Leaving

One of my cutomers, M., is leaving the project and location. He´s been in this project from the beginning and pushed it forward 'til the last days. We´ll gonna miss him! He wasn´t only very enthusiastic, but also kind of fatherly. A genius, too.
Hehe. Just the other day I asked him if it was safe to put a can like a coke-can in the suitcase, that´ll be in the planes´ cargo hold or if it might burst due to pressure? Is there pressure-regulation where the cargo is? I remembered that poor cuban man who tried to flee in a plane and died ( he did hide on the undercarriage). I asked him since he´s a doctor in physics. He didn´t think it over and gave me an answer, noooo. He went through it with me, like a teacher! :-)
One of our projects is a B2E-thing, a portal for the employees. We wanted to give him a good-bye there. We all signed a paper which I then scanned (my "glorious" idea) and also wanted to take a pic of our team to put it there, too.
Somehow... ;-) his camera is gone. So I brought mine. Since it isn´t allowed to take it inside (my customer wants to keep information...), I left it in the car and we all went downstairs to take a pic outside on a sad november day.
I was one of the first to be at work. Third parking lot, right beside the door. Parked backwards. Everyone could see - no one said a thing like, "hey, I know you are not good in parking a car, well done!" - no one (and they do know!). As if this was normal... Well. To them, maybe, it is.
So. "Against all odds" there will be a good-bye-snack today (he is a little... well. He´s a real genius, do I have to say more?). Aw. We´ll miss him.
I hope he likes our good-bye-thing in the portal.**

btw: This is also my last day at work for this year! I´ll stay at home tomorrow, pack my stuff, (go to the gym), go to my family and hopefully get the new, blue, glasses, go to Ingo, do some more packing... and Saturday we´re off to Perth. Well, Frankfurt, in the first place. Then Singapore. Then Perth. Awww. Beaming. Has someone yet invented that? Pleeeease...

Hehe. Ingo´s grandmother smiled brightly at me last weekend and said, "do I get a car over christmas?" :-) Yes! In her backyard my car is always safe, every holiday :-)
She is over 80 years of age and never learned to drive a car but every holiday she seems to be happy to have my car anyway!


**He did. Though at first he didn´t see it. Ts :-). We put a teaser on the starting page, starting with his name - I just put that online and already 40 people had clicked it - are they all named like him? Curiosity... doesn´t kill anyone in this case :-)

Christmas

I just got my first christmas-presents :-)
My friend started this the year my father had died, to make this time of year easier for me: I got a self-made advent calendar. And I made some in return since then, for her, as well as for my mother and brother.
This Year it´s just a little smaller. And I am "allowed" to open mine before we leave:-)

When you are young...

...you take so much for granted.
I saw a documentation the other day about getting old.
It was quite encouraging.
One woman said, she has "no time to die" and a daughter said, "my mother lived 'til the day she died".
I hope, I will do so, too!

An apple a day...

I bought a cutter for apples, a real good one from Fackelmann (german, and this is a banana-cutter...).
It divides the apple into eight slices (for these 4 words (divide into eight slices ) we have one word, achteln! ;-)...) and cuts out also the stones. My customer and friend was really interested in how this works, or if (it did).
My colleague was even more interested! I just had cut an apple for demonstration for my customer and said, next one, tomorrow. My colleague asked me to call him then. I said, ok, do it now, but then, also eat it up!
Nah, he´s allergic to apples.
AHA? Why the interest then? He wants to see if it works.
Yesterday. He asked if I join in for cantine (no, thanks - fish-day). "But don´t cut the apple while I´m away!"
Funny, this real interest!
I called him later and let him cut the apple himself. My other colleague, wo sits opposite me (we don´t see each other due to the 4 old, huge monitors), came over and at least she tried a slice.
Is this a "man-thing", to see if it works, even though he will never have a use for it? Funny! :-)

Fear

I hate living alone sometimes! While being under the shower there was a noise as if someone came into my apartment with a loud bang.
I got so scared!!! My heart raced!
Ingo certainly has keys but is far away. (And he would have called he´s there!). A friend here in town has keys, too. Probably also the concierge. None of them would brake in my apartment like that.

It was the neighbours from above; guess they move out or something.
Darn. I got so scared! I hope there will be no bad dreams again.

News

My town was in the news on TV again. In Cremlingen near Brunswick the production of chocolate-easter-bunnys has started ( we don´t have christmas time yet!!!!)!
They said, too, well, maybe we get white easter - white xmas doesn´t seem to be an option (I know better this time, though!). 4 °C too warm in average this month.

I remember my Mom building a snow easter-bunny with me in the garden when I was little (anytime else would be freaky! ;-)...)
I even remember a pic of it. Gone, sadly.
So. We had weird temperatures before. Maybe no reason to be worried?

08.11.1997, my town was in the news, too (german).
"Wetten dass" a popular family-show where weird bets are carried out. Will the Braunschweig Lions (first time German Bowl defender that year) manage to prevent a tram from going? "100 years against 100 legs" the motto was. The power car had a weight of 13 tons, 20 million people watched, even Kent Anderson was there, David Hasselhoff said our team will succeed - and sure they did, our those times "MIR" (men in red).
Where was I, I can´t remember...



(Pic "borrowed" from the offical site).

Reactions

I don´t know why I feel so uncomfortable. I´ve been in Perth before. I´ve travelled with Qantas before.
The first time I went to Australia, I´ve been together with Ingo only for six months - I should have been way more nervous then!

I went into architectural offices, asking for a job. At times that were really hard for this industrial sector. Did the same in IT-companies, it was no problem.
I would be a wrack trying this now.
I thought one would feel more comfortable over time, not me...

I´m anxious, nervous - though certainly I look foreward so much to come to Perth again. I even dreamed I got the chance to stay in Perth (what a chance!!!!!). I was allowed to get back to my town to arrange all the necessary things like sign off the apartment and so on. In my dream I got so homesick my heart did hurt. I took my camera and took pics of really everything in my town.
Why do I dream something like that?
I love holidays, I love heat, I love Perth - so calm down! Be happy!

Chirping

06:15 a.m.
It´s dark. Not too cold, though. A (one!) bird is chirping.

Aw. This is odd! We have November, we´re heading for winter, not spring!
We´ve been at Ingo´s friends on Saturday and in their garden plants are starting to develop buds.

It´s a sunny day, it´s weird.

Friday

I went to my doctor again. Since the earliest date is 09:15 I took the whole day off.
Did some homework, went to the doc, then into town, to the gym, back home, in the car, to my family.

My brother and me went to do some shopping. He had repaired my glasses and I needed a proper cotton-towel for cleaning the glasses.
We stood at the cashier. My brother said, „and never use fabric softener for these, they leave oily parts.“ Me: „I never use fabric softener – do you?“ The cashier girl tried not to look and tried to hold back a grin – sure, she thought we are a couple (and if so, I´m quite sure the woman would explain to the man...).

I looked at her and said, „we are siblings.“ - She laughed in relief and also the man behind me suddenly had a big smile in his face, my brother said.

Funny Thursday

Thursday on my way back home from work - Traffic Jam at the red lights. I have time to look around. There is a sign in front of a restaurant:
„Gutbuergerliche Kueche –
deutsche Kueche
Sonntags ab 09:00 Uhr
Brunch“

Brunch?! That doesn´t sound much like gutbuergerlich (bourgeois ) or german...

Next I went to Wal*Mart to give a crate of bottles back. It was heavy and especially unhandy . It was work to carry that. From the other side a man came to the entrance. He had heaps of crates in his trolley. When he reached me he stopped, looked in my face, smiled and said, „come on, put it in here, too“ :-)
How nice! I thanked him four times, I guess, and smiled all the way home. Another friendly local :-)

I then went to the gym. On the way back, it was dark already, I stopped at the red lights and saw two police-cars with emergency lights on, also at the red lights. I got a little scared – do they search for someone dangerous? Where will they go, is it safe to cross the street. I did and then saw what the police was there for – a demonstration. But all I understood was „... for everyone...!!!“ I couldn´t understand the rest – I really tried!

I locked the bike and went to my car to fetch a bag for my recycling stuff. Crossed the street and stopped cold – a girl/woman on her bike drove on the pavement and it was easier to stop for me than for her.
She gave me a big smile in return and said, „thank you very much!“ :-) I only wish she had her lights on...

Man I was hungry! Put the pan on the stove, grabbed an egg from the fridge and... didn´t manage to open it...

I remember once I wanted to peel a cooked egg. I hit it on my kitchen table – it was raw. (Ingo did all the cooking and I hadn´t understood his way of sorting...) Do you know how the white of egg glues on a plastic blanket?
This time it was the other way round...

DLS - reasons?

I just read on about the reasons for such a huge debate pro/con DLS (see my last post) -
Wikipedia says "Opponents claim that there is not enough benefit to justify the need to adjust clocks twice every year."

And that sleeping patterns are disturbed. No reasons to me.

"It is also noted that much effort is spent reminding everyone twice a year of the change..." it goes on.

We are "reminded" of so much senseless stuff and that´s ok? The morning "news" informed me the other day, the 007-actor was thought to be a sissy. Reminding that former 007-actors had been more like a hero.

I am glad we have DLS. Just wanted to add this. The article from Wikipedia sure is worth a look.

"DLS - it´s on!"

I just read that it´s December 3 for daylight saving for WA, too (news.com.au/perthnow).

This sure is great news, considering we will be in Perth for three weeks only - that´s 24 hours we got on top, so to say :-)

But I don´t understand - why this debate, what´s the big deal?

I can´t remember not having this (we got it "back" in Germany in 1975, time didn´t mean much to me those days ;-)...).

But it seems to be a big deal worldwide.

Btw - we call it summer time and winter time - which suggests which one is better - at least I feel way better in summer!

Why is it such a big deal? Are you happy or unhappy about it?

Gaps...

In Natalija´s blog I "found" her new design-project which is really very well done, I think. She worked with The Disability Services Commission and ACROD on a poster that should make people more sensitive in regard to disabled people, have a look:

This Christmas give the gift of respect - No Permit - No Parking.
I also liked this idea very much:

"It's my handicap, not your handy gap"

It´s really sad that people with no disabilities have to be reminded not to use parking-areas declared for specified groups.

As far as I remember the fine for illegal parking on disabled or aged-areas were quite high (in 1999), from $1000 up to $4000, at least were there is tourism.

Crisp

I went into town yesterday to buy our football-tickets for the next season.
It was really crisp outside so I ended up buying candles that smell like chocolate and cinnamon and I bought some hot chocolate, too (though usually I don´t like sweets much - but the weather was just right). The sky was clear and you could see the stars.
There is the first chritmas decoration in the city...
In the City Point mall they build a really huge plastic christmas tree, I got nearly sick from looking up...

Back home I wrapped up the christmas-presents. Not too early; I give them away before I go on holidays.
I really look forward to our holidays. But it feels odd not to be with my family for christmas.

Bellybutton

Henry, the lion. Again???? Yep. Ingo saw him at Wal*Mart. I had to take him with us! Who has a stuffed lion with a bellybutton at home??? (Click to enlarge)



ME! :-)

Cute!

And I just bought this one, too: Soooooooooooo cute, too. See. He´s on alert and friendly and happy. Yep. That´s us. Brunswick people.



Oh, yes, sure – if you pop in here by accident: I live in Brunswick – Town of Duke Henry the Lion.

Brains

Sad thing: I don´t have a neurologist as a friend who could explain to me how this one works:

We have to take our fuel-receipts to our company ´til the 20th of every month. Somehow it´s just my colleague (female!) and me who collect and drive there. :-(
It was my turn.
I delivered the receipts of everyone – exept me! I got the sick certificate, my tax card and that was it. My receipts were still tucked neatly under the sunshade of my Polo. As mentioned one of the secretaries called me upon the wrong sick certificate and I said, I knew and bring the (stupid) fuel-receipts in the next days, too.

The next days???? Today!

Argh. Finally November is really here. Bad weather. Mondays are bad always anyway (when I´m not with my partner). Argh. Get the push-bike and drive into town in this weather on a Monday (no parking available during work hours)?

Later. Went over to my customer (and friend – who just started this way of living, too. Her boy-friend lives in Bremen now. Some 200km away – more than we have). We talked about work-stuff and got into chit-chatting ´bout our weekends.

Whilst talking concentrated (me!!) I somehow got the following (not so very exeptional) solution: Don´t take the bike this evening, but stop by at the company next morning. This early there is no chaos yet. I just stop the car, put the stupid ole fuel-receipts in the mailbox and that´s it.

I could literally kind of feel/see the idea form in my head whilst concentrating on something else.

Nice thing my brain can do this. But how? Answers???

Can you feel your thoughts forming sometimes?

If so, please let me know.

If you happen to be a neurologist, please tell me how!

A sad comedy

„50 first dates“ with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler – stated as a „love comedy“. I just (Monday evening) zapped in (I usually don´t like romantic comedys, but didn´t know it was one!) and saw a very sad movie.
A fisherman and his grown-up-daughter are driving on the road when a cow brakes free. They have an accident and the daughter lives every day like there had been no accident from this point on – she cannot remember. She can remember the actual day and that´s it.

There is a man who falls in love with her. Who tries so much to change her brains situation. At one point – he worked with videos that show her that they know each other, are a couple – she leaves him ´cause she wants him to lead a normal live (she has a diary now).

He goes away, but her dad put her loved music as a present for him. Her dad had said one day, she sings only on days she met him.

So he concludes she does remember somehow and hurries back. She lives in a hospital now and since she was a teacher for art, has an atelier.

He hurries in, calling her name. She looks up – and seems to remember! Takes him to her atelier – she painted him after she dreamed of his face every night – over and over again, making his face look more real with every picture.

He says: „You are the woman of my dreams – and I happen to be the man of your dreams.“

Next scene: Another video-tape. She wakes up and puts in in.

Again: The accident, how they met and – oh, it´s cold outside. Take warm clothes before you come to breakfast.
Which she does. Outside: Him and the 5-year-old daughter. He says „Say hello to your Mommy.“ And it´s normal for the kid that her Mom cries everytime, astonished to have a kid. A husband. Lives on a boat.

Why do they state that as comedy????? It´s so sad! If this was for real... so sad – for all the three of them!

Not a nice Monday evening for me. Missing Ingo even more.

(ok. I could have zapped someplace else. But then I also wanted to find out what happens to those two...)

Yum.

We went to El Gaucho yesterday night :-) For the last time this year.
We had steak with roasted bread (as always). Delicious (as always as well)!

The family at the table next to us had heaps and heaps of chips - in such a good restaurant they order chips!!! And so much! Well. They don´t have place for the yummiest meat then. We did :-)

Good girl...

The secretary just called me. She whinged I gave her the whole sick certificate again and that she, again, has to send it to the insurance company.
Good girl...
If she had told me the first time, I would have done it right the second time! Not letting me know I did something wrong and then calling me with such a tone! If I get sick again I will have to ask someone which to give to whom. Have never been sick before in my working live (ok, once - but that was in my holidays); how am I supposed to know this stuff?

What is said

... is said - I just had to laugh my head off :-)




The customer in my office is leaving this project (and office). He invited the team, from our company only one person showed up.
My colleague and me didn´t go either. It wouldn´t have been honest. He is really a nag!

Anyway. My other customer, who is also my friend, had been there and e-mailed me "This has to get out...".
No, nothing urgent.
A short report upon the good-bye-meeting and another work-meeting.

Now, the following is all between my customers:

Work-meeting: M. (male) started: "I am really sick of getting hot apples for others..."
There is a saying "to get hot potatoes out of the fire for someone else"

Potatoes, not Apples :-))) It´s typical for M., often I had to oppress some giggles :-)

One from our team fell off his pushbike badly, the wrist is broken in a complicated way. Anyway he came to the goodbye-meeting and so the subject went to health insurance.
M. said he is privatly insured. N. (female) replied "REALLY?! Does that pay off at your age?"

Ups. She looked like she really wanted to take that back...

Later on, M. said he is thinking about buying a hairtrimmer and have his hair shortened by himself, since that´s cheaper as going to the barber all the time.
N. thereupon: "That suits some people, but not you with your rather bulky face."

Ups....

Good thing I wasn´t there... I would have cracked, laughing!

Oh. Did I mention the two are actually good friends? :-)))
Too funny.

My friend closed the e-mail with "obviously it wasn´t her day :-)"

Think so!

Last for today:
P. "Ohhhh, have I told you I have my new car?!"
me "no!"
P. "I have my new car."

Good that the weekend starts now :-)

Record

Yesterday we had a new record in Brunswick - the warmest 16.11. since 1895 (german). And also September and Oktober was warmer than usual.



Here in Wolfsburg a man found a May beetle (german) - a full-grown one! Never had one been reported in this area in November!

Is this global warming? Man-made or still a natural cycle?

Lights on!

So I went to another doctor this morning. In the city, so I went by push-bike.



Noo... mine isn´t so fancy (but I love the pic).

I went into this huge house with real huge stairs. A lot of space. Just two doctor's practices in there? Sterile. I went upstairs, had to fill out a form was sent down again.

Soon the doctor came, an elderly man. He asked questions, felt my thyroid, said, "hmm, lets see if we have to x-ray, follow me".

I grabbed my bag where my lights for the pushbike lay upon and accidentally switched it on.

He exclaimed enthousiastically "Finally!!! A biker with lights!!!!" I really didn´t expect such a reaction from such a calm man :-)
He said, this morning, again, he nearly hit two bikers ´cause they had no lights on.

I don´t understand those people, they play with their lives. My lights are flashing, front and rear. I want to be seen.
Well. I had the doc on my side :-) And x-ray wasn´t necessary, they did another blood-test again.

Well. Now I have to print all the good tipps I got for my visit to Perth (yes. Print them. No internet-access from home... oh, and I take the list on my memory-stick, too. But sometimes real paper is more comfortable for me...). And then I overwork my list this weekend.

This really was a short (working-) week! Happy weekend, every one :-)

BTW ... I certainly forgot the marge yesterday. Have a yellow post-it here to remind me today...

Just one day apart

... Ingo said yesterday. Right, only today we don´t see each other - tomorrow it´s Friday already :-) I should take two days off more often! (Considering I still have about 30 hours work overtime, it doesn´t sound like such a bad idea! Not to mention the 27 days I have left for holidays this year, though we´ve been to Cuba three weeks this April...).

Yesterday a movie was on TV. Also starring Walter Sittler. I think he looks a bit like Ingo in several years :-) By googling a bit I found this fan page. Funnily, when asked what he would change, he said "decrease hecticness".
Last Saturday we´ve been to Ingo´s Grandma again and she said, she´s worried upon Ingo´s hecticness.

Looking alike obviously doesn´t mean being alike - or will that come with age?

Age...
I´ve been with my family on Tuesday. My brother was instantly with me when I said, I wanna have a Pizza da Nico.
So we went... just to find out "Tuesday - day of rest" - awwwww. Don´t they know this is typical for Monday???

So we went to Da Franco to pick up a Pizza there - no comparison, really! Strange was the feeling when my "little" brother paid for me! He can get as old as he wants - guess he´ll always be my little brother! :-)

Here are the pics his proud sister took (you can click to enlarge):

My (little) brother, the goldsmith:



My (little) brother, the optometrist:



He wants to make me new glasses (well, I want him to...) I can wear as sunnies as well - with a fancy blue color - I hope he manages before I go on holidays!

No milk today...

Well, no marge today, at least! (Sorry if you have the song in your ear now - I have it, too....) Since my fridge nearly burned down the other week I took the marge here to work. And forgot all about it over the long weekend. Yesterday I bought bread and cheese - and found out - no marge.



(Well, I do have marge at home. Due to the incident at WalMart the other day. I bought, amongst other things, marge. The man in front of me at the cashier was very slow with packing. The cashier-girl didn´t care and put my stuff just in line. When I came home I couldn´t find the marge and thought that man had taken it. I went to a store round the corner and bought new one. Came home and saw the poor man didn´t do no such thing as stealing marge. The package had fallen in my other bag... But since it´s good ´til mid-January I am too niggardly to open it up - can´t eat it all up).
So I´m here now with my rather dry bread.

Have to remember to take the marge with me when I leave...

Xmas roast apple

That´s my yogurt for today. But it´s not right. It´s nearly 20 °C, the sun is shining bright! Is it spring again? What about the nasty, grey weather for November?
But, well. That way it´ll be easier to switch to the summer-weather in Perth for christmas.

Will there be mulled wine? ;-)
I couldn´t find any Gloegg (the swedish one) at Ikea Perth though.... I still have a red and a white one at home. Should still be good, it´s two years old now. Yuck! Imagine to have a hot mulled wine in summer...

Will there be christmas-markets in the city?

Will Santa Clause ride through town on a Harley? That was the case in 1999 - but we left on the seventh of December and missed it. On Enjoy Perth I couldn´t find anything to that yet.

I´m really a bit excited already...

What to do in Perth

I did some research for our three weeks holiday in Perth. Have I forgotten something? Or are some of the points not really worth a visit?
Help would be more than welcome - we have only three weeks there!

We´ll be in Perth from 04.12. - 28.12.

These are the places to go, so far:

Kings Park
Subiaco Station Street Markets
Subiaco Pavilion Markets
West Australian Museum & Old Perth Gaol
Swan Bells Tower
Caversham Wildlife Park
Allan Green Conservatory
Perth Fire Station Museum (closed at the moment)
Royal Perth Hospital Museum
Perth Mint
Horizon - The Planetarium
WA Medical Museum
Perth Zoo
Heirisson Island
Aquarium of Western Australia
Aviation Museum
Midland Sunday Market
Telecommunications Museum
Claremont Museum
Museum of Childhood
Fremantle Prison Museum
Maritime Museum
World of Energy
Round House
motor museum
Wanneroo Carpark Mar
Cottesloe Beach – or (an)other beach(es)?

And, if the offer is still on: Visiting Rodney at Sonshine fm/for a bbq.

If someone else wants to catch up with us - would be great :-)

Elmar's in the Valley - Where you can enjoy the tastes and sounds of Germany. – No :-)

Shopping Centres – which are good ones?

Where do we get yummy pies?

Do you have "insider"-tipps?

Oh, and I found out that there is another Brunswick just approx 150 km to the north of Perth! We never hit it since we always took the highway. But if there is time, we sure are going to have a look!

Weekend (´s not over)

On Thursday I bought a Harley Davidson for Ingo. The couple I bought the Moped from made sure that it´s safe, that you don´t fall with her.

I then told them, the one who´s getting her is over 40.

A penny for the look they gave me :-)




So we have another item for my other blog.

On Sunday we went to my Mom´s place for lunch.
She said that since we won´t be here for Christmas (the first time ever I´m not with my family on this date!) she makes a goose now. Together with curly kale. It was soooo yummy!

Though I felt a little bad. My Mom did choose a rather bad date for a lunch like this - it was Martinmas and there many people eat goose, so she had a hard time finding one for me...
It was great and my Mom (and Ingo) look quite happy:



I took two days off work to find the places we want to go to in our holidays and pin them to our map. I hate doing this stuff but it´s necessary... At least I have two days off and am with Ingo (as soon as he comes home from work) :-)

The Emperor is there

Ingo has some webspace. Actually we wanted to put part of our lives there. Then came the blogs...
But now I took the last three weeks´ workday-evenings and startet a new site anyway. If you like to have a look, here it is: Emperor Schelzel.



Why "Emperor"? Well, that´s my last name, "Kaiser", see the connection. Oh, and, certainly, Schelzel is Ingo´s last name :-)

I´ve just started this stuff, but I´m on it. If you have tipps to make it better, please let me know!

I´m in now, too

Ok, I don´t really belong to those who have the Golden MasterCard, but:
I have a personal Goldcard now, too!



Ok. Wíthout joking, it´s a good idea of the german post-office. It´s called "Pack-Station" (german) - whenever I order a parcel, it´s not deliverd to my apartment - where I am not while the postman is working - but to this station, which happens to be just around the corner.
I have a card and a pin and that station is open 24 hours 365 days a year. I get an sms and can fetch my parcel - finally :-)

No more trouble like in the past. My last parcel goes to my Moms place and I have to wait ´til either my brother brings it to Ingo or Ingo fetches it from my family´s place and brings it to me.
Why so complicated? Easy. The people I know in my town are not home during the day either, due to work.



Well, for now I´m off for the weekend, taking the looong way to Ingo´s place (not long ´cause of kilometres but of traffic... argh...).

Happy weekend :-)

My last minutes?

Yesterday I went to the neurologist due to the problem of sometimes nearly fainting. I was called in immediately. I had a short chance to look around. Small room, big armchair, a pc. I took place in that chair and the next moment my glasses were removed.
The assistant put wet sponges on my wrists and fixed them with clips that had wires.
A strap was put around my head. Another underneath my chin, more wires... I felt like being prepared for the electrical chair!

Obviously some people do freak out ´cause the assistant told me, it won´t hurt, to stay calm and so on.

I had to close my eyes most of the time and when getting the command to open my eyes, I couldn´t see much.

Wasn´t my last minutes and everything is fine with me from the neurologists´ point of view.

But I had to think. If I had to choose to let go of one of my senses - sight or hearing - what would I give away?
20 minutes without sight was tough. And I guess my ears weren´t much of help.

Those are the moments when you realize how lucky and happy you are to have all the senses necessary for a really good life!

Good, weird laugh

So I brought toast to work today. Some toasted, some not. And marge. Why?
We tried the toasted one without marge.

I don´t wanna affront anybody. But... I guess you have to be born to like Vegemite - or not.
It wasn´t just salty. It tasted like .. it wasn´t good anymore.
We tried with marge, too (the two of us who were left over to give it another try at least).
It may be healthy. It may be yummy - but the last point for australian people only, I guess.

We had a good laugh around tastebuds here, though :-)

We really tried to T A S T E - how often do you do that so carefully, so concentrated? (Would just have been more rewarding if the tastes would have been better).
We should do that more often, taste things more concentrated, I mean ;-)

Well, my colleague said, he´s glad he knows about this stuff now.
And that he wants to try again... maybe.

Do australian people really like this stuff? If so - what exactly is yummy about it?

Help, someone?

So. My colleague got his vegemite and said he didn´t like it. He forgot to bring bread for us to give it a try.

What should I bring to work tomorrow? Wikipedia says toast - but we have no toaster here. Toast it in the morning at home or not? Or take rye bread? Use marge or not?

Ikea

Ingo bought a new shelf at Ikea. Last year I fell in love with the red elk but thought, nahhhh, that´s for kids and too expensive as a joke.

But on the other hand - with 30€ he is as expensive as a visit to the cinema - where we never go since the tallest person always sits in front of me. And the loudest person right behind me. The one with the crisps just beside me. Always. Garantueed.. So we never go. So I have the money left.

And so here we are, on the floor like every Ikean:



The elk:



Lots of fun riding him:



Not for kids only!

Service Hotline

*I love it*.
Friday two weeks ago I called Qantas regarding our Visa who had not arrived yet. After listening to the announcement that all places are taken and that this message will be repeated in english, after listening to some stupid music and listening to the announcement that... for 0,12 cent per minute...
A friendly woman told me, everything is just fine, the Visa are on their way.

I did the same thing again now. All places are busy, as usual.

Finally! A friendly woman is on the phone.

Telling me, no, there is nothing to be mailed - it´s an electronical Visa.

Thank you.

Really.

Poor kid

These people from Sweden called their child Google and even gave him a Blog. I dunno...

Gone fishing

I took tomorrow off work. I´m going to do some household stuff (get my winter-clothes from behind my closet and put the summer-clothes back there, tidy up and try to get the burned smell off my fridge - again).

I´m changing this ugly black keyboard and the two monstrous monitors against my bazoo keyboard and my two nice TFTs and against internet, unfortunatedly, too.

Happy weekend, everyone :-)

Quick - close the door

I went to the gym yesterday. What a difference to last week! I went in a T-shirt on my push-bike "back then". Yesterday I got my winter-jacket but forgot to search for my gloves.
It was freezing cold!
On the way back my fingers got numb and I really had a hard time to lock my bike in the backyard that was just lighted from the moon. At least the sky was bright in this crisp air. I went round the house to unlock the main door. At the same time a dog with no leash turned round the other corner and looked at me. I saw no person around.
My fingers were still numb and it wasn´t easy to get the key in the lock.
The dog stopped, looked at me, came very slowly nearer, stopped and started to snarl.



And it wassn´t such a usually friendly dog like this one. It was a mean-looking pomeranian. No attack dog, but he could hurt me.

I tried to stay calm, managed to force the door open - the dog followed quicker and started to bark aggressively. He smelled or felt that I was afraid. And this darn door isn´t easy to close; it has a mechanism so it closes slowly and smooth. I needed some power to shut it quickly enough.
My heart raced, my hands trembeled.

And then it struck me - what if the dog "lives" here? What if he waits for me and attacks? Is it wise to use some pepper-spray? Or can the holder make me pay the vet if the dog needs help after such an attack? I still have no insurance.

Would the dog remember me?

What is the best way to avoid contact?

Blessing in disguise

Last Thursday morning. I opened the fridge to grab my lunch for work and thought, man! This smells burned!
I was on the run. Felt if it was warm inside the fridge, which it wasn´t. I went outside, stopped, thought, better turn out the fridge? Nahh.... I bet I surmised that smell. I went to work. One hour one way so I was away for ten hours!
I came back, everything was ok, I grabbed my sports bag and headed off to the gym.

Came back after another two and a half hours, opened the fridge-door - WOW! I took the power off immediately.



Friday morning I grabbed my luggage and headed off (to work and then) to Ingo for the weekend and was back on Monday evening.
On Mondays I don´t feel good, I miss Ingo and all I do is sit in front of the telly or shuffle around with something.

Yesterday evening I finally cleaned the fridge, or, let´s say I tried to. Twice with detergent, once with disinfectant. Then I tried to get the bulb out since Ingo supposed that might have been the problem. Wrong direction? I tried the other way but again after one and a half time turning it got stuck. I crawled into the fridge.

Man... the access cover had melted down to the bulb!

I have no insurance what so ever. My apartment could have burned down if it hadn´t happened on Thursday but on Friday, Saturday or...

That´s really "blessing in disguise"! And I think I´m gonna get an insurance now. The fridge is the only thing in my apartment with the power on when I´m not there. But I take it as a warning.

Does anybody know how to get a "fridge-insurance"? ;-)

I take Friday off and try to give the fridge some more "treats". My kitchen still smells burned - good thing the smoke detector didn´t set off!

In situations like this I really do hate living alone in the week! A (fire) man is needed in this household and not only every second weekend!

German Light or Lumière?

My historical-based calendar told me this morning it wasn´t the brothers Lumière who presented the first public movie but the brothers Max and Emil Skladanowsky (german) in 1895 in Berlin. The quality of the so-called "Bioscop" (german) wasn´t as good as the Lumières´ technique - but they were the first ones (two months do count, hm?). So, french people... this one goes to Germany after all ;-)