I some what know the answer to this question already, but want to put it out there to see if anyone else has an idea of why everyone seems to be so concerned about becoming infected with the swine flu right now, which at this point has only killed hundreds in Mexico, yet the fact that 400 million cases of malaria each year of which about 1 million die every year . . . anyone worried about catching that? Or is this a case of malaria isn't in America so we don't have to worry about it? If that's the case, what's your excuse for not worrying about contracting tuberculosis? Cause the fact is that about 50,000 people die of TB each year in the US and I don't see any Americans freaking out over catching that? Facts like someone in the world is newly infected with TB bacilli every second sorta freaks me out and that about 1.5 million people died from TB last year world wide also seems rather scary, again why is nobody panicking about this??
I heard one argument "what about the 1918-19 influenza pandemic? Well in less than a year, that pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, yes that is more than TB & malaria. But if we look at the past two flu pandemics in the US, we had the 1957 Asian flu pandemic infected some 45 million Americans and killed 70,000, and in 1969 a Hong Kong flu pandemic afflicted 50 million Americans and caused 33,000 deaths, according to my maths those two only cause 103 thousand deaths . . . now don't get me wrong this swine influenza could be another 1918 pandemic & then people will hate me for this post, but I'm still not convinced people should be panicking so much at this stage in the game ie people in the UK cancelling their holidays this summer in America for fear of catching it. I'll wait to see how bad it gets & if I'm not allowed to fly, as in the CDC says no, then I'll cancel my flights, but until then I'm going to keep all travel plans.
I would like to add just one more bit here: At last check on the CDC website the swine flu has one death in the USA compared to "regular flu" which has 36,000 a year!
February I was in US and Canada leaving no time for a "new" country to be added
March I went to Morocco with my mum & had a fabulous time! (country #26)
April I was in Germany for Easter & we took a day trip to Luxembourg (country #27) - thanks Neala!!!
May I will be going to Sofia, Bulgaria this weekend (country #28)
June I will be going to Warsaw, Poland (country #29)
July I will be going to Copenhagen, Denmark (country #30)
July/August I will be going to Budapest, Hungry (country #31)
August I will be going to Vienna, Austria (country #32)
September I will be going to Helsinki, Finland (country #33) and the US for Patty's 30th birthday & an Itafari Event
October I will be going to Greece (country #34)
November I will be going to India (country # 35)
December is still unplanned & will probably be full of packing up my stuff, but I'm sure I will fit something in then too!
Bold type is the new addition as of yesterday to my new years resolution! As I said the other day, if I could just find a cheap place to go sometime in September I'd have 11 new countries added this year alone and I did :-) Not only did I find a cheap place to fly to but I found a person to go with me (double score!) so it's official, I'll be adding 11 new countries to my list of places I've been in the world this year alone, doubt many people can say the same!
No pressure dad, but ya know if we don't go anywhere when you're here, I'll get to blame you for the reason I didn't make it to a 12th new country this year - no pressure!!!
February I was in US and Canada leaving no time for a "new" country to be added
March I went to Morocco with my mum & had a fabulous time! (country #26)
April I was in Germany for Easter & we took a day trip to Luxembourg (country #27) - thanks Neala!!!
May I will be going to Sofia, Bulgaria this weekend (country #28)
June I will be going to Warsaw, Poland (country #29)
July I will be going to Copenhagen, Denmark (country #30)
July/August I will be going to Budapest, Hungry (country #31)
August I will be going to Vienna, Austria (country #32)
September I will be going to the US for Patty's 30th birthday & an Itafari Event (again no time for "new" country visit)
October I will be going to Greece (country #33)
November I will be going to India (country # 34)
December is still unplanned & will probably be full of packing up my stuff, but I'm sure I will fit something in then too!
Bold type is the new additions to my new years resolution. If I could just find a cheap place to go sometime in September I'd have 11 new countries added this year alone - WOW - doubt many people can say the same!
Sorry I've not been posting more often, but as you read in my last post my internet at home is rather buggered. Yesterday was the day on which the Virgin man was suppose to come & "fix" it . . . to make a rather long story slightly shorter here is the run down:
I waited around from 16.00 until 18.53 when the door bell rang (my time slot was 16.00-19.00)
Virgin man looked at the cable box & announced, "it's broken" . . . now wasn't that the reason I called in the first place?
Virgin man looked at wire outside of flat & announced, "you need new wiring, I'll call you later to tell you when they can come & install it"
Virgin man leaves at 19.03 (yes, correct all this took less than 10 minutes!)
I waited 20 minutes & received a call saying, "the next time they're in your area is 9 May between 08.00 and 12.00, does that work for you?" Caught totally off guard I said, "yes, thanks"
Now I understand we're rather far into the month of April, but waiting till 9 May just sounds RIDICULOUS!!! The Virgin man also said if I'd like to make a complaint I can call for free from my Virgin phone line . . . HELLO, what part of the "it's not working" do you not understand?!?!?!?
The biggest problem in my mind is that I'm semi stuck with using Virgin, cause Sky doesn't work in my area & BT will make me sign a year contract and I'm only going to be here for another 8 months (the early cancellation fee is something crazy like £100, which I'm not willing to pay!) So needless to say at this point I was very very pissed off yesterday evening.
I'm hoping today will be better, but so far the start has been rather slow & rocky - bus took 15 minutes to arrive (they're suppose to come every 5-8 minutes) and then it terminated 2 stops later, so got on next bus which stopped 4 stops later, got on the third bus which terminated 3 stops away from my work so I got off & decided to walk the rest of the way, not worth the hassle of a fourth bus. I'm hoping a nice cup of tea will turn things around, but not holding my breath.
So I again apologies for the lack of Easter photos or more regular posting, but that's just life for me at the moment. Next time I'll be able to post photos from home, I will have LOTS of photos to share from my trip to Germany at Easter, our day trip to Luxembourg, and my weekend visit to Sofia, Bulgaria in a weeks time!
Everyone claims Vigins are the best, I beg to differ
Virgins Media has been nothing but a headache since I signed up for it last year - took 3 installations to get it up & running then they announced no matter what they do they can't get my phone line to work, so I accepted that & have learned to live without one. Then over the year there have been multiple occasions where we've had prolonged disrupted service, which according to them is not their fault & I'm just suppose to deal with it. Now it's been 3 days without tv, phone or internet & when I called last night they said, "oh I'm sorry, but the next time we'll be in your area won't be till next Wednesday, do you want the 8-12 or 12-4 appointment?" I don't want either, I can't afford to take a day off from work for the freaking Virgin (wo)man to arrive, "don't you have any later appointments for those of us who work?" "Yes ma'am we do, but the next Saturday appointment isn't until mid May, would you like that?" without a pause I replied, "No, I need to have it up & running ASAP, guess I'll take the 8-12 appointment" "Oh sorry that's just been taken, how about the 12-4 slot?" long pause, realising I don't really have a choice if I want the internet up & running again before mid-May, I reply "yes, that will do" I know this is not the biggest problem in the world, it's just that being dependent on this type of technology infuriates me! I rely on the internet for communication & I highly dislike being out of touch. I know I can use my mobile to call the states, but it cost me £1/minute which is not really a price I'm willing to pay unless there is an emergency. Plus all of my Easter break photos are sitting on my laptops hard drive waiting to be uploaded onto the internet for others to see. Well that's my mini-rant for this Friday. Back to the lab I go . . . I doubt I'll have figured out how to fix the Virgin problems without their help so please have a good weekend if I don't see/speak to you before hand.
is the age of this blog!! I made my first ever post on April 26, 2005 . . . who knew 4 years later I'd still be blogging or for that matter still be living in London, England . . . I can tell you I sure wouldn't have told you that! I'm sorry for the lack of photos from my 27th country, but the internet at home is buggered so I can't upload any photos :-( keep checking back cause eventually it will fix itself or I'll finally call and complain.
So I've been bragging to everyone that this past weekend I visited my 26th country, only to realise this morning when I got to work at 07.20 (story for another time) that I was actually visiting my 27th country! So many countries, so little time, who can honestly keep track . . . not me apparently (LOL)
On Saturday, Neala, Kaylie, Christopher, Nikolas & I drove from Ramstein, Germany over to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. It's a very cute little city, very hilly & old! The weather was fantastic with lots of sun & temps around 73F. We had a great time - photos to follow.
So the story for another time is about how I forgot to switch my mobile time back onto London time (Germany is one hour ahead) so when I woke up at 07.27, showered, had breakfast, got bus into work, arrived at 08.20, I had actually woken up at 06.27 and gotten into work at 07.20 . . . Oops - feel free to laugh out loud at me, most others I've come in contact with have!
Hope you all had a good Easter, can't believe we're half way through April & don't forget to get your taxes mailed out today (if you're American).
So over the past few months I've been on a few road trips & each time gotten a different type of car to drive. Some of them have been better than others, but I've decided to give you my thoughts of them: First there was the Alfa Romeo's Alfa 159, which I drove from Glasgow to Inverness and back last November. It was an automatic, which made it easier to drive on the "wrong" side of the road. It was very roomy and had lots of power. We even had to drive it through a bit of snow, rain, and hail and I never once worried about traction or handling.
Next, I think was a Skoda, which I drove from London to Nottingham, up to Manchester, and back to London. It was the Fabia model to be exact. Now I've looked it up online and it is a good price, but in my opinion NOT a car I would ever hire again, let alone buy!! It had no power, was not particularly comfortable and overall was just a hunk of junk in my personal opinion.
For our East Anglia trip we had a Ford Focus, which I'm guessing is very similar to the ones you get in the US and being nearly double the price of the FabiaSkoda, I would have to say well worth the extra money!! It seems similar in size, but the comfort is a vast improvement to the Skoda. I enjoyed driving the Focus around :)
This past weekend, we had the luck of receiving a VW Golf and this car is tied with the Focus for best small car I've driven thus far. It is about the same price as the Focus, but did not have as much zippy power as the Focus had.
I'm guessing the Alfa 159 is probably the most expensive car I've driven & to be honest, I wouldn't want an automatic, so if I had to buy one of the above cars, I'd go with the Ford Focus!
Take a look at this article which I found thanks to this post by Shelby. Does anyone have any comments about this?
Some of the lines from this article are:
"As part of a sweeping federal measure to rid American homes of toys tainted with poisonous levels of lead, the commission is raising concerns over unsafe lead levels in books printed before 1986." Books, what do they think children do with books, eat them?
"The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told The Associated Press that lead-based ink in books poses little danger to children, rating the risk, on a scale of 1 to 10, as 0.5." Okay so a risk of 0.5 shouldn't even register on the scale of "bad" in my mind!
"That's because little Suzie would have to swallow the pages whole, lots of them, to actually expose her body to the relatively small amounts of lead there. Heard of any widespread problems with kids all too literally digesting their copies of Grimms Fairy Tales?" now that just makes me laugh!
and this one about sums up my thoughts:
"Books aren't the problem. Lead-based paint in toys is. The fact that product safety officials can't tell the difference may be the real worry here."
not really at all, I don't actually know anyone named April right now. I spent some time today trying to come up with a funny April Fool's Day joke to play on "everyone" but apparently I don't have a funny bone in my body today cause I haven't come up with anything & even if I do now, you will have read this & so the next entry won't be funny cause the cat's outta the bag now.
Sorry I've not been updating with anything interesting, I've just been waking up, going to work, going to the gym to do my physiotherapy for my back, going home, eating dinner, reading & going to bed . . . I know a very exciting life I lead which some of you with young children or pregnant wives with weird cravings might actually be jealous of, but for me it keeps me busy so I can't complain. My back is definitely feeling better day by day and so I feel 2 hours a day at the gym though long & not always exciting is making a difference.
I honestly, cannot think of anything else to tell you, so I'll leave you with my most favourite statement I heard recently: "You can't think about what you don't want to think about without thinking about it . . . think about that!"
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
