Rocking the Paradise

A few Saturdays ago, I was doing something in the kitchen and inexplicably rammed my head into the range over the stove top. I almost knocked myself loopy, but more or less found it funny until I glanced in the mirror later in the day and discovered that the experience had, indeed, left a mark.

Then, on that following Monday or Tuesday while at work, I was playing with with a piece of paper and ended up cutting myself on my face, right next to my nose. Of course, I wasn't really aware that I had done this until a girl who works for me said, "ohmygosh, Bryan, what did you do to yourself?"

Down the hall I went to inspect the damage, and discovered that I had a nice paper cut about an inch long. Impressive.

However, I've got enough battle scars from the routine events of work and my personal life, so these additions were not particularly needed or welcome. On the humorous side, they did give me chuckling material throughout the rest of the week.

That Friday was a pretty extensive day at work, but things really started clicking, and while we've always got plenty of challenges, I clocked out around 7pm feeling pretty comfortable with things (everything, that is, except for the fact that I was the last guy at work at 7pm on a Friday night).

I met up with my parents to have a bit of dinner in the pub. We were able to catch up a little more (after their arrival the previous day), but I wasn't too upset when they called it an early night around 10.30. Bed was on my brain, too, and after los padres headed for the U-Bahn, I stayed for a small beer just to finish the evening. As luck would have it, John walked in right as I was trying to pay out, which meant that I needed to stay for another, if not a couple.

OK, so it turned into two more pils and a glass of whiskey, but it wasn't a bad way to spend a Friday evening, even if there were way too many St Pauli hooligans hanging about.

Saturday needed to be a productive day: I absolutely had to get the flat cleaned before mom and dad came by that evening, and I really wanted to get into the gym, too. Furthermore, I was hoping to meet up with a friend, and this was likely to be a bit of an emotional chat.

The Blaggers ITA provided the rousing tunes that helped motiviate me to get the house pretty darn clean. I even got the mop out and swapped the tiles (What is it about "Oi!" that helps one scrub a dub dub?), then with complete satisfaction, jogged down the street to meet my friend. We had a much needed conversation, and at the end (she had to work), I felt much much better about a whole lot of things.

It pretty much served to launch the start of a nice holiday period for me.

Saturday evening, several of us headed off for a nice seasonal dinner at a local Frankfurt restaurant. The atmosphere was very festive, and all of us had a really excellent evening. I'd almost go so far as to say absolutely incredible, but will stop short of that, since I'm using way too many superlatives right now, and I'm not even describing football.

The following Monday and Tuesday were a bit hectic at work, but I bustled through and walked out of the office one last time (until, at least the end of the year) Tuesday evening and caught a train back to Frankfurt.

I toggled between the pub and the Kueche that evening, playing a bit of quiz, having a few drinks with friends, wishing everyone a good holiday. At least, I think that's what I was saying, but the drinks were flowing pretty quickly. A highlight was finding out later that we'd actually won the quiz, which was a delightful surprise.

Wednesday morning was spent throwing things into a duffel bag and preparing for Spain. I landed in Valencia late Wednesday afternoon and found Lynne and Daniel waiting for me at their metro stop. Man, I've got to start coming over a lot more frequently.

Coffees with Chris, Lolis and Lynne on Thursday morning gave me the chance to realize how poor my Spanish has become. That didn't stop Chris from giving me a bit of much needed advice on how to live my life with a bit more balance. Actually it was quite the thought provoking conversation. Amazing that as enigmatic as I try to be, just about everyone sees right through this and tends to point this very fact out to me whenever they feel compelled. It kind of cracks me up.

Just before lunchtime, I zipped into city to Casa Americana to see Alan, Pilar, and Jackie. Last year I was pretty much sick for my entire Christmas vacation and basically hadn't seen any of them in two years. Thus, this was an important visit. I found myself struggling terribly to speak with Pilar in Spanish. In fact, complete and utter disaster comes to mind. I think I actually may have inadvertently used a few Flemmish words, and I'm fucked if I know where that came from.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) there was no time for a coffee, Pilar was finishing work for the holidays herself, so I bid her farewell, then stayed to talk a bit more with Alan about the joys of program management in Germany during a worldwide economic, um, downturn. It was equally good to catch up on things at the center; teachers coming and going, etc.

I stopped in for a few guinness in Finnegan's to see some of the old crew, then got home in time to pick Daniel up from school and to prepare for mom and dad's arrival. This would mark the first time in almost a decade that I've been with my parents for Christmas. Kind of special.

Friday morning I walked around Valencia by myself, doing a bit of thought collecting and just enjoying the scene. Of course, I found myself back in Finnegan's, where I enjoyed another afternoon of guinness and the odd chat with some of the other regulars. Despite the fact that this pub is in a tourist hotspot of the city, I still like it. A lot of the employees have been around awhile, and the regulars are a bit similar to my own experience in my Frankfurt local (though we speak a lot less Spanish in Frankfurt). OK, so I missed lunch for the second straight day, but survived on a bag of chips and a couple of coffees.

Lynne's choir was singing that evening at a church across the plaza from the pub, but I wisely returned to Meliana so that we could return to the concert together as a family. (On other occasions I have used poor judgement and tried to sit through a 90 minute concert in a cold church, desperately needing to visit the gents.)

My nephew had been indicating that his tooth was very loose, and this stood to be the very first opportunity for the tooth fairy to come. As it were, Daniel decided to wiggle the tooth (as you do) for the entire concert, during which we had to utilize some kleenex to soak up the saliva and blood. I would have probably done the same thing as my nephew (a loose tooth just has to be wiggled), but I was getting a bit grossed out with the soggy kleenex. Finally, we both agreed to try and be patient; the tooth could come out later that evening in a more appropriate setting, namely the kitchen at home.

The concert was OK. A youth choir sang at the first part, but their performance was overwhelmed by the singers' parents, who were all busily videotaping the concert from the aisles as opposed to actually trying to enjoy the music.

Lynne's group didn't perform at their best, but I enjoyed it all the same. Afterwards, I was glad to greet everyone, all of which had been around three years before when I sang, too. All of us metroed home a bit later and met up for dinner in Meliana with a couple of other families. Quite the festive evening finished off by a couple of chupitos.

Saturday was another reunion day: Steph, Rafa, Ciara, and Luna came over for lunch, and we had a super afternoon visiting, playing, and reminiscing, never mind eating way too much. Luna was cracking me up. She never stopped beaming the entire time, but never uttered a peep. Older sister Ciara was much more chatty in both English and Spanish.

Rafa suggested (ok, demanded) that we go watch the 2nd half of the Real Madrid-Valencia match in Finnegan's, and I certainly wasn't about to turn that invite down. So, we drove back into Valencia together, listening to Miley Cyrus the whole way. Dude, that girl's music is awesome. I mean, really. I may just have to get satellite so I, too, can watch Hannah Montana on telly.

I better understood why Rafa felt so inclined for us to park the car and immediately hail a cab to the pub; living with three beautiful girls certainly has it's pros and cons. Driving around town in a beautiful A6 grooving to the greatest hits of Britney Spears and what not may not necessarily fall into the "pros" category.

Luckily, within a few minutes we were sipping beers, talking shop, and watching VCF hold their own with Real. Final score, 1-0 to Real, and we nipped to the restaurant next door in hopes that some tapas would help to soak up the beer (and the wine we'd had during the course of the afternoon), then returned to the pub for a couple more guinness to round out a very nice night.

Daniel sang at a concert in the local church early Sunday afternoon which was rather entertaining. There are loads of little ones in Meliana, and I think all of them were singing that afternoon. Fine by me; I was glad to have the opportunity to hear "Adeste Fideles" one more time.

I caught a few more football matches later that afternoon in Finnegan's, and just enjoyed the time in my Spanish local. There's just something about having a little welcoming place to collect the thoughts and relax, no matter what city I happen to be in. Obviously Valencia is special to me, and whether or not I ever choose to live here again is irrelevant. At the very least, I've got a home pub I'll always feel welcome in.

Monday was family baking day. We started early, finished late, but had loads of success. With mom and dad around, things were a bit more crowded in the kitchen, but we banged out plenty of Tollhouse, Haystacks, truffas, and a couple of other things my sister likes to do. I'm fairly sure we've got enough to satisfy our sweet tooths over the next couple of weeks. I am personally proud of the fact that I made all of the truffas myself.

A lot of people I've seen here have commented that I've lost a lot of weight. "Stress," has tended to be my reply, since I wouldn't say that my diet is the healthiest in Germany (nevermind the cigarettes and alcohol consumption). However, I noticed how skinny my legs are this morning while getting out of the shower, and while I believe it's ok to not have porked up, I'm gonna have to fix that somehow, and will probably start with a fair amount of whiskey's and christmas cookies over the course of the next several days.

I have managed to leave work in Germany; I've truly enjoyed myself over the past week. OK, I've talked a few times with some of my staff, but they're taking care of things for me, and I've not read a single work related email. Maybe I'm finally learning to find this work life/personal life balance after all. It's possible it's still too early to tell, so for the short term, I'll just continue to enjoy things as they come. More feeling, less thinking.

Yesterday, the whole family trooped into the city to finish up a bit of shopping. It was a bit exhausting, since most of the rest of the city had a similar idea, but it was still fun spending family time together. The odd carajillo helped, as well.

So here we are on Christmas Eve. We've finished up the decorated cookies today, had a nice lunch of potato bacon chowder (that we traditionally eat on the 24th, regardless of country), and have got a nice bundt cake ready for Christmas morning.

I'll take the moment to wish everyone a Happy Christmas, wherever you happen to be.

note - the soundtrack for this piece is a bit of a hodge podge.
1) Pablo's Christmas mix - a lovely CD that Sr Pascal produced several years ago; it's firmly cemented in the CD changer at this time of year. Er, in between Il Divo and the soundtrack from Toys.
2) Hot Potato, Hot Potato - this little gem comes from the fact that it's the song that popped into my head upon entering my sister's kitchen and seeing this years Christmas pic of the McKee kids, right next to their picture from the year before and the year before that. Great stuff, and it's pretty great that Goliad has such a global influence.
3) Styx - Paradise Theater - OK, this is a stretch. Two random evenings in the past month I've been at a pub doing the quiz night in Frankfurt. On two separate rounds, I had to dig deep into the memorybank to pull out the band and song title of two tracks by Styx. No one believed me the first time I answered correctly (how could Bryan possibly know Styx, he only listens to punk!) but after we won the quiz that night, no one has really questioned my ability at the quickie.

Come to think of it, I'm rather glad that there aren't too many questions about Broadway musicals; I'm not sure I want that many people knowing that I'm able to sing both the male and female parts to the main song from 7 Brides for 7 Brothers...and whatever would that do for my enigmatic reputation?

keep the faith
bryan

Random Acts - Blue in the Face part 2

OK, so the last bit might have been on the not quite so cheery/positive side, so I'll switch gears and give a brief update on the things that make this experience I'm having in Germany so great. Most of it's basic, hardly profound, but important to relate all the same.

This won't be a top list of great things, since I've managed to lose the notes I made on the train the other month. Instead, it will simply be a list of intersting bits.

1) late night Kebap shops - There's just nothing better than staggering into Miro's on any given evening around 2am (or 12 or 10, depending on sobriety state) and having someone whip you up a couple of durums. They always ask you if you'd like a nice tea to drink while you wait, and you always say yes, whether you want it or not. Sometimes guys are in there playing cards, sometimes some guy is scratching out a tune on a guitar. You never know, and you always enjoy it, even the next morning when you're asking yourself why on earth did you think you could eat 2 doners in the same sitting.

2) hitting the metro at the right time - For some reason, every time I go to my local U-Bahn stop, I walk down the stairs, and then feel really cool as the wind tunnels through (usually because of a departing or an arriving train). My jacket sort of whooshes out, and I always feel like I'm in a John Woo film. (note - this may be one of those things that you just have to experience to appreciate)

2 1/2) hitting the metro at the right time - there's a guy who sometimes busks in my U-Bahn. He plays a mean Spanish guitar, and without fail, I give the guy 2 euros, even if I'm blaring my iPod and can't hear a thing he's playing. I've heard him enough times before and recognize the smirk on his face as he plays to himself. Very cool.

3) hitting the metro at the wrong time - Despite the random trash and the lunatics that tend to ride on a regular basis (that probably includes me), the metro is pretty straight forward, effecient, and easy. I don't like having to wait too long for a train to come by, and normally, my timing is pretty good. However, sometimes, you're forced to sit there and wait almost 10 minutes.

Last Friday around noon (hungover from hell day), I was standing there wondering where the fuck my iPod was (home in the jacket pocket of my other coat) when an clearly insane man started having a very enthusiastic conversation with someone invisible. There were a fair amount of people standing around waiting, and no one was really paying attention to him, though just about everyone gave him the odd glance out of the corner of their eye. Suddenly, some jerk started mucking about with this man. The jerk did a little dance right in front of him, then grabbed the man's cane and started walking briskly towards the exit. The unfortunate insane man suddenly reentered reality and was pursuing him, shouting, "hey, that's my cane."

In two years, I've been fortunate not to have seen something this sad. My thoughts that day were already a bit dark, and they brightened only a little when finally a woman jumped in and retrieved the cane for the ailing old man. Very weird.

4) Creatures of habit - the workers at the Crobag right next to platform 13 in the hauptbahnhof are totally in the groove, and they're always ready to get me a milchkaffee on the fly when I race up to the counter to grab a coffee before I jump on my train for work.

The girls that work in the kiosk in Darmstadt HBF are pretty much the exact same. They're always appreciative and pleasant when I drop by to pick up a few packets of cigarettes. Yes, I tend to see them almost as regularly as the Crobag crowd, but that's just because I appreciate being appreciated.

Recently, I caught a late train home from Darmstadt and got into the small bar just as the guy was closing up for the evening (there's an onboard bistro on one of my regular trains). The guy recognized me and handed me a Beck's even though the til was closed up tight. "Enjoy it, " he said. I did.

5) Enjoy the thanks - Last Saturday, I had the team work, as we needed to reduce our repair backlog. This normally doesn't go over well with the workers, but I'll be the first one to stand up and say that I'd just as soon not do the Saturdays either. However, sometimes you have to. Normally, I go in to show support for the team, but because of the recent hours I'd worked, I needed to stay at home and be quiet. Nonetheless, I arranged to buy the team lunch as my personal way of saying thanks for the extra work. (note - most Germans I've met don't know how to react when I thank them for doing a task). I quietly mentioned to the supervisors that I had personally forked over a couple hundred (or so) Euros to fund enough pizzas for the team (2nd note - we've got a pizzeria down the street from the repair center that's fucking good).

On the following Monday, I discovered that my gesture had created quite a stir. One of the other repair lines had also worked the Saturday, but those employees initially thought that they'd been jilted, only to find out that they had misinformation.

Quite a few members of the team that works for me approached me at various times during the course of that Monday to say thanks for what I'd done. It's amazing how a few pizzas go so far.

Yep, it's not the biggest of lists, but they all impact me, and help me to realize that for now, at any rate, I'm still where I need to be.

keep the faith
bryan

Blue in the Face - Random thoughts in the cold

I feel like the past two weeks have flown by in slow motion. I spent Thanksgiving day preparing my team for a physical inventory of our materials, but took a few minutes to live vicariously through the statesiders by reading the remarks they were leaving on facebook: i've eaten too much and now it's time for football tended to be the general theme.

For the next week, I clocked 14 hour days and impressed myself by getting up each day at 5am and walking into the office around 6.45. I convinced myself that I was being productive, and in all actuality, I was. However, by the following Thursday, I was noticeably tired, and about 10 people in a row commented as such. Thankfully, most of the remarks were caring and genuine; only a couple were of the "geez, you like total hell" type.

I popped into the pub last Thursday and ended up playing a bit of quiz and chatting with some folks I hadn't seen in a while. Unfortunately, I bumped into someone I wasn't expecting to see, and, after 80 hours of work in about 5 days, you don't always come across as you'd like to. Thus, I sort of made a shambles of a conversation with a friend, and foolishly drank myself through the experience as opposed to wising up and fucking off home to safety.

Alas, I was scheduled off for the Friday, but, upon waking at 11am, pulled myself together and went into the office. We'd just been notified of a business review scheduled the next week in Brussels. Crap timing, I'd say, since this was the third "day off" I'd taken in the past 4 weeks, which basically meant I went to work and told people I was on holiday anyway.

True, I was a bit hungover last Friday, but did manage to get some things done during the afternoon. I spent a relatively quiet weekend watching a few films and visiting the gym. I attempted to do a bit of Christmas shopping, but lost interest about 15 minutes after entering a crowded store, and elected to return home, where I stayed in most of the rest of the weekend.

Sunday afternoon I tried to do some work on the presentation we'd need to give in Brussels, but everything felt a bit disjointed. An executive in our company made a last minute decision that the PMs wouldn't make the business review trip. Instead, only the sales guy and the two General Managers of the repair sites would make the trek to lovely office park land right next to Brussels international airport.

After a few hours trying to put some stuff together, I basically gave up and decided to go to the gym. That turned out to be a pretty good outing, and around 8pm, I finished up and stopped off at the pub for a couple of pints and a chat. I was able to collect my thoughts a bit, and suddenly found myself really feeling in the spirit of the season.

I had a nice chat with a few folks, and all in all, it wrapped up the weekend rather nicely. At least things ended on a decent note.

Monday had me up and at 'em at the crack of dawn, and once again I strolled into the office at a quarter to 7, pretty fired up on coffee and Alkaline Trio. The day was relatively stressful (which is like saying Bryan is just a casual smoker), but brightened considerably that evening when I entered the pub to see a few friends sitting around to partake in steak night. My local offers a pretty decent sizzling steak on Monday evenings at a special price. I'm not the world's biggest red meat fan, but must admit that the steaks are pretty good.

I was already feeling a bit pensive and distant from everyone, but was enjoying the company all the same. However, it was hard to dismiss the fact that my boss was about to meet our customer the next morning in Brussels, and things are not particularly stellar in our repair program at the given moment, for a variety of reasons. I figured that he'd take a big bollocking during the meeting based on our recent performace. We all know that I've been married to the job for a long time, and I take this stuff way too personally. As a result, I've got one of the better programs going in Europe, but at the expense of me. Despite my efforts, though, the customer still expects more. Up til now, I've not quite been able to find the right balance. These thoughts were all racing through my mind for most of the evening.

Long story short, as everyone was enjoying the end of their meal and the post dinner conversation, I once again put my foot in my mouth with the very same person from the previous Thursday, and things quickly went south. A nice evening basically ruined in a 30 second statement.

I felt pretty lost after that, so paid up and walked out off the pub intent on going home to be where others weren't. Sleep was shit at best, and I woke up Tuesday feeling pretty lousy for two reasons: one, my boss was about to get a pounding in a city 4 hours away, and second, I was finding myself once again on the brink of losing a friend that I don't want to lose.

The day was actually rather quiet, maybe too quiet. Besides a 15 minute conversation with my boss around 8am, I heard nothing else from him the rest of the day. Meanwhile, I wasn't thinking too much about work, anyway. Too many other thoughts on the brain.

At any rate, I found enough tunes to help me plow through the day, and the next, and even today.

The end of the year quickly approaches, and we're all racing around trying to get a bunch of stuff done before everyone jumps on their holidays. I'm away next Wednesday to Spain, and there's a lot to do between now and then. And who am I kidding, I'll be on the clock (and probably participating in a conference call or three) while I'm mucking about in Valencia, but at least I'll be mucking around in another city. It's time to get out of town for a few days.

Here's hoping I can pull everything together between now and next Wednesday.

keep the faith
bryan

Can burning the candle at both ends kill an iPod?

I watched Arsenal advance to the next round of Champs League last night, and was feeling relatively pleased with things as I grabbed a couple of kepabs from Miro and headed for home.

My mood quickly darkened when I tried to connect up the iPod. Nothing but the little sound you get when you plug something in your USB port, but no power, no "iTUNEs is up," or anything like that.

As I'd only had a couple of guinness during the match, my wits were about me, and I was feeling a bit frustrated sitting at my pc trying to figure out the problem. While I was waiting (and munching on a durum), I skimmed a few emails to find one that irritated me enough that I simply powered down and went to bed, hoping like hell that I'd wake up this morning with a fresh angle on fixing my tunes.

OK, I didn't sleep well, and almost actually lounged in bed too long, but I did give the "reset" trick on the iPOD one more shot this morning and smiled when I saw the logo appear on the little screen. We've always known that I've got to have the music, and as I've got a TON to do in the next several days workwise, this seemingly insignificant bit of having an iPOD ALMOST die was going to go down as a really catastrophic thing. Fortunately, everything has worked out ok so far, and I smiled all the way to work.

Yep, for some reason, this time of year (when every other industry seems to slow down) gets more and more busy for us, which sucks for me, because I work in a place where no one seems to understand the concept. I've got a lot of colleagues who have already blown through their 30 days of holiday this year and STILL expect to have a week or so off at Christmas. It doesn't matter if I turn their vacation apps down, they'll just call in sick, and in Germany if you so much as sneeze you get a doctors note for a week off.

So be it, is what I'm saying. I'm hoping to stay relatively healthy myself, especially next month when I get back over to Spain.

The staying out too late and coming home at 8am (normally only on the weekends) is in full swing for me right now, and it's fun. It's particularly nice to cross paths with the early morning joggers who clearly did not just spend the past 12 hours doing what I was doing.

For those of you who make it into the Monk on this fine Thanksgiving Eve, enjoy yourselves, and give everyone my best. I'm going to go listen to "Reggata de Blanc" and "Alec Eiffel," again; those were the first two songs to pop up this morning, and they're both just mighty fine.

keep the faith
bryan

The Quck Scoop

I was sitting in my local pub last Friday night enjoying a routine night chatting with friends and listening to a couple of rather proficient guys play a live acoustic set, and suddenly noticed that everyone entering the tavern was shaking snow off their heads and shoulders; the first snow of the season!

It wasn’t just a fluffy pile of flakes, initially. In fact, some of us thought it was hail. It was actually snowing “buckets,” and was really coming down. The storm didn’t last all that long, though. A bit later, I went outside for a few minutes to sort of take advantage of the piece and quiet. I always enjoy the silence a snowfall brings, and was thinking to myself how absolutely nice my little corner of Bornheim happens to be, when BAM, I got hit in the head with a rather large snowball that Marc had just thrown at me. I laughed as I shook snow off myself, and did that little “whoo!” thing that you have to do when snow gets inside your collar and goes down your back.

Quite the way to be brought back to reality.

It’s been a few months of these kinds of moments for me recently, though without the snow. I am always aware that my job is one where you can never quite settle down and relax. There’s always another challenge or problem lurking around the corner, and while I certainly feel more prepared to address these “delights” in the workplace, I certainly wouldn’t be offended if we’d have a few more moments of calm and stability.

A new Geschäftsführer started working with us about a month ago. I welcome his presence, as it’s the start we need in order to bring stability back into the workplace. On the other hand, he’s got a lot to do in a short amount of time, so he’s having to get up to speed very quickly. We do get along, so far, which is promising. Additionally, he’s got a plan, which I find to be most comforting.

How effective will this plan be?

That remains to be seen. Recent events in the economy aren’t making the laptop repair industry particularly easy to operate in. And, my company seems to be pretty good at making things complicated without the help of an ailing economy, anyway.

While all of you are celebrating Thanksgiving, I’ll be doing a physical inventory of all of the spare parts in our repair center. Then, immediately after that, I’ll try to squeeze one or two business reviews in with my customers. It’s not yet determined where or when these meetings will occur, but it always seems to be like this in the last month of the year. Everyone runs about trying to do all the stuff they didn’t get completed during the other 11 months of the year, then we take a few days off to celebrate Christmas, then we start the whole process all over again.

I’m not complaining (though there are a few words I might otherwise use to describe the circumstances if it weren’t for the fact that small children might read this), just simply relating the facts as they relate to never a dull moment European repair logistics.

A quick word about the German reaction to the US election. I would say that the over all reaction is rather positive, though it took me several tries to truly explain just how the electoral college works, etc. My sources for world news tend to come from international English press as opposed to German newspapers, etc. However, I did find myself discussing the election regularly throughout the last couple of months with various friends and colleagues. Most are always interested to find that I come from Texas, and though I believe I’ve mentioned this once or twice before, it never ceases to amaze me that they immediately say something to the effect of, “EEEWW! Bush comes from there!”

“Fair point,” I often reply. Then, depending on the nature of the other person, I’ll decide whether or not to really try to defend myself. Only once have I had to remind them about their own history and one Charlie Chaplin look-alike (or at least the haircut and silly moustache). That’s really playing out of bounds as far as I’m concerned. All countries have their moments where they weren’t quite at their best.

We will have to see where things go come January. I think that most Germans are a bit skeptic. How can one guy change the world considering the state it’s in?

We’ve got to start somewhere, eh?

We had another nice snowfall on Sunday evening, and I brushed a few flakes off my coat as I got on the bus after work this evening. Thus, I’m going to sign of and head off in search of Marc. I believe he’s due for a snowball fight.

keep the faith
Bryan

Another Tick in the Box - Keeping the Faith

So, life continues at a frantic pace. Playing the role of a swashbuckling program manager is a strange one; the mere concept elludes most people. Yeah, I probably work a few too many hours each week, and as ususal, can see myself never really able to get out from underneath the pressure of it all.

That said, I'm still fighting for it, and still getting the results.

But enough about that...

Last Friday night, I had the absolute pleasure of seeing one Wayne Hussey play a solo set in a local haunt in Frankfurt. I stumbled across the information by accident a few weeks ago when I was having a conversation with a friend of mine in the pub. She mentioned that the lead singer of the Mission was coming through town, and I quickly put it on my radar.

Strangely enough, I actually was feeling indifferent to the show right up until Friday night. I had had a word with John in the pub about it right after I learned of the concert, and invited him along for the crack, as he tends to be up for this kind of thing. The week or so before the show, he mentioned in passing that he was not totally enthralled with the music, but more or less asked me to keep him informed; he'd go along in the event that I needed the support.

It depends on what you consider as needing support; I ultimately dragged him out, and we were both treated to a bloody great show. Stimmt.

Although a band that easily hits my top 5 groups of all time, I never thought I would have the opportunity to see the Mission UK, and by the mid 90s had already written the chance off. Sure, I've kept an ear open for signs or sounds of them through the years, but really just resigned myself to listening to the Mission that I've always preferred: that of the late 80s and very early 90s, the years of angst ridden adolescence and college. At one point during school, I actually stopped talking about the group as a heavy influence on my life, until I bumped into my friend Kitsie, who happened to be a pretty big fan of the group, also.

I permanently loaned a couple of Mission CDs to a Spanish girl Christina that worked in my Irish local in Valencia. She comes from the same town as Heroes del Silencio, a Spanish group that for me, happens to be a latino equivalent to the Mission.

I arrived at the club last Friday just as Wayne Hussey was starting the first song. OK, so it was only him playing, but play he did. He put on a brilliant little set, mixing loads of original Mission songs with a handful of covers. He played both acoustic guitar and piano, and truly amazed us all.
Unfortunately, I can't really capture the moment as I'd like to, but will simply leave it as an experience that absolutely makes my fall. For me, it's like UT winning the UT-OU game, or Obama winning the election. Sure, maybe both of those things happened, also, but I'm the one that's still smiling to myself saying, "damn, he downed a bottle of red wine, then ripped out a killer acoustic version of "Wasteland," followed later by what I have to say is the best piano cover I've ever heard of "With or without you." How cool is that?"

Pretty fucking great.

Like all German shows that I've been to, this one started early, and ended early. The encore got cut short by the fact that the club needed to reopen as a hip-hop club within the hour. That meant that by 11pm, I was back in my local, cutting up with whoever was about.

That also meant that I drank far too much got way too silly.

Of course, I'd forgotten all about this until the following afternoon when I returned to the pub to watch the 2nd half of the Arsenal - ManU match. The Arsenal victory just made the weekend all the more enjoyable, and things continued on through the Saturday evening and Sunday.

So, it's Monday night, and I've had a stressful day at work, but can still go to bed tonight knowing that I had a super weekend, and after almost 25 years of being a huge fan, I can finally say that I've seen the lead singer of the Mission. And that's good enough for me.

that's the short report for now,

keep the faith
bryan

No Hope, No Fear

There was a great song from a band called Borghesia called, "No Hope No Fear," which I've always enjoyed listening to.

Sure enough, it's the one song that isn't currently in my cache of music, but fuck it, I'll find it sooner or later for download. I fear the CD is stuck deep in a box somewhere in someone's closet. The compilation was called Electronic Body Music, and right now, I'm listening to a lot of dark electronica. When I went to search for it this morning on the way to work (in the ipod library), I realized I would have to wait.

It's been fun and zippy over the past couple of weeks. I love fall, so as the leaves change and the weather gets cooler, I constantly look forward to football matches on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, and try to fit in my domestic duties around a few games.

This past weekend was quite the lively one: Man U were held by Everton, Liverpool beat Chelsea, and thank goodness Arsenal managed to win 2-0 against West Ham Sunday evening.
I actually only saw the Arsenal match; I spent a good portion of the weekend getting back into the gym thing.

For the better part of the past six months, I've really only done sport on the weekends, and while I've been fairly serious about it, it's never enough, particularly on the rations I allow myself for cigarettes and alcohol.

Thankfully, I finally told myself enough is enough, and have gone back to every other day visits into the gym. Not surprisingly, my energy is coming back, my fitness is improving, and yeah, ok, maybe schnitzel is not the BEST thing to be eating post workout, but I'm not going to really knock it either. Besides, before this turns into a Henry Rollins kind of thing (man, that guy likes to workout a lot!), I'm still clipping along having pils and Jagers anytime I fancy it.

That said, I like the routine of bouncing around the fitness studio multiple times a week, even with the goofy short guys that are constantly flexing and checking themselves out in the mirrors. Let it be said, whether Dallas or Frankfurt, the trendy gyms are still the trendy gyms.

On other fronts, I believe my capabilities in German seem to be hitting a plateau. Thus, I'm renewing my focus on trying to communicate a bit more intelligently. No easy task, but it certainly helps when I study more regularly.

The concern about my language skills came from the realization that perhaps my team doesn't always understand what I'm trying to say in the workplace. Embarassingly enough, I always have mistaken their puzzled looks for the sheer bewilderment that their boss listens to copious amounts of punk rock on the way to work each morning at a deafening level on the ipod and shows up for the start of each work day pretty wound up.

At any rate, the grammar books are reopened, and I often eat dinner with Genativ, Dativ, and Akkusativ. Before you say, "gee, that sounds really boring," let me express my own slight concern that my new Bavarian boss is soon to hold our first staff meeting and I do NOT want to be the only guy that has to ask for everything to be repeated. I've gone the past six months without sitting through a 3 hour management meeting conducted solely in German, and need to react now and get back in the groove.

Alas, there's really nothing other to report this week save for the escapade I had on the regional bahn this morning enroute to work. I found a spot on the train, shrugged my gym bag and backpack off my shoulders, then said, "what the fuck!!???!??" as I realized that, once again, a bird has taken advantage of my naivity and pooped on my rucksack. Thank goodness it wasn't my head, but geez, it was a bit more than I wanted to deal with at 8am on a rainy morning.

Not to worry, I got it cleaned (more or less) with a couple of wet wipes (live and learn, eh?) and strolled into work with, er, no hope, and no fear.

keep the faith
bryan

Nada Que Perder

A friend of mine turned 40 last weekend, and being that we share some similar music tastes, I elected to put together a little birthday mix for her of tracks from about 20 years ago. (gasp)

So, during the daily commutes in the metro and the train, I shuffled through my iPod trying to find 16 or so songs that I thought fitting. Identifying them wasn't a challenge, nor was creating the correct order of the playlist. However, I completely forgot that most of my stuff isn't on my PC, but instead solely on my iPod. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but as I tend to procrastinate, I found myself terribly hungover last Saturday(previous night was a going away party for another friend moving to Munich) and trying to figure out just how I was going to get this simple CD burned.

Since I recently got a new laptop with much more capacity, I realized that the best thing would be to simply dump my iPod back onto my PC, then import everything back into iTunes. I spent the 30 minutes waiting for the iPod to PC transfer to complete doing a bit of vaccuming and other random domestic stuff, then the real fun started.

Embarassing enough, I work in the tech industry and forgot that you don't just DUMP a 500mb folder anywhere. As I had 49 folders to muck about with, I suddenly realized that this project was going to take a while. And, this was only to be able to START creating the playlist.

Two Skpe calls, half a bottle of baileys (don't ask) and 30 folders later, I had 13 of the 16 songs. The problem was that each folder contained hundreds of songs, all coded in away that don't easily enable one to just select the immediately required files. Once or twice I pictured someone (namely me) getting really frustrated trying to go through 6000 CDs without any liner notes attempting to find "that really cool song i used to listen to about 10 years ago that i forgot the name of." It wasn't pretty, and thank goodness I came to my senses and decided that I'd just have to bring the gift belatedly. As it was, I stopped dumping files around 10pm, quickly showered, then ran next door to join up with those of us from the Bornheim pub area that were to taxi to the restaurant where the party was held.

The party was fun, but I called it an early night and left around 3.

I resumed my project again when I woke up, and got the result within about an hour: all tunes back in iTunes, particularly the 16, and after a quick burn, I had my gift ready. Even better was the fact that I ran into the birthday girl (whose birthday was actually on Sunday; Germans beging the birthday celebrations at 12.01am on the day of their birthday, which is why the party was on Saturday) in the highstreet, and ticked the box for having given the gift on the right date.

All in all, a fairly decent weekend, one that included the added joy of finally, after many many months of waiting, getting some boots that I'd ordered from England (via the US). Amusingly enough, I initially thought that the boots didn't fit, but then later realized that I was just really hungover when I tried them on. Had I put the shoestrings through the proper eyes, things would have been OK right from the start. So, I'm now bopping around town in a new pair of Gripfast. Cool. Definitely worth the wait.

The week before the birthday party, I was in Edinburgh on business, which turned out to be a really nice time, also. My hotel was in city center right at the base of the castle. It was a bit hard to hide my enthusiasm in front of my supplier, but she accepted the fact that I was a big fan of the city. Alas, I didn't run into Ian Rankin in any of the bars I was in, but I was thrilled to be there regardless.

Workwise, it's been nonstop bop. Q4 forecasts, 2009 budget and plan, a random problem or two created by our facility in Prague, and a few exasperated moments where I called someone a complete prat on a conference call (perfectly justified, i thought) are just some of the highlights of the busy days. My new boss started working this past week, too. Should be very interesting in the coming weeks.

On the social front, things are wacky as usual, and currently they're a bit emotional, but I know that Alles wird gut.

I'll leave you with that. I've got to go and fight for a friend.

keep the faith
bryan

tracklist -
Mana - Nada que perder
Blaggers ITA - Oxygen
Alkaline Trio - Over and Out

Fresh Start...at Last

So for the first time in months, I’m feeling like I’m back in the game. And it feels bloody brilliant.

I’m back from a stateside visit for almost 6 weeks, and have twice discarded about 20 pages of writing…recents attempts to write up the summer trip, attempts to make sense of everything in my life, etc. Though I finished (and have subsequently scrapped) the last 8 pages I wrote last Thursday evening, it was an exercise that had to be done.

Recently, I’ve reread almost 90% of everything I’ve written in the past 10 years, and, while sort of impressed at the overall story, realized that some of the underlying themes have just continued to continue. Er, cigarettes and alcohol?

I can't bring myself to do that again, particularly in the form of a summer write up. Additionally, most of the stories I’ve written in 2008 have been all about how much work has sucked. Shoot, even I’m tired of talking about it. I can only imagine how many people have grown tired of seeing the same old comments month after month.

I had this past weekend to reflect on a lot of things while I was at home suffering from a cold, and it helped get me to this afternoon epiphany. Finally, the catalyst has hit, and I can honestly say that I feel like expressing a bit more, and certainly feel fuckloads better than I have in months.

Was it the recent trip to the states? I’m sure that has a bit to do with it. However, my time there was short, and a bit emotional as I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with anyone really. The times I did hang out there I think I spent a fair amount of time trying to hide the fact that work truly has taken it’s toll on me. This isn’t something that many of the stateside readers would really be able to grasp merely from a blog entry.

However, on this side of the world, it’s a different story.

A friend of mine here in Germany recently said that she thought I hadn’t looked happy in months. Though I was pretty surprised by the comment, I value her judgement, and furthermore, spent the next three weeks thinking hard about that comment.

I don’t get to see her that much, but that in it’s own right said something to me; if that’s the way I look to her, rather infrequently, then how can I look to all those people I see every day? Are they all thinking the same thing? Perhaps more importantly, what do I think?

I’ve always spent loads of time looking for ways to pysch myself up, but realized here in the past days that I wasn’t really doing a very good job. Sure, finding new music to blow my ears out to helps, as does learning a few new songs on guitar. However, what occurred to me today was that I’ve simply not been getting over myself, despite what I’ve written, what I’ve told myself, and what others have suggested to me in passing over these past few months.

That all seems to have changed this afternoon, during a relatively ordinary work day, that has been neither truly shitty nor truly great.

Am I that concerned with what actually forced the issue; forced me to wake up? Not at all.

What I'm fired up about is simply this: bring on the challenges, bring on the good times, bring on the (hopefully not so frequent) bad times. I'm able to face the challenges, like ever, but this time round, I've got the feeling that I can just motor on through, with a smile on my face, a steel toed spring in my step, and with the right attitude.

A couple of weeks back during a conversation with Chris, we both agreed that in my role at work, it's difficult to have a bad day. Why not? Well, cos' all the people who work for you pick up on that really quickly and freak out, for starters.

I've thought about that nonstop since that chat, and that, too, has really helped the situation. (Several times I've actually announced to several guys at work, after going on about some really unpleasant challenging topic, "but it's ok, cos' I'm not having a bad day!". (note - in German, you can't really say it that way)

So despite the fact that nothing has really changed for me, EVERYTHING has changed for me.
And if I'm gonna change the world, it's gotta start with me.

There you have it. A bit of a positive spin for the first time in a long while. Right on.

That's the bit for right now.

keep the faith
bryan

soundtrack
Figures on a Beach - Accidentally 4th Street (Gloria)
Yellowcard - Five Becomes Four
The Clash - Complete Control

ps. thanks to all the folks I saw in Dallas in August for such a great time
Particular thanks to Jeff, Pablo, Jen, and now little Arturo, Mitch, Tim and Shannon, Moe, and as always, to the unstoppable family McKee.

One Frantic Summer

You'd think that I could find 30 minutes to jot down a few lines at this site once every couple of weeks, but the reality of it all is nope, no chance.

The past two months have been choc full of anxiety, stress, heartache, headaches, but a whole lot of fun, too.

June flew by for me; it was actually a pretty enthusiastic time around the office. Sure, we had no site manager and motivation for the employees was a bit grim, but the European Championships were on, and that meant that every night for about three weeks, everyone was tuned in watching football.

I knew I would be supporting Spain from the onset, but was excited by the enthusiasm of everyone around me. Germany had a pretty good tournament, and every pub and restaurant was packed when they played. Most establishments put at least one flat screen TV out on the terrace for patrons to view. My own knipe tended to have at two going at all times. During half time, we'd play foosball to amuse ourselves.

During the week around the shop, we'd discuss the matches and tended to give someone a hard time whenever possible. Our operations manager is Dutch, so earlier in the tourney, he was feeling pretty cocky.

One of the supervisors on my repair line is Italian, so he certainly had a few things to say, also.

Through it all, I quietly pointed out that Spain was looking better and better. Though I wore my kit often, I was secretly terrified that Spain, like they've done in the past 4-5 major tournaments, would crash out in fantastic style.

I began to think it was possible they could go all the way right after Spain beat Russia in the semi final. OK, the forklift driver at work tried to mow me down (he's Russian) after that win, but I pointed out that it was a deserved victory.

It was a bit tense in the pub for the final: Germany had their sights set on the trophy, and I believe were a little bit over confident. Several folks I talked to had mentioned that they weren't too concerned about Spain, and I hoped for a good result.

The reward came Torres scored a brilliant goal over Lehmann. I felt a bit sheepish as I jumped up and started whooping and clapping, but that's football, kids.

Post match, many people came to congratulate me, which I thought was very sportsmanlike. Most every German I've talked to about the game since has said the same thing. The best team won the tournament.

It certainly made for a fast paced June, and my confidence was really zipping along. Work was seemingly better (despite the fact that there are only 3 managers in the site), the customer feedback was a bit more positive, and once again, I almost convinced myself that everything was going to be great.

Wrong.

No sooner had I returned from Brussels at the end of June from a business review, then suddenly everything went south.

The very next week after the meeting, we experienced a 35% sickness rate (hmmm, nothing demotivating going on here) which resulted in us accumulating an impressive backlog quicker than you could say, "please fire me, cos' this sucks."

The week after that, we received volumes about 30% higher than we'd anticipated, resulting in more backlog.

Germany has loads of vacation days. Not surprisingly, most employees like to take three weeks during summer with their kids. We normally try to plan for this, but I've realized that two years in a row that we must really be idiots in this area. I've got more guys hanging out at the beach than I've got on a bench.

In short, July has been one big nightmare. Two weeks ago, I really thought I was going to have to walk away from everything, which wasn't a very exciting thought. Sure, the relief of not having to put up with the bullshit any more was tempting. However, that would mean that I'd suddenly be without papers, which I found annoyingly ironic, being that I'd just gotten an unlimited contract.

At any rate, I sat myself down last Sunday afternoon on a terrace, plugged in the ipod, and wrote myself multiple lists about a variety of topics. What should I do for a plan B? What country do I head for next? Do I really want to stay in this business? And many more...

Though I didn't find all the answers, I did manage to bring a bit of sanity back to my life, and entered this past week feeling only downright horrible. That was quite the improvement over the previous week, where I'd debated whether or not throwing myself infront of an U-Bahn would be less painful than throwing myself in front of the S-Bahn.

In seriousness, finding that peace enabled me to continue the daily battles, realizing full well that NO ONE can possibly manage all the logistics lanes that we utilize, along with trying to keep the repair program from sinking any further, all while training a couple of new employees about the finer points of notebook repair customer service. Throw in a few heated conversations with the finance manager who is equally frustrated that the program can't seem to break even.

Certainly not in these circumstances.

At any rate, it's not so much that I'm indifferent to it all. It's more like I'm through worrying about all the stuff that I can't control. (man, talk about a mythical joy division album that went horribly wrong). I accept anything that comes down the pipe, and hopefully I'll be able to keep myself from getting a faceful.

The future is uncertain, and will likely remain that way for the next few months. We may lose the repair site, which will make for quite a bit more excitement and stress. Yippee.

Thus, it's with loads of craziness in my life that I find myself two weeks away from a quick stateside trip. Though I'm excited about going, I'll encounter a fair amount of anxiety as we go off on a 5 day family reunion in Missouri. That will severely limit my time in Dallas, which nerves me just a bit.

That said, I look forward to any brief moments I will get to spend with anyone who is about. We'll get it sorted somehow, some way. Like the Spanish said through the whole of the EM, "Podemos."

keep the faith
bryan

soundtrack:
Alphaville - To Germany With Love
Camouflage - That Smiling Face
The Damned - Psychomania
Moenia - Me Equivoque
Nitzer Ebb - Let Your Body Learn

Lost in the Supermarket, Kicker, and the Return of the Barista

Right, so I don't seem to be getting too much written on a regular basis. On the positive side, I know that plenty of things are happening, only there just doesn't seem to be enough time to get everything done. On the negative side, the driving reason for lack of time is, yep, you guessed it, work related.

OK, so you might be able to ask, "well, Bryan, didn't you read three books in the past couple of weeks? (Nick Hornby - Slam, Ian Rankin - The Flood, and Ian Rankin - Bleeding Hearts) Seems like you're not working ALL the time."

Yes. I have read a bit, but usually on the train, where there is no connection to Internet. True, I'm not working all the time. However, things seem to stay consistently wacky, so mental stability is sometimes a luxury. (maybe it always has been for me, I dunno.)

Like always, I'll skip the details of the workplace wackiness. In fifty words or less: my boss was fired, the finance manager quit four days later, and we've got several consultants coming in trying to stabilize the shop. Quite the morale boosting experience, let me tell you. Oh yeah, and the customers are still just as pissed off as ever.

Moving right along to stuff that really matters, my supermarket closed!

I've always been a creature of habit, and routinely drop by my little market on the way home from U-Bahn a couple of times during the week. It's right on the way, and I've always found it pretty convenient, even if it closes at 10pm.

I had been in England around the 25th of April, and returned on a Thursday evening. Somehow, I didn't notice that the store had officially closed (though I walked right by it). Saturday is typically my "stock up" day, where I load up on the heavier items, like water and milk. I was returning from the gym Saturday afternoon and found a sign informing the community that the store had closed and would reopen on Tuesday (after the weekend) in a new location.

This irked me for two reasons. First, since I had been away during the week, I had absolutely nothing in the house save for half a liter of water and some butter that was going bad. I really needed a big trip to the store. Tuesday was a lifetime away, and I wasn't looking forward to having to eat kebaps for the next three days. Second, what was all this about a new location? Where was it to be? I didn't recognize the street name (or address).

On the particular Saturday, I quickly went home and tried to think of where another grocery store happened to be. A friend mentioned that there was another smaller store in the opposite direction from my flat, maybe 5 minutes away on foot. Unfortunately, I found this store also closed for the afternoon. It was part of the same chain, and all the stores were preparing for the grand opening in some street that I just knew would be really far away from my house.

I sulked for the rest of the weekend, though I did manage to cope with a couple of liters of OJ and some frozen pizza that I picked up at a quick-mart type of store.

On Monday I was in the pub and ran into Enda, who had been walking with me past the "closed" store on Saturday and who had suggested I try the other location up the road.

"Bryan, I found out the scoop on the Rewe. It's one street over from Bergerstrasse, about 30 seconds away from the old store."

Oh. For. Fuck's. Sake.

Tuesday, the day of the grand opening, I stopped by on the way home from work, and found a super clean new super market that, as Enda has mentioned, was literally one block over from the former store. I just had never noticed because it's a street I never have to walk down. Sure, you might be wondering how it is that I missed all of the construction that was going on, but I just never paid attention. I was aware of something happening for the past couple of months, but I could only see it early in the morning when I was walking in the direction of the U-Bahn. It was always dark at night when I would return from work.

At any rate, this new store is super (markt). I'm really impressed because it's a bit cleaner and spacious. European grocery stores are not known for being particularly big, but this one is apparently the biggest in Frankfurt, and is probably a bit larger than the Whole Foods down Greenville Avenue.

I'm greatly relieved that I have quickly adapted my evening commute so that I can slip in and get a few tidbits for the house. I'm even over the embarrassment of failing to notice that they were constructing a new super market with underground parking garage in my neighborhood for the past six months.

Germany continues to be a nice place to be, and I continue to improve (or attempt to improve) my language ability. Thus, I still meet with Ninjaa most Saturday evenings. We'll do a couple of hours, then inevitably head off to grab a drink or two. Sure, this often means simply walking next door to the pub.

Over the past month, though, Ninjaa has invited me along to other establishments, and as a result, I've now experienced a bit more of the Frankfurt scene, for which I'm very grateful for. Frankfurt is a financial city, and no offense to the financial professionals who read these postings, but sometimes I've found the city to be a bit too "posh" or "trendy." Think Lower Greenville post Poor David's and Royal Rack. Not bad, but a little too clean for me. It's exactly what the bankers and investors want: trendy clubs, upscale bars, and the opportunity to dress up a bit when you go out for a night on the town.

That's never really been my scene, and while I've certainly found my niche in Frankfurt, I'm now able to say that my niche is getting deeper. There are some really great places around that are suiting me nicely. These places tend to have a bit better music selection, crazier bands, and an element of danger. In fact, some of these places remind me of the better days of Deep Ellum, back when it was fun to hang out down there. You always had a chance of finding yourself totally in the wrong place at the wrong time, but for the most part, you'd always be able to get in, grab some beers, see a show, and have a rocking time.

Several Saturdays during the past month, we've been in places that have a Foosball table (known as Kicker, here), and I've discovered that Ninjaa and Natalie happen to be virtually unstoppable in partnership. I've quietly smiled to myself as I've seen two cocky guys come up and challenge them to a game, only to be down and out at 6-0 in a matter of seconds. Meanwhile, a nice punk song plays in the background, and there are plenty of Radlers and Pils to go around.

Last night I was in a Kneipe having a few beers with Ninjaa, then we headed to a club to watch the results of the Eurovision song competition. (didn't expect me to ever write something like that, did you? me neither.)

I could do without the Eurovision contest, but it was interesting to see EVERYONE in the club OUTSIDE on the patio crowded around the television as commentators from 40+ countries gave the voting results. Upon completion of the voting, the winner was announced, and we all went inside. I was talking to some French-German girl that I'd just met, and totally missed the announcement of the winner. Oh well.

Let me be perfectly clear. Life is certainly going along for me, and I'm enjoying myself. However, the frustrations of work are always present, and it's been a really rough year on that front, even with the joy of having an indefinite contract. I've got a lot of questions and there are never enough answers. I've had (and will continue to have) plenty of sleepless nights. The anxiety I feel most every Sunday is difficult to deal with; it's hard not to think about the work week that looms.

That said, I'm aware that plenty of people have loads of challenges that they're going through, both here in Germany and on the other side of the ocean. I really can't do much more than try to get over myself and keep the faith, and hope the same goes for all of them. I saw a friend of mine late Friday night, and he paid me quite the compliment: it would not be good if I were to leave Germany, so I'd better stay.

Deeply flattered, I replied that I had every intention of sticking it out in my little corner of Bornheim.

Another friend is going through some pretty tough moments herself lately, and I've been particularly concerned about her. She's almost as good as I am at being super negative. Once or twice I got pretty alarmed, but realized that I can only support when I've got myself sorted out, so that's what I've been focusing on the past week.

Like always, I have to go back to basics, and remember how I got here. I've pulled out some tasty old music that I haven't listened to all that much in recent years. (part of that had to do with the fact that I didn't have the music here, but thanks to McKee and a jump drive, I'm listening to Bob Mould, the Cult, and Carter USM again). Now, if I only had as much hair as I did when I first started listening to those bands, we'd be in a whole different game.

Along with the music, I realized that I was missing one big appliance. Thus, yesterday I trucked off to my local Saturn and picked up a Kaffeemaschine, a trusty Saeco. I've already had about 40 coffees (which is basically why I sitting here writing this at 11pm on a Sunday night when I should be asleep) and can't help thinking that it was a bloody good investment, regardless of the price. Espresso machines are pretty popular in Germany, and I mean the super expensive ones that start at about 1000 Euros. Mine didn't cost anywhere near that much. I'm a coffee snob, but not a rich coffee snob.

So, things continue to come together, and I keep taking all of it in stride. I still take time to take the piss, though it's harder to keep the sense of humor light all the time. I recently made a small comment on Facebook which prompted a few people to ask me just what the hell was going on. Engaged?

I won't rant about Facebook right now, I don't have the patience. However, I'll quickly explain -
engaged auf deutsch can be translated into "beschäftigt," which actually means "busy."

In a moment of madness (and because I was pissed off at all the drama both in and out of Facebook), I chose to use a word that probably created a bit of confusion. It certainly made me chuckle, particularly because I already got a 50 Euro gift certificate to Crate and Barrel.

I'm going to use that to buy a few espresso cups.

keep the faith and all that.
thanks for the emails, the pix, and the support.

bryan

soundtrack
Sugar - The Act We Act
The Pogues -Haunted
Sponge - Say a Prayer For Me
The Sundays - My Finest Hour

Alive and Kicking with a heavier iPod

It's amazing how things just seem to be zipping right along in fast-forward mode, and, with the exception of known vices, I'm drug free. (with a job like mine, drugs would actually hurt more than help, surprisingly enough).

It's been non stop bop around here for the past weeks. I celebrated Easter by going to a Chimaira show at a local club in Frankfurt. OK, so death metal isn't exactly my flavor, but I really enjoyed the show, actually. The venue itself is somewhat historic to the city; it was nice to finally catch another live act.

A couple of weeks later, I returned to the little bar adjacent to this club with Natalie and Ninjaa. This little bar is known for being visited by Robbie Williams, among others. I don't know how well he plays Foosball (Kicker), but the three of us dominated just about everyone itching for action, and I was most impressed that I hadn't forgotten all my table soccer tricks.

My folks have been lounging around Germany over the past couple of weeks. They spent the second week of April in Frankfurt, and we found ways to cause a bit of trouble, most notably a visit to a groovy Tex Mex place where we celebrated my birthday (and a bit of silliness fuelled by 4 to 5 too many margaritas). The very next day, they jumped in their hired car and have been seeing the eastern part of the country: Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, etc.

Meanwhile, I've been absolutely getting my head kicked in by the customer (as usual), and I'm loving it. I mean, can you really imagine doing something more fun?

Er, probably.

That said, I'm positioned to be given a long term contract, which basically sets me up for a long time in the EU. Goal achieved. Finally.

So, I've been to England a couple of times over the past few weeks, and have finally gotten to experience the joys of Heathrow Terminal Five first hand. Though the catastrophe of several weeks back is over, I still managed to find myself stuck in a three hour delay, which put me back into Germany really late last night.

I'm deliberately skipping over the angst and frustrations of work related crap. It's bollocks, and not worth discussing, and I'd rather talk about the cool stuff.

First off, thanks for all the birthday greetings, e-cards, memory sticks, phone calls, text messages, and pornography. It meant a lot. Birthdays are really important to the Germans, but, as I'm not German, I wasn't all that thrilled to turn another year older. On the other hand, I still appreciate well wishing and all that.

Second, how absolutely bloody fantastic that I'm now a bit more loaded when it comes to tunes. Pablo's been doing a nice bit through the email, and young McKee has once again gone through the efforts of loading several hundred more CDs of mine onto a 8gb memory stick. My iPod is excited, and I can't stop smiling and saying thanks! (I'm quite sure that the 5 Exploited albums must of a been a bit tedious for you, but then again, I bet you've held on to one or two tracks yourself.)

You might say, wow, he only had two good things to talk about?

It certainly goes a whole lot further than that. (you haven't seen the track listings, but most of you know how great that feeling is when you find something that you've lost (or have been separated from for a long long time). And, I think it's perfectly OK for me to disturb people on the U-Bahn with Bad Religion and Therapy? playing full blast.

Arsenal football is still Arsenal football, but it's time to put an end to the season, and get on with things (namely Euro 2008!)

So, this was really just a quick "yep, I'm still over here doing my bit" update. It's almost 18:30, and I'm about to make a bee line for the pub.

keep the faith
bryan

tracklist
Therapy? - Going nowhere
The Cure - To the sky
Bruce Springsteen - Born to run

Hazards in the Bahnhof

Last week, I was feeling pretty darn great. Tuesday evening, Arsenal impressed the football world by beating AC Milan 2-0 in the San Siro, deservedly advancing to the next round of Champions League.

Though I had a customer visiting me from the states for the entire week, I will still finding time to get everything done, and was actually getting out of work at a decent hour.

Normally I try to catch a train from Darmstadt back to Frankfurt every evening between 18.30 and 20.00; one runs about every 20-30 minutes.

Sometime I have to kill a bit of time, and usually plug in the ipod and smoke about on the platform. Wednesday evening I was intending to do just that, but while walking through the lounge to the train platforms, a big bird pooped on my head!

OK, it wasn't a sesame street sized bird, but it was big enough (or at least it's poop was) to totally fucking gross me out. Part of me wanted to be physically ill, but I was sort of laughing about it. I scrounged for 50 cents, then went into the pay toilets where I again grossed myself out by trying to find the best way to dunk my head under the faucet without actually touching the sink. Though I've previously mentioned that the cleanliness of public toilets in the regional train stations I've been through has been impressive, I'm taking this opportunity to change my mind.

On this particular day, things certainly appeared out of order, and I recalled seeing a group of homeless heroin addicts lounging around outside of the station. Clearly they'd been in here already.

At any rate, I did the best I could as quickly as I could, then scurried down to get on the train, hoping that I didn't really look like a guy who'd just had someone shit on him. I was also thanking the world that I hadn't been looking upwards toward the rafters (as I sometimes do) at the precise moment of the incident. I'm not sure I would have been able to deal with an eyeful of muck.

I went on to the gym (where I did have a better opportunity to scrub my head), then hit the pub to watch another night of matches. As usual, I stayed out a bit too late, and got home a bit before 1am.

Several signs had been posted around the local U-Bahn stations notifying a scheduled strike to be held on Thursday; none of the U-Bahns, Trams, or busses would be running for the entire day. Like an idiot, I just assumed that I would just take a taxi to the train station the following morning.

That would have been a really good plan had I not forgotten that about half the city uses the U-Bahn for the morning commute, and most of those folks would be getting taxis, too.

As tends to be the case when things aren't going so well, everything else seemed to fall apart. First, I overslept. Second, the realization that I'd have to hoof it 30 minutes on foot to the local S-Bahn station (note - the S-Bahns and regional trains were not striking on this day) didn't amuse me, especially since I'd chosen the wrong pair of shoes for a city hike. Third, the S-Bahn takes about twice as long as the normal train, and I wasn't so sure of the time table.

I will say it was a bit interesting hiking through the city with a lot of other commuters. No-one was particularly thrilled, but at least the weather wasn't rainy or too cold. Once I got to the station, I phoned a colleague and told him that I'd have to miss a conference call, then went on to complain that there were no coffee places on the platform, and I was in dire need of an espresso.

About an hour later, I arrived at Darmstadt, and taxied to the office. My colleague elected to phone me once during that trip to tell me he was sitting in his office enjoying a nice coffee. Bastard.

So, I finished the work day without too much trouble (albeit it seemed like a half day considering I strolled into the office just past 11am), find an S-Bahn back to Frankfurt, then rejoiced when I found a taxi stand with several taxis queued up.

Let me be very clear on why I enjoy urban living so much, and why I don't really miss having a car. Frankfurt's U-Bahn system (when not on strike) is fast and efficient. I'm 10 minutes away from the main train station, which is 6 stops from my local stop. I live about 4-5 minutes away from my local stop.

Taking a taxi from this same main train station takes about 20 minutes normally, and costs about 15 euros. Taking a taxi on this same route during rush hour costs about 24 euros and takes closer to 35 minutes.

For me, I prefer public transport, even if you have to put up with the odd lunatic from time to time. (note - I've got to believe that somewhere out there, some one has just written a similar article describing some lunatic THEY saw on the U-Bahn last week that had bird poop on his head)

At last, I got back to the comfort of the pub, where I once again stayed out too late.

Yep, I overslept again on Friday, but thank goodness all the transportation was running; I was only an hour late to work.

Friday evening, as usual, was spent celebrating the weekend. The special touch on this Friday was that two colleagues from work came with me into Frankfurt. We'd been talking about this for quite some time, and finally found the right evening. Both Ingmar and Salva are good guys, but it was funny that there was still that bit of awkwardness associated with going out for pints with people that work for you. Though we did talk a little shop, the evening was more about celebrating what we've accomplished over the past weeks and months; finally we're able to smile more when we come to work.

The weekend was all about a birthday celebration for three of my friends. Steve had his birthday earlier in the week, but combined his party with Nadja and Derrick for Saturday evening.

Custom in Germany is to gather at midnight to celebrate; it brings good luck. Nadja's birthday was the actual Saturday, so Salva, Ingmar, and I met up with Nadja and a few others down the street at the Schoenburger; a popular place in my neighborhood. We closed that down (interpret that as: obligatory birthday shots, several pints, etc), then a handful of us returned to the pub to continue celebrating. At this point, my colleagues (one was designated driver) wished me luck and returned to Darmstadt.

I believe I got home around 5, and have since heard that I played a chess move (on line) around 6am (yet another note - the notifier feature on facebook for the chess application is ganz toll!).

Saturday was spent in bed, as one can imagine, and I think I eventually got up around 4 or 5. During a conversation I'd had with Nadja the previous evening, she was expecting for me to make a mix CD for her party, and come to think of it, the pub owner had also asked me to burn a few birthday songs (Altered States, Beatles, etc).

I had no problem coming up with the perfect mix for Nadja, but I struggled to get the playlist in a burnable format, simply because it's on my ipod and not my pc's hard drive. This was an unfortunate unanticipated challenge. I cursed myself for waiting til the last minute, then was scrambling to pull some songs down from other websites.

There is a feature on the ipod where you can copy all the files back onto your hard drive, but they're not in any particular order, just loads of folders with weird coded songs, etc. Besides, I would have crashed my pc had I dumped my ipod back onto my hard drive.

Result! I got the tracks in order, popped in a blank disk, then jumped in the shower. Grocery shopping would simply have to wait til the next week. Thank goodness there was enough milk to cover a day's worth of coffee.

All festivities from earlier in the week were leading to this large gathering. An Irish band was playing, and the three birthday kiddos brought their friends and family. Thus, the pub became as full as I've ever seen it. At one point, there was no way to move whatsoever inside the bar. No one could even drink from their glass as everyone was shoulder to shoulder.

Several times I escaped to the terrace with the other smokers (and ironically, those looking for fresh oxygen), and was lucky to have a conversation with Goran about how much I enjoy his new CD. This was my first chance to feed back to him.

Well, the Irish band paused at midnight to wish Derrick (his birthday was Sunday) a happy birthday, and we surprised him with his birthday gift: a weekend in Prague. This gift was somewhat special as I'm a part of it. Several weeks ago, Max and Heike had approached me about going off on a weekend road trip with young Derrick, and I answered, "why the hell not?"
Money was collected, flights were booked, and I'll be chief chaperon (or chief instigator, depending on how you want to read the story).

After a couple of encores, the band broke set, and on came a DJ, who kept things lively for the remainder of the evening. The mix was good, so I elected to dance until the world started getting fuzzy...which, once again, was around 5.30am.

I do remember leaving, but certainly there are some points of the evening that I'll have to be reminded of. That said, it was quite the evening.

Said evening lasted until 7am, actually, but I was already fast asleep. I woke up Sunday afternoon in time to watch the Arsenal - Wigan match. Sure, I wasn't feeling too frisky, and I'm sure I haven't looked much worse, but oh well, sometimes those are the breaks.

Went beddy bye pretty early Sunday evening, and woke up Monday morning to discover that the trains were on strike, again. I managed to get to work (on time), but had to take the slower S-Bahn.

I'm laying low this week, trying to cardio up and keep myself out of trouble. After all, we've got another big weekend coming up.

Don't look up in the train stations, and keep the faith
bryan

no soundtrack this week - enjoy the silence

A Life of Surprises

February has been a very interesting month. Stimmt.

A month ago, I lamely attempted to clean the apartment prior to the expected arrival of McKee, but lost interest after a quick whisk about with the hoover, and spent the evening in the pub, as I do most Friday nights.

Though I stayed out way too late, I roused myself early Saturday and took the S-Bahn over to the airport. Although I wasn't feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed, I did feel pretty fired up: my first visit from someone other than my parents.

I noticed Chris' trademark red jacket as he exited customs, but thought it odd and coincidental that the woman immediately behind him looked a whole lot like his wife Lori.

As realization set in, I started to smile and panic at the same moment. Lori had made a surprise visit, which was ultra cool. The fact that I'd not been so thorough in cleaning my flat was not.

Never mind, there would be plenty of time to scrub a dub later.

After the enthusiastic greetings, we headed back to the S-Bahn to return to Frankfurt. I was still in complete disbelief that a 2nd McKee had made the trip. What a welcome surprise!

Earlier in the week, I'd sent a quick note to Chris indicating that we'd have to do some domestic shopping on Saturday; I'd simply had no time before due to work related activity. Thus, after unloading luggage in the flat, we whisked off to Schlecker, where I stocked up on all the toilet paper, cleaning supplies, deo, and shower gel; I was long overdue for this trip. (note - paper towels are NOT suitable for toilet paper, even in the bleakest of circumstances).

The three of us found ourselves with a couple of hours to kill before the Arsenal match, which would be on television at the pub that afternoon. So, Chris and Lori elected to unload the goods, and handed me several football jerseys and scarves that I'd left behind when I vacated little Goliad. A smiling hungover Bryan cannot be the prettiest of sights, but I didn't care: I simply couldn't stop beaming.

Chris handed me a small package from Pablo (Frankfurt Airlift Zwei) which included a valentine, a newspaper article about German smoking bans, a Pablo cd mix, a Dallas DART map (specifically to be hung in the kitchen, where I spend most of my time), and a copy of the Big Lebowski. That was pretty bloody cool, I thought.

brief side note - Germany did ban smoking in restaurants and pubs last October. The stipulations for permitting smoking are similar to those of the rest of the world. Pubs of a certain size can build a "smoking" room, but obviously have to invest in the ventilation equipment, etc. Thus, smaller pubs (including my own Kneipe) are now non-smoking.

Though several businesses have complained that business has suffered, I've seen very little impact, personally. Sure, we now all go outside to puff, but it's not nearly as pathetic as non smoking magazines and newspapers try to make it out to be. In fact, there now exists "smirting," which is basically the act of chatting up someone outside of the pub. I've actually met a lot more people this way.

Anyway, on with the show.

I was already pretty excited with all the cool stuff happening (care packages rock), when Chris hands me a USB stick and said, "pop that in to your laptop."

I've always joked when answering the question, "what's the best present you ever received?" with a response along the lines of, "a bottle of Jameson and a carton of JPS," which, albeit makes a pretty good gift, doesn't begin to approach the real sentiment.

Tears came to my eyes as I discovered that I now had 8 gig of music downloading onto iTunes; Chris had managed to go through half my stateside CD collection. "I'll send the other half along when I can," he said as I checked to see what was on the stick. Unbelievable. Absolutely unexpected, and simply too cool for words. Thanks McKee. That meant a lot.

We left the download going, and headed down Bergerstrasse to check out the market and grab a coffee. Lori and Chris were quickly getting familiar with the neighborhood surroundings, and I was glad that they were getting the chance to see the weekly bustle of fellow Bornheimers doing their Saturday shopping.

After a little walk around, we headed to the pub for lunch and match time. Chris jumped right in on the John Smith's, while I opted for coffee and juice for the time being. It was going to be a pretty long day.

We got a wonderful Arsenal result, and enjoyed a very nice pub afternoon just hanging out. Chris and Lori met several of my friends that came in to watch the Frankfurt football match. Before you knew it, it was approaching 7pm, but beer was flowing, as were the conversations, and no signs of jet lag wiping out Chris or Lori.

Dinner was certainly needed, however, but first, we headed back home (30 second trip) to rest a little and check progress on the iTunes. Out came some wine and cheese which served as a nice aperitif before we headed to a local tapas bar.

I'm fortunate to live around the corner from one of the best Spanish restaurants in the city, and was pleased that we were able to get a seat in what tends to be a pretty busy spot on Saturday nights. It was quite the tasty meal, and it was rather cozy in the restaurant. (gemütlich)

After obligatory carajillos de baileys, we strolled back to the pub, where a local band was playing. The drummer for this band is a regular at the pub, and that was certainly justification for going to show support. True, the band wasn't the best, but there were plenty of regulars around, and family McKee got the real taste of what Irish Pub Bornheim is all about.

The girlfriend of the drummer and I have had a few chats before, and recently I discovered that she works for an Italian coffee company. Remembering my sister's ability at forever remaining "enchufado," I'd mentioned that I'd love to have a few little espresso cups and saucers. However, I was delighted when she came up to me Saturday night with 3 little sets. I didn't exactly try to push my luck, but while I was expressing my thanks, I mentioned how nice it would be to have a super cool espresso machine, too.

Chris showed some signs of fatigue, but we managed to rally, and the three of us closed the pub down, managing to involve ourselves in various conversations with my friends. Certainly the pints continued to flow, and we got ourselves into bed between 3 and 4.

I woke up feeling fairly rested on Sunday morning, but realized around 11am that Chris and Lori probably don't get much chance to sleep late. I quietly read emails and soccer reports and checked out all the new tunes until they surfaced at noon.

We had brunch at a popular bar down the street, then spent the afternoon enjoying a walk around the city. The weather wasn't particularly cold, more mild I'd say, but it was nice to have a scarf on (for those of us that remembered to wear one) as we explored. Frankfurt is a pretty cool city to amble around in, and we were certainly not alone on the Sunday afternoon, particularly as several areas of the city were celebrating Carnival.

Our walking tour included a nice little jaunt across the river into Sachsenhausen, where we found a nice place to have a coffee, a little rest, and see a few folks walking around in their costumes, including a rather big guy in a pink rabbit costume.

After a bit of dinner at another favorite restaurant, we called it a night.

My guests slept in again on Monday morning, which was totally fine by me. We met a friend of mine for coffee at a place called Wacker's, which is a local family owned place that has been roasting their own beans for several generations. More on that a bit later.

We certainly enjoyed a leisurely morning, then took a local train off to Bad Homburg, an affluent town close to Frankfurt. It was a nice opportunity to give a flavor of somewhere outside of metropolitan Frankfurt. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Monday evening we returned to my local to celebrate our last evening together. Lori would return to the states on Tuesday, I'd return to work, and Chris would head off to India for a couple of weeks.

We sorted out the logistics of getting each other to the right destinations early Tuesday morning, and regardless of the chaos and stress I found in the office, the McKee visit kept me on a high. Thanks kids, for coming across. I'm glad to have had the time to hang out, and look forward to your next visit.

Let it be said that my commutes to and from work have improved over the past couple of weeks now that my iPod has gotten more full. Several times I've stumbled across tracks that I haven't listened to (or thought about) in years.

When you've just recently added 400 CDs on to your rotation list, one might think that there's no real rush to add another, but you can't go to a CD release party without getting a new CD.

My Serbian friend Goran finally got his CD complete, and invited us all out to a local club a couple of Friday's ago for the release show. I've been pretty fired up about this for the past year; Goran tended to keep me updated on progress as he went through the studio process of mixing tracks, and I was looking forward to hearing the finished product.

Goran worked at my local at the first part of 2007, and now works a few shifts at another pub in town. There is some cross over between the two pubs, and it's interesting how those of us from the Bornheim local stick our heads in the Zeil from time to time, and likewise the regulars from that pub pop down to the other end of Bergerstrasse.

Both pubs had strong showings of support for the Simonout show. It was great to see the pub crowd, and helped me not to feel so much older than the rest of the crowd. Simonout has a bit of a following amongst the younger females of Frankfurt, which both amuses and surprises me. The band itself is pretty young, but they play with an energy and tightness that suggests that they've been around for longer.

I've seen the band play several times before. In fact, I think I only missed one show in Frankfurt last year, and obviously did not make it to the two festivals that they headlined at during summer. I'll look forward to going to France and Serbia some other summer.

As with most local bands I saw in Dallas, I tend to prefer to see a band play live. Studio releases have never quite been able to hold up, in my opinion. Shallow Reign and Funland releases couldn't capture the energy those shows always had. Course of Empire is a notable exception; their studio releases have a particular quality that keeps you listening (which is impressive as their shows were even nuttier than the Funland shows).

I'll go out on a limb here and make a comparison to Ten Hands. Quite the live act they were, and my favorite records are those that were recorded live.

Perhaps Simonout could do the same.

For a studio release, I'm fairly impressed with this effort. You can clearly hear how tight the band is, and Goran has a very impressive ear for melody. He did a bit of experimentation on this record, and as a result, some tracks don't quite have the same feel as they do when performed live.

However, my initial reaction after the first two listens was that they left me wanting to hear more. Willows Lane has a handful of tracks that are certainly strong, but surprising to me is that they're not the same songs that I enjoy so much during the live show.

Simonout is a super high energy band that mixes a lot of punk, funk, and rock and roll. It's difficult to compare them to any other group, and that's a really good thing. Goran has impressive stage presence, and equally has an impressive vocal range. You'd easily recognize his influences, which come from Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Morrissey, and the guy from Marion.

The show was great, and it was nice to congratulate Goran on a good performance. I've now got a copy of the CD signed by the band, and am proud to have it in rotation on the iPod.

Hands down, February has been a very good months, driven heavily by these two key events. The rest of the month has been equally enjoyable, though, as I've spent time staying out too late in the pub, playing chess, and getting back into shape. (er, I realize that I just mentioned too much pub time and getting fit in the same sentence)

A couple of birthday parties are set for early March, which will be nice practice for St Pat's. Bornheim is just a pretty cool place to live.

Throw in some awesome coffee from Wacker's and a freshly cleaned toilet, and, yep, you've got it, life is pretty OK.

keep the faith
bryan

soundtrack:
Simonout - Willows Lane (entire CD)
Wire - In vivo
and much more...

parting words - Pablo, thanks for the chat, and I'll explain more in detail about how all the girls I seem to know here have names that begin either with N or S. It's made for a few embarrassing text messages already.

That's Youth

So, I'm listening to a lot of Bouncing Souls and Mighty Mighty Bosstones this week, and it's making for a pretty lively commute on the train. It's cool how a few minutes with the Bosstones brings so many fond memories of my life in Massachusetts from ten years ago. Speaking of which, I'll acknowledge the assistance of Linkedin, which has put me back in contact with one Nat Urqhart, my best mate in Boston. We hit a lot of shows there, spent loads of time in pubs, and pretty much had a ripping time.

10 Years on, we're still having a ripping time, and I'm personally glad to know he's back in Blighty riding Vespa's and getting the youth of tomorrow educated with Britpop. Talk to you soon, Nat.

No, I'm not yet riding Vespas, though from time to time, the idea does cross the mind. However, since I've almost been hit by a bus a couple of times, lately, I'd rather stick to the sidewalk for now. And, I'm not about to take off the ipod or turn the music down (which would have likely avoided my embarrassment of jaywalking in front of a large bus)

As reported last week, I had a good day at work, and was fortunate to have a second good day right at the end of the week. Total count for week 4: 2 good days.

I celebrated by going to the pub the next two evenings and getting pretty silly. Whatever possesses me to think I can stay out til 3 and 4 in the morning two days running is completely beyond me, but I must say it was pretty fun.

Of course, that meant Monday was a bit rough, and all the worse since I had to take an early flight to Brussels for an all day meeting, where I sat in a conference room with about 20 people for the purpose of explaining to the customer for the umpteenth time that we should not proceed with a "cash on delivery" service in Germany. Hopefully the point was finally accepted, and yet another example of having to involve way too many people in a decision. I did have a few Stella in the airport, though. That was OK.

Yesterday started pretty rough, and I was pretty busy throughout the day, but we hit a record day of repair output, which went over very well with the customer. Thus, another good day at work. (That makes three, now!)

Like every other Tuesday, I headed to the pub after work, and celebrated Stefan's birthday with several friends. Simone can in for her weekly pub visit, and all in all it was a pretty good night. I wisely skipped the 2nd, 3rd and 4th round of shots, and woke up this morning feeling OK.

Sure, I wish I'd remembered that I was supposed to be in an all day workshop today, but I've managed to get some work done while sitting in this conference room.

I'd forgotten what it was like to have good days at work, so I'm particularly thrilled that I'm accumulating a few, though I'm well aware that I'm still in single digits. With a little luck, I'll hit 10 before too long, and from there, we'll see.

Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging along. Young McKee is preparing to head over for the weekend, so perhaps I should do a bit of cleaning in the flat, lest he think that I'm nothing more than an overworked program manager who spends a fair amount of time in his local. Hell, I might even put some food in the fridge this week.

keep the faith
bryan

soundtrack:
MMB - The Impression that I get
Bouncing Souls - That's Youth