It’s been a while since I last posted. Nineteen days in fact. That’ll never do. Here’s a short video to make up for the absence. The video compiles shots taken from the balcony at the Hotel Oberland in Lauterbrunnen in order to portray the increasing snow cover. Had I thought me giggling with excitement would have added to the effect of the video, I would have done, because I was giddy with child-like enthusiasm.
While you’re here, I hope you like the new look of Here To Geneva. I woke up on Bank Holiday Monday and decided there and then to work on a new design. By 17h00 the same day, I launched what you see now. Expect little bits to change here and there, but on the whole, this is the way the site will look until the next Bank Holiday where I’ve been stupid enough to not make any plans.
Some of you may be unaware that your every move on the Internet is tracked. Whenever you visit a website, the administrator of that website knows you’re there, knows what country you’re in, knows which website you came from, even knows your screen resolution. It’s scary, but true. This information is gathered automatically so that the website admins can improve their websites based on who is visiting. It’s like market research, only you didn’t agree to take part in it.
Such ‘market research’ takes place on this website. I gather this information purely to make sure the stuff I’m writing is being read. Also, it’s cool to know someone from Argentina dropped by.
One other piece of data that is collected is the search term that a visitor typed into Google or Yahoo in order to find Here To Geneva. As I wrote in a previous post, the most common search term for this site is “binary solo”, followed by “first time flyer”. Often, in amongst the search terms, are questions that people have queried. Google has brought up one of my pages as a result and the visitor has clicked it hoping to have their question answered. In some cases, they’ve been disappointed to find I’ve never even attempted to address their topic of ignorance. This new series of posts is designed to solve this problem.
Back at the beginning of March, I was in Switzerland. I’m sure you already know this, so I won’t go on about it. I went purely to experience proper wintry conditions and Mother Nature (bless her) didn’t let me down. When I arrived, there was any snow at all, but literally hours after my arrival into the country, she flicked the blizzard switch to ‘on’ and in no time at all, the snow was knee-deep.
Above is a video I shot shortly after getting off of the Wengernalpbahn train as it took me down the mountain from Kleine Schiedegg (6761ft) to Wengen. My original plan was to take the train all the way down the mountain, but when I saw people getting off the train a quater of the way down, I decided to follow them. They were hikers, and in a matter of minutes, I discovered I was to. The video is five minutes of raw mutterings and stumbles through a cloud of snow. The snow wasn’t faling when I started to walk, but it quickly set in, making the experience rather exciting, which you might be able to detect in my voice. This genuinally was a step into the unknown for me, but I’m so glad I did it.
Incidentally, I’m fully aware that the video is practically unwatchable due to camera shake. Despite this, I really wanted to share my experience with you so persevere and, hopefully, enjoy!
Hey there. I’m writing this whilst sitting in the waiting room at Leicester train station. To my left are two kids jumping about on the seats and giggling. Really quite annoying.
I’m enroute to Derby to meet some friends. I missed the direct service by 2 minutes so I’m having to do the journey in two halfs. Whilst on the train to Leicester, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve started making notes on a film script that I’ve been thinking about writing for a while. I know what the general storyline is going to be about, so I’ve written some notes about characters and possible scenes. Its going to be a comedy/tragic lovestory. That’s literally all I’m willing to say at this stage. The hard graft of the script writing will start sometime in the next couple if weeks. For now, it’s simply a case of forming mental pictures, making notes of my ideas, experiences & observations and building characters. When I’ve got a reasonable amount on paper, I’ll let a select few have a read. I’ve thought of a way of getting other peoples contributions towards the final script, but I’m not going to be telling you about that either. Sorry to be so secretive, but while I’m almost certain the film will never be made, there’s still a part of me that thinks it is possible and that I can produce something that people will enjoy. I wouldn’t want to ruin the plot for you, or have someone nick my ideas at such an early stage. Needless to say though, I’ll keep you up to date with my progress and I may release some small details along the way too.
Think of it this way; you might be reading the post that detailed the start of my successful career in media production. Wouldn’t that be a cool story to tell people?
I’m now on the train again and approaching my destination. I’ll leave it there. Bye for now.
Here’s a business tip from me. It may sound obvious, but millions of businessmen forget to do this. If you’re unable to provide a service to your customers due to technical failure, always put up a sign that says so. That way, you won’t have them coming up to you and speaking to you directly.
We placed this sign on our Photo Booth today. It hasn’t been working for months.
Wowzers! I nearly forgot to mention Here To Geneva has reached a milestone today. It is 1 year old. To celebrate, here’s a completely unconnected photo I took in February last year that I rather like.
The first day was marked by the posting of part 1 of a 4 part write-up on my trip to Paris. Since then, I’ve had nearly 3000 unique visitors and just over 4,500 hits altogether. The most popular post is my review of the Hotel Oberland in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, followed by my article featuring tips for first time flyers. 30% of my visitors are from the UK, 28% from the USA, 6% from Switzerland and 3% from New Zealand (you know who you are). I’ve also had visits from Denmark, Malaysia, Japan, Belgium and Canada to name but a few. The most common search term used to find my site is “binary solo“.
Here’s to another year and many years to come. Thanks for visiting today, especially if this isn’t you first visit. If you’re one of my ten subscribers, a special thanks to you too.
Every weekday, having finished work, I catch the bus home. Two stops after I have boarded, an ear-ringed man gets on. He and I travel on the same bus home, every day. Nothing remarkable so far I suppose you’re saying. How about if I tell you we get off at the same stop? Does that make it more interesting? No? Wait, there’s more!
Today, I realised that he may have noticed that I’m always on the same bus as him. I’ve known for quite a while, and I have always let him press the “stop’ button on my behalf as we approach our stop. It’s become so routine for me that I know almost exactly when he’s going to press the button. Today though, he missed his cue. The point in the journey passed and he hadn’t moved. Almost immediately, I figured out that he had realised that I was on the bus and that I was going to be alighting at the next stop. I figured that he was thinking, “that cool-looking character at the back of the bus, where I wish I was cool enough to sit, is getting off at the next stop. I’ll wait for him to press the button.” Well, he could forget that! I’ve been going weeks having not pushed that button, and I’d be damned if I was going to start now. “Game on,” I thought.
So we both sat, me confidently, him wishing he hadn’t challenged me to this game of chicken. The bus approached the last corner before the stop. We were now only less than 20 metres away and no one had hit “stop”. As the bus began to break to turn, he bottled it and hit the button. I leapt from my seat to get in front of him. He’s a slow walker. The bus turned the corner and came to a halt. I’d won this round.
Something I’m currently fascinated by is the Olympic Torch Relay, something I’m sure my Twitter followers will testify. I’ve been enthusiastically posting my observations of the torch relay to Twitter over the course of the last week. Today, I thought I’d create a post summarising those thoughts.
Lately, I’ve rediscovered the brilliance of the US version of The Office (named ‘The Office: An American Workplace‘ in the UK). I watched it for the first time when the BBC bought the rights to show the first series and put it on at 21h00 weekly. I thought it was excellent. I kind of lost touch with the second series though when ITV bought the rights and shunted it about in the schedules when they didn’t get as many viewers as they would have liked. For some reason, ITV are still paying for the UK rights to show it and are currently airing the third series at 00h30 weekly. A total injustice and unforgivable if you ask me. This show deserves a much better slot.
Having bought the first series on DVD earlier in March, I then bought the second series straight afterwards. This had only just been released in the UK. I’m now ready and raring to see the third series, but since it’s still only half way through being shown on TV, the DVD won’t released any time soon. So I opted instead to import the DVD from the States.
This morning, I received two packages. The first was my Dunder Mifflin Inc T Shirt. I thought I’d parade about town in it and drum up some interest. The second package was my DVD. I think I was smiling as I opened the envelope. I love getting post! My smile didn’t last long though. They’d sent the wrong bloody one!
Despite how good ‘Mariposa and her Butterfly Fairy Friends’ looks, I’m gonna have to send it back. A shame, but necessary if I’m to find out how Jim and Pam get on.
It’s been an eventful week or so since my last post. Last Thursday, I spent a day at BBC Television Centre and yesterday, I woke up to an early spring covering of snow. I might post about those events a bit more later. For now, this post is supposed to touch base with you. My posting rate has dropped a bit this year, which is not good. I’m hoping this will change from now on and that my posting rate will increase.
As you may be able to see, I’ve now settled on a new theme for the site. I’m using a theme designed by someone else at the moment, which looks vaguely similar to the custom made theme I was using before. I fully intend to tinker with it a bit over the course of the next week to make it look a bit more personal.
I’m fully aware that there are some dead links and dead images. I’m working on those now. I’m also deleting some of the rubbish posts I’ve made last year, in an effort to tidy up the categories and introduce tagging.
