Who buys just one snowshoe?
Last weekend you went snowshoe hiking in Flumserberg with Ludo and Grég. It was a very spontaneously decided action, having been organised at 22:30 the night before, and maybe that was why Ludo only brought one snowshoe... So there you were at 10:12 as the train was just pullout of Zürich HB with Ludo frantically searching a second snowshoe he lost / never bought. You see, he'd been wanting to join on snowshoe adventures for a while now so he bought himself a pair in Decathlon in France, but didn't check if it was if fact a set. It ended up he never bought a second one. Fail. The Intersport in Unterterzen seemed amused but sill unwilling to rent him a single replacment snowshoe.

The hike was from Oberterzen (650m) to Seebenalp (1160m) up the unprepared decent through the forrest. It was really sunny, but still a nice -5°C or so. After ten minutes up hill you randomly bumped into Guillaume - recognisable by his knee pads - and his mates who were out snowboarding. As always, you looked spiffy in your matching blue / red / black gear, even if Grég thought you looked like a garden gnome. In contrast, Ludo looked very hipster with his 80's poles and Raybans. After another ten minutes of hiking while commenting on how hipster-looking he was, Ludo managed to break his hired snowshoes! Double fail.



Eventually you broke away from the well skied compacted snow and headed directly up the mountain through the trees. The snow was really soft, and with every step you sank up to somewhere between knee- and waist-height - although the latter was during a river crossing / jump. You were mostly following one of the three snowboard trails which came down the hill affront you, but it became so steep that the snowboarders had come down on their edges sideways and cleared a wide path. It was honestly hard to hike up there, and you were using trees at one point to help you climb. At one point you simply broke away from the trails and bush-bashed back to the descent trail.



The last part was little more than a stroll. It was pretty appart from all the bad skiers. Next plan: home for beer and pizza men's night... Kirsten joined so you couldn't call it a guys' night. With two french men cooking pizza and crepe for you, who cares?
Page redesign

Are things looking different here? You redesigned your webpage to HTML5 and CSS3 standards, and made it look prettier overall. The programming side is all done with Perl scripting, which you did while you were off work post-op. Time well spent?
You're becoming a horrible racist
The other day you received a call at work from China about second source cast parts suppliers. Nothing out of the ordinary, but your friend-from-far-away wasn't really sure what he wanted (and was already having enough trouble speaking English). The conversation (paraphrased) went something like this:
Him: So I have a question about that part.
You: Which part?
Him: I'm not sure. You know... err, never mind. It's just a yes/no question.
You: ...
Him: ...
You: What part are we talking about, and what is your question?
Him: The casting. Can we change the tolerance from +/-0.3 to +/-4.0?
You: Which casting and which dimension does that refer to?
Him: Oh... err, never mind. Just yes or no?
You: Please tell me exactly what you wish to change.
Him: Oh... err, it the 400-something millimeter dimension. Somewhere on the left.
You: There are no dimension on the left above 300mm.
Him: ...
You: Do you even have the drawing in front of you?
Him: Oh... err, no. I'm calling from home. It's night time here in China.
You mood was swinging somewhere between rage and utter amusement. This bloke had no idea what his own question really was, and thought he'd get a quick answer by calling. So many fails lately. This guy has been problematic before; last time he called asking if he could help Engineering by doing 3d design checks. F.Y.I.: he's from procurement and has no idea what he's doing. It's the rough equivalent of trying to drive a truck with a scuba diving licence - it could work but it's 1. not permitted, and 2. likely to cause an accident.