Ok, We’ve been slack…
Having spent the last few weekends doing things like updating the website (why?? Because I could 
Don’t you think it looks good??) its been a little while since we have actually added content so here goes.
After a period of slackness on our behalf about 2 weeks ago Vilija calculated that it is roughly 5 months till our wedding next year. At first I thought that was wrong, maybe it was calculated using the American date system (5th of April) instead of the normal system (4th of May) but in fact it is right. This lead to a renewed effort on our behalf to get things organised.
In our renewed efforts we now have 3 wedding related appointments tomorrow. One with a tailor for Vilija’s dress, the other two with photographers. We are at the moment tossing up whether to invest in a video for people who can’t make it. Undecided, we are doing preliminary investigations into it but I am afraid of having a video that could be entered to Funniest Home Videos if done poorly. If anyone has any thoughts regarding this, please leave us a comment below so we can hear you thoughts.
The other wedding related event for the week was that on Saturday morning we had our first pre-wedding course with the priest who will perform the ceremony. Not knowing what to expect from “Love School”, as Vilija calls it, we went in with open minds. Well, we left knowing significantly more about the bible than either of us knew before. For me, ‘something’ is infinitely more than I previously knew. We can now tell you that the book of Genesis was written in two parts with a best estimate of around 800 years between the two. We are now waiting with baited breath for the next class.
The other news for the week was that I spent 4 days last week in the south of Italia. As the project that I am working on slowly progresses (now due to events out of our hands it is looking like the finish date is somewhere between 6-12months after the original estimation) time came to visit some suppliers. My colleague Tony flew down to Brindise on Sunday night to see the site for another project. I followed on Tuesday morning. Leaving early I flew into Bari, an important town on the Adriatic coast south of Roma. Tony met me there and we drove to a town called Foggia where the two electrical board suppliers are located.
The first supplier was something to be seen. It was enormous and full to the brim of boards. Mostly for the same client as ours and given that electrical equipment normally make up less than 2% of the total projects value the amount of work being undertaken at the moment is huge! This company also had a semi-automated facility including laser cutters, test equipment and modular boards.
The other supplier is more similar to what I have experienced in Australia. A smaller outfit with boards that are predominantly hand assembled. This supplier is also handling the automation and human-machine interface programming work as well. We spent 2 full days with them going through issues.
From the little that I saw from the countryside is significantly different to that around Genvoa. It was flat, dry and covered in olive trees and small vineyards. The amount of olives that must be produced in this area boggles the mind.
Finishing up at Foggia late on Thursday evening we drove north westwards towards Roma for our meeting with our client on Friday. Given that we left so late it was a little disappointing that we couldn’t see anything other than the autostrada (freeway).
At a stop for dinner we entered the roadside store to the sounds of a singing animated Christmas tree. It was motion sensitive and sang to welcome all new clients of the store. Sitting there eating my muffin I realised what the worst job in the world is… Product Development for the “Animated Christmas Tree Company (ACTC)”. Imagine, working all year listening to this stupid thing and then trying to work out how to make it better (is that even possible???).
The week ended well with our meeting with the client going well. In fact, all in all, the week actually reminded me why I enjoy engineering. It can be monotonous sitting at a desk for long periods. The project is something a long way off that only exists on a couple of bits of paper and ideas in your head. Once you get to see it in growing (all be it slowly) at suppliers and having detailed discussion about how it’s going to work there is a greater sense that we are actually achieving something.
The other news is that we have decided to look to going to Roma for Christmas. As such, we have been reading up on it in our guide book and trying to find a good hotel for a reasonable price. If anyone has stayed in one, or knows of one, please leave any recommendations below.