lurking

I recently upgraded from my first handheld GPS (a simple etrex; no maps) to the oregon. What a difference in usability! It is true that the screen is not that great in direct sunlight. I use it for hiking/geocaching or in a car (upcoming off-road trip to Namibia) where I can always shield it with my other hand. Then it´s OK. If I imagine it mounted to a bike´s handlebar or a in a paraglider/hangglider that could be a problem. If you go for the oregon go for the 300, not the 400 and save some money. The only difference is built-in maps and there are a lot of free (legal) maps out there you can install. Thomas (Germany)

If the Hondas they sell in the US are not completely different cars from the ones they sell in Europe your car will be fine. Here in Germany a lot of cars are driven at these speeds routinely. I commute my 25 miles at 100-120 every day in VW Golf. I will not say anything about the the legality or safety of doing so on a US freeway ;-). Do they really sell cars with tires that are only good for

I have been to the Maldives several times for scuba diving. There are currently 2 companies using twin-engined seaplanes to take tourists to the resort islands after landing at Male International. It´s quite an experience. Male international is a modern airport with a very long runway that accomodates everything up to a 777. It´s practically built into the ocean (see attached). If you want to avoid a long boat transfer to your resort you are then taken by bus across (!) the runway to the seaplane "airport". The bigger company alone has about 20 twin otters on floats. The flight si something special for every aviation enthusiast. Most pilots are from Canada. They traditionally fly barefoot. Off-season the planes are flown to Canade for major checks. Thomas Germany

Just yesterday I opened a "business" xmas card in my office. Now I have "artifical snow" (tiny bits of something that looks like styrofoam) on the carpetry of my office. Who in his right mind sends such a thing to a (rather remote) business contact?

At the risk of sounding like a smart-ass: There is nothing strange about calling a girl Mercedes (a rather common Spanish first name). It´s in fact the other way round: The car brand was named after the daughter of a business partner of Daimler/Benz. Her name was Mercedes Jellinek. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes_Jellinek

I learned long ago to do it with a lighter (although I don´t smoke) or various other tools and objects. I have now transferred this skill to the office environment. OK; it´s rarely beer, but I do get strange looks when I open the litte bottles of mineral water we have during meetings and such with the top of a hole punch, a highlighter pen or other office equipment. I am surrounded by people who would not know how to hold a screwdriver...

I´ve seen these buses on the Autobahn. They come from a city not too far from where I live here in Germany. If you look closely at their website, you´ll realise that the name is indeed FÜCKER (with the infamous German "Umlaut"). They just replaced the little dots on the U with these fancy wings. Indeed not very well thought out. What´s even worse: It´s the familiy name of the owners. International travel must be fun for them...

That dream gal would have a 90/60/90 figure over here in Europe. Sounds good enough to me...

I love this: Hey, my fortune cookie says: "Help! I am kept as a prisoner in a fortune cookie factory!" ...That´s probably old, but I like it... Thomas

In fact, the D stands for Germany and the first letter of the rest of the reg stands for the class of aircraft. the I indicates an aircraft with more than one engine and an MTOW of 2,0 - 5,7 tons. The other letters are just coincidence (although some owners pick the letter to form a word) D-Exxx would be a single engine under 2 tons D-Kxxx would be a motorglider D-Mxxx are ultralights D-Axxx are airliners over 20 tons and (most importantly, at leastfor me as a glider pilot) D-1234 are gliders/sailplanes Thomas edited because I had the D-Axxx wrong

Well, over here it´s 90-60-90 and it looks just as nice (although it´s about half an inch less then 36-24-36)...

No offense meant, but... For a European it is hard to understand, that a civilized country with a strong economy can have people running around with no health insurance. Over here, if you have any kind of job, it´s compulsory and is deducted from your pay. If you are married with children and the wife does not have an income, wife and kids are covered by the fathers (compulsory) insurance. If you are unemployed, insurance payments are taken out of your "unemployment support", if you are retired, it´s taken out of your pension. Nobody runs around (or even drives a car or skydives) without health insurance. You might say it should be somebody´s choice to get insurance or not (land of the free, you know) but taking that decision and then relying on the ER at the taxpayers´ expense does not seem to be fair to me. (Is this thread really still in bonfire???) Thomas Germany

Now that the event draws close I would like to repeat the question I already asked last year: Any dz.com-regulars attending this event? I hope I can make it there to watch (although I know nothing about skydiving...) Bye, Thomas

You have obviously solved your problem. But for reference I will contribute my solution. I use it a lot for situations where I have started a spreadsheet with Dollar- or Euro-amounts and only later figure out I want it done in thousands of Euro or Dollar. This solution permanently converts the amounts and does not use any extra columns, sheets or files. Here goes (please note that I am in front of a German excel version and translating the commands. They could be called slightly different): - Go to a single unused cell and enter the value you want to divide by (in your case a 4) - Still on that cell use the "copy" command (Ctrl-C) - Highlight the cells in your price column - Use "Insert Content" (or whatever it may be called. It´s the command under the normal Insert-command in the edit menu) - In the box that appears choose "divide" on the lower right of the box. This will permanently divide all cell values in the highlighted area by the value you copied. You can now delete the cell where you put the "4". There is no reference to that cell. Hope this helps somebody...

Hi! I just realized that there will be a major skydiving event here in Germany next year. The venue of the Worldgames 2005 (The "olympic games of the non-olympic sports") will be in Duisburg,Germany and the landing zone is not far from my office. Although I am not a skydiver myself, as a glider pilot I´m interested in all kinds of airsports. Do any names in the list of participants (see URL) ring any bells here on DZ.com? Does anybody know where the aircraft will take-off? The landing zone is not at an airfield! http://www.worldgames2005.de/en/sportarten/trendsport/luftsport/ I´m looking forward to being a spectator and see competitive skydiving for the first time. Note: Skydiving is the only airsport that made it into the event. It´s classified under "Trendsports". CU there, Thomas