Cheryl on the Web

I’ve got some work off this week and one of the things on my list is to get my last name changed to Tim’s surname. Generally this shouldn’t be too much of a chore, but I have to go to the consulate to have this done since I live in Germany. Yesterday I was reading on the consulate website, and it said that the Frankfurt consulate serves south-western provinces in Germany and that the Munich consulate serves Bayern, the southern-most German province, where we live. Munich is a 3 hour train ride from here; Frankfurt is 40 minutes, so I started to get concerned that they were going to make me go to Munich, which would cost 100 euro just for the train ride!

Luckily, there are limitations, even to American bureaucracy (apparently): I called the Frankfurt consulate and they said they didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t go to them. Now that’s the way I like it.

UPDATE, 19 January 2007: The American consulate refuses to give me a passport with Tim’s name because my name on the marriage certificate still shows my maiden name. They said the Dutch authorities made a mistake in marrying us, and that I should have it corrected. After 4 weeks of chasing the Dutch authorities, I finally got an official letter from them saying that they have no authority to change my name, only to marry me, and that to have them change my name I would have to sue them for a court order. Sigh, what now?

So, as I mentioned, we signed the papers for our new apartment on Friday! (Party!) One thing we noticed rather recently is that the last occupants must have been pretty heavy smokers because all the walls and especially the corners are a tobacco-brown shade (the walls are white..ish) So we thought, hmm, definitely going to have to paint pretty much the whole apartment.

A friend of ours recently had to paint his apartment when moving out (typical German-style rental agreement) and he said, never again, too much work, better pay to have it done. Well, tonight we got our first quote on the paint job for the new place - which includes the ceilings and covering up the creative red-and-white striped walls in 2 rooms - and it’s for EUR1000!!! So I’m beginning to think, hmm, going to paint it myself instead.

What do you guys think? Any tips on painting ceilings or covering smoke stains and candy-cane stripes?

I was traveling on business this last week so I’m now “resurfacing” into the world and onto my blog. (Still 46 emails to read!) Within 24 hours of my return to Germany, Tim and I signed the papers for the flat we’re buying (finally!!!!) and tried to finish up Christmas shopping.

We’re making lasagne for dinner tonight but it looks like I’ve screwed it up, at least for Tim - didn’t buy enough ground beef, replaced the traditional red sauce with vegetable sauce, and added fresh aubergine. The real test is in the eating of course, so hopefully Tim will still like it .. a bit ;) (more…)

Sorry folks, but this is going to be a back-to-back Tech Talk post because it is top on my thought list today. I spent the first hour of my workday today troubleshooting a problem with a web application I was testing. What turned out to be the root cause? Read on at your peril. (more…)

The pocket PC (PDA, handheld, whatever you call it) is generally a status symbol for those in the management echelons of an organisation. Today, I aspired not to those ranks but to the ranks of a geek: I wanted to pretend to have a pocket PC running on my computer so I could test out a few websites.

If you have Windows XP and want to do the same, read on for instructions… (more…)

My evenings this week were pretty much divided between my husband, my work, and Karyn’s blog (reference Blog Roll :) - not in that order unfortunately - and tonight is time for myself again! Not that I don’t enjoy all those other things but then, if I never update my blog no one will read it anymore :D

Unfortunately Tim had to work tonight, so after awakening from my slumber on the couch to answer Mom’s questions about Christmas shopping, and seeing the very end of the Cincinnati-Baltimore NFL (football) game on TV, I’ve taken advantage of my bachelor evening and devoted it to techie stuff. I won’t bore you less technical readers with the details but I have to leave you with my 2 favorite quotes from the book Dynamics of Software Development by Microsoft Press, on the topic of software development:

“More people have ascended bodily into heaven than have shipped great software on time.”

“Lurking just beneath the tidy, organized surface is a deep, rich psychocultural extravaganza.”