My Country Shame on Thee

The main thing I’ve gained (well, the money’s a close second…) since moving over to Germany is actually a bit sad. What I’ve gained is a rather vivid understanding of how America has pretty much lost its way…

Now don’t get me wrong here – there is no other place that I would rather live than America; however I’ve been starting to think that the only reason for this is the language issue. You see, communication is extremely important and the only place that I feel comfortable with my communication skills is America – and that’s purely due to the fact that I was raised there. I do not have a firm enough grasp on any foreign language to be able to successfully express myself (and let’s face it – I’m not willing to put in the effort to change this). The result, of course, is that I need to live in the states. This doesn’t mean that I need to be happy with what America seems to be turning into and I believe it’s about time somebody started speaking up. “We the people” need to really take a good look at what’s going on…

I got a comment from Sherry on my How Not to Behave on Christmas post about drug testing that reminded me of one of our nation’s issues – as a nation, we’ve become way too willing to let societal norms be mandated by others. It seems that the individual has lost control of what is most important – his own life. I’m sure that many of you out there will disagree with me; however I really don’t care what somebody does on their own time as long as it doesn’t have a negative impact on others. And by “others” here I am referring to people unassociated with the action that this person has decided to partake in – the “innocents”.

It seems to me that way too many laws are being passed these days that are designed to limit an individual’s rights in an attempt to force that individual to “fly straight”. That’s great but shouldn’t it be up to the individual to discover his own flight path? I mean just because certain citizens believe that there are some practices that are considered unacceptable behavior doesn’t – at least to me – mean that all of these practices need to be outlawed. Perhaps certain aspects need to be reigned in (you can drink alcohol all you want, but driving under the influence is a punishable offense) but to completely outlaw a behavior just because some people are going to do stupid things is not what I would call “freedom”. In fact it is an excellent example of pure subjugation and living in “the land of the subjugable” doesn’t have quite the same enticement as living in “the land of the free”.

Now granted I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my life (and if you’ve been reading my blog this should be clearly evident); however I have always taken responsibility for any actions I have taken. I’ve been lucky enough (at least so far) to avoid any consequences that would ruin my life; however I have “rolled the dice” a few times and I am well aware that many of those dice rolls were imbecilic. The thing is that “freedom” gives me the option to take these chances – it leaves the decision up to me. If you want to live in a free society, you need to understand that it comes at a cost. I think the cost is that you need to be willing to allow others to decide for themselves how their lives should be lived. Sometimes, bad decisions are made – that’s just human nature…

I don’t know… It seems to me that what seems to be in limited supply these days is respect. Whenever a freedom is abolished it is because somebody took advantage of this freedom to disrespect others. The junkie that made the decision (and a “decision” is what it was) to abandon society in order to live out his life in some sort of chemically induced euphoria shows absolute disrespect to anybody that was relying on him to continue to be able to properly function in society. Is this the fault of whatever drug this individual has let himself become a slave to? Nope. The fault falls completely on the individual. As far as I know, no drug exists that is capable of auto-ingestion. Does the fact that some people are stupid enough to abuse these drugs mean that the drugs, themselves, should be outlawed? I believe not…

Okay, before I turn this post into an argument for drug legalization (that was just an example), let me get back to my main topics of freedom and the American image. For most Americans “America” and “Land of the Free” are synonymous. That’s what we’re taught in school and few of us ever even question the correlation. The question that one needs to now contemplate is – as long as we sit back and continue to watch our freedoms slowly get revoked – how long will it take for these terms to become unrelated? The rest of the world already seems to be taking notice of this and it really is doing quite a bit of damage to the American image on the global stage.

The saddest part is that this revocation of our rights has actually become political ammunition and for all the wrong reasons. I mean how the hell did homosexual marriage become an issue? I mean who cares? So a couple of guys decide to get married? Is this going to be the end of the world? Umm, nope. All it’s going to do is create one more family. Perhaps you don’t agree (based on your own subjective definition as to what actually constitutes a “family”), but should this stop them from having the freedom to get married? Oh well, I suppose they could always move to some other country that allows same-sex marriage (the Netherlands, perhaps…) or live in one of the states that allow it (Massachusetts or Canada – but I tease…); but if they happen to live in one of the other 49 states I guess they just don’t get that freedom.

And we, as Americans, should be completely ashamed of ourselves for what we have let air travel to, from and within the United States become. Although all the silly little rules that the TSA has forced people to live by has done very little (somewhere on the order of nothing) to help protect us (check this out…), they sure have weakened the image of us throughout the world. I mean we basically threw out the fourth amendment for nothing more than paranoia. I mean how are we supposed to be viewed as the “Land of the Free” when we are so quick to dismiss a portion of the Bill of Rights out of paranoia?

I’ll admit that I don’t have any simple solution for getting America, once again, focused on what’s really important – letting freedom ring (although impeaching Bush seems like a good start…). I hope, however, that this silly little blog entry has maybe gotten you to look at this from a different perspective. Who knows, maybe sometime in the future being an American might once again become something to be proud of whilst traveling abroad … we can only hope…

bis später,

Coriolis

How Not to Behave on Christmas

So, last Friday the company that I am currently contracted to here in Germany threw their annual Christmas (Weihnachten) party. I didn’t go. Turns out, I believe, that ended up being a good decision on my part. For one thing, the entire thing (I guess they had a band there) was done in German. As I am sure most of you are already aware, I do not speak (or understand) German. Yeah, I know, that’s nobody’s fault but my own – the fact remains that I am completely unable (well, “unwilling” at least) to comprehend things when they are delivered to me in Deutsch.

Also, I saved myself €20 by not attending. You see, the party is free to the full-time employees of this company; however, if we contractors wanted to attend, we needed to shell out €20 (€30 if you wanted to bring a guest). I actually asked Julie if she wanted to attend this party to get a bit of insight into the corporate world that she will soon enough be entering (Oh, by the way, congratulations are due for Julie as she has just recently been accepted to the University of Florida on a “full-ride” academic scholarship! Way to go, girl!) although she decided against it. That’s cool – saved me €30 since I decided not to attend myself – and I really doubt that we would have had very much fun. Corporate Christmas parties are always questionable on the amount of fun offered – usually they turn into just one more opportunity for the “pets” of the bosses to, once again, grab hold of a buttock and pucker up. Since kissing ass is something that I do not do, I usually need to find fun by other means and an open bar can become dangerous…

My first experience with this was back when I was still living at the Theta Tau house and working at Ticketmaster. We had a Christmas party; and, being that it was Ticketmaster (pretty much the only place that you could get tickets for any show in the southeast Michigan area), the party was held at the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit. Not only was it held there, but we (well Ticketmaster) had the entire venue to ourselves. The bar, unfortunately for me, was open – wide open – and I took advantage of it…

At the time, my drink of choice was a Tom Collins. I lost count of exactly how many Tom Collins I had that night, but I know it was a large number. How I know this is from the results. It was another night of, as Dave Attell puts it, “time traveling”. One minute I was sitting at a table drinking my Tom Collins and, what seemed at the time like one minute later, I was waking up in my bed back at the frat house. Exactly what happened between these two seemingly unrelated events was completely unknown to me. It wasn’t until I returned to work the following evening that the stories started coming out.

Turns out that I was the last person to leave the Fox Theater that evening. In fact, the staff of the theater must have noticed my car in the parking lot (after locking me in, I would guess) and needed to head back in to find me. The worst part about it all was that I was allowed to drive home. Luckily for me, the Fox Theater is actually rather close to the Theta Tau house and I was somehow able to make it home in one piece. My car had a new, and very large, dent (well, if you could actually call the body being so bent out of shape that the driver-side door couldn’t be opened a “dent”) right between the front left tire and driver-side door. How that happened is still a mystery; however nobody’s come “looking for me” so I’m thinking that I somehow did it on my own…

This, my friends, is not the way to behave – the fact that it was at a corporate Christmas party just makes it that much worse. Of course this was just a computer operator’s job at Ticketmaster, so I really wasn’t too worried about any negative repercussions. When I was working for Avant!, however, I should have been somewhat more concerned…

The Avant! Christmas party (at least for the Colorado employees) was held down in Colorado Springs. Now Colorado Springs is a bit of a drive from Broomfield (where I was living at the time) – about 2 hours or so… It was decided that I would head down there with my buddy Doug (who was working in sales for Avant!). He picked me up in the “Dad Van” and we (Doug, his family and I) headed down to the Springs for the party. Since it was scheduled to be an evening party, we all got ourselves hotel rooms … you know – to put off the drive back until the next day. After checking into our rooms, we headed to this bar/restaurant (I have no idea what the name was…) where the party was scheduled to be. Once again – open bar…

I really don’t remember very much of that evening; however, sufficed to say, I once again awoke in my hotel bed with absolutely no knowledge of how I had gotten there. This time, however, my wallet was nowhere to be found. So … not only was I waking up with confusion and a serious hang over, I also suddenly had a mystery to solve – I needed to find out where my wallet ended up. Unfortunately I was unable to solve this mystery before we needed to start heading home; so I boarded the “Dad Van” with Doug and his family and traveled back to Broomfield … sans wallet.

Luckily for me, I received a phone call later that evening from this club down in Colorado Springs. They had my wallet. After a short (2 hour) drive back down to the Springs, I was able to retrieve my wallet (with everything in it, amazingly…) and repeat the drive back home. Talk about a long day…

Well people, I guess the reason that I am writing up these stories is really nothing more than a bit of an exhortation for everybody to, unlike me, take care this holiday season. If you’re heading to a Christmas party this year (perhaps for work) and are planning on doing a little drinking, be careful. I got lucky on both of the incidents mentioned above; however things, very easily, could have ended much worse – it’s amazing I haven’t killed myself (or even worse – somebody else) yet. If I end up being stupid enough to continue doing such careless things, I’m pretty sure that I will. Lives can very easily be destroyed at any moment – it’s up to us to make sure that we limit this possibility as much as we can. So please take heed this holiday season and remember that you take sole responsibility for your actions. Think before you do and don’t do what I did… Besides, experiences are just so much more rewarding when you actually remember them.

bis später,

Coriolis

Bush-league

I’ve been thinking lately about the complete and utter failure that is the George “Dubya” Bush presidency. These thoughts are both disturbing and down-right frightening. I mean how on Earth did this waste of a human successfully “win” the presidency for the last six years? Six years is a long time. Shouldn’t the checks and balances inherent in the American government have ousted this guy years ago? Something’s wrong with the system and I really think we need to fix it ASAP!

Now granted, I will be the first to admit that this blog posting is being written completely from information that I, personally, believe to be true. In other words, I will not be doing any (well, maybe a little…) research to support my opinions. I’m just going to sum up the situation from the point of view of your typical American, me. My opinions are based on what little research I have done in the past as well as the endless “news” feeds that are constantly being shoved down our throats. The only difference with this post is that I am going to tell the world exactly how I have processed this information. I’ll leave it up to you to decide on whether or not any of my points are valid…

As everyone already knows, this fiasco started back in 2000 when Dubya, a man whose life could be described as nothing more than a string of failures, was somehow able to win the presidential election. You all remember that time, right? The election was decided by one state, Florida which just happened to have his brother as governor and Katherine Harris as Secretary of State. I’m not going to re-hash all the details of that mess; however I believe that Bush and his cronies did successfully manage to steal that election. Were crimes committed? Probably. Will anybody ever need to pay for these crimes? Other than being forced to live with themselves (which, I realize, won’t be too hard for these people), probably not.

Okay, so Dubya made it into the Oval Office. Suddenly the point of whether or not he should rightfully be there became moot. For some reason the American public just accepted the fact that Georgey was our new president. Sure, there were many (mainly the Democrats) that weren’t happy about this fact; however it was a fact. Oh well, elections don’t always turn out the way you were hoping. They’re supposed to turn out in favor of the majority; however the 2000 election is a clear demonstration that this is not always the case. It seems blatantly obvious to me now that qualifications aren’t nearly as important as connections (“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” – so very true…) – most notably in the world of politics. And isn’t that world where we need qualified individuals the most?

No problem though – the way our government is set up is supposed to guarantee that, even if something like this happens, it won’t be the end of the world. The various government branches are designed to work as a rather elaborate system of “checks and balances” that ensures democracy. Having the position of president occupied by “the wrong guy” doesn’t really change much. It might make the US look a bit worse to many foreign countries (having a baboon as our main spokesman); however the legislative and judicial branches will keep this baboon in check. At least that’s the way things are supposed to work…

Everything changed on September 11, 2001. Our country was under attack. There wasn’t a foreign country trying to invade or anything – just a rather well organized group of religious extremists. After it had been determined that it was al-Qaeda who was responsible for the attacks, Dubya and his cronies did the right thing and, with the full support of the United Nations, went after Osama bin Laden (the mastermind behind the attacks). Afghanistan was invaded and the al-Qaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan was destroyed. Bin Laden, however, got away. Why did this happen? Because the Dubya crew decided that they would use this opportunity to fabricate a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Why? So that most of the troops that were deployed to Afghanistan could be pulled out and used for our next war – in Iraq.

The connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda was no more than a fabrication - a fabrication created by the Dubya crew in an effort to intentionally fool the American population (who were being scared to death by the media at the time) into actually supporting the plan to invade Iraq. Let me be clear on this – George W. Bush and his advisors intentionally lied to the American people in order to invade Iraq! Not only is this unethical, I believe that it is illegal. Luckily for us we had the United Nations to deal with before we actually went and did something completely unheard of throughout history – invade a country that posed no threat to America.

This, of course, didn’t stop the Dubya machine from somehow (and this still confuses me) getting congress to actually give George the power to declare war. It wasn’t long after that when Georgey-boy did just that – he completely ignored the United Nations and sent American soldiers into Iraq. He sent young American volunteers into Iraq on completely fabricated reasoning. More of these volunteers have died in Iraq than the number of innocents killed on September 11, 2001. Congratulations, George … you have successfully killed more Americans than Osama. That should make you sleep better…

Here’s where the almost surreal aspect of what we are currently experiencing comes into play. Yeah, I know that the Democrats did finally hit the Dubya machine a bit by taking congress; however I still remember what the Republicans were spouting prior to the election – the whole “we need to stay the course and not cut and run” bullshit. Don’t they realize that, if we had “stayed the course” in Afghanistan, things could look a lot better now? Maybe we would have actually captured Osama bin Laden (the main person actually responsible for the attacks on America) and at least brought some closure to the thousands of families devastated by the 9-11 attacks. Unfortunately, however, Bush decided to abandon Afghanistan (cut and run) and start a war with Iraq. Why? Because he had a personal bone to pick with Saddam Hussein. You see Saddam had threatened to kill George Bush Sr. and Dubya really wanted to show the world that “You don’t mess with Texas!”

Well George, I honestly don’t know how you can live with yourself. Not only has your personal vendetta greatly weakened the image of the US throughout the world; it has caused more US (the country that you are supposed to be protecting) deaths than the terrorist act that you deliberately used to get your war started (not to mention the astounding number of innocent Iraqis that have been killed). Very good, Dubya – bravo… If your religious beliefs end up being correct, you should have plenty of stories to share with Satan after you die and end up in Hell.

The saddest part about all this is what Curious George and his associates have done to the American image. As most of you are already aware (well, the one’s that have been reading my blog), I am currently living in Germany. This has given me a first-hand view of what foreigners (well, Europeans, at least) now think of the United States and it’s not good. The worst part about it is that I agree with them. I’m beginning to wonder if America’s image has been soiled to the point that it may never be cleaned again.

Where do we go from here? I don’t know … but it seems to me that impeaching Bush would be a good start. And, for god’s sake, get our soldiers out of Iraq – we should have never sent them there to begin with…

bis später,

Coriolis

'Tis the Season!

Well, here it is once again – the holiday season! Christmas! The portion of the year that is designed for happiness. It can become stressful for some (okay, pretty much everyone) but we need to be careful not to let these stresses take over and ruin this opportunity. It is my belief that the reason for the season is to let everyone take a break from the everyday chaos that is life and get together with friends and family in an effort to keep the insanity figures from getting a bit out of control. The smart people will understand this and heed the advice. The ignorant will get lost in the stresses and turn this time into no more than another choir.

Of course the retail sector is aware of the season – I think they start paying close attention to it earlier and earlier each year. Yeah, the day after Thanksgiving is the official start to the number crunching; however I think that the non-official beginning for the Christmas shopping season starts a bit earlier – somewhere around the 4th of July it seems… The thing that one must remember is this: Christmas is not about the amount of money that one spends; it’s about getting the chance to spend time with those you actually want to spend time with. Buy these people gifts if you want; however the time spent with them is completely free and a hell of a lot more rewarding than a new tie or a pair of socks.

You see, Christmas is the grand daddy of ‘em all. It’s the holiday that trumps all other holidays. (No offense to Chanukah, Kwanzaa or even Festivus but I consider these to be no more than Christmas renamed…) Whatever you call this part of the year, the meaning remains the same – happiness and cheer! After all, I am an atheist and even I understand the need for this time. Do I believe that, a couple thousand years ago, a child was born (to a virgin, none the less) that was the one and only son of god? Hell no! Many do, but I don’t. Does this change the fact that every year, around this time, I am presented with the perfect opportunity to head back home for a bit to meet up with people that I am always happy to see? No! And so far I have always taken advantage of the opportunity and taken that trip back to my hometown. I’m sure that I would survive if, for some unknown reason, I was unable to head home for the holidays; however my heart would be there even if my physical body wasn’t.

As I mentioned in my Now What? blog post, I am once again heading home for the holidays. I’ve made it home before from Florida (once) and from Colorado (many many times) but those trips were simple – a few hours on a plane. It’s a bit different from Germany – a much longer trip and quite a bit more expensive – but the trip will be made. It would be stupid of me not to go. I’m looking very forward to a couple weeks where my life is once again my own. It’ll give me a chance to relax a bit and get back in touch with people who have “been there” throughout my life. These are the important people and time spent with them is absolutely priceless.

It’s actually very interesting being in Germany at this time of the year. Not to be too hard on us Americans, but the Europeans seem to have a better fundamental understanding of the holiday season. The Christmas markets have been erected and opened in all of the major cities (there’s a rather interesting one in Braunschweig) and the crowds have been flocking. People are gathering, glühwein is flowing and sweets and trinkets are being bought and sold. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. Perhaps I am not seeing it, but the hectic shopping frenzy that is Christmas in America appears to be toned down quite a bit over here. Granted I might get a different opinion if I were to actually participate in the Christmas shopping here; however I am definitely not feeling the pressure to go out and spend money that seems to be ever-present in the states at this time. Who knows, maybe not knowing the language is an advantage here…?

I will say this though – I now understand the existence of Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland (the “World’s Largest Christmas Store”) up in Frankenmuth, Michigan. I always wondered why such a large Christmas themed store was associated with a city whose motto is “Michigan’s Little Bavaria”. Granted I am actually living in Lower Saxony here in Braunschweig; but if Bavaria is anything like Lower Saxony then I completely understand it. Christmas is a big thing over here in Germany… (Bronner’s, by the way, is a well known place – I remember seeing a billboard for it on I-75 in Florida. It said something like “1300 miles ahead”…)

Anyway, here’s to you on this Christmas season! Try to enjoy your time and don’t let the little hassles become more important than the true meaning of the season. Remember that, although the commercials will be telling you otherwise, it’s not the actual gift that matters – it really is the thought that counts. Remember that when you receive a “bad” gift from someone. Be happy in receiving the gift – for the gift that you are actually receiving is the comfort that comes from knowing that the person giving you the gift was thinking about you. And really, could you ask for anything more?

bis später,

Coriolis

Kidnapped

Okay, time to put on the brakes. What am I doing??? This blog is supposed to be a “happy place” and here I go and start turning it into some kind of personal shrine to my pathetic little miseries… To hell with that! Let’s get back to the more fun and far less depressing blog posts. I remember this one time during my senior year in college…

I was standing on the corner of I-94 and Cass Avenue waiting for my little brother, Woodstock, to pick me up and drive me home to the frat house. I had just finished work at Wayne State’s CARS (Contracts and Related Services) department and didn’t feel like walking back to the house so I figured I would take advantage of my position in the fraternity and call up a pledge to pick my lazy ass up. Woodstock (my “little brother” of the pledge class) was who I reached and I was now waiting for him to pick me up.

A little background here: I had now been a full brother in the Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity for three to four years and had been living in the frat house for pretty much all of that time. Living at the house gave me a bit more visibility in the fraternity and I quickly obtained a reputation as a perfect choice for “pledge master”. I guess I was just good at giving the pledges shit… I was, however, also good at fulfilling the duties associated with being pledge master and believe (if I remember correctly) that I was given the title no fewer than three semesters during my time at the house. I was, once again, pledge master during the time that this story was occurring. Woodstock was part of the pledge class and he was lucky enough to have me designated as his “big brother”.

You see, the responsibility of a big brother is to be a kind of personal helper for his little brother throughout the pledge period. It can become a stressful experience and it’s nice to know that at least one of the brothers will be there to help a pledge when really needed. Woodstock was very lucky in that his big brother – me – was also his pledge master. It was a bit strange for me though as I was responsible for both pushing him to the breaking point (as pledge master) as well as picking him up when he fell (as big brother).

Woodstock picked me up from work and started heading back toward the house. We went driving down Cass Avenue heading toward Alexandrine Avenue – the frat house was located a couple blocks from Cass on Alexandrine. The funny thing was that, for some reason, Woodstock didn’t hang a right on Alexandrine as I was expecting; instead he continued to drive down Cass. It was then that I started to realize that we weren’t heading back to the house – I was once again being kidnapped!

Kidnapping, as it turns out, was just one of those things that was part of pledging Theta Tau. There were even rules (completely unwritten, but known by all) about kidnapping and they were pretty easy to understand: A pledge could kidnap a brother as long as the brother was alone and no other brother witnessed the kidnapping. A brother could kidnap a pledge pretty much whenever he wanted and nothing could be done to stop it other than the pledge somehow getting away. Once kidnapped, the brother (or pledge, depending on who was kidnapping who) would be left at some undisclosed location with enough money to make a phone call to the house and a six-pack of beer. The money was so that the kidnapped could call for a pick-up and the beer was for something to do while waiting for the ride. It was an interesting concept and actually wasn’t done very often – we were college students and free time was often spent studying; however kidnapping the pledge master was a great way for the pledges to assert themselves and administer some payback. I, being the pledge master time and time again, was kidnapped several times. I looked on it as a good thing – it showed that my pledges were adjusting to the frat life mentality rather well…

I looked over at Woodstock and asked where he was taking me. I then informed him that I had a test (I think it was a differential equations test but I’m not really sure … might have been physics…) the next morning and that I needed to get home to study a bit. Unfortunately, having something to do doesn’t mean much after you have been successfully kidnapped. Woodstock just told me to relax. He said that all I needed to do was cooperate (basically not try to escape) and that I would be in control over when I got dropped off. Where I got dropped off was another story – I had no control over that. I decided to cooperate. I really had no other choice…

It was then that Woodstock made a bee-line for the Windsor tunnel. He drove me to Canada! If you are not familiar with the geography around the Detroit area, Canada is right across the river. In fact, if you need a decent trivia question for sometime in the future you could always ask, “If you travel due south from Detroit, what is the first foreign country that you will encounter?” The answer, actually, is Canada.

After arriving in Windsor, Canada, it became clear to me that Woodstock was just playing this kidnapping by ear. He had no plan. He was just making it up as he went along and decided to stop in at this 7-11 type shop (I forget what the name of the convenience stores in Windsor are…). He then entered the shop and returned with a Super Big Gulp of Coke, a fifth of Southern Comfort and a Penthouse magazine. He proceeded to dump out almost all of the Coke and filled the Super Big Gulp cup with the Southern Comfort. He handed the drink to me and said that I would be dropped off as soon as I had finished drinking it. The Penthouse was for my entertainment – thoughtful, huh? I started drinking the Southern Comfort – I needed to get home…

Okay, so I really don’t remember exactly what time it was – this was something like 15 years ago – however I do know that it was late … late enough for the Windsor Airport to be closed. How I know this is because that was actually where we ended up. After I had finished drinking the Super Big Gulp of Southern Comfort, Woodstock dropped me off at a bench outside the (then closed) Windsor Airport. He walked me to a pay phone and made sure that I was able to get a ride and then left me there to fend for myself. There I was, drunk as shit, sitting on a bench outside the Windsor Airport with my Penthouse magazine waiting for Ox to arrive and take me back to the frat house.

The only things that I remember prior to blacking out are having a little discussion with a security guard that came out to see what I was doing and jumping in Ox’s truck after he finally arrived. The next clear memory that I have was waking up, about a half hour before my test was scheduled, in the loft of my room. (This seems to be a common occurrence in my stories – I’m out drinking alcohol somewhere and I inevitably "time travel" a bit and wake up in my bed. Maybe the lack of memory is what makes these stories so memorable for me…?) I quickly got out of bed, threw on some clean clothes and rushed to the university for my exam. I made it in time, but it really didn’t matter – I guess it goes without saying that I didn’t do very well on the test…

I then returned back to the frat house and cleaned the bathroom. Somebody (I’m assuming it was me) had made a mess in there the previous night and puke was pretty much everywhere! I guess slamming down a Super Big Gulp of Southern Comfort will do that to a guy… No big deal – I took responsibility and cleaned it up…

That was living at the frat house. All in all it was a good thing – rather than getting burned out with nothing but studying, we had our little amusing experiences that not only gave us interesting memories but also kept us grounded. Sure, I suppose you could argue about the stupidity of some of these experiences; however we always did our best to make sure that nobody got hurt. For instance, Woodstock made sure that a ride was coming before he left me alone. I suppose that something bad could have happened after he left and before Ox arrived, but that’s just the way life is – nothing is ever guaranteed. Sometimes it helps to be forced into an uncomfortable situation at times just to discover how you are going to cope … you might actually surprise yourself…

bis später,

Coriolis

Now What?

I headed back to Amsterdam over the weekend. Unlike my previous trips (Trip 1 [A][B][C][D], Trip 2 [A][B][C], Trip 3 [A][B][C]), I decided not to visit with any prostitutes. You read that right – I did not purchase any sex. I was most definitely planning to – even brought the Viagra with me – but the way things turned out, I didn’t… I’ve come to realize that sex for the sake of sex just isn’t much fun (at least not for me, anymore) and actually paying somebody for the opportunity to not have any fun with them is asinine.

Not to mention that the whole “red light district” scene is getting old. Yeah, it was interesting when it was all new to me; however I’ve now spent many many hours in Amsterdam’s red light district and can now see what it really is – completely from first-hand experience, mind you... The best way that I can describe it would be to call it an adult-oriented Disney Land. There are plenty shows to see (sex shows, mainly), rides to ride (prostitutes) and foods to eat. The thing is that Disney Land even stops being fun if you go there too often.

So what, you might be wondering, was I doing in Amsterdam then? Well, that’s a darn good question. I really don’t know… I was pretty much there because “that’s where I go” every month or so. As I’m sure I’ve already mentioned, this “traveling by myself” thing isn’t working very well for me – I usually end up wasting way too much money and have little to no actual fun. I always figured that Amsterdam was the exception in that it was a place that I could pretty much guarantee myself some fun whether I’m traveling with someone or, as is usually the case, alone. I’m now beginning to wonder if I can even remember what “fun” is…

I did create a video while I was there. It’s nothing fancy or anything – just me chatting with myself and the camera whilst sitting in my hotel room a couple hours after eating a box of Philosopher Stones (a.k.a. Truffles – a shroom variety). Maybe I’ll post this thing somewhere and share it with you – with today’s technology it shouldn’t be too hard – however I really don’t know how interested people would be in seeing it. I mean, to sum it up, it’s really nothing more than me beating myself up about being the loser that I am.

Here it is:


So I guess that’s why I was in Amsterdam over the weekend – to make a video of myself emotionally beating myself up. That can’t be healthy… I don’t know – have I lost the ability to enjoy life? It seems to me that I’ve run out of things to look forward to. I’m looking forward to heading home for the holidays but then what? I’ll be returning back to Germany to finish my work and after the contract’s done heading back to Colorado to resume my “life as normal”… My life has turned into nothing more than an endless series of nothing. I exist for the sure purpose of existing…

Oh well, I really don’t have much else to say right now. Maybe I’ll head home this evening and start working on converting the video into a format that’s easier to post. Yeah … at least that’ll give me something to do… now done...

bis später,

Coriolis

The World's Oldest Profession

My buddy, Todd, sent me a rather interesting article from the Associated Press explaining that Amsterdam city officials are going to be shutting down about one third of the prostitution “windows” in the famous red light district. The new measure designed to “revoke brothels’ licenses when it suspects operators have used them for money laundering or other illegal financial activity” goes into effect on the 1st of January. (For anyone interested in reading the article, it can be found here…)

Something tells me that this move is going to be completely misconstrued by the morally righteous out there. The shutdown is actually not a condemnation of prostitution in general; rather it is an attempt to battle the illegal financial activities that the prostitution industry is currently teeming with. The goal is laudable; however I worry a bit about the negative implications that this is going to be placing on an industry that many believe shouldn’t even exist. I do, however, think that “the world’s oldest profession” will survive. Who knows? Maybe this is a step in the right direction? Perhaps if all of the illegal activities associated with prostitution are controlled more thoroughly, prostitution might be able to become a more reputable industry.

The thing is that (apart from the rather large crowd of – usually religious – naysayers out there) I think any educated person can easily understand the benefits that prostitution actually provides to a society. It gives men a sexual outlet to utilize rather than forcing these same men to find their own way of obtaining sex – seems to me that this should have a positive impact on rape and other sexually related crimes. Other benefits of legalized prostitution are currently being stressed by the Croation People’s Party. They believe it would cut the spreading of sexual diseases by imposing better controls. Prostitutes would have to report to the authorities to get employee status, social security and health care. They would also be required to get tested for venereal diseases on a regular basis. This would give the prostitutes more incentive to practice safe sex as catching a disease could very well eliminate their source of income.

Unfortunately this issue is really only arguable outside of the United States (the “land of the free” … indeed…) as the US government has already made it very clear that prostitution, itself will always be a crime. (Well, except for Nevada … and why, exactly is it legal in Nevada? I need to look into that a bit…) In fact, back in May of this year, Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the House subcommittee on global human rights, urged Germany to re-criminalize prostitution (prostitution was legalized there in 2001) and suggested that the nation should be reclassified as an “egregious violator” of human trafficking. Interestingly enough, the 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report gave Germany its highest overall rating for compliance on efforts to stop trafficking. Is it possible that Mr. Smith is using something other than facts in his recommendations? Perhaps he feels that his morals are so pristine that he is compelled to forcefully impose these morals on, not only his actual constituents, but foreign countries as well…? Once again, the arrogance of the US government shows its ugly face…

I’m interested in hearing what your thoughts are on these issues.

bis später,

Coriolis

Grammar 101

Since I’ve decided to write this blog I’ve been noticing something rather interesting about the “blogosphere” in general. It seems to me that the quality of writing in a blog has absolutely nothing to do with its popularity … in fact it appears as though there might even be an inverse relationship between quality and popularity. This makes no sense to me. I mean why are so many people reading and responding to blogs that appear to be written by third graders? Is this the educational level that the majority of our population can relate to? I hope not … that’s not saying much about modern society…

Granted the small (almost non-existent) amount of comments I receive on my blog is what started my interest in this. It makes me wonder if anything that I am posting is even worth commenting on. Maybe I need to shorten my stories a bit and pander to the short attention span syndrome that modern society appears to be going through…? That, however, just doesn’t seem right to me. No … I’m going to continue writing complete and detailed stories – that’s just my style, I guess. I suppose I should just be happy that anybody’s even reading this stuff. This is mainly just a way that I can get the same story out to several interested people without having to re-hash the story again and again upon re-connecting with friends at different times. I kind of thought that some of these stories might be interesting enough for the general public to read but I guess reading about the silly adventures of a person that you don’t know isn’t very interesting…

The other thing that is now becoming very clear to me is that old saying about leading a horse to water – drinking is a decision that the horse needs to make on its own. I’ve informed pretty much all of my friends about this blog but usually discover that the blog has not been read by these friends when I actually am able to speak with them. This, of course, leads to the exact situation that I am trying to minimize with this blog and the stories need to be re-iterated verbally. I suppose this really isn’t that big of a deal. If all of my friends have read the blogs then that would merely limit the amount of new stores that I am able to tell – limiting my conversation options rather greatly. Ah, but this actually doesn’t worry me much as there is always a myriad of details left out of any story and these details can be discussed with people that read the blog. Not to mention that the number of stories that I haven’t yet written about is rather immense – things, in general, are always happening…

For instance, Anna (you remember Anna, right? – the one from Club Love in Athens…) is once again making a bit of a presence in my life. There was about a one month period where we basically stopped communicating and I just kind of figured that that was the end of that. I mean, after all, we knew each other for a grand total of maybe 10 hours over the period of two days. Is this enough time for two people to actually build a lasting relationship? The realist in me says “no” however there’s that hopeless romantic in me that screams “maybe”… just think of what a great “how we met” story that would be…

It was about a week ago when I received an SMS from Anna saying that she had been going through a really “fuck top” (you need to remember that she’s Russian and I think this is supposed to read “fucked up”) period in her life and that she was sorry for the long period of non-communication. I apparently made some kind of impact since she did get back in touch with me. We’ve been in contact since and she wants me to head down to Athens to visit her – she’s saying that Christmas is coming and that a visit from me would be the best present. Who knows? Maybe I will take a little trip… I could always fly down there for a night on the 16th of December, but I need to make sure that Anna can get the 16th and 17th off from work – I’m not about to head back down there and pay the outrageous prices required to be able to speak with her at her work… I’ll be calling her shortly to see what she thinks about this idea.

Now we get to experience one of the idiosyncrasies of written communication – time shifting… You see, quite a bit has happened since I wrote those paragraphs above – I headed back to the STD clinic to get my HIV test results (negative, thank god…), got myself a Döner Dürüm for lunch and called Anna. I actually had a rather interesting chat with Anna that changes things a little bit – she’s going to be letting me know tomorrow whether she might be able to leave Greece for a couple days around the holidays and head on up to Germany to spend some time with me. That would be cool! Unfortunately, for this to happen, the Greek government is going to have to give a guarantee that Anna can not only leave Greece for a couple of days but also be able to return afterwards. From my limited experience with Greek people, in general, I really don’t see this happening … all I can do is hope… Heck, I think that Anna actually taking the time and expense required to fly to Germany would put to rest most of the concerns that some of my friends have about Anna just playing me for monetary gain. I’m sure I’ll be letting you guys know what happens with this…

bis später,

Coriolis

A Bullet Dodged

It was back sometime between the years of 1997 and 1998 (I think…) when I once again headed over to the Pump House. The Pump House is this bar/brewery located in Longmont, Colorado where I used to spend quite a bit of time. Scott and I would basically hang out there pretty much every night playing NTN (National Trivia Network) and just wasting away the hours (neither of us had much of a social life…). It was at least something to do…

Tonight, however, was different. It was one of the bartender’s birthdays – one of the female bartender’s birthdays. Which one? I don’t remember … I never was very good with names… All I knew was that one of them was having a birthday and Scott and I were invited. Although Scott never actually showed up, I did – a decision I would later regret…

As I recall, the evening started off innocently enough – I was sitting at the bar, drinking my drink of choice at the time (Manhattans – on the rocks) and playing a bit of NTN. There was a bit more energy in the place due to the birthday, but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. I figured this night was going to be pretty much another in a never ending line of boring nights being wasted away at the Pump House. The elevated energy level caused me to drink a bit more than usual and I think I had somewhere on the order of five drinks prior to being informed that the party was moving down to this other bar (I believe it was called the White Buffalo or something close to that. It’s been shut down since then and I think it may have even been converted into a bank now…). This should have been my opportunity to make a graceful exit and head home; but no … I headed down to the new bar along with the party.

The only thing I remember about the second place was sitting down with the large crowd from the party (oh yeah, and since Scott never showed up I think I only knew like a few of the people there … and I didn’t know any of them very well…) and ordering some more Manhattans. The next thing I remember was waking up. Waking up wasn’t very shocking; however where I found myself upon waking up brought a little shock to me – I was in a hospital bed!

Okay, so it’s not like the first time in my life that I unexpectedly awoke in a hospital bed; although I really must say that repetition doesn’t make the ordeal any easier to deal with. The worst part about this time was that I was still completely sane – I had a hell of a hangover and the catheter that I was unwittingly fitted with was a bit of a shock; however I was still sane. I needed to get some answers… Why am I lying in a hospital bed? What, exactly, happened last night? Where’s my car and how many pieces is it in? I needed to get answers to many questions such as these and when the nurses came in to release me I tried asking them. Unfortunately they were very little help – all they knew is that I arrived the night before in an ambulance passed out from the alcohol. What actually happened remained a mystery…

I was actually provided a ride home by a police officer. On the way home he was asking me how I got home the night before and I honestly couldn’t tell him. I don’t know if he was trying to get a confession on drunk driving out of me or something; all I knew was that I couldn’t provide him with any answers that I, myself, wasn’t aware of. He dropped me off near my apartment and left me. I then walked up the stairs to my apartment where I noticed a large puddle of what appeared to be puke on the stairway outside my apartment door. Hmm, this was interesting … why did I puke outside my apartment? Oh well, I needed to get some sleep. I actually had a chapter installation for my fraternity to get to in a few hours and if I didn’t get at least a little sleep, I figured that I wouldn’t be in near good enough shape. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys. Funny thing was that the only keys I had in my pocket where my car keys…

I have this valet keychain thing where I can clip my car keys on my keychain easily and remove them just as easily (for valet parking convenience – useless as it is…). The way that I used this feature was to be able to check my mailbox at the apartment without having to turn off my vehicle – I would just detach the other keys from the car keys, leave the car running whilst I checked my mail and return to the car and reattach the other keys to the car keys still in the ignition. It was a good system; however it apparently wasn’t fool-proof. I was now somehow stuck with only my car keys and no way to get into my apartment. I guess that somewhat explains the puke puddle located on the outside of my apartment…

Okay, so I don’t have my apartment keys. I do, however, have my car keys. Maybe the other keys where left at the hospital? I walked back down the stairs and headed back to my parking spot to see if my car was there. Sure enough, sitting in its usual spot in the carport was my Z-28. It looked to be fine although the headlights appeared to have been left on. Didn’t matter – I needed to get back to the hospital and find my other keys. The bad thing was that I was still rather drunk from the night before as well as extremely tired. This didn’t stop me as I climbed into the car, attempted (unsuccessfully) to start it three times and then immediately passed out. I came to a bit later and repeated trying to start my car with the same results – no ignition followed by my passing out again. I think I did this something like three times before I noticed that there was something on the floor. Whilst shuffling my feet to once again try and start the car the sound of keys jingling was clearly audible. There, sitting on the floor of my car where my other keys!

Okay, so apparently I did actually drive home the night before. Not only that, but I must have stopped to check my mail, detached my car keys from the others then got out to check the mailbox. The issue arose when I reentered the car and apparently dropped my keys on the floor whilst I was attempting to reattach them to the car keys! Cool, one mystery solved … time to get some sleep. I headed back to my apartment and got a few hours of sleep before heading to the chapter installation… A bit later I was able to get a jump for my car and made it to the chapter installation successfully.

The bottom line to this whole story is that this was one time in my life where I actually got extremely lucky. The fact that I actually did drive myself home that night (a fact that I later validated with another that was at the party) makes me very mad at myself. I mean that, my friends, is a realization of my hypocrisy! I mean, as far as I’m concerned, there really isn’t much stupider than drunk driving and here I am finding out that that was exactly what I had done! I’m lucky I didn’t kill anybody! I mean this stupid little story that I am now writing up could very easily have been much more tragic. Luckily, other than the $1500 I had to pay for the ambulance ride after my neighbor found me passed out on the staircase in front of my apartment, I was able to get through this ordeal unscathed. I will say this, however – I will never let myself get into a situation where that could happen again. I beat the odds once, why push it?

bis später,

Coriolis

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s Thanksgiving. Does the fact that today is Thanksgiving mean anything to me? I suppose not … I’m currently at work like any other day. It appears to me that the Germans really don’t care that the pilgrims once ate a large feast with the Native Americans prior to beginning the mass genocide necessary to steal the land of their gracious hosts… As a matter of fact, I’m willing to bet that the only reason Americans care about this holiday is because it gets them a couple days off; and since I’m currently at work on this holiday, I guess I don’t care.

I suppose the true meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday is really for people to take a good look at their lives and try to come up with at least a few things to be thankful about. Number one on everyone’s list should be that they weren’t one of the Native Americans that got slaughtered by their European guests shortly after giving them food to survive; but that should go without saying… Apart from that I’ve decided to come up with ten things that I am thankful for this year. Following are my ten items and a small explanation of exactly why I am thankful (in no particular order):

1. I’m very thankful that I was able to get this contract work opportunity over here in Germany. I was having a very hard time finding work in Colorado and this contract work is giving me the opportunity to keep my house – sure, I can’t live there for a while; but at least I’ll have a house to move back to when this is over…

2. I’m thankful for the scientists that discovered the amazing drug Viagra! I’m pretty sure that this needs no explanation…

3. I’m thankful that the rash I currently have on my left gonad is nothing more than psoriasis! You can just imagine how worried I was about this – I was sure it was an STD. Luckily, however, I was able to get it checked and have been informed that it’s not a big deal. That’s a load off my mind…

4. I’m thankful that moving to Germany and deciding to get around with nothing other than walking and public transportation is starting to show positive results. I came here with four pairs of jeans – all 38” waists. For the last couple of weeks I have been having a hard time keeping my pants up – I could actually wiggle my way out of my pants even with my belt fastened in the tightest position. Yesterday I bought two new pairs of jeans (34” waists, thank you very much…), seven new pairs of briefs (I was wearing boxers, but with all the walking I am doing, my boys need a home…) and a new belt. It seems that I am actually becoming less of a man – and that’s a good thing…

5. My friends. Although the group is small, I appreciate all of my friends very much. After all, what more does anybody need besides friends to help them through the rough times and celebrate with them during the good times? Living in Germany by myself for the last four months has really pointed out the importance of friends to me. There really is nothing more important.

6. My family. I really am very thankful for the endless love that I receive from my family. This should go without saying; unfortunately I have been witness to many families throughout my existence that just don’t seem to get it – they’ve let stupid little personal quirks or material issues cause enough friction to actually tear the family unit apart. This, of course, is stupid. Luckily, for me, I was born into a family that understands the value of unconditional love. I’m thankful for this…

7. Finally discovering what I want in this life. It’s become painfully obvious to me rather recently that the one thing that I am looking to find is someone to love (well, besides my blood relatives that is…). I’m thankful that I have been able to figure this out although I now need to actively participate in the search – maybe next year I’ll be able to be thankful about finding that someone … only time will tell…

8. I’m thankful for technology – the Internet, especially. Thanks to the Internet, I am now able to actually move to Germany and still stay in touch with my friends and family rather easily (and far less expensively than it was in the past…). Although the experiences I have been having since moving over here are generally interesting (the understatement of the year), having the ability to share these experiences with loved ones makes them just that much more interesting. I’m thankful that sharing these experiences has become so easy…

9. I’m thankful for my sense of humor. Without it I would most definitely have cracked by now. Too many people are wound way too tight these days – they’re living under this delusion that their lives are so important that they best not do anything silly or people might not take them as seriously as they seem to think they need to be taken. Screw that! People need to loosen up a bit and realize that laughing (often times at one’s self) is a wonderful way to turn bad situations good. I think that I have become pretty good at this and I am thankful…

10. YOU! I’m thankful for the readers of my blog! Granted you are a rather small group (interestingly enough, the total number of visitors to my blog is currently at 666 – eerie, huh?) but that’s okay. Although the number of visitors is small, the loyalty of my visitors amazes me – I’ve had 114 one time visits and some 260 visits from individuals that have visited my blog more than 15 times! The only thing I can conclude from this is that a majority of my visitors find something interesting in my blog. I’ll keep writing the blogs as long as you keep reading them … thanks!

Hmm … I was actually able to come up with ten items – amazing… I think that creating a list such as this is actually a good practice. It lets you focus a bit on the more positive aspects of your life and lets you put the hassles off to the side for a while. What are ten things that you are thankful for?

bis später,

Coriolis

Luck

I’ve been sitting here contemplating that last blog post as well as the various comments and have finally realized a rather important point – luck is for suckers! In fact, at least in my opinion, luck doesn’t even exist. I’ve been wasting time hoping for a string of good luck – I mean how can I expect to have something I don’t even believe exists…? Perhaps I was just hoping that I was incorrect in my feelings on luck and that maybe it did exist? Whatever the case, I’m no longer going to just sit around and hope things magically get better. The only way to see that things improve is to actually consciously participate in the improvement.

For anyone that’s interested, here are my thoughts on luck…

As many of you are already aware, I usually play an awful lot of poker. Unfortunately it’s been quite a while since I’ve played poker (haven’t played even a single hand since moving to Germany some four months ago…) but I used to play pretty much every single day – both online and live. The live games were usually DPT (Denver Poker Tour) tournaments and I played a lot of those – made it to every qualifying tournament for the last couple of years, in fact…

Okay, so I’m actually down a bit over ten grand in all since I started playing poker (well, started playing money tournaments so frequently – I’ve actually been playing ‘dealer choice’ poker since I was something like 12 years old…) but I see that as merely the cost of training. I think I’ve become a better player over that time period (and I have very extensive statistics on my play that show this improvement) but the one thing that I have most definitely learned is that luck has very little to do with it…

In order to win at poker, you need to realize that luck is not something that happens – it’s something that needs to be made. In poker, sometimes you get the cards; however usually you don’t. The good players are those that can take the pots with or without the hands. It becomes more of a game where you need to play the other players rather than merely play your hands. The thing is that, if you play the game correctly, people will start to think of you as a very lucky guy. This impression, of course, is bullshit. You aren’t lucky – you’re just good at playing the game…

Luck, after all, is a man-made concept that is merely nothing more than a measure of one’s successfulness. If someone’s successful, they’re “lucky” … somebody who has problems (unsuccessful) is considered “unlucky”. This, of course, is crap… The reason that a person becomes unsuccessful is always because he ‘played the hand incorrectly’. One must always be very cognizant of any situation that one is placed in and make decisions to better one’s standing overall. When you’re holding the 4th nut and a strong player is trying to bait you into risking your entire stack, you really need to consider whether he might be holding one of the three hands that can beat you. Never risk it all on what could very well be a loser … always leave yourself outs… With the 4th nut, the odds are very good that you’re hand is the best; however there is still a small probability that it isn’t. The “lucky” people understand this and limit their risks … the “unlucky” people mistakenly ignore this probability and go bust. You often need to limit your return in order to stay alive…

Life, like poker, is (as I have stated before) really nothing more than an endless (well, until you die, of course…) string of decisions that need to be made. The “lucky” people have learned to limit their risks so that no one decision is capable of busting them. They’ve become masters at calculating risk versus reward and use these often subconscious calculations to make the correct choice more often than not. They’ve discovered that building a stack (sorry about all the poker references, but poker mirrors life so perfectly…) slowly is far better than risking everything on a possibility. If you’re going to risk everything on a possibility, you need to be able to understand that only the stone cold nuts are unbeatable. Holding anything less is always a risk – always!

Of course human nature, in general, complicates things a bit here – we want it all and we want it now! (Or maybe that’s just me…) I guess what I need to start doing is trying to build my stack slowly. I need to realize that anything worth having is going to take some time to build and that anything that appears to be a shortcut to a goal must be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, unlike poker, the stone cold nuts are usually unknowns in life…

bis später,

Coriolis

A Butterfly Flaps its Wings

I remember when I was back in elementary school and things always seemed to work out for me. I can only assume that this was when I was stupid enough to believe that that’s just the way life was – easy… I’ve always been a very shy person (unbelievable after reading this blog, but true…); however it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me when I was younger (we’re talking mid to late ‘70s here…) as I was always able to keep a couple good friends and, amazingly enough, had no problems with the women.

Okay, so I’m talking about pre-pubescence, but I could have been a “contender” later in life if I had just conquered that shyness problem. I remember in 2nd grade where I actually had a (secret, of course) crush on two girls – Amy and Tracy. Now I was 7 years old then and knew little about the “birds and the bees”. All I knew was that I liked these girls. What did I do about it? What was I going to do…? I was 7! I guess this was when I picked up my wonderful habit of hiding my feelings. The funny thing about girls in elementary school is that they often times don’t hide their feelings…

This point was made perfectly clear to me one day on the playground as I was sitting alone in one of the cement sewage tubes (yeah, back then pieces of cement sewage piping were considered excellent substitutes for actual playground equipment) just minding my own business. As I was sitting there I basically got molested (remember, we were kids – they just jumped on me and started kissing me) by a couple of girls – Amy and Tracy. Could I have even imagined a better scenario at the time? No – this should have been my “initiation” into becoming a man; but what did I do? I ran away! Granted I was only 7, but I ran away. Why?

You see, I’m starting to think that that one little incident had a much bigger impact on the rest of my life than I ever would have imagined. I mean that basically sums me up – I get the girls I wanted (both, by the way…) and my first reaction is to run.

Here’s where I begin the “what if” scenarios. What if I just stayed there and actually participated in the activity? Yeah, we were too young to understand exactly what we were doing and may have even got into a bit of trouble if the “playground lady” would have caught us; but what would my life have been like if I stayed? You see I believe that it is experiences such as these that make us who were are when we get older. For some stupid reason, I decided to run … I’ve been running since…

The thing is that that wasn’t the only time. Throughout my childhood there were many occasions where I was given the perfect opportunity to abandon those childish fears and become a man. On every one of those opportunities, I ran (either literally or figuratively). I suppose I’m destined to live the rest of my life running from what I really want. It’s sad, really… The saddest part about it is that I seem to have absolutely no way to change this. Every once in a while I get in these situations where I think my luck might finally be changing. Every time (without exception), I manage to find a way to fuck things up.

It’s interesting to me that it took moving to Germany to get me to think about this so much. I think back in America it was just easier for me to find things to waste my time with giving me the ability to push this need that I have to the back of my mind. I really couldn’t tell you when my last actual “date” was – probably over 15 years ago… The thing is I’m in Germany now – I’ve got a taste of what I want and I’m desperately wanting more (and no, I’m not just talking about sex…). Unfortunately, this is most definitely not the environment for me to find what I am seeking – I don’t speak the language! Although I doubt that matters much as I am discovering that speaking the same language isn’t necessarily a guarantee that people will get along. Heck, Julie’s an American and I think I’ve already managed to fuck up that friendship (run Glen, run…). Maybe I’m better off dealing with people that can’t understand me…

Anyway, that’s what’s been on my mind lately. It’d be great to be able to go back in time and get a “do over”. Life, however, doesn’t work that way. In this life, you are where you are – how you got there is pretty much insignificant as you can’t change the past. I am a frustrated old man basically trying to fill an emotional void with visits from women that are only there because I am paying them.

Why did I run…?

bis später,

Coriolis

Julie

Well, so far today’s been a rough day… The bus that I like to catch to work in the morning was actually on time today. I suppose that’s a good thing; however it has never been less than 5 minutes late every other time I took it and I actually arrived at the stop today just in time to watch the bus leave – without me on it, of course… What this meant was that I was then given the opportunity to walk to work. No big deal – lord knows I can use the exercise – it’s just that long walks are things I need to avoid when I’m in one of my “deep blue funks”. And “deep blue funks” seem to be commonplace with me lately…

Why am I in a “deep blue funk”? Several reasons… First, I got another credit card statement forwarded to me from back home that had a nice little surprise in it – a $4333.30 surprise! You see this is just one more addition I get to make to the amount of money I “spent” on that Friday night in Athens that I don’t ever remember. It’s now looking like I got taken that night for somewhere in the neighborhood of $8000! I remember very little of that night and what I do remember wasn’t very fun. Apparently though, I paid a shitload of money to not have fun that night. I’m contesting these charges, but we all know what that’s going to accomplish – nothing…

As I mentioned earlier, the trip to Zürich that I was planning on taking this weekend has been cancelled. That kind of sucks; however I suppose it’s all for the better. I won’t be dropping 1000 Swiss Francs this weekend, but I also won’t be spending the night with Surunna. I was actually looking forward to that part, although I really must be realistic here – I’m sure that something would have gone wrong (it’s just the way it is with me) and I am most likely just avoiding more hassles that I really don’t need to be dealing with. So I’m out the non-refundable airline tickets but was able to cancel the hotel reservation. Once again, money spent for nothing…

Of course the main reason that I’m a bit down as of late is nobody’s fault but my own. I, once again, have been stupid enough to think that I actually had a chance with a “real” woman. This time it was Julie. I really don’t know what I was thinking here – Julie is less than half my age. I was trying to convince myself that she might actually like me for who I am (I had no illusions, whatsoever, that she would be physically attracted to me) and that the age difference wouldn’t be an issue – silly, huh? I need to clarify something: I responded to an earlier comment stating that I thought Julie didn’t like me. Let me take that back. I do think that she likes me; however not in the way that I was hoping. I think that she sees me as an “interesting” guy – interesting as more of a psychological case study. You see, Julie is a very smart girl (valedictorian if I am not mistaken) and my openness about my life (as well as what I am being open about) intrigues her in a way.

What I need to do is shut down any romantic feelings that I have for Julie and just enjoy what little time I get to spend with her. Of course she’ll probably be reading this so I might just be destroying any chances of spending time with her at all. (Oh my god, I sound like I’m back in high school again … I guess some things never change…) I’m just hoping that Julie understands that I am, in no way, trying to seduce her (HA! Now there’s something that’s completely beyond my abilities…) or take advantage of her in any way – I would never do that. I really could just use a friend while I’m over here in Germany…

Well, I was planning on writing up another detailed description of one of my life adventures but I really need to get back to my work now. I’m apparently loosing a cell instance by the name of “U64ASTTSINST26897” somewhere between initial cell placement and global route (probably getting removed somewhere in CTS…) and my hierarchy preservation is therefore crapping out. Fun, fun, fun…

bis später,

Coriolis

Life as usual...

Okay, so it’s been a few days since I posted a blog entry. I guess I’ll write one up just for “shits and grins”… I’m not sure what I’m going to write about so I guess I’ll just write and see what comes out. I suppose I probably have a few things that I want to say.

The ED issue. Well, I finally received the generic Viagra that I ordered a few weeks ago. This is a good thing. I was a bit worried that it might have been a scam (reading information provided by Pfizer on their official Viagra site makes it sound like any and all generic Viagra being sold on the Internet is nothing but a scam) however conducted an experiment a couple days ago that ended up rather well. This stuff actually works! I called over an escort (German woman, her name was Julia) and had no troubles whatsoever in the ED area. I’m actually not exactly sure what I should think about this – should I be happy or sad that I now need to take a pill in order to be of any use to a woman? I’m going to go with “happy”. At least I now have some guarantee that I can get around my little problem and, since all of my sexual experiences of late are easily scheduled, the use of these pills is not much of an issue. I just need to take one about an hour before having sex.

I’m actually pretty sure that I wouldn’t need these pills if I were somehow able to do the impossible and find myself a girlfriend of my own. Last night – after our German class – I had Jon and Julie over to my apartment to watch some TV. Julie (who, by the way, is a wonderful person) even mentioned that what I need is a girlfriend. I couldn’t agree more with you, Julie. That, after all, is actually what I am looking for. In fact, it’s primarily why I am so easily taken advantage of by the type of people that I’ve been associating with lately. I think they smell the “want” on me and this basically gives them the green light to play with my desires and manipulate me into doing stupid things. I’ve been doing my best at keeping these meetings on a “nothing more than fun” basis and I think I’m getting better at that; however this deep desire I have to actually be loved is not an easy thing to ignore… I need to spend more time with Julie…

If any of you are wondering what happened to Anna (the girl from Club Love in Athens…) all I can say is we’ve lost contact with each other. I’m not surprised by this, but I’m actually not that distraught either. I mean yeah, Anna seemed like a very nice person; but the logistics involved in us becoming more than just acquaintances are a bit complicated. Not to mention that I only knew the girl for two days. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that what we had there was little more than lust. Anna was fun (and we never even had sex…) although I’m thinking that the fun there was no more than fantasy. She was, after all, a Russian living in Greece. I’m an American living in Germany. Why I ever even thought that there was a possibility there seems absurd. But that’s me, the “hopeless romantic”… What I need to do is focus more on what might be good for me in reality…

Of course this kind of brings up this next weekend where I’ll be flying down to Zürich to spend a Saturday night with Surunna. (You remember Surunna, the girl I met on that Sunday in Zürich, right?) She is a bit different in that I have absolutely no misunderstandings about what this trip is – it’s a night that I am purchasing with an escort (otherwise known as a prostitute) to have some fun. Surunna is a lot of fun but that’s all. I have no false desire to make her my girlfriend. We’re just going to get together and have some fun together – nothing wrong with that…

Oops … please disregard that last paragraph. I just received an SMS from Surunna – I guess I’m not going to Zürich this weekend… Oh well, that’s all for the better anyway … I really don’t need to be spending 1000 Swiss Francs for something that’s just going to make me feel emptier inside. I was hoping to start dealing more with my “real” life anyway and this basically gives me one more weekend for that…

So I now have a free weekend coming up. What should I do? What I would like to do is spend some time with Julie. I really do like Julie and an added bonus with her is that she is American! I really don’t think she’s the least bit attracted to me in any romantic way, but that’s cool. I completely understand that… Still, as far as people that I might be able to hang out with over here in Germany, Julie is easily at the top of my list. Heck, she could help me out with my German a bit as she seams to understand it much better than I ever will…

Ah, but that’s crazy talk. I really shouldn’t be getting my hopes up – nothing this good ever happens to me. I’m sure I’ll be wasting away the time this weekend by myself… Who knows? Maybe I’ll write up a couple blog submissions although I think I’m running out of stuff to talk about… The only trips I currently have planned are to Amsterdam on the 2nd of December and then a two week return back to the states on December 22nd. This whole “traveling by myself” thing is proving to be quite dangerous anyway… I suppose it’s probably about time to get back to my “life as usual” and revert back to my old boring self once again…

Oh well, I guess that’s all I have to say for now.

bis später,

Coriolis

So that was that...

So that was that. So far my trip wasn’t going anywhere near what I had planned. I was able to purchase some sexual stimulants; but they didn’t help. I had no problem in re-finding the girl in the baseball cap (Sarah); unfortunately the ineffectualness of these stimulants made that reunion far less exciting than the last time we met. I had myself a short visit with the “good girl gone bad” that ended up going nowhere – just an opportunity for me to piss away some more money. And the icing on the cake of a wonderful evening was that I managed to get hustled out of €500 by a couple very mean prostitutes and apparently came very close to possibly getting my ass kicked by Benny’s pimp! I just need to go to bed and get this day behind me…

That’s exactly what I did – I headed back to the Dam Hotel, climbed a couple flights of mind-bogglingly steep stairs (not quite as steep as the staircase at the Pink Floyd Coffee Shop, but close … if you’re ever looking for dangerously steep stairs, Amsterdam is the place to go…), checked out what was showing on the television (nothing…) and went to sleep. I was out of money but now knew the location of several ATMs nearby – tomorrow I’ll see what I can do. Maybe the sleep will do me good…?

When I awoke my first mission was to stop by the ATM and get enough money for the day. I was planning on trying my luck once again in the red light district and then just basically picking up some more weed (I already had what was left of the weed I purchased on Saturday as well as a stick of hash) and some more shrooms to take back with me. I decided to take out €400 – €200 for the prostitute and the rest for whatever… This, I did. I then headed back to the red light district to see who might be at work on a rather early Sunday morning…

As I have mentioned in an earlier posting, the red light district just isn’t the same on a Sunday morning as it is on a Saturday night – although I suppose that’s pretty obvious to most… I have since learned that you can always find somebody working. Luckily for me, the one girl that I found was Lek. You see, Lek was nice. She was a cute little Asian girl and I like cute little Asian girls… The best part about it was that she wasn’t trying to play me for the fool that we all know I am. I offered her €200 and everything was cool. She didn’t try to up the price on me for various “extras” not included in the original purchase and we had ourselves a very nice time. She even gave me her phone number when I was leaving so that I could contact her the next time I’m in Amsterdam.

That’s just the way it is in these situations; picking a prostitute is always a roll of the dice. Sometimes you get lucky – Lek, Sarah, Bine – but more often than not you just get screwed (and not in a good way…). You have to be very careful and selective – don’t put too much emphasis on appearance. Well, you need to make sure that the woman is appealing to you; however going for the silicon filled airhead might seem like a neat adventure but (for me, at least) always ends up badly. I’ll take an average looking nice lady over the super-model bitch any day…

Okay, so Lek treated me very nicely and I finally got to get the release I had been attempting to get since 8:30 the night before. I then headed back to Conscious Dreams to pick up a few varieties of shrooms and over to Coffee Shop 36 to chill out for a few hours. Once again, I had a train leaving around 3:00pm (well, 2:54 this time … there was some construction work being done at one of the stations and the regular train schedules were skewed a bit…) and I had a few hours to kill. I killed these sitting at Coffee Shop 36 watching the boats come and go. I took a few videos there and posted these up on my myspace page – nothing much, just a few shots of the boats and a shot inside the coffee shop… It was a nice way to relax and get the crap that happened the night before out of my thoughts – why dwell on it? I was stupid … time to get on with life…

After staying there for a few hours I needed to leave and head over to Centraal Station to catch a train. Jon and Veronica (Jon’s new squeeze) where taking the same train back and, although I was getting no response from them on my SMS attempts, I figured that I could maybe meet up with them at the station. I therefore left Coffee Shop 36 and headed toward Centraal Station.

Upon arriving at the station I quickly noticed that the train I was looking to catch (the IC 145) was not displayed on the boards yet – it was still a bit early. I decided to head over to platform 11A, took a seat on a bench outside of the actual station, ate half a box of one of the varieties of shrooms that I had and waited for the train. Luckily I was smart enough to double-check the board later and discovered that the IC 145 was leaving from a different platform this time (13, I think…). I then moved to the correct platform and was easily able to catch the train.

Upon boarding the train I met up with Jon and Veronica (never met Veronica before – seems like a nice enough girl…) and basically had an uneventful trip back to Germany. It was, in fact, quite a bit more uneventful than I was planning – the shrooms had no effect. I even ate the rest of the box on the train but nothing ever happened. Must have been a bad batch or something … either that or I’m actually building up a resistance to shrooms – now that I doubt…

Although this trip ended up being pretty bad overall, I do believe that I learned a few lessons. First, and foremost, I learned that this little battle that I am currently having with my ED issue is a dangerous thing. I learned that I need to accept the failures and just move on rather than putting myself in bad situations in an attempt to redeem myself – this is most definitely not the shape you want to be in whilst having to deal with prostitutes…

I believe I may have discovered the cause for my current ED problem – well, causes … I think there are a number. I mainly have this problem after a discrepancy arises between what I have actually purchased and what I “thought” I had purchased. I suppose I am going to have to improve my selection methodology to avoid this in the future… I think, however, that what I really need to do now is stop. Yeah, I know that I have a trip to Zürich coming up next weekend to visit with Surunna; however I think I should probably lay off the sex for a while before that. Maybe I just need to rest…?

bis später,

Coriolis

Whores...

So what do I do next? I go for a walk… I just finished my visit with Sarah (unsuccessful) and was a bit peeved over wasting €50 on the Libido pills that were completely useless. I figured I needed to walk this one off…

The thing is, I was in Amsterdam’s Red Light District – everywhere I walked there were prostitutes. I was very upset with not being able to complete the deal with Sarah and was basically walking it off through a plethora of “attainable” women – you just needed to give them a bit of cash. I’ll tell you right now that this is most definitely not the place that I needed to be “walking off” my failure. It was just a matter of time before I decided to try again – maybe I needed variety? While walking down an alley, I got a glimpse of this lady with what looked like reading glasses on – the librarian type otherwise known as the “good girl gone bad”. What the heck, I’ll give that a try.

** WARNING ** WARNING **
Okay, so I probably don’t need to say much; however I’m writing another post about Amsterdam’s Red Light District and I want to make sure that you, the reader, know what you are getting yourself into. If you’re under 18, please stop reading here. I’m sure you can find some interesting stuff over at Mtv.com or Disney.com but you really shouldn’t be reading this. Also, even if you are of age but have issues with sexuality please stop reading as well. I’m not planning on being too descriptive here, but you really never know what I’m stupid enough to type at times… You’ve been warned…

So I do a quick U-turn and head back to the woman that was wearing the glasses, enter her foyer and offer her €100 for a bit of fun. She invites me back to her room (the room that she “performed” in was actually down the hallway a bit from where she was attracting customers – this is a common thing…) and I start following her down the hall. It is now that I actually get my first real look at this woman and must admit that I was a bit disappointed. To sum it up in one well-known phrase, all I can say is “baby got back”. Now don’t get me wrong here, I realize that there are many men out there that are into the women with larger than average behinds – usually I’m not one of them. At this point in time, I really didn’t care. I was going to roll the dice and see what came up…

The answer to that was nothing. I didn’t even bother wasting too much of this lady’s time and decided that the €100 was just one more loss. I mean come on … there’s got to be something that I can do… I know, I’ll head back out and give it another go with one of the silicon filled boy-toys that are around here – there are plenty to choose from. I usually steer clear of this variety (they’re not the nicest people and they always have a bloated sense of superiority just because of the way they look – I’m not a fan of this…) but am trying to figure out what might work. I’m carrying €250 and I hide €150 behind my credit cards in my wallet and plan to use the remaining €100 to perhaps buy a half hour with one of the “beautiful people”. I see this blonde bombshell dressed up in a police uniform turned bikini and decide to stop and have a visit…

Her name was Benny. I’m telling you this just in case any of you readers are planning on heading to Amsterdam soon. If you go and meet up with a blonde bombshell (perhaps wearing a police uniform turned bikini) that tells you her name is Benny, leave as quickly as you can! Wait, I take that back … tell her Glen said “hi”, punch her square in the nose and then get the hell out of there! This bitch is mean! Here’s what this fucking whore decided to do to me:

I do the nice guy play and offer her €100 (the standard starting offer is €50, but I’ve discovered that the €50 doesn’t buy a guy much respect and usually leads to trouble ahead…) and she leads me back to her room. This is where the “routine” gets started. She begins, right away, telling me that we could have a lot more fun if I paid her €150 more. Interestingly enough, that was exactly how much I hid away in my wallet. Now remember, my night is not going very well and I’m very desperate to change that. I actually agree to the €250 price and give Benny the €150 that I hid in my wallet. You see, this is one of the reasons I stay clear of women like this – they know exactly how to take advantage of chumps like myself. I knew this, but I wasn’t thinking clearly – it’s amazing how much influence bad sexual experiences have on my logical skills…

So I’m in for €250. This should be enough for Benny. Okay, let’s get started… But wait, Benny then starts going on about how she wants to invite her “girlfriend” over and the three of us could have some fun. She starts telling me that for €500 (€250 more) I could have a real god time with the two of them. The thing is that I must be the dumbest man on the face of the Earth. I’ve done this ménage before – 3 or 4 times actually – and it’s always a bad idea. The current situation turns into this thing where Benny starts acting like she really wants her “friend” to be there and if I refuse that I wasn’t going to be having much fun. Oh well, maybe it’ll be better if the women involved actually wanted to be having sex with each other – that could be interesting… I reluctantly agree to head out to an ATM, get another €250 and return back for the fun.

As I’m getting dressed to head out again, the price suddenly shoots up and Benny starts telling me that I need to get €500 from the ATM! Fuck that!! I start removing my clothes again and tell Benny that there is no way in hell I’m getting another €500 and she quickly changes her story back to what we had agreed earlier. Apparently if I get the €250 it will be sufficient. I’m not feeling the least bit good about this, but I’m stupid enough to head out and get the required €250.

Oh yeah, and one more thing – you may already be aware of my admiration for pussy… This was also discussed with Benny before I was stupid enough to agree to get more money. What she told me was that, if I got the €250 more, there would be no issue. I would be able to do “whatever I desired” with both of the women. For some stupid reason, I believed her…

I returned back to Benny’s window with the additional €250 and am immediately invited in. After handing the money over, Benny calls across the alley and invites her friend over. The three of us then head back to Benny’s little room. Okay, let’s get this party started!

These two actually were friends. The reason I say this is because the next treat that I am presented with is the wonderful chance to lie naked on a bed between the two of them as they sat there and gossiped about a bunch of bullshit. This was when I started realizing that these were a couple of mean women. I mean yeah, that’s great, people often gossip at work; but I had just paid €500! Gossip on your own time – I paid for this time – do your job! It appeared as the gossip session was over when the friend began to lean over me. Right there in front of my face were two very well formed (and most likely rather expensive…) breasts. I leaned forward to kiss these newly met friends and get them pulled away with a firm notification that I’m not allowed to do that. WHAT?! What the hell did I just pay €500 for?! Not only that, but Benny had already promised me that I would be able to “kiss” much more than the breasts!

Well, that was it. I then called Benny a liar and laid there dejected as any erection that I was able to attain quickly vanished. I was then forced to lie there and get preached to by a couple of prostitutes! Get this! They were telling me that this was all my fault and how if I would have just laid there passively that everything would have gone smoothly. No shit everything would have gone smoothly – I just wouldn’t have had any fun. The whole reason that I was stupid enough t pay the €500 was to have some fun! The conversation got a bit heated and I actually demanded my money back (yeah, right, like that’s going to happen…). They refused to give me any money back and we were all aware that nothing was going to happen now – I was pissed!

Benny then suggested that I head out, take a walk and maybe smoke some weed. She was saying that I could return when I settled down a bit and they would pick up from where we left off – without me getting what was promised, of course… What could I do? It sounded like the only way I was going to get anything for the €500 I had already spent so I agreed. I headed over to the Stone’s Café and ordered a Coke. I sat there, smoked a couple bowls and drank my Coke. While doing this I came to the conclusion that I was just going to have to “suck it up” and play by these bitch’s rules – whatever … I could do that. I headed back to Benny’s window…

She was there. She had her little boom-box playing some shitty music and she was once again standing in her window luring in other unsuspecting chumps. I walked up to the window expecting to get let in. Unfortunately though, she never opened the door. Instead she just looked at me and grinned. She then reached over and turned the shitty music up a bit louder, staring at me and basically laughing the whole time. The only thing she said to me was “You’re too rough!” I’m too rough?! You have got to be kidding me! She wasn’t going to let me in!! FUCK!!!

She then got out her cell phone and started calling somebody (her pimp, I would assume). It was then that I decided to head down the alley a bit more and try to get my thoughts together. Well, it looks to me like I was just ripped off by a couple prostitutes for some €500! I stayed down the alley for a few minutes then headed back to Benny’s window…

I slowly walked by and loudly said to her, “You are a mean woman!” She quickly got on her phone and I just slowly continued to walk away. As I was walking away and blending into the large crowd, I distinctly heard a male voice behind me say, “Which one is he?” The response to this was a female voice (perhaps Benny) saying, “Dark coat and red T-shirt!” Funny thing is that I was wearing a black leather jacket and a red T-shirt… Luckily, however, my back was to them and my shirt was out of view. I heard a couple guys behind me getting stopped by the owner of the male voice that I heard earlier and a couple more iterations of the “Which one is he?” question as I continued to slowly walk away with the crowd.

What the fuck is that all about?! I mean, come on, I paid €500 and got nothing. Why does this suddenly put me into a situation where I’m apparently being hunted down by a pimp? I didn’t do anything wrong! I’ll tell you this though – I’m not going to feel nearly as sorry for the next whore that gets beaten up by a customer. I’ll bet she most likely deserved it…

bis später,

Coriolis