We are moving and staying

It has been an exciting year. Launchpad turned 1 and we look back at an eventful year. The company has been voted into the top 10 of brand consultancies here in Malaysia (2008, A+M Malaysia). Business is moving ahead fast.

The Saffron, our place of residence, is slowly filling up. We can also see the changes around us. Sentul, which is known as the railworkers town, is slowly becoming a hi-end SOHO type thing.
We decided to stay one more year.

Christmas was a time to reflect and rest. We have not done much but lazing around.

Worst Airline: KLM

One flies and learns. We were sent to a fair by our client. The location was Duesseldorf.
KLM was the cheapest and was supposed to get us to Duesseldorf.

- Flight to Duesseldorf departed late, hence we missed the connection
- We ended in Amsterdam, next flight to D-Dorf 12 hours later, so we go to Cologne
- Naturally, you have to figure it out all by yourself, little help from the airline
- In Cologne, the staff did not know what was going on
- Eventually, 5 hours late, we arrived in the hotel

The way back:

- The first flight leaves earlier than scheduled - NO prior notification was given
- Then we learn that we fly to Singapore first, then to KL - NO notification given
- Total delay: 4 hours again, only 1 hour transit time in Singapore
- Compensation: Have to beg for it and figure out an obnoxious web system to claim

Rating: this has been my worst trip of my life.
Yes, flights are delayed and so on, but 2 times on one trip?
And the way they handle it??? Lousy!

Next year I fly Air Asia to Europe!

Cold in Germany

Nicole is running around Germany, taking pictures of everything that there is to photograph. Here a snapshot we took during one of our walks though the north-German forests.

It is not as cold as it should be. And raining every day. It is difficult enough to have some entertainment in a small place like Bad Muender (Does that explain the high number of drug consumers here??), but with rain...

It is scary to see half the shops in towns like Hameln or Bad Muender being closed, up for sale or struggling to survive. The German Government announced that the business world is vvery positive and that the economy is growing. Not sure if they are talking about the same country.

Off to Germany

We are hopping on board a KLM flight to Duesseldorf tonight.
For the next two weeks we will be in Germany.

Spike is with is buddies in Taiping. For the first time he got angry with another dog.
It is speculated that Spike doesn't know that he is a dog...

Nicole has pulled out all her winter clothes. After 3 years in 29 Degrees all year round it will be fun to see cold weather again.

The way to go down

In 20 years, I want people to post comments like this about me:

Is Stefan Pertz still alive? I remember him from the decline of western marketing:the Launchpad years.He was doing an interview in his swimming pool drinking Glenfiddich straight out of the bottle and his mom was also there.Very surreal!!

And round and round it goes

November: Hong Kong, Singapore and Germany.
Loads of travel and stuff.

Have to see if I still have winter clothes somewhere...

I see dead people

There are 17 road fatalities every day in Malaysia. Yesterday I was passing an accident with two motorbike riders being ran over by a truck. They bled to death on the spot.

Having spent 45 minutes to cover 2 Kilometers, there is a chance that the ambulance came too late. There were plenty of people just gaping at the bodies and people on the other rod side slowed to catch the sight of their feloow (dead) countryman. I have now seen more dead people on the road in the one year I am here than in my entire life before. The other day we passed this accident where a truck crashed through the barriers and straight into a car on the other side of the road. It was said the driver lost control over the vehicle. The part of the road is straight and flat; sun was shining.

Last weekend they stopped dozens of truck and bus drivers, testing them positive on drug abuse.