just john

So the kitchen is installed. Seems a bit anti-climactic given everything I had to go through to get it but there you have it. Unfortunately, I forgot to take down my Bush Countdown Calendar and the installers had to look at it the entire time. They probably made the same mistake Susanne did. She asked "So, you are a Bush supporter?" I quickly explained the calendar's purpose and resolved to not have it out around Germans. Funny, and a bit sad, at being ashamed of your country's leader. I'd probably get more positive reactions from a picture of Chairman Mao on my wall. 23 months to go.

Through some quirk of German (Bosch) bureaucracy, I find myself in the position of being a design engineer with no design tools. 5 weeks into the job, I still have no Unigraphics license which is the primary modeling and drafting software we use. It all started out with me (in November)explaining to the department manager that I didn't want him to treat me like an intern (drafter) because that made me a damn expensive drafter. He assumed from that I didn't want UG, which I still need for part design. It beats a napkin. From there I started work in January and requested a license through my supervisor. Nothing happened and we had to follow up with Timo Weiler (which is a pretty cool name if pronounced properly). Timo initially just said no, which set all of us thinking "Who the f*** are you anyway?" Further prodding produced what the department manager had said. Fortunately, the department manger reversed himself and said "make it a priority" and had to say it twice because Timo forgot. "Priority" apparently means two days as I was just told, as I sit here and type, that it has been made so. Let's see about that.