He has a seminar today in Munich so he will work today and tomorrow here. We plan to drive to Regensburg this weekend since we have no work/school on Monday. Hopefully the weather is brighter because the entire week has been dreary. The news around here is the there is still no chancellor for the German government. (BTW there were errors in my last post about the election system. Will add postscript later…) Some of the automaker companies are cutting jobs: VW and Mercedes. BMW is in good shape according to the papers, but according to Alex, BMW has suspended creating projects with all consulting firms (except ASKON) in the meantime. This has made it difficult to execute a new job in Munich. It’s hard to say when/if this sluggish economy will bounce back, but it is disconcerting that the automobile industry, which has been Germany’s strength, is making shifts that could be construed as negative. Can people here learn to work for less wages here?
I also read something interesting in Der Spiegel about Amphibious Houses. Apparently, engineers from Louisiana and Texas are looking into the engineering design for the river dykes located along the Maas and Rhine Rivers in The Netherlands. They are also looking into existing houses designed to float in up to 5m (~15 ft) of water. The houses are built with long steel poles to guide the houses up and down and have feed lines for gas, electric, water and sewer. The article suggests that this could be the future for coastal communities with the growing concern that the global temperature is rising as is the sea level. I am not convinced that the construction community in Florida will buy into this idea even with the rise in the frequency of hurricanes in the last several years, but I think it is an interesting example of our ability to adapted to a changing situation.
OLD COMMENT:
hey, nifty border around the pix!
Posted 9/29/2005 at 8:41 PM by pingtogo
OLD COMMENT:
interesting… about the floating homes. as for FL, i doubt we’d go for it until every dry acre is utilized. we still have a lot of beautiful wetlands that can plowed over to build subdivisions. and golf courses. ok, sarcasm aside, i’m not exactly for that idea. i see more pollution into our waters if we started living over them.
what does alex think will get the economy moving again?
Posted 9/29/2005 at 8:41 PM by pingtogo