Month: May 2007

Valencia: Louis Vuitton Cup: America’s Cup post # 4

Luna Rossa Challenge
Luna Rossa Challenge
Photo by Leggo Online

 

The LV Ranking link is the quickest way to be kept updated about the current rankings in the semifinals of The Louis Vuitton Cup.

Today at 15.00 hr the second flight will start in the best of nine match races of the LV Cup Semifinals.

Yesterday, in the first flight, USA team BMW Oracle Racing who have their own BMW Oracle racing Blog surprisingly lost its first race from the Italian team Luna Rossa Challenge 2007, probably because its 18nd crew member was the boss himself, Patrizio Bertelli.

The Kiwis Emirates Team New Zealand had obtained the right to choose their adversary from the other 3 contenders. They choose the Spanish team and won their first race.

The America’s cup is an excellent means of city marketing. The Cup itself brings a lot of publicity to Valencia and it triggers even more:

Port America’s Cup could become the second Formula One city circuit in Europe. The area of the Port will be part of the route that will host the first race of the 2008 season.

Bernie Ecclestone, president of Formula One visited Port America’s Cup Thursday (may 10), accompanied by Flavio Briatore, Sports Director of the Racing Team that is this year defending the world title won by Fernando Alonso in 2006. Both enjoyed lunch in the Foredeck restaurant within the Veles e Vents building, located in the center of the future circuit , due to be the setting for next year’s elite motor competition.

At the moment of publishing this post, 15.45 hr, and thanks to the (paid) live tracker America’s Cup Anywhere I know Emirates New Zealand leads and Luna Rossa leads in their respective downwind legs.

Added 23.00 hr: Kiwis an Yankees won!

Hotelier becomes fiction writer: A Five Star Mistery

Karin
Karin Schmollgruber

Travel Bloggers are becoming a sort of travel bloggers community of their own: They read each others Blogs, refer and comment to each other and exchange tips.

Karin Smollgruber is based in Austria. She She uses her German language Blog Fasten Your Seatbelts as a means of communicating about her PR business Passion PR AT.

On several occasions I have hinted to my interest in Vienna. Along the road I got her attention. Some time ago she tipped me that she had interviewed Daniel Edward Craig of Opus Hotel and that she started to post some posts in the English language. Since then she has written some interesting posts in English as well.

I didn’t have enough time to follow up on this tip till now. In doing so now I found out that I had not followed up correctly on my claim to keep my T-List Page as complete as possible: I had completely forgotten to put her site in.

I have corrected that now. To date the number of Blogs on my T-List is 180.

Returning to Daniel Craig:

Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig

Daniel is the General Manager of Opus Hotel in Vancouver, Canada. He writes his own Blog General Manager’s Blog together with Katrina Carroll-Foster, Director of Sales & Marketing of the Opus Hotel.

One of the reasons he is writing a Blog is that he is a writer himself and that brings me back to the tile of this post: The first thriller Daniel is in the process of writing of has the title:

Murder at the Universe
Murder At The Universe

Murder at the Universe, an imaginary hotel in New York City. According to Daniel Craig‘s writers’ site the book is will be released in June 2008.

Update: And here is my own interview with Daniel: 10 Questions for (41): Daniel Edward Craig

Last edited by GJE on December 5, 2011 at 4:44 pm

Valencia: Louis Vuitton Cup: America's Cup post # 3

Desafío
Desafío Español 2007.
©ACM 2007/Photo:Stefano Gattin

After today’s races, with one race to go in Round Robin 2, it is clear that my feeling expressed in this post, two days ago, was correct: The Spanish team Desafío Español 2007 will, for the first time for a Spanish Team, compete in the semi finals. The Swedish Team that, two days ago, theoretically could have matched the points of Desafío Español 2007, lost its race today.

Tomorrow will see a very close race between USA team BWW Oracle Racing and New Zealand team Emirates team New Zealand, because the winner of this race will end as first of the two Round Robin series an will have earned the right of chosing its first opponent in the semi finals.

Dutch Design (10): Massive new office for Europol in The Hague

Europol present building
Europol’s present building
Photo Dr Meierhofen (interesting wiki)

Europol calls itself “The European Police Office”. Its is the European Union Law Enforcement Organization that handles criminal intelligence. Its mission is to assist the law enforcement authorities of Member States in their fight against serious forms of organized crime. It has its main office in The Hague in a building that used to be a college campus.

There are plans to move the main office to another location in The Hague,
because of the necessary(?) increase of the number of international employees due to the influx of many new member States into the European Union.

Europol New 1
Marquette of New Europol office,
rendering thanks to the winning
Quist Wintermans Architects

The designated building plot for the new office is close to a residential area with a great monumental value.

Doesn’t look too bad. However, if I’m well informed that for security reasons the current plan is the same building, but 90 degrees rotated left which is far worse compared to this situating, because the residents in this Marquette situated in the lower left corner will only see the blind walls of the left building and of the highest building (The architect’s rendering cleverly don’t show the blind walls.)

Today the Municipal Committee that monitors the design of new buildings (and their impact in monumentally valuable environments) will have a public hearing, while about 300 near by residents have lodged protests against the building plans the massiveness of the buildings itself and the necessity of taking a lot of space for security measures. Just because of the heavy post 9/11 security measures around the USA Embassy, The Hague and the US ambassador recently agreed to move the Embassy outside the city center. This on its turn caused protests of the residents around the building plot for the new Embassy. Civil servants jargon for such protest is NIMBY: “No In My Back Yard!”

Europol New 2
Massive New Europol office,
Rendering thanks to the winning
Quist Wintermans Architects

Even the former state architect and a couple of influential Dutch architects have written an open letter to the The Hague Municipal authorities to urge them not to take this spot, or at least not to build the building that is anticipated.

Europol New 3
Another angle that the residents will not see!
Rendering thanks to the winning
Quist Wintermans Architects

At first glance Europol’s site doesn’t divulge a word about this plans except for this ancient press release. Probably, because they lack some corporate governance officers: See their job opportunities. Come on ladies and gentlemen, the salaries are -as usual with inter governmental organizations- on a very low tax base…. I find it strange, as in the past (well already about 20 years ago now) another intergovernmental organization, the European Patent Office with main seat in Munich, Germany and second important office in Rijswijk, a suburb of The Hague, attracted a lot of publicity with new building plans that eventually didn’t com through, because the number of European patent application all of a sudden decreased enormously.

Well we will see what the wise man will decide. Maybe they will rotate it back 90 degrees 🙂 “And they took a sip from their glass and left it as it was”

Air Suite: Suite in a Jet

Air Suite 2
Suite in a jet
Air Suite

Thanks to This is Londen Co UK we know that Jet Airways launches private suites in its jets commuting between GB and India:

Passengers prepared to pay out just over £4,000 for a trip to Delhi will get to relax in their own 26 sq foot private room, separated from the rest of the cabin with colonial-style sliding doors.

And at £1200 cheaper than a first class ticket with British Airways, it is a luxury service that the airline – dubbed the “Orient Express of the Skies” – is confident will prove popular with customers.

Each of Jet Airways’ Boeing 777-300ER aircraft will have eight of the luxury suites and the first flight takes off from Heathrow on May 5.