well yesterday I got a letter that I'm supposed todo jury duty at the 20nd of january, well yesterday was the 22nd and it was send to my old apartment...

so my current day so far is:

1. call number, fight with the automated system, sorry nobody avaialbe to take your call and they hang up
2. wait 5 minutes
3. go back to step 1.

this game I do no since 2 hours and so far not really making progress to appologize for this. I mean I do have no interest to pay a fine or go to jail because of this, not that it's very likely. But they did write on the letter:

Failure to respond to this summons will subject you to a fine, a jail term, or both

I'm not even allowed to do jury duty for Christ sake...

plans of the next days:


thursday:

• 8 - 12 working at home
• 12 - 2.30 writing at mishkas some more documentation
• 3 - 5 giving introduction how to use a particular software

friday

• 8 - 12 working in the office
  
• 2 - 5 working at mishkas on more documentation

saturday

• cleaning house
• going out
• rediscovering strawberry margaritas

but playing settlers of catan all night long at sudwerks was fun tonight.

it turns out that my room mates have way to much time and sitting next to each other in the living room and writing on a 'presentation about the impact of google documents to your social live'

there was no liqueur involved, yet...

as promised some pictures of my new room now that it's nearly finished and just needs some more pictures on the walls. Well which one to pick first...

well I finally managed to sort the 400 pictures I took at the rugby game last night and can only say. The D200 really does not work very well in low light and shooting constantly at iso3200 and iso1600 in the beginning did not improve the picture quality. We are basically back to black and white pictures, which are pretty grainy and still shoot only at 1/50th-1/100th of a second at 300mm.

Yes I managed to borrow a 300mm F/4 lens and it's just great and I want one. Maybe in June or august, if I get my situation here sorted.

what was planned to be the perfect morning, turned out into well something else..


- getting up at 5.30
- taking shower
- leaving the house at 6.30
- moving roommates volvo C70 out of the drive way
- moving my car out of the drive way
- moving roommates volvo C70 into the drive way
- trying to get the key out of the ignition for 24 minutes
- giving up and asking roommate what's wrong with the key
- hearing response, well you need to press the little lever under the transmission... (I somehow failed to make the connection between the keylock and the TINY TINY lever, I mean serious...)
- spending another 10 minutes to figure out that the engine need to be running to press the lever or something like this...
- forgetting to drop of some dvd's
- coming to work
- leaving work because I forgot my breakfast
- getting breakfast at mishkas
- dropping coffee and getting new coffee at mishkas...

damn I so hope it will become better...

Asparagus soup, based on a recipe found on the internet and optimized by me

Ingredients

* 3 lbs asparagus (white preferred, green works too)
* 1 large yellow onion, chopped (white onion works too)
* 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
* 6 cups chicken broth (careful that it's not to salty!)
* 1 cup heavy cream (or more is always better...)
* Salt and pepper
* Nutmeg
* A great portion of love for your friends
* a spatula to defend the food against hungry kids. The bigger the better

Method

1 Cut tips from 12 asparagus 1 1/2 inches from top and halve tips lengthwise if thick. Reserve for garnish. Cut stalks and all remaining asparagus into 1/2-inch pieces, discard the ends. If it's white asparagus peel it first and

2 Cook onion in butter in a 4 or 6-quart heavy pot over moderately low heat, stirring, until softened. Add asparagus pieces and salt and pepper to taste, then cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Add broth and simmer, covered, until asparagus is very tender, 15 to 20 minutes.

3 Purée soup in batches in a blender until smooth. If you want a very creamy texture, you can put the purée through a food mill or press it through a sieve. Transfer to a bowl (use caution when blending hot liquids), and return to pan. Stir in cream. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Drop tips in it and cook for another 5 - 6 minutes on low temperature. Keep warm till served and do not reheat it afterward!
(Hand blender works too, if you use a plastic cocktail blender let the soup cool for 5 - 10 minutes, with a glass blender rinse it under hot water for a couple of minutes)

well tonight we celebrated my welcome back to davis at kims place.

Well to short say, we made some great food:

- asparagus soup (made by me)
- cod in some kind of sauce (kim)
- chicken in some kind or sauce (kim)
- tri-tip steak, pan fried which was amazingly good, but different (made by me)
- california roll (kim)
- crepes with pears (flambe) and vanilla ice (filling/flambe by me, crepes by kim)
- feuerzangen bowle (made by me, organized by kim)
- shrimps (kim)


I also start to figure out how to use the damn razor without cutting my self... Well slowly, but facial scars are supposed to make attractive, but how much attractiveness does a men need...

well my hones arrived and now I try to learn honing razors and knives.

The first test is the standard honing pyramid:

3/1
3/1
1/3
1/3
1/3
1/5
1/5
1/10

which resulted in some first results, but nothing to get crazy about yet. Well I just need to practise.

still waiting for the hones, which should arrive on monday and afterward I'm going to hone a cheap knife first for practice reasons.
Maybe I can find a barber here who can hone the razor for me, so I learn something.

on the other hand, my room has now some drapes and start's to look better, but boy it's tiny...

I also ordered yet another sonicare toothbrush, since I can't manage to get my old one running again after the 8 weeks without use. This is now the 4th? toothbrush in 4 years...

ok it turned out that I stropped into the wrong direction and this lesson cost me another 120$ for a set to now sharpen the razor....

220/1000 grit stone
4000/8000 grit stone
SiC flattening stone

first shave with the new razor:

disappointing, major skin irritations, uncomfortable

I need to practice a lot and it might needs to be honed or I did something wrong during stropping and messed something up.

mhm, maybe it works better tomorrow, at least I smell nice now...

Yay Christmas in germany with the family.

You just don't need a flash sometimes, but higher iso would be nice...

one of the worst pictures I ever took, but the stuff was so tasty and my fingers were shaking from the cold...

a chocolate shop in Potsdam :)

I'm happy to announce that my website now allows comments and has a guest book.

...And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy." And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu ... And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." Amen...

I guess I watched too munch monty python lately, but I just LOVE this part!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Knight_(Monty_Python)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Hand_Grenade_of_Antioch

On this day 10 years ago I told a woman

I love you

and her response was, what does this mean for you. This question surprised me in a way that I thought was not possible and I was not able to answer this question in any way.

If she would ask me the same question now, what does

I love you

mean, I'm still not sure how to find the right words to describe such a feeling. But this time I would actually have a rough idea and would understand why she asked this question in the first place.

I think sometimes in live people ask you questions which you are not able to answer, but leave you with a better understanding of your self and you can only be thankful for things like this. Sadly this woman disappeared 2001 from my live and I was never able to reestablish contact since them.

well, well, well

now that radio popper finally sells the radiopopper juniors, well I got a little dilemma.

It would cost me 350$ for a set of 2 x transmitter, 4 x receiver and I would loose TTL (which I just don't care for) and high speed sync (kinda sucks), but get radio controlled slaves.

what does this get me?

• each camera has a small transmitter now, no more swapping the SB-900 from a --> b
  
• all my sb-600 get's a receiver
• my sb-900 get's a receiver
• friends just buy a transmitter and can use my flash and other way around
  

so I can control all flashes from all cameras all the time

AND

I could add alianbees to the bunch \o/ and use all my speed lights

AND

I can use my SB-900 now as flash instead of master which doubles the power of my little softbox \o/

...I guess I have to go shopping soon...

2 x $99 JrX Transmitter + JrX Receiver Basic Kit
2 x $59 JrX Receiver Basic Individual

funny I'm out of the states since close to a month now and all the readers of this blog disappeared and I have maybe 1 hit a day instead of 50 something...

I get the message I will write more as soon as I find time for it, latest in january when I'm back in davis.

I live in the us now since over 4 years and whenever I get home the first thing I desperately need and want to eat are:

• smoked salmon on white bread
• a soft boiled egg
• senfgurken (cucumbers pickled in mustard and vinegar)
• good Italian food (bruschetta,carpaccio basically antipasti in general)
  
• good vodka...
  
• thueringer bratwurst
• met broetchen (ground raw park with onions and spices on white bread)

I'm done with the first 3 things, the 4th comes tonight and the rest comes in the next couple of days.