Four Nights in Paris

...and I don't mean that Hilton bitch - I am talking about the capital of France.

To take the early flight at 6:30am now definately seems to me as one of my most stupid ideas. Although I might think differently about it after arriving and enjoying a relaxed and easy check-in into the hotel and a hot nutella crêpe at the Rue Mouffetard.

Working for the EU has its positive aspects for sure.

Who said it would be easy?

It is eleven pm and I finally finished work. This doesn't mean finished as in "everything has been done" but more like "fed up to the limit".

I really don't want to whine about it here, but I'll do it anyway.

From losing a bit to being yelled at for no good reason... everything found its way into this little office today. All each of them nothing seriously bad but since they all decided to hit me today, they managed to make me look pretty unprepared.

So I decided to be better prepared next time and simply take such a day off...

Busy

Ten things to do and only time for four.

The Island

Today we waded through the icy Isar waters across to one of the new formed river islands.

After the flooding the river seeked new grounds and left some pebble beached islands which are now incredibly nice for sunbathing.

To prove it I managed to get a nice sunburn.

A Bavarian without a Lederhosn'

During the past few days of the Oktoberfest, I made some observations regarding the ratio of people wearing bavarian traditional dresses as soon as they hit the beer tents.

I am not speaking of the typical Bavarian who's wearing his deer leather boxers for weddings, Ascension Day and the carnival in Cologne.

No way, it is the French, American, African and Japanese (shivers!) along with all the other german folks from north the Danube river who persistently bustle about the city during the Wiesn' season.

If you bump into a green coloured alien with an Indian feather headdress it is definitely an Italian. From the foreign crowd, they are the only ones you can rely on showing up in some loony freaked out costume.

The best way to find a native Bavarian is probably to pick those in Jeans and T-Shirt.

Freedom of Speech

As a true german ignorant I was firmly believing that the freedom of speech was something that was fundamentally granted in Germany ... until last week.

I'll cut a long story short:
An old building was diagnosed a structural failure and got evacuated. While not the trigger, but the reason for the failure were the numerous and rather severe defects contained and spread in the structure. Now those have been either overlooked or not recognised until it was too late.

Anyway, asked by a journalist of a reputable newspaper, I provided my technical expertise which was in tune with the conclusion of the appraiser from the public prosecutor.

Motivated by this interview, the lawyer from the owner of the damaged house is now trying to threaten me by a legalsuit, accusing me of exceeding the freedom of speech. Ah, well ... ok.

If heading to a court desicion would not also result in feeding some more lawyers (rather obvious that I dislike them, huh?), I would really be tempted to find out if feeling to be right is also being adjudged to be right.

Love Letters

Yesterday I saw a part of A.R. Gurneys' play Love Letters.

It is about a special bond between two people who never become a true couple within their lifetime. Although both go different ways, marry (someone else) and start seperate families, their love towards each other is displayed within their more or less constant exchange of letters.

There is not so much desperate desire and frustration about those who were meant to be together but never really get together.

It is more about getting the insight that the lives of two people do not necessarily need to interlock and synchronise to still keep a special place in your heart for each other.

Apple Antipathy

Well, I admit it:
I bluntly dislike Apple products, mainly because everybody else is heavily promoting them.

I am truly baffled about the fact that people put so much effort into advertising a product without getting paid for it.

When a friend of mine asked Apple for collaboration for an iP0d-party the guys from Apple just arrogantly rejected his offers: If people want an iP0d-party, they do it without us spending money - we wish you good luck when you buy your iP0d and organise your party.

I also admit that I like the designs from Apple, but I will only buy one if people stop feeling trendy or geeky by owning one...

Post Hair Trauma

I think everybody went through this odd feeling that suddenly occurs a few minutes after getting your hair cut.

Personally I do believe that this state of abrupt discomfort has its roots within the individual desire to work your very own hair instead of allowing some other monkey person to do that for you.

In these times of irrational and mixed feelings, it would be the best to take a long hot shower, after which I would be able to do my hair again myself...

Time for a Cut

It's getting in my way.
It is taking my sight and tries to tickle me whenever it can. I got the impression that it wants to make me look silly and no need to mention that it requires way to much attention. At first I wanted to keep cool and spare it, but enough is enough...

Red Light Confusion

This morning I passed a rather insignificant traffic light. The only problem it had was that it had three different lights:

One for cars, one for bicycles and one for pedestrians... all switching from green to red at totally different schedules.

I think that the idea behind this nasty trick was to provide the right time to each one of them to clear the crossing. While in fact it was mainly causing confusion and aggression.

I guess sometimes it's just better to treat everybody exactly the same way.

(Disclaimer: No confusion with the political "Ampel"(traffic light) coalition intended)

Murphys Law No 1306

The laser printer will always fail and get an unrepairable disfunction during the holidays of the only person who holds the only key to the iron locker which secures the bill of the laser printer essential for a replacement free of charge.

Free for one Year

Marketing for engineering software sometimes is a mystery to me.

Since one year I get called by a software developer from Cologne who is sending me their software package to test it for a month. Each month.

Simply because I rarely have a need to use it - so all I can say on the next telephone call is excusing myself for not giving the software a proper test run. And end up getting the license extended.

I started to feel a bit guilty after the second month of usage, but since I am always admitting how much I am using it and only reject in renting it, I believe that they could simply not send it to me anymore.

But due to marketing they just sent it for the upcoming month.

Coral Bleach

Yesterday I learned (thanks to Torsten&Sylvie) that visiting the Maldives for a scuba diving trip is not the cleverest idea ... anymore. Not because it is far or expensive or both, but because of coral bleaching.

I've seen bleached coral off the shores of Sri Lanka but wasn't aware of the loss that happened in other parts of the Indian Ocean.

This is all happening as an effect of global warming which is, although constantly denied, probably happening because of the greenhouse gas emissions.

But things are not all bad and depressing - because farming on the other hand will soon be possible in defrozen Greenland. (Great, huh? Didn't we all waited for this!!)

I seriously doubt that the situation will improve within my lifetime. I just have to be quick to dive places that are not bleached yet as it's probably the...

Last chance to see

Election Voting Day After

So there was nobody elected to form the government in yesterdays ballot. Great! As if I would not have expected it at all:

Along with many other things, the Germans are not able to decide upon their own government.

They whine about too much bureaucracy and yet create more. They want less regulations and still the number of laws increase by day (not to mention the number of lawyers). Less taxes and easier taxation systems - no chance...

The only positive funny thing about the result of the voting, would be to see how a government consisting of CDU/CSU, the Liberals FDP and the Green Party DIE GRUENEN would work out.

Emigration might be an option?

Prussian Occupation

Since some 130 years the former kingdom of Bavaria is part of Germany. Until 1866, when the invading prussian army defeated the Bavarians, the country more or less accepted the state of occupation (ok, I admit, it is federal in a way, but at the moment I don't give a shit).

Dear Prussians,

if you dislike Bavaria, if you feel all Bavarians are conservative, narrow minded, self-centered people, then why the fuck do you come here? I mean, there are plenty of places in Germany you can hang out. It does not have to be Bavaria!

Sorry, but I just had to get this one off my chest.

Weekly Celebrity

After buying a vaccuum cleaner close to my office and trying to carry it on my bicycle as careful as possible across the streets infront of the Sendlinger Tor I bumped into a crowd of pompous asses all dressed neatly in show-off traditional clothing.

I struggled through them and realised that the celebrity who got half of the cleaner packing knocked into his hips was Michael Kaefer.

Adjusting my load, I gave him that "Don't you see, I have important things to do"-look and passed on.

Italian Motor Homes

If I would not read any newspaper, would not watch TV or surf the internet and would not have a calender, I would still know that the Munich Oktoberfest (the beerfestival) is about to start since it just was the fifth italian motor home which passed by my office window today.

Bicycle Pimps

As I was riding my bicycle to the office today I passed one of those people riding one of those MTV style pimped up bicycles. Actually when I think about it I truely fail in saying anything nice about those new generation bicycles.

I use my bike daily for work and for pleasure and I feel personally insulted (as stupid as this sounds) to be unconsensually confronted with one of those nonsense bicycles.

The pimping definately went to far for me now and the next pimp-bike I'll come across will be not safe from getting deflated. And that only to check if the pimp has got a pump.

The Dark Side

Although it is still summer (at least according to the gregorian calender) it's already pitch black dark outside and I am still in the office!

Cheap cheap price!

I know these are rough times and the money is more tight than ever. Still this is also the case for myself which means that I cannot give discounts like plastic souvenir give-aways.

Just a minute ago I talked to one architect at the phone and was reassuring him that I would round my fee down from 18.900 to 18.000 - thus making his call almost a thousand Euros worth. Just at that point I heard him talking about something with "seven" which I first took as a misuderstanding.

Less than 50% of my fees should be reduced to get me the job while my first offer was already below average. Not to mention that I have to remind every second bill and go to court to get the money for every fourth of my bills (yeah, these are great times if you are running your own business!).

I told him that if I would reduce my fees I could just as well quit working as an engineer and go cleaning other peoples offices - and for the first time I was not joking about it.

I ended up giving 26% reduction, which is already beyond my painful limit and now to get used to it, I start cleaning up my desk!

Political Hyperactivity

Ok, I thought of myself as a politically interested and enthusiast person when it comes to a good discussion. But reading all this propagandistic blog entries and postings is steadily pushing me to keep my political opinion to myself.

Did anybody notice that there might be a good reason for keeping an election secrecy? It seems that this is a secret to some people all by itself.

Browsing through the long loooong messages, I also wonder how creative and enduring some people are when it comes to expressing their political believes and I really think that canalising this energy into some productive process might be worth the thought. Or is this already again a political aspect?

The MVG strikes back

Today the MVG is on strike - just as it was announced before. The S-Bahn is not on strike as well so it is mainly subway, trams and busses which are taking a day off.

According to everybody (blogger, newspaper, tv and the woman next door) there would be more car and bicycle traffic today which I probably failed to see myself. Could also be the case that there simply is no big deal about it - who knows?

The only sign of the strike I saw was the noticable bigger number of people flooding from the S-Bahn station right onto the bicycle lane which caused an infernal tinkling of some of the most vicious bicycle bells.

Laywers

Why do lawyers always have to wear dark suites? I mean, this was a damn construction site we were meeting at. With mud, grease, oil and any other imaginable kind of dirt. Still this guy shows up in his McKinsey compatible dress and impressively expensive italian shoes which are now of course ruined forever.

I also always wonder why people start to become lawyers at all. Afterall it means being in the center of bitter arguments from 9 to 5 every week. Not to mention that it involves lying, denunciating and concealing. This truely seems to me just a position for a masochist with a strong fetish for boring suites and ties.

Although this specific lawyer was not of that nasty mean sort, which all of you (as long as you are older than 18 and are no lawyer yourself) probably got to know somehow already, I still felt that it would be a great idea to stuff all of them together into a space-ship and shoot them into the next best galaxy (as long as this place is far far away from here).

The Kick-Off

I am still not sure if there is enough to tell or enough time to type it into yet another blog, but hey, I could care less. So why bother? I just kick off another blog and find out if I will be able to keep up filling it on an at least daily basis (most weekends excluded - don't get greedy!)