Hitting the Deck!

So it’s looking like my stay here in Germany is just about coming to an end. I have been informed by management that, although he is trying to arrange things so that I can continue working through the end of June (as planned), it looks like getting clearance to work with the new (still rather confidential) technologies might not be easy for us (Jon and myself). That being the case, it’s looking like my contract work may no longer be needed past the end of the first quarter (end of March).

It’s a bit of a shame that I will most likely be missing out on another three months of pay; however I really must admit that I am looking very forward to heading home – if I’m lucky enough to survive until then…

I’m slightly concerned about a couple instances that have recently occurred. I mentioned earlier about passing out in Stone’s Café (Amsterdam) and bruising my tailbone rather badly – that injury seems to be just about healed now. Last night, however, instance number two occurred. I got out of bed around 1:30 to “drain the main vein”, climbed up my spiral staircase, used the facilities and then headed back to bed. I remember starting the decent down the spiral staircase although I do not remember finishing this trip – the next memory that I have was coming-to lying on the floor with a bloody nose wondering “where” as well as “who” I was.

It’s obvious to me that I must have somehow passed out while descending the stairs. I have no idea why I passed out (perhaps I need to eat a bit more than I have been) but I sure as Hell can tell you that coming-to with your face planted in the floor and your legs (complete with several new rug burns) sprawled up a spiral staircase is absolutely no picnic. I apparently planted my face rather forcefully into that floor (or possibly smashed it into something else on the way down – I really don’t know…) as my head felt like it was going to explode, I was sweating bullets and my nose was bleeding like a stuck pig. Add to that the trauma of not knowing where you are and having to come to grips with suddenly waking up and having an up close and personal view of your shoes that appear to be stuck on a large wall (the floor) and I think you can understand that last night was a rough night for me…

It actually took quite a bit of effort for me to figure out what had happened and successfully move my torso back to the bed – the pain was rather overwhelming. I probably should go visit with a doctor however I really don’t see that happening. I have absolutely no medical insurance and it appears to me that I’ll survive. I’m in a bit more pain than usual but I guess I’m just going to have to “man it up” and let my body repair itself in its own time…

Oh well, I guess nothing ever goes smoothly with me – this new habit of randomly “hitting the deck” is something I’m going to need to pay attention to. That one rough trip down my spiral staircase will hopefully never be repeated again. It could have ended up much worse (necks tend to break in situations such as that). I’m going to start eating more food (stop skipping meals just to avoid the awkward situations that assuredly arise when one doesn’t speak the local language) and will hopefully be able to put this habit of passing out behind me. Wish me luck…

bis später,

Coriolis

My Southern Bell

Let me be the first to apologize to my readers for basically not posting much of anything as of late. There’s really no reason for this other than the fact that I don’t seem to have much to say – that and the fact that my bruised butt-bone (coccyx, tailbone, whatever…) doesn’t seem to want to heal itself which makes sitting for any extended period a bit of a choir…

There is, however, one story from my past that has recently decided to emerge from the depths of my mind. I really couldn’t tell you how this story was referenced (the mind works in mysterious ways…) but I thought I would share it with you. Perhaps some of you might find this interesting … this story’s about Elizabeth.

Once again, I take you back to my college years – August, 1991 to be exact. I remember the date very well as it was a couple weeks prior to my 21st birthday – the significance of which will become clear enough later in this story. It was just one more of those typical summer evenings where I had pretty much nothing to do and decided to waste a bit of time by logging on to this multi-line BBS (Bulletin Board System – the old form of computer communications prior to the Internet). I really had no agenda planned – I just thought I’d see if anyone was interested in a bit of a chat…

Now I was already aware of the risks involved with chats such as these – you never can believe what people tell you and meeting strangers that you chatted with on a multi-line BBS ends up being no better than an actual “blind” date. I knew this as I had made that mistake a few times in the past. I would explain more about the bad meetings however I have done my best to forget those. Suffice it to say that people are rarely who they claim to be in an anonymous forum…

This night, however, I was bored. I actually wasn’t expecting to meet anybody and just logged on for “shits and grins”. It’s always interesting, however, when the unexpected happens. When I logged in to the BBS, I quickly noticed a user that I had chatted with before. I don’t remember what we chatted about on earlier chats, although I was under the impression that this user was a lady (you never really “know” in these situations). Other than that, I knew nothing.

We once again began chatting (typing, of course … it was 1991…) and she quickly asked me if I would be interested in taking her daughter-in-law out on a date – seems that her daughter-in-law (Elizabeth) was in town visiting from South Carolina for a few days and was apparently a bit bored. If I remember correctly, it was a Thursday evening. I needed to head down to my fraternity’s National Conference (which was conveniently being held in the Detroit area) the next day but made arrangements to stop by afterward and take Elizabeth out for dinner. The way I figured it was that it would just be a dinner and I’m enough of a gentleman to be able to take pretty much any lady to dinner – I could always get away easily enough afterward if need-be…

So I put on a suit and tie and headed down to the National Conference. I remember absolutely nothing of this conference (I’m sure it was just more of the same – I had been to a few conferences earlier) but distinctly remember driving over to pick up Elizabeth afterward. I was dressed, as mentioned, in suit and tie and figured that this might be to my advantage. The conference actually gave me a valid reason for dressing up so I really didn’t need to worry about my first impression – I looked good… I approached the house and knocked. The door was quickly answered by a large man – the father. Ends up that Elizabeth’s father just happened to be an ex-marine. He was a nice enough guy though and invited me in to wait for Elizabeth to finish preparing. I was sitting there speaking with her father when Elizabeth finally entered the room. To say that I was a bit surprised would be a huge understatement of the situation. Here I was, chatting with the father and basically expecting what was sure to be a beast to be presented (from previous experiences, not from the father…) when Elizabeth – drop-dead gorgeous in my eyes – gets presented. This might be interesting…

We actually hit it off rather well … I remember asking her to marry me – jokingly, of course – whilst driving her to Applebee’s (if memory serves me correctly) and she actually said, “yes.” Now I don’t claim to be anything even remotely close to an expert when it comes to the whole dating scene; however I took this as a good sign. And rightly so – we had a wonderful evening together. I was even able to order and receive a Tom Collins (my drink of choice at the time) even after showing my ID (if you recall from earlier, it was a couple weeks before I was actually 21 – either our waiter wasn’t very good with math or he just let me slide … either way, it was cool at the time…).

I mean Elizabeth was a “dream come true” for me. She was cute as a button, very well mannered and well spoken (with this cute little southern twang that usually annoys me to no end, but coming from Elizabeth made the idiosyncrasy extremely cute…). Not only that, but she was also a sexual dynamo – this I would discover upon returning to my room at the frat house…

As I am sure all of you reading my blog are already aware, a Casanova I am not. In fact I’ll bet if you look up Casanova in a thesaurus, Coriolis will be listed as an antonym – I’m most definitely not good when it comes to women… This being the case, I expected to end this evening with what I would have considered a normal ending to a first date – we’d go back to my room, turn on some music, talk a bit and maybe play a little tonsil hockey. I would then drive her home, perhaps kiss her goodnight and hopefully see her again the next day (she was only going to be in town for a couple more days before returning home to South Carolina … I didn’t have much time…). Elizabeth, on the other hand, had her own agenda. Once we returned to my room, I put on some tunes and sat down on the loveseat. Elizabeth then basically jumped my bones!

I wasn’t even about to argue and soon discovered that Elizabeth’s agenda was much more fun than mine. We ended up having sex – and not your average run-of-the-mill quickie either, we were both very much into it and I really must say that she is still considered by me to be the best yet…

I picked her up again on Saturday and we spent the day together. For some reason, I headed over to my parent’s house – Elizabeth came with. I remember her basically attacking me again on my parent’s couch when the room was empty. We then headed out, played a round of putt-putt and I got a bucket of balls to drive. Elizabeth just sat there and watched as I went through the bucket – never complaining of being bored. Afterward, we headed back to my room at the frat house and had some more sex. What can I say? She was the perfect girl.

Things changed a bit on Sunday. Upon calling Elizabeth, the phone was answered by her father (the ex-marine, mind you). The first thing that he asked me was whether I knew how old his daughter was. Well, I actually didn’t – it never came up in the conversations – so I told him that I did not. This was when I found out that Elizabeth was 17! Oops, my bad … although I am pretty sure that 17 is the “age of consent” in Michigan – this piece of information meant nothing to her father. He basically went on this rampage about getting me arrested for statutory rape and inquired what my parents would think of my actions. I offered to call them up and tell them as I was sure that my parents would agree that I didn’t do anything wrong; however Elizabeth’s dad wasn’t having any of that. He basically told me never to contact Elizabeth again… And that was the end of that.

Well, kind of … Elizabeth actually called me a bit later that day, completely unaware of the conversation I had with her father earlier. I explained to her what had happened and basically bid her farewell – she was moving back to South Carolina the next day and I was positive that I wouldn’t be seeing her again. That’s just one of the many things that I wish I could have changed but was never able to – I never have seen her since…

We actually kept in touch for a short period of time, however I don’t need to go into the details as to why this long-distance romance didn’t pan out. We talked on the phone a bit and exchanged a few letters (all of which I still actually have – I just recently found them again before heading out to Germany) but nothing that good ever lasts for me. I guess it’s been 15½ years since I last spoke with Elizabeth. I hope she’s doing well…

Oh well, that’s about all my sore little butt can handle today; so I am going to once again bid you adieu. Perhaps stories like these might better explain my current position in life. Some guys have good luck with the women, I don’t. It sure was a wonderful couple of days though…

bis später,

Coriolis

Another Night in Amsterdam

Oh well … once again, I headed back over to Amsterdam last weekend. Here’s the video:



Not much new to say about this … however I did bruise my butt bone rather badly when my legs just gave out in Stone’s Café… I do actually believe this to be my best video so far … enjoy…

bis später,

Coriolis

Addendum 2-11-07

Okay, so I’m not very happy with the quality you get with this streaming video. I actually have very high quality versions of all of my videos but they’re just too large for me to easily post somewhere.

If you’re interested in seeing these, all you need to do is catch me on Yahoo IM (coriolis364@yahoo.com). I’m usually online…

Who's Your Daddy?

I feel that I need to better explain my thoughts on life a bit. I will freely admit that this feeling is a direct result of the rather long and in-depth scolding that I received on my Most Intelligent Creatures? post. The fact that I received such a scolding is, by no means whatsoever, surprising to me – this is exactly what is to be expected in a world (such as ours) where the behaviors of the masses are being programmed by the myriad of systems created to do just that – religions. I just think that the time for arguments based upon stories that many people have been falsely (in my opinion) lead to believe were written by some sort of all-mighty being is over. Let’s start living our lives and making decisions based upon reality.

Okay, fine … so where am I going with all this? I realize that many people have figured out that I have actually come to the conclusion that life – in all of its spectacle and glory – is basically meaningless. You’re born; hang around in existence for a bit; and die – that seems pretty meaningless to me. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Neither … it’s just a “thing”. Why is it that everybody wants to label everything as either good or bad? Some things just are and life (once again, in my opinion) just is.

The part that I can’t quite grasp is why so many people want to believe that the purpose for their existence is something that won’t be realized until their existence is no more; that the only reason they exist is to bring glory to some “spirit” that only exists as a belief. The “spirit” takes on whatever form the specific religion practiced assigns to it (and yes, Diane, there are many religions in this world – in fact, if you look into it a bit, you will quickly discover that the religion that you were so quick to rather arrogantly claim as the only one true religion is actually not believed true by a large majority of the world); however the “spirit” is always the same – it’s something that is always described as “too powerful for man to understand”. Seems rather convenient to me that the powerfulness of this being makes its absence of any actual physical presence unnecessary…

The result of all this is basically the current world that we are living in – several groups of people all believing that their religion is the one and only correct religion and that each and every one of the other groups has somehow made a mistake somewhere and got the “actual” truth either a bit skewed or down-right wrong. Here’s something for you all to ponder – what if none of the religions got “it” right? What if this all-powerful “spirit” doesn’t even exist? What if, after your time is up in this existence, you don’t go anywhere but actually cease to exist? This, after all, is what I truly believe and the conclusion that this brings me to is that we might as well do our best to enjoy this existence whilst we still have it.

Now I’m not saying that everybody should just become self-indulgent assholes with absolutely no regard for others (could you imagine how bad life would be if the world was filled with Paris Hilton clones?); the proposal that I am making is that we set aside our differences that are manifested through our beliefs in these various religions and learn to live together in peace and harmony. I happen to think that the world would be a much better place if we stopped teaching these religions as absolute truths and started teaching the ideals behind them for what they really are – good ideas.

That’s actually another issue that I would like to clarify: Although I am a true atheist (and you need to take my word on this – I do not believe in any god), I am not therefore against the ideals that most religions are attempting to teach. I am, however, very much against the way these ideals are being taught. It seems to me that these same ideals can be better realized if the true essence of them was taught rather than creating some fantasized, outrageous penalty for not “following the rules” that will need to be paid after one dies. To be honest, I find this to be an insult to my intelligence. Sure, when I was a child I had direct penalties that were doled out by my parents for doing stupid things – and rightly so; however I am no longer a child and am completely able to understand the ramifications of my actions. I don’t need to create some illusionary father figure to control me anymore – I can take care of myself.

The funniest thing about it is that, in taking care of myself (as well as using what my parents taught me when I was young), I have found that most (if not all) of the ideals that have become buried in the Christian religions are actually the correct way to live. It just makes sense – be nice to people, help out whenever you can and try not to get too caught up in any of the high-risk activities (aka sins) that you lose control. The thing is that I don’t need to actually be practicing any religion (or believing in any god) to come to these realizations – I just need to learn from life’s experiences.

Well folks … that pretty much covers it. I’m an atheist, but I’m an atheist with a heart. I completely understand that the effect that my blog postings are going to have on organized religions is nil; however I am hoping that I may have given some of you a bit of a peek into a different way of thinking…

bis später,

Coriolis