Outsourcing to the Philippines

Chemetco decided to outsource some computer work to a company in the Philippines. Most of our IT staff was pretty chuffed about it and acted like those folks didn't exist. My thought was that since they were on the payroll, we should give them something to do. So I gathered up the old programming bugs that nobody wanted to address, and faxed them to the Philippine crew. Mario was OK with this but the result was that I sort of ended up in charge of them. They were good, hard workers so that wasn't a problem; the problem was communication. The Philippines are 14 hours ahead of St. Louis time. So if we wanted to talk, someone had to stay late. One of the perks of being the outsourcer instead of the outsourcee is seniority: they were the ones who had to stay late. But that didn't solve all the issues; they had one phone line. We could either fax or talk, but not both. So we all agreed that the fax machine would stay plugged into the phone line most of the time, and if someone in St. Louis wanted to talk to them, we would fax them a request to unplug the fax, plug in the phone, and stay late. Awkward, but they never complained.

They got a lot of those old code bugs fixed, but we had some explaining to do; there were bugs in the system that were so old that at least one major program could not be complied on the new compiler. Anytime we changed code in that program, we had to uninstall the current compiler and install the old complier. And while the old compiler was on, we had to make sure nobody compiled another program. Then, after compiling and checking the code, and after making sure nobody was compiling anything, we had uninstall the old compiler and put the new compiler back on. This presented endless opportunities for a screw-up, which we made the most of. That was kind of embarrassing to explain to the Philippino folks!

Eventually Chemetco decided to bring someone over from the Philippines for some face-to-face training. They sent us a likable and hard-working woman named Luci Bacar.  Randy and I set out to show her a few of the sights. We took her to St. Charles Old Town, where we all enjoyed going through the antique and thrift shops. 

Another time we took her to the St. Louis Arch. Lucie was impressed with the big stainless steel frame

but of course, the view from the top was much better!

It was winter but we didn't have any snow yet. One day when I was driving Luci around, it started to snow. Big fat fluffy flakes, the kind you see in a Disney movie. And Luci, who had never seen snow before, leaned forward in her seat and stared, open mouthed and starry eyed, at the beautiful sight. 

Later, near the end of the week, another programmer from the same company came over. Ray Trinidad also took some training with us. 

Galilean Children's Home in Kentucky

The church we attended, Alpha Chapel, supported the Galilean Children's Home in Kentucky. Randy and I had heard a lot about the place, so one summer when the church was planning a work trip there, we decided to go. 

There was a little prep work to be done, mostly in the matter of dress. The Galilean Home is run by an ex-Mennonite couple who, although they left the Mennonite church in order to run this home (it requires a lot of electrical appliances) still abide by the conservative dress of their faith. For girls, that meant dresses. Which some of us didn't have. But we all got something (I picked mine up at Goodwill) and car-pooled down to Kentucky. 

On arrival, a lady named Rosie (below, in the blue striped dress) ran up and enthusiastically hugged each one of us! She is older than us but mentally quite younger, and she is the unofficial greeter at the home, simply because she loves to hug people. Right behind her was George (in the white striped shirt). He also likes to greet people, although he doesn't run down the road to do it, as Rosie does. Soon they were joined by one of the teenagers at the home (on the right), a sensible young man whose story I never learned, but I believe he was here for just a short time.  Our teenagers weren't quite prepared for this but they quickly learned to fit in.

This home (and that's what it is, not an institution) is the result of Jerry and Sandy Tucker's love of children. It led them to adopt a lot of children, and to help the ones they can't adopt. They travel abroad to bring back children who need surgery they can't get at home, provide the surgery and give them a place to live until they are strong enough to return. They take in severely handicapped people who cannot care for themselves and require 24 hour care. They take in abandoned and abused children, and mentally challenged people. They do everything without accepting any government grants, which could require them to make compromises that their faith will not allow. They make things work on gifts from churches (including their Mennonite associates, who understand exactly why a family with 50 or more children need washers and dryers) and fund-raisers, such as an annual quilt auction. They are careful stewards of every gift and don't seem to spend anything on themselves. Jerry and Sandy still dress in simple Mennonite clothes, drive a very old car that holds lots of children, and live in a simple room that is part of the general dormitories. This is their family, not a business. 

I spent my time, with several of our young ladies, doing laundry. They have a row of donated machines that are always busy, and they appreciated us taking over for the day. They also have several babies here now, so we took turns cuddling a few of them in the laundry room. 

One of the teenagers there, Abdul, lost both of his hands to a land mine in his native country. We found him to be polite and hard-working, and to our surprise, fully able to whup our guys in basketball!

This is an amazing place. These people live their lives in service to the needs of others.

Our teenagers had never imagined what some of these people went through, and I think it made a bigger impact to meet teenagers here. I hope it makes a lasting impression on them, to understand how much they have, and how they can make a difference. 

Trouble coming home

Monday, March 23 - We got up at 5:30 to be sure we weren't late, and left for the airport before 7.  We ran into some traffic but still got to the airport by 8:30. But then we learned that our flight to New York was delayed due to a problem at the New York airport - we heard that a plane slipped off the runway (later we learned it was US Air flight 405.) We had already let our ride go and we needed to be on hand to be ready whenever the airplane could leave, so we waited in the airport until 6 pm. We received 2 lunch vouchers for meals, and bought a small crystal sculpture in one of the gift shops.

Eventually we arrived in New York around 7:30 (NY time), which was way too late for a connecting flight. TWA put us up in the Travel Lodge with a $20 dinner voucher, which was just enough for 2 sandwiches, chips and sodas. We went to bed just before 11:00 but it wasn't a restful night. So we got up at 3:30 am and caught the shuttle to the airport. Unfortunately nothing was open for breakfast, so we just waited until our flight left around 7 am. We arrived in St. Louis around 8:20 am (3,662 ff miles). Some of our luggage was badly torn, so we had to report the damage before we could leave the airport. It was a rough ending but it didn't take the shine off of our great trip!

Last day in Belgium

Sunday Mar 22 - We drove to Antwerp again. I loved the golden niche over the doorway of the Stadfeestzal (City Festival Hall) on Meir street. This used to be a government building but it's been converted into a shopping center. Seems like a better use to me!

Trams run throughout much of this area. We didn't take one, although we would if we lived here.   

We were here today for the Antwerp Market. It was a lot of fun walking around the market; they sell clothing, meats, vegetables, candy, dogs, birds, and some interesting junk. I bought small crystal pendants and lace runners. Randy really enjoyed the free samples at a meat booth; eventually he bought some meant and bread. We will both miss this!

But we had to drive back to the apartment, stopping at a service station buy chips and soda for a quick lunch, then spent the rest of the day packing the suitcases.

A day trip to Delft and Amsterdam

Saturday Mar 21 - Randy and Jim went out early and bought pastries for our breakfast. Then we drove to Delft, a cute friendly town. In a junk shop we bought 2 copper pans. Then we enjoyed walking around the town. Randy bought a lot of kitchen utensils from a very nice kitchen shop. For lunch we got some hot frits with mayonnaise from a street vendor - excellent!

Then we drove on to Amsterdam. Amsterdam is sometimes called the "Venice of the North" because of all its canals.

As usual, we just enjoyed walking through the town. Since this was Amsterdam, we eventually went through the Sex Museum. It's not as racy as one might think. 

At the end of the day we drove back and had dinner at the "Dead Llama" (or Delorna Zona, as normal people call it) - croque sandwiches and soup.

Hurrying home

Friday Mar 20 - We had breakfast at the hotel, consisting of ham, cheese, rolls, pate, etc, and it was pretty good.  We had to drive all day to get back to Merksplas, so we got lunch to go at a Burger King (where Jim got a little testy when the staff didn't speak English), and later we stopped a truck stop for dinner.

Salzberg

Thursday, Mar 19 - Randy walked through the city of Salzberg, while Jim and I went on a city tour. We went though a shopping district and found Motzart Square. Austria is very beautiful and the Bavarian Alps are gorgeous, but everything is expensive. 

The Salzburg Cathedral is a white beauty. It's been rebuilt a couple of times, and this version, from the 17th century, is beautiful. It holds, among other things, the baptismal fount which Mozart was baptized in. 

From the river it looks quite different. Her two towers still show up, but so does a large dome, which is not visible from the front. 

Anif Castle, located beside an artificial point, is so perfect looking that it has been used in several movies, including "The Sound of Music".  

I didn't get the name of all the building, but there are some amazing ones here. 

Jim and I skipped lunch and went on a bus tour up the mountains to see, from the road, the Nazi headquarters called Eagles' Nest. 

Then we went on a tour of a salt mine. The tour started with a mini-train ride that went down (a very long way) into the mine. We got off the train and watched a documentary film, and saw examples of the tools used in salt mining. Then we got onto a small slide that went down to an underground lake. That was a bit spooky, but it went just fine. Everyone got on a ferry that drifted slowly across the lake, with the cave roof just a little bit over our heads. I'm surprised I didn't freak out, but it was interesting enough to avoid that! Then we took another train ride back up to the surface. 

Back at the hotel we had clear soup and cheese dumplings for dinner.

Don't speed in Czechoslovakia

Wednesday 3/18: We paid Ruth 20 German marks per person per night, then headed towards Salzburg. Jim was driving, and unfortunately he was speeding. More unfortunately, he got caught. None of us spoke Czechoslovakian or German but the officer made us understand that we could either pay a fine now or appear in court later. Appearing in court seemed like a bad idea to all of us, so Jim opted to pay the fine. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough Czechoslovakian money - he was one koruna short. Across the language barrier Jim kept trying to get the officer to accept the amount he had, while the officer kept raising one finger and saying "Ein", which is German for "one". He wanted that extra koruna. Eventually we agreed to drive to the next town, go to a bank, convert his cash into korunas, and pay the officer, who followed us all the way. When we left, Jim and Randy agreed to let me drive until we got out of the area, because I had a reputation for going under the speed limit; they both had other reputations.

The mountain road was full of hairpin turns and the guys had a hard time putting up with my overly-cautious driving, but we soon crossed into Germany. When we crossed the border we stopped almost immediately to go shopping at four crystal shops, set up there, just for tourists. We bought a crystal mug, marbles, candle dippers, a Christmas ornament, and a beautiful vase with an orchid design. For lunch we stopped at Aldi and bought water, cheese, smoked salami rolls, and chips. Then one of the guys drove us to Salzburg, where we checked into the hotel Steiglbrau. Randy and I ended the day walking around town and having beer and tea.

Poland in a day

Tuesday, Mar 17: We drove towards Poland, stopping at a truly terrible roadside restroom - it was a small bare room with a hole in the floor. No door to close or seat to sit on, and of course no paper. But by then we knew to bring little packs of kleenex with us everywhere.

We passed an old airplane which had been converted into a bar, then crossed into Poland where there were long, curvy roads and snow. In the first Polish town we came to, we exchanged $100 for 1,300,000 zlotys. I was driving at that point, and I accidentally drove on the sidewalk, trying to get back to the highway. But we made it out OK, and went to a larger town called Wroclaw to look around and shop. They run some old street cars in town. I'm not sure if these are supposed to be historic, or if they are the latest technology here...

I later learned this big yellow building belongs to an insurance company. I wish we could have seen the sign in the dark - it has a little neon burgler sneaking up from the right.

 We passed the Renoma Shopping Mall, which could use some work. 

In one store I admired the local round fur hats, but couldn't imagine a time or place to wear them. Like Hawaiian leis, they don't translate well to the Midwest. I did buy a couple of rings and Randy bought a watch. We felt comfortable walking around, but couldn't find much to do!

We bought a map and used it to find a "big" store, 3 stories high. In the store's downstairs, there was more aisle space than products. We walked through the whole thing; there were several meat departments, plus clothing and utensils. Lunch was a not-so-good Polish sausage and a hard roll. They had unisex bathrooms. We learned we were not allowed to take zlotys out of the country, nor could we convert them into any other currency. So we had to spend them! We bought a crystal bowl, a coffee mill and a big backpack.

On the drive back, we passed two enormous draft horses pulling a wagon on the road.

Back in Prague, we had dinner at the same restaurant as the previous night. 

Monday, 3/16 We fixed our breakfast at the apartment - toast with jam and spread, bad tea, bread and home-made apple strudel. Ruth and Evan had left us railway tickets so we took the railway to a shopping district. Czechoslavakia had a pretty good railway system. We went shopping and had little pizzas for lunch from a Bistro. After a while we needed to use the facilities; which is always a problem in Europe. We were in a department store so we headed to their facilities, where we discovered that use of the toilets was free but we had to pay for toilet paper! Oh well, any port in a storm.

Randy and I took a tour of Prague. This is where Randy took some video of the beginning of the tour, then put the camera down by his side without turning it off. We have about 15 minutes of video of the sidewalks of Prague! 

We saw so many beautiful things that I will never be able to keep them straight. And all of my photos are awful, because they are old photos that I converted, badly, to another camera. Oh, well. I loved the charming painted facade on a house on Wenceslas Square. I don't know if it's old or not, but regardless, it's wonderful. 

The Prague National Museum is housed in an impressive structure. 

And, like Spain, some buildings are amazing even though they are probably stores. 

As usual, the older buildings and ornamentations were my favorites.

In fact, the older, the better.

Although some of the newer buildings are very attractive, also.

This lovely building, called the Archbishop's Palace, is on Hradčany square.

The St. Vitus Cathedral is a gorgeous old structure, from sometime in the mid 1300s. I love the attention to detail they did back then!

We did some more shopping, with the weather changing every half hour; it went from clear to rainy to snowy. We bought a crystal vase and some lovely brandy glasses that I was afraid to touch, from fear I would break them. Jimmy bought a couple of blue crystal sculptures; he's a bit of a connoisseur. We headed back to the apartment where Jim rested, before we headed out to what we know as the  Charles V Bridge. It's a long, lovely bridge, and  picturesque as all get out on a foggy evening. And a our end of the bridge, we found a good and inexpensive restaurant!

A large Apartment in Prague

We got up at 7 and had breakfast at the hotel - ham, cheese, breads - before walking around Nuremberg. We toured the Imperial Castle of Nuremberg, but I didn't take pictures because Randy was filming it for us. Inside the rooms were mostly bare, which was OK with me - if it's not original, we don't need it. Each room had a large (sometimes floor to ceiling) ceramic furnace/heater, which looked more like a work of art than a functional piece. There are several paintings of the two-headed imperial eagle, including a very large on painted the gate door. Courtesy of Wikipedia:

In the Emperor's Green Chamber (named, I think, for it's gorgeous ceramic heater), the entire ceiling is painted with a huge 2-headed eagle, although the colors were reversed, so the eagle is yellow and the background is black. It's pretty impressive.  

Next we walked through Nuremberg. The Old Gate still stands, although it's more of a building than a gate.

The Frauenkircke church, standing in the marketplace, was built in the mid 1350s. It's still used and although we didn't go inside, it's supposed to be quite beautiful.

We stood outside, waiting for it's most famous feature to show off - a mechanical clock from 1506. The seated figure represents the Holy Roman Emperor, a position which I think basically meant "King of Germany". At noon the clock chimes and a row of figures representing electors march around him. 

And we found an odd statue of The Hare (Der Hase). It was created as a monument to Albrecht Durer, a native son of Nuremberg. It's supposed to represent one of his best works, a watercolor of a young hare. I have always loved that perfectly detailed watercolor. I think they lost something in translation when they made the statue. But I like it anyway!

We didn't go into the City Museum,  which is housed in a late Renaissance merchant's house, but we did admire the sun dial painted on it's exterior.

And we went through the Toy Museum, before getting lunch at a restaurant overlooking the plaza; I had soup with liver balls. I probably won't order that again. 

We drove on into Prague, where we had arranged to rent the 2-bedroom apartment of a short, dark haired Czechoslovakian lady named Ruth. Ruth was very proud of her large apartment, which she regularly rented to American visitors like us; in fact, we got her number from someone working at Metallo who had stayed there. When we arrived we found that Ruth had fixed dinner for us, with rice and chicken, a good homemade bread spread, and a not very good red wine. Then Ruth left with her friend Evan and we settled into the apartment. 

The apartment had a living room, a dining room, a tiny bathroom and an even tinier kitchen. The living room was the largest room; it just held 2 twin mattresses on the floor (more on that later) and had bookcases lining two walls, filled with bric-a-brac and useful items. The dining room was just large enough for a half table, two chairs, and a small sofa which provided any extra seating needed for meals. The kitchen, off the dining room, was so small that we could stand in one place and reach everything! One wall had very shallow bookcases, more like shadowboxes, which held most of the spices. The small water heater, about the size of a toilet tank, hung above the little cabinet top that held a small wooden drain rack, next to the very small round sink. The bathroom was a bit larger, but only because it had a shower. You could still stand (or sit) in one place and reach everything! And the two bedrooms turned out to be small loft areas, over the doorway between the living room and dining room. One was in the living room and the other one was on the other side of the wall, in the dining room. They were just big enough to hold a single narrow mattress. There was no way we could sleep there so we brought the mattresses down and slept on the living room floor. It was tiny but fun, and we loved it!

The story behind Randy's Nuremberg soup...

Early day today! Randy, Jim and I were up and out by 7:30, headed to Köln (in English we spell it "Cologne"). Along the way I learned that "Ausfarht" is German for "exit". We had some expensive coffee and tea in a coffee house before going to see the Kölner Dom, which is a huge, gorgeous cathedral. 

We walked around to look at the town. Each town we visit is so unique.

There was a bit of a chilly wind, so I took to wearing my neck scarf as a headscarf. Randy said I looked like a peasant girl!

Randy bought a garlic press in one of the stores before we stopped for a quick lunch: "brots" and "brok" and frits and beer, which was all pretty good. 

Then we drove to Nuremberg, where we checked into a hotel before walking around the local castle from the outside. The castle is really a group of medieval buildings. They are built along the lines of "circling the wagons", with the fortified outside walls of the buildings joined to each other to create a protective enclosure. The tall Heathen's Tower stands tall along in the middle of the southern wall. 

The Sinwell Tower (which means round) stands at the end of the enclosure, near one of the gates. 

It's pretty impressive; Randy and I planned how we would set up the courtyard, when we buy the place! We could have Jimmy over for BBQ!

That night we had dinner in a brat house, where they had good brats, but the star of the meal was a great potato soup in little copper pots. Randy ordered this but I didn't, because I don't like potato soup. He offered me a taste, and I liked it so much that I ended up eating most of it! Randy, being the sort of person who can do this, quickly listed the soup ingredients for me to write down, so he can recreate the soup at home. 

Start of our European Vacation - March 12 and 13, 1992

Thursday, March 12: We left St. Louis at 11 am, and got to New York at 2 pm (NY time), which got us 882 FF miles. At 2:30 we paid $9.50 for an hour-long shuttle to JFK airport. Our flight to Brussels, out of New York, left at 6:30 pm (3662 ff miles!).

Friday, March 13: Jimmy Baker picked up up at the airport. He drove up to the apartment (his apartment that he offered to share with us) to drop off our stuff,  then we all then to Metal  where Jimmy went to work and we took the car. We headed right back to the apartment; I walked over to a nearby Cash Fresh supermarket, then joined Randy in taking a much-needed nap!

Later we drove to Metal to pick up Jimmy. We went to  Wommelgen, an area near Antwerp, to the Sarma Star (a Belgium department chain store) and spent around $200 (6,720 frances) for utensils and chocolate. Then we drove to a friend of Jim's to get some maps.