Italian Maths In English

Joke I received from a colleague a while back:

An Italian man wants a job, but the foreman won't hire him until he passes a little math test.

"Here's your first question," the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9."

"Without numbers?" the Italian says, "Datsa easy." And he proceeds to draw three trees.

"What's this?" the boss asks.

"Ave you got no brain? Tree and tree and tree makea nine," says the Italian.

"Fair enough," says the boss. "Here's your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."

The Italian stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree.

"Ere a you go."

The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99?"

"Each of da trees isa dirty now. So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, and dirty tree. Dat is 99."

The boss is getting worried that he's going to actually have to hire this Italian, so he says, "All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100."

The Italian stares into space some more, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, "Ere you go. One hundred." 

The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!"

(You're going to love this one!!!)

The Italian leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree and says, "A little doga came along and crapa by eacha tree. So now you gota dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, datsa makea one hundred.

So, when I'm a gonna start?"

Fuel Stretch

Something I got from work:

The 10-step programme to help save fuel

1. Drive smoothly, avoiding heavy acceleration or braking.
2. Change up to a higher gear as early as possible as you accelerate.
3. Keep your engine well tuned, check your oil and fix any problems immediately.
4. Make sure your tyres are at the correct pressure and not under or over inflated.
5. Keep your boot or back seat clear of unnecessary items that just add weight.
6. If you're not using your roof rack or roof box then take it off.
7. Keep your windows closed, especially if you're driving at higher speeds.
8. Always use the recommended grade of oil in  your engine.
9. Use cruise control on major roads and in free flowing traffic.
10. Turn off your engine in heavy traffic to avoid excessive idling.

Back to "Normal" Weather ... our snowman melted

Feb 14: Mik tried to fix the snowman's nose but was not successful

After more than a week of winter weather, Aberdeen normal weather returned. More snow was dumped all day Thursday last week even though it was not freezing temperature. No chaos on the road since the snow quickly melted away. Also everyone would probably get used to the snow after 2 weeks ... at least I would have thought so but the lady I met on Thursday disagrees because she dislike the snow. It has been getting "warmer" ever since with outside temperature of 8 degree C when I went to work today. Felt a bit strange (but glad) that I don't have to scrape any frost from my car for the last couple of days. Our happy snowman outside the house just could not stand the "heat" and getting shorter but not yet disappear.

Feb 15: Snowman's head fell off altogether

Feb 16: Upper body shrunk

Feb 17: Left with lower body

Escape to Stavanger, Norway

This is the third time that I visited Stavanger. The first time was more than 7 years ago when I was visiting a family friend with my wife. The second time was just last year in September or so. This time I was curious to see if the snow in Aberdeen will rival the snow in Stavanger ... and I was not disappointed. There are a lot more snow on the ground in Stavanger, though the 3 days that I was there were bright and sunny. Almost everyone that I met was talking about the skiing they did over the past weekend and planning of more skiing in the weeks ahead. Apparently there are very nice places to ski a short drive away from Stavanger.

Beautiful sunrise on Monday morning

Stavanger is much closer to Aberdeen than London. Flight from Aberdeen to Stavanger takes only 45 minutes while to London is about an hour. According to Google Earth, driving from Aberdeen to London will take 9 hours 38 minutes over the distance of 537 miles while driving to Stavanger will take 18 hours 35 minutes over a distance of 632 miles ... ? I guest sitting in a ferry crossing the North Sea from Newcastles to Stavanger can be considered driving. 
Like Aberdeen, Stavanger has a lot of granite. In fact there's several road with tunnels through the hills where I think they got their granite. Unlike Aberdeen, Stavanger buildings and houses are more modern, colorful and they are not made of granite. They seems to use granite to reclaim or flatten land rather than build buildings and houses.

Full moon on Monday night

Fountain in Breiavatnet in front of the hotel

Full moon above street light

Shops are closed but street was nicely lit

Harbour - there's actually swans following me

There's a lot of construction in Stavanger. I was a little late going to the office in Tananger this morning in the taxi due to heavy traffic. There was traffic back up at the road construction area and the taxi driver took a detour via Sola. When I was leaving the office today to go to the airport, no one was allowed to go outside for a while because blasting was ongoing and there was loud siren to warn people to stay away. The building actually shaken the moment the blast went off.

View in Tananger area

Constructions outside the building in Tananger area

For the 3 days that I was away, Aberdeen has not been snowing but having really cold weather instead with temperature dropped to as low as -15 degree C on Monday while Stavanger was just around -4 degree C. So I managed to escape the really cold temperature. When my plane landed in Aberdeen, however, it was snowing at the airport ... here we go again ...