New Blog Page

Hey!  What are you doing here?!  Go read my blog, it's on a new page.  http://theverticalmind.blogspot.com/ All my new posts will be there from now on, as well as the old ones.  So don't come back here!  Read, subscribe, follow or whatever at http://theverticalmind.blogspot.com/.

Kaffee Magic

We have our own coffee machine in our office at work, literally in the same room I work in, with a cabinet full of various coffee mugs in the kitchen at the end of the hall.  Generally one of the first guys in will grab a bunch of mugs and bring them in the office.  Almost all of us have a mug that always go for, but occasionally an orphan mug will show up in the office.  I've gotten the same one a few times when my mug wasn't there.  Each time I've gotten this cup I swore it was black, but when I was drinking out of it I noticed there was some picture on it.  I always thought that it was too early to really remember which color coffee mug I grabbed.  Until today.  I grabbed the same black mug this morning and filled it up with the hot caffeinated magic and settled in at my desk.  I waited a minute or two for it to cool off and then noticed a picture of a city wrapping around the mug.  Wait, what the fuck?  I know I grabbed a black mug, don't fuck with me.  But there was this damn picture again.  After about the third sip I noticed the black returning from the top and down to about where I had drank.  That's when my Sherlock Holmes skills kicked in.  Holy shit it's one of those mood rings but in my mug!  Fascinated I drank some more and watched night fall over the city on my mug.  When the whole thing was black again I went back to the coffee machine and watched the picture reappear as it filled up with the hot caffeinated magic again.  Another case solved.

 I knew that damn thing was black

In more exciting news, I drove on the Autobahn for the first time last week.  Another guy from work and I had to drive 4 hours to a paper plant to help a customer with a busted pump, and we got to take a company car.  It wasn't a Porsche or a Beamer, but we had a turbo diesel VW Passat.  It's clearly no race car but I still got it up to 210 km/h (130mph).  Even though I was on the Autobahn I was still checkin my mirror for 5-0.  While on the infamous Autobahn, I became aware of a few things.  First, there are parts of the Autobahn where you DO have a speed limit.  They generally don't last long though.  The second thing is that when you're in a section with no limit, people haul major ass.  Cruising speed is about 180 km/h (110mph) for the middle lane.  If you're in the left lane, your last name better be Andrette.  No joke.  I had to keep an eye on my mirror for people coming up behind me.  It's not like the US where people will weave in and out of traffic like it's Nascar to get around the slow pokes.  That shit is illegal here.  You have to pass on the left.  The amazing thing is that people here actually do it.  There aren't too many jackwagons snailing it in the left lane.  You might find a few in the middle lanes and definitely in the right lane, but the left lane is a legitimate fast lane.

Last thing I wanted to mention was that this I'm changing the name of this blog to "The Vertical Mind."  I've been wanting to change it to something that relates more to what I write about, which mainly consists of my outdoor pursuits and what I'm getting into here in Germany.  I also wanted to wait until I came up with the new design.  I chose the name "The Vertical Mind" because most of my so-called "outdoor pursuits" consist of going up and then eventually down mountains.  It also touches on the 'moving forward' (or upward) mindset that I try to live by.  For me that means training for a race, climbing 5.13, or finding that dream job.  Anyone that knows me has surely seen my competitiveness.  That's what I'm talking about.  The desire to never 'settle for anything less than your best.'  Some people are content with what's put in front of them but I want to keep moving forward, or upward

I won't be posting on this blog anymore but I'll keep the site alive for another month or so in case anyone loses the link to the new blog.

New blog link:  http://theverticalmind.blogspot.com/

Time's a wasting!

When the hell am I going to start training? Or writing on this blog? Or go somewhere exciting?  Time's a wasting. I'm living in Germany and I have yet to ski in the Alps.  Or climb.  What the hell is wrong with me?  I got comfortable, that's what.  Lazy is more like it.  I've started to settle for whatever was put in front of me instead of going after the things I wanted.  It's about time to put that hat back in the closet, or burn it, and put my game face back on.  I've got marathon training to do!

I've been extremely lucky with meeting such an awesome group of friends.  They showed zero hesitation in adopting a crazy American into their crew (what were they thinking?!).  I'll never forget the kindness they've shown me since the day I arrived.  But they are some lazy ass Germans!  I thought everyone would be an athletic phenomena.  So much for that idea.  No one (in my group of friends here) has the slightest desire to get outside and DO something.  OK so one of my friends is really into mountain biking but he's been playing the "it's too cold" card since early November.  Fine, it's cold.  Now pull on a pair of spandex and let's ride dammit!

It's not fair to put all the blame on my friends.  I'm generally pretty active and rarely depend on anyone else to join me.  I almost always run by myself and when I can't find a climbing partner I take no shame in going to the gym for a boulder session.  So why haven't I done that here?  Because I'm full of excuses.  No running partner, no climbing partner, no car, too cold, raining, blah blah blah.  I let myself get lazy and get away with it.  Well I've just put a stop to that.  I forced myself to man up and go for a run every day this week; except yesterday but I did core training instead.  Gotta keep those abs looking nice.  I haven't done any climbing yet but past weekend my hangboard finally came in.  All I need to do now is build a stand and get it mounted.  And hope I don't step on any nails in the process.

Your Representative

The other day I caught myself wandering in the depths of my own thoughts and realized something that I never knew about myself.  I wear a pretty heavy facade when I first meet someone.  In fact I wear that bitch half off my face like the Phantom of the Opera until I'm really comfortable around someone.  Of course this all depends on the situation and the type of person.  If I meet a really outgoing person, chances are I'll let my guard down a lot quicker.  Why?  Because that person is being genuine.  They're being themselves and no one else.  It eliminates that initial sense of unnecessary competition, that need to prove yourself to them.  If they can be themselves then I can too.  Instead I usually keep a serious tone until I have a feeling for the other person, until I have a sense of how they'll react to my characteristic sarcasm.  On second thought, I don't think anyone's ready for that.

I think it's OK to feel someone out when you first meet them but we should be careful of how much of a facade we wear.  Like Chris Rock said, when you first meet someone you're meeting their representative.  Well guess what?  No one wants to meet your representative.  They're stuck up, too quiet or too damn loud.  Drop the charades and just be yourself.  Chances are people will like you better.  If not, at least you won't have to wonder if you should have just acted like yourself instead of putting on a show.  Ditch the mask and tell your representative to take a hike.

Incandescent Rebellion!

I came home and turned the lights on in my apartment today to witness another bulb burst into light bulb shrapnel.  The only lights in my living room are the overhead lights which have, had, 4 bulbs.  I'm down to one.  When the first one blew out I thought psssh, there's still 3 left.  Missing one bulb isn't going to kill me.  A few months later the second one blew out.  Mother fucker.  Whatever, it doesn't need to be that bright in here.  I've got a skylight window anyway.  Today the fourth one shattered into a million pieces of light bulb shrapnel when I hit the switch and scared the shit out of me.  One bulb ain't gonna cut it.  It's dark.  But there is still hope.  There lies the untapped resource of the overhead stove light.  At 18 inches long and 72 inches high (yes, that is 6 feet, thanks for doing the math) is a fluorescent to rescue me from the dark.  That thing by the way, works like a champ.  I can almost turn off the overhead lights and just run on the stove light.  Almost.  That wouldn't do anything about the two light bulbs that blew out in my bedroom.  Otherwise I'd probably put off buying light bulbs until the stove light eventually went out.  I'll probably end up buying a box of CFL's this weekend, or perhaps tomorrow after work if I'm feeling really ambitious.

A few days ago I decided to give this blog a facelift.  Before now I was using a template that someone made.  With those things your creativity is kinda limited to picking from a pool of pictures and swapping some color schemes around.  It kinda felt like borrowing a hoody from somone and telling all your friends it's yours.  Since I'm not a programmer or web designer, I'm kinda stuck with those templates.  What you can do though is upload your own picture.  So I got creative with powerpoint and paint and came up with the header that's now at the top of the page.  My pixelated work of art is far from perfect but it's my p.o.s. and I'm diggin' it for now.  Eventually I'll get crafty with my camera and make a more stylish background with my own hardware.  Until then enjoy the pixels.

Blog Fail continued

For all those wondering, it gets cold here in Germany.  And it snows.  It's been snowing on and off since Sunday night and it hasn't broken 30 degrees yet.  Did I mention winter was here?  He ain't packin' up any time soon by the looks of it.

Last week was my first week back in Germany and it just couldn't wait to get started.  Seven guys from the US, all Netzsch regional sales managers, came to Germany last week for pump training.  Guess who was in charge of most of the training.  The American.  Lucky for me, we all speak English.  American English at least.  We went through assembly, disassembly, competitor analysis and a few application visits to a biogas facility (farm) a wastewater treatment plant and a paper mill.  All went well except with this one guy.  He wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders.  When you ask too many dumb questions people start wondering if you belong here.  I have strong doubts about this guy.  Moving on though.  The best part about colleagues coming to visit is going out to eat.  I ate out for lunch and dinner every day that week.  Lucky for me because I didn't have any food in the house when I got back from my break in the US.  I ate damn good that week and all on the company's wallet.  All for the sake of entertaining our guests.  I was too busy chatting up the waitress, but that's beside the point.

We ended the week on Friday by going out to dinner in Munich.  Our development team and all the Americans made for a grand total of 13.  First came the biers, then came the schnapps.  Then dinner.  Schnapps first.  I snagged one of the bottles that they came in, each one containing exactly two shots.

It's not expensive or anything like that, but it's got a nifty top that you can close back up, as if you were going to save your second shot for some reason.  I've seen it beer bottles before, both here and back in the States.  Nothing new, but still pretty cool on a single-serve schnapps bottle.  After dinner a bunch of the guys decided to go find a club.  I tagged along with the crew that opted to turn in early since I had to be up, and functionable, for a soccer match the next day.

Blog Fail

I have committed complete blog failure.  I let it go stale and now it's like some abandoned car on the side of the road that hasn't been repossessed yet because the township doesn't want to pay to tow the shit heap.  It's been over a month since my last update and it wasn't even an exciting post.  Neither was the post before that, or before that.  EPIC FAIL.  Last month I went back home to good old Pennsylvania for the first time in 7 months of being in Germany.   It's pretty wild that I've been out of the country for that long.  In some ways it doesn't really feel like it's been that long.  Kind of like how a semester of school can go by so quick.  Then you start studying for finals and realize exactly how much crap you "learned" and now have to re-learn just to pass the test.  It feels like that except I don't have the test to worry about.  I might kill someone if there was a test.  Thinking back on all the stuff I've done since being here and all the things I've learned on and off the job and then putting that into a timeline makes me see that it really has been 7 months.  Seven great months.  Sure work gets in the way and sends my morale on a nosedive from time to time, but the weekends have a way of muting all that.

Being home was nice though.  I've been given the privilege of the German vacation schedule which means I get 30 days per year.  Eat that!  I took a good chunk of my vacation time to come home during the holidays and visit friends and family.  Three weeks of no work and staying with my parents let me shut off my brain and tell stress to piss off .  I got to go out to lunch (or dinner) with friends.  I FINALLY finished the mammoth Stephen King book I've been reading.  I even made it out snowboarding thanks to a friend that had some extra gear I could borrow since all mine was still in Germany.  I promised I'd go snowboarding in the Alps, with proof of course, and it looks like I might have a chance of doing that in a few weeks.  All in all it was nice to be home.  I will say that it absolutely sucked hearing how good the Eagles were doing all season only to watch them get butt-raped two games in a row, pissing away their chances in the playoffs.  Same old birds.

I've been stashing some things to talk about on this blog.  Right now it's all on paper but it will eventually makes its way into the next post.  To be continued...