Markus N.'s Journal

The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/web/20050212085956/http://www.livejournal.com:80/users/markusn/

Inspired by Billijean's post:

I loved th whisper of the bike's tires on the thin coat of fresh snow. Where the bike paths hadn't been afflicted with road salt, that is.

Still, it was a peaceful ride this morning.

Peace of mind comes easier to me these days, it would seem.

stupid "who are you" tests, but I had to take this one

I am nerdier than 81% of all people. Are you nerdier? Click here to find out!

Is fate trying to tell me something
The last about five folks I have checked out on LJ because I found their posts interesting have turned out to be gay men. Have I been missing my destiny in life?

Current Mood: confused

Survey
If you don't mind I'll do a little experiment with you here. Please answer without looking at other comments first. Please answer only if you don't know the meme from previous exposure, and please don't try to be facetious but answer just with the first word that springs up in your mind.

1. Name a colour. Any colour.
2. And a second one.

3. Name a tool.
4. And a second one.

5. What is you mother tongue?
6. Where did you grow up?

Thanks!

Stolen from Posey, who is TEH AWSOME
Somebody smack me for just having used coolspeak (or whatever it's called).

1. Reply to this post if you want me to tell you how cool you are!
2. Watch my journal over the next few days for a post just about you and why you rock my socks.
3. Post these instructions in your journal and give your friends a much needed dose of love and adoration!

Must remember this from time to time.

Stupid test
( Damn, can they read my mind or what? )

Humans piss me off today
I am just in a pissy mood. Separation sucks. Having to care for egocentric teenagers sucks. Plus I had to learn yesterday that I have to get used to write for as-good-as-analphabets. This is obviously where our society is headed, and we're helping it along. Which sucks.

Gotta get out this lunch break and enjoy nature. This at least just lives, gives birth and dies. Eat and get eaten. No social mush which in the end just comes down to eat and get eaten and pretends to be something more. And it manages to be beautiful into the bargain.

Need to carry my camera again. I have pretty much given up on this the last half year or so.

Move along folks, nothing to see here.

A great friend I am
Dumping my desperation on you and then leaving without updating.

OK, so here's the situation.

Re has left me to live with the other guy. I stay in the house with the kids. She still is in town daily for work and takes care of the kids (mainly cooking lunches) when they are here during the week. Weekends are subject to individual negotiation. Nothing final done about divorce yet, though she says she wants it; I am not sure if she is taking legal measures on her end. I won't push it forward at the moment, though financially it would be sensible to have filed until end of Oct.

We speak amicably, but not very often. I try to give her space. I don't let this situation push me in a hole as it would have without me resisting valiantly. There are days when I see the chance in the new situation. There are days I am just angry at being dumped like old clothing.

What angers me most is that this comes at the moment when I was seeing light at the end of the tunnel; when life's responsibilities were easing up a bit; when there was the opportunity to enjoy life once more. Now she goes along to enjoy it with somebody else. I was OK to help carry the burden, now please go ahead and have fun by yourself. OK, so be it.

I am working on my outlook on life. Working on being less codependent. Working on not letting this make me even more jaded.

And then, I'm just working. Suddenly having responsibility for a household with two kids after eleven hour days, and wanting to re-organize lots of things in this household does that to you.

I am also seeing a therapist; something I had better done ten years ago but was afraid of for fear of being told "get rid of your family as it weighs you down" (I have seen it happen). Not sure if that is doing any good now, but I'll have another session before I decide anything on that front.

Current Mood: apathetic

Venus Transit 2004. I Was There

Chicken Squirrel
Had a funny encounter today. I went for a walk in Reinacherheide. Down at the Birs I met a squirrel. Now the European red squirrel is nothing lik his American grey brethren when it comes to boldness. Red squirrels are quite shy.

So he clambered up a tree. What normally happens next is that they jump from treetop to treetop, fleeing throuhg the canopy. This one got up to the uppermost branch, went out as far as he dared, prepared for the jump (about two meters, nothing for a squirrel, and a safe landing on an ivy covered trunk, too)...

and chickened out. He didn't dare to jump.

Scurried down the trunk, went out on another limb... same story didn't dare to jump. It went on like this for about five minutes, he didn't find a spot where he was comfortable to change to the other tree (coulda grabbed branches ansd simply swung over, too, still, no way). Finally he scurried down to the ground (about two meters away from me, so really in the dange zone) and hopped away to the next high tree.

I screamed with laughter, internally. Don't know if this squirrel will grow old, though (he looked like last fall's baby to me.)

Next creature I met was a bald coot sitting on its nest. Now nests of waterfowl are untidy in the best of cases, but this one topped the usual raggle-taggle of materials heaped on top of each other.

One important part of the swimming body was a Nike sneaker. Coot with some brand recognition, it would seem...

Current Mood: amused

Slidin'
Can you imagine how it feels to go down at 65 mph? I couldn't either. Until Friday, that is.

Going home after a night out with the kids, travelling the Autobahn in a drizzle (had put them on the train before), 11 PM. With the exit approaching, I throttled down. Well, my right hand did. The engine did not.

Throttled up, throttled down. The handle felt normal. It just didn't throttle down. Operating the clutch answered with the reaction to be expected: immediate over-revving of the engine. So I tried if I could regain some control by gently braking. BIG MISTAKE! Before I even felt any deceleration, the front wheel slid away.

Fireworks from the sliding bike. Sliding on my back in the dark. Rolling over. Sliding on my belly.

I got up, no harm done. The bike lay about 20m away, engine out, half in the right lane, half on the hard shoulder.

Fortunately the autobahn was quite empty. A car approached from the back. I signalled them to slow down, ran up to the bike, pulled it upright and cleared the lane.

The car stopped about 50 m ahead on the shoulder. A man and a woman got out, came back to check on me.

I was one lucky bastard. No damage worth mentioning. A bruise at the hip, the shoulder and some ribs hurt slightly, left 5th toe bruised by the steel cap in my boot, that's it. My protective gear was in tatters, though. The jacket and the protective trousers are good for the bin. (No scratch on the helmet, though. It would seem I protect my best parts well instinctively.)

Started the engine up again. Idle at 5000 rpm. Didn't dare to ride home like this. So I pushed. The friendly folks made sure that I really hadn't taken permanent damage, then left.

When the jitters had abated a bit I got on the bike and slowly rode home with brake (back this time ;) and clutch control.

(Don't tell me how I should have reacted. In theory I know. But theory and reflexes unfortunately are two different things. What angers me most is that I wasn't in such a hurry to get a solution. I'd have had at least another 5 seconds to get the situation under control, and if not I coulda pushed the bike back on the shoulder or taken the next exit (that's 10 miles away, though). Hindsight is always 20/20.)

Current Mood: alive

That snow outside tells of a bike that's going to stay put in the parking lot this evening.

Current Mood: calm

Clearing snow off the seat of my motorbike left me sort of queasy about the ride ahead.

Everything went smooth, but the combination of dakness, a sprayed visor and glaring car lights doesn't really make for a safe ride either.

Current Mood: pensive

Have fun with Santa
My record stands somewhere at 316 m. (Sorry, it's metric.)

Wonder what he paid for that license plate
Seen this morning:

LÖ TT 77

(LÖ stands for "Lörrach", thus is a given.)

You get one guess at the type of the car.

Wonder how many motorists get the |337 reference.

The moon is a thin, silvery crescent over the south-west horizon, which is slowly turning pink.

Life is good.

Locusts flash blue hindwings
Intruder in their kingdom
Blundering I am

Current Mood: small

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