That´s life...

Plan was: Leave work really early, go to the gym, be back before Ingo is here.
Change of plan from Ingo´s side: Leave work really early, pic me up and go to Ikea to buy a new sofa since his is ruined.

Reality: Ingo called me several times thinking he can leave, but no. Someone fell ill / is on holiday... whatever (and again!) and he has to go out to the customer (not his job!).

Alas! So, here I am. Prepared everything for a very simple and boring but quick supper (instead of yummy Hot Dogs from that yellow swedish furniture store), expecting a very exhausted man.
Not a good way to start a weekend.
And it rains.

I only hope it stops raining for the weekend, because it´s Magnifest (german), a festival in the part of town called Magni. I missed it last year.

Must get better, because by looking for a pic for this post, searching for "raindrop" I found this, just beautiful, isn´t it?:

Scary sometimes...

Just last Monday (when Ingo was back at my place) we couldn´t decide what to buy for dinner. Somehow we came to the subject "Tomato-Soup from Campbell´s".

Which we didn´t find. When I shared flat with people one of them had an original Campbell´s can - he brought it from a holiday in the States.

We googled. And found http://www.campbells.de/ (german). When you hit the "Career"-button you really stay at Campbell´s, but when you hit "Products" - bang, you´re outta there and back to... Erasco (german). Yeah, the ole green Erasco-products. We were a little disappointed.



And now for the freaky part. On Tuesday I did my grocery-shopping for the rest of the week (my company provides us with vouchers for food I can convert only on certain groceries, like real,- (german)).

And at real,- (pronounced rehahl) I saw these, quasi for real ;-) !!!



See? They´re in my kitchen now!
There they sit now waiting to surprise Ingo. This is why I didn´t blog it right away on Tuesday - I don´t want Ingo to see them (he´s now on the way to Brunswick more or less).

Isn´t that freaky?

I found them in the "speciality-zone" where they sit along with asian and mexican products. I´m really curious if this is no ordinary tomato-soup but a speciality?

I walked past there so often and never saw them!

Schmap!!

I feel kinda honoured :-)

In December I took this pic, actually just for me, due to memories of '99, it´s a pic of the Wanneroo Markets that take place on Sundays in Perth.



Boring, you think?
Well, I got short-listed for inclusion in the third edition of the Schmap Perth Guide!

I wonder, though why they should choose a pic like that? It doesn´t look inviting, doesn´t show what you can buy there.
It shows a garbage container!!!

They found it in my flickr-pics in the Perth-set - where I think I have better ones! Nonetheless. Hehe :-)

Send me a card, please

Sometimes I really do love my job :-)
We service our customer´s B2E-Project. It´s an internet-portal with business and also private stuff.
Amongst other we offer an e-card-service. Every week we put in an additional motive, which in this case means cars.

An e-mail just reached us. The User (obviously seriously) asked us if we can send some motives to his girl-friend.

Ok, I really shouldn´t have laughed, maybe he is a total newbie. But then... that application is so simple that we don´t offer a "Help"-button - and no one ever asked for help. And... e-card or post-card... doesn´t this ressemblance already suggest what e-card means?
So, after discussing with a colleague if this was meant to be a joke or not (and I admit, after laughing!), I sat down and explained what the application is good for and how it works and that I hope he understands we can´t do that for him.

I clicked send and immediately got an out-of-office-response.

And what do I read there? He will not be in the office and the e-mail is forwarded automatically to his colleague. Autsch. Guess the colleague had a good laugh, too ;-)

Selfshelf

Isn´t this cool? You can get this shelf at arshabitandi (german).

I will try to build it myself and safe the 35 euros. The bottom book is the shelf - cool idea, I think!

Note

I´ve been writing that last post after vacuum-cleaning and wiping my apartment properly so Ingo has a very clean place to come to on Friday.

Certainly I think a lot about how he feels right now in that dark and smelly place without phone or internet-access (apart from the darkness and smell I know for sure over years how it is to not be connected to the world).

We talked on the cellphone and he told me he feels a bit better, too.

So... that "hot guy" really is just ... there and nothing else ;-)

Mr. Perfect?

So I went to the gym today (after all that weird time since Ingo´s apartment was flooded again *) - and... he´s back! That hot guy I haven´t seen for months, he´s back. In his usual, casual, congenial no-name blue shorts and white shirt. He looks a bit like actor Ralf Bauer (in german, but with [to me kinda "hot"] pics!).

Well. He is more muscular. And he wears an earring, too, like Ingo did ages ago.
What I like about him apart from his looks: He practices thoughtfully.
There are so many stupid guys who take more weight than they can handle and then pep it up like crazy, not really using their muscles but... I can´t find the right word but you know what I mean... swing, leverage? Some even roll up their T-Shirts so they can watch their muscles - true!

Well. I just like to look at that guy. A pleasurable sight, so to say. He seems to be reasonable, introverted, concentrated on what he´s doin´. I like how he is like, too.

And then I see him kinda flirting with a girl (too young to call her a woman).
Now... can such a hot guy be single?!
What is his problem then? Looking good inside out at first sight - is he some weirdo?

She and another man stayed with him later on, so they maybe are just old friends.

Aw, well. I have to admit: I nearly felt a bit jealous! I thought: Don´t take him away! I wanna look just at him and not at the two of you kissin´ all the time!

But then what was nice again - she was not beautiful, and he didn´t mind that. Very simpatico, another big plus for him :-)

It´s alright to enjoy to look at a good-looking man who seems to be perfect, is it?

*The first time was at the time my father died and Ingo kept me out of it all, thankfully. So to me it´s the first time to experience the awful smell and what comes along with it

Morning

It´s rather dark now when I get up, which made me somehow sad. Autumn is on it´s way, it seems.
Whilst combing my hair and getting dressed, I watched the news.

The flames in Greece loose power. The people were "only" frightened by the earthquake, it wasn´t too serious. But it is expected that all the burned areas will not be able to hold any water. In autumn floods will probably be inevitable. Those poor people. So many of them have lost their existence - and for a long time, too. Ingo pointed out the other day that it takes about ten years for olive-trees to be ready to get harvested.

A man was found dead, his body open. His murderer very possibly had eaten parts of the bowel.

And yes, the next three days for sure it´ll stay rather cold with tops at around 17 ° C. Wasn´t August supposed to be the hottest month of the year?!

With news like that I started rather in not a good mood. It didn´t help yesterday to not hear anything of Ingo.
The sky was a bit cloudy, the clouds were pink. On the way they became orange and then the sun rose. It all looked so beautiful. As if the sky was unaware of what is going on, spoken figuratively.

Can only get better, at least in my little world here...

Real men

(Pics are from the official site) It was a revenge with a lot of emotion (german).
The Braunschweig Lions played "against" the Kiel Baltic Hurricanes on Saturday.

Kiel Baltic Hurricanes? You could have guessed it´s the Braunschweig Lions just in green-white instead of red-white!
Their Quarterback, Adrian Rainbow, wears the number 3 - just like he did all the years he was "our" Quarterback. Four of "our" best player went to Kiel.

The Lions always walk hand in hand to the coin-toss, which looks really "sweet". Then there was shaking hands with Kiel and then a lot of hugging - real men can show what they feel :-)

One of the old Lions was Estrus Crayton.
Boy, I remember one game where he still played for the Lions. They had a bad start - right on the 20 yards line. He was Wide Receiver and magically bypassed the Defense. And then he ran and ran and ran - out of the field at the one yard line.

The stadium went absolutely quiet! What had happened?!
One other player had his 99th or 100th game and never had done a touchdown. Hence Estrus Crayton gave it to him, how cute is that?!



We couldn´t stay ´till the end. We were both sick. I could hardly eat and Ingo just felt bad, too.
We don´t know why, though. We were together, at a great football game. We have decided to move together, which means we finally get a step forward - we should have been fine!
Ok, his apartment smells real bad. We have to sit on folding chairs since the sofa is ruined. We ate on the street since it smells real bad in the kitchen. As if someone peed in the fridge, yuck!
But that doesn´t explain why we felt so sick...

Why did we stay there anyhow and even came back after the football-game? We had a compressor that gathers the water. You have to empty it regularly. Maybe the constant noise of that thing made us sick, too...



Or it was all just too much.
Ingo called me on Wednesday at around 12. Most of the water was out of his apartment and he needed my help to clean up. Or rather to have someone to lean on.
So I left work, went to my apartment to get clothes suiting the situation. Drove to Rhueden, bought rubbish bags and stuff. Tried to get through to Ingo but the routes I went were closed off. Finally I left my car and went on foot. Ingo came to help me, we had to wade through dirty water - in sandals, since we don´t own gumboots.
We tried to tidy up - but only half-hearted. Ingo is very serious to move to Brunswick!

This evening Ingo comes to my place again :-)! Seem like he´s already trying to get used to a 120 km drive on working days...

Back to...

hell I am!

At least the TV didn´t drown and hence we could watch. We watched Welt der Wunder (german), World of Wonders. It´s a mixture of show and documentary. One subject was "hell" and amongst other sources they interviewed also kids.

One boy answered on "how do you imagine hell?" - "Hmmm, you gotta work... or something".

So well, that makes me being in hell (again)!

I really didn´t know about what to laugh more - the idea of work being hell or about "or something"!

Nette

"nett" is german for nice, amiable, enjoyable, pretty.
"Nette" is the name of the darn creek beside Ingo´s place.

He just called me. The water came in, everything drowned. PC, the good rug, the new rack, the new sofa, whatever. No insurance on his side.

OK, thinking of hurricane Dean this is just a minor problem.

Anyhow. Expensive, too. A lot of work. Ingo said yesterday if the apartment drowns again, he´ll move to my place (well, my town and we find a bigger apartment).

Haha, go looking for it. Then drive the way more dangerous route to Rhueden everyday, making me sick of fear.

Darn it! The stupid town just built some compensation construction that did cost a lot of money, obviously for nothing!
I am... argh. Sad and angry right now!

Constant rain....

This is - was! - at Ingo´s place. Water is in front of his door now. Again. CRAP! Cross all fingers it doesn´t come in!

Shaun the Sheep

How sweet!



"Off the Baa":



"Timmy in a tizzy":



"Scrumping":



"Still Life":





From Shaun the Sheep.

Happy

Ingo answered my "I-arrived-safely"-e-mail today with the words that I have looked happy this morning!

Well, yes. Waking up with him right at my side makes me happy! :-)
No nightmares and hence a safe sleep was also very nice.

Now it seems we´re both sad, the weather and me, that he went home again. It has been raining non-stop the whole day.
Which hopefully safes my tomatoes - I forgot to water them. They sure are happy it rains - no, that would be lucky! ;-)

Or
auspicious
contented
felicitously
fortunate
prosperous
providential
Saturnian
serendipitous
slaphappy

:-)

Pizza?

I´m not sure if I´ll have one for dinner today. But I´m sure I will not have any trouble eating!

Ingo will be with me again tonight! I am so happy!

We have also said that we might change schedule since I have to drive to work so much. We wanna try it this way: 3 weekends Ingo drives to my place, one weekend I´m driving to him.
Hence we also visit families only once a month. I think that will be a relieve also.

I really hate that they don´t understand how it works. I work longer in the week so I can leave work early, drive to them and have dinner with Ingo. Or sometimes with them, but I want to be at Ingo´s place the latest at eight.
And everytime they look at me reproachful that I want to leave already and that I´m always on the run. Yes, guys, I´m also on the run because of you!

I mean... come and visit me anytime in the week. But noooo, that way is too long.

They don´t understand how much trouble it is when you see the partner only on the weekends and everyone wants a bite from that little time that I have. Time is one thing that is always too short.

Visit me in the week. I´m totally there for you. But the weekends are for my boyfriend mainly!

Well and they do that, too, visiting me in between the week. On Thursday my brother has another appointment with the doctor in my town and hence comes over to me. I hope he has the appointment not too early. He seems to take it for granted that I leave work earlier then. Spoken through the flower I told him that I have to work extra for it on other days.

Aw, well.... time... such a precious thing!

And I just learned that the next company-meeting is on the 14th. Great. Another Friday. Any day I would have the time to stay long but not on a Friday!
And I hate it when they say, aw, come on, it´s just one Friday...

Especially when this comes from my colleague - she had the same problems I´ve got.
It didn´t work out, she found a new partner here with whom she lives together. But anyhow she should remember what Fridays mean!
Gross was also when she told me the other day that her boyfriend is on a little holiday with colleagues - and she hates to sleep alone. Hello?! Tell me that?!

Love

I think he really feels that for me!

And me for him, too!

Just needed to be reminded of that???

Nothing is for granted, I need to understand this!!!

Technics

First of all, thank you for your comments. It made feel not all alone in the world!

Now just in short, though my mind is freakin´ out .. out of thoughts!

We fought, two weekends and I guess it was mostly me. Last Sunday Ingo left and let me know I have "time to think".

Then his profile at yahoo was dead, you know, grey. I thought, ok, I get the message. I have to think. I hope we can work it somehow out. Felt so darn bad, so darn lonely.

I noticed Skype was dead, too.

My connection to the world is payed hafl by me, half by Ingo but over his account and hence I thought... well. Did he order something? Am I aleady halfway out? Sure, this isn´t possible.

Yesterday evening he mailed me Pink Floyd´s "Wish you were here".

WHAT????

Yes, it was my turn to drive to him and I fought really hard not to do so. I thought he doesn´t want to see me.

Yahoo had technical problems. Ingo didn´t see my profile either.

Why didn´t we use the cell phones? Pride? Guilt (on my side). We could have e-mailed.
Whatever.
Skype worked, too yesterday.
We talked. I said I need time, a time-out. He agreed, probably ´cause I was apologizing for it already.

He just called me via cellphone and is now on the way to me.

Actually I really need a break. But then.

Somehow we will have some kind of break, just together.

Gotta clean up a bit, put the single bedsheet away, Ingo is coming with the big one!!!!

No more Magnum for me

And I don´t blame him. Will be off some time.

My Magnum

As I said here, I bought the fifth season of the series "Magnum".

I also posted a pic of Ingo who looked a bit like Magnum when he had his moustache.

Willow suggested I take "my" Magnum to a trip to Hawaii - and certainly I had to think immediately of Ice Cream.
I thought Magnum-Ice is a worldwide product, but no. So, here it is, this is why I thought of chocolate (you can click to enlarge):



The slogan is "Me and my Magnum".

Here at Unilever they say Magnum-Ice-Cream came from the UK in 1987.

I´m a Magnum lover, too, but I don´t go for ice-cream ;-)

Caroline, go for it!

As a brunswick citizen I feel somehow proud that a brunswick team participates in the DARPA Urban Challenge. The CarOLO-team with their car Caroline is still in. They do all the research and tests here in Germany and they say, "We are proud to be guests in the US, to be able to compete in friendship in the Challenge, to learn from competitors and to show our capabilities".

Somehow though I find robotic cars disturbing...

Walkscore

I just found this: Just just type in where you are at the moment (or need info about) and Walk Score shows you whats in pedestrians´ reach there: Restaurants, gyms, grocery stores, bars, theaters, bookstores, drug stores, name it! By clicking on the symbols you get detailed information
Cool, I think!

As you can clearly see on that pic, I live right in the uni-part of town - schools, unis and heaps of pubs :-)

Listen closely, Perth

No... I´m not heading for the Rocky Horror Picture Show... (Like "listen closely,.. not for very much longer...." ;-) hehe!)

You maybe cannot picture it, but: Everything broadcast over here is in german. In Denmark and other countries the would-be "luxury" isn´t given. Maybe subtitled in their language, that´s it.

Sometimes it´s really annoying, like on the Discovery Channel: The speaker starts talking. He´s in the middle of the second sentence and then the german translator starts at zero. I hate it. Really. And I don´t wonder why germans are so bad in english, either. Do we have a chance?!

With DVD we have! Yes!

I bought "Magnum" the fifth season today. Ye-hes, I loooove it. I even loved it before I met Ingo and I do believe there is a resemblance in those two (when Ingo still had his moustache, what do you think with a bit of imagination?



- I am happy he got rid of it! ... well. This is us, 'bout twelve years ago!!!)

Anyhow. I watched "Echoes of the mind" - in the original - no german. The voices are real, so are the jokes and phrases.

And Higgie-baby wants to marry. The woman of his dreams is a "lordliness", she doesn´t know - nobody knows, Higgie is a lord, too. She wants him to take her title and he complains to Magnum he indeed is a lord himself, the Lord of "Perth". Ummmm?????

What? Sounded like "Perth".

We´re still talking of an american series taking place on Hawaii, right?

Well. My ears are good, here we go, I just need to find out where this comes from: "The family has been in the peerage for 800 years. As the second son of the Baron of Perth, he is actually Baron of Perth, Lord Higgins."

And yes, there seems to exist a Perth in the UK, as well!

Awww. There is Brunswick in Australia and Germany - and the US - as well.

The world is so small!

And my ears are good. I understood "Perth" right! You know how little practice we get over here?!

Tough guy

Still know this guy?
It must have been seven years ago now. My brother invited me to the cinema, "Toy Story" was on. I had a hard time back then, trying to find a job after studying.

From Mc Donald´s he got this little Buzz and said, "he´ll help you be strong".

He stood at Ingo´s place all the time - I took him home now (Buzz, I mean) and will you believe it: When you push the button, he still makes his Buzz-noises right away and strong as ever!

Very loyal, that tough guy :-)

Picture for yourself whom I mean, my dear bro and/or Buzz ;-)

Sure, happily both!!

Get out!

Trouble getting out of bed in the morning?
No worries, get clocky! When you press "snooze", clocky jumps off the table - ringing - and seeks for shelter, finding a new spot every day. It´s so annoying you have to get after it to make it shut up!

Turn on the sound to check it:



Am I happy I can get up easliy! :-)

Old love

Slightly different, but this is the first car I remember, a BMW of this kind (german), I just found in the news! Though my Mom says she had a Volkswagen Kaefer, to transport me the first years, but I can´t remember.

Aw... memories!
Well.
I was nearly five. My father went skiing with me - it fell dark already, our car was stuck in the snow. Luckily someone came to help. My father told me to get out of the car, I would be too much weight. He forgot to tell me he will stop after a few meters to pick me up and I thought he´s gonna leave me in the woods.
A month later they sent me away. For a health treatment... to gain weight, haaa...

Anyhow. When I came back they had this new car (certainly no automatic steering, either):



Well, it was silvery-grey and I was angry since they didn´t allow me to choose it with them. I mean... a new car - that is something, isn´t it?! A new family member, kind of! ;-)

Can you believe that - the car broke down on the way to pick me up from the huuuge train-station in Hannover after that darn health-treatment. I was the only kid left (after that wood-story!!!) Well: Mobile phones didn´t exist back then! My parents needed to wait for a service car, then get to a gas station to call a friend to pick me up (a man I had never seen before and I refused - crying - to go with him...)!

When I was 14 my father taught me to drive this car. Just for fun.

Some days later I was away with my Mom. She met some friends and the chit-chat took ages. I got bored.
My Mom gave me her bag and said, "bring it to the car, will ya?" - to get rid of my annoying shuffling around.

Will ya? Yep. I did. I waited for her. I had the key and I knew how to drive, oh. And I was quite bored.

When I came back, the parking-lot was taken by another car, uh-oh.
My Mom wasn´t back yet.
But when she came, she realized what I did.

Astonishingly she stayed quite calm. But when we came back.... my poor father... What he was thinking in teaching me?!!! The police is controlling that place, too, there! What could have happened to me - or to others?!

My father never taught my little brother how to drive a car...

Oh. I just looove BMWs!
Or the memories.
Or both.

Awwww. I do love my burning red Polo. But if I had the money, I´d go for a BMW!
After another 1000 things more worthy for me, certainly....

I´m in the tube now, too

Last Saturday - FINALLY we did a tour on our moped - the weather was good enough. "Our"? Yep. I helped a bit (well.. helped to get on the right way) to find out what kind of ignition sits in her and since then it´s "ours". Harley Davidson was changing the ignition in 1985.. 86?...

This certainly is a shot from last year - the blue Polo... well. I crashed 'im on my birthday...

It´s just a first try (of me with You Tube... and a start of the moped as well. Poor man - this really is the only way to start her up - no electricity start available. She´s just too cool for that!!! :-) She is! I have a cool run up the road but it´s too long. So :) Just help yourself and TURN ON the loudspeaker for a very short sample of how she sounds like:



Well. I try more.

You ask for power, party and sex appeal? Here you go! Ingo did the recording, btw (nahhh! Nothing nasty! Maybe you like to give those guys a chance. I promise, they are "cute". Can´t wait for next Saturday!!!! Here you can even hear me, welcoming a former trainer, Robert Flickinger):



Here, last December, we did spend some time at this place. it was too hot for flowers even - know this place someone maybe reading along? :



Awwww, all those possibilities of the internet. If I just had had that whilst studying!!!!

Anyhow, I have more: This is a Cocotaxi in Cuba - we did a ride in it (one of them!) in... 2002 - this is 2006:



And here: See how proud thse cuban guys are of their cars - and they can be, for sure. He´s greeting me here:



I´m really curious if this works!!!! I mean, the You Tube-stuff.


YEEEES - I´m still a very, very small beginner. I´ll do my best to get better!

WHAT A ... pity!

In November last year I visited the Northern Territory Factory in Alice (online) and asked if they could send me some Jerky to Perth in December.
I never got an answer. New guys there?

We visited that factory before (as for real) and I found they have the yummiest Jerky I ever tasted (getting to know that stuff at age 24, that is!).

Now Wicking has another cartoon on Alice and I thought, hey, look again, maybe the factory is back online?

They are!!! All fresh and new.

NOW you can even order online!!! NOW!
Too late for me at the moment. Would´ve cost $7 to get the stuff to Perth. And

"Freight to the Rest of the World

up to 1kg -$55.00

1+ kg to 1.5kg -$70.00

1.5+ kg to 2.5kg -$87.00"

Not an option.

See you some day, hopefully, but not now. But then - I´ll eat you all up!

Someone danced

... a little sundance? When I left the office, it was warm! In the car I put the heating off and into town I went by bike in a short skirt and a T-Shirt! :-)
Weird weather!

My apartment is still cold, though...

Hot!

This is what stock.xchng suggests as a pic of summer. Well.

It´s hot.



My long PJs warmed me good at night - with the help of my hot-water bottle.

My car was all steamy this morning, outside it was foggy and damp. My tomatoes fight their way through their tiny lifes... it´s no use!

Right now I had to fix a HOT, STEAMING POT OF Caro Instant Beverage - it´s really cold in the office.

The "break" summer takes is a liiitle long if you ask me!

If a little summer-dance might help?