My roommate gave me a kindle for Christmas (I asked for book store vouchers and this is what I got) and I am so in love with that thing. I got it on the 27th and have already read 5 books on it. At the moment you get a book for free each day (until Jan 6) and the Kindle Deal of the day where you get a book for 99 cents instead of 8 or 10 Euros. I downloaded most of them and some books that are for free anyways.

I also finished Fall of the Giants and the first book of Game of Thrones. It took me ages, however I pretty much liked Fall of the Giants. I need a beak from Game of Thrones now and read something else. As I stated in a post before: too many characters, too many places, it is all confusing for me and I am still not too sure where the author is going with the series.

Short reviews about the Kindle books I read:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
I knew why I wouldn’t spend any money on that before, but since it was for free in the Kindle Store I gave it a try. I was horribly bored. Really? That is all the fuss about it. There were 12 stories and I liked 2.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
I have to admit, I never read that before and I really liked it. I liked the plays with words, maths and logic. Nerd alert!
The book was also for free in the shop.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Another free book. I never read it, just saw the movies they made. Also not really my kind of thing. Might be more of a boy’s book.

The Importance of Being Earnest
I saw that play in theatre by the American Drama Group more than 10 years ago and I still remember it to be hilarious. I laughed so much. Reading a play takes away a lot from the performance, but still I would recommend it to everyone :) It is free in the Kindle Store!

Painted Ladies
This was either one of the free books they offered or the Kindle Deal. I downloaded it because it had a bit of Holocaust relation in the story. It is not outstanding, but was a quick read because the author avoids long and detailed descriptions of everything, which I really liked. The dialogues were witty.

Right now I am reading (on the Kindle) God is not Great which was one of the free books. I think I really like it. The author describes why he has a problem with what people make out of religion. I only read 10% so far (Kindle shows you that) and he said “Religion is poison” several times already. Me likes.

Since I have no sleeve for the Kindle and those are ridiculously expensive, I don’t want to carry it around with me, yet. That gives me the option to read the “real” books during my travels to and back from work. I will start with Cemetery Lake by Paul Cleave, which I got for Christmas from a friend.

What I absolutely have to read is Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith. The 3rd book of his series. It is already out. According to Amazon the English soft cover will be out mid January and so far the price would be cheaper than the Kindle edition. So I will wait if it stays like that. If so I will buy the regular book. Now that I think about it, I will do this anyways because I have the other 2, so it would be stupid not have the 3rd in the shelf.

Also I will definitely buy the real book versions of any book Sebastian Fitzek publishes in the future. It will be hard to get the signature on an ebook.

Another series I am interested in is The Hunger Games. My friend Suzie loves them. All three books are available in the Kindle Store for about 15 Euro right now (instead of 42). I am still thinking to buy it.

Now that I am done with my distance learning studies (I sent my thesis in time), I don’t really have anything to worry about and could spend so much more time on reading. I hope I will have the energy after work to do so.

I am unable to describe the music, because I am not good with words, luckily some of their tracks are available on MySpace and videos of that night’s performance can be seen on YouTube. I list the links below the member list and play list of the evening.

FataL-Exception
Julián- Vocals/Guitar
Marcus Wheel-Laugh – Guitar
Conrad – Bass
Claus – Keyboards
Ziege – Drums

They are in progress of recording their first demo CD at the moment. However there is already a CD available with two of their songs.

Setlist of October 27
My own desert
Until the end
Rise of ignorance
Tears of glory
Lost diamond
Salto al Vacio
Gemini
Evil red eyes

Links
www.fatal-exception.de (MySpace page. You can listen to Tears of Glory and Salto al Vacio there)
FataL-Exception YouTube Channel(You can see three videos of the concert there)
Facebook Page

I demand all of you to go to the YouTube Channel and watch the videos.

I think I even could have made the 50000 words. I didn’t even write every day, mostly weekend and the story is not really finished yet. I just had no energy after work, plus the bad feeling that I am supposed to write my thesis (for which I didn’t write a single word). I will be on the road again this weekend with two 6 hours train rides and hope to work out my thesis then. I have to hand it in by the end of December.

As for NaNoWriMo. I am pretty sure I will handle it again next year.

So now all you know. I am participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo – officially and work is absolutely in my way right now and I also have to write my thesis. I started with that already, but I have so much to write about or that I could write about, damn, I really need time management at the moment. :D

Oh and don’t expect high class literature in any way. I am actually not a good writer. I don”t think I really have a go for good wording, but it is enough for getting stuff off your chest and deal with it somehow and maybe get another perspective by developing the scenes and characters. it is a bit like role playing.

EDIT: 11.58pm: Made it to 1731 words in total today. Whohooo.

I created a gallery with pics of myself. See my development :D
Also I added about 100 pictures of my cats.

A little update on what I am doing right now. I finally started my thesis titled: “Improvement of Customer Satisfaction by increasing the amount of first call resolutions and better ticket handling through knowledge transfer, employee motivation and communication”

I want to state first: After watching the videos you will have only an idea what BARF is about. If you decide to do this with your cats as well, please get more information on it, also you need to consider the needs of your own cats.

Introduction
How to calculate supplements
More on supplements
Summary and final result

In addition a few links:
DuBarfst Community (German)
Blaue Samtpfote Lots of information and recipes for starters (German)
Lillys Bar Webshop where you can order supplements (German)

A house full of Cats Introduction on how to BARF (English)

(For some reason I had a bit of trouble finding some good sites on BARF in English, but maybe it is also just Google, refusing the English speaking sites to me when there are millions of German ones).

This will be a longer entry, so I put everything behind the Read More link. I hope I won’t bore you too much.

Landstuhl
Landstuhl is a town close to Kaiserslautern, also known as K-town in the US community (there are even shirts saying K-Town o.O) and that is right around the corner of the Ramstein and Vogelweh US bases. Again I traveled with Deutsche Bahn and had to change trains quite a bit, which is actually the most annoying part. I don’t mind going by train, but I’d prefer just boarding one train and drop out at the destination I want to go to, without stopping by several stations, finding the right track and hoping the trains would be in time.
I arrived in Landstuhl early evening on Tuesday. Again I first decided for the wrong way to the hotel (even though I checked it out on google maps, still I messed it up). Luckily that town is not really big and it didn’t take me long to eventually find it. It was pricey but I wanted to surprise St. who stayed there, which worked out quite well. Since I hate surprises myself, I considered the possibility that the pleasure was only on my side. Anyways he took my appearance with the British half of him ;)
We had dinner together (Rahmschnitzel nom nom nom) and I joined St. for his bowling night. I love bowling, as much as I suck at it, I really like it.

St. planned to go on the Ramstein base but due to dubious commander decisions he wasn’t allowed to sign me in there, so we went to Vogelweh.
Being there we dropped by the Commissary and I got to know the Customer Service Manager there and St. showed me the buildings of the headquarter. I would never find the way there again, not that I plan to either.
We played 3 games at the bowling alley, while I was standing there awkwardly trying to score some points, St. did one strike after the other with his shiny bowling ball (not one from the alley, his own one). I also learned some things. St. made me understand that it actually really matters from where you start going, so left, center or right. Normally I just go from the middle, helplessly aiming for a pin, hoping they would fall *lol* Still I didn’t manage a single strike *pouts*.

After bowling we went back to the hotel for a drink in the bar. I had a Jacky Coke. I really see myself going from Cuba Libre to Whiskey Coke. Is whiskey harder stuff than rum? I don’t know, maybe I just like Jack Daniels more than whatever rum. The bar in the hotel is awesome by the way. It is set up like being in a plane. The fan above the bar is a plane’s airscrew. Really shiny.
Anyways we were pretty tired and called it a night.
I didn’t sleep too well. I actually hoped the bed to be a lot more like the ones in the Hilton in Nürnberg. Seriously I cannot remember sleeping as good as in that Hilton bed anywhere else. It’s been 3 years since I was there and still all I can think of are the beds. I need such a bed.
So I was up pretty early again and for being such a pricey hotel, I showered like forever to make it worth it *lol* St. and I agreed to have breakfast together around 9.30 so I spent my time with reading Game of Thrones – in the not so very comfortable bed.

After breakfast St. actually had some work to do and I followed him. We went to Ramstein and had someone from the commissary come to sign me in. No offense dear Americans, but this procedure is a bit ridiculous from time to time. Anyway, I saw the Ramstein base, whohooo and the largest Commissary in Europe plus one of the busiest ones and freaking hell those Americans buy groceries like crazy. Everything in those commissaries is just HUGE. I complain a lot that there are no groceries for singles, seeing the package sizes Americans prefer, our big packs look ridiculously small. Also you see people leave the commissary with not only one cart but two or even three. What kind of fridges and freezers do those people have???
When St. was done we went to the shopping mall on the base. We were strolling through the BX store and had some food at a burger place. There was one of the most amusing clerks serving us – dry humour all over the place, impossible to not have a good time.
Unfortunately then it was already about time for me to go and catch my train to Spangdahlem.

Spangdahlem
The train ride was so boring. The train stopped at basically every tiny station there was and I so hate that.
Inge picked me up and first thing we did was going to the commissary. She still had some stocking to do while D. explained to me how they handle the closing procedure. It is always one thing to know how it should be done, or better what the software needs to process data, but it is another to actually see the staff work with it. I consider this one key to understanding the customers issues and concerns they have with the system.
After Inge was done we went to her place, stopping by Nick’s Diner to get some food. We didn’t do anything else that evening. I spent a bit time on the internet and eventually fell asleep.

The next day I wanted to work with P. in the back office a bit. We were in the store at 8. Before Inge and I had great breakfast at her place.
The ladies showed me some problems they had with the registers, so I had a quick look and told them what to tell the HelpDesk when opening a ticket for it.
As you can see on the right side, P. and I worked on one of her problems with real devotion and unshakable belief in the system. I even found the one or the other thing, not necessarily to P.’s pleasure, though :P
Unfortunately not too much happened anymore because a migraine attack stroke me. So Inge and I went to her place again and I pretty much slept through until the late afternoon. Obviously my body still needs to get used to me not sitting on the couch all the time, but actually doing something ^^ Very likely it was my lack of sleep. My body is quick on knocking me out.
When I was up again and felt a lot better we drove to Luxemburg, well to a gas station just behind the border. Gas and cigarettes are a lot cheaper there, so that’s why I wanted to make this little trip to the other country :D We also stopped by in Bitburg and I called J. in Stuttgart to ask how I would get to Kelley Barracks the next day. J. promised me to send instructions my mail. At Inge’s place I always lose my phone signal. J. also told me he was sick, but I was still welcomed to come, just that we wouldn’t be able to party hard.

The evening was already all planed by the Cash Cage Ladies. D. even helped B. to close the store so they could join us in a Thai Food restaurant. I had baked duck and it was really delicious. I also loved the spring rolls and sauces they had. It was a really relaxing evening and the time felt absolutely not like work. I felt a lot more comfortable than around some people here.

The next morning Inge made breakfast again and took me to the train station. At 10 my train left and I was on my way to Stuttgart.

Stuttgart
Landstuhl and Spangdahlem are small towns so coming to Stuttgart was a real change, because Stuttgart is huge. I prefer big cities, so I felt good. I followed J. instructions on how to get to Kelley Barracks. He was already waiting at the gate for me.
J. was one of the first persons I talked to when we started the project and we got along really well from the beginning. Ever since we discussed that either he needs to visit us or I need to come to Stuttgart. So finally after more than three years we made it.
Of course I also wanted to see the commissary and meet Mr. C. from the store. While Vogelweh, Ramstein and also Spangdahlem are pretty busy commissaries, Kelley Barracks is easy going. Compared to the before mentioned they are also rather small.

J. was already done for the day so we went to his place. His girlfriend agreed that I could stay with them and spend the night on the couch (and I am allowed to come back). She also made delicious dinner. During dinner we watched The Big Bang Theory on Sky – on a massive plasma screen. The little nerd in me was utterly jealous.
Even though J. was still having a cold, he wanted to go out and said we would go to the RoFa in a nearby town called Ludwigsburg. It is a metal/dark wave club and I felt absolutely great there a bit like home with all the people dressed in black and no charts music. The music could have been better, still I enjoyed myself – and my Jacky Cokes.
One time J. went to meet up with some of his old friends and suddenly I had a guy on my side trying to get physical. Absolutely a no-go. I hate that lol. I also had fun watching certain people on the dance floor. I like it when people just live with the music, however I wonder what they think they look like compared to what they actually look like :P

We went back to J.’s place around 2 or something. My train was leaving around 1pm, so we still had some time Saturday morning with breakfast and watching TV. Accidentally we were talking about Sci-Fi and I asked him if he new “Firefly”. I should have brought that up earlier. He recorded all episodes from the Firefly marathon that was shown recently. So I found a person in my real life knowing and liking Firefly as well as Serenity, the movie. And he could start watching it. His girlfriend is not really a fan, so he didn’t have the chance yet (however we both already know all episodes). And watching Firefly on this big screen – *nerdgasm*. Nathan Fillion would have been proud. He also copied the recent The Big Bang Theory episodes from me as well as the unaired pilot. Why don’t I have such people around me here???
We agreed I had to come back for an entire weekend.

Eventually it was about time to go to the station to get my train. The week had passed way too quickly, but I enjoyed myself and wasn’t homesick, which I tend to be when leaving home for more than a couple of days. The train rides were a pain, but I met great people, I saw and learned a lot. My report might sound a bit boring, though, but it wasn’t. It is just that in the end there was work related stuff, too, which I just cannot write about here ;)

In this post please click pictures to enlarge.

Arriving at the hostel some girl, probably having her first day there, dealt with our check in. We were looking forward to get rid of our stuff and full of joy we went upstairs to the room they gave us. We even allowed ourselves in, just to be shouted at by some middle aged women – identifying themselves as Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Barlow according to their shirts – that we should get the hell out of there, it would be their room. We were not amused, took our stuff and went downstairs again and told the girl, that we obviously got a wrong room, confusion all over the place. Another staff member came to our rescue, stating that Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Barlow plus another friend occupy that 6 bed room for themselves and gave us another one. They probably forgot that the husbands need a place to sleep as well. We booked a 6 bed room and now got a 3 bed room just for us, without additional payment. Great update.
When we finally settled down, I contacted Ricarda, who came with a Finnish friend, but she didn’t go to the concert. She was exploring Hamburg and was on her way back to hostel. Rita, Suzie and I wanted to eat something, so we decided to meet up where ever we would have food – we ended up in some Chinese place, don’t want to call it restaurant.
It’s been 4 years that I last saw Ricarda – in Donzdorf – for a Nightwish event, back in my fan club days.

Eventually we got ready for the train ride to the stadium. The crowd of people led us to the entrances. We ended up at the one opposite to where we were actually seated, but that is the good thing with seats – you have time. Once more I was pretty proud about the seats I managed to book. Also I was glad to be back at a concert in Germany. I could smoke inside – the person next to me didn’t quite like it, but hell screw it, it is Open Air. Deal with it.

I suffered through the Pet Shop Boys again before finally Take That came back on stage. It could have been the last time ever for us – because as we learned, Robbie left the band again – lol; not at all surprising and I am looking forward to a Robbie solo tour.
I cannot really say which concert was better, it was equal. Since it all is so choreographed and scheduled there was not much variance to the concert in Manchester. The 90s song part was more improvised and we actually got to hear quite a bit of Could it be magic :D Oh and the boys made the stadium sing the German National Anthem which to me felt really awkward.
And Robbie made me cry during Angels. I mean I always have goosebumps, but with how he introduced the song, that was just mean. I thought about my family and how quickly they could be gone and how much I abandoned them lately. It was a bit too much. So Saturday evening I wrote postcards to everyone in my family, I wouldn’t have done that, if Robbie didn’t make that introduction.

On Sunday I woke up with a sore throat and saw bad things coming when I felt worse and worse during our trip home… I ended up being sick with a sinus infection for the following two weeks.

During my vacation in June I decided for a road trip. Main reason was to go to Saarbrücken to join Gerdi for her 30th birthday party. We’ve been in contact since 96 or 97. Everything started off as pen pals. (For the younger generation – that was before email, Facebook and other social networks existed and people actually sat down with pen and paper and wrote letters and sent them through what we call snail mail nowadays). We visited each other when we were teenagers and once Gerdi also visited me shortly after I started university. We’ve been in contact on and off but always found back together. Today we mostly communicate via LiveJournal. Already last year the idea came up that I could go to Saarbrücken for her 30th birthday because she would have a big party with two of her friends. And this time I did not back out.

Since Saarbrücken is pretty close to Spangdahlem, I took the chance and went there, too. Why Spangdahlem? In Spangdahlem is a US Airbase with a Commissary. Actually you shouldn’t do it, but the Spangdahlem staff became really dear to me and I told them I would visit them some time. And so there I was. I met all the Cash Cage ladies and P. from the Back Office. I was there for just one night, but I could stay with Inge. and the day after we went to a Chinese restaurant on the base. As I said I didn’t stay for long but still it was a real pleasure to meet the people you only talked to the phone before. I was welcomed so warmly, I felt really comfortable. Those are events that show you, you do something right in your job.

From Spangdahlem I went to Saarbrücken. Gerdi picked me up from the train station. Somehow it was strange to meet as adults, at least it was to me. But we had lots of fun, also with Gerdi’s husband. The day I arrived, I tried their Wii Fit Board and damn that thing is a bitch – told me I was overweight.
On Saturday was the birthday party (I arrived Friday) and helped with preparing the party, setting up tables and chairs plus reminding the girls of several things – started management behaviour, hehe, but it seemed to be appreciated because everybody was so excited and I didn’t know anyone, and I feel shy around people I don’t know how to take and I am always glad when I can do something and make myself useful.
I also got a present from Gerdi. Actually we share the same birthday in April, just her being a year older. I got “PS Ich töte Dich” a collection of short stories, initiated by Sebastian Fitzek – since it was not a pure Fitzek book, I didn’t buy it yet, so I was really happy.
We also stayed pretty long and if it was for Gerdi, we could have stayed longer, but honestly I was at a point where I was already about to fall asleep, also I had to catch a train in the morning.
Gerdi took me to the train station again and I was still incredibly sleepy and didn’t anticipate the long train ride home.

All together I was glad I did the trip. I realised it is way more fulfilling doing something during vacation than just staying at home, especially when meeting old and new friends.