Also I’ve reverted back to the default wordpress theme. It seems like I change the theme more often than I post !

Later on in the evening I had a good discussion with Buca about what it takes to be the perfect black dog. Afterwards we hung out and knocked a few beats out on the little goats skin drum.

She was a little bit of a flirt, but in the end she did give me a peck on the cheek. I’m not the greatest fan of dogs, but I do have a weakness for black ones and ones as cool as Buca.

 Here is a still from today taken from this webcam.

Last weekend I found myself in Sölden, which had some spectacular views looking over the alps in Italy. Anyway I will be putting up a better/longer report during the week on the skiing site. The snowboard held up well, but I think I need to get it serviced. So 2 days of skiing has left my legs feeling like jelly.

About Sölden

Sölden is in the hear of the Austrian Alps, and is about 2.5 hours from Munich and 45 minutes from Innsbruck. It’s on a glacier, and the highest skiable piste is over 3,000m. It’s something I will add to the recommended apés ski resorts list. The partying was great, we found ourselves dancing until the early hours in a place called Fire & Ice.

In my head I kind of put 1+1 and got 3. I think the way that they have put the image for the headline sometimes can confuse readers, and in some situations associate the wrong thing with the wrong image. For those of you who don’t know who this man is, (i.e joe), it’s the Taoiseach, or Prime Minister, of Ireland. Also isn’t is a bit weird that there is a kid off to the side of the picture ? !

Link to the article : http://breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhmhqleycwsn/

Naming People You don’t know

Here is another piece from inside my head. Do you ever find yourself giving names to people you see all the time but you don’t know their real names ? For example, we have two local bums that hang around our area, one guy (Charles) who stands at the S-Bahn ticket area begging and asking for change, and then there is another one (Jasper) who hangs around where our front door and where the newspaper vending machines are. Jasper likes to ask for 20c or 10c. I find that if I can put names on people I see regurally, I feel a little more at ease. There are people who I see probably twice or more a week on the S-Bahn or in work, who I don’t know, but I recognise them from seeing them before. Like there is this one guy (simon) , who is rather small in stature and wears these special shoes that give him an extra inch. I’ve notice this guy many times, and his ‘high heals’, so I gave him a name. Do you mentally baptise people you don’t know ? Or is it just me and my over observance ?

This beast has a water font and an espresso machine in it. It will be available from January next year under the name “20RI D4 Espresso”. Sadly I won’t be able to add it on to my Christmas wish list this year.

I’ve also not heard back from the US side  of this dealing

• the customer service email address that I replied to first day hasn’t send a reply
• CEO John Barrows has replied either from his email address.
• And the company that dealt with the first charge back , cendant, their email address still bounces.

So much for Customer Service, eh ? That being said I have rented another car (from Enterprise Rentals) for this weekend, so fingers cross to see how this goes.

It’s funny as there are lots of unhappy people out there with Budget [1] , [2] & [3] are just while looking on Flickr for a pic for this post.

The Story

Me and L picked up a car for the 12 days we were in the states from Budget Car Rentals. And I noticed there was some problems with the bill. There was a charge for an extra hundred bucks, so I contacted the customer care people and got an email back 10 days later. The funny thing was, I got a refund for 1/2 of what I though I was due. So I looked at the bill again and saw that they was also the associated tax charges of 11.11% and 5% (compounded) so I send them and email (cc’d their CEO) to tell them about my whole experience and asking for the $70 they still owe me. I also showed them my calculations in case they were having calculator problems.

Picking up the car wasn’t that nice either, here is an excerpt from my mail that I decided to write, seeing as I was already complaining about them not processing my bill properly, I thought I would describe the picking up the rental car ordeal.

The Email Complaint

We had order a “standard class” car, and on getting to your agency they offered us a ’small SUV’ . This turned out to be a dodge nitro, some thing that my 5 foot girlfriend would never be able to drive. I returned to the desk and we were given something akin to a taxi (sadly I don’t know what car model it was). I liken it to a taxi because it was dirty, smelled of cigarettes and had a water mark on the front drivers seat. I didn’t want to investigate what this was from, but it did smell. So the third car, was a nice new Ford Taurus that had only 7 miles on it. But the whole picking up the car process lasted the best part of an hour and was rather unnecessary pressure after flying 8 hours already that day.

So let’s see what these guys say…