Geneva Car Show

Here are finally some more pictures from my 2 job as press at the Geneva Car Show.  The work was for a US based company that were looking for a few local people with the time and energy to go. My assignment was to go to the vehicles assigned to me, and photograph them at over 300 different angles each. It was actually quite exhausting.  People were climbing in and out of them constantly and it was hard to get pictures without people in them.  I even had to get pictures of the chassis and engines and got strange looks for booth attendants in the process. Another pain was the car models. Oh yes - the models would lay on the car, hang out by the doors, and sit in the driver's seats. They seemed mad that I was more interested in photographing the steering wheel controls then their legs. I finally learned the real reason for car models at the show. If there is a model on the car, the more attention that car gets. There are more photographers and people oggling the goodies (the car's and the ladies) when they are there.  The best benefit of the car show was the press lounges. VW by far had the best lounge, and I hung out there a lot. How can you pass down free drinks, appetizers, and desserts? I also frequented the Kia and Alpha Romeo stands for a tea, coffee, and champagne. There were a few really fancy press parties at the Citroen and Renault stands that I couldn't get into. Anyways, enjoy the photos! 

A really cool display and a classic mini. 

A sign at the Mini booth and a huge plug at the Volvo booth

Concept car by Dacia with a bike inside. The Mini booth with a really cool ice cube theme. They had a fabulous bar and DJ at the booth. 

View from the VW Press Lounge. Partial overview shot of Car Show. 

Hanging out in the press lounge. With drinks and food. Yum. 

The VW Press Lounge. To think this is a temporary structure is amazing. 

The sleek Alpha Romeo press lounge. I had some champagne. :)

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Hillary's Here!

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in town! She is meeting with Russia. I wonder where they will be? The UN?

Here's a news article - WRS "Spirit of Geneva"

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Today's News & Politics

News Story #1: UBS refusing to hand over names of people from America with bank accounts in Switzerland.

Thoughts:

How much money is in secret off shore accounts here? Millions? Billions? Gazillions? Maybe they can compromise and just hand over names of people with accounts (or sum of accounts) totalling over a certain amount.

If I was a rich person with off shore accounts, I would be ashamed of myself. People are suffering because of the financial crisis. If you are rich and hiding money, you are contributing to their suffering. They probably already live crazy luxury lives, why shouldn't they pay for their fair share of taxes?

Switzerland is in serious risk of being blackballed in the global financial system. Tax evasion can't be tolerated. The swiss "rules" need justification. The laws shouldn't continue to be the way they are just because they are laws. Rules and laws should have good reasons. But, there are always two sides to the coin. Right now, switzerland, by helping extremely rich people, is hurting those who are suffering and could benefit from the money instead of it sitting in a bank account.

Gordon Brown, thanks for standing up and saying what needs to be said. Sen. Levin, thanks for standing up to UBS.


Links To Learn More:

WRS Story

Bloomberg Article

UK Gaurdian Story

Washington Post




News Story #2: CA High court listens to opening arguments in the Prop 8 debate.

Thoughts:

Finally, a court case and a court trial. We all knew it was going to come down to this. Thousands of people across CA held a candlelight vigil last night to rally in hopes to spread awareness and attention that the trial is beginning today. Rob and I plan to listen to the webcast tonight. I think this issue is a simple one.

Protect minority rights and do not let religious values dictate laws for everyone.

If either of these two ideas are broken, we will have inched closer to majority and religious rule. Do I need to explain further? Maybe. But I think founding fathers of this country can do it much more eloquently.

Here is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about majority rule:

"Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:318

Here is another simple thought. America is a republic and we elect leaders to study the issues and create laws. The mass of people in America do not have the time or the intelligence necessary to create laws. One person can be smart, a crowd of people is always dumb. Therefore, I don't want uneducated people voting on my basic human rights.

I could go on and on about how much I really want religion to stay out of government. The answer always boils down to this one thing. People are scared to die. Instead of facing this fear, they fill their head with a religious story (fairytale) that tells you "your never going to die in mind and spirit". With this fairytale, in order for you to prevent death and suffering, you have to follow these religious "guidelines" and impose them on others. NOT COOL. Recognize that your religion should have nothing to do with others. Keep it out of other's lives. Forget about me, save yourself and we'll both be happy.

Sorry, need to stop ranting.

I would love to hear your comments on this one. I am always up for a good debate.

A Funny Post CA Election Sign

Get it? Let's not do either.

Links to Learn More:

LA Times - Candlelight Vigil's

Mercury News - Calif. Legislature supports gay marriage challenge

USA Today

And for fun - an intresting Dilbert Blog thread. Some people get it, some people don't.

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Yearly Supply Of Cheetos

Thanks Dad - for sending me a year's supply of Flaming Hot Cheetos. :) I complained about not finding them in NYC a few posts ago, and of course my Dad just had to send 11 bags of them! It cost $45 to ship! He's a nut, but I love him dearly. Fun fact - 11 bags of cheetos is 5 lbs of calories! I better moderately eat these!

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Geneva Auto Show - As Press!

What I'm up to this week - being "press" and taking a ton of pictures at The 2009 Geneva Auto Show! What a great job I landed - two days - get to see the show I was going to anyway - and free juice/coffee stands for the press. Here's a teaser of some pictures I took anyway. More about it later! I'm exhuasted from climbing all over seats today.  

The Auto Show Guide

My Press Badge

Funny Concept Car

Renault "Green" Concept Car

Overview of Hall 5.  There are 7 halls! 

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Electrical Stove Fire!

Rob and I have a pathetic stovetop consisting of two electrical burners. It is so small we can't fit two pans next to each other without one coming up onto the dials. Hence, we try to keep things simple in cooking and use our little toaster oven when we can. Yesterday at the Ferney-Volatire farmer's market I bought a three dozen little neck clams. I have been wanting to make a fermented black bean clam dish since receiving the car package from my parents. Tonight was the night!

Everything started out okay. The rice was steaming on front burner and the clams were steaming away with the lovely fragrance of ginger, garlic, and black beans on the back. I started to see odd smoke that wasn't steam rising from the countertop. At first, it didn't seem like anything unusual. With an electric stove, often there are little bits of crumbs that burn off the bottom of pans or something will fall out of the pan and smoke up on the hot burner. This smoke was different. This smoke was coming from underneath the counter and I called Rob over to check it out. I picked up the pot of clams and stood there holding it. Rob immediately turned off the burners and heard a "Woosh" from under the counter. Did the fire go out when the power got turned off? When we opened the cabinet, a big cloud of awful smelling smoke billowed out and we opened the windows to let it out. The rice wasn't quite done yet, and we let it sit on the residual heat of the burner till dinner was ready.

We have written our landlord to see what we should do. We vaguely remember her saying to please call a plumber if the toilet is stuck since she would obviously do the same. And we agreed to not call about the little things. This doesn't seem like a little thing. This seems different. Anybody know tenant/landlord laws in Switzerland? I am not sure if we are responsible and have to replace it. It's not like we did anything unusual and abused it. We just wanted some black bean clams!

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Complaint Letter From A Swiss Neighbor

Rob came home from work yesterday and found a little note left on our front door. Our neighbor downstairs is obviously not happy with us being up later then 10 PM. The note says they are sleeping so they can get up and go to work. Also that we have heavy feet stomping around after 10 PM. I was home all day when the note was left, why didn't they just knock on the door? Not that it would have helped anyway. They would probably just blabber in French and I would stare and say "Uhuh" then "Merci". I also noticed it is typed on a typewriter on a piece of graph paper. It isn't handwritten like you guess a neighborly complaint letter to be. Oh well, the swiss love their rules! I guess this comes in the package of city living in Geneva.

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