Technicolor Yawn

Where will the madness end? I Just read a story that that the pentagon is contemplating enlisting foreigners to serve in our military in Iraq. The reward: fast tracked citizenship. This actually made me nauseous. Get it through your thick heads, will ya. We voted, we don't want no F****** war! No draft, no troop increases and no poor SOB's searching for a new life - willing to gamble with their lives.

Anyway - how was your day?

Christmas Eve

Good Morning.

D made it in one piece. He had an uneventful trip - everything went like clockwork. B & P, we picked up your train tickets as discussed yesterday. So that one final loose end is no longer loose!

We kicked off the visit with the first episode of season six of the sopranos on the big screen last night. Man have I missed Tony and the crew!

Today we are going to kick back and watch too many DVD's, eat too much food and just enjoy. I hope all of you can enjoy the day too.

Merry Christmas

You'll see by the posting time that it is early here. Since I quit smoking, I've reverted back to my time schedule of 20 years ago. This is my time of the day. A time of quiet reflection - unless I happen to be watching MI III (which, by the way I thought was a great movie). Where was I? Oh, right: Just checked Flight Tracker and "D", to many of you "P", is halfway across the Atlantic on his way to Europe right now. He will have a four hour layover before he travels on to the city where we will pick him up to celebrate his first Christmas in Germany. It's these early hours when I think back to what was: We really did have some great Christmas' together!

I'll be thinking of you all!

I hope all of you have a MERRY Christmas!

A Tale of Two Cities

...it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The best of times:
Houston, we are prepared for liftoff!! We are ready for christmas and looking forward to the arrival of our guests. Let the holdays begin. Today is our last day at work until 2007: Wahoo! I'm so looking forward to our time together, B, D & P.

The worst of times:
A co-worker, friend, and one who I consider to be a truly good person, found out yesterday that she will be spending her holidays wondering whether the lump that will be removed in the New Year is the begining of the end.

So as always in life, there is the duality to be oberserved. Unfortunately, sometimes you don't have to look very far.

Perception IS Reality

I was sent a link to a short film (in French) yesterday. Even though I don't speak a single word of French, I'm going to jump off into the deep end and tell you all what the 8+ minute film was about. And this is the point...what it was about was how I perceived it. Being in a language I didn't understand allowed me to "interpret" more than if the words had been laid down at my feet.

Short and sweet, I belive this was what the film was about - maybe the intention was another one - but this is what I took from it: The sound that some may here as the music of life can be the sound of misery and torment for others. Thoughts to ponder as we head into the "happy" holiday season....

To the Film producer (and cameraperson for half of it)...Well done! I enjoyed it because it was meaningful and creative!

John Doyle's I Love Deutschland

There is an American Comic that lives here by the name of John Doyle. He's originally from NJ and speaks German with a heavy American accent, and is - IMHO - just great. He has a TV show going at the moment called "I love Deutschland". In the recent episode he was visiting a medieval Christmas fair in Dresden Germany. Pointing to the fair he says "Dresden sure has a penchant for all things mediaval. We've got a place like this in America: We call it Texas."

Common Enemy

Premise: At work we are motivated by positive and negative factors. We can refer to one the negative factors as the common enemy(ies) identified by the group. This seems to be a natural state of affairs in social groups like businesses. Within a business organization some groups have contact with the outside world and therefore may develop a common enemy that is the competition, or the parent company, or maybe even another related business unit. For groups within the company without external contact, and without good direction, the identified common enemy may actually be another group within the organization. If this behaviour is fostered by the group leader (group alpha) truly destructive and bizarre behavior can occur, whereby the group starts to destroy the very organization that pays the bills...

Anybody seen this before?

My Next TV Will Be A Loewe!

Imagine this: It's 2004 and you actually make CRT TVs in Germany - kinda like being the last producer of buggy whips. You are an arrogant bonehead manager of a company that makes truly first class televisions and think "oh this LCD/Plasma TV thing is just a fad...." Oops: Sales fall catastrophically, and behold; this LCD/Plasma TV thing is the only way forward. Buggy whips bad, gas pedals good. Sales have fallen off so far that the banks are knocking on the door and the cash is long gone. What to do? Anyone, anyone? Yup - go to the employees and ask them to go without pay for a month so that the factory can be re-tooled to manufacture LCD televisions. Yes, the 1000 employees decided for one month less pay versus unemployment. Go figure. Poor schmucks you say? Nope - today Loewe paid back every cent plus 25% interest! Good job Loewe, good on you! Now - where is that bonehead manager that missed the writing on the wall???

What's a Blog?

Wiki says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog. My blog is a personal journal of tidbits floating through my mind. Your comments are welcome to any posting. Unfortunately, the blogging software I chose is in German - so that commenting is a bit more complicated than usual. But here is how it goes:

1. Click on "comments" (that was pretty easy!) at the bottom of the post you want to comment on."
2. A new window will open and the cursor will be blinking in a box below "Hinterlassen Sie Ihren Kommentar" - you guessed it: ="Please provide a comment". If you want me to know who you are just use your initials to end the comment.
3. Type in your words of wisdom and then select "Anonym" below the text "Wählen Sie eine Identität aus"= "please select an identity". If you happen to be a google blogger then great, go ahead and use that Identity if you want.
4. Click on the orange button "Veröffentlichen" = "Publish" to submit your comment.

If you click on the "1 comment" for this blog you'll see my comment. Starts off with the message "Anonym hat gesagt"= "Anonym said".

So - that's it for today's German lesson. I hope you all enjoyed it!

Ref: Tickle Me Elmo

I received this email a couple of weeks ago. It still makes me laugh!

There is a factory in Northern Minnesota which makes
> > the Tickle Me Elmo
> > toys.
> > The toy laughs when you tickle it under the arms.
> >
> > Well, Lena is hired at The Tickle Me Elmo factory
> > and she reports for
> > her first day promptly at 8:00 AM.
> > The next day at 8:45 AM there is a knock at the
> > Personnel Manager's
> > door.
> > The Foreman throws open the door and begins to rant
> > about the new
> > employee.
> >
> > He complains that she is incredibly slow and the
> > whole line is backing
> > up, putting the entire production line behind
> > schedule.
> >
> > The Personnel Manager decides he should see this for
> > himself, so the 2
> > men march down to the factory floor.
> >
> > When they get there the line is so backed up that
> > there are Tickle Me
> > Elmo's all over the factory floor and they're really
> > beginning to pile
> > up.
> >
> > At the end of the line stands Lena surrounded by
> > mountains of Tickle
> > Me Elmo's.
> > She has a roll of plush red fabric and a huge bag of
> > small marbles.
> >
> > The 2 men watch in amazement as she cuts a little
> > piece of fabric,
> > wraps
> > it around two marbles and begins to carefully sew
> > the little package
> > between Elmo's legs.
> >
> > The Personnel Manager bursts into laughter.
> > After several minutes of hysterics he pulls himself
> > together and
> > approaches Lena.
> >
> > "I'm sorry," he says to her, barely able to keep a
> > straight face, "but
> > I think you misunderstood the instructions I gave you
> > yesterday..."
> > Your job is to give Elmo two test tickles."
> >

It's so busy nobody goes there anymore

Yesterday was a really nasty day weather-wise. Cold and rainy: A typical winter day in this part of Germany. With visitors coming in a week for the holidays, we are in the final count-down preparations. This called for me to venture out into the crowds and hunt for meat, groceries and wine.

I decided to avoid the big supermarket down the road, opting for the smaller local shops. The hairs were up on the back of my neck as I climbed into my car contemplating my first stop. It would be war, it would be brutal - that much I was sure of. It would be me up against big German women in their 70's in the confines of the local butcher shop. One thing was sure...it would be full, leaving me little room to maneuver in the heat of the battle.

My palms started to sweat as I pulled into the parking lot. I climbed out of the car, pushed my chest out, tilted my head back and tried to make myself look as big as possible (like our cat does when she tries to scare us) as I made my way to the front door of the "Metzger" (butcher). As I entered, one of the aforementioned lades departed - brushing my 6 foot 185 pound frame aside like a feather pillow - without so much as an "excuse me". I'll take the time to explain these "Trümmerfrauen" some other time (you can google this - there are websites in English explaining them). For now, just know this; they literally put Germany back together - piece by piece - after the war. They are TOUGH and usually weigh in at over 200 lbs. Anyway - I push the door open to the sounds of high noon and to my surprise the shop is empty!! Amazing. You have to live in Germany to appreciate this. Saturday at 12:45 at the most popular butcher in the city and the shop is empty! I'm immediately served and making my selection when one by one the shop fills to capacity behind me with a mixture of Trümmerfrauen and regular civilians. They leave me in peace - grudgingly respecting my authoritative position (I'm being served) and concentrate on taking out the other "civilians" in their moves to get to the head of the line (It's kind of like watching wolves attacking each other around a dead elk). As I leave I notice that the shop is full - the ladies make room for my departure eyeing my bag with envy as they jostle each other and shout to the counter staff "I'm next".....

Long live the Trümmerfrau! What will Germany do without them?

That Day

I don't know when I wrote this, but it was certainly when my mother was still alive. It's her voice you hear in the words. This is probably the lightest of the "dark side" poems that I wrote with her as my muse.


Patience wears thin when in every waking moment purpose collides with result.

Love wears thin when in every waking moment reality breaks the dream

Understanding wears thin when in every waking moment I can't be heard

The hope for patience enough, a love so strong and an understanding so great lets me start each day a'new.

Never looking back, always looking forward to that day...

What was it I wanted to say?

A christmas party that morphed into a birthday party: We gathered in an empty apartment, a setting that looked like a modern last supper. We dined on sushi, hot dogs and potato salad (true!). It was surreal. All of us worked together in a former life and looking around the table only our electronics production department was missing - he was committed to another party. We are/were a business at its very minimum each bringing the unique skill sets necessary to form a pretty high tech venture. But we are all older now and the thought of doing it again brings sighs and shrugs. Couldn't we do something easier? Midnight rolled around and we congratulated our patriarch, the brains of the group and the one who now says "what was it I wanted to say?".