Fresken

Unser Betriebsausflug hatte mich diese Woche nach Kaiserswerth geführt. Dies liegt ca. 15km nördlich von Düsseldorf und ist ein kleines Nest, in welchem früher Kaiser Friedrich I (Aka Barbarossa) residierte. Es ist zudem der Ort, von welchem aus sich die evangelische Diakonie in Deutschland ausgebreitet hat (so wurde uns zumindest erzählt).

Der ganze Ort ist voll mit Zeichen und Symbolik des Christentums und atmet Alter. Und wo ein Christ, da ein Kritiker. Die Fresken auf dem Bild entstammen einem Reliefgemälde, welches die Grausamkeiten des Christentums zur Zeit der Hexenverbrennung thematisiert. Verknöcherten Pfaffen, Bischöfe und hohen Herren die über ein grausames Schicksal von Minderheiten bestimmen um ihrer eigenen Interessen Willens. Und das Volk sieht tatenlos wie eine Herde Schafe zu.

Wenn ich mir unsere Welt heute ansehe denke ich manchmal, wir haben das Zeitalter der Hexenverbrennung immer noch nicht hinter uns gelassen. Nur das die Hexen heute Andere sind.

Gestern Abend hatte ich das Glück. Ich war noch spät in der Stadt unterwegs, hatte etwas Zeit und auch noch meine Kamera dabei. Vielleicht war ich auch etwas angetrunken. Auf jeden Fall war die Stimmung schön: das warme Licht des Düsseldorfer Rathauses, der vereinsamten Vorplatz und die Luft hatte diese melancholische Kälte, die den Duft von Herbst trägt.

Auf jeden Fall kam ich in Ermangelung eines Statives auf die Idee, einfach die nächst gelegene Mauer zu verwenden und habe ein wenig an den Belichtungszeiten gespielt. Keine schlechte Beschäftigung einen Abend zu beenden.

LEBE INTENSIV

Das ist nicht nur ein Posting. Keine Bitte oder Empfehlung. Das ist eine Aufforderung. An Dich.

Lebe intensiv!

Kleine Fluchten

Ich bin gerne im Waschsalon. Ich fahre auch gerne Zug. Da bleibt die Zeit einfach mal stehen und gibt Raum, den eigenen Gedanken nachzuhängen. Die Welt draussen verschwindet für eine kurze Zeit, wird unwichtig. Vielleicht liegt es an den gleichen momotonen Geräuschen die alles andere schlucken.

Und dann tritt man heraus und das Leben bricht wieder über einen herein.

ENLIGHTMENT

Ich muss heute etwas zugeben: Ich war ein schlechter Schüler. Ich bin weder gerne, noch oft in die Schule gegangen noch war ich in irgendeinem Fach gut. Auch weiss ich heute nicht mehr viel davon. Von den wenigen Dingen die jedoch geblieben sind nimmt das Konzept der Aufklärungen einen wesentlichen Teil ein.

Aufklärung, wie erinnern uns düster, war der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Selbstverschuldet? Ja, Selbstverschuldet ist diese Unmündigkeit dann, wenn die Ursache derselben nicht am Mangel des Verstandes, sondern der Entschließung und des Mutes liegt. In neuen Worten: Wir es uns bequem machen und nicht die Verantwortung für unser Handeln übernehmen.

Auch hat sich Kant mit den Fragen befasst, was der Mensch wissen kann, was er tun soll und was er hoffen darf.

Aktueller den je, oder nicht?

WORKSHOP

There are a few misteries in our daily life. Like, why is grand ma's cake always the best, girls always in groups at the restroom and the weather always bad on weekends. And there are also a few things, you can't use google for. Like cooking jam. I always considered home made jam as an difficult issue. Something I relaay love but would never do myself. But as knowledge has to be passed by from one generation to the other my grandma introduced me in the art of jelly cooking.

And it was easy. It neither hurted nor was it difficult. I burnt a finger by accident as the fruits are really hit, but that was the only bad thing that happend. Therefore I want to share this experience.

I. Mix fruit with sugar (the special one for jelly) and boil mixture for 4 minute. Be creative in adding flavour (here rhuabard with cinnamon and gloves)

II. Collect heaps and heaps of glasses to save your money. Yogurt glases, the one from cucumbr and so on. And don't trow the lid a way!
III. Fill mixture in glass. Don't burn your fingern. And.....TATA... first home made jam is ready. Well done!

watching music

Today I've done something interesting for the first time: I spend my evening watching music. Not that MTV kind of music. I went to an concert of classical music at the concert hall (Tonhalle). They played Mahlers 6th symphony. I have no idea about the life of Mahler, not even know his surname. And I have absolutely no idea what his music is about. But I like it, and that's important isn't it?

I was always wondering why people go to a classical concert. Can't they just buy a CD? Isn't it boring to sit for over an hour in a room and do nothing else than listening music? No, absolutely not. Neither is it boring nor is it just listening. More over it is challenging: Which instrument is playing at the moment, what is the guy on the frontdesk doing, how many artists are there and so on. There are so many things happens on stage that it is far from boring. I really enjoyed it.

HOPE

Thank you very much for all your sympathy. It helps a lot! For the moment we can`t do nothing else than hope the best.

Signs

Some signs are really stupid don`t you think? They really negate common sense: Like those coffee mugs where it is stated: Caution! The content your`re about to enjoy is hot! What surprise. Or that scribblings on the wall. Yes it is electricity-don`t touch it! Why do they treat me like a moron?

Why don`t we carry such sign with us? Like "Bad hair day: Don`t talk to me!" or "Caution agressive person ahead: please follow the detour" or "Negative Radiation Room: Don`t enter without a smile"...

and so on... Perhaps I should start to put my (truely invisble) warnings on my desk everyday. At least they would make me smile!

JP Morgan Chase Run

Hihi, that was fun! I really love doing sports and so I signed in for the JP Morgan Run in Frankfurt yesterday evening. As the headquarter of the holding I'm working for is based in FFM it was a matter of honour for my company to take part. SO we drove down from Mönchnegladbach to Frankfurt for an 30minutes run. With approx. 80.000 runners it was more a battle about space than a nice running event. But it was great for teambuilding. As there were 2 business units competing against each other (finance vs. sales) I was forced to do the winning job for my team. Well, I did it :) But for know my legr are really sore! Guess who are the finance guys....

bulky waste

This weekend was bulky waste collection. The whole town was crowded by old and unused furniture. Is`s interetsting what peoples throw away. Lot of old couches, coffe machines on every corner, damaged bikes and old kitchen interiour. But, hey, it`s Düsseldorf - one of the whealtiest towns - or at least a place with a good quote of millionaires per habitant. On our way back yesterday late at night we bumbed into an very kind old gentleman. White hair, sports blazer, that kind of gentleman. He was bringing down his old stuff for collection. To make it short: we are now proud owners of a pretty cool (and good) set of golf clubs including bag. Rubbish obviously belongs also to the eyes of the beholder.

By the way: I have totaly forgotten my anniversary. One year blogging is already over! And one of my first postings was also about golf.... how time changes.

Festival de Petanque

Yesterday we rushed into the festival of petanque - some kind of boule trophy. You know, those small silver heavy balls you can buy in the DIY shop. Hum, not really. Those boules are real expensive. Did you know that there are even competition boules? And a international league? The rules are easy: a team consist of 3 players with 2 identically coded boules each. The Pointer attemps to position his boules as close as possible to the coche (piglet). The counterpart falls upon the shooter who aims to shoot opposing boules. Well, sounds like a match of chess doesn`t it?

We watched the finals late at night and actually it was pretty cool. They had closed the complete Rhein bank and created a huge area of competition fields - like a beach ball area with gravel instead of sand. People hung around everywhere and there were heaps of french guys. It had a flair of late summer evenings somewhere in rural France. Much better than chess....

Captain Jack is back!

Hey guys have you seen it yet? No? So I'm not telling anything about the story but that it is great! Like the other tweo parts we saw it in english. I dont like the german voiceover. There are a few things I have to admit.

First, I have a new femal hero. Captain Swan. Oh sorry, didt I say to much. However, she is great. Tough women, nice haircut and I'm really considering taking martial arts lessons. She's so cool.

Second, I love to collect quotes. As I use to watch great movies a few times it very likely that I can repeat parts of the movie fluently. So, there's a short quiz. From which of my 3 favourite movie are those quotes.

1. That's a very nice bolder
2. Oh, no good
3. I think he has to compensate for something
4. Raise the colours
5. Booh
6. Snowcorns? Oh it's lemon

A short hint: 2 of them are animate movies...

Meals on wheels

Living and working in Germany seems to be a little bit like a rat race. I try and try and try but there is not enough time to squeeze everything into those very short days. An hour seems to be much shorter than in New Zealand . So I decided to outsource a few time consuming things. Like doing the groceries. Not that I stopped my weekly visit at the supermarket – they are open till 10 pm what is great. I just skipped from the local ethnic food shops (the Indian guys, the Chinese “we sell everything shops”, the Japanese specialities) to an online food shop. It would have taken ages to get this variety in town. The first shippment arrived today - I had ordered yesterday! Isn't it great? It’s like Christmas! I already love it.

Morgens und abends zu lesen

Der, den ich liebe,
Hat mir gesagt,
daß er mich braucht.
Darum gebe ich auf mich acht.
Sehe auf meinen Weg
Und fürchte von jedemRegentropfen
Daß er mich erschlagenkönnte.
(Bertolt Brecht)

Auszug aus der Traurede vom Wochenende. Wish you all the best!