Markus’ Blog

On October 1, 2006, federal elections were held in Austria.

Unlike Canada, where there’s usually a minority government formed by the party who won the most seats, European countries have the tradition of entering coalitions with other parties to form a majority government — usually it’s two parties, but three are not unheard of either. (In case somebody is more interested in how it works, there’s a Wikipedia introduction into Austrian Politics.)

Needless to say that there’s a lot of negotiating going on, both publicly and behind closed doors. They are figuring out which items of which party’s program will be incorporated into the government’s plan for the next four years and which ones they are willing to compromise on. And of course, since this is happening now in Austria, the whole process often looks more like kindergarden all over again rather than adults trying to achieve something and foster change for the better.

Interestingly enough, this time around it’s the Conservatives (they used to lead the previous government and lost big time during these elections and are now in second place behind the Social Democrats) who seem to be very unwilling to join a coalition government as “junior partner”, even though they don’t just say that. Instead, they keep imposing conditions, making threads, holding negotiations, etc. From day one it seemed like they were mostly pouting that they lost.

Okay, boys and girls, let’s get on with it. Either you want to be in the government or you don’t. If you don’t, then say so and other options can be investigated. If you do, enter into (and stay in) constructive negotiations.

Don’t keep on stalling, don’t keep playing “hard to get”. You lost 8% and first place. That should tell you something. Say, “we’re not available to form a joint government with the Social Democrats,” if you don’t want to. It’s been a month since the elections already and negotiations have been going nowhere, so far. They haven’t really started, even.

The country needs a government, not kindergarden.

Brigette’s mom came to visit, primarily to take a wicker table with two chairs with her (we don’t have the room to keep them). We all just went to the mall yesterday, later we used our new pots to cook and our new Denby dishes to eat dinner.

This morning we finally tried loading table and chairs in the car — only to discover that the table won’t fit, no matter what we tried. Brigette and I, both, had doubts the set would fit in her car. However, Brigette’s mom wouldn’t listen and insisted that she had moved the set in her car before. So, now we still have the wicker set that we were so looking forward to getting rid of. Anybody interested in taking it? Nope, we don’t have a vehicle it would fit in, so we can’t “deliver”.

The rest of my day was better, pretty lazy and relaxed (Brigette ended up being pretty busy with school work). Some reading, some geeking out at the computer, a walkie exploring the neighbourhood and a short trip to Oakridge mall. All in all not bad.

Are we now in Jesusland or something? What did I miss?

Apparently, the management of Canada Post has no issues delivering homophobic hate mail, despite concerns by postal workers.

Canada Post says a controversial religious brochure that condemns homosexuality will be delivered to hundreds of homes in East Vancouver, despite the objections of letter carriers.

Management is saying they aren’t in the business of censoring mail and the pamphlet is legal, so they’ll deliver it. See CBC.ca (and other news sites) for more information.

Then it turns out that the same management refuses to deliver The Art of Loving’s educational newsletter about safer sex, because it contains words like penis, clitoris, etc. These are anatomical terms, people. What’s next? Censoring mail that contains the words hand, foot and arm? Besides, Canada Post, I thought you weren’t in the business of censoring anything!

Happy October 26, Austria, even though it’s almost over by now.

I’m sure everybody had a good time, considering that it was sunny and temperatures reached well into the twenties, which is quite uncommon for the end of October.

Now, that I am not living there anymore, I am wondering (more so than when I did live there), how it would have been like had the Soviet troops not agreed to leave in 1955… The Iron Curtain may have been instated a few kilometers further West — with me, my family and friends, behind it.

The lovely previous owners of our condo left behind a little surprise for us when we took possession of the place in August. In the spot where they used to have their BBQ, they had built a shelter from beer bottles and in that shelter was a mama pigeon with two eggs.

To this day we haven’t been able to figure out how it was possible for the bird to build a nest in a spot that used to be occupied by a BBQ and when and why they built the shelter for the bird. They did it after we inspected the suite, that’s for sure.

Anyways, it took a lot of effort and phoning around (on Brigette’s part) — the eggs had long since hatched — to finally find out that nobody can do anything about the birds, because the babies were too small. Wildlife Services said the best thing to do is to just wait till they are old enough to leave.

They did leave two or three weeks ago. But they didn’t leave without a trace. Our patio is now covered in bird poop. It’s litterally everywhere. There’s lots of it in and around the shelter, and not quite as much everywhere else.

The last couple of weeks now were spent trying to find somebody to clean the deck and see if there’s a way the strata would pay for it (because we sure as hell aren’t going to). Our property manager gave us the contact information of somebody, and we got a quote of $295 pre-tax (that’s $312.70 with taxes) to clean the deck. The strata said nope, they can’t pay for it. It’s between the previous owners and us.

Now we already know that the previous owners are poo-poo heads because they:

• Didn’t leave the keys in the suite on the day we took possession, like it had been agreed upon.
• A day after we found that out and complained, the keys were suddenly there, meaning they simply entered the premises without permission.
• When confronted, categorically denied doing so.
• Left the kitchen cabinets (and other areas) a disaster zone (spices and bread crumbs in the drawers, stove dirty), etc.
• Left us some pigeons on the deck.
• Completely ignored a letter we sent them two months ago stating our unhappiness with the birds and the dirtiness of the place.

All of this doesn’t bode so well and means that we’ll end up having to take them to Small Claims Court if we don’t want to end up with the bill. I’d consider it a minor miracle if they came to their senses and paid for it without being dragged before court first.

We are so going to do that, though, if we have to, because this is just bullsh*t. You sell your condo first, then (after all the contracts have been signed) you build a bird shelter for a bird that hasn’t been there before and you leave the new owners with a $300 bill to clean the mess up the birds made? I don’t think so.

Happy Birthady to my dad (who’s turning 60 today) and his mom (yep, their birthdays are on the same day). My grandma is turning 81.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!!!

Yay, we got our flights into San Juan and back.

15 DEC VANCOUVER 20:30           15 DEC SEATTLE   21:20  AS 2235
15 DEC SEATTLE   22:30           16 DEC ATLANTA   06:00  DL 616
16 DEC ATLANTA   09:30           16 DEC SAN JUAN  14:20  DL 565

29 DEC SAN JUAN  11:05           29 DEC DALLAS    14:25  AA 887
29 DEC DALLAS    16:25           29 DEC VANCOUVER 18:55  AA 2235

The flight there will be a bit of a drag, especially for me, who’s unable to sleep on planes. It’s not the worst I’ve done, though. That was a bit over five years ago, flying from Honolulu, HI to Vienna, Austria. Two conscutive nights on planes. Not much fun, but I survived, so I should be fine this time around, too.

The flight home is perfect, though. The ship docks at 7:00am, the flight leaves four hours later. By 7:00pm we’re back home (yeah, there are four hours of time difference between the Caribbean and the West Coast, so it does take longer than twelve hours from the time we dock).

Getting excited! It’s less than two months now till we leave.

As I read on Mr. Bill’s blog, the Bush administration is apparently so busy defending “freedom” that they now throw people in jail if they criticize its actions. Lovely. There’s an article about what happened. The New York Times has an article as well, but it’s not free.

Also, today seems to be the day the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will become law. Makes me very much look forward to my next trip down to San Jose in three weeks or so.

It’s just too bad. All the Americans that I have met so far and talked to personally were smart, nice, reasonable people. And I did meet quite a few. Yes, the stupid ones no doubt exist, but every society and every country has them. It just somehow seems the hardliners are having an easier time right now down South. Does fostering and taking advantage of fear ring any bells?

What else is there to say? We had Milani Plumbing install our kitchen sink and it has been one big disaster. Not only did it take the guy four hours to install our kitchen sink and faucet, it turned out today that he didn’t tighten one of the connectors of the drain enough. The result was we had a slowly dripping sink, leading to a nice puddle of waste water in our new kitchen cupboard.

We think the cabinets will be fine, but it’s SO frustrating to have such incompetent contractors. It took me all of 30 seconds to tighten everything up. Why can’t somebody who allegedly learned the trade do that?

GRRAAAAARRRR!!!!

I downloaded and installed a weather plugin on my blog. It displays the current weather conditions at YVR (Vancouver International Airport) in the sidebar. It’s usually a bit cooler at the airport than it is actually in the city.

I think I’ll create a separate weather page that shows more details some time in the near future.