With a little help....

of your friends... isn´t there a song like that?
I finally got to meet my brother´s girlfiend. I only wish I´d met her other than down on her knees cleaning up Ingo´s apartment.

Yesterday Ingo went all the way home to put all his stuff to safety - so he thought. It has been raining for a whole day.
This morning we went there and my brother and his girlfriend waited already. We said our first hellos and went to the door - and could hardly open it.

It was chaos and everything was coated with mud. Over 50 cm the water has been in. Even the wardrobe had been moved from the waters´ force. It even went into the bathtub!! The bed also is through for good. Ingo now lives here.

Thanks to my bro and his girlfriend we´re back here already. I feel bad, sad, angry, exhausted.

Now we need to find an apartment quickly. Sure, we lived in smaller places before, like in a Holden Commodore or a Nissan Patrol. But then ... that was on holiday - now we have a working life, stress and all that.

Darn it. I should be hungry or something. I´m not. I´m unsettled, uneasy. Cold.

:-) Alex (the girlfriend) found two toilet brushs, still originally packed - one in the kitchen, the other in the bedroom, they floated into different directions. Ingo said, hey, they were for just one Euro... from IKEA.
This is how she sees Ingo now - a person who collects toilet brushs ;-)

The last apartment we had a look at was miserable, no option. Tomorrow I call three others - keep your fingers crossed....

Meanwhile we think of a way to say thank you to our helpers. She is a nice girl, I´m happy for my brother!

Good 'ole buddy

... (my piggy-bank - if you come from Ingo´s blog and search for "the buddy", piggy was meant) was certainly wishing Ingo a very happy 42nd as well:



As I mentioned before we don´t exchange presents on days like christmas, birthday and so on but when we see something the other might like, love or need... we do it - hence ...
What could I do? Men don´t like flowers much, do they? So I took little balloons (also used as water balloons, hard to handle!).

Here you can see the result :-)

Spelling reform

I just needed to write the word "Krepppapier" - doesn´t that look just plain awful and wrong?

Before that stupid reform it was either Krepp-Papier or Kreppapier. But Krepppapier? Looks as if I got my finger glued to the letter "p"!
I´m talking of crepe paper you use in the kitchen, btw.

"The aim of spelling reform is to make spelling easier for learners and users by removing its difficulties.", is the saying at Wikipedia. A-HA? That so?

In the paragraph "German" it says "The so-called Rechtschreibreform is still subject to dispute, and polls consistently show a majority against the new rules. " Well count me in there, too!
"In Summer of 2004, several newspapers and magazines returned to the old rules." And they did right! In this case I´m really glad I don´t have kids - I would have to learn all that stupid crap as well.
There is no logic and I don´t think it´s gotten more easy.

Some words just physically hurt my eyes! Examples needed?

• Delphin (good old type) - (now) Delfin (this looks soooo wrong!)


• Greuel - Gräuel (means abhorrence and now the word itself is one!)


• Känguruh - Känguru (it lost its "h"! poor thing!)


• Schiffahrt - Schifffahrt (glue now on letter "f"! comes from Schiff and Fahrt (ship and ride))


• Schrittempo - Schritttempo (this can go on and on...)

I got used to this:

• Tip - Tipp

Here I´m never really sure

• Spass - Spaß (means fun, is none...)

What do you think when you see a word like this "Schifffahrt"?

Clean room

This is where we were tonight in the PTB. 20 people can take part, we were only 11 - and we were the youngest with a distance. How come so few people are interested in taking a chance like this?

We got to see the whole building, cellar to top floor, dressed like you see Ingo above. We even had to cover our shoes (well, it´s a clean room after all ;-)...) It´s a gigantic aircon with walls, so to say, a machine. We were allowed to go into the grey zone, too, that´s one step before the real clean room (you certainly can look in there). We got shown and explained what they do there, developing standards for industry and research.

At the moment they try to make the kilo "safe", amongst heaps of other things. Every country has one (we even have three! Ours, one from former east Germany and - believe it or not - one from Bavaria (where they have heaps of very drunk people at the moment - Oktoberfest ;-)...).

They wanna make it from silicon - trying to find out how many atoms of one type they need - Russia, USA, Australia and others give their money in, too, they said.
When made of atoms, the kilo is finally really constant.

It will be an almost perfect ball - if you grew it to the size of the earth, the Mt Everest would have a height of only 1,80m!




The guy who wanted to call me yesterday (and, after asking back today - this evening) to inform me when we can see another apartment didn´t call :-( Now I live in No 81, that would be in 25, just across the main street, with balcony. Awww.

But on to something nice:

Tough question

We have another raffle going. This time you can win one out of four signed T-Shirts from a soccer-team, the VFL Wolfsburg.
Those T-Shirts are worth some 65,00 € each - the question to the raffle is not an easy one hence.
My customer asks his employees: For what kind of motor-technology advertised the team in a certain game on their T-Shirts?

We get answers here like TSI, FSI - GTI even.

What do you think about "Tiguan" for an answer? Ummm, that is a whole car, good man! (remember, we asked for a technology) - and you help building it!

But the very best answer (so far) was "red white green".

HELLOOOOOO - did you read the question at all????

Can you send a T-Shirt via e-mail? Noooo. Well, can someone tell me why people use some private e-mail-address that doesn´t have their real name in it and just write "TSI"?

We even wrote that we need the address and still people manage to go without.

Why do they take part in the raffle at all then, why?

Would they try to make it all right if they had to write a real postcard and pay for a stamp?

Some time ago...

a little baby-boy was born.



Today he is a man, and can you guess how happy I am to have met him?
Very much... indeed!



Happy 42th, Ingo, see you tomorrow at the PTB at the guided tour :-)

My bean and more

I´m again surprised by how quick my bean grows!

In other news - summer came back! YAY!



I thought none of my tomatoes were good, but Ingo proofed better:



Last not least: A new pic of my fridge with the towns I love most:



We checked two more apartments today.

One is really beautiful, bright, all with laminate, all new, with balkony. 72m².
MAN! we didn´t know 72m² is that large!!!! Now I have some 34m² and am quite happy with that...
Sadly that apartment is really expensive.

The second was 74m² - man you could get lost in there;-)
An old building with very heigh ceiling. First floor, very dark, no balkony. Cheaper but, well. Naaah. To heat that up would cost a lot. No balkony?! Dark?!
On Thursday and on Friday we have two more to see. Wish us luck!

Oh, I uploaded some more weekend-pics to flickr :-)

Oh, and yes, the Braunschweig Lions - German Bowl Defender - take part in the German Bowl - again! :-)

Green for my bean

And red for the Lions - the last footy-game for the season - the semifinal!
(The German Bowl will take place in Stuttgart, too far away):



Ummm, yes. My brother is an optometrist. The green glasses were too fancy, no one wanted to have them, so I said, naaa... ohh-k :-))))

My garden-bean III

She couldn´t give me a message in letters like before, but I knew what she was saying anyhow:

"FREE ME (....come on and free me... [how did it go?] ...come on and free me, free me from this life...)

So, I obeyed, took a hammer and:



Whow - see how many roots she´s got in there? Not enough space in that egg, for sure!



Now she sits in good soil, ready to grow freely:

My garden-bean II

Will you believe this?!!! Gorgeous, is it, my lovely bean? I think I need to plant it in real earth!
How does it do it so very fast? There is just one single day between those two pics (see last post, and again you can click to enlarge)!

BTW, Willow, I bought it at T€Di, a german discounter who doesn´t sell online (and I don´t know if they have it in stock anymore), it did cost one Euro.
"MY BEST FRIEND Hidden Magic Message in a Bean Seed Gift" is also available at ebay (in this case Switzerland - google doesn´t give me anything in the US...). But then... (almost) anything we have here has been at your place before, so I bet you can buy it straight in the US and make your nieces and nephews happy with one :-)

I´m curious how it´l look like tomorrow!

My garden-bean loves me

I saw that "egg" and bought it. Followed the instructions, hit the top open and gave it some water. Nothing much happened, there was a brown shell that grew a bit.
I didn´t pay much attention. Watering from time to time, seeking for a place in the sun these rainy days.
Yesterday was warm and sunny.

And today the bean, I guess, wanted to say, thanks for watering me, thanks for putting me in the sunlight - but it was too small to put all those words on itself - no fingers - no writing down anything someplace else.

So it gave me a short note, proudly presenting me its suddenly in the air standing head (or body?) like this (you can click to enlarge):



Thank you, bean! You´re welcome! I´m curious what will become of you!

Should I think of a name for it? "Bean" is soooo... common - or even worse like that comedian, I don´t like him...

Any suggestions?

How can it carry that head on that - well, strong-looking, but single "stem"?

Hulk? Naaah. Not a good name. Hulk would never say "I love you". I try to think of an appropriate name... suggetions welcome ;-)

Mislead me!

You know what "Denglisch" is? It´s a mock, a misleading wanna-be-language! It lets german people wander around and embarrass themselves - I was sadly a running example.

"Denglisch" is mixed from "Deutsch" and "Englisch", they are anglicisms: An english word with a german meaning. In 1999 I ran around and offered potential employers a "handy number", wondering about the blank looks I got. Sinking into the ground after finding out... Please don´t laugh, it still does hurt. From laughing about myself...

Motorola was offering mobile communication for private use. To differ that from the military Walkie-Talkie they named them Handie-Talkie and in Germany those darn cellphones got the name "handy". I had no idea they were called cellphones or mobiles.

In this article (german) I found more.

An Oldtimer is not a car??? You call grandpas like that? And you call the vehicles "Classic Car" oder "Vintage Car"? Aha! Here they are officially, even by the Technical Supervisory Association, cars. Oooold cars. Or motorbikes.

Haha!!! What would you say if you saw me wearing a smoking? That I go to a fancy-dress ball as a life-size cigarette? You call that thing "Tux" or "Tuxedo". And makes more sense, too....

Just beam me up, Scotty! Our technically very ... advanced Beamers - you call them video projector! And we actually don´t use the word Beamer in a colloquial way...
In the US "Beamer", "Beemer" or "Bimmer" are cars and bikes from our good ole BMW - who can guess that?! What would you guys say if I announced I´m going to throw this pic via Beamer on the wall?!

You think I´m rich when I say I just bought a new Hometrainer, you think I´m into slavery? OK, you guys call the thing "Exercise Bike" or "Fitness Machine". Man I could just ruin my reputation by this!

And never think I might wear a Pullunder. They are out of fashion. And, btw they were worn above the blouse. It´s a sweater without arms... Um, I mean "Sweater vest", "Slipover" or "Tank Top". Never mind what we call Leggins, they´re out of fashion as well.
Tank top???? Isn´t a tank... aww... in Movies tanks... forget it. No, please tell me: Tank top? Got nothing to do with military stuff, does it?

Who knows what else I might have told people so far... who knows how many think of me as one of the biggest idiots ever met? Must be a reason why there are so many more english words for "idiot" ;-)...

66 candles? No way!

I don´t wanna burn the house ;-)
(though the carton caught [a very small] fire! - pics taken in the workshop)

I found sparklers in the form of numbers, here my Mom lightens them:



More beautiful than 66 candels, I think ;-)



Driving back home in the dark was stressy - I have always difficulties seeing properly in the dark and have now to get used to it again, autumn is coming in big steps.

But will you believe it... I cannot park the car (shame on me, I know...). I came home at around 10 - usually all parking lots are taken and I got one directly round the corner - the last one in the row which means I simply could drive in. I can even see my car from here!
Wo-hooo, really! Lucky me!

Yarr! Weigh anchor!

Today is "Talk Like a Pirate Day"!
Get your parrot and join in! You can learn some phrases there, too, me hearties!

ADDITION: Here (english!) you can learn to talk like a german pirate, beim Klabautermann!!! :-))

"Ahoy und immer eine steife Brise, beim Klabautermann !!!"

Happy Birthday

You can congratulate this friendly face:



Yep, the Smiley has his 25th birthday!

I hope my Mom has a lot to smile today, too - she celebrates her 66th!



In a few hours I´m on my way to congratulate and have a dinner tonight as well.

According to singer Udo Juergens life starts for real at that age, here is the lyrics (german), hope she doesn´t go to buy a chopper tonight ;-) ohhh, this must be a sibling of our smiley...

Not a garbage can!

"Hey!" I thought this morning when I was about starting the car. "This Polo is not a garbage can!" Something was lying on my engine hood.

So I unstrapped the seatbelt again, went out, a little angry, just to find... my very own red pullover! Obviously it fell out of my car when I got out yesterday evening and someone was so nice to pick it up and lay it on my car.
Which is very nice - the pullover is new, too!
And for sure I would have looked for it.

It´s wet and a bit dirty, but: Thanks, friendly stranger!

Not in use....

I just stumbled over the Plain English Campaign who goes against government signs and other warnings that do no more than state the obvious, you can read more here.

Here are more pics of signs like that, just hilarious (just click "vor")!

I´ve seen No. 11 near Cooper Pedy - I guess cell phones don´t work out there, so... a useful (australian) sign...

In honour

How sad, Luciano Pavarotti had to die.
My neighbours may hate me but I have his CD playing quite loud, the one called "O Sole Mio" - I do have more.

I remember... I was doin´ my diploma. "Back then" computers... wo-hooo...!!! I had a drafting machine. It was around christmas time and the radio was no option, just X-ma stuff all day long. So, I had Pavarotti.

I don´t understand italian, so it was perfect, I could concentrate fully on my work. I had his full voice as a background (no, I won´t say "noise"!).

Finally I put the player out - yep - same one I have here right now! You´d be amazed how big that thing is!!!

I put myself to bed... and... Pavarotti sang on! WHAT THE F****?!

I checked the player - set to "off". Back to bed. Pavarotti started again. I put the lights back on, he calmed down. I checked if there were batteries?! Nope!

Finally I watched some TV and could find sleep afterwards.

Was kinda creepy.. maybe I should change the music I´m listening to. Right now I hear clapping hands to his work. Now piano. Did I mention? I also learned to play the piano! And if my father wouldn´t have taken it as such a serious thing I might have continuied, maybe till now (my neighbours for sure thank my father!) ...

Punt-Return-Touchdown

There are no birthday presents between me and Ingo. No. When one sees something the other might like, it´s just there and here it comes: hence now I own a plush football, how cute!!!

It didn´t start that good though, this weekend. It was stressy. I had a company meeting but could leave quite early. Anyhow we got into a quarrel and Ingo just made me get out of his car. In the middle of... far away.

I was angry. Sad. Very angry.... A car stopped, a woman came out, asking if I needed help. I said, no... Probably my face said, yes!!!
She said, come on, I´m a woman, I won´t do you no harm, I can bring you home.

Turned out she lived in the street I do before, too (this town has around 240.000 people living here!). She wore sunglasses, but turned the glasses down when talking to me. A friendly local, so to say.

So I really went into her car and everything turned out fine. If she had been a man I wouldn´t have done it, somehow sad, is it?

Ingo and me later on went to the footy.
What a game!!!! Where to start? It was the german quarter final, against some Newcomers from down south, the Weinheim Longhorns. They had never played in such a "big" stadium before (and Brunswick is known for the best atmosphere in whole Europe)!

And then I saw it: WOW!
The Longhorns did a punt, Kelvin Love was the returner. He got stuck, freed himself, got stuck, ran... ran.... ran... Punt-Return-Touchdown!!!! Wo-hooo!

I guess those guys were impressed. It wasn´t just the atmosphere. Kelvin Love put Matt Riazzi on place two in the top scoring range. LED lights were glowing with L O V E and in the quarter-break we got Matt Riazzi on the screen, giving gratulations to Kelvin Love (right from the US!), it was all so sweet :-)



Later on some situation must have pissed him off, doesn´t he look like an angry three-year-old over here?



In the end it was 55:26 for our team and hence, I´m going to buy cards for the semi-final tomorrow! Here (german) is the full story to read.

Ingo had to leave today already.
He has bulky waste to get rid of and those guys pick it up right early tomorrow morning. So. Here I am, all alone. Together with the world - and him, too.

Awww, remember the days before internet??? To me it really is just days! I lived here for years without access!
Ack. Luckily Ingo will be here again tomorrow night! Tonight I´ll watch Men in Black II or some cool DVD Ingo doesn´t like. Hm :-) Take the second option! I am a positive person, right? :-)

You'll be in tomorrow

How sad, parrot Alex was found dead aged only 30.
The article says he could not only count, identify colors and objects, form sentences but also could express feelings, like frustration when the scientists came with the same tests over and over again.

He even instructed fellow parrots to "talk better" (or mimicking the researchers?)...

His "owner" said in the evening, "You be good, I love you. I'll see you tomorrow."

And Alex responded, "You'll be in tomorrow."

Parrots can get around 50 years of age, what did he die of, was he not happy?

I am not a friend of keeping such creatures captive, but Alex helped researchers to understand the avian brain and his death "left scientists at Brandeis University feeling as if they'd lost a colleague."
Read the full story here.

It´s a shame

Sorry if I planted that stupid song from the 80´s in your head (or does that not happen when you´re a native english-speaking person?).

I just ran some errands. I stood in line at the checkout, the one in front of me had some bags in his trolley. The till girl asked him in german if he could lift the bags (so she can check he doesn´t want to steal anything).
The young man said in english, "sorry, I don´t speak german".

The girl hesitated, looked a bit puzzled and then asked helpless in german how she could tell him... "naahh, ok!" and let him pass.

OMG!!!!!! Even if she only went to school for 9 years (shortest you can do here) she must have had at least for 4 years english-classes!
And she can not say, "could you please lift your bag"?! Shame on her! Or on the school system. Or both.

Our Times Square

Soon you will not know if you´re standing on New York Times Square, London Piccadilly Circus or in my town!
Well, ok, you will know.

But this is cool, this article (german) says, we soon get one of the biggest LED-Walls in Europe! 120 square-meter doesn´t sound too small, I think. Costs 13 million euros, will make 50 new jobs and they wanna have it all (inside out) ready for Easter 2008.

Let´s see!

5 Things

Sarah tagged me with this:

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was studying, enjoying my freedom. At that time our flat-sharing was still fun, too.

2. What were you doing one year ago?
Today? I was thinking of Steven R. Strauss, who died aged 51 in the Twin Towers. I remembered the day where it all happened. We had no access to media, CNN just showed their front page and had little information. Colleagues who had friends or family over there made hectic phone calls - we were not sure back then if this was a very bad joke or truth.
Well - apart from those thoughts I enjoyed a late summer. Seems like I won´t this year, autumn seems to be here already...

3. What are 5 snacks you enjoy?
OK, I eat only a bit of it, so I call it a snack, too, even this:
- PIZZA da Nico
- Filet Steak from El Goucho
- Jerky
- a pie (seldom, since not avalable here)
- Salt & Vinegar Crisps

4. What are 5 songs that you know the lyrics to?
Actually I hate it when I don´t know the lyrics... I like these:
- It´s A Beautiful Day (Queen)
- Let me Live (Queen)
- There Must Be More To Live Than This (Feddie Mercury)... okok... ;-)
- The Prettiest Thing - Norah Jones
- Painted Desert - Joshua Kadison

5. 5 Things you would do if you were a millionaire?
- invest the money wisely, so I have enough to
- give some to health research and other organisations I find important
- quit my job and go on another big journey. Done wisely you get a long way with a million!
- look for a warmer place to live, like Perth
- have a little house also in Carnarvon

6. 5 bad habits
- According to Ingo I´m never truly content
- I´m always on the run, my family hates that
- I throw too many e-mails away and often have to ask people to send it again (but I make people happily surprised when I can say, "hey, look, I still got your e-mail!")
- I get angry when someone drives real bad and I can´t overtake
- I prefer doing things I like and don´t care enough to learn other important things...

7. 5 things you like to do
- being with Ingo
- watch DVDs in the original language (that is, if it´s english! My french is no good anymore...)
- go to american football games
- take a ride on the Moped
- read a good book / blogs / surf the internet

8. 5 favourite toys?
- PC
- DVD-player
- DigiCam
- MP3-Player (noooo, I don´t have an iPod! I admit that!)
- Bike

9. 5 things you would never wear?
- Skis (too dangerous)
- Inliner (roller skates are better)
- Parachute (eeek - afraid of heights!)
- Velvet (hurts on the skin)
- Gold - I´m the silvery type of guy (ok - I own a ring made of white gold)

10. 5 things you hate to do
- saying good-bye
- driving a car
- doing laundry
- also: talking on the phone to strangers, especially when someone listens
- being in Germany in winter

Now, whom do I tag? I´d like to know what you think about these 5 things, Wendy, Hann (when you´re back), Celeste, Deanne maybe you like to join in as well and Lauren - join in, if you like to :-)

(Not) Too good....

...to be true.
I talked to the concierge today. We wanted to see the apartment on Friday - but I remembered I have another darn company-event then and can´t make it.
Aww, well. He said,"ok, when you go upstairs until you can no more you´ll find a box hanging on the wall. Left to that is a door, on top there you find a key. With the key you open the box and inside you find the keys to the apartment. Go have a look and put the keys back afterwards."

That man does trust us! :-)

There are heaps of nice people in this house, really, anyone I meet here is nice.
Exept two. "My" Mrs Meinecke and another woman who is also standing on the access balkony, also right beside the door, standing in the way all day long.

Guess where the other apartment lies? Yep. There, exactly. I wasn´t even in when I heard she already jumped out of her apartment, looking who´s there.

No, thanks, no way.

What helped to decide sadly against the department also: One room too large, the others too small. Even the bed wouldn´t fit in.
The bar/restaurant is right below, there is loud traffic where the bedroom would be.
Awwww, sooo sad. It has laminate and a "walk-in-closet"!!!

Aw, well. Would have been too easy. So we need to start looking for an apartment after all. I hate that.

So, thanks for the good wishes, please keep your fingers crossed that we find something nice...

Because I really can get used to stay here in Brunswick all the time and also to having Ingo here with me. While I´m blogging he sits on my fouton, watching TV.
Before that we went doing errands and found this nice little remote control (you can click to enlarge) - you sure can not loose that one! ;-)

Party & more

Wanna have a party in Brunswick? Go and have a cocktail of physics (german)!

The PTB, "national metrology institute providing scientific and technical services" - heck!!! - the PTB is having an open day and you can see the lot!

I´d like to go more into detail (yawn!) but something happened today!

My landlord - or rather the sister - lives in this house, too.
I was thinking some time ago, heck, I don´t know her name, hence don´t know where exactly she lives - but if I meet her, I´ll ask her if she has a 3-room-apartment, too, to rent.

Guess what???????!!!!

Whilst Ingo was in the laundromat, washing his stinking bed-stuff (stinking due to his apartment being flooded), I ran errands. Came back, went into the laundromat, talked to him, went to the house and met.... the landlord´s sister!!!

I asked her and she said - looking kinda tensly, yes, they have a 3-room-apartment - ONE (only one single one!)! And, well... the kitchen is as small as mine (that must be the thing, making the apartment difficult to rent) and it´s free right now!

Whooooo.... I thought of living together like in ... March or so.
So did Ingo.

I am horrible. When I like a place, I don´t want to go.
I don´t like it here, I looooooooooooooooove it!!!!

And maybe we can stay here!

She said, "you only gotta move around the corner - and you´re rid of MRS MEINECKE, too!"

I guess that woman has caused a lot of trouble, also to the landlord!

Whow.

Monday she wants to call me on the details. One room is around 26m² - what should we do with so much room?!
One about 12, the other about 14, plus a "small" kitchen. WITH A BALKONY! A MUST!

Cross your fingers for me, please!!!

Tumbs Up! here, too

I think I finally can join in in the Tumbs Up! - Campaign, Rodney is supporting:

Want to highlight someone making a positive difference?

Is there a blogger who deserves a pat on the back or simply something that has you feeling thankful this week?

The blogosphere can sometimes be a pretty negative place so I reckon it's great to make a habit of accentuating the positive.

Blogs, or the reading of them ;-) have highlightened my life, really. This really was the spark for my last big holiday!
Though by that time I didn´t know Hann yet, I am now a frequent reader of that frequent blogger. Why? Almost always she has something positive to say, points out fun-stuff to join in, provides her readers with great pics of her family and the place where she lives, making me occasionally wanting to book a Qantas-flight, grab my boyfriend and get off to that place.

Especially now where I read all about spring-time starting whereas we get a weather.... ok, also autumn has it´s good sides, it´s very colorful...

There are heaps of great blogs out there and I love to peek in in many and I don´t want to neglect or reject anyone here!
But Hann again brought some very nice memories back with this post and I simply wanna say, thanks, Hann, thumbs up for ya! :-)

Nice words

My day today... doctors´ appointment, work, another doctors´ appointment with heaps of waiting, dish-washing (well, back at home, certainly!!! ;-)...), laundry (still running), cleaning, preparing food for work.

Boooring day.. exhausting day.

So I like to cheer me (and if someone reads along, you, too) up with the quotes of the book I sadly have finished, here we go, in no particular order:

"I love the fact that I make people happy, in any form. Even if it´s just half an hour of their lives, in any way that I can make them feel lucky or make them feel good, or bring a smile to a sour face, that to me is worthwhile."

"I´m not worried about wrinkles and things like that. I don´t get up every morning and rush to the mirror and see how many lines I´ve got... I don´t worry. I mean, you´re going to get old, you´ll look old, and that´s the way it is, no matter how many creams you use... I´m not afraid of looking old. It´s how you feel inside that matters..."

"I might have all the problems in the world, but I have Mary and that gets me through. She only lives about two minutes from me. I still see her every day and I am as fond of her as I have ever been. I´ll love her until I draw my last breath. We´ll probably grow old together."

"Rio, in 1985, was wonderful. It was mind-boggling to be up there with all those people in the palm of your hand. During Love Of My Life I stood there blinking away like mad and swallowing hard, with the same feeling that The Last Night Of The Proms gives me. The sunshine makes such a difference and people are allowed to flower there. They were a wonderful audience and I loved their displays of emotion."
(which I mentioned here, without knowing this quote!)

Sadly... Farrokh Bulsara never got old - he died aged only 45.
Better known as genius Freddie Mercury.

The book, "A Life, In His Own Words" is really a lot worth reading - even if you are not a fan of Queen or Freddie Mercury. Would you have expected such ? lovely, genuine words from that man?

Surprise?

Hann drew my attention to a personal DNA test, where "your true self" is revealed.

It was fun. The result was... surprising. A bit. I had to laugh out loud at first at the title but after rethinking I found it was quite true in many points. The title that describes "me"... well, was even true in part of my life. Working as well as private life.

So, raise an eyebrow or laugh, here it comes:



It says "You are a Considerate Leader."!

I´ll keep some of the results here also for me as a reminder, if I ever feel I have to reread parts.

To the Leadership it says: "Never one to pass on an adventure, you're consistently seeking and finding new things, even in your immediate surroundings." Hehe :-)

And this is quite true, too:
"You're not afraid to let your emotions guide you, and you're generally considerate of others' feelings as well."
"Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you."

To the point "considerate" it says:
"You trust others, care about them, and are slow to judge them, making you CONSIDERATE."
"You value your close relationships very much, and are more likely to spend time in small, tightly-knit groups of friends than in large crowds."
"You enjoy exploring the world through observation, quietly watching others." - SO TRUE!

"You like to look at all sides of a situation before making a judgment, particularly when that situation involves important things in other people's lives."

- In my job I did that too long, trying too long to seek for something good in a certain person which simply was not there. It cost me my role as a team-leader of a small team and I still have to fight hard to prove myself. This was a lesson of life, but I hope I learned the lesson well.

"Your close friends know you as a good listener." and to make up for that it suggests that I "should try to be more outgoing in social situations, even when they make you uncomfortable."

Ewww. Who sits behind that script that threw all this out? Do they know me in person?

Meeting a celebrity

I was in the city and the weather was real bad. I was on the marketplace and went into a cathedral to get away from the weather.

Man, it was dark inside! I could see that someone was in there, too, but my eyes needed some time to adjust to the darkness.
The man was really huge - and really angry, asking me what I thought I was doing to simply walk in there like that?!
Gosh, he frightened me!

But when I explained I was looking for shelter from the bad weather, he calmed down.

I looked at him, he wore something shiny, like made from metal.

He tried to make up for screaming at me and started chatting with me. The topic quickly went to seals, and I told him I had seen some in our last holiday, too.



Then the clock rang.

I realised I had met Duke Henry the Lion, that it was just a dream and my first thought was, "and I am talking about seals with him?! I should have told him about the latest meat scandals here in town!"

Darn it, really?! We have indeed seen seals in our holiday in Husum.
And in July we spend two weeks here in my town. We went into museums as well and in one of them was a huge statue of the Duke, right in a dark corner. The statue had a coating of nails, a symbol for rehabilitation after the war. It impressed me a lot.

I just wonder why my mind took so long to work through this???

I hope if I ever meet a real celebrity, I come up with something better than seals to talk about!

Oh, btw: I found a site that shows some of Brunswicks´ monuments.

Odd was also, he spoke to me in today´s accent and not as if he was from the 12th century. And I didn´t realise it. Have to ask my mind to take care for that in the future....

Has anyone a weird dream to offer, too?

Apart from that I have to say I´m sadly really used to hearing in the weather-news that it´s "too cold for the season". This morning I heard a new one, it is "way too cold for the season". Awww....

Where's the waiter?

I stumbeled over this today and thought, oh, hey, they have a second one now!

Nah. The fancy news are spreading very slow from here to over the pond...
I saw this on TV here ages ago.

If you wanna have a look and see the film, go to perthnow. I think it´s a fun way to order and get your dinner.

Currywurst!

My customer claims to have the best Currywurst and I agree!
And Tuesday is "Currywurst-day" - plus now they also offer small portions and hence... YAY, I had one today.
Looks freaky but Herbert Groenemeyer even dedicated a song to it (german "lyrics").

Hmmmm, a good way to have a lunch break!

After work I went to the supermarket. My "new" mp3-player (the "old" one broke down and got replaced for free on guarantee) had broken down and was replaced (never-ending-story?).
I needed to do errands and stumbled over some zip-off-trousers, reduced from 40 to 20 bucks.
They not only fit but in the evening at home I discovered I really bought good quality!
They are claimed to be heavy duty (can I go on the push bike with them?), are to dry fast, keep their form, are low-maintenance, are "Teflon", which means breathable, durable and so on and what really surprised me, sitting here in Germany: They have UV-protection! The label says you can stay longer in the sun with them.

But prior to that discovery I raced home, jumped on my bike and went to the dentist. Luckily I always have an interesting book with me.
I read several chapters! (Really quite interesting, it´s about what we can learn from our neighbours. I read about Slovakia´s Flat Tax, how Ireland grew from poor to the paradise of investors and about the school-system in Finland. Man, that impressed me a lot! Germany should learn that way of schooling fast!)

In fact I sat there reading for 1 1/4 hours!
Which wasn´t fun at first. There was a man in the small waiting area who smelled real bad. The three left of us exchanged relieved looks when he was called in.
Darn it! How can people run around like that here?! He didn´t look like he was living in the streets, not at all!
So, after over an hour it was my turn. They then apologised there was an emergency-surgery. I said, no worries, but it would have been better to tell us whilst waiting; there would have been some sympathy on the waiting then!

Well. They tried several times to break my crown loose. They had fixed it only provisorily but so darn good - they said, ok, keep it that way.

Over an hour for this!!!!

I bought some birthday-stuff for my Mom and brother, grabbed Chinese Take-Away, went home, grabbed some chopsticks, sat down cross-legged and watched an episode of Gilmore Girls.

Did a lot of eating-stuff today, did I?!

Well, will go to the gym tomorrow :-)

This fits!

Hehe - doesn´t this pullover I bought some time ago just fit perfectly not only to my glasses but especially to the new rice grain chain?!

Not only by color but also by the way it´s cut!

Yep, my second "pink phase" is definitely over, red it is! :-)

Packed Saturday

The weather was rather rainy - but we were lucky!

The FAL (Federal Agricultural Research Centre) tries to give us a glimpse on how scientists work - by trial and error very often. We could do that ourselves now - by wandering through a large corn-labyrinth (german).

Have a look here:






Certainly we had a "map" and there were signs with information on their work, too.



Was some fun! :-)
The sky was dark, the signs full of raindrops, but it wasn´t raining as we went through!
Here is some corn with pink hair:



Ingo dazzled a poor visitor, it really was some fun! :-)

We then went to our airport. Yes, my town has an airport! The Braunschweig Research Airport, small but, well, an airport!



Then we went to the Magnifest



in the background you see our Rizzi House. I dunno... well I don´t have to look at it often - or is it really nice?

No rain for long! For some reason I couldn´t eat and tried an ice-cream, though I don´t like sweets. (I need to eat regularly. Must be my age - if I don´t eat, I don´t get hungry but start shivering. Once I nearly faded and that made me really afraid!) So, here is an unusual pic of me:



Refreshing: Lemonade for kids is 30 cents!



Next we really met the girl who writes on rice again.

She always also has to paint for us - last time Ingo made her paint the bridge of Wilhelmshaven where we spend a little holiday.
This time I was by chance wearing my x-mas-t-shirt and hence she painted that - plus our cars' name and plate number, here you go:



You need to click to enlarge to see, sorry...:



She made the tree from this sample:



And here is our 6ZY416 - the one Ingo claims is long scrapped - which I do not think! (You can click to enlarge)



That was when we tried to sell him, usually he looked like this:



What a day...
:-)

And guess who is sitting on my sofa right now?
Happy Monday!