Hopefully bye-bye!

Yesterday we got the last bit out of the apartment (now I only have to get rid of old cardboard boxes in the cellar. There are original boxes of things I don´t even own anymore!!!).

The concierge sent someone to rip down the wallpaper in the room. My dear brother came to help me get the job done in the corridor and kitchen (I rather helped him, certainly!! Thank you, man!).

Man... I had easy walls, but my brother had one that simply wouldn´t let go of paper. And the poor guy working in the room had four walls like that! Am I glad the concierge offered that help (and for free - gotta buy a thank-you-bottle of wine in a minute).

Gotta leave work early again to get the cellar done and clean the mess up. Meet the concierge and hand the keys over - and I bet that mother of the boy will fight because the floor doesn´t look like it´s new and whatever else she finds.
She wants an apartment brandnew, I suspect. For at best no money at all. Stupid woman!

I expect some hard time, but hopefully will be out of it by three o clock - and never come back.
Really sad, that woman gave it all a bad taste. I did like that apartment very much (apart from that stupid neighbor)...

And then I go back to the chaos... ;-)

Under a full moon

... did we move into the new apartment. Plan was Saturday night, but Friday my brother called me he wants to start - like right now!
I freed the fridge, washing machine and all the other stuff in the biggest hecticness. With just driving once we managed to get almost all furniture in the new apartment.

The TV, PC with table, balcony and armchair and still lots of stuff remained. And I have to be done ASAP - the concierge has to rip down the wall paper in the room before December. I am so tired!!!!

In thew apartment we can play billiard now:



Our first dinner - Baked Beans and Corned Beef - YUM :-) And I just love that red wall!



This is the view out of our bedroom - I really found a place to park the car :-)
Sure the red one it is :-)



A bedroom - how nice that is! How comfortable! The last 14 years I had to fold back my fouton every day. No more - just close the door! No more clothes hangimg in the hallway!

At the moment though it looks as if a bomb detonated in my room. That´ll still be a lot of work!
And no internet access yet either :-(

Starved

She weighed 7.4 kg, was five years old, her name was Lea-Sophie - and she lived in Schwerin. In Germany!

I still cannot believe it.
Normal would be some 20kg. The autopsy revealed she also had signs of massive assault and battery signs.

The 23-year old mother and the 26-year old father had dogs, well fed. Dirty, but well fed. And a baby-boy. He was removed and given to another family, luckily.

You might think all this is awful, and it is. Even more awful is: They lived in an apartment building and the neighbours claimed they hadn´t realized what was going on. Want more?
A neighbour found her ... no - saw her crying on the stairway. She was too weak to get up the stairs. The father (or mother, I can´t recall that article) came and dragged her upstairs violently.
The neighbour did nothing at all. But told this the newspaper.
She is an elderly woman. Who probably has had kids herself.

The social assistance office and the youth welfare office claimed they had not seen what was going on either.
Even more unbelievable: The youth welfare office was informed about a former case of neglectation.

Only two weeks ago they had to follow a trade on this.

And they didn´t see anything???

I don´t know what had happened to poor british Maddie.

Lea-Sophie is over it. Poor girl.

The news say, "youth welfare offices criticized".

Criticized???

In what kind of a world do we live in???

"Why", says the sign above. And I cannot answer this. Can you? Can anyone?


So far I found no article in english. Either you believe me or you read the german one here.
Here now is a shorter article in english from EuroNews.



"Again", says this sign. What´s wrong in Germany??? People kill their kids here.

She must have pleaded for food, water, I can not understand this.

Miss Landmine

I just stumbled over the site Miss Landmine 2008.
This project is to give those angolan women back some pride and to seek global awareness for the problem.

I went to see the canditates there. Most of them have kids and no jobs or partner. Many stumbled in the landmines not by working on the field but by fleeing from soldiers.

Am I thankful I can live this safe and rather rich life!

Freaky Wednesday

Woke up at 05:38 and thought, nooooo, only two minutes left! Had had a good night.
Went downstairs and thought, angrily, guys, stop dragging those darn ads under my windscreen wiper!!
Usually I would simply let go whilst driving, but this one looked like a note on a closer look (I parked under a lantern).

See doc above. Police department Brunswick. At 03:37 p.m. someone caused a damage at my car. What???
I quit a really crazy day at work at 02:45 and must´ve been home around 03:30 - that makes 7 minutes. I walked around the car - twice - and couldn´t see anything. Repeated that here at work - still dark, same result. Gotta go downstairs when it´s light.

Light... when I entered the office, I turned on the light switch - nothing. PC working (obvious). Had to crawl in the darkness under the unused desk beside me to free a small lamp. Kinda cozy here in my morning break!

On the way here I saw a motorbike. At speed 100 km/h - we have 0 °C!!!! I would freeze on that thing! I wanted to ask at the red light, but it was just a sec before it turned green again.

What a weird morning. I´m "curious" what the damage on the car is...

In apartment news: Still moving my stuff. How come there is so much stuff accumulated in only four years??? (Before that I was into flat sharing and had not much more than my one room)...
Saturday Hercules will come over with another strong guy to move all my bulky stuff - I have to make that clear today. I paid the gas to get here and they´ll get a big Pizza or whatever they like (well, in a reasonable range! ;-)...)
And then.
Then we live there.

Need to rip down the wall-paper on the last Thursday, `til then empty the old apartment.

This Thursday we hopefully have gas for heating and water in the new one (0 °C!!!! and something´s not working there!).

And then I will sleep, take a nap, whatever! And thank my helpers again!



BTW: I am to contact the police telephonically or personal with this document. How do I do that telephonically??? Is this a joke?

Addendum: It was a Crysler - a white Crysler, how lordly! From Peine, sure where else...
I´ll call them to say thanks for calling the police and all. My car is a company car and has to be in good condition.

Time runs

Pic "borrowed" from Knut´s blog.

Last week in the news they said Thomas Doerflein is no longer allowed to play with Knut - Knut is too dangerous now. He´s not even one year old!

Today we met my boss´s partner in the hardware store (he said, hey! another team member!" and I thought, hey, i just met my boss in another hardware store some weeks ago)...

Anyway... there was a little girl with him.
I know he has two kids, aged 8 plus. And a baby with his new girlfriend.

This was the baby!!! She is two and a half, can walk and talk!!!!

Man... when you don´t have kids, you don´t realize how time runs, really!!

I started calculating, and yep. True. This is the baby!

Bet next time she has a driving license!

Sleep over

All the years christmas was easy. I went to Ingo. Then to my family. In the night back to Ingo´s place, some 8 km away. No big deal.

I said to my brother, "darn it, how do I do it now?" - it´s some 70 km one way!

He said, "well, you can sleep in my old room."

I went, "nah. Since Ingo is here I cannot sleep alone anymore. I´d have nightmares."

Without much thinking he said, "no worries, I´ll sleep on the couch!"

Isn´t that the cutest thing in the world????

I certainly said, "and Alex (girlfriend) thinks we´re both freaks!"

Still I have no solution for the festive days...

The second name

of my brother...

We went to IKEA and bought some furniture for Ingo (what I wanted wasn´t available - again!). Ingo´s "Expedit" was flooded, he needed 2 new ones.

And man that stuff is not only bulky, but also partially really heavy!

We got it in the car, but then at home up the stairs was difficult.

The second one was the heavy one.

My brother said, "let´s let out the Hercules" and took off his coat.

I thought ???? He grabbed the part, dragged it on his back and went upstairs. Alone!!!!

Kitchen

So my bro and me put in the sink today - he is sewing with only one hand here! (I did the last bit so he could pick up the heavy middle-part and I needed both hands for sewing!):



The hole:



BTW - in this pic we really do look alike, I think. So why do people always ask my brother, "is that your new girlfriend?" ???

Noses, look at our noses...
We ARE brother and sister for sure!

Boy, did I suffer as a kid! "Pig", they called me or "outlet":-(. These days the nose makes me look younger, though :-)
Caused me troubles as well at age 18 on. Truth: Two years ago I was asked if I already have a driving license!!! :-)))

When we announced being ready - Ingo was home from work - we got some decoration. We kinda claimed the kitchen as ours in Ingo´s way (flag in wall):



Ingo isn´t on the pic cause, well... my brother truly earned being presented here ;-)

Another salute to little brothers here! :-)

Sox´s-season opened

... not the Red, the colored one, hehe ;-). Since yesterday to be honest:



Ingo´s Grandma made them. It all started some 12 years ago. We lived in the house with her and she finally wanted to welcome me to the family - by knitting a pair of her good socks.

And will you believe it - the wool wasn´t enough for a pair. She took some leftovers from another pair and made the heels and toes with that. She was rather embarrassed to give me such a "crap" pair.
I loved them.
Ingo too.

Now she collects leftovers, sits on the floor (aged 88!!!) to get the right amount of wool for making pairs and is so creative, everybody wants socks like that!

You can say, oh. look, Ingo has a pair just of this wool! I´ve got one with only this! This is from his father´s socks.. - fun!

It really took a long time to make her believe me I love those socks. You cannot buy them anywhere, no one in the world has those socks of mine!

She also adds that it´s hard work - but she says it with a smile :-)

17.5 °C in the apartment today - first time for the heating.

Apartment news: The girl who was interested as well didn´t call me. So I have to get in "fight" with that rich Mom of the poor guy who wants to get the apartment. Ack. Gonna call the concierge tomorrow.



A nasty day. Cold, rainy, grey.

I forced myself on the pushbike, direction gym.
Did some weight training and read a book on the push bike inside.

I´m fit - Ingo is asleep already. He does no "sport" (but made the slatted frame for our bed today!) - is it the "fresh" city-air that makes me fit, even in this weather - or the gym-sport, the mixture or is it me and him???

Horror!

I could not watch any horror movies for a long time. Now that Ingo is here, it´s different - I watched my first "horror" in a long time and had no bad dreams.

Ingo is watching "Supernatural" and this time I could freak out by just listening to him saying, "eeek, I get goosebumps here" or "owwww!", "eehhhhhh", "oh God!".

When someone says three times "Bloody Mary".... eeek - a woman appears in the mirror. Goosebumps! Not even the fact that Gilmore Girls´ Dean plays a role can make me watch!
Can someone understand me?

Just in time

... did Ingo change my car to winter-tyres - snowy rain this morning and in the news they just said last time winter was that early - and strong! - was in 1974!

I just so hope the snow doesn´t really come to this region or my home town - Ingo has to drive there every working day.
It´s so dangerous on the roads...

In apartment news: The mother called me today. She is interested in my apartment for her son. And she wants ME to remove the wall paper.
I took off a pic today and you cannot see any difference - no defect in my eyes on that wall!
My colleague said she once helped ripping off wall paper and it´s a lot of work...

In my contract I found I have to correct any defects, so I check with the concierge tomorrow.

Another young woman came to see the apartment today - I could handle it over to her as it is, giving her the laminate, storage stuff and the ventilator in the windowless bathroom for good.
Keep your fingers crossed she wants the apartment and the landlord accepts her...

Darn it, that arrogant mother said she suggested I ripp the wall-paper off "through the flower" when she was here. I replied, in that case she should have made herself absolutely clear! I bet the husband works for Volkswagen, so it is no matter of money - the richer you get, the more grasping you get as well, I guess.

11.11. 11:11

Eeek! We´re not in Cologne, are we?! In Cologne traditionally "the" carnival starts on Novemeber the 11th at 11:11 a.m. - and now Brunswick has a "Tanzmariechen" and a "medal" (pic above) as well - the whole humbug gets serious here, every year even more.

No, I will not join this tomorrow, no way. I never get the "jokes" and I hate to masquerade, always did. And I don´t get it why they do it at this time of the year?!

10 cm of new snow in the region my family lives. We went there today to

• clean out Ingo´s apartment for good (FINALLY!!! BYE, BYE dark ole "apartment"!)


• get winter-tyres on my car

And I wonder, is carnival also popular elsewhere?
You can read the article in german here.

The Wall

So. Today, 18 years ago the Berlin Wall fell.

I remember, next day at school Trabbis were everywhere, the smell was rather terrible.

People, so many people waving out of their cars or making the sign for victory.

Later that year our class went to visit the former DDR. Awful! The roads were in a very bad condition, as were the houses and everything.

Now everything is in a very good condition. Two of my colleagues are from "over there" and sometimes when they tell me about the "old" times I'm not sure if they are kidding.
I am thankful I grew up in "West Germany", or the BRD.

I wonder how these news were taken in other countries, were they mentioned at all? Do people assume we are really reunited?

Meme & stuff

At rizlablue´s blog I found this meme - a fun way to learn about history:

1) Go to Wikipedia

2) In the search box, type your birth month and day but not the year

3) List three events that happened on your birthday

4) List two important birthdays and one death

5) One holiday or observance (if any)

My birthday: January 19

Events

1883 - The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.

1915 - George Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.

1977 - Snow falls in Miami, Florida. This is the only time in the history of the city that snowfall has occurred. It also fell in the Bahamas.

Birthdays

1736 - James Watt, Scottish inventor (d. 1819)
1980 - Jenson Button, English Formula One driver

Deaths

1869 - Carl Reichenbach, German chemist and philosopher (b. 1788)

Holiday/observance

Confederate Heroes Day in Texas.


Stuff

Yesterday was so not effective. Both, my brother and me, were so darn tired and exhausted from the day before. we didn´t achieve much. The rack I wanted from IKEA wasn´t available. The town was so crowded, it took us ages to get there - for nothing.

We brought the unused laminate back to one hardware store and bought a sink and other small stuff in another. It was terrible. I had headaches nearly all day, we couldn´t concentrate.
And we had to stop working early since it was the last time this year we could go to the PTB for a guided tour.

I still am very tired and my eyes hurt.

Smallest in the world!

Scientists at the technical University in Braunschweig forged the smallest work-part in the world! The Nano-part is thousand times smaller than a grain of salt!!!

It works like in the Middle Ages - more or less ;-)
You find a hammer, an ambos and a work-part.
The ambos is a plate of silicon on which the work-part is put via a pin made out of wolfram. And certainly you need a microscope as well.

Small, very small - 1 nanometer is 1 part in a billion meter - unbelievable, is it?

You can read the article here (german).

Day off part I

After brunch my brother and me went to the new apartment yesterday and started renovating. Was a lot of fun and hard work.

Eeek, can you believe this??? The tenant before us had carpet over this:



The systems for laminate get better and better - after we understood how it works:



it didn´t take long and we had finished the bedroom!



(The curtain will be removed today!)

And, despite having lunch and dinner, a tour to the supermarket and to the hardware store, we even started - and finished!!! Ingo´s room!



So, today we only have to prepare the kitchen and then we can move in already!

At first I wanted to stay in this apartment 'til the very last day. But now I´m eager to move on.

Last Thursday my stupid neighbour drove me mad again. We sat in the kitchen, my brother at the window. I saw the neighbour on the access balcony again.

She wanted to look inside.
Ingo put on some special foil so that you can look out but not in - unless you come real close. Which she did. When her eyes where 1 cm apart from the window, my brother hit the window exactly there.
She bounced her head back, then hit with both hands against the window again and again and screamed she calls the police.
Sure, good thought. They can give her something to clean the mess up!

This will be no more soon!

So, now I´m waiting for another guy who wants to see the apartment, then my brother will be here and we go and make a kitchen!

Mumme - a whole mile

Last Sunday we went to join the Mumme-Meile (german). There was live-music with Radio 21, classic rock, and stuff around Mumme (german).

Mumme once was a strong beer that was exported all the way to the Caribbean in the Middle Ages - a local product! Now it comes without alcohol, just as a malt-extract.



You can mix it with beer or milk (we tried - don´t do that) and on Sunday we had baked ham with Mumme - So Yum!

30 years worth

What a morning! I took two days off to renovate the new apartment with my brother.

He can´t get up early and has an hours´ drive to get here, so guess what. I slept two hours longer than usual!
That was easy after not having real weekends for so long and with that nasty, cold, rainy weather!

I got up and found an e-mail from a fellow blogger calling my attention to ovarian cancer, pointing out indicators of that awful desease.
Luckily I detected none of them but when I went to the online news of my town, I was confronted with this:

The USA just today released a drug against breast cancer. The active ingredient, Epothilon, was detected and researched here in Braunschweig in a work of 30 years.

Bristol-Myers Squibb puts it under the name "Ixempra" on the market and the money for the licence goes back to here.
Hopefully next year the drug will be released in Europe.

Experts say the drug has great potential and might also help fighting down other forms of cancer.
Epothilon is a natural material. It is produced by Myxo-bacteria and keeps the cancer-cells from cell division, breaking down the growth.

Chemist Prof. Gerhard Hoefle and biologist Prof. Hans Reichenbach with their team detected Epothilon back in 1985!
There were heaps of hope, disappointments and backstrokes but it was sure worth it.

But somehow freaky... first that e-mail, then this news...
Yes - it was worth 30 years clinging on to that!
Though 30 years ago I was not a brunswick citizen I still feel proud on what people of this town are capable of.

You can read the full story in german here.


Oh. Guess what. I still got an hour to buy some breadrolls and make coffee!

Mom knows....

Last week some people came to see my old apartment. Amongst them a young man, first semester at uni.
He told me he plans to live in this apartment 3-4 times a week only and only momentarily, because he wants to move together with his girlfriend.
Fair enough for the girlfriend.

He asked me to review the apartment with his parents.

What??? Well, ok, no worries. Strange, but ok then.

Yesterday they all came - it was really unbelievable! Father and son were quiet.

The mother rushed through the kitchen, to the bathroom, to the main room.

I offered them all the shelves and storage racks that we put in there and said, since we have most things double, he can have the small oven as well.

The mother said after very, very shortly thinking about it, "my son doesn´t need an oven. The bed will stand here in the corner."

Yes. Didn´t we all just deeply HATE a quick Pizza as students? Leave alone Lasagna or something, eeek!

That poor boy...

And that was not all.

The double bowl sink goes out (why???). How old is the toilet? (I dunno!) And then they want to rip off all the wall paper (which is in a very good condition!) and man, for a one-room-apartment it is quite expensive, huh?
I had shown the boy my contract, he wrote it all down, but this woman checked with the landlord none the less (and got the same numbers).

I dunno. My parents always did fully trust me - also at those times where they were the ones who paid the rent for me!
My mother eventually came to see how I live, my father never cared.
How is this boy to become a grown-up???

I bet she sews him some curtains as well.

How old was she, mid-40s, I suppose.


Aww, well. But hopefully they get the apartment (the landlord wants to check on them - due to problems with students) - and then I need to pay no more rent for that one!

Movin...

Ahhh... the view out of my "old" kitchen... the current one - my first own one.


EEEEK.. the new one, OURS!



Pink with yellow- all around - what weirdos! That hurts my eyes!!!
Gotta do something! We painted it white on three sides - that´s not enough!



The result part one, YAY:

Our environment

Professor Kohler from our technical University in Brunswick was, together with others, just awarded with 500 000 euro, the highest endowed award of its kind in Europe for environmental achievements (german).
Together with his team he found a possibility to use carbon dioxide as a cooling for air-con in cars. The one that is used now (R134a) doesn´t destroy the ozone layer, but it is a strong greenhouse gas - 1400 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

He says he is happy that the german car industry wants to exchange the old cooling to this new one from 2011 on.

(Do you really need four years to get ready for serial use? What political influences are working against this?)

You can read the full story here (german).

White and black and oil sheiks

"This article (german) says we (Brunswick and the region) not only have the white gold (asparagus) but also crude oil, I didn´t know that.
Specialists from all over the world come here for schooling!

It´s not much - the concentration of oil in the rocks is at 2% - but it´s top quality and hence it´s profitable.
68 000 tons they got last year.

The gas that you get in the process was given to Volkswagen in former days. When Volkswagen was on holiday they had to burn the gas.
That was welcomed by pilots, the article says - they used the huge flame as orientation to not accidentally fly over former DDR!