just getting over a cold. A 15 year old must not miss anything, he needs to be updated, to follow his friends on Facebook as the game goes on.
His generation is used to taping a show and watching it any time they like. My generation is used to being controlled by the clock, "It's 9:00, Love Boat is on..." Today the old man needed the technology so he could get his sleep. And the young man followed the clock that sits back home five hours away.
Those are the two ways to deal with the five hour time lag. I thought the mature way would be to tape the Super Bowl, get up early, avoid email, hope to G-d the DVR starts at the right point and watch the game in 90 minutes.
My son can't live in a world where everyone else knows the score but him.
I can't live in a world where I go to bed at 3 in the morning.
So he rests throughout the day, tries to pace himself, finishes his homework. For me it's a normal Sunday, errands, preparing for the Monday ahead.
And at 11:00 PM I climb into bed, making sure the recording is set and he opens up the couch into a bed and settles in with a package of Kettle Corn for the long haul. If it's a blow-out he'll go to bed, but anything close and he'll force himself against nature to see what everyone else is seeing, his own personal fight against time.
I'm up at 6:30 the following morning and ask my wife if the son waited up all night. She said it was a close game.
I go downstairs where he is fast asleep in front of a quiet television. I turn it on and begin. Pushing past the inane commentary, we don't get the American commercials so there is no need to slow between timeouts. Through the first half, slowly over the Madonna show, the slog of the third quarter and then the full tilt ride of the fourth quarter.
A 44 year old needs to be well rested for work, the practical side of starting the week off right, just getting over a cold. A 15 year old must not miss anything, he needs to be updated, to follow his friends on Facebook as the game goes on.
His generation is used to taping a show and watching it any time they like. My generation is used to being controlled by the clock, "It's 9:00, Love Boat is on..." Today the old man needed the technology so he could get his sleep. And the young man followed the clock that sits back home five hours away.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Steve Jobs…Book Notes
I have read more pages per day using a Kindle on the Tube than any time since I was in Ann Arbor 23 years ago. A Kindle in my pocket has allowed me to complete door stops including the Steve Jobs biography. Books that were once intimidating are now now accesible. The only down side is the rip off I felt when the Jobs’ book ended at 78% of completion (the last 22% are the index, acknowledgement and sources).
It is the most inspiring business book and as one friend called it, the Atlas Shrugged of our generation.
Key takeaways:
They stole their interface and a lot of the Mac and Windows ideas from Xerox. When Windows was released Jobs told Gates that he was ripping off Apple. “Gates looked at him coolly and said, ‘Well Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.’”
John Lasseter pitched Toy Story which sprang from the belief that products have an essence to them, a purpose for which they were made. “If the object were to have feelings these would be based on its desire to fulfill its essence. The purpose of a glass, for example, is to hold water; if is had feelings, it would be happy when full and sad when empty. The essence of a computer screen is to interface with a human. The essence of a unicycle is to be ridden in a circus. As for toys, their purpose is to be played with by kids, and thus their existential fear is of being discarded or upstaged by newer toys. So a buddy movie pairing an old favorite toy with a shiny new one would have an essential drama to it.”
He wanted the Apple stores because he said if Apple is going to succeed they do so with innovation and you can’t win on innovation unless you have a way to communicate with customers.
A good company must impute, it must convey its values and importance in everything it does from packaging to marketing. He was reminded of his first visit to the Ralph Lauren story on Madison Avenue.
Jobs knew the isolating potential of technology, he was a strong believer in face to face meetings. “There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and i-chat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings from random discussions.”
Unfortunately Jobs disapproved of Market Research, one of his flaws. He used the Wayne Gretzky quote about going to where the puck is going to be. Henry Ford said if he’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse. People don’t know what they want until you show it to them."
“A lot of us want to give something back to our species, add something to the flow...we try to use our talents to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That’s what has driven me.”
It is the most inspiring business book and as one friend called it, the Atlas Shrugged of our generation.
Key takeaways:
They stole their interface and a lot of the Mac and Windows ideas from Xerox. When Windows was released Jobs told Gates that he was ripping off Apple. “Gates looked at him coolly and said, ‘Well Steve, I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.’”
John Lasseter pitched Toy Story which sprang from the belief that products have an essence to them, a purpose for which they were made. “If the object were to have feelings these would be based on its desire to fulfill its essence. The purpose of a glass, for example, is to hold water; if is had feelings, it would be happy when full and sad when empty. The essence of a computer screen is to interface with a human. The essence of a unicycle is to be ridden in a circus. As for toys, their purpose is to be played with by kids, and thus their existential fear is of being discarded or upstaged by newer toys. So a buddy movie pairing an old favorite toy with a shiny new one would have an essential drama to it.”
He wanted the Apple stores because he said if Apple is going to succeed they do so with innovation and you can’t win on innovation unless you have a way to communicate with customers.
A good company must impute, it must convey its values and importance in everything it does from packaging to marketing. He was reminded of his first visit to the Ralph Lauren story on Madison Avenue.
Jobs knew the isolating potential of technology, he was a strong believer in face to face meetings. “There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and i-chat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings from random discussions.”
Unfortunately Jobs disapproved of Market Research, one of his flaws. He used the Wayne Gretzky quote about going to where the puck is going to be. Henry Ford said if he’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse. People don’t know what they want until you show it to them."
“A lot of us want to give something back to our species, add something to the flow...we try to use our talents to express our deep feelings, to show our appreciation of all the contributions that came before us, and to add something to that flow. That’s what has driven me.”
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