On a totally unrelated note, we went go-carting today, and it was loads of fun. Did two 10min-rounds indoors and one outdoors… it is just great being able to drive like you normally only can in the realms of a gaming console!

Now we will open the weekend with a farewell dinner for Hanno, who’ll be going back to the US tomorrow. Just right on the occasion, due to a political party meeting in his hotel, there is about one thousand one hundred demonstrants (100 right wing people, and 1000 left wing counter-demonstrators) surrounding the place, which means he cannot leave on foot, only through the nearby train station, and has to undergo severe security checks upon returning to the hotel. That will sure give him a story to tell back home

Blogged with Flock

After we had moved into our new apartment, which is in a house from 1850-1900, we realized that the electric wiring in some rooms was not quite right. In the living room and the bedroom, the switches were not connected to the cables in the wall. In the hall and in the dressing room, there was not even a lightswitch. In some places, the ground carried electricity… not being experts on that stuff, we called the people who organize maintenance for our house to get an electrician. Today, only some six weeks after our requests (and about five follow-up calls), the electrician showed up.

Picture Dr. Doolittle without the hat, with a mustache and a wicked, crazy grin. Making dirty jokes. And repeating them occasionally, even though no one listens. Needless to say, I did not quite trust that guy instantly.

After two hours, he had…

… made the light in the living room work (yay!) … killed a lightbulb in the bedroom and then realized that the wires carry 400 volts (instead of the normal 220) … made about 20 references to that fact that he was looking forward to the end of his shift … burnt him self really bad on on of our fuses, because it had corroded and gone mighty hot … filled a whole sheet of paper with things that where not quite right with our wiring … told a colleague on the phone that basically, the whole apartment needed new wiring, and sounded quite happy about it … taught us that you can touch whatever wire you want to, as long as you have shoes with rubber soles and do not touch anything conducting at the same time.

When he left, I was stressed out. And tried to remember some of the jokes he had made – they might come in handy!

I am glad to report that apparently, the drive still works and no data is lost as far as I can see. Still, the jolt of adrenaline – even if it replaces the next two cups of coffee – was something that I could do without.

What is so damn stupid about it? The fact that you can NOT do anything else. No listening to music. No TV. No nothing in the background. You have to sit there, listen to a recording (which I put on 60% speed, so every voice sounds like it comes right off a vocoder, beautiful – but at least I can keep up with typing) and type your fingers off. I wish computers were just a wee bit more intelligent by now… I’d like to delegate that to my machine. Maybe I should have used amazon’s new mechanical turk for that… nah, I am too cheap to outsource my diploma thesis’ work

Today is another day, last day of the internship! I don’t have much to do today, so I can file my taxes finally, surf the net, do a little work, drink coffee – mainly: Relax. Another three months have passed so fast that if you told me that my internship just begun two weeks ago I would nod and agree. I hope some people from the office will stay in contact with me, although I know that this is hard to achieve, as interns come and go and work rarely gives room to write a personal email. But hey, maybe I am wrong this time.

Flight takes off on monday – one fine weekend of cleaning, packing and seeing some people, and then – YEEEEEHAAAA!

I have a good time today. I guess. I hope! Wake up call came from my loved one this morning at 7am, which was fine because we had not heard each other for the whole weekend, but I could not help but being a bit grumpy this early. Morning TV program was fine to wake up, one anchorwoman who could not get just one sentence right made me feel good the mean, gleefully way. Way to work was fine as well – I got the old Honda started whose brakes are screaming for instant repair (which will hopefully happen just today after I checked my account for sufficient funding), and even the stereo was working fine – except the known little error that it refuses to play any song on a CD which is not the first, second, second to last or last one. It gloriously denies playing anything in the middle. Where, of course, the song was that I wanted to hear. Anyway, the car got me where I wanted, AND I got a parking lot close to the office. Well, parking is not allowed there from 8 to 6, but hey, it is only the “forbidden” and not the “strictly forbidden” sign, which means they will not tow me away. Now I am enjoying the good mood in the office – they all seem to be a little hungover – and take my time to blog, sip hot chocolate with espresso and slowly wake up. You’ll read me again today quite certainly. By the way, up on the flickr page there is a bunch of new old pictures from my trip to Salamanca, Spain in 2003. Have a look!

It’s Friday. Great news. Work is fun today, lot of interesting stuff on my desk, and nothing I have no clue about. Went to have dinner with my classmate Tatjana yesterday – a nice distraction apart from work-home-sleep-work-home-sleep…..

Christine seems to be still doing mighty fine in Chicago at GCD (click! ), they really get here involved over there – telco’s, client meetings, going to court, all the good stuff. I hate her for having a Blackberry there, that even hits me worse than her having half of a secretary and a single office on 33rd floor. Well, I’m a geek and I can’t help it.

Bad thing: It just started to pour like F* and I am to drive over to Münster tonight. Free car wash, though.

Good thing: Monday in a week I’ll be in Atlanta, seeing Christine again and hitting the road! Yeeeha!

Cheers Flo

take this advice: If you are German, never, never, never, never lose your driver’s license. It is so damn expensive! 65 EUR that is. If you want it sooner than in four weeks, add 24,50 EUR for express shipping. In my case, add 25 EUR for the taxi ride, as the office where you can get that done here in Hamburg is way out of the city. To complete the calculation, substract 1 hour and add incredible heat at noon. Now you pretty much know what my lunch break (that was not my lunch break) looked like today.

Apart from that, I am in a good mood today. My business trip yesterday was a full success – I heard my alarm, I was on time, delivery was on time, boss happy, floho in Frankfurt. So I stopped by at Jana’s place for a coffee, then we went to eat something. Right on time my sister dropped in from Steinheim (just a short ride in the subway), which was really nice because I would not have seen her before heading off to the States next week otherwise. I bought too many books. As always. came home at about midnight, tired but nearly relaxed.

Now you all are up to date – time to get some work done. See ya!

I think it is time for a good DVD on the road, at least I will have time to sleep, relax and reflect about this fantastic internship