Vanessa

Vanessa asked me to write a post "Vanessa" as the prize to the Paper Boat Challenge she won. Maybe that's not exactly what you expected but I found it interesting anyway:

The name Vanessa was invented by the writer Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels). The name of a woman he secretely loved was Esther Vanhomrigh. He created "Vanessa" by taking "Van" from her last name and "Esse", the pet form of Esther. It appeared in a poem Swift wrote in 1713 and which was published some years later.

It is supposed that there is a relationship of this invented name to that of Vannozza dei Cattanei, Cesare Borgia's (Italian-Spanish mercenary leader, son of Pope Alexander VI) mother. Here it means beautiful.

Later a genus of butterfly was named "Vanessa".

As a name it became famous with the success of the actress Vanessa Redgrave (films: Julia and others).




Other famous Vanessas I know:

• Vanessa Mae
• Vanessa Carlton
• Vanessa Amorosi (BTW does somebody know it that's her real name? Sounds like a pseudonym.)

Mainly based on the articles at wikipedia.

My life in Siegen (where the f*** is Siegen?)

As his prize for the 2nd Paper Boat Challenge Michael asked me to write more about "my life in Siegen". So here we go...

My life in Siegen is very boring (a bit of pity please) and centers around 2 places: the company and my flat.;-) As Siegen is known as a very rainy place it's not worth mentioning any time outside (just kidding).

Work
I'm sorry that I can't show you pictures from my workplace. It's not allowed to take pictures on the plant and all you could see would be grey buildings anyway. But I can tell you a bit about my colleagues, for example.

There is H., my boss, who is head of warranty project management Germany (although he is from Holland). What I like about him is his availability ("You can call me. I'll take up if I like."), his sense of humour ("I would have preferred a drawbridge here. We could pull it up and nobody would disturb us.") and that most of the time he is not in the office. What I don't like about him is that his sense of humour doesn't exclude me and the trust he puts in me ("I'll be away for 2 weeks. I'll have to leave in a few minutes. Let's talk about your tasks for the 2 weeks."). (I hope I don't have to explain the irony in that.)

There is U., one of the project managers, who also has his desk in our office. His all-time good mood is incredible. I really wonder what has to happen that I'll see him without a smile. I think I don't have to explain that in our area problems are part of the game every day.

I should also introduce E. to you. My boss's boss. E. is french and doesn't speak German. I don't know if it is only his "funny" English but most of the time I don't understand his jokes.

Maybe you should also know A., head of "Warranty & Service". He always is short of time. I wonder if that's why the "4" which is part of his age since March is such a problem for him.

My flat
Here come the pics now.

What you see when you enter my flat:

How my flat looks like when I find what I have been looking for at IKEA:

What you see when you look out of my bath window:

How it looks like when I cook Mexican food for you:

What you see when you leave my flat again:

Google fight (Paper Boat Challenge #5)

Originally this month's Paper Boat Challenge was meant to be something different but when I entered the "task" in google, I found out that you could find the solution there in less than 5 minutes. That would have been very boring.

So I came up with the new task which was inspired by googlefight.com (you can have a look if you like). We make our own google fight in 10 diciplines which are as follows:

• title of a book
• name of a band
• name of a tv series
• name of a famous person you admire
• something you use every day
• something you like to eat
• something you like to drink
• how you call your "loved one" (also hypothetically)
• one of your vices
• how you never want to be called
• place where you spent a great time (please be more precise than a country)
  

What you have to do is:

1. Think of an expression which fits in each of those categories (e.g. name of a band - Coldplay). If it is an expression consisting of more than one word, use quotation marks (e.g. "Red Hot Chili Peppers").
2. Enter it in google.
3. Write down how many hits you get.
4. Let me know your results by writing a comment to this post.

You can have more than one entry this time. So don't hesitate to send me already your first trial. I'll count your last entry until next Monday (14th May). The one with the most total hits wins the competition.