Friday, March 28, 2008
Monday, March 03, 2008
Difficult decision
Oh ye, I had to make a very difficult decision today. A decision about my future, especially for the next year here in Europe. As I wrote in my earlier blogs Nokia announced the closing of the Bochum site and that means I am affected, too. It looks like there is a solution for the whole research and development team. Reasearch In Motion or RIM, the "Blackberry" phone company, wants to expand its business to Europe and when they learnt about our available and experiences team the decided to build a new center in Bochum. That is fantastic, of course. They would like to hire as many of us as possible. And since they consider the new site being established in Bochum nobody really needs to move. All in all they will get the severance payment from Nokia plus a new job. Sounds great, I know. But it also means no vacation, much more working hours, especially in the first months and less time for Dave and myself. And: it is only for one year. For me it is not the start of a new career since I will move with Dave whereever he has to go next year. I thought of this RIM option a lot during the last weeks. Honestly I didn't do anything else. I reviewed my CV with Dave and created a profile on the RIM page. Last weekend when Dave was here with me in Germany, we discussed it a little bit more. I have to say that he never really told me his opinion. He wanted it to be my own decision, not something that he influenced by his wishes. And I decided not to go there. It was very, very difficult. I informed my current boss and closest colleagues and they are all very sad and wanted me to start this new thing with them. But it is time to move on. It would only be a short detour and I really think that Dave and I need more time together, not less. It is a decision for our future together. I know it is the right one.
One more thing not related to the job. Did you ever hear of a Parsley Anniversary? It is the 12 1/2 wedding anniversary. I never heard of this before, but my brother and sister in law celebrated this last Saturday. It is the tradition that the neighbors and friends organize all the food while they took care of the drinks. It was fun. It started at 11am as a brunch and we stayed until 8pm. Their friends and Silke's mother decorated the house with old photos from their wedding. We were all so young!!!! It is also a Germany tradition for any kind of wedding to do some "fun" things in the house that the couple doesn't know about. For them it was green yello in all sinks (looked really strange) and a lot of dried peas in the bed. I don't like this tradition very much and so I try to avoid this for my wedding in June. Hopefully it works.
The weekend was very, very stormy. I just saw on TV an airplane in Hamburg which touched the ground with one wing while the pilot tried to land it. I just checked my backyard, but everything is alright there.
Only one week until Alaska. We can't wait. Even if we know it will be kind of stressfull we both are looking forward to have some vacation and of course getting married. We are very excited.
One more thing not related to the job. Did you ever hear of a Parsley Anniversary? It is the 12 1/2 wedding anniversary. I never heard of this before, but my brother and sister in law celebrated this last Saturday. It is the tradition that the neighbors and friends organize all the food while they took care of the drinks. It was fun. It started at 11am as a brunch and we stayed until 8pm. Their friends and Silke's mother decorated the house with old photos from their wedding. We were all so young!!!! It is also a Germany tradition for any kind of wedding to do some "fun" things in the house that the couple doesn't know about. For them it was green yello in all sinks (looked really strange) and a lot of dried peas in the bed. I don't like this tradition very much and so I try to avoid this for my wedding in June. Hopefully it works.
The weekend was very, very stormy. I just saw on TV an airplane in Hamburg which touched the ground with one wing while the pilot tried to land it. I just checked my backyard, but everything is alright there.
Only one week until Alaska. We can't wait. Even if we know it will be kind of stressfull we both are looking forward to have some vacation and of course getting married. We are very excited.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Only 2.5 weeks left....
Not too many new things to tell you, but since I have time I thought it is nice to write again. Did I tell you that I got a keyboard for Christmas? Well, with the keyboard standing there I decided to get myself a piano self study book. It is so much fun and I am half way through the beginners book. Currently I struggle with "Joy to the world". I enjoy my new hobby very much.
We also had some time for more mountain bike trips. We found a nice round trip, half on paved roads, half in the woods. There are so many little villages around Thetford that we almost forget that we are living in 2008, it looks so ancient. Part of the bike trail was on "Peddars Way". This is an ancient Roman road that leads through Norfolk to the sea. It is very interesting to bike there and think that the old Romans walked there, too.
On February 16 Dave invited me to a very romantic late Valentine's dinner. There is one big farm estate near Thetford, Elveden. They have a small cafe/restaurant where they sell all kind of specialities. Some weeks ago they advertised the valentine's dinner and Dave booked a table without telling me. It was a very nice surprise. We went there by taxi and one of Dave's colleagues took over the "on call" for him for that night. That meant we could have some wine with the 4 course dinner. The tables were all decorated with red blossoms, candles and nice white table cloths. Very romantic, very special, I loved it.
Last weekend we were busy doing nothing. At least it feels like that. Actually we reviewed the offer from the Motherlode Lodge and added everything we thought they forgot. We also went to the alteration shop to have Dave's pants reworked. We found a nice suit for him on base in Lakenheath and since he doesn't have any nice and fitting suit we decided he needs one. Or did I decide it? Do I already behave like a wife? Oh, oh,.....
Now I am preparing the trip to Alaska. I already booked a hotel in London since we plan on spending the weekend before the trip in London. I can't wait to come to Alaska again.
It is raining outside. Since I don't have much work left I will leave the office after writing this blog and go shopping. I need new shoes and Dave needs a shirt and tie (the future wife's speaking again...).
We also had some time for more mountain bike trips. We found a nice round trip, half on paved roads, half in the woods. There are so many little villages around Thetford that we almost forget that we are living in 2008, it looks so ancient. Part of the bike trail was on "Peddars Way". This is an ancient Roman road that leads through Norfolk to the sea. It is very interesting to bike there and think that the old Romans walked there, too.
On February 16 Dave invited me to a very romantic late Valentine's dinner. There is one big farm estate near Thetford, Elveden. They have a small cafe/restaurant where they sell all kind of specialities. Some weeks ago they advertised the valentine's dinner and Dave booked a table without telling me. It was a very nice surprise. We went there by taxi and one of Dave's colleagues took over the "on call" for him for that night. That meant we could have some wine with the 4 course dinner. The tables were all decorated with red blossoms, candles and nice white table cloths. Very romantic, very special, I loved it.
Last weekend we were busy doing nothing. At least it feels like that. Actually we reviewed the offer from the Motherlode Lodge and added everything we thought they forgot. We also went to the alteration shop to have Dave's pants reworked. We found a nice suit for him on base in Lakenheath and since he doesn't have any nice and fitting suit we decided he needs one. Or did I decide it? Do I already behave like a wife? Oh, oh,.....
Now I am preparing the trip to Alaska. I already booked a hotel in London since we plan on spending the weekend before the trip in London. I can't wait to come to Alaska again.
It is raining outside. Since I don't have much work left I will leave the office after writing this blog and go shopping. I need new shoes and Dave needs a shirt and tie (the future wife's speaking again...).
Friday, February 15, 2008
Time is flying
Another months since my last entry here. Most of you may have received my invitation card for the wedding ceremony in Alaska. I am very excited about it, well, and I think I should be. It is not very easy organizing these things from a different continent, but on the other hand it will be just a small and kind of informal ceremony followed by a nice dinner with our friends. Last weekend we emailed our menu choice to the Motherlode Lodge, but didn't hear back from them until now. We also had to decide on other things like: do we want a ceremony set-up with a floral arch or not, do we want white table cloths, an extra cake table....well, honestly, all I want is a good time ;o)
We also talked to Jane in Anchorage and she promised to organize a cake for us. Not a 500$ special super fancy wedding cake, but.... a cake for dessert would be nice.
It is also one month since Nokia announces plans to close the production and R&D site in Bochum. Especially with the excellent business results achieved during the last year this is not really understandable, but anyhow they stick to their plans to move the production facility to Romania. But it looks very good for most engineers. More than one company approached us and announced interest in starting a R&D site in Bochum or at least want to hire many of my engineers. It looks like everybody who wants it can have a new job within the next months. It is not much work left for us here so I finally found the time to keep you up to date with this blog. By the way, do you want to see me (and our center management team) in business suits/dress: Here comes a very rare pictures:
The next weekend is about to come. The weather here in Europe, especially Germany and England, was perfect the last week. Blue sky, sunshine and nice temperatures. Last weekend we drove to the coast again, spent the day at the beach and had a picnic in the dunes. The temperatures were in the 50s. Spring is coming. Well, the forecast for this weekend is nice, too, but with temperatures more around 40F. Dave will be on call so we can't go too far, but I hope for some time outside. In addition to that I need to work on my English resume or CV. I will have Monday off which means a long weekend for me. Yeah.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Nokia in Germany
Today I have something different to report, not the weekly trip to England. Some of you may remember January 2005 when Nokia announced the closing of our department at the research and development site in Bochum. It ended up not being a complete closing, but a ramp down of 100 people. At that time they were looking for volunteers to leave for a compensation payment and I really considered doing this. Well, you all know that I changed my plans to just going on a three months leave (my Alaska winter ;o)).
Again it was January, again it was the second Tuesday and again Nokia announced a closing. But this time of a much larger scale. This time they announced the closing of the whole Bochum site including the production facility. 2300 people are affected by this this time. And while most of the engineers won't have many problems finding a new job, especially when they consider moving to a different area of Germany, for a great number of factory workers this will be almost impossible. Nokia decided that producing mobile phones in Germany is much too expensive comparing to Romania. When reading this you should have two things in mind:
1. Nokia is the world market leader and had a fantastic business year 2007
2. The expenses for human resources make only maximum 5% of the mobile devices costs.
The announcement came as a big surprize for almost everyone. And we heard of it through the newspaper and internet before the employees were informed by the Nokia management. Well, there are reasons for all of it, but it is not a very respectful way of treating people.
Since Friday Nokia is on TV, in the newspaper and on the radio every hour. Politicians are involved now discussion subventions for Nokia in Bochum and also in Romania and the consequences of globalization. Right now while I am writing this a demonstration takes place with Nokia people, but also employees from Opel ( a car company in Bochum) and a steel company. I don't think that all these activities can stop the closing, this decision was made long ago, but maybe it will increase the severence payment for everybody.
Now you might ask what this means to me. Well, personally I am not really surprized (there were a lot of signs for that during the last months) and I am not too sad. Sure, I like my colleagues, but on the other hand Dave and I will leave in a little bit more than 1.5 years. That also means I would have to quit my job anyhow. And hopefully this will give me some more time for Dave, the dogs, taking care of the house and my yard here in Germany. And hopefully the trips to England can be a little bit longer and not just for weekends. You see, you don't have to worry about me.
Okay, ready for some non Nokia news? A week ago we sent out the invitations for the wedding in Alaska. Yesterday Dave found out that they were not sent. Since the format is a little bit strange he had to send it as packages, even if they are very small. The post office forgot to tell him they need a customs sticker on it. Well, now they told him. Grrrrr. The went out yesterday so hopefully you will receive them within the next week. Sorry for the delay.
I also picked up the wedding rings. And I can tell you: I love them! I am so excited.
Enough news for today. Tomorrow is my brother's birthday and therefore Dave and I will spend the weekend in Germany. The weather forcast is not very good, but hopefully we can do some fun things even if it rains.
Again it was January, again it was the second Tuesday and again Nokia announced a closing. But this time of a much larger scale. This time they announced the closing of the whole Bochum site including the production facility. 2300 people are affected by this this time. And while most of the engineers won't have many problems finding a new job, especially when they consider moving to a different area of Germany, for a great number of factory workers this will be almost impossible. Nokia decided that producing mobile phones in Germany is much too expensive comparing to Romania. When reading this you should have two things in mind:
1. Nokia is the world market leader and had a fantastic business year 2007
2. The expenses for human resources make only maximum 5% of the mobile devices costs.
The announcement came as a big surprize for almost everyone. And we heard of it through the newspaper and internet before the employees were informed by the Nokia management. Well, there are reasons for all of it, but it is not a very respectful way of treating people.
Since Friday Nokia is on TV, in the newspaper and on the radio every hour. Politicians are involved now discussion subventions for Nokia in Bochum and also in Romania and the consequences of globalization. Right now while I am writing this a demonstration takes place with Nokia people, but also employees from Opel ( a car company in Bochum) and a steel company. I don't think that all these activities can stop the closing, this decision was made long ago, but maybe it will increase the severence payment for everybody.
Now you might ask what this means to me. Well, personally I am not really surprized (there were a lot of signs for that during the last months) and I am not too sad. Sure, I like my colleagues, but on the other hand Dave and I will leave in a little bit more than 1.5 years. That also means I would have to quit my job anyhow. And hopefully this will give me some more time for Dave, the dogs, taking care of the house and my yard here in Germany. And hopefully the trips to England can be a little bit longer and not just for weekends. You see, you don't have to worry about me.
Okay, ready for some non Nokia news? A week ago we sent out the invitations for the wedding in Alaska. Yesterday Dave found out that they were not sent. Since the format is a little bit strange he had to send it as packages, even if they are very small. The post office forgot to tell him they need a customs sticker on it. Well, now they told him. Grrrrr. The went out yesterday so hopefully you will receive them within the next week. Sorry for the delay.
I also picked up the wedding rings. And I can tell you: I love them! I am so excited.
Enough news for today. Tomorrow is my brother's birthday and therefore Dave and I will spend the weekend in Germany. The weather forcast is not very good, but hopefully we can do some fun things even if it rains.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Holiday Season is over
That was a good Holiday season this year! It was relaxing, fun and I got more gifts than ever. Can't remember the last time I opened presents for almost 2 hours.
On December 20th we had our company Christmas party. This time it took place at the "Zeche Zollverein" restaurant. It was great. Great food (red cabbage, Knoedel and geese: this is kind of a traditional German Christmas dinner) and a lot of fun. And it was cold and we had a tiny little bit of snow which makes everything look white and christmasy.
I took Friday off, went out for breakfast with my colleague Jens and did some last minute Christmas shopping. It is amazing how crowded downtown Essen can be.
Saturday some friends of mine and me spent the day at the Phantasialand, an amusement park similar to Disney Land, but not as big. It became kind of our tradition to go there the day or so before Christmas. They have everything decorated for winter which looked really neat.
Sunday I went to my brother's house to celebrate Nico's 11th birthday. It was also nice and fun, especially since my godfather has been there too and I always love meeting him. We had good food (cake in the afternoon and dinner at night), talked and played with the kids. Fun.
And then it was Christmas Eve. In Germany this is when all the kids get excited because it is the evening of opening all the presents. I flew in to England in the morning and we were home around noon. Usually we didn't have meat on Christmas Eve and so Dave and I just prepared a potato salad and bought some smoked salmon for dinner. In the afternoon we drove to Bury St. Edmund for a crib service at the abbey. It was fun. It was my first visit to an Anglican church and I enjoyed it. The whole service was for children. We sang some songs and listen to the first Christmas story. We also planned to visit another service at 11:30pm, but we both fell asleep prior to it. Therefore the crib service was the only one we visited. When we came home from it we had dinner, sang some Christmas songs, read the Christmas story from a German and an English bible and then.......opened presents!!!!!! It was so great. Dave's family from Minnesota sent dozens of little wrapped boxes with all kind of nice stuff like cards, ear rings, calender, books, binoculars for Dave, a sweatshirt for me and more and more. I also got a key board and now I try to learn how to play it ;o) And Dave got me a beautiful necklace to wear with the wedding dress next year (well, it is this year already).
Christmas day we were invited by Dave's colleague and her family. We had turkey dinner, watched a movie and played outburst.
In Germany we also celebrate the "2nd day of Christmas" or boxing day, but unfortunately Dave had to work. So I played a little bit with my new key board, walked Amber, watched DVDs and read. I did all the things I didn't have time for during the last year. It felt so good. And the best thing: I could do the same things again the next day.
The weekend before New Year's Eve Corinne visited us from Switzerland. I emailed and talked to her on a regular base during the year, but it was more than one year since we last met. So I was very excited and we had a great time. We visited Cambridge, went to the sea and celebrated New Year's Eve with another of Dave's colleagues. Too bad she didn't have more days, but we both hope she will come visiting again before we have to leave.
That were my holidays. I flew home on Wednesday morning and had to work during the last three days. Juergen and Ingrid stayed at my house in Germany until today and so we had dinner together and also had some more time for talking and laughing. All in all it was a very good start in a hopefully very good new year.
Talking about it: The wedding invitations for June are almost done and we will send them out this weekend. We already made reservation to hold hotel rooms for the family and friends from the US. We will also work on the March invitations, even if most of you already know the exact timing. I also got a call from the jewellery store letting me know the wedding rings are ready to be picked up. I think I will do it next week. First of all I will fly back to England today after work. Plans for the weekend are the invitations and also getting rid of the Christmas tree.
I wish you all a very happy New Year 2008!
On December 20th we had our company Christmas party. This time it took place at the "Zeche Zollverein" restaurant. It was great. Great food (red cabbage, Knoedel and geese: this is kind of a traditional German Christmas dinner) and a lot of fun. And it was cold and we had a tiny little bit of snow which makes everything look white and christmasy.
I took Friday off, went out for breakfast with my colleague Jens and did some last minute Christmas shopping. It is amazing how crowded downtown Essen can be.
Saturday some friends of mine and me spent the day at the Phantasialand, an amusement park similar to Disney Land, but not as big. It became kind of our tradition to go there the day or so before Christmas. They have everything decorated for winter which looked really neat.
Sunday I went to my brother's house to celebrate Nico's 11th birthday. It was also nice and fun, especially since my godfather has been there too and I always love meeting him. We had good food (cake in the afternoon and dinner at night), talked and played with the kids. Fun.
And then it was Christmas Eve. In Germany this is when all the kids get excited because it is the evening of opening all the presents. I flew in to England in the morning and we were home around noon. Usually we didn't have meat on Christmas Eve and so Dave and I just prepared a potato salad and bought some smoked salmon for dinner. In the afternoon we drove to Bury St. Edmund for a crib service at the abbey. It was fun. It was my first visit to an Anglican church and I enjoyed it. The whole service was for children. We sang some songs and listen to the first Christmas story. We also planned to visit another service at 11:30pm, but we both fell asleep prior to it. Therefore the crib service was the only one we visited. When we came home from it we had dinner, sang some Christmas songs, read the Christmas story from a German and an English bible and then.......opened presents!!!!!! It was so great. Dave's family from Minnesota sent dozens of little wrapped boxes with all kind of nice stuff like cards, ear rings, calender, books, binoculars for Dave, a sweatshirt for me and more and more. I also got a key board and now I try to learn how to play it ;o) And Dave got me a beautiful necklace to wear with the wedding dress next year (well, it is this year already).
Christmas day we were invited by Dave's colleague and her family. We had turkey dinner, watched a movie and played outburst.
In Germany we also celebrate the "2nd day of Christmas" or boxing day, but unfortunately Dave had to work. So I played a little bit with my new key board, walked Amber, watched DVDs and read. I did all the things I didn't have time for during the last year. It felt so good. And the best thing: I could do the same things again the next day.
The weekend before New Year's Eve Corinne visited us from Switzerland. I emailed and talked to her on a regular base during the year, but it was more than one year since we last met. So I was very excited and we had a great time. We visited Cambridge, went to the sea and celebrated New Year's Eve with another of Dave's colleagues. Too bad she didn't have more days, but we both hope she will come visiting again before we have to leave.
That were my holidays. I flew home on Wednesday morning and had to work during the last three days. Juergen and Ingrid stayed at my house in Germany until today and so we had dinner together and also had some more time for talking and laughing. All in all it was a very good start in a hopefully very good new year.
Talking about it: The wedding invitations for June are almost done and we will send them out this weekend. We already made reservation to hold hotel rooms for the family and friends from the US. We will also work on the March invitations, even if most of you already know the exact timing. I also got a call from the jewellery store letting me know the wedding rings are ready to be picked up. I think I will do it next week. First of all I will fly back to England today after work. Plans for the weekend are the invitations and also getting rid of the Christmas tree.
I wish you all a very happy New Year 2008!
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