Captain's Log

Wouldn't that make for a nice stay up North again? Especially with this kind of view? Mind you, the last thing discernible just now is this:



But No - the next holiday trip to the British Isles will be to Ireland - after all, it's good for you!

Oh, and are they really going to fill my Amazon order of March 7 (it was way smaller, then!) as listed?? Seeing is believing ... maybe the delivery will just make it for my actual birthday!

1 Exemplar(e) von: The Da Vinci Code [Broschiert]
   Von: Dan Brown

1 Exemplar(e) von: The Roots of Romanticism, w. Audio-CD [Gebundene Ausgabe]
   Von: Isaiah Berlin

1 Exemplar(e) von: Scottish Fantasy / Concerto No.1 / Kol [CD]
   Von: Heifetz (Künstler), u. a.

1 Exemplar(e) von: Harold und Maude [DVD]
   Von: Bud Cort (Darsteller), u. a.

1 Exemplar(e) von: Seven Days of Falling [CD]
   Von: E.S.T.

 

Do you ever get them? Those days where you are busy all the time, and still don't get anything of consequence done? Well, I just did today! But that's something you wouldn't really care about now, would you.

Anyway, happy birthday, Christoph H.!!

Talking of birthdays, I've just sent out invitations to my b'day party on May 1st, going with the tune of all those May day demonstrations (you know me ;) If you haven't got one, you either live too far away, or I don't know you that well. Either way, you can still apply!

What else? Discussed insurance, evaluated a Swiss Army Knife (for BUSINESS purposes!!) and did too little writing (again!). But at least, I got some swimming under the belt, after days of a closed pool because of Easter holidays.

Nobody who knows me will accuse me of being an enemy of the US, but what I am reading today in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (very respectable business paper, comparable to the WSJ) is rather shocking. Incidentally, a search of the WSJ online results in no articles found on that issue.

We've heard of the collective law suit Cobell vs. Norton with which over 300'000 American Indians sue the Government for due contractual payments over the decades which apparently have been willfully mismanaged and run up to the tens of billions of USD now. What's so shocking though is that a continuation of governments claiming the moral highground would try to sneak out of setting an old cause right when it comes down to paying up. Already two Home Secretaries have been found in contempt of a Federal Court.

Especially we in Switzerland will feel very uneasy about this issue, seeing that Swiss banks have paid billions in Holocaust settlements under direct pressure from the very same Government. Ought we to take lessons from the US Government on how to stand tough, or ...?

Here is a fine little German text about an exhibition in Basel which is building expectations to be rather monumental. Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity of confirming that yet. The subject matter of the exhibition is Tutanchamun's and other egyptian period rulers' tomb treasures, which undoubtedly are quite spectacular.

Whether it warrants the hype building in this town remains to be seen, though. I am surprised that there haven't been any egyptian style Easter bunnies hopping around in shops ...

Now that the technical problems appear to be out of the way, we can start in all earnest with the blogging! I expect that this bit of my website should be the most interesting for the returning user, since it ought to contain the most variable parts. If you have been on my website before, you will have noticed that I haven't gotten much beyond changing the layout of the first page, and that's just because it is such a hassle to deal with GoLive and all the intricacies of website building. Using blogger.com appears to be a bit easier, though. We'll see whether that has a consequence on the frequency of input - it sure has on me rambling on, so I'll just

stop.

Well, this is my first test of blogger - let's see what's coming from it.