Current Events
23.11.2008 So it’s Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody…. Which means it’s as good a time as any to sit down and write what I haven’t felt like the last while. I dunno if has just been fall itself or what. I know in the evenings I just haven’t felt like writing, just coming home, making dinner and decompressing till it was time to go to bed.
So who what where when how? I don’t even think I have any of it straight anymore. Guess I’m getting old. Of course I remember some of it. I spent a bit of time working on the car in October. It would start with me replacing the front speakers in the car in the middle of the month. Helga’s been updated with a lot of original options that she didn’t get built with. Of course some of it has been done in more convenient ways, like the window switches and ass warmer switches for the front seats. In any case, converting the front speakers to premium sound was not one of them. In the front I found 2 mismatched speakers and the drivers side tweeter wasn’t working, cause the wire was broken.
I could have mounted 6.5’s over the molding, but wanted to keep the stock look and put 5.25’s back in. The tweeters would take some work. I got them wired in that day too, but the trim pieces would take a week or so of me slowly dissecting them. That night I went out into town with Dominic and his woman for a little while. We got caught up on times and had a decent night. It was pretty nice day that Sunday on the 11th, and driving out to a local cart place to go burn off some tension and cabin fever, or testosterone, or whatever it happened to be seemed like a good idea. I wasn’t with anyone I knew, I was just out there to beat on myself a little and try and hustle something without it leading to expensive repairs or jail time. I liked the part when the lights on the outside part of the course went out, it was pretty groovy driving by moonlight. I’d be sore the next few days at work.
Eventually, on the following weekend, I got my hands on a dremel and was able to cut the tweeters out from the back. I ground the plastic down and was able to glue the new tweeters on to each trim piece. The front sound was much better and I enjoyed my acoustic cd on a level I hadn’t before. Of course it’s not like my 5.1 surround in the living room, but its fine.
In the week between, we were up in
That weekend, I figured while I was at it, I’d put new speakers in the back too and picked up a set the following Saturday. I got the one side in. It was a bit of a pain, cause in the back I did decide to go to 6.5’s + tweeters and I had to increase the hole in the back deck and cut one for the tweeter. The next day, my co-op and one of the guys on his floor and I went up into the Franconian-swiss mountains/hills for some rock climbing. It had been 4 years and I was long overdue and fairly unconditioned to be climbing, but still had a good time. We kinda got there a little too early in a sense. It’s tough to climb on cold rock. Once the sun got up and warmed the rock up, it wasn’t too shabby. We had buzzed out on the autobahn that morning, but decided to take the normal / back way that late afternoon.
So Ben was sitting shotty, and I warned them both not to be alarmed, but to say something if my sporty driving was too much for them. Well I had finally gotten around to having my LSD put in that week when I had them change the oil and wanted to give it a decent shake down. I wasn’t going to push too hard. I don’t have enough experience with the car on the limit or with that much weight to really know how she’s going to behave and I never push hard hard with others in the car with me. Certainly not when I’m trying something new. That’s something you do in a controlled environment or deserted back roads…. Anyway, as we were hitting some switchbacks, I checked in my mirror how the others were taking it only to find that the guy in the back was taking a nap. Guess he felt pretty confident that I knew what I was doing. It was a good run. She pulls much better out of the corners, which is what I was hoping for. We got a little lost in
I’d be complaining sore for the next few days, but loved having physically pushed my body again. Too much time as a desk jockey has made me a bit flaccid compared to the young gun I was 4 years ago, when I was in the best shape I’ve ever been in. Of course Würzburg is building a climbing gym, so I think once that’s finished, I’ll have to get back into it again.
Halloween came and went without too much fuss. Actually, every year the Germans seem to get more into it. I had thought about trying to have a party at my place, but opted not to. I dunno, with all the stress of work, I haven’t been keeping up on the house work as much as I should. Orrin would laugh at me and tell me I’m being too critical, maybe even tell the story about us painting back in 4th or 5th grade. Me, well, I guess I have a semi-German sense of how it should be. The car is a good example of how it should be. Anyway, I didn’t need to, since there was to be a gathering of some friends. We ended up playing a “name that movie” game. I did pretty good, but had a hard time naming the German films. I only know a couple. I took the girls home so they could save the cost of a taxi and literally fell into bed.
On Saturday, I put the snow tires on. Well, it’s law in Germany and even though Würzburg doesn’t usually get that much, with all the power and torque baby brings to the road, and the fact that I hope to do skiing this winter, it seemed like a good idea. I knew she had a pretty decent footprint with the 205’s, but I didn’t realize how big they were till I pulled them off. The 195 snows are noticeably skinnier, and still bigger than the old Lancer had on it back in the day with 195 and give a good reference as to the difference in what the Breeze had with 195’s also. The change was pretty straight forward. I had my floor jack and the tire wrench BMW supplies is pretty good, almost as good as a star wrench. After I got them all on, I figure I’d go out and around for a little test. It was getting dark, but no big deal. Out by the one town, I decided to practice some panic stopping, something I hadn’t fully done with the car yet. I mean, I’ve hit the brakes hard driving around, sure, but never hard enough to make the ABS pulse. On this particular night, I decided to see if I could get it to come on. Well, that I would hit them hard enough to make them come on if the ABS was still working, which it should. I was fairly happy with the result. Based on pedal effort, I’d say that when I want to push it hard, I’m just below the ABS limit, although that has more to do with wheel lockage and thus with the other tires, I probably had a greater margin, but this isn’t track driving we’re talking about.
I had just gotten in and started dinner. I didn’t have anything planned on Saturday night, but through due course, a friend ended up coming over to watch a couple movies. You gotta love The Naked Gun. Even though I had watched it a week or two before, the jokes were still great. My favorite part, when he goes to take a leak still wearing the mic. Of course as an adult, as I discovered, I finally got some of the jokes I didn’t when I was 8. “Nice beaver” “Why thank you! I just had it stuffed.” If the first line doesn’t get you, understanding the double meaning of the second one will have you laughing your ass off if you have any sense of humor.
See, it used to be that when a movie like that would come on for the HBO Saturday night movie, the old man would send us to bed. We’d then hear him rolling with laughter. How were we supposed to sleep with that? Well, up until we put the addition on, with the bed in the right place and the door cracked just right, Tony and I, or at least I used to watch it from there. The tricky part was when one of them got up to go to the bathroom and I think I got caught at least once. Oh well. We used to wait to ask for ice cream until about 5 or 10 minutes before 8 to try and stretch it into whatever movie was coming on, but when that didn’t work there was always plan B.
In any case, it was a good night, better than having a couple drinks and watching movies myself. I hadn’t had a night like that in a long time. It was a comedy night with Shrek 2 following The Naked Gun. Of all the Shreks’, that one is my favorite, with the first one following that. I dunno, there’s just something about those two. I also finished the car speakers up that weekend on Sunday.
Ben and I would roll down to
In any case, like every time I’ve ever gone to
Dinner was good. The dean took us up to the famous hotel/restaurant, “zum Ritter,” or to the knight, if you want a direct translation. Fancy place, nice too. 1592 technology with a few modern improvements, you know running water, electricity. Actually, that’s what’s great about the Germans, they really know how to modernize old buildings while still maintaining the historical presence of the building, not like in the states where cities don’t really have a downtown cause it’s all been torn down for modern real estate and shit like that. Short sighted views cause people want to cash in now rather than wait for history to increase the value. I sigh at the thought of Yankee Stadium, and all the others like it that have gone that way.
So we talked about things. His dean has his PhD and written 13 books. I’m not sure if I was supposed to be impressed by that or not. Of course he’s been doing his thing a long time and could certainly teach me a thing or two, and I respect that on that level. We had some interesting discussion before it was time to head back. It was still raining and I took it nice and easy. We had some good tunes for the ride home that Ben brought, Rodrigo Y Gabriela. Awesome acoustic stuff.
Well, as it is with guys and cars, you finish one job and start another. I had been eying AC Schlitzer style pedals for a while, on and off, not too serious. I had seen some online that even had the “M” logo painted on them. Those were going for about 40 bucks more than the “naked” ones, and I decided that the clean look would suit me just fine and ordered a set.
I got the ticket in the mail on Wednesday after work and got up early that Saturday to pick them up. The weather was also fairly decent and it warm enough that it was pleasant to work in, not too warm, not too cold. Although I had gotten them mostly for optical value, they did in fact provide a better feeling between foot and pedal that I hadn’t anticipated.
I was wrapping up when my one neighbor across the street came over to say hi. He had caught me a couple weeks before when I was working on the speakers. He had just gotten back from Kosovo. What brought us together? Well, it just so happens, in his garage is a black 2-door sister to Helga. His daily ride is a VW GTI that moves pretty good. So yeah, we were chatting and he asked if I would be able to help him the following weekend in converting his sunroof to electric. Sure.
I took baby out for a test drive around the back roads I like to run around on every once in a while. I hadn’t done this since before having the diff put in. The ass felt tighter, which I had noticed already. She was however more bouncy and if I hadn’t already had the practice with the Breeze, the tire squirm would have been a little troubling. With the Breeze, it was fine, and that’s how I knew when she was getting settled into the corner, especially in the dip back home. With the 325, it’s a little bit different, partially because the suspension is quite a bit stiffer, partially cause the stretch is a little bit more back road than rt7 and there is no safe high speed sweeper like the dip. On that stretch, which you might gather if you have watched the video, it’s not as easy as climbing the
That night a few of us got together to have a game night. We played a board game first. You picked up missions to build certain railroad lines across the
On the 12th, I finally made myself go to the local Photoclub meeting. I almost didn’t. I was so beat after work, all I really wanted to do was go to bed, but I was happy I went. I managed to hold on. The meeting started at 8, and it half took me back to scout meetings. It seems like there’s a really good crew. There was definitely a lot of good fodder. The meetings are every 2 weeks, and I think it’s something I’ll get in to. It looks like they do a lot of cool stuff. That particular night, they happened to be doing some Photoshop stuff and I learned a couple new tricks.
I figure between car stuff, climbing and Photography, I might actually get back into a more active/social lifestyle. Sure, I’ve had a pretty good one all the while, but it seems like it wants to grow a little, and provide a balance to my life that has up until now, been primarily focused around work. Maybe one thing drives the need for the other, I don’t know. I can only base my opinions and conclusions by self critique and the experiences I’ve gathered over the years. It’s all a matter of looking at things, past and present and knowing / trying to figure out where you want to be in the future. The me over the last years knows he doesn’t want to get so run down in a groove that he comes home and doesn’t want to do anything.
Of course, how does one define that? Is it not going out to the pub after work? Is it simply coming home, eating and going to bed? Is it coming home from work and just watching TV or a movie? For some it means not going to the gym. For others it might mean not reading the news or their book. I will say that after spending 10 hours at work, where a good ¾ of it is probably in front of a computer, I have less ambition (and my bum has even less desire) to come and sit in front of the computer for another 3-4 hours. And still, I like listening to music and playlisting, I like being creative and working on my pics in Photoshop, I like writing and keeping up with folks. So we all need to figure out what we want our lives to consist of, and that I think is what determines the meaning of life. It’s something we each get to define and adapt with time. Everybody is right and wrong.
Anyway, after passing out and missing the SMS inviting me out to Brauhaus, I did wake up fairly early and go help Mathias with his sunroof. We ended up massaging things together. He didn’t want to changes the cable tubes out and the electric one uses a slightly different plate and has a cut out for the motor on it. I woulda done it all, although the shape of the electric sunroof tubes didn’t look the best. So fine, I grabbed my cordless drill and we drilled the rivets out. I did it based on my judgement, but later on read about people that did the same with the same size drill. Not too shabby. I wish I had a picture of it though, me sitting in the drivers seat, cordless drill with a 10 mm bit in it, drilling up at a 45 to the roof. You don’t see that everyday.
I then had to get out my dremel, put the wand on it with a disk and make the cut out for the motor. It was almost the same story, only better, cause part of the time, sparks were coming off the disk. I shoulda brought my little flashlight down too, cause then I woulda seen, what I believe is a model year change in the mounts for the motor and gear housing. SNAFU? Naw. One of the holes was the same, we made the second one work for us and we drilled a new through hole in the plate for the third. Without having the electric run, the only way to test it was with the allen key in the gear housing spot that BMW provides you, just in case you need to close it manually some time. Gotta love the Germans, they make allowance for things like that to happen. Smart thinking. So it worked pretty good, as best as I can tell, he was happy and we went down to the place along the river for a Dönner before he went off to his girlfriend’s.
On Monday I was on the road again. Another trip up and back to
As it turned out, I shaved off a half hours worth of time, because I had a car I was comfortable in. I mean, the nice part about having been on the road a bit more recently, is that I’ve gotten to test drive a few different vehicles; Renault Senic, Mercedes CLC, VW Touran, Skoda Octavia and the BMW 118d. The 118d is the best driving car I’ve ever been in. Surprisingly enough, the Mercedes is one of the worst.
But going back to the 118d, a perfect little piece of engineering. As one would expect, it’s even better than my 325i from handling. I could tell that there are similarities though. If my 325 drives like a BMW, they’ve kept the same goals for what a car is supposed to feel like and only further refined those over the years without sacrifice. Now the car was equipped with start-stop, which meant when I shifted into neutral while sitting at a stoplight, she shut the motor off until I pressed in the clutch to put it in first. Now being a 118d, she didn’t have as much power as one could use. On the autobahn climbing some hills at about 130 mph, the speed did start to fall off. I guess it’s that damn air resistance thing. In any case, she still met all my expectations on what a car should be and while I haven’t driven one yet, I’d probably take a 1-series over a Dodge Challenger, as much as I don’t want to admit it. Maybe a Challenger in the coupe category, but the 1-Series over here?
See, what I don’t like it, is that you have more options and can build your own car over here better than in the states. In the states, someone made the decision to make it more of a luxury car and not offer standard things like cloth upholstery, like you ca n get over here. WTF? That’s not cool. And they should give all the sporty options too, but with the smaller motors, just like here. For example, 143 hp wagon starting at 24k Euro. The most basic model starts at about 22k and would have same/better performance as the Breeze. Ok, so with the current exchange rate, the 24k is close to 30k bucks. But it gets between 30 – 50 mpg, has traction and stability control and is practical / fun to drive. It’s affordable, fun transportation.
If I pick out a Dodge Caliber, I’m talking what, 22k for “similarly” equipped? Hmmm. Actually, they are selling quite a few of those over here. I look at Ford and GM too, and I can’t find a vehicle from any of them that really matches what I’m looking for. Neither does a VW product for that matter. A Toyota Matrix or Mazda 3 maybe, if I wanted to give up rear wheel drive and a lot of good options that are standard on a BMW. Of course in all fairness, I can’t get what I want from BMW in the states either. Guess I’ll have to write them a letter about that. If I had my build, it would be a 120d 4-door I think, with the Montego blue, shadowline and a few other goodies on top of the dynamic package. It’s a $40k car, but I make Euros and could probably get one with a decent payment plan. If it would last as long as my 325i, it’s not that bad of an investment. Speaking of which, I found one in the scrap yard stateside with 350k miles on it! That was with 80’s technology. So all I’m saying is that when you lay that kind of cash down for a vehicle, you get something for it. Sure, you can’t drive it into the ground, you have to change the oil and make sure it has oil in it, but the car will run forever with a little TLC. Maybe in a couple years, we’ll see.
As nice as it was Monday, the weather would be finicky at best the second half of the week. Up-down, up-down, and very quickly. For a minute, I thought I was in
It was dry, but cold out. There were a couple cars in the front corner, but the opposite corner left me over 4 times the room I needed. Actually, in second gear, I had a hard time getting the back end to break. In steady state, I think the front wants to understeer more than anything else. Guess I need some roll bar work there. Of course by playing with the throttle hard enough, I did in fact get the reaction I wanted. A couple times to the left, a couple times to the right, I didn’t need to burn up the tires and decided to call it a night. I’ll go back out when it’s more slippery. Today some more of the same with some cleaning up and laundry mixed in.
So that’s what I’ve been up to, but there’s a whole lot more to the world, even Frank’s world, than that. I mean, part of this serves as kinda a journal for me, but it started out and is primarily for everyone to enjoy and keep up on the things we don’t get to do together since we’re all miles apart. I also hope, that all of this will be around a long ass time for perhaps grandchildren and all the future FCIII generations to enjoy. I remember my grandpa Frank pretty well. I still get to listen to the stories and discuss life with Grandpa Pye. Still, stories and memories fade. Even the same memories that I haven’t forgotten are remembered a little differently than they were back right when they happened. Some of the details fade, things get confused. A couple of things that happened 2 different summers at camp might get merged into 1. It becomes just as in Great Expectations (the film), “I’m not going to tell you how it happened, I’m going to tell you the way I remember it.” So this is for that as well.
So what’s to talk about? The economy, politics, sex, drugs, rock n roll, booze and lots of ammunition? Actually, that can all be condensed down to politics, right? No, wait, I forgot religion even though we’re supposed to have a separation of church and state. I suppose the economy is the easiest thing to talk about and a good place to start.
The whole world is hurting right now. It’s not just in the
Now, while I believe there are a lot of issues with top level management worldwide in lots of companies, and I think those A-holes don’t deserve that much, until we change the system, that is what we have. This is part of the reason I’m against the bailout. It is the people who will suffer for the mess top level management created, but if no one puts their foot down, this shit will never stop. Who cares about Santa, write your wish list to the USA Federal Government, they don’t care if you’ve been naughty or nice.
Now, I admire Ford, GM and Chrysler as part of American history, but you can’t screw with the free market like that. Did anyone save PanAm, or any other sets of industry that weren’t cutting it? Chrysler has been here before, and paid back its loan. I have a slightly biased view because I grew up a Chrysler (Dodge & Plymouth mostly) fan. I don’t like what Daimler did to them. Forget saying Germans, that’s like referring to Americans as Enrons, you can’t mix company structure/thought/politics with nationality. A better company might have done better with them. Ultimately, I hold Daimler responsible for where Chrysler is, although without having been on the inside or all knowing, it’s impossible to say if they were a time bomb all along or not.
But they are where they are. Hey, listen to the news and it’s not hard to figure out why. Spas, Jets, luscious spending. WTF? If you want to know what I think, which you might, if you’re reading this, the top dogs believe they are entitled to too much for working themselves up there, so the guys down at the bottom suffer. They suffered till unions came in to give them a leg to stand on. Still, this works against things too, cause while protecting, it might not always encourage efficiency, and so eventually the job goes over seas and the plant closes anyway. Or the company builds a new plant somewhere else, fades the old one out slowly over time, rather than cutting the first one and keeping part of the workforce that’s going to get laid to waste later if they don’t.
Of course a big part of the problem I have is with the stock market too. Everyone wants to invest so they can make money, and make a quick buck. Well, as we can see, that erodes stable growth. As soon as the bean counters come in, it’s all about head count, and ridding what is there until there is no more left. Of course, you can only do that so long. How did
You see, we keep pushing for better more long lasting cars. Call it the competitive edge, market, capitalism, whatever. They are doing more and lasting longer. So, the turnover in average number of vehicles will have to peak at some point. I think the economists call it market saturation. And that’s it. Maybe the market is just a little over saturated. Maybe too many people tried to make too much fast money. Maybe some actually succeeded at the cost of others. Maybe it was just time for a heavy rain and a storm to cleanse things. You have to have a sustainable pace. Too slow and you’ll die a dinosaur, too fast and you can’t pull in the capital to support it.
I mean a tree doesn’t grow forever. Once in a while, they shed their leaves, and eventually they go back into the land they came from. Well, the economy is more like a forest. Some forests will live a long time the way they are. They grow slow and steady. Some get hit by some kind of bug and die down for a time, until things grow back. Some species go extinct, and some products will too. I don’t know the last phonograph that was produced, but you can still buy vinyl on a limited basis. The shelves are stocked with CD’s, but you’ll be hard pressed to find cassette tapes these days.
There is more value added in a car these days, so they have to cost more, not just because of added technology, but because the car is going to be on the road for the next 15+ years in all likelihood. That is, until all the crappy electronics burn out, which is what I see as the biggest weak point and limiting factor in today’s vehicles. I don’t have any data to back that up, it’s a purely gut feel opinion coming from a mechanical guy that see electronics as a kind of voodoo science anyway. Still, what’s the average failure rate of an electrical component, and how many of those things are on a board that does whatever?
I’m not a big fan of it, but I know it’s today’s rage, to buy a car with video screens and a DVD player in it. Now you too can shut your annoying little kids up by putting in a movie. Maybe hardcore parents will put in learning tapes so by the time the kid gets to first grade they’ll be sending him/her off to college. Of course the kid won’t have any social skills or know how to interact. Well, maybe they’ll have DVD’s for that too. Maybe someone will come up with a series called Parenting, everything your parents would teach you if they weren’t so lame and self consumed, season 1, preschool. By the whole set Pre-school – 12th grade on sale for 100k now.
And sure, VHS, DVD and there’s already Blue-Ray, and in 10 years? Guess I’ll be buying the same shit, just on new technology till I give up or croak. It’s been about 150 years since the modern age of recording and reproduction (acoustically speaking of course), 100 years since the Phonograph, 60 years since tape recorders, nearly 30 years for CD’s and just a bit over 10 for DVD. Groovy. So yeah, as long as some of this stuff stays backwards compatible, I’m pretty cool with it. The fact that most Blue-Ray DVD’s are coming out region free is also a blessing. Not that it has stopped computer gurus around the world from coming up with creative solutions around such ideas for those who continue to try and be territorial.
So getting back to my point, I had a point, didn’t I? I appreciate all the steps in the technology, but I don’t believe we should just implement it blindly. You know, in the old days, families would gather in the living room around the fireplace as someone read a book for the family. There was more personal interaction, which is somewhat lacking in this world. Of course by the same token, where one would have been considered a local freak for a certain hobby, he can now go online and search for freaks like himself. So on a certain level, there is more and a different type of contact out there.
Is the car the right place for such medium? Do you need a babysitter for your kids even though you’re sitting about a yard / meter in front of them? My father used to play his oldies and chat with my mother. Us kids would listen and develop an appreciation for the styles of music once considered vulgar or happening, depending on who you asked. It also helped us impress some of our teachers in high school who were of the same vintage. What did us kids do in the car? Maybe we had a toy or two in the car with us. Maybe we looked out the window and daydreamed and made conscious thoughts of our own.
In my opinion, movies are just visual literature. Sometimes reading is better, as part of the creative visualization is done in our own heads (the other part being what is dictated to us by the writer through what he gives us to imagine). But we all digest this information a little differently, that is to say we all take our own creative freedom with the material, and maybe the movie is a way to build on top of that. If a picture is worth a thousand words, well that’s a lot of pages especially at x frames a second. Besides, when was the last time you composed a book(film) score or imagined something out of your comfort zone? Core elements are the same, you still have a protagonist, antagonist, character development, the climax (not just a greek staircase). You still have symbolism. I am convinced there are some things you can do better on film, just because you can draw on visual cues. Of course a good book is still a good book, and it is definitely more likely to keep you occupied longer if that’s what you’re going for.
So to touch on politics for a few lines, yeah, a history making election in the
All in all, our political system in the
Old religious driven laws have less place in today’s modern society. I’m not saying religions aren’t a valuable part of culture and society, but I do happen to think they encourage stagnation in development. If you want a good example, just look back through history. In today’s battle of our times, it comes down to allowing same sex marriage or not. Personally, I’m in favor and think it will be allowed one of these days. Hey, I mean, who cares? If people are already living together like a married couple, sharing tax benefits, then what’s the big deal?
With guns, I tend to side a little more republican, although I don’t think every redneck deserves to have a high power or automatic weapon. It’s like anything else, credit card, drivers license, girlfriend, kids, you need to show you’re mature and responsible enough to have them. In the case of guns, provided you get proper training and show enough mental stability, sure why not. Personally, I think that as long as automobile deaths continue to outnumber firearm deaths by over 10k annually, we should maybe think about reevaluating how we train our drivers before we worry about guns. In 2007, Germany had less than 5k motor vehicle deaths (http://www.statistik-portal.de/Statistik-Portal/en/en_jb16_jahrtab40.asp) compared to the US with about 37k (http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx). The sites are both in English, so you can check them out. Now sure, those are just hard numbers not normalized for anything. If I go to Wiki, I see that the
I also believe a government should act like a business, i.e. on a balanced budget. If you can’t pay for the war, if the people aren’t willing to pay for the war via taxes, then it is irresponsible to wage it. Anything less than that, is well, you know the story about the monkey paw or whatever. It would grant you your wishes, but at a cost worse/more than getting the wish in the first place. And if we want to consider ourselves a world leader, then we need to set good examples for the world to follow. Taken as a whole, I haven’t seen that from a country that is certainly capable.
So what’s left, sex, drugs and booze? Well let’s see, alcohol is a kind of drug. It’s a depressant/sedative. On any given day, most people in this work start off with an upper though and end it with the sedative. For most in the world, this means a cup of coffee and/or a cigarette in the am. Apparently according to the nicotine report under Wiki, as you up the dose, the effect goes from upper to sedative. So Nicotine is a good all around drug to be on (note sarcasm).
So sex. I didn’t realize, but apparently, I must always mention sex in some form or another. No, not like different styles, or through symbolism like the train going into the tunnel or any others like the scene in The Naked Gun. So this was an interesting question for me, which required some thought. My first response was do I? Apparently hinting at good kissing and what not leads women to think about sex. I was not aware of this, and being the geek that I am, I’ll probably forget it before too long. I mean I always thought kissing was something you could do anywhere, when it turns into necking, it’s time to get a room.
So, how, what, where, when, why and with whom? None of your gd business. Hahahaha. Seriously though, I suppose that’s what happens when father-son bonding happens on a nightly basis at the dinner table and everything becomes a competition over size. Most of it was done for guyish humor that one normally only finds around campfires, hunting cabins, soldier barracks and other secluded places of manliness. Our language at the dinner table was dinner table oriented, but that didn’t take the meaning or connotation out of it. In fact, if anything, it pushed us to use the available language to convey the same meaning. And I think half of it was just to get “that” look from my mother. Of course sometimes she’d chime in with a good snip and that was even better. Anyone that knows any of us long enough gets used to this. Double meanings, sexual innuendos, it’s just seasoning to make a more entertaining day.
Let’s face it, sex is something we all understand. I’ll go with sex, as opposed to calling by any other term just for the sake of being efficient with typing (yeah, I can be one lazy son of a gun). Some of the talk I’ve heard about second hand suggests to me that women amongst themselves are just like men here anyway. So why hide it? Let the jokes fly. I’ll use the Shrek example. If someone wants to make a joke about how I had to buy a car with a big engine in it, with the allusion that I need to compensate for something, then I’ll come back with “why is it always about size, I thought it was about knowing how to use it.” Spaceballs, “I see your Schwarz is as big as mine….” Of course women will say both, and rightly so I suppose, as long as things are kept in reason. That’s not the point. The point is that everyone laughs.
Of course I am additionally predisposed as a mechanical engineer. That was the beauty about the material, forget about chemistry (although the section on bonding was halfway decent), everything could be related to booze or sex, mostly sex. In engineering, bondage got taken to a whole new level. And I could go into that, but it would be way too much. What I will share is the example from work. It wasn’t even
So as the year winds down, I find myself on the course to be homeward bound. Sure, I’ve got a kinda home built up here a bit now. Certainly more than what I had at the beginning of the year, but I think until I get my own someone to settle down with and we have the pitter patter of little feet (I’d consider getting a dog at that point), I’ll still consider the place I grew up as home. Maybe I always will, I don’t know. We never moved growing up, so it was home and the parents still live there. I hope they do for many more years to come too.
It’s been a crazy up down year, and I think it’s going to end the hardest it’s been. Will 2009 be any better? Hey, 10 years ago we were getting ready to party like it was 1999, cause it was. Kinda funny in retrospect. And we were alive for it, that and Y2 what was it called again? Hmm, it doesn’t seem like the year has been an isolated incident by me either. It seems like everyone has had, for lack of a better phrase, one of those years. Of course sometimes that sets a benchmark, sometimes the success of the future needs to get it’s feet wet, somewhere, sometime. I say that there are and will be a handful of days that we each could classify as the worst days of our lives, and maybe a bunch others as the best. And so just like the moon, only with a little less regularity, we wander through life. We give life meaning through the eyes we view it. We choose our own level of happiness, and to be honest, I can’t complain.
Horst had his going away party back on the 31st of July. He’s going to
Verena and Sandra visited the first weekend of August. I had gotten all moved and settled in. My coffee table and desk were built and finished. Laundry was all caught up. It was a nice day and we sat out on the deck, under the umbrella with a few glasses of apple flavored water, which I like to drink. Afterwards, we went into town to go get some food and chill. We started out at Cheers and then ended up on the City Beach Bar. It’s a place they set up on the river every year, where they put sand down and populate it with beach chairs. It’s a pretty nice place, where you have the sound of the river right there, and the occasional rowers from the club on the other side. The Chapel is right up on the hill, and there’s a nice view of the fort up on the hill. I was trading looks with a redhead a ways across from us. She kept looking, so I kept looking. Not really flirting, but kinda. We both knew the other was there. If I was a better guy, I woulda gone and macked on her, probably gotten her number, but alas I’m not.
I went into town the next day to watch the race. I told the girls I’d be there, and if they felt like it, they could join me. Apparently, they didn’t see me and went past me to the back, just about the time the race was getting to an end and Massa’s motor was about to go. I’d have a couple days of work before setting off on my next experience.
It all started off with a chance encounter a year ago, when I met Frank Röske at FSG (Formula Student Germany) 2007. He grabbed my contact information and said he’d be in touch regarding judging the FSG 2008. If you jump to the archives, you already know how impressed I was back then, and how the racing itch that has been with me since, well, since I said “wtf is this crawling shit, walking looks much faster.”
So eventually, I got the information I needed, as well as a “Just recognized that you bet my skid pad run in 2002
I went down Tuesday evening after work. I had originally taken the whole week off, to get some me time and get my shit in order on Monday and Tuesday, but I put these on hold or solved them by other means so I could do the important things at work. From my perspective, the work is mine, and it’s not fair just to take off to go have fun without properly organizing and make sure everything is all set. Sure, sometimes stuff happens. I know, I cover for others when they’re not there, or they’re at a customer, and they return the favor too, but my point is that I don’t want to count on that or misuse it either.
So anyway, I checked into the hotel, went across the street to McDonalds since it had been a while when I last added this kind of poison to my body and then relaxed a bit working on some work stuff before calling it a night.
I had my morning coffee the next morning, and there were also, of course, other teams there at the hotel, eating breakfast, all that. My last competition as a student, was May 2004 and I can still remember what it was like. A fresh car, just broken in, the fierce competition and the nature of trying to go through and make everything perfect. As a spectator last year, it was great, but it was also a little painful, as one would almost sell their mother to be able to do it all again, almost.
They were giving a briefing to the event staff, and I was amazed by the number of nice young ladies that were present. They weren’t giving out judge packages yet, so they told me to grab a red staff shirt. I read through some of the information and the schedule, just to refresh my mind another time a fairly familiar, but FSG expanded when what was happening where. The one guy asked me if I felt like carrying anything, and so being the masochist that I pretend to be, as well as looking to make myself useful, I said sure. We made a drink run in a minibus. I don’t remember how many liters/cases of water, orange juice, apple juice and milk (for coffee) we picked up, but I think the deposit on the bottles alone was up around 300 bucks (I already converted from Euros).
I was bumming around after that when I officially ran into Steve Fox and Pat Clarke, who are two of the top design judges. I knew who Pat is from my tenure at RIT, and probably saw Steve at events, but had never had the chance to get to know him personally. Anyway, they decided that if I was going to be around for a while, they would help train me a bit more to mold me into a real design judge, or at least put me on the right path. So they took care of my little judge’s package issue and I traded my red shirt for a blue polo. Well, trade isn’t exactly the word. I was harassing the cute blond and asked her if she wanted it back, knowing full well that I had been sweating in it for the last 4 hours. That got the desired look.
To try and describe the whole weekend is impossible. The design judge group is its own breed of very distinguished and dedicated individuals, and I cannot explain how grateful I am for all the knowledge and support they shared with me. I met Claude Roulle, who also told me I should come to his seminar. It would further deepen my understanding of what to look at on a car from a design aspect. My boss, Roland, came down for some of the endurance on Sunday and let me take Monday to catch part of it, for which I was also very happy.
I had already checked out of my hotel room, but as advised by Claude, the track hotel had a room available and I got in. This in itself was a nice treat and only an extra 20 bucks a night. If I had known that… Anyway, what it also meant was that I could stay for the whole after party and consume beverages containing mild carbonation and a few other optimizers.
It would seem to me that I went to bed with the intent of getting 5 hours of sleep. Of course alcoholic sleep isn’t quite the same. I actually ended up getting up before my alarm at first. This was not to solve any ill will I caused with my body, just programming. I had probably consumed a bit more than I wanted to or should have that night, and I’m pretty sure that I was still coming off it that morning. Oh well, I was there and I was awake. There was coffee and I was functional. Actually, I really amazed myself seeing as how I never did a stunt like that in college. Ok, that’s not entirely accurate. But that time was a leadership training event and the motivational speech part of it wasn’t very motivating, or should I say, motivated me to fall asleep. In fact the FSG part just confirmed that, since I know I had about the same amount.
So I headed home in the rain that night, driving with a careful foot. I had had to go and take care of a few work items here and there, but that was fine. I told everyone, if there is something you need to know, if there is a problem, or if you just want to hear the sound of race cars going by, call me. The seminar was 3 days, but there was way too much going on at work and I had been grateful when Roland told me he’d cover. I called into the conference that afternoon, but still. Perhaps next year I can plan it in to do the whole thing.
The next weekend was Stefan’s B-Day. He hit the big 30. It’s kinda scary, since I know it’s just around the corner for me. Come November, I’ll have 75% of my 20’s behind me. Looking back at it that way, does in fact bring up an interesting overview to my 20’s and the phases I’ve been through. So, if you’ll allow, I’d like to take a step back and look at it that way for a minute.
I went from turning 20 at my first Formula SAE competition. The first quarter was an overlapping period for me, still going up to scout camp for 2 summers, but getting ever more so involved in Formula. I had come off my freshman year of school after a year abroad. It was a matter of trying to find a way to take the past and carry it with me into the future, all the while picking up new tricks, new desires and trying to get deeper into those as well. It wasn’t just Formula, but the school’s leadership training program and being a resident advisor were in there too.
The start of the second quarter would find me on my way to
All in all, it probably all worked out to set me in a definitive direction. I was broken down to my core, and it allowed me to reevaluate who I was/am and what I wanted. From there I was able to orient myself towards that. As in the movie The Lookout, start at the end, can’t tell a story if you don’t know how it ends. Work back from there. So what do I want, 1. Loving wife, 2. A couple of kids, 3. A house, 4. Good job I enjoy, 5. To afford a race car and race. That’s it, that’s my top 5. So at least at the moment, I have one of the 5, and the rest will hopefully come with time.
So how did I end up back in
Back to the party, it was a good time. I was a bit tired since the weather had been making itself known to me that afternoon and trying to nap it off didn’t exactly help. I ended up talking some to a cute blond who was studying mech e down in
It’s always nice to talk to people. It’s easy, especially once the figure out I’m an American, and one that can speak German. I get some of the same questions, but I don’t mind, I already know what I’m going to say in some of those cases, and perhaps have a counter question I hadn’t thought of last time.
Brian called me up the following Wednesday. He was in town and asked me to come out for a drink. So I drove in for a few coffees, since I had already had dinner. We chatted about things. I won’t talk about work, since I do try to be a man of principle, and that would go against business ethics, which I do believe in. Anyway, I told him about the car, and he commented on how it only seemed fit, since I had been complaining about them to him even before it ever happened. I guess it was an omen. It was a nice night out, there were enough people and some eye candy.
That Saturday, the 23rd, was another birthday party. It was at the same place as last year, out in the country on a nice little piece of land. Grilling over a campfire, potato salad, BYOB. There were a few new faces, but mostly people I see every now and then. It’s kinda nice, cause we all get to play catch up while cracking jokes and taking the edge off. My fire building skills came in handy. There was a decent cooking fire going when I arrived, since the girl’s father had been there to support that activity earlier in the day. Other than people poking at the fire stirring up ash for no good reason other than to knock the ash off and see the glowing coals, the cooking part went fairly well. Still, the base had died down and night was upon us after a bit of a drizzle that afternoon. The wood was a bit wet, and maybe even a bit green, but not horrible. The real trick was finding good in between stuff. I would have some pretty good scratches on my hands and arms the next day. I knew how they got there, I just didn’t remember getting them. Take that as you will, it’s probably not entirely inaccurate.
The weeks roll by in the blink of an eye, with work the way it is. If I’m not zonking out or decompressing to a movie while folding laundry, I might be working on touching up pictures or trying to write another update.
Even though the end of the summer isn’t officially here yet, I always identify it with the end of August. Maybe that has something to do with the start of school all those years ago. Scout camp is not so far in the past that I can’t remember how when August came, the mornings seemed to get a little more crisp, a hint of things to come. Of course there are still those nice comfortably warm days in September, but by the time it arrives, it seems like it’s more of a twilight to the summer.
This year, I had the chance to cap the summer by leaving work later than I wanted to on a Friday evening to run home, get my gear and head north. The goal was to go to
I was able to make some time going up. The A71 is a fairly newer stretch of road that is lightly traveled. I was able to buzz along nice and easy at 180 kmh, or about 110 mph. The difficulty lay in trying to find the house, since the house number wasn’t visible as it is in most places. As such, I wasted a bit of time driving around trying to make sure I was on the right road first. As it turned out, when I finally got fed up and called, I was right across the way, and the party was out back.
There were about 20 people there, friends, family, you know. It was nice to get to see his folks, who I hadn’t seen in 3 years. I knew I was in trouble when his old man told me he had someone he had to introduce me to. He was pretty happy, and I was pretty sure the loudness was going to carry on ahead of us, which it kinda did. We get over to a group where there is only one girl standing there. I’ve already got that “Oh boy, I’m in for it now, half grin” faces on. It’s my “I can’t wait to see what kind of disaster I’m going to create now” looks. The words had indeed preceded us, because as soon as we get over there, and I’m waiting for the imminent, Patrick tells me the girl is his. I kinda felt like an A-hole, but was relieved at the same time, for the time being. Eventually, I would get introduced, but it was no big deal. More entertaining, was the conversation I had with a couple of the Germans. “You’re definitely from
The next day, I was playing a bit of taxi as we went to the Wartburg castle in
The castle took me back about 8 years. I was there on my Germany Tour as an exchange student. Somewhere at home, there is a picture of Chris and I each riding a canon holding our imaginary lassos up in the air. Ahh, the times.
Of course I love it when something like that happens, you end up crossing a particular path you hadn’t planned on. The memory of it comes back, you flash back, and smile to yourself as the memories replay. It happens to me on a fairly regular basis. I can’t explain it, it just happens. Of course, all the while, I’m making new memories, going new places.
This time I was better camara’d. I got some good pics of the gang. I meandered around mostly on my own. I wasn’t there with anyone per se, and wanted to give all the couples the chance to enjoy their vacation time. Quite a few of Scott’s friends had come over, and me, I was just freelancing. I also got a few good shots of the bride and groom while they were getting professionally shot.
We had come over on the back roads, which had given me some fun although I was following Tom. On the way back, we took the A-bahn and I was about to show a couple passengers the meaning of rasen. If I consult my translation assistance aka leo.org, rasen in verb form means to careen, dash, hightail, speed, yeah, you get the idea. A Raser, or the one doing the aforementioned verb, is a “speed merchant.” I suppose speed demon is more like it, but I definitely like “speed merchant.” Of course I never made any money off it, if anything, it has cost me a few pennies over the years….
Anyway, the first part of the stretch back was posted to 130 kmh, or about 80. We were down to our last exit when it opened up and I dropped the hammer. Baby knew there were 4 other bodies in the car and we stayed in 4th longer than usual. I was a bit concerned since I didn’t have great rear visibility, but that made it all the more necessary to be the fastest one in that lane. This is how Frank logic works anyway. Before I started winding her up, I had told them, 5 mi for every 8. As I got up around 200, 210 kmh, the guys had smiles on their faces as I was checking the mirror. What’s so funny, “we just did the math.”
We got back and changed to get ready for the wedding at 2. They were getting married by the justice of the peace, so it wasn’t exactly the long church spiel. Actually, it would end up being more like a quickie. We were in and out in about 30 minutes tops. Patrick had the job of being the sort of best man, and was going to use it to his full advantage. The rings were hidden/sealed in a couple of chocolate “surprise” eggs, that you usually have for kids. I assisted in placing them, concealed in their original packaging, in my camera case. To add to the surprise, I happened to have a few rubbers in a carry case that I had received from my dear old mom on the last trip home. Hey, as an Eagle Scout, I have to be prepared.
Actually, it might have been better if I hadn’t been. It’s kinda the second postulate to Murphy’s Law, if you calculate in the Murphy factor, he either finds out a way to fool you, or he doesn’t show up until you doubt or forget he exists, and then he really gets you. So Murphy never joined the party and I didn’t get any offers for gratuitous sex, or any for that matter. No wedding crashers here, even though a couple of the American guys were convinced I had everything it takes to pull it off, everything but the desire to do so I guess, but I can joke about it, can’t I?
Ok, so with the rings out of the box, there was a little bit of extra room in it. Why not put a couple condoms in there instead? They’re pretty ring like. Patrick liked this idea and we decided it would really catch Scott off guard. We weren’t entirely sure how the German crowd might take it, but based on my experience, I figured it would be alright. The Germans aren’t so up tight about that kinda stuff. Something like that is a riot, although as one lady said afterwards, a German would never thing to change up the process and do it “not according to the book.”
So we drove over, went in about 5 minutes later. When it came time, Patrick gave Scott the “rings” and when the secret was out of the box, Patrick turned to me to ask me for help and I started emptying my camera case out. “I dunno, all I have is some chocolate.”
So after a little bit of bubbly on the town square, it was time to go to the reception. More drinks, more conversations. I chit chatted with quite a few different people. I have the benefit that I can talk to just about anyone about anything. I dunno, I’m not going to say that I’m anything special like that. I’m just commenting on my experience. I don’t know, I try to listen to what people are saying and have actual dialogue and meaningful conversation with them. Not to say that most people don’t try to do this, at least in the best way they see fit, but yeah. Maybe afterwards they’re thinking “Damn, what a f-ing idiot,” but oh well. Actually, the conversation I enjoyed most was with a girl who can come over and give me a physical anytime. I suppose my only real regret of the weekend is that I didn’t get a chance to dance with her. Maybe some other time.
The party was good fun. Lots of talking, dancing, talking, consumption of beverages. I got to dance with a few nice ladies, which is always good. Better is that I don’t think I ended up stepping on their feet, all that much. Hehehe. Guess those ball room dancing lessons as a wellness activity paid off after all. I ended up mixing a lot of things over the course of my semi-continuous hydration over the course of the night, but didn’t have any issues the next day. We closed the place around
I suppose the rents would be happy to hear that G’s parents are proud of me, and everything that I’ve been able to accomplish. I always blush and try to downplay that, although it is nice to hear. To be honest, and I think everyone does it every now and then to some extent, I question myself and wonder if I’m doing it right, if I’ve made the right decisions. Sometimes I myself wonder who the hell I am, and what I’m doing, where it’s all going. Of course I think this is good, and helps me come back to my center and the core of who I am.
It goes back 15 or 20 years, when I was just a scrawny pipsqueak. I didn’t know the meaning of looking good. I had my interests and that was it. It must have been 6th grade, Bevis and Butthead had just come out and we were all imitating it. I can remember being in Band and the girl next to me turned to me and said “FRANK! You’re never going to be cool, so Stop trying to be.” I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past that. I used my strengths and have always been who I am. The core has only gotten stronger and maybe the success has simply come later.
For me though, I’m still keeping the pressure on, still trying to do it all one up, and there are still many miles to go. If 3 Doors Down had come out with Be Like That way back in the day, it would have been my theme song a long time ago. I still crank it up and sing along every time it plays in the car. And how can I not want to when friends are finding love, getting hitched, buying houses, having kids. If I go back up to my goals, I gotta be doing it all wrong. In the time that I’ve been in
It’ll be a matter of the right girl at the right point in time. I mean screw all that crap about you’re a good guy, you’ll find someone, blah, blah, blah. People that have someone say that. If they’re single, they’ll say, “I’ll drink to that.” While I might be alone and every now and then get a little sentimental or even down on myself, I still remember to see the beauty in every day, and try to use it to its fullest. I’ve made it this far, and been able to handle whatever life has given me, both the good and bad, and I have no intention of doing it any other way. And yeah, sure, even a few of my ex’s will say that I’ll be a damn good catch for some “lucky” girl. Eh, I might be funny, I might be intelligent and have success. I don’t know about good looking, but I don’t need to wear a mask to keep from scaring away small children. In
Anyway, I ended up taking a car load over to the train station. I think it must have been the day before, but maybe it was at that point, that one of the girls made the comment how she thought the German radio stations play really great music until she realized it was a CD playing. This is nothing again German radio. Indirectly, I took it as a compliment. My modern rock classics can’t be too shabby after all. Of course the best part I got was from the aforementioned girl that I didn’t get to dance with. She was riding shot gun over to the station and asked me if my car was lowered. Errr? A girl asking a question like that about my car? You mean she noticed? Extra bonus points. She asked me if I do my own work, and so of course, I explained that I haven’t since all my tools are back home in the states.
On the ride home, I would get a kick out of the question. I mean I understood exactly what she meant, cause I’ve been here and heard it before, but the literal translation is “Do you screw yourself?” Well, I don’t really consider myself a masochist (funny how I know how to spell that word), but in the other sense I suppose I do every night…. As I recently told the old man the other night on the phone, my love life is in my hands, every night. Well, I like a good pun almost as much as I like….
One of the other guys had to take a couple people over to the station as well (yes I’m back on topic now). He ended up following me back to the place everyone had been staying. I was leading and missed a turn somewhere, but knew approximately where I was and where I needed to go. Having been a scout paid off yet again, as I had a sense of direction. It was actually a more fun ride back into town on some nice back roads. I didn’t push it as hard as I would have liked to, but it was still enough to provoke the compliment of “Still a bit of a race driver, eh?” I said good bye to him and the others and went down to the people I had stayed with.
They had offered to show me the old grain mill there and that sounded interesting. I had the whole afternoon, so killing a couple hours on a gorgeous day before the hop skip and a jump back to Würzburg seemed like a fine plan. Scott and Stef were making their rounds with thank you’s and joined the tour. I once again expressed my thanks, having already left them a bottle of Würzburg’s finest that morning. I drove down to the shell, tanked up and hit the road. I wasn’t out to set any land speed records, but just pull the whole weekend deep into the memories of times I’ll never forget.
It was a nice late afternoon when I decided to mellow out down in the castle gardens. The water was nice and flat, reflecting a light blue. The sun was still nice and warm as the golden hour went by. I went to write in my journal for the first time in a long time, but found that I didn’t even feel like that. I just wanted to be there with my thoughts and reflect. It’s times like that, and when I’m in the car that I get to truly think about things. Sometimes my heart throbs thinking about it all, putting it into perspective, that I wish I was out on a race track so I could hammer it out. Those are usually the times when I decide it’s probably not wise to go for a drive, cause maybe I’d push it just a little too hard, but the thing about that, is that hammering it out only lasts just a little bit until I get into the zone and forget about it all. At that point, it just becomes driving for drivings’ sake, pure, out there, just going for it.
It’s things like that that give me the strength to go into work and push just as hard as ever, and that week had its challenges. After a month non-stop, I decided Frank needed some Frank time that weekend, and decided to work on cleaning up and tending to the things I don’t always get to while running around like a raped ape. Actually, Brian called up and wanted me to go out with him and the crew, and I was going to, until the weather started turning into a whore and made me think that it would be better if I didn’t drive into town.
The week would go by fast enough, and that Friday was to be special for at least one of the team. It was her 25th year anniversary. We had just celebrated 50 years for the location last year, so Karin has been around for over half of them. You wouldn’t necessarily know it, cause she looks really good for her age. Anyway, I left work at about
It was a great night. We were out in this nice restaurant and must have stayed till, hmm, well, it was after 1 in any case, more like 3 if I remember correctly. It was a good time, I can’t help explain it, but just being able to sit around and talk with people, especially those you know, is always great. You know, you tell jokes, stories and time doesn’t matter anymore. That’s living.
The next day I went and picked up a small dresser in Nürnburg. I was going to try and time it just about right, to get it and have just enough time to get grocery. Well, everyone else was shopping that day too, and the time I had allowed got all eaten up in the check-out line. How were we going to make sure Frank had food and not need to go to a restaurant on Sunday? That’s right, it was time for Frank to do something he and his noble steed do best, make time. I came back buzzing between 115-130 mph. At one point I could see there was a Corvette hanging back a ways behind me, but none the less going at my pace. When a little car pulling a trailer pulled out to pass a slower car and made me have to slow down, he caught up. It was hard to miss the yellow. Anyway, I knew I didn’t have that much horse power, so I went past, pulled over and he went zooming by, followed close by a couple other BMW’s. I had pulled over, but I hadn’t let up. I kept pretty close pace with them for a while, until they pulled off into a rest stop. According to the clock in the parking lot, I got there with one minute to spare. I grabbed my goods, and went home.
And as is such in life, sometimes things take an unexpected turn. I was looking forward to the 100 years of Brose celebration that was to be coming up on the weekend, but that would change Wednesday. I found out that I had won a trip to
So I left work about
I never travel with my lap top bag, and knew instantly what had happened. It was a day when I was still ridding my bike, probably about a year ago. I was coming into the parking lot and there was a 5 inch long nail there, so I had picked it up before it ended up in someone’s tire. I had been carrying it around ever sense. Call it a good luck charm. It’ hard to find a good nail these days. I told the guy, and he was good about it. We just couldn’t find the SOB though. He ran it through the x-ray again. It’s gotta be right here…. Well, it had wedged itself in the side webbing on the pouch and the zipper was holding it out of sight. I couldn’t keep it, and that’s how I lost my nail.
ANA – All
Well it was a full plane and I know fully understand what it means to be amongst a minority. Of course that didn’t prevent the stewardess from giving me some special attention. I didn’t join the mile high club or anything like that. I didn’t have what’s her name from Eurotrip to help give me some hot kinky Eurosexin. I didn’t find any Asian delights either, but I kept getting beverages. She must have thought that I was German and that it was outstanding that I was drinking the Japanese beer. I didn’t get sloshed, but I had a few to take the edge off and go with dinner, and drop off to sleep after watching Indiana Jones IV and Prince Caspian.
Well, 4 hours later I woke up with a pit in my stomach that sent my alarm bells off. Was I really going to yak? I went to the back of the plane, sat there for a minute while telling myself that I couldn’t yak, that I had better get my shit together, go back up to my seat and go back to sleep. This kinda worked, the power of the mind and all, and I went back up to my seat. This only worked for about 15 minutes. I was holding back and as soon as I assumed the position and said alright asshole, let’s get this over with, there goes dinner. Now I hadn’t had enough to drink to have it happen, since I hadn’t even had a liter. I’m pretty sure it was that some kind of potato salad kinda stuff, but I’ll never know. Oh well, mild food poisoning, or at least food that didn’t agree with me. After that though, I was fine.
So I got into
So I got into
Sure, they had served breakfast on the plane, a more European style one at that, but I wasn’t going to have any of it after my experience earlier that morning. It was after 10 and places were starting to close up. I ended up going over to a fancier hotel near by and ordering steak. It was a well cooked meal, the meat was nice and tender. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been so hungry. It left me full but not too full and I went to bed, setting my alarm for what is normally
I got up and had about 3 cups of coffee before my ride showed up. The Jap coffee is pretty good. It’s a little sweeter, which made me wonder if the machine automatically put sugar in it, but it wasn’t over sweet by any means. Maybe it was just the bean they were using. Damned if I know, I like the stuff, but I am by no means a coffee coinsure. Just give it to me hot and black.
The other engineers at the lab were in polo shirts same as I, and it worked out just about right. I watched them to the first couple runs of testing, eagerly awaiting to see the phenomenon they were trying to chase down and eradicate. No success, and so they kept trying to find the sweet spot from the previous test run where the issue showed itself.
Lunch came and I went down the road with the one guy for some breaded chicken and rice and salad, which was all very good. I suppose in all reality, out side of the sauce, and the soup too, now that I remember it, the meal wasn’t too different that something I could make here if I wanted to. But that’s fine, and it was good nourishment.
A few of the engineers went up to the offices after we got back. They were waiting for something to happen as well. I sat there and the jet lag caught up to me, and I kept dropping off. And I had been doing so well up until then.
The museum would have been very good in a terrible sense too, but it was already closed, as it was already late. He wanted to take me over and show me the castle. It too was closed and we had to settle for a drive by, but I was very happy to even get to see that much. He said if I had stayed longer or come back, we’ll have to go over to
We had to hunt around to get me my bus ticket for the next morning, but managed alright. After that, he dropped me off and I went and packed. Even though I had been dozing all afternoon, and had been fully awake the entire evening, I was fading fast and ready to zonk out at
Now if they like you, it’s just like in Lost in Translation and they must have been very grateful that I flew over. You go back to find some hired help in your hotel room, wanting to be naughty with you. I suppose that’s why they booked me a smoking room. She wasn’t bad, decent face, nice legs. Black stockings and red shoes. Maybe the Sake was stronger than I thought, and as much as I tried to behave, well, what the hell. The rule is never pay for sex and rules are meant to be broken, right? Not this night. She asked me what I wanted and I told her she could do whatever she wanted to me, but first she had to click her heels together 3 times while saying “me love you long time.” I kept telling her she wasn’t doing it right, cause it was just too funny to have her repeat it. Eventually, she got fed up and left.
Now you might be thinking, would Frank really do something that degrading? Hey, I didn’t sleep with the girl. And for a good reason. Not cause she might have had a disease. Not because I’m not into Asian women. I’m not really, but that’s besides the point. The reason is because I just made that paragraph up. Come on, that kinda shit only happens in the movies or to big stars, and maybe high paid execs. I had a lot of time in the plane to come up with some bogus sex story to tell, and I hope it had some entertainment value. Actually, I had been thinking about telling one where the stewardess took me into the upper deck, or the back lavatory and made such a racket, that everyone looked at us with blank faces when we walked out, but who would believe a story like that?
Anyway, I had to get up at
So this time, I flew in and out of Narita, the
Maybe with an attitude like that, it’s no wonder you say. Well, I fought long and hard enough, at least the one time. In the end, I decided that it was their choice to follow their hearts and I would accept their decision trying not to cause a scene and go on eating the motto “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” If you watch
Dolores didn’t think I would make the
Last night we had “Federweisse” night at Roland’s. If you don’t remember Federweisse from an entry 3 years ago, it’s young wine that is still fermenting. It’s got 5+ % alcohol, and it’s fairly sweet. If you could make it year round or stop the fermentation process, it would be the perfect chick alternative to beer, for chicks that don’t like beer. It was as I already described above once already, a really nice night with everyone. I live about 5 miles from Roland now, so I decided rather than drive and only be able to have a little, I’d walk and have… more. It was a great walk down. It only took me about 90 minutes. The sun was going down, and it was just gorgeous to walk down by the river. I coulda gotten a ride, either way. Still, at
So that about sums it up on current events for the last, well, 2 months. Damn, it’s taken me over 3 weeks to get this written. What does that say? I dunno. Been keeping busy I guess. Trying to get into trouble? As I finish this, it’s been just about 3 years since I got back on a plane, landed in
So where am I at? It’s a mixture like anything else. If I’ve been here for 3 years, it means it’s been over 3 since I had a girl to call my darling. I’ve managed to kick my career off pretty good. Sometimes it’s an ego boost to think that I’m here doing what I’m doing, and maybe that’s what keeps me going when I’m down, although I’m more inclined to think it’s the people who are more like family than coworkers. I’ve gotten to see more of the world and further strengthen my character and who I am. I’m away from home, but I get to spend quite a bit of time there. There are people who want me to come back, or come back closer. There are people who want me to stay. I haven’t yet made up my mind, and I’m giving myself till 30 to figure it out.
Of course I have to figure it out. Would it be any better or worse if I was back in the states? Maybe I’d have a house, and maybe I’d be autocrossing, I don’t know. Sure, I’d be having other times with different people, and it’s impossible to know what that would be like. Maybe, if I was lucky, I’d find the same kinda stuff all around and be just as happy and sad as I am now. No one ever knows, we can only live it as it comes and make our choices, and I think I’m doing fine with mine at the moment. If I’m still in exactly this same situation in 3 years, then I’ll have to ask myself wtf I’m doing. And that’s how it will be. Every time September comes around, I find myself hinging on that Green Day song, Wake Me Up… Well, here it is. Till the next update.
After looking around a little bit, I decided the best way to solve my need for a desk and 2nd coffee table, was in fact to build my own. So in typical Capristo fashion, I set out to visit the lumber yard and get what I needed. It would have been nice to have a power sander, put I managed on my own, giving my arms a bit of a work out. I had trouble finding a color stain I liked. There wasn’t any red oak, and in the end I settled for a mahogany, which came out nice. I guess it’s the trend in the states too, but all the stains and varnishes are going to water base only. I guess that helps make cleanup better. Still, I think the old oil based ones were better. I don’t miss getting knocked out by the fumes, but yeah, I think they were better for a hardness and quality of finish perspective.
I hadn’t finished yet when I had to go on a business trip. I was out a couple days on “the island,” which in
That Friday was our annual department bbq at our boss’s place. The weather cooperated nicely, and it was a nice evening. I was one of the last to leave. As it turned out, my little central door locking clicker was getting low on battery and didn’t want to open the doors. SOB, so I used the key. This worked fine until I started the ignition, and started driving along. The car thought I was trying to steal it and the alarm started going off. Mother fucker. So I stopped and tried to get the fob to do its bloody job, but with no luck. OK, let’s try and drive the 3 or 4 miles home, and deal with it in the morning when I could go get a battery for it. That was fun. I was waiting to get pulled over, cause you know, the alarm is doing the full light blinking sequence along with the horn. About a mile down the road, I remembered that the other fob was in the glove box, so I got it out and was able to drive home the rest of the way like a normal human being.
My next little adventure would be the weekend of June 13th – 15th. Pam was over on a business trip and going to be on the outskirts of
The next day we went to go hang out with a couple friends of hers. We ended up going into
I didn’t get too far. I wasn’t more than a couple miles away, when I lost the ass end of the car at the end of one of the on ramps, and smashed the front end into the guard rail. Mother fucker. I had always thought to myself, on a regular basis, that for as good as the autobahns are supposed to be, you would think that they would put a shoulder on them for you to pull over onto if you broke down, and that they would build some decent on off ramps. In most cases in the states, the on ramp runs semi parallel and down on to the highway, so you can look down to your left as you are accelerating and match/merge into traffic without too big of a deal. The Germans prefer tight clover style ramps or ones with pretty tight s-turns leading down, in either case, you have little room and no shoulder in front of you to merge in once you get down there.
It was at the end of one of the s-turn type that I had spun. It happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to react, except to go “oh shit!” Looking back on it, the only thing I can think of, is that when I turned to give a good look back to see if there was any traffic coming up through, that I blipped the gas a little and/or tweaked the wheel, which sent me into the spin. I was ok, I hadn’t started accelerating yet and it was a fairly low speed incident. The guy who was behind me stopped, called the police for me as I set up my warning triangle.
After bouncing off the guard rail with a nearly perpendicular impact, I had let us roll down to the end of the ramp. The engine was still running, so I had put in the clutch. Upon further inspection, while standing in the rain, I was extra pissed at myself cursing myself out and wanting to cry for my baby. Basically, the whole grill was smashed out, both fenders and the hood wrinkled. With the age of her, she was totaled from a value standpoint. I knew that. And I wasn’t going to get any money from the insurance, cause the car was too old for me to get collision on. That was the risk I took when I got her. Me who had always said, and still say that my right foot is my traction control had to eat his own words. I had gotten just what I wanted. Now I was paying for it. It had been about 10 years without any major incidents, so I guess I was due, but it still didn’t make it any easier.
The police came, checked things through and gave me a ticket for not driving for the conditions. 75 Euro, 3 points. Now I have a German ticket to add to the collection. We got me a tow truck. It ended up being a flatbed with a crane. It was quite a sight to see her being lifted up into the air like that. As a kid,you play with your matchbox stuff like that. It’s a completely different thing to see in real life.
How now? It would have been over 500 Euro to have her towed back to Würzburg, and to do what with? So I took a chance, betting that Pam would be at her friend’s house before continuing on her trip, and even if she wasn’t there, I hoped that they would be, and more so be able to give me some advice on what I could do with the car. My bet paid off, and with their help, we were able to drop it off at a reputable body shop.
Once that was accomplished, we went back where everyone let me come down to earth. I was reminded that no one had gotten hurt. I joked around saying, yeah, just my ego, but I was still beating myself up, and coming down off the adrenaline. We ended up having a light pasta meal before everyone took me in to drop me off at the train station. I made it back alright, jumped on the bus and was home before it was dark out.
I gave Gitte a call and left her a message asking her if she could pick me up on her way to work the next day. She called me back later, and we got it set up. It was going to be a busy week, and the accident had been the last thing I needed. It was the week before my 3 weeks of vacation. I was in the middle of trying to do some fire fighting on one project and prepare for a customer visit on another. This time I wasn’t going to be able to pick up Fabien from the hotel. I had gotten the quote to fix the car and decided to get it done. It was going to cost almost as much as I had paid for her, but with the lowered suspension, after market exhaust and strut tower brace, I figured I wouldn’t be able to find another one like her without looking real hard, and I might not find one in such nice shape with all the goodies she has. Besides, it wasn’t the car’s fault, it was mine. She was too good to throw away.
All in all, things came together and in the blink of an eye, I was packing my suitcase, getting ready to get up at the ass crack of dawn the next morning to grab a bus ride into town, a train up to the airport, a jet plane to JFK, the Long Island Rail Road into Penn Station and the train up to Albany, where I hoped someone would be waiting.
Everything worked pretty much the way it was supposed to. I stayed up on the plane. It being a day flight, and having my own movies to watch made it make sense. I pretty much just chilled on the train ride up, and mom was waiting. In what seems to be somewhat routine, we stopped at the Wendy’s on rt. 20 near cross gates so I could get some food. The next evening, I’d go into town with PJ to go have dinner with Josh and joke about anything that came up. Orrin woulda gone, but had some studying to do, so we decided to get together later in the week.
The rents had put flooring down in the new addition after 15 years. Well, why not, us kids aren’t there to mess it up now. So anyway, my room was to get a paint job after I touched up the walls. George Carlin died that Sunday night, so it was a sad Monday. I had a visit to the dentist on the 23rd and the doc on the 24th. Both came out fine. Keep doing what I’m doing. In the evenings, dad and I went up to Crumhorn and kayaked. I was also doing work on remote control that week. It was kinda funny, and one of the girls even wrote me a note to turn the box off. Hehehe. Unbeknounced to me, my password would expire after that week and I was forced to be disconnected. Everything for a reason I suppose.
Sunday Tony stopped up for a little, before having to go back down to
Kevin took care of me very well while I was out there. We went and had Vietnamese that night. It was Canada Day, so there were fire works as well. I jokingly told him he didn’t have to arrange that on account of me. Afterwards, we went out to a bar down town and Kevin showed me some of the art of macking. I swear this guy could show up my brother and Joe. I think it must have been going on 3 by the time we got in that night. I made it in to the office at about
Kevin described it as kinda an upscale Hooters, a place with Goth décor and hot chicks running around in black. Sounded kinky enough for me. I was actually very impressed. It was definitely a step or two above Hooters. I was kinda wondering what Goth décor was going to mean, and was wondering if it was going to be like something out of the Underworld movies. It was just right, not over done, not under done, not cheesey, just a nice clean cut place. And yeah, the ladies working there looked good too. Again, it wasn’t the Hooters look, but something a few steps above it.
So after that, I hung around a little bit before hitting the road to go to
I didn’t end up doing anything. Tony went in to town with Kaitlyn, and I figured I would just stay at home. The party on Sunday was a good time. I push mowed around the house and got the weed wacking done with just enough time to go and shower as the party started. It was hot out and I knew at one point I was starting to get a little heat exhaustion, but kept on pushing, squeezing everything I could out of the cup of coffee I had had for breakfast. It was nice to get to see everyone who came out, some who I hadn’t seen in quite a while. For me that is of course, always a problem. Even on this trip back, I didn’t get to see everyone, not by far. And just like that though, I was already down to my last week. I had already spent 2. This one was going to go fast.
Tuesday night, Joe came over and we had a campfire down back, just like old times. Joe and I slept out in a tent, got up fairly early the next morning and packed it all up before the rain started. Tony headed back out Wednesday night. Thursday I made a quick trip out to Victor and back to have breakfast with a good friend and do the shopping I wanted to. There had been the trip to Larry’s and the day the old man and I went up to
I was disappointed in the OA tap out ceremony I saw at camp that Friday night. I suppose it’s a sign of the times, no one wants to learn a speaking part anymore. It’s all people lip syncing to a prerecording. I dunno, I remember the way it used to be, with the real voices that you could actually follow, and the echoes they made across the lake. There was real magic about it back then. Maybe it’s just something that’s gone lost for now, but I hope not for forever.
I went down for breakfast at
I ended up hitch hiking with Gitte to and from work until that Friday, when I went and got my car. She looks better now than she did before the accident, which she should, since all new parts went in. I went out that Saturday night for a little Photography. Tuesday night, I went up and back to
Jessica got hitched yesterday and so we were all out her way for the reception last night. I knew there was bad weather coming, cause my internal barometer had told me so that afternoon, and you could tell looking outside. So I had napped a little on some aspirin, and was able to beat it. I had a half a beer after dinner before switching to coffee, and stayed out till 3, when it was still going pretty good. It was a nice time, and we are all very happy for her and the groom. I had my equipment with me and managed to get some decent shots.
The summer is a tad over half over, and the next bit of time will fly. In a little over a week, I’ll be judging design at the Formula Student Germany competition, Scott’s wedding is coming up at the end of the month. Before I know it, Fall will be here, then Christmas. It’ll be 2009, who ever woulda thought. I can’t believe I’ve been here almost 3 years already. Oh what a crazy world we live in. So there’s 10 weeks for you, and the pictures will follow when I get back to full time internet access, which should be the end of the month. If not, so sue me.
12.05.2008 So I know, it’s been a lot longer than I meant to be. What can I say, I’ve been an absentee landlord. I dunno, lots going on but in all the places I can’t talk about. No, my sex life hasn’t changed. In fact this was a topic of conversation between the old man and I upon my comment that I haven’t gotten any external lovin:
Dad: well it takes a lot of wear and tear to wear it out, or one good STD
Me: havent had a problem with either one yet
Me: the only one putting miles on it is me
Dad: one inch at a time ?
Me: thats it
Me: whats that in mm
Dad: let's see, there are 2.54 cm to the inch = 25.4 mm
Dad: is this a test?
So yeah, March was a fairly quiet month. I went bowling once and had a mediocre night that isn’t worth talking about. I blame it on my being sober. Now that I don’t require a taxi service from my compatriots, I have to stay sober. No “Zielwasser” for this guy. Now I’m not sure if I’m forgetting my American slang or if we just don’t have a term for it, but you can translate that as aim enhancing water. In this particular case, it’s water + hops + barley. Oh well.
I thought spring was well on it’s way at the beginning of March, but I was wrong. It got cold again, and in a pretty big way. So much so, I had to go buy a scraper the one day. Work was pretty intense at that time as well, and I was happy just to have a little peace and quiet on the weekend.
On the 23rd, I decided to go out driving again. I had found a nice little stretch while doing some around Würzburg exploring in search of a nice town and nice back roads. So with a little bit of snow on the ground, and a distant memory of the drive to school one Monday before Thanksgiving, I took to the roads with my tripod and Canon G7 set up to document any retardedness I was to create. Of course I had the benefit of all the experience I’ve gained since that one day I had to call dad at work to tell him I rolled the car over…. Even still, I ended up going out the back roads up to
I think it must have been sometime in March that I went and played poker for the first time as well. It was a night out with Brian and his woman at some friends of hers. It was a good time. We were playing Texas Hold ‘Em, which I would presume says something to most. I did ok for my first time I guess. The one hand I ended up with three of a kind, but no one else had anything good and there was no one to drive up. I didn’t play against any crazy hardcore Russians, but now that I think about it, I might have to put in Rounders tonight.
A week later it was nice out again. I of course took the chance to go out for a drive the one evening. It was pretty funny that particular evening since on the one tight corner, that has 2 lanes in the uphill direction, there happened to be a couple guys standing there. The one was out on his motorcycle. Anyway, this particular corner is pretty close to the point where I turn around and when I passed through going the opposite direction I could see them smiling and can only assume they were saying something to the effect of “here comes this guy again.”
I took advantage of the nice weather on the 30th to go our for a 5 hour walk around Würzburg, camera in hand of course. The grass had turned green and it was time to get those shots you can’t get with leaves on the trees. The other part of it is that different things bloom at different times, so every week you go out, you see something different. It wasn’t there last time, but it is this time, and by the time next time comes around it will have changed again.
On April 2nd, we had the official closing and were transferred over to Brose. After Siemens AG decided they didn’t want to be in the automotive business anymore last year, they sold us to Continental (yes, the tire maker). It was announced last July and the closing was at the beginning of December. A couple weeks later, Conti announced they were selling off the motor drives segment to Brose. This was the final part of that. All in all, I see it as a very positive thing. We and our new formerly Temic coworkers from Conti that we merged with were both unwanted children. Now we belong to a family owned and run company that has been in the automotive business for 100 years. It sees the company as an extension of that family and I think it’s a nice change. More so, I think it will be a positive thing for us, because we are no longer the unwanted children. I also think the company is a good company that knows what it’s doing in the business and has good long term strategy.
So it was a busy week with everything that was going on, and goin on on top of the normal working to 99% capacity. I can’t remember if I did much of anything that weekend. The next week one of our guys from
It wasn’t like a fancy business presentation, but more marketing oriented for new potential buyers. They’ve been in production since the early 90’s and the technology has come a long way. At the same time, I think the implementation could be better too. I liked the tub, although I would choose a 4 wheel over the 3 wheel design. I know this was done to save weight since it already weighs about 600 lbs. Still, I equate it to riding around on a garden tractor or bicycle, but maybe even a little harsher. Worse yet was the brakes on it, which didn’t make me feel comfortable at all. I think a formula team could actually come up with something better, and maybe one of these days some of us will. And I know some sparkies, hardware and software guys I’d to do the electrical stuff. I dunno, gas keeps going up, sure, but I think the modern world may have come to expect a little too much. It used to be that having a car was a novelty. Then it got to be somewhat basic transportation in the
The next day I got on a train to
On the 25th, we all went to go bowling after work. I got there just about the same time as Gitte and parked next to her. Karin was also there and as soon as Peter came, we had 4 to start. The rest came shortly after we started. It had been a real busy day for me, since I was taking 10 days off to reduce some of my overtime down. Being the busy day that it was, I had gone to get lunch, but didn’t take the time to eat it. So I did what any American would do, I ordered a pizza. Now that I’m driving and not bumming rides of everyone, I can’t drink like I used to and ordered a soda. I suppose I could have ordered alcohol free beer, maybe that would have helped me get into the rhythm for bowling, but in any case I didn’t get anywhere near my usual bowling form. It was still a great time. After the 3 games of bowling were over, a few of us stayed to play darts. After that, a couple people left and there were 5 of us to play “kicker” or Foosball.
I still made it back home before turning into a pumpkin at
At first I was playing cat and mouse with him leading. At one point, he pulled into this little parking lot and told me to take the next set of roads, and that I should lead and wait up for him when I got that far. Rock on, and I was rockin out. It was some good leg stretching for baby, since they were good stretches without too many little towns to slow down for. She’s such a solid car and behaved magnificently. At one point though, I had the brakes saturated and just like the time I did the 555 with the Honda Crew, they were fading. I kinda felt them start to, pushed a little more and knew that they really were fading. I pulled over at the next spot to wait for B to catch up. Ahhh, white smoke coming from the front left, where have I seen this before? B caught up and we were almost the rest of the way there anyway. We stopped for ice cream, went out to the Media Markt in town and that was about it. I came back on the Autobahn, nice and easy and that was it.
The next day I decided to go out with the camera again. As it turnedout, I filled my 2 gig card up, and wished I had the little 512 MB to finish up the tour. Oh well. The last couple weeks have done wonders though, and all the leaves are just about out now.
Monday, my first day off. Well, I figured I’d start it off right and go over to the place that was trying to find me an apartment to finish up the paperwork that I hadn’t gotten to in the last month. After that I stopped for breakfast at the café on the bridge, coffee and apple struddle. The sun was shining and it was nice and warm out. I had the river to my left and the castle up on the hill to my right, herrlich. While eating, I got to schedule my first look at an apartment. I went out for a looksee, and as nice as it was, wasn’t quite what I was looking for. After that I decided it was time to drive up to the BMW dealership to schedule a car appointment. She was due for an oil change and god knows what else.
Ok, Wednesday was going to be a busy day. Car appointment, apartment viewing and a road trip down to
So we go around the car, she trys to wiggle the wheels back and forth, checking the wheel bearings. The right boot on the steering rack had a hole the size of a dime in it so we put that on the list. Back brakes needed to be done. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a cheap day. But BMW philosophy is that you should only do service when you need it, and only do the things that need to be done. My kind of people. So good, about 3 hours.
I start poking around looking at cars and what not to kill time. They have a nice little area where you can wait and have coffee, but I was trying to stall before having to sit down there for an eternity. So there was a nice AC Schlitzer 3-Series there, and they have the 1-Series coupe now. I really like the 4 door wagons they’ve got, and I thought it was nice when they came out with the 2 door last year, now a 2 door coupe that is gorgeous. Maybe next year they’ll make me happy with a 4 door sedan, or limo as they call them here. In my opinion they need it since the 3-Series has grown so much over the years.
I looked at a few M3 four doors they have there. Nice cars. Of course they’re a lot more than what I want to pay for a vehicle, but other than Masseratti, who else sells that kind of performance in 4 doors? I suppose Porsche when they come out with the Panamera, but I don’t really care for the looks on those. So anyway, I found my literature and sat down with my cup of coffee.
BMW has got some really good innovations. Most are aimed at helping get more efficiency out of the vehicle. They’re putting jalousies on the front grills of all there cars to help bring them up to operating temperature quicker. They’re also going to run the alternator off the back axle to help win back power when the car is under braking. Not too shabby.
My car was done at 12, early. They didn’t have the brake components on hand and I had to reschedule for the following week. I had to go with Wednesday. After that, I went to check out the next apartment. It’s a little outside of town down by the river. It’s a 2 room, pretty close to one of the main arterials that goes into and around town and I’m still only about 6 mi from work according to Google. It’s 50 square meters, which is about 400 square feet. There’s lot of wood in it, a little balcony and I can see pretty good from the 4th floor. The old woman who owns and is living there inherited a house from her sister and is going there, but keeping this place as a rental. Not bad. So I said I’d take it.
After that, I hit the road and was on my way to
With my up and coming days off, I had been playing with the idea of going down to Chiemsee or into the
Monday I headed down to Fischerbach in the black forest. Scott was there for a few days visiting his fiancé and invited me down for a visit. We hadn’t seen each other since the infamous 2005 USGP or better said, Ferrari exhibition. I left a little on the late side and after getting stuck in traffic and making a wrong turn, arrived about an hour late. It was no big deal, but still pisses me off. I try to time things so that I’m right on time if not 10-15 minutes early. Maybe I will have to break down and buy a Navi one of these days.
It was good to see him. We had lunch with Steph and her friend Claudia. We ended up going up to Triberg and back in the afternoon. Triberg, it was kinda funny to cross that path again. It has been nearly 2 years since Brian and I took that first road trip down to
We were trying to figure out what to do that evening and decided
The next day he and I went back up to Triberg to do the high ropes course there. Scott decided we weren’t going to waste our time and get stuck behind the people starting out on the 1st and easiest of 4 courses. We went straight after tackling the 4th. I’ve never been on anything quite this difficult before. Most of the time, it was always park of a big group where we didn’t have time, but to do part of the first one. It was a different experience than the rock climbing I did back in ’04, which overall was probably harder, but in a different way. This was more or less moving horizontal suspended about 90 feet in the air. This in turn was multiplied by the effect you got when looking down into the valley. I was kicking myself for only wearing my loafers, but of all the shoes I have, they were probably actually the best ones for the job. At least I could feel the cable under my feet and better control my balance.
After that, we decided to head down to Titisee, which I also remembered from the
I don’t know what it is about it, but I can see how people can get addicted to those. I did it down in the DR for the first time at the resort with Royce and now I think I might be hooked too. Don’t ask me why. When I think about going into a steam room just to make myself sweat, and feel it run down me, I wonder if I’ve gone mad or turned into a yuppie. Hell, when I go home in June and July, I’ll be able to get the same thing for free working outside. Dinner was nice and Scott just about called the amount it would come to. While going out to get the light jacket out of the car, I had accompanied him to get mine, and slip him another 30 Euro just in case, so he could have found extra cash in his wallet. Yeah, I’m banking on her not reading this, not that that will matter. So I headed out at 10 and got in just after
It was a short week back at work, but there is still a lot going on. I wasn’t completely out of the game and since not that much time had passed, I was still right in the middle of it where I wanted to be. I picked up my car and got to see how much my brake job cost me. I can’t wait to do the fronts. Of course, I think even if I had done a complete brake job, it probably would come out pretty close to what the last one on the Breeze cost me 4 years ago.
Thursday night, Heinz and I decided to go out for a few drinks. It was nice. I enjoy getting to spend time with people outside of work, where we actually have time to talk to each other more as people. At work it is almost all strictly business. That’s all you have time for usually. And just like that, it was Friday going into a 3 day weekend. Gotta love those religious holidays. I put the first finish coat on the diff that morning and went out to run errands. Watched the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday before putting on another coat and heading up to Herborn.
Speaking of another devil I haven’t seen since, well, oddly enough the 2005 USGP again, Jon was over on business. So of course he gave me the heads up and it worked out since I had today off anyway. It was a pretty nice and easy trip up too, buzzing up the A3 and then A45. The A45 was especially nice. I coulda gone 220 the whole way if I wanted to. Anyway, this time I arrived right according to schedule and we went out, had some food and caught up. I think it’s always interesting to talk to certain people, and certain kinds of people. It’s kinda fun, cause you can talk generally, but interpolate pretty good on things and know this from the course of the conversation. We didn’t get to do to much, since there wasn’t a whole lot going on, except that he needed to keep working. Not a problem, I just hope it doesn’t take 3 years again. Hell, I’ll be an old man getting ready for the big 3-0 by then. But Jon and I share similar interests for photography, racing and even aircraft a little. I’d have to say I think we both share a cultured view of the world as well.
So Monday was a holiday here and I wanted to swap my diff out after having picked up everything I thought I needed. As it turns out, I probably didn’t get at all the axle bolts as much as I should have and started to strip the second one I tried. Guess I need more WD-40 and some vice grips. I couldn’t get to the bolt up on top of the sob either with the ratchet and socket I have, so I decided before I made a disaster out of it all, that I would quit while I was ahead. I’ll have to talk to one of the guys at work and see what he thinks. I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s at the point where I may need stuff I don’t have. Of course it hurts my pride a little, but what can you do, except man up and admit it. Maybe I’ll try once more, maybe I’ll just have to break down and pay to have it done. Time will tell.
And with that, where am I in my own eyes? In some ways I feel like I’ve grown with time, but still where I was a decade ago. I suppose it doesn’t help it that all my friends are getting hitched or poppin out kids. And I wonder if the date doctor himself could ever save my ass. I mean I got time enough still, and when it happens, it happens. I dunno, perhaps it’s the things we want the most that we are denied and or have to wait for. I wouldn’t mind being married. If I was in the states, I wouldn’t mind being married and having a house. In
In that sense, I’m just looking for a girl next door type who is nice to talk to, understands me who I also understand, is fun to be with and wants to make a dishonest man out of me on a regular basis a couple times a week. So I go through my usual swing of things, sometimes ready to take on the world, saying come on, keep pouring it on fuckers. Sometimes melancholy which is common among mountain folk, and altogether optimistic trying to treat everyday as if it were something special, looking for the beauty in the world itself that so many seem blind to. So what is a year? It’s just once around the sun, and I wonder if when my time comes to head back to the states, if I’ll then finally find a reason to stay.
Of course that’s all bs, but here I am, just about ¾ the way through my 20’s. At 16 it seemed an eternity away. Hell, from 13, I’m already twice as old and then some of what I was then. It’s been many moons and many miles. The odometer keeps on rolling over, and I remember what he sang about objects in the rear view mirror. So, until it’s time to slow down for a minute or two again, I leave you with these fine words.
09.03.2008 So another 5 weeks down the tube and I’m finally back in front of the computer to type the next update. There’s been a lot and nothing going on. It all depends on how you want to see it.
Back on February, it was Oliver’s birthday on the first. He hit the big 4-0. He had a nice gathering at his place. The work crew was in good attendance. It was a really nice time. He has a really nice place. Erkan gave him his own water pipe, so we were smoking that. Yes, I say we. I had some of it as well. I’ve only ever done it twice before, but it’s kinda nice. It’s one of those nice things I don’t want to get accustomed to, but once in a great while… No one was expecting me to take a full shot, if nothing else, right off the bat. I pulled the whole, you didn’t think I was a prude did you routine. Of course I was sporting the lumberjack beard in full form at that point.
It was nice and cold out on Sunday when I got up relatively early to go look at a car in
I love coming around in circles. It is kinda crazy to think about all the miles that had gone by since the last time and what was to be this time. Maybe that’s the other reason I was going to look at this car. Of course the pictures on the internet weren’t too bad, and I kinda liked the pictures with the one set of wheel on it out in a field. If she looked at good in real life, I’d be ready to fork over the money he was asking for it.
He picked me up from the station. It was pretty easy. His daily driver, which was another different 325i. Unfortunately, he had been parked a little ways down from an RV that didn’t stay parked and rolled down into his front end. It was banged up, but fixable. Shit happens I guess. I guess it was better than his buddy’s brand new car that had been parked behind him, but still tough luck.
The car woulda been ok for a project car. She was all there. She was what I’ll call a hemlock green, kinda that light green of a hemlock needle. She was straight, but you could see a couple spots where the paint had been touched up, and it was starting to come through again. The driver’s seat was worn through. The rest of the interior wasn’t bad, but not too good. Ok, I already knew I could get a lot of replacement stuff for her. She wasn’t on the road, so all we could do was drive it around the block. No power steering. Wholly cow. If I wasn’t planning on ever driving her in the city, I would have considered it. You could convert her prob for around 600-800 beans too. She had a little body work done back by the trunk where the battery was. Hmm. So about an hour after my 2.5 hour ride up, it was time for another 2.5 hrs back. But it was a nice ride in the train, the Rohr next to us and the hills. It had been gorgeous coming out of Würzburg with a heavy frost on the trees.
That week went by without too much going on. Thursday was bowling. I believe I bowled a couple good games, even winning one of them. In the last round, Gerd and I went to do speed bowling. The place we go, shows you how fast you roll. I typically range from 25.27 kmh, or about 15-17 mph. For speed bowling, our goal was to keep it up over 30. He beat me cause the best I could do was 32 (20 mph). Needless to say, my arm was feeling it afterwards. We went and had pizza at the new place across from work afterwards. It was pizza that wouldn’t agree with me and I felt it all the next day. I ended up leaving work about and hour and a half early. I just didn’t feel like fighting anymore.
I stopped at the bank on my way home. I had to to pull out the large withdraw I wanted to make. I was going to look at another car on Saturday, and was somewhat sure I had found a good candidate. After laying down for a little while, I woke up feeling a bit better and in the need of some food. I hadn’t stopped at the store on the way home, so it meant going out. I ended up down at Irish Pixie with an acquaintance of mine. I figured whatever bug it was going through my system, I’d burn him out once and for all with a nice bowl of chili. A good bowl of chili will loosen my sinuses up. This is partially how I judge it. If it does that, it’s more than likely spicy enough.
The good 325’s go for around 4 g’s. The cheap beat ones for about 2 and have high mileage. This one was listed as having 160k or about 100k miles. Not bad considering the age of the car, which was 19. H&R spings, Koni shocks, a strut tower brace and BBS wheels with winters on steel.
The guy’s last name was Greene, and I thought when I called the house the old man had an American accent, but didn’t think too much about it. It was a shorter train ride this time, to Hanu which is just north of
She was on the road and in the course of reviewing the docs, I mentioned I was from the states. The old man answered with a Bostonian “Oh yeah, I am too. Where are you from?” Small world, although I wasn’t completely shocked. There’s been too much army in
Nice. So by early afternoon, I was following them towards the autobahn as the kid and his parents were going into town in his newer E46 that he had picked up for a good deal and thus the reason for selling the E30. I got on the autobahn and we were crusing nicely at 100 mph for a little. I decided to get off in
Brian stopped by with his woman the next day to check it out. He wasn’t going to be in work much anymore, since he quit to go and get some different experience. Well, that’s how it goes. We’ll all miss him and everything he did, but everyone has to choose their own path. Anyway, Monday I went and got insurance and registered her in my name. The woman at the DMV asked me if I wanted anything special on my plate. If I had thought about it, I woulda told her Wü FC247. Oliver would have gotten a real kick out of it, but as I had been telling him that morning, I was probably just going to take what they gave me.
When she pulled out QQ 737, I figured it would do. It sounds like an airline flight. For those who have ridden with me, they may have felt the same way. “Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot (not captain) speaking. This is flight QQ 737 with express service in and around the greater Würzburg area. If you look up towards the front of the cabin, you’ll see that we don’t have a crew. This is a non smoking, non eating and non drinking flight. Bathroom stops will only be made per request. Please buckle up, and if you need me to demonstrate, you are an idiot and need to get out of my vehicle.”
Anyway, I’d go for a cruise that Saturday down to Lohr along the southern bank of the river, coming back up along the more main road on the north side.
I’d end up zooming around the greater Wü area, visiting some of the little towns around that I had seen apartment postings for on the web. Now that I am mobile again, it’s high time to get myself a nice bachelor pad. I ended up by Oberduerrbach around sunset and got some nice pics. I’d have to go back over the following weekend.
That would be the weekend after we went up to present the technical results for one of our international projects to the customer for their technical approval. We would get it based on a few conditionals, but nothing too big. The boss was happy with me the next day when I told him. Well, sometimes you do what you have to do, right? My attention was already turned towards the visit we where supposed to get from another customer on the 5th though and all the other projects that were in some state of managed chaos.
Saturday, the 23rd, I went out and did a stretch of Autobahn to see what she’s got. Well, I didn’t push it all the way, but enough to know that she’s good up over 135 mph.
B and I would go out on tour that Sunday. We started off washing our cars. I had armoral’d the 325 the evening before and found this great rag to polish up glass with. I also did my wheels which were quite full with brake dust. He’d show me a nice place outside and above Kitzingen that I’ll have to go visit for some nice pics one of these days. We drove back down and along the river back to Würzburg, but from the other direction I had gone in last time. After we got back to town, we went to Schoenborne for a cappuccino and called it a night.
Work has been as busy as hell, but last week we managed to go bowling again. I did ok, especially in the last game. I drove though, and therefore couldn’t drink any “Zielwasser” or “targeting water” as we always joke around. You mean I’m going to have to learn to bowl sober? Yes Dorothy. Damn, back in
Last Saturday, Brian called me up and we went and played Texas Hold ‘em (poker). It was my first time playing. I did ok. I was pissed the one hand when I had 4 of a kind, but no one to play against. Everyone else folded before I could drive the pot up. It was a lot of fun though. Last Sunday I got introduced to the Polish co-op that started in a different group at work on Monday. He seems like a good guy. He’s also into photography and has the successor to my camera. We might have to go out on tour one of these days. We watched The Skulls last night. Man, I can remember watching that in the movies.
So that’s it. The weeks keep going by and it’s hard to believe I’ve been here nearly 2.5 years, a quarter of a century. Anyway, enough for now. Till next time.
28.01.2008 Return of the Capristo. For those of you regular viewers, Frank kinda dropped off the face of the earth for a while. I apologize for this. I told myself I had to pass my drivers test before taking the time to start making new updates. I pretty much went underground for the last few months.
There were of course a few side trips here and there. It was back in October when Tina and Mike came over for Mike’s job traiing. They were a stone throw away in
We all grow up and take our own paths. Everyone goes their own way. The times I had in high school, or with the race car are in the past. We have the past, it’s nonrefundable, non returnable, and has gone out of stock. We can only take the time we have and keep trying to use it as it too goes extinct. I remind myself that I get to take over 6 weeks of vacation a year, most of what I use to go home and visit people. It’s about 3 times what I would have had if I had started out in the states. Not too shabby all things considered.
What drove me to take this path is a combination of the little things in life that just make an impact. I was born a mechanical engineer. I was always obsessed with taking things apart as a kid, always wanted to improve them, make them go faster. Yeah, I’ve always been a speed addict too. And then somewhere in grade school, there was a cute exchange student from
The key to being a good and efficient engineer is to have a systematic approach. They teach you that in school. How do you approach a problem? You break it down. You have to have a system which gives enough structure, but also enough flexibility. You have to watch the important milestones, and plan for some things not going according to plan. It’s always good to have a plan B. You need to have a backup plan just in case everything takes a shit. You can only become better when you demand it from yourself. Becoming one of the best is a mindset. You have to go after the items which seem just out of reach and make them a reality. You have to extend yourself and follow through. Develop, release, refine/improve, develop the next generation.
Well, I found out that I can compete over here. I am mixed in with a good group that does some amazing things. We have a little bit of a reputation as being one of the most chaotic product groups. I’ve only been in one and don’t know the others, so it’s hard for me to judge. I only know that we do it like everyone else, the best we can with what we have. I’ve also found out that part of your extended team are your suppliers and customers. Their structure, understanding and know how are just as important as the internal structures. A project might run great with a customer who is capable and poor with one that doesn’t have a clue with the same internal team. It’s no fault of the team itself. The rule is, you can’t compensate for everyone’s incompetence, not even your own.
So what else have I been up to? I still took out some time to go bowling every now and then. Back in September, I took my written drivers exam for the first time, and failed for the first time. It would be three weeks before I would get to take and fail it again. The first time I was unprepared. I knew it going into the test, but wanted to do it once to get a feel for what it was going to be like. I probably woulda done better if my test axiety wasn’t still with me. I could mess up a wet dream if it was given to me as a test. I dunno what there is about that word, but the affect it has on me causes me to loose my mind and become a screwball. This was the primary reason for failing the second time, where I just missed a passing grade by two points. But a month later, the third time was a charm. It being so close to my vacation, I wouldn't do any work towards the road test till January, but that gave me the chance to brush up a little state side. I’d have to try not to palm the steering wheel, and probably temporarily unlearn a few other so called bad habbits. "Blah blah blah, as soon as I have that license…. I need to get me some German wheels too, and right now what I’m interested in is a late 80’s BMW 325i." Those that know the BMW platforms will know that I’m talking about a E30 with the 2.5L, 170 hp, 168 ft-lb of torque motor. It’s rear wheel drive, and weighs in at 2900 lb in the 4 door sedan version. It’s a well known vehicle and there are lots of aftermarket goodies, should I feel the need to optimize or customize performance. It was either that, or try and go after a Porsche 944, but I’m a 4 door sports sedan kinda guy. I always have been, I probably always will be. So now that I wasn't studying my question booklets, I had time to browse online for a car.
Dominic was up from
Brain and I had a couple nights out roaming as well. Nothing to hot and heavy though. Like I said, I pretty much went underground for a while. Going back to touch on work, work has been crazy lately too. Two projects with our location in
I missed our annual pre-Christmas, end of the year night at the Christmas market and dinner. With a brother heading off to
The last week of work before my break was like any other. It’s all kinda become routine now since I started taking my biannual (If this were celebrity Jeopardy it would be …ddddrrrrop the u) vacations home. Trying to squeeze in a list of ongoing activities of who, where, what, when for my boss and everyone else to follow. I was the last one that evening. I came home, made dinner and packed. I had to catch an early train to
It’s all become routine now, I could almost do a Hudson Hawk to it all. I love handing them my passport, they look at all the little security checks on it. The 3 questions still piss me off. As if I was a terrorist I would answer any of those truthfully. I suppose some idiots might take packages from strangers, but who is that dumb this day in age? “Yes, I uh got this package right here. It has all this funny writing on it. The guy couldn’t speak very good English, had a turban wrapped around his head and said his uncle Osama was waiting for it.” Idiots. Just one giant illusion if you ask me, at least in the states. Until you can assure me that illegals aren’t coming across the borders on hands and feet, don’t get all up in a tizzy for something that means nothing.
Anyway, I was a little irked when my headphone jack in the plane didn’t work. As such, I just tried to rest as much as possible. It’s kinda hard to do. Luckily thong girl wasn’t that attractive, so I wasn’t temped to make small talk with her. Yeah, well it’s not like I was trying to look. She just happened to flaunt it. She shoulda worn a belt I guess. Of course my mind jumped right to the scene in 10 Things I Hate About You. It was a black thong, she just didn’t look like Julia Stiles.
The parents were at the airport terminal exit waiting. I found them and we hit the road south. I helped navigate us out of the city and then decided to doze. It was going to be a “10 hr.” trip down to
The highlight of the night was when the extra large cup of coffee that we had at the Cracker Barrel was through me. I had mom pull over by an underpass so I could go water the grounds. The 4 pillar overpass offered me the most discreet location to take care of business. Most if not all the ones in NY are done with blocks holding the bank. This one was done with stone and I had a hell of a time walking back there. After I was done, I thought, what the hell, I’m just going to walk back on the shoulder of the road. Not realizing that right next to me was an 18 inch high retaining wall, I turned went to step and flew face first over it. I caught myself without breaking my wrist because I allowed my arm to act like a spring, my face coming within an inch of the pavement I shit you not.
I cut my right wrist a little, and my left leg was on fire for the 2 inch length it had rubbed over the wall just below the knee and the spot next to it. Don’t ask me how. This was one time where time did not slow down. As we drove down the highway, I could feel what I knew was a little blood forming and running down my leg. Nice one A-hole. Of course the real bummer, was that dad’s little mini mag flew out of my jacket pocket and I didn’t notice. The decision was made that it wasn’t worth turning around for. Of course more than anything, that pissed me off the most, loosing a perfectly good Maglite along side the road that’s just going to fall prey to the weather.
We finally got there after loosing the way with some poor directions at around
The next day I drove over to the base, forgetting my passport in the hotel room. The rents were supposed to bring my replacement license, but had forgotten that one too. Oppsie. We went and grabbed lunch, picked up some of Tony’s crap he wasn’t going to need. Later we went out to the Mash House, where he had taken me my first night down there back in May.
Again, lunch downtown the next day and the museum the next day. Then it was time to start heading back north. We made it up to around DC, stopping at an outlet mall to get me a new suitcase. The three of us were pretty exhausted at dinner. I was still fighting the time change myself. I rode with the old man all the way up in Tony’s truck until we hit rt 80. He kept going home and mom and I went to the city. We managed to find a place to stay and a diner to eat at. It was ok. It was the last night of sleeping in the same room with the snoring zombies. I suppose I have to look forward to antagonizing my own kids one of these days.
We made it over to JFK nice and early just as the first flakes were starting to fall. NY was scheduled to get a foot, and I was happy to be beating it out of town. Mom would make it home ok. I relaxed on the plane. I think I watched part of the movie or something. I took some cloud pictures. The whole way down there, I was thinking of Pirates. “Welcome to the Caribbean Love,” and “But why’s the rum all gone?” As we got over the island and I could see the terrain and foliage, a different movie came across my mind, Romancing the Stone. I half expected to see a large cactus in the shape of a fork on a hill somewhere.
We landed and everyone started clapping. Now I understood this last year when it was the guy’s last flight after over 30 years of service, but hey, we haven’t made it to the terminal yet people. And if you’re happy just to land, well, suddenly my mind flashed to that Romancing the Stone scene in the jungle with the shot down plane. Of course that’s no different than when I go to NY or DC and flash through any movie that’s had to do with either of them. I can’t go to NYC without thinking about Ghost Busters. “If someone asks you if you’re a God, you say yes!” And I’m always looking for the state-puff to come marching down the street.
Anyway, I’m walking off the plane down the hall and this group starts singing and playing music, you know, Latin American, something you can truly dance to. Right then and there, I knew it was going to be a good time. It took me 5-10 minutes for me to find Aaron. We had to wait around for a few others. I happened to be the first after his parents who had already been taken into San Domingo. Nikki was next and then Royce and Tulin. His aunt and uncle along with Josh got in too. Ray would be late, but catch up to us at dinner. We went up the road to San Domingo, a stretch I would leave my own personal mark on in days to come. Josh and I went to get sized up for the Tux before we all went out to dinner.
Dinner was good at a very customary restaurant. Lots of traditional dancing, food and everything. I kicked back and thought how my bro was on his way over to the middle east. I pondered if the last time I saw him would be the last time. It’s easier on me than it is my parents, but we’re pretty close. My mom burned the old family movies on to DVD’s for us, and even when we were little, we had a certain bond. Sure, we tried to kill each other many a time, but still. And of course in our high school days, all the crazy nights on the town and school dances. I dunno. He made a man’s decision, he’s following through on something he believes in. All I can do is be proud of him, love him and hope all goes well.
Anyway, that’s where I was that night. I don’t know if I said anything about it to anyone. I didn’t want to dampen the mood. I kinda wanted to go out and dance, but just couldn’t bring myself to go do it. Afterwards, we hit the road and went to Bonao.
The next day we go up and went over to Melissa’s parents for breakfast with the family. It’s a very nice place they have there. The back yard is amazing and not even the light drizzle we had could make it any less beautiful. The inside is also amazing with all of the decorations. My favorite was a painting of a wine bottle going in towards the kitchen. I musta dozed off a little in there though. It was good weather to do it to.
That afternoon we went up outside of town into the mountains where they have a little summer camp. Romancing the Stone was back in my head again. The tropical storm that had passed a couple days before we got there had washed parts of the roads out and there were some landslides. Shame on me for not being able to come up with Kathleen Turner’s name. I’m disappointed in myself on that one, but all I could think of was the mudslide scene. Still, I figured if it was really that dangerous, we wouldn’t be going. It’s bad practice to kill the wedding party before the wedding, but at least you’ll have lots of the relatives on hand for the funerals. Hey, I’ll take my chances. If the worst should happen, I wouldn’t have been around to worry about it.
It was very peaceful. I reflected back on how lucky I am in life. There I was, looking at another beautiful part of the world and sharing it with friends. I was there the first night when Aaron met Melissa. I was in a world of pain with a migraine, but I was there. Now I had the pleasure to not only be there for their wedding, but be in it. It was time to pop my wedding cherry. Well, I was in one back in 3rd grade, and saw my uncle get married once, but it’s been so long and it was the first person I knew from high school or college, so it makes a pretty deep impression.
That night was the bachelor party night. We went out to a local club, tossed back a few drinks. Afterwards, we went back to the room Ray and I were sharing and chatted for a bit while working away half a bottle of rum. No sense in going after the whole bottle. We had to be in optimum party condition for the reception.
It was a good thing I ate breakfast that morning. My iron stomach was holding out better than some of the others. I wasn’t drinking the water, but I had been brushing my teeth with it. We had our little practice session and then it was a matter of hanging out while the buzz of the wedding went into high gear. As a man I’m blessed with just being able to stay the hell back and out of the way in situations like this. The goal here is to just crack jokes to keep the groom relaxed. Weddings are all about the bride and secondary to that, the families. It’s her moment. She knows how she wants things, she’s got it all organized, so just step back, relax and enjoy the show. I was sporting my tux and just trying to keep it clean. I figured that was my job.
Eventually, on Dominican time, the wedding happened. I had the pleasure of walking in after Aaron and his mother. Wholly people, wholly cameras. I wish I had thought about and prepared myself for that mentally ahead of time. At some point, The Cutting Edge popped up in my head. In stead of Moira Kelly telling me to breathe, I heard smile. I tried to keep it modest and not grin like an idiot. I do that enough as it is. As I got up there, I realized that someone was in my seat. Shit. Someone had told Nikki and Rose to sit there. I tried to be quiet with the video camera going and tell here there were 3 of us coming there. It wasn’t a big deal and worked out pretty damn good, but it was one of those moments you don’t plan for. It went off really well.
The reception was great. Kick it off with a toast from the best man, who was naturally Josh and then dancing. My first couple dances were with aunts of Melissa’s I think. I could here Joe and my brother already. The timelessly classic line, “You go take care of the mommies, we’ll run off with their daughters.” Well, here’s to you Mrs. Robinson…. No. But I didn’t know if me dancing with some other dude’s wife would cause any problems down there. I was not up on the cultural significance if any, but it was no big deal, I just wasn’t loose enough at that point.
Finally at one point, I went up to a group of the girls there trying to find someone to dance with and ended up with a very pretty girl in a red dress. Still not even feeling the alcohol yet I went shit, now I actually care if I’m dancing well or not. Well, no matter what, I wasn’t going to be able to dance as well as any of the Dominican guys. They start off dancing as a sperm and there was no way I will ever be that good. I don’t think I stepped on her feet though, so I guess I didn’t do too bad.
I got to dance some more, but it was Josh who was shakin up the dance floor. Royce and Tulin were doing a good job too. It wasn’t till later, when I was maybe just starting to feel the alc a little, that I loosened up enough to show Nikki an alright time. She was impressed, and told me so, so I couldn’t have been that bad. Of course I played it down just like I have while writing this. That’s me, I underbid myself, I’m overmodest, I bet against the house. It pushes me to try harder and in doing so, I think I might accomplish some things I wouldn’t have otherwise in life.
So we were doing that till around
I packed that night. We were heading out early the next day to go to Melia Caribe Tropical, a hotel resort on the east coast for a few days. Breakfast again with a cup of coffee and a glass of OJ cause it was so good there. That might have been my downfall, or at least the setup for the next funny story. We got on the other side of San Domingo after being underway for a good 3 hrs or so and I needed a pit stop. Well, a few miles back we had seen some dude taking a leak along side the road. I told Aaron, I would do that if I had to. I probably had another half hour in me, be he told the guys driving the van and they pulled over. The pressure was on, and not just on my bladder. Here it was, blue sky, bright sun, broad daylight and I’m going to take a leak alongside the highway. What a gringo. I’m trying to make myself laugh and the first time, I just couldn’t make myself do it. I got people shouting at me from the van and I had to walk back, collect myself and try again. The second time was almost as hard, I flexed my abs and made myself. At least there was a shoe there for me to pee on. So Aaron’s mom got a great shot of me assuming the position as I like to say. Tulin and everyone else said they’d love to shake my hand except that I had penis hands, which is apparently the women’s term for when guys don’t wash their hands afterwards. Luckily when we did stop for everyone else, someone had wipes with them and I got to “freshen up.”
It took forever to check in, but it was all inclusive and there were nice couches to lounge in. There were also free drinks and I enjoyed a nice rum and coke. I ended up chatting with Larrisa (Melissa’s sister) and her boyfriend. What did I think of Dominican Women? Damn, how do I answer that? I have issues answering that question about women in general. It’s too broad or deep of a question. I mean I didn’t and am still not sure if I know enough Dominican women, or know them well enough to be able to say. If you want me to go on looks, well, sure, there are plenty of hotties. Hell, just look at the wedding reception pictures. What did I do, I pulled out the line about my tastes, blah blah, blah. They’re more like guidelines…
We met up for dinner that night. I had the surf and turf. We went down and walked around the pool afterwards and then down on the beach. I wish I had had my tripod with me so I could have gotten a shot worth its due. Afterwards we went back. Aaron and Melissa had already called it a night. At this point, Royce and Tulin were tired. That left the rest of us to hang out in the room Nikki, Ray and I were in. I think we just hung out and talked that night.
When I got up the next morning, I went down to the bistro place before the beach for breakfast. Nikki was right behind me and we all ended up meeting there. The weather was already amazing. We decided to get wet. We then took out a couple of sailboats. Royce took the cat with Nikki and Josh, I was in the sunfish with Tulin. The guy had to set my boat up and didn’t know anything about how to do it. I woulda been better off doing it myself and doing in alone, but it’s supposed to be vacation. They’re supposed to wine and dine you. So the other boat was way out in front of us.
Sailing on the high seas is something I hadn’t experienced yet, but came to learn and love pretty quick. You know that scene in Castaway where he needs the sail to break through the reef, well it’s true, it’s just like that. Afterwards I crashed through a couple waves without meaning to. Poor Tulin took the brunt of those. But it didn’t matter. It was 90 degrees out and the water was in the mid 70’s. It was refreshing. Eventually it was lunch time. Some people left that afternoon and we would be fewer for dinner. It had already been going by too fast. This was the start of the end.
In the afternoon we did some swimming. The main highlight was playing volleyball. Beach volleyball, the one true instance when life should be a beach. It’s no peach though. You constantly have to watch out for the older women who have aged to the point they no longer care about wearing a top. I guess those pirates dreams (sunken chests) have sunken so far, the women don’t worry about burning their nipples off. There were a few times when I thought back to The Usual Suspects. Something about orca… I know it’s mean, but not half as mean as the old men walking around in G-Strings. God damn, I saw enough of that the one time Jenny had her B-day party and my brother came out in one. Brotherly love only extends so far, but what he showed wasn’t nearly as bad as men who were way out of form with the numerous beers consumed in front of various sports games on TV. Am I generalizing and applying stereotypes, of course. Did you laugh, I hope so.
Beach volleyball was a lot of fun. Who cares if you dive. Other than not being able to serve, it almost all looks great. Just gotta keep the sand out of the eye and the cracks. Most of the people down there were honeymooners themselves, or old people. It was nice being a party of people. In some ways I think that made the most fun. In fact it might even have set a precedence for how I hope my honeymoon will be, good times with a bunch of friends, great atmosphere. The chance of a lifetime.
Afterwards we went with the girls over to the spa place. They did their thing and I tried out a steam room for the first time. For a little while I was expecting to grow gills. I think that’s the highest humidity air I’ve ever been in. The water was condensing on you while you were sweating. I dunno what that does for the body, but it was like a less sticky version of playing baseball in the hot summer sun.
Afterwards I got all showered and slicked up again. Well, I brought my work clothes with me. Stuff that I could wear at home in the winter and what not for the holiday season. Actually, in the evenings I was looking pretty suave or “schick” as they’d say in
Afterwards we went to check out the game room, which wasn’t much of one and played some cards. We didn’t stay up too late that night. Josh and I decided we’d get up at the ass crack of dawn to watch the sun come up. It played out right in what would be our last day. We didn’t realize that though until it was part way through.
That day though, I got my shopping done in the morning. The gentlemen Bailey’s were out playing golf. In the afternoon we were back on the beach. Again, we did some swimming, and laying in the sun. I did a little journal writing, which I was long overdue for. I played some botchi with Royce and before long, everyone was back at volleyball. This time around I went and got the big gun and shot them up in action. I got a lotta good shots.
Of course as much as I love taking pictures, and even more so, ones that aren’t too bad for this amateur, it requires that you take yourself out of the moment. I took a couple shots at the reception with the little guy (my G7). Since there was a professional photographer there, I didn’t mind staying in the moment. In fact, maybe I was trying to soak it all up in as much detail as possible through my eyes into the large maze of memory in my head. Landscape pictures tend to be a little easier in that the moments don’t move so fast. You can set up your shot while enjoying it and freeze the moment. With the exception of mechanical attrition, a crash, someone hanging it out or sheet metal flying up in the air from rubbing too much against the competition, most racing shots can be picked up on the next lap. Taking shots of people you know is more tricky, or at least for me. Of course I generally know how to make people laugh, or provoke a certain expression. Maybe that’s the advantage. But I was taking shots of volleyball, I wasn’t playing and that made me more of an observer, out on the outside.
Dinner that night was bitter sweet. They had the AC cranked down so low, water was condensing on the outlet in the ceiling and dripping down on us. I broke out my wedding gift for the happy couple, a set of two silver candlesticks. Most of us had booked late flights but there was one who hadn’t. That meant leaving before sun up. We made the best of our last night. Royce, Nikki, Josh and I went and did a shot of Absinth, and nearly caught fire from the inside out. Wholly cow I don’t think I’ll ever do that again. The group of us youngsters stayed there for a while, and hit up the magic show. That was about it. Afterwards, we went back, packed and called it a night.
We got on the road early the next morning, the whole lot of us, packed back into the van, luggage stacked up to a level almost worthy of the times I moved all my crap home from school. Nikki was great and grabbed me a really good muffin after I told her I didn’t want one. It worked out great after we got about an hour down the road, and my stomach was pissed at me. I hadn’t had my morning cup of coffee. The muffin did its job and calmed things back down.
We got to the airport no problemo. The 5 of us piled out with our gear and said our good byes. Everyone else was on an extended stay for the holidays. Royce, Tulin, Nikki and I had lunch and hung out playing cards till it was time to go to our terminals. We played some spades, guys vs. girls. We beat them to 300, but they got us on the stretch to 5. Royce and Tulin were on my plane and we got seats next to each other. When we got on the plane, it was one of the newer ones, with screens in the back of the seat in front of you. So I jokingly made a comment about it, putting in my earohone and told them to have a nice flight. We all laughed. Royce and I started out the trip both watching Borne Ultimatum, which was good. Afterwards he and I were watching Super Bad. About the time the sun was going down, the system took a dump. Oh well, I napped the rest of the way. We got into JFK no problem. They had another flight to go to Roch cha cha, and I had a train to catch. We said our good byes at baggage claim, and that was that.
I was on my own again, but running a familiar course. Sky Tram to the
Well I made it to
A year prior, I was going home after being away for 15 months after just having become project manager and being known as “the noble co-op.” This time around, I had done almost all of it. I had added steam a project manager, spreading my wings further. They sent me on a trip to
When I got off the train and made it up the escalator, dad and Bethann were there waiting for me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s always a great feeling to have someone waiting for you when you’ve been hopping trains, planes and buses. I suppose you don’t notice it so much when traveling in a group, but it sure feels nice when you’ve been doing it solo.
They had just gotten there themselves, after shopping, so it was good timing on everyone’s part. We stopped for gas and to get me some Wendy’s, since I hadn’t gotten any food in all my travel rush. I think we got in close to
Dad had to work some of the time, so I’d work on the computer a little, touching up pictures or something like that. My assignment the first day was to shovel the back deck off before the melting snow got too heavy or iced over. That night was Jenny’s Christmas party, and I went into town for that. It was a good reason no one else had touched the Bailey’s I had left in my room from last Christmas, cause it was high time I consumed some (or all) of it. I shoulda taken the amaretto with me too, but it worked out alright. I must be allergic to something at her place though, cause I could tell I was fighting something in the air. I didn’t figure it out until I left the next day, otherwise I might have gone with the group downtown instead of crashing around
It worked out alright the next day, dad and I had haircut appointments. We took Tony’s truck over. I drove. It wasn’t too bad. I have a tendency to drive a little faster than he likes and got the “This isn’t the breeze you know, this has a higher center of gravity.” Yeah, well, I had an idea of what it could do, and I wasn’t anywhere near the limit. In fact, I was just holding the speed limit, but that makes him a little nervous at times. It was bare road though, and well, it was me driving. After ridding around with both he and my mother, I don’t know what he was worrying about. It was nice to see Larry and chat with him over a couple of cups of coffee while we got our hair cuts. Actually, we were a little early, but I didn’t mind. More time to talk and get advice on things like which tootsie roll pop is the best one. Larry is of the opinion that it’s the blue one, time will tell.
After that, I had to be off on my way to
The girls went shopping that day. The old man had to work a couple hours, so I was left at home all by my lonesome. I took the chance to move the computer desk I had built back around 2002 to my room. Well, yeah, it stayed unfinished for a few years, cause dad wanted to power plane part of it. It made its way to the front porch where my mother put plants on it. We worked on it a little last winter when I was home, and this year, the old man figured it was about time we put it to its intended use.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounds. If it weren’t for Dolly, the old man’s hand cart (the shop vac is R2D2), I never woulda been able to get the job done. When I laid it out, I laid it out pretty tight. I don’t know if I built it crooked, but I had to take down 2 doors and pieces of trim to sneak it through. In the end, it worked out really nice. The two little desks they had been using and the bedroom door opens all the way up. All in all, everything is much better organized. We shoulda done that years ago.
Afterwards it was time I started working on Bethann’s computer, which stopped working a couple weeks before I got in. At least it had good timing. It coulda stopped a couple weeks after I left, then what? It worked out for me too, I hadn’t figured out what to get her for Christmas yet. So basically it was time to do a major overhaul on the old gal. New board, processor, head sink and memory. While I was at it, I picked up a new case to replace the ’96 Micron case I had recycled a few times. With all the new USB and everything, I decided it was high time for an upgrade there too.
When I got home, I found that there had been a few more changes since my last build than I had first been aware of. Apparently AGP is out and PCI express is in. There is also some different stuff with power supplies too. This had been a small oversight on my part, and I’d have to go to the Best Buy in
It had been a year since I had been up that way with Orrin to get an adapter plate for his car stereo. I missed my exit going up, but after a quick U-turn I made it over to Best Buy. It held some memories for me as well, since the day the neon caught fire at the mall up the road, and the old man and I walked down there while waiting for Tony to come get us in the RT. Luck wouldn’t exactly be with me in some ways, but others. I picked her up a compliant power supply along with the latest video card. When I got out to the car though, the rear left tire was down and losing air. Just my luck. Well, no big deal. I’ve done this before. Not in the snow flurries that were coming down, but not a big deal. Of course that time it was the other side of the car and I had a pit crew to help me out. Luckily for me, the lug nuts broke loose without needing a cheater bar and the old man was carrying the little air compressor in the car, so I was able to put up the pressure to the correct level. About 20-30 minutes later and I was ready to roll again.
It was hell getting out of the parking lot. All the other last minute shoppers were trying to go home too. If memory serves me correctly, Blockbuster is in the same plaza or just up the road. Thoughts drifted back to one of my last summers at scout camp when we (Orrin and Josh were with me and asked me to open her up a little) made it from there to scout camp in something like 35-40 minutes. I forget exactly how long it took us, but we were moving, and we had a detour too. I think it usually takes 45 – 60 minutes, and I happened to average better than a mile a minute without flying faster than my guardian angels could fly or running into the fuzz.
This day, I wasn’t so worried about trying to reset the record, or even really make time. I had cruised up through the back roads on the way up, driving for the cold and the sand that was on the road, but playing it on the safe side. I haven’t been behind the wheel on a regular basis for a couple years now. I haven’t forgotten how to drive, or how to react, or how to push it, but I have lost some of that fine touch. It’s one thing to push your limits, it’s another to step completely over them. I had a little fun on my way back into Windfield, and made my right hand turn to go to the cemetery. It had been a while since I stopped to see how Mike is doing. It’s something I always try to do when I’m home and passing through that way. The snow had melted off pretty good to the point where grass was showing through. I’ve been thigh deep in snow and upset for not being able to find the stone and I’ve found the top of it and dug it out by hand before. I was happy this wouldn’t be a repeat of either of those.
I was coming up out of town, past the turn off to their old house past Unadilla Forks when I caught up to a tanker truck and a couple of cars stuck behind him. Great. I didn’t know if he was going to stay on 51 or not, but figured if he made my turn, I’d pass him on that long straight stretch there. He went straight, but the nice red BMW 325XI with a roof rack made the turn.
I was half expecting some old fogy to putter along, and who I would pass with my little
For those of you who don’t know, the XI is the 4 wheel drive sport sedan version which sports the 215 hp I-6 motor and either a 6 speed manual or automatic tranny. If I had the RT, I might have been able to stay closer too him, but even with the breeze giving me all she had, I never woulda been able to truly “race” him. Of course I didn’t care. I kept him partially within sight and let him clear the road for me. If there had been any cops, he woulda found them. It left me open to drive the breeze as close to the limit as I wanted to and have a little fun, which I did.
I lost him on the way over to Fly Creek. He was far enough out in front of me and made a turn somewhere. No biggy, I just woulda liked to have flipped him a wave to say job well done. I was on my way over to rt28 when who should come out of a side road, but this red BMW 325 with a roof rack on it. It had to be him, and I saluted as I went by, noticing he had a passenger with him now. He turned off again about a quarter mile down the road and that was that.
I was still feeling a little frisky coming back on
Well, it’s probably the last time I’ll ever get to drive her like that. Dad has his pick of 3 vehicles now, and she’s showing her age. She still gets 30+ mpg though, something neither of the trucks, or even the RT will do. I dunno, we’ll see if the old war horse is still there when I go home in the summer. If I had my way, I’d park her down next to the ’50
I spent the next couple days working feverishly to get the computer done. I was really glad I held onto that STA hard drive I picked up by accident 2.5 years ago. Damn windows didn’t want to read off my ATA card. It’s always something I guess. When I got it up and running though, wow. This computer is fast. Maybe that’s partially cause I’m running Windows 2000 on it, and everything current is made to support the extra overhead of XP and now
So the computer was up and running for Christmas.
The next day
That evening, my uncle Bob and cousin Missy (Melissa) came down for dinner. Mom made lasagna, which was excellent, even better than normal. We had a nice time chatting and it was good to catch up and hear some of the old stories. There is a lot of history in the Capristo family and sometimes I wish I could play FBI agent and just put a tape recorder down on the table to save and transcribe it. Maybe neither of them think the stories are worth it, or maybe you’re not supposed to put the not so nice moments down on paper, but history runs its course and we with it. I’d rather know the best and worst than no nothing about where I came from. It’s those events that shaped the lives of our parents and help to at least partially explain why they are who they are, and why they were certain ways with us. If you’re lucky, you can follow the chain back generations and know the history, pride and honor behind the name you bear. Of course I’m a bit of a romantic in that sense. To me, it isn’t so much of a story of good and bad, just the character of who people are and the times they lived in.
The next day was my last day. I went into town and met up with Joe. We picked up some calzones at this new place behind the Fox. We grabbed them and went over to his place and watched Transformers, which I hadn’t seen yet. We chatted about how things are. He’s now a cop in Oneonta. I’m waiting for the day when he pulls me over to write me a ticket and I’ll be able to tell him “Thank you officer.” After that, he had to go to work. I went home and put the winter tires on the RT with the old man, since we had had some snow and were scheduled for more. “You know I can get this done for free in town.” Sure, but it’s nice to check the girl over and I kinda like doing that stuff anyway, even if it takes a breaker bar cause some a-hole left the pressure jacked up on the air gun after working on a truck. Good thing I didn’t have to change one of those tires on my own on the side of the road or parking lot. Then I went down to
We had thought about going bowling that night, but I wasn’t feeling up to it. I’m not sure if it was the weather, if the whole vacation was catching up to me or I was pre-departure homesickness. Here it was though, almost 3 weeks after getting on a plane and it was time to go back. Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair. Anyway, we watched part of this thing about princess Diana and I ended up staying longer than I meant to. I got home and stayed up with everyone till they went to bed, did my packing and went to bed.
I got an early but not quite early enough start the next day. I was set to hit the road at 12 with mom. I couldn’t take the Amtrak train down cause it was booked solid with New Years traffic and we had to go down further to where I could take the Metro in.
It was a good drive down. We cut through the hills and got on the interstate at
The Metro North doesn’t go to Penn Station like Amtrak, but Grand Central. I was finally going to the place I’d seen on so many posters. Cool. Well, they were doing some kind of light show when I got there, but I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I had the option of taking a taxi over to the airport, which would run about 40 beans, or hop a cab over to Penn and take one of those back out to Jamaica Station. The second option would be the more risky of the two, so I took that one. Eh, I still had plenty of time, or so I thought.
First I went out on the wrong side of the building. Idiot me didn’t listen to his voice. After killing about 10 minutes, which at this point seemed like even more, I walked around the corner and got one there. I like to push myself, but I also don’t like to be waiting for something, especially when I’m under a time constraint. It messes up my rhythm.
It worked out decent though, I got there, got my ticket and got on the train with about 5 minutes to spare. Nice and easy, except it was pretty full and I had to stand. Oh well, it was pretty smooth sailing from there on. The Delta terminal wasn’t that busy and security was no biggy. The only part that got me was when the girl at the counter looked at my passport and asked me if I was 12 in the picture. 18 thank you very much. Damn baby face. After that, I just went over to the gate and waited. Did you know there is no gate 13 there? I was looking at the map instead of wandering around like a moron and picked up on that one. I guess they figure no one wants to fly out of that. Kinda makes me want to open up a low cost airline, I’d call it Gate 13 Airlines. Of course you loose one plane, and it would be belly up. Recruiting pilots and crew might be a bit of a problem too.
It was a night flight, which I like. Take off was about an hour later than planned, but we made it into Frankfurt ahead of time due to a nice little tail wind. I slept or tried to for as much of the trip as I could. The guy doing passport control looked at my permits for a split second and that was it. I didn’t have to wait but 5 minutes for my bag and 20 minutes for the next train. Just as with the great
I unpacked some and took a nap. Brian called me later on and we went out to get dinner. Christian was with him and we ended up going to Brommbach. I was looking through the menu and knew what I had to order, Leberkaese! B knows I order it most days on a break roll for lunch. The fact that I just came back and would order it would be hilarious. Leberkaese, which is Bavarian Meatloaf, potato salad and a wheat beer, it doesn’t get much more Bavarian that.
Afterwards, they went out and I went home. I didn’t want to be a party pooper, but I was homesick and wanted to be left alone with myself a little. I wanted to think back on it all a little more while it was still so vividly fresh in my mind. I forget what I ended up doing, but I was up late till about
Brian and I had loosely planned to figure out New Years together. In my somewhat jet-lagged state from the night before, I forgot to ask him what his land line number was. He had a cell phone that he had recently lost, and I had no way to reach him. With that said, I was hoping he’d call, but if not I would say to hell with it, sit at home, drink, do laundry and maybe wander outside to see the fireworks go off. Well, in the midst of my preparation for hara-kiri, Verena knocked on my door and invited me to go with her and some peeps I know to a party. Well, I am only an amateur alcoholic with no intention of going pro, so there really was no reason for me to stay home. I didn’t know if Brian was going to call or not, or how it was going to play out. I knew if I didn’t say yes, Murphy would probably spend New Years laughing at me.
The party was good. I had my irish cream and amaretto with me. It’s always a good combination to sip on. Going on
There were enough of us that stayed up till it hit New Years in NY too. Eventually, we caught one of the morning buses back and I went to bed around
I got up later in the day, took care of some stuff and went to bed on time even though I wasn’t tired. This was what I was expecting, but hey, no big deal. I was one of 5 or so people on our entire office floor to show up for work. Everyone else had taken the full week off. Since I had cut out early to go state side, I wanted to get a jump on stuff. I had my 3.5 weeks, and I wanted to clean up a little before all hell broke loose again.
My desk drawer is still a mess. Things didn’t quite work out the way I planned. On day 2, I was already back to pushing 10 hr. days. It was good that I was back though, the one customer was already back and wanted to see where we were with things and work on moving the ball forward. The colleagues in
I ended up going over to Brian’s place that weekend to watch a couple of movies with him. His gf ended up coming over and we went down to Tirili, which is a club there. Brian moved at the end of last year, and now has real good access to the entertainment venues in town. It was a decent night. Saw one of the guys from work out with his gf who both usually go bowling. They didn’t recognize me at first with the beard I was working on, which was funny. Everyone else was just as surprised when they came back the following Monday.
You gotta love the comments you get doing something like that. “Are you going to become a lumber jack? Did you loose power at home? Did you loose your razor? You look like a terrorist, you didn’t convert to Islam, did you? You know, they’ll never let you back into the
I take it all in stride as one should and even joke back. I tell them I thought I started going bald from running my hands back through my hair so much, and thought I’d better grow a beard to scratch instead. I have a couple others I like to use too.
So why did I decide to grow it out? Well, this is nothing new for me. I did it for the first time back up at scout camp in ’99. I had one back in the winters of ’04 and ’05. My reason back in ’04 was because my then honey was going to be gone for the next 8 months and I figured a beard might deter any women, that might want to convince me she wasn’t worth waiting for, from talking to me. Of course two months later she broke up with me for some other guy and the beard came off. In ’05, well it was winter in
Of course it’s a decent look that I can carry. Most people don’t expect it if they’ve already gotten to know me without it. It’s good to shake them up a little bit. The opposite is also true. I always keep Muchard’s bit of advice in my head, “You can’t let your look become your personality to other people. You don’t want to have it for so long that people can’t remember what you looked like without it.”
This time around, well, maybe a similar reason as the last. After a lackluster year or complete lack of love in ’06, I told myself that if ’07 went the same way, I’d grow a beard out for a little while in ’08, maybe even until the table turned.
I started up the year with my driving classes the following week. We didn’t manage to get bowling going again that week, but Brian and I went out on Saturday again. We were going to go to Studio, but he was underdressed and couldn’t get in. Fine, we walked up to Nachtwaechter to see what was going on there. It was packed solid, so we ended up going back over to Tirili again. Going out has gotten nicer with the start of the year in Bayern. They have now followed suit and passed the smoking ban in places just like NY did 4 years ago. I say it’s about time, but for the many smokers over there, who enjoyed a beer and cigarette while watching a soccer game, well, they’re a bit pissed off. Oh well.
The following week, or last week brought more driving and bowling. It was nice to go back and do that again. I had a pretty good night, rolling a 139, 133 and a 168. It always funny when any of us order fries, everyone else steals a couple while when that person is up bowling. Hey, what goes around comes around. Afterwards we made our usual McDonalds stop. I had to drive that Saturday, so I didn’t do anything Friday night. As it turned out, I ended up staying in Saturday night too. I don’t mind that though, I spent the day getting everything in tip top order in my room, doing the spring cleaning a little early. I bought a couple new camera bags that day, well a larger bag since with the battery grip on the girl now, the bag couldn’t handle all the gear. I also bought a backpack that is made for taking 2 bodies a few lenses and flash units as well as a laptop. I figure this will come in handy when I go to races and what not and shoot up all my cards. Now that I have the extra battery, it’s time to make sure I have a place to put all the shots. So I got both of those as dialed in as I could.
Last week was a pretty intense week. I was going to be driving twice that week. Usually it meant that I had about a half hour to go to the driving school and back, and about 90 minutes driving time. We scheduled them in the afternoon and afterwards, I went back in to work to make up the time. I suppose that might sound a little funny to people. The standard work day here is 7.5 hrs a day. Up until you are a certain level on the pay scale, you are not allowed to work more than 10 hrs /day by law. I usually work pretty close to the 10 hr. limit with 5-15 minutes to spare. Technically speaking, I already had put in a full days work. Here I was going back in for more.
Of course those who know me well enough will not be surprised by this. All I can say, is that there is so much to do, I need to use what I can. It’s not flexible, I can’t just take those 2 hrs and put them on a different day. The time is now. Carpé Diem. Nutz den Tag. Fuck the prom queen? It’s not just me though, everyone else in our group is working just as hard. Would it be fair for me to do it any different? Of course some would remind me that I need a little time for myself. I dunno, I’m hanging in there.
Friday was the 25th. I had my drivers test that morning. I was going to get picked up from work a little after 9. I figured I’d go into work and get an hour and a half worth in, and also make sure that I was fully awake and in the groove. Well, we got there, had a coffee. Then we found out that one of the other instructors had overslept and thrown the entire schedule about an hour back. So more coffee and all the while I was trying to keep my nerves down to the right level.
The morning was similar to my first road test, the one for my NYS license. The sun was shining that day. Dad picked me up from school. I can remember us leaving Schenevus and he was telling me not to worry, it took him twice too. He cracked jokes the whole way in, the way he does, and I was loose and able to just pull together and focus rather than crumble. This morning wasn’t so bad. I was just repeating my weak points to myself. Right before left in the Zone 30’s, come to a complete stop at stop signs (I have a nasty habit of doing a
It was sunny, but the dude wouldn’t let me wear my sunglasses that I had brought. Fine. Raw dog it with the sun visor. I was alright. I settled in and just did my thing. I figure they don’t want you to wear sun glasses so they can watch your eyes, not because they make traffic lights look blue as the guy explained.
I pissed him off a little at one point too. We came down the hill, where there was only one lane going straight, and another lane came up to join it. The speed limit on it was 50 kph, or about 35 mph. Well someone came up from the left and we were going about the same speed and he was hanging out in my corner. Apparently what I should have done, was slow down, let him go by and get in behind him instead of blocking the lane, cause I got a nice tap on the shoulder and gruff comment as to how I was blocking the lane. That was the worst of it though, and it wasn’t enough to prevent him from passing me. I guess playing
I walked into work and played it calm and cool, but pleased and satisfied with myself on the inside. The boss was mucho happy. I had to focus back on work though. Before I knew it, the boss scheduled 15 minutes with me towards the end of the day. I thought it was odd that it was only 15 minutes. There was no topic. Dolores assured me that it was nothing bad. Still, I wondered what was up, if I was to take on a new project or had written an email I shouldn’t have. Well, whatever it was, time was marching towards it. As it turned out, it ended up being my evaluation. I knew my 3 month review. My trial period was shortened right from the start from 6 months to 3, because of my co-op, and this was my review.
So there are 5 columns; doesn’t meet the job requirements, generally meets the requirements, fully meets the requirements, goes above and beyond, really goes above and beyond. I was all in the middle, which one doesn’t usually reach at the time of the first review. Of course I had the co-op working to my advantage. But there were plenty of nice things to say about me. >My style is much appreciated by everyone I work with, both at the customers, the suppliers, Würzburg and the international locations. My handling of all the diverse interlocational projects is impressive, I’m ready to handle bigger stuff.< And here I am, not always sure if I’m doing it right, just trying to do the best I can and what seems right at the time. I’ve also tried to learn from what I’ve seen not working, and not be that guy to much of a “big man” to swallow his pride when he is wrong. For me, it’s about making the company and everyone else successful, about being a good engineer, using common sense and solve a problem, not trying to place blame or play politics.
It was a good day. I stayed till about
Today was pretty good too. I met up with Brian and we walked up to the Chapel on the hill. I hadn’t ever been up there yet. It was a real over cast day. We stopped at the café on the river first, went up and around then had dinner at his place.
And how do I feel? Well, the first couple weeks were tough. I had melancholy, like I usually do. I’ve gotten back into the thick of it, and I’m looking forward to the next time I get to go home in addition to the times I’ll get to make from now until then. I suppose my outlook on life would be a little different if I had finished this before Friday. Right now I know the next while is going to be a hard fight, but I’m optimistic about what the year might bring. I can’t take my foot off the gas. I gotta keep up the momentum and keep building on what I’ve accomplished this far. What does that mean? I guess I’ll just have to keep rolling the dice and responding to the situations while writing all the way, sooner or later that is.
posted by CapristoIII at 3:51 PM
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