Shopping in Graz

Carla and I went for a short shopping trip to Graz, Austria yesterday. It took us about two and a half hours driving to get there. Not bad.

The thing about traveling in Europe is that you have to cross country borders (well, at least you do if you live outside EU). Our closest border with the EU is Slovenia, so you never know what kind of difficulties you are going to run into when you drive up to a border agent.

This time, when the Slovenian border guard saw our Canadian passports, he asked for Carla's driver's license (as she was the one driving). After seeing that she had a Canadian driver's license, he went on about how Carla needs an International Driver's Permit to drive in the EU. According to him, "Canada has different categories of vehicles so the license is not valid in EU." Whatever, someone needed to feel important. I used my Canadian personality, profusely apologizing in Croatian (as he was not comfortable speaking English). I said that we did not know about this rule, so sorry for our ignorance, where could we get an International Driver's Permit (IDP), and that we will do this as soon as we get back. After uttering one more threat that next time we won't be allowed to drive into Slovenia without an IDP, we were let into Slovenia. Wow, they just can't live and let live.
Now, for the more relaxed part of the trip. We arrived at Centre West shopping centre, which had a large Interspar (Loblaws/Superstore -equivalent) store attached to the mall. Nice mall, two stories, nothing too fancy but decent stores. IKEA was located in the same area, so we walked over to checkout the selection. This IKEA was a lot bigger than the one in Ottawa. Different styles and colours. More conservative, as that is the sense I got about Austrians during my half-day stay there.
After shopping, we visited downtown Graz. It's a nice little town with a beautiful square. An amazing collection of buildings rounded out the square. A brass band was in the square playing classical music, roasted chestnuts were available on one corner, and bratwurst (sausages) could be had 10 different ways. There were quite a few stores with beautiful clothing. All custom made, one-of-a-kind dresses.
We walked around for about an hour and a half and then we headed home. In another 2.5 hours we were home. What a fun day-trip!

Police

I have lived in Canada for the past 16 years. In those 16 years, I have never been pulled over by police. Never!

I have been here for less than 6 months, and in the last two weeks, I got pulled over twice!

First time I got pulled over was when I was driving from Pula back to Zagreb. It was Sunday night, roads were clear and I was hurrying to get home as Carla was to arrive in Zagreb the next day. So, I am going really fast (faster than the speed limit) when I see a policeman standing in the street waving his little paddle indicating that I should pull over.

First thing that went through my head was, "damn, how fast was I going, and did I get to slow down enough in time". Oh well, gotta pull over now. If I keep driving it will only get worse. :-) So I pull over. The policeman then asked me for my driver's license and prometna dozvola (vehicle registration). I gave him my Canadian driver's license and that surprised him a bit. He asked, "You moved here from Canada?", meaning "Are you dumb or something?" :-)

The policeman then went over to his buddy in the car to verify my documents. I was still concerned about my 'excessive speed' but then I realized that these guys don't have radar guns. They're too expensive! Phew! Close call. The policeman returned with my documents ten minutes later and I was back on the road. No drama. (As my favourite British fiction hero - Nick Stone - likes to say)

Second encounter with police happened yesterday, when we were driving back from Sisak. I knew that police was up ahead because three people had flashed their high beams at me a kilometer ahead. Ok, the first guy flashed me because my high beams were on (oops) but the other two were trying to warn me to slow down. And I DID! :-)

So, the pulling over routine was the same. Guy standing in the middle of the street, with a paddle saying STOP (which I only saw when I pulled over) motioning me off the road. Asked for my driver's license and registration. Took them, went to his buddy in the car and returned five minutes later. This guy also asked me if I had the required safety equipment in the car (safety triangle, first aid, and a reflective vest). Luckily, I bought those items as soon as I found out that they were mandatory, about a month after buying our car. The policeman returned my documents and we were back on the road.

As we got into the city, we saw another cop pulling people over for a 'random' inspection. Too much inspecting going on if you ask me.

Online backup

I am a big believer in backup. The problem that most users encounter with backing up is that they forget to do it, don't have time to do it, or find the backup process too complicated. I completely agree with them. Backing up is complicated, but I have found three applications which will simplify backup for you.

The first program, Foldershare, is what I am currently using. I recommend Dropbox for free (2GB) storage, and JungleDisk if you are a more serious users with GBs of data to backup.

I have been using Foldershare for the last couple years. Carla and I each have a copy of this software installed on our laptops. All our documents and pictures are kept in-sync between the two computers. If I add a file to my computer, it will be copied to Carla's computer within seconds. I really like this setup as it keeps our documents in sync and backs up our information to each other's computer. I can access the files from the Internet only if the computers are left online, so that is not an ideal solution.

The ideal solution needs to do the following:
-sync files between multiple computers
-backup files to an off-site place
-allow remote access to the files (even with the computers off)

Dropbox allows you to do all three at once (backup, sync and remote access). You can install the software on multiple computers and keep them all in sync. The free account on Dropbox gives you 2GB of storage. To store up to 50GB you need to pay $10/month or $99 a year. Sounds reasonable to me. Seems easy to use, though I have not tried it yet.

JungleDisk uses Amazon S3 service to backup your data. Yes, that's the Amazon.com Amazon, so I trust those folks to keep your data secure and available 24/7. You still get instantaneous syncing between multiple computers, data storage to an off-site place and web access to data.

You are charged monthly based on your storage and download/upload throughout the month. Rates are something like $0.15 per GB of storage and something really small for download/upload of data monthly. Cost-wise, I think that JungleDisk with Amazon S3 is the cheapest backup option for large amounts of data.

I will try out the free 2GB of space with Dropbox to see if it is worth switching to. My impression is that I will end up using JungleDisk, as it's price/security/features seem to be the best choice for heavy users.

If you want free, definitely use DropBox. It will be easy to use, and you'll sleep better for having your important data backed up.

Carla is back!

Woohoo! Carla arrived back in Zagreb yesterday around 13:30. Her flight from Frankfurt was delayed by a couple of hours, but the wait was worth it! :-)

You know the feeling of arriving in a foreign airport and seeing all those people holding up pieces of paper with important peoples names (waiting to pick them up)? Well, I've always wanted a nice welcome like that for me, so I thought I would welcome Carla that way. Check out the sign I made for Carla. :-)


I think that the warm reception worked! She was very happy to see me.

It is so good to have her here. Now we can start planning our trip to Hong Kong and start applying for jobs in Australia.

Painting our place

Carla thought that the walls in our place are too white (they looked fine to me) so we decided to paint a few walls. Finding the paint and painting equipment was not too hard as BAUHAUS (Home Depot copy) carries it all and has a pretty good selection.

Our ceilings are 10' high, so the first challenge was to find ladders that are tall enough. Luckily, my cousin had a tall ladder at his place so that problem was quickly solved.

The next problem was painting the walls. The paint looked pretty thick, and it definitely did not drip off the paint roller during painting. Later on, as I shared my experience about thick paint with my cousin, I learned that we were supposed to water down the paint. And not by much. We were supposed to add 1 liter of water to 10 liters of paint (10%).

What perplexed me was, "Where and when am I supposed to add this water to the paint?" The can in which paint came was too small to add water right then and there. Should I add water to the paint when it is in the paint through (where you use the paint roller)? Not a good system, if you ask me. I like buying things premixed, prepared and precooked. :-)

Well, all the effort was worth it, as our place looks magnificent. Carla did a great job of picking out the right colour for our apartment. Good work, Honey! :-)

Legacy

I spent a great weekend with family in Banja Luka (the city where I was born and lived for 16 years). It was really good to see them, talk to them, and eat GREAT food with them.

This weekend also made me think a lot about how life happens, whether you have plans or not. That made me think about my plans. What kind of a legacy do I want to leave?

Good questions to ask yourself are:
1. If I died today, who would care?
2. Will the world in 10, 50 or 100 years after my death be any better because of what I have done in my life?
3. What kind of impact do I want to leave on this planet and its people in the course of my life?

Most people think of their legacy only at the end of their life. That is too late. The end of your life is when your legacy is evident, not when you should start thinking about leaving one.

Your legacy is a sum of all the things that you've done and accomplished throughout your lifetime. I believe that most people try to build their legacy through words, but forget to follow up with their actions.

You can only judge a person by their actions. Nothing else. Not their words, not their promises, and definitely not their appearance. There is a great quote that sums it up "watch what a man does, not what he says."

What are your answer to the three questions above?

Learning a new language - Part II

... continued from here

3. Learn the basic grammar rules for tenses and genders (genders are more important in some languages than others).
In Croatian language, if you where to say a blue man or a blue woman, the word blue would look different (plavi muskarac vs. plava zena). This is why it is important to understand genders or you may use a wrong adverbs to describe yourself. If you like to be a source of entairtainment for the locals, then go right ahead and forget about using the right gender. :-)

As for learning proper tenses, I would encourage learning the present tense immediately. If you feel brave, learn the past tense (as you will talk a lot about the past) and then future (as you talk less about the future). Other fancy tenses can be left for when you feel comfortable with the past, present and future tenses.

4. Learn the 'connector' words.

What I mean by 'connector' words are all those words that are left in a sentence once you remove all the verbs, nouns and adjectives. These words are the glue of language.

I remember, when I was learning French, one summer long, long time ago, our teacher gave us several pages of 'connector' words (in, like, as, with, of, at, ...) in French. Try learning these basic words and then take a look at an article in that foreign language. You will be surprised to see how much of the flow you understand with even little understanding of the main words.

... to be continued.

Back in the driver's seat

Today was the first time in a month that I took the car out for a drive. My foot is finally feeling better. Not good as new, but good enough that I am able to drive.

It sure felt nice to drive to different parts of town. I felt too cooped up over the last month. Spending all that time in bed and not being able to go places can sure bring you down.

It is a beautiful autumn day here. Warm, sunny, and leaves changing colour everywhere you look. The autumn lasts a lot longer than in Canada. Well, definitely longer than in Saskatoon, and a bit longer than in Ontario and Quebec.

I like the sensation of a autumn wind on your face. It's not the harsh Canadian wind that chills you to the bone, but more of a gentle breeze bringing you the smell of nearby trees. I completely forgot about how autumn used to feel in my childhood and I am really happy to have a chance to experience it again.

Yesterday was kind of a stressful day dealing (again) with the Croatian bureaucracy. I guess that Carla's immigration papers were just sitting on someone's desk because the bank statement (???) in her application was not translated. Not like they would follow up and let us know that something is missing. Since Carla is scheduled to be flying back in 9 days, I was trying to get them to hurry up, but that's like trying to get maple syrup to flow up a tree. Impossible! There's a good chance that the paperwork will now be done on time, but there is a holiday on Wednesday which is not going to help the matter.

That's another thing that I noticed here. All holidays are fixed to a specific date. I remember moving to Canada and initially thinking how a 'third Monday of May' was stupid way to fix a day to celebrate a holiday. Over time, I began to appreciate the logic in this as it is kind of hard to have a long weekend if the holiday falls on a Wednesday. I am a full convert now to a fixed-day-of-the-week holiday as opposed to a fixed-date holiday! :-)

Book report - The McKinsey Way

I finished reading a really good book on management consulting, The McKinsey Way. Let me first say that McKinsey and Company is a Ferrari of management consulting, in the sense that they get the coolest engagements and charge probably the highest rates.

The book is written by Ethan Rasiel, who worked there for three years in the early 90's. Ethan covers several aspects of McKinsey and tries to explain why McKinsey is so good and sought after.

First, McKinsey is very thorough in its research and analysis. Facts are triple-checked, and analysis is thorough. The author even goes in depth on the proper way to hold a brainstorming sessions. He also has a few tips about how to perform a good analysis (use the 80/20 rule, don't boil the ocean, make sure your solution fits the client)

Second, the author talks how McKinsey does not "sell" its services, but markets instead. Meaning that McKinsey people and their work are seen and heard about, so when someone has a problem (and is willing to pay dearly to get it fixed), they come to McKinsey.

Third, they treat their employees "relatively" well for a consulting firm, so there is light at the end of the tunnel of sleepless nights and living away from home for months.

The book reminded me of a lot of experiences that I went through in my MBA. One of the requirements for the completion of my MBA was to do a Management Consulting engagement and solve a business problem. I did this at my work, but the project was something outside of my regular duties. All of the experiences of dealing with clients that were mentioned in this book were the things I had experienced myself on my management consulting engagement. In hindsight, I am glad to say that I made a lot of right decisions (sure, a few were wrong, but it was my first consulting experience!).

I would recommend this book for anybody who deals with clients, solves problems and wants to be more efficient in their life. There's something for everyone. It's a quick read, so if you don't want to buy it, just read the relevant chapters in the bookstore! :-)