Hillside Meditations

This morning my mum called and told me that there had been a terrible thunderstorm (lasting for about 3 minutes) devastating our garden (my parents´ garden really - where I grew up). All but one of the mighty pine trees that had been planted at around the date of my birth had been broken by the storm, parts of them damaging the metal top of my parents´ chimney and probably the garage flat roof which could not been fully examined yet.

The three pine tree sibs that had been - in my mother´s words - our hallmark or that of my parents´ premises are shown above - they are damaged beyond healing and will have to be felled. At my parents´ age (and my own) there will never be a complete replacement, none of us will live to see another set of 40-year-old trees there (I am not even sure we have a sufficiently up-to-date photo of what the trees looke like). These trees had been our family´ s companions almost as long as the family existed, some had been presents by a long-deceased brother-in-law of my mother´s, they had been witnesses to so many things that happened over the years, had seen so many people that no longer live, ah well.

Lots of other trees in the garden were damaged, as well - a 40 year-old acorn´s stem split in the middle (acorns being tough this one might survive).

The garden, which is my father´s eye apple, looks very dreary and devastated; the lovingly tended potted plants standing forelornly among the skeleton´s of our tree giants, small undergrowth suddenly in glaring sunlight where there had been shade.

The house was not severly damaged and no persons were hurt, so it is really not too big an affair, but I am very sad, wept a little bit when noone looked and was especially sorry for my parents (although they seemed to take it very constructively, making plans what to do to repair the garden - my father looking a bit lost, though).

Nothing is forever - this is something that I realized once again; in the course of time nothing will be preserved, we have to enjoy ourselves and the people and the animals and the plants and the things around us as long as we can and as long as they are there.



I made a Flickr set of photos I took the morning after the thunderstorm…

Related Blog: “Thunderstorm” on teezeeh dot info.

storm, thundestorm, trees, damage, nature, loss, memories, garden, loss

• ttaglist: storm thundestorm trees damage nature loss memories garden loss

Via Logtar´s Blog :

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” -Dale Carnegie

Logtar posted this quotation yesterday and it did strike a chord with me. I guess it is not only an American disease, but a Western, perhaps even just a human one. At least it is one disease I really suffer from myself.

As with many diseases I guess it is a matter of quantity - intelligent and longliving creatures do have to think about tomorrow (Aesop, e.g., already tells us about the need “to prepare for the days of necessity” and so does the bible and so did our parents and grandparents). “¡A vivir que son dos dias!” sounds good, but what if there is a third and fourth day after all?

Some kind of planning ahead for the future, some kinds of provisions are necessary - and only the very reckless try to make do without.

Planning ahead is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. And it will take away a little bit from living today. If I would not be thinking about tomorrow I might not go to work, have even more unhealthy habits than I have right now and other such things. Thinking about tomorrow keeps me from spending that nice day in the sun at a pool and makes me stay inside and do some work.

No, it is the dosis that makes the poison - and to find the right dosis needs intuition or luck or wisdom or someone to guide you or - rather - all of those things together.

And those with too little intuition, the unlucky, unwise, those without a reliable and trusted guide, in short those like me - we tend to do exactly what Mr. Carnegie (whom I do not know anything about btw.) describes: we grow older and older without really taking notice working and waiting and hoping for THE day, THE time, (THE princess) and might have to leave without ever reaching the horizon of our plans and provisions.

Una copita de café every now and then might be a good plan - as Logtar points out.

What about the really unlucky, like me, who live the other half of their lives in the PAST? Perhaps with me this even the more serious problem - only yesterday I pondered when I have started to live in the past so very much; when did my past became the major defining factor of my life? Living in the past is even more of a hindrance than dreaming of a far distant horizon, I can tell you. Keeps you bound and helpless very often and torn between this horizon and that, making today a neverland even beyond Mr. Carnegie´ s ideas.

dos+dias, living, life, horizon, now+here, vivir, today, tomorrow, yesterday, past, future, now,

• ttaglist: dos+dias living life horizon now+here vivir today tomorrow yesterday past future now

Noone [x] tagged me for this , but I liked this meme which I found at blogs like But she´s a Girl, D4D, Plug, Aprosexic and Fembat.

( [x] The above is no longer true, for Logtar tagged me while this entry was still waiting to be finished! Thank you, Logtar! )

It is a thing about time and memories:

• 10 years ago …
was 1995. I was working at a university children´s hospital and had a sparkling idea: why not use my knowledge of and enthusiasm for “computer-communication” professionally? Two projects came into existence: Metab-L , a computer mailing list for an international community of specialists on “inborn errors of metabolism” (of which I was one at that time) and Projekt-D , which was a project trying to scientifically evaluate the use of an electronic, modem-based bulletin board system for self-help with children and adolescents suffering from diabetes mellitus type 1. In that respect 1995 was a good year, for both projects came into being and were a success. From a different viewpoint, though, in 1995 I had already overstayed my time in science and university, should have left in 1995, should have opted for another job at another university …

I lived alone in 1995, nursing wounds from a relationship that had ended in 1993 (kept nursing them until 2003, when Ute came back and could just keep myself from starting nursing again in 2004 when she left again and for good).

Not my best time in life, when I come to think about it.


• 5 years ago
2000 - I went to Deggendorf into a private practice. Good thing, after all.


• 1 year ago
Summer 2004 - people left: first my fiancee, then my practice partner (that one was planned, though, as she retired). I have been running my pracice alone now, for more than a year, and I think I am doing quite well (I hope).


• Yesterday
nothing remarkable, really. Worked long and was a bit exhausted.


• Today
Same.


• Tomorrow
Going to have a day off. Good thing.


• 5 snacks I enjoy
does pizza count? Or nuts? No other snacks, really.


• 5 bands that I know the lyrics of most of their songs
hmmm…I hardly listen to any band´ s music, I always preferred single entertainers. Well, I know Led Zeppelin´s Stairway to Heaven and some things from Aerosmith.


• 5 things I would do with $100,000,000
100 Million dollars exceeds the sum I always thought I should win in the lottery (12 million Euro), but nevertheless there is a concept anyway - safely invest most of the money in different ways (gold, diamonds, dollars, euros, securities, but mainly real estate in different countries all over the world), live on the interest and profits only and keep the bulk of the money intact, go to Spain / Tuscanny in spring and autumn, to England and Ireland in Summer and to Copenhagen in Winter, learn French and Portoguese (and Irish!), start writing (books, not blogs - no, books AND blogs), practice sports (walking, swimming, perhaps horse riding), practice chess with a good teacher and learn to play the guitar, start playing the piano again with a good teacher, visit lots of theaters and operas, revitalize my Latin and read, read, read.
Try and go to space - I´d really love to!
Girls: yes, but I think all that money would make finding the right one even more difficult (although I would have better chances to come to know Shakira, I guess).

Work: not sure, I used to think I would go on working as a physician, but I am not quite sure now. Yes, I think I would, but in a reduced way at any rate.

Noone will ever give me 100,000,000 dollars - so why the stupid question? Go away!


• 5 locations I’d like to runaway to
Seattle, Chiusi (near Lago di Trasimeno in Tuscanny), Capeside , Copenhagen, Ireland, Salisbury (UK), Granada and Outer Space (Mars) - which makes 8, sorry.


• 5 bad habits I have
eating too much, sleeping too much, moods, sitting too much, not being too reliable in all non-professional affairs (changing my mind quite often)


• 5 things I like doing
watch TV and movies, read, spend time with my computer, blog (computer again) - hmmm, only 4


• 5 things I would never wear
I am rather oblivious as to what I am wearing, I fear.


• 5 TV shows I like
StarTrek TOS, TNG, DS9, Enterprise, Buffy(!), X-Files - six


• 5 movies I like
The Godfather, Dark City, Fried Green Tomatoes, City Slickers, Rocky


• 5 famous people I would like to meet
I am shy and wary of (famous) people, so let me see - I would have liked to meet Ronald Reagan, but if you mean living people: Fidel Castro (really, although I am as staunch an anti-communist as you could ever imagine one, but I always found Castro fascinating and as a person likeable), well, Shakira, of course (hmmm, but not just meet, you know, hmm, rather really come to know, you see and hmmm, ah well..), Castaneda, perhaps, if he is still alive, Bobby Fischer and perhaps Terry Brooks.


• 5 biggest joys at the moment
That my parents are well and alive, that I am well and being able to do my job, reading, learning Spanish - hmm, 4 is ok, I guess.


• 5 favorite toys
Computer, digicam, cd-player, TV - 4 again
• 5 people to tag
Too lazy for tagging, right now. Anybody who would like to join this meme - although I found it a rather difficult and demanding one. OK, I´ll name Milktea and Wuseldusel and Thaleia and Shadows and Crystaland Kat! (six

memory, 5, memory+lane, meme, past

• ttaglist: memory 5 memory+lane meme past

Trying to catch up with reading TIME magazine I just read an article on archeological diggings in Bulgaria where they unearthed quite a lot of Thracian artifacts:
“They believed that the spirit has the same needs as the body. That´s why they would put so many things inside. … Now that the ancient Kings no longer need them, Kitov, along with fello archeologists and historians, can use those things to learn more about the lives of Bulgarian ancestors.”

Something like this has always made me angry: Who can rightfully decide what those people buried there still need or not? Isn´t it really arrogant, insolent and presumptuous for us to decide that “time´s up - you have had enough resting in peace, get out, join our museums, be gawked at and goggled at and poked at and whatever we please to do with your bones and cough up whatever you took into your graves with you”?

I have always thought that archeology very often borders directly to grave robbery and desecration. Does it really make a difference whether the deceased was buried last week or laid to rest 2000 years ago? Does somebody´ s wish to learn more about the past justify taking people out of their graces who clearly wisehd to remain there until the end of days? Are we allowed to just rob graves only because we like to put the loot into our museums?Is there a difference between Spanish communists taking dead nuns out of their tombs and dancing with the decaying corpses and an archeologist unearthing lovingly buried remains of ancient kings and putting them on display for the dumb masses?

You guess it: my answer is a clear “No!”
I have looked at unearthed treasures and sarcophagi and mummies in museums, I admit, but always with a abad and shameful feeling in my heart.

I have a clear vision what I want to happen to my body and the remains of those that I love once we are dead: I want to be laid to rest in a nice grave with a large granite tombstone telling about me and my family and a stone angel to guard our sleep - and I do not want to be taken out there again - neither by a grave robber, nor by cemetery authorities who think my time is up, nor by any archeologist some thousand years in the future. The only one to take us out of our graves should be our gods - no mortal being. I´ll try and work up a curse on anyone who tries!

archeology, archeologist, archaeology, archaeologist, grave+robber, looter, desecration, RIP, tomb, grave, burial

• ttaglist: archeology archeologist archaeology archaeologist grave+robber looter desecration RIP tomb grave burial

Well, you know I have a rather full-blown phobia of spiders. They give me the shivers, literally, and make me work up quite an amount of Angst, so that I cannot even enter certain places (like my cellar). Not a good thing, I can assure you.

The day before yesterday I discovered the little fellow above just at my bedside. It is very small, really, about a quarter of my fingernail, I would say, and has produced a very tiny net. And guess what: being in hero-mode I decided to let it stay. It is indeed quite interesting to watch its daily routine: sleeps all day in a corner where it thinks I cannot see it (it does not really THINK, of course, but just let me have my little phantasies, ok?) and positions itself in the midst of its tiny little (and a little bit disorderly) net all through the night (no matter whether I have my bedside lamp on for reading or not).

It is rather ugly - in my view - and I told it so, but I will let it live where it is right now. I even feel a bit sorry for little Spidey for I cannot imagine what kind of food it is going to catch at that very place (no insects in here, as far as I can say and I am controlling tightly). I do not think we will be becoming friends, but a kind of peaceful coexistence should be possible.

Survival guarantee: if I do loose my patience with vermin (sorry Spidey, no offence meant) just beside my bed, I will transport the little fellow safely to the outside … promise.

spider, phobia, fear, ugly

• ttaglist: spider phobia fear ugly

I just read the last lines about a quarter of an hour ago. I did not want to rush through the book and yet could not really wait to reach the end, reading speed increasing over the last two or three chapters.

HP is NOT a series of great literature, no doubt, (no, this is NOT up to Tolkien or Terry Brooks or the likes - not that they wrote “great literature” either) but like all the volumes before HBP makes a good read, generates quite an amount of suspense and illusion (after some chapters at the beginning of the book that I found almost a bit boring) and even made me fight with a tear or two at the end.

Somehow I had started out with a bit of aversion towards another volume in a series that made its author really wealthy without being too original - but after the first third I was once again seized by some kind of author´s magic that J.K.Rowlings is able to conjure after all.

As for any message the book has you might have a look at Logtar´s review ; for me another - a bit doubtful - message of the whole series is its “secularity”: we have all kinds of creatures, but no mentioning of a creator, God and religion do not play a role, which leaves me a bit worried although I do not really share too many speculations as to the Potter books corrupting their readers - I rather think they are mirroring the increasingly secular character of our modern world (and I think THAT is a very bad and unhealthy thing, after all).
Whether the Harry Potter series is gnostic in its philosophical basis is discussed by Anna Abbot.

To sum up my HBP reading experience: if you liked HP 1-5 you´ll like 6 - and eagerly wait for the next (and final?) volume (which must have 1200 pages, no doubt, in oder to resolve all the open problems and questions, and tell us all we still want to know about the character´s ways and futures).

PS: I would have liked to write a more detailed review, but I was afraid of finally spoiling things and so refrained.
PS1: HBP is quite a lot (!) shorter than Order of the Phoenix was. I definitely miss the lacking pages and I do think that the distribution of the pages that are there is definitely a bit lopsided - too little school, too much time spent on the time before we arrive at Hogwarts.

HP, Harry+Potter, HarryPotter, HBP, half+blood+prince, half-blood, half-blood+prince, argh, spoiler, Rowling, secular,

• ttaglist: HP Harry+Potter HarryPotter HBP half+blood+prince half-blood half-blood+prince argh spoiler Rowling secular

Some photos I took in my garden today - click the thumbnail-photos for larger versions, if you please.

• ttaglist: garden photos photo colourful hortensia mahonia phlox veggies basil rose

Via Summer Pierre :

“… I think that’s what blogging is all about. I don’t care what job you do or how much money you make, but I love knowing how you live your life. I also love finding out how I live my life and this is why I write.”

There is no better way to put it, is there?

blogging, life, live, knowing, tell

• ttaglist: blogging life live knowing tell

No, don´t worry, I am not posting any spoilers to the Half-Blood Prince , mainly because I have just only started into chapter two and cannot really spill or spoil anything yet.
No, seriously, I think not-posting spoilers is a question of fairness and politeness towards the readers of any publication - after all they should have the chance and the fun to find out about the plot by reading themselves.

Fortunately I did not have to get in any kind of frenzy or have to wait in line in a bookshop in the wee hours to get my copy.
Like the truely far-sighted long-term-planning no-nonsense individual that I am I had pre-ordered my copy through Amazon an unbelievably long time ago and could just sit back and relax and wait for the post-owl to drop the book on my desk.
The only problem: dropping day was Saturday when my practice is closed and my desk unaccessible even to the smartest and most determined of post-owls - and I was away on a wizard´s meeting vocational training . So the owl dropped the parcel with my copy at the post office and it was delivered by a plain and boring postman in a plain and boring usual way only this morning. Which was when I interrupted ongoing business in my practice, ripped open the parcel, took out the book, vanished with it in a secret room, took the photo above and started to read the first chapter wich I am not going to spoil right now and here.
Which in turn is when I learnt that - as levee put it - “of course, it’s one thing to receive the book, quite another to have the time to read it!”.

Which still not covers the main dilemma: after having waited for two years to hold the book in my hands (and quite probably having to outlast another two to make it into the next sequel) should I go and rush through it as I would like to do, just like Lizzy or ceej ?
No need to theorize on that dilemma right now, though, I am going to go to bed with my copy and see where it take me, which in my view is the best way to deal with any book, isn´t it?

One thing I will spoil after all: the book´s outside is quite different from the previous parts of the HP saga (at least my copy - is there perhaps another edition?): the dust jacket is already quite darkly colored (see my photo), but the book itself is bound in totally black material with only a gold-colored printing of the title on its spine (not like the colorful covers previous HP books had). Can we deduct something from this already? …

I´ll keep you posted - and try and find a way to write a book review without giving away any important facts about the plot. Stay tuned, will you?

PS.: Dark Blaze has an interesting little entry on pirated HP e-books.

HP, Harry+Potter, HarryPotter, HBP, half+blood+prince, half-blood, half-blood+prince, argh, spoiler

• ttaglist: HP Harry+Potter HarryPotter HBP half+blood+prince half-blood half-blood+prince argh spoiler

No, I have not got one yet.

For two years now I have been riding my Aprilia Leonardo 125 scooter, and of course it does everything I need - and yet: it is not a real bike, is it?
So I think about swapping my Leonardo against a “real” motorcycle next spring or this autumn - but I am totally at a loss at what motorcycle to get. Could you help, please?

Of course, the budget is limited - 7000 Euro official price is my threshhold (6500 would be better - and even then I will need a good deal as far as my scooter is conscerned).

What will the bike have to do? List follows:

• take me to work (3 km) and back every day
• go shopping with me - of course my scooter is GREAT at shopping, lots of space under the seat and a peg in front for all the bags I want to transport - so as a motorcycle does not have a peg I will at least have to buy a spacey backcase. Anyway: for shopping the bike should not be too large and too heavy
• take me on some little tours around the mountainous landscape around where I live. After work, on weeekends. Perhaps sometimes with someone on the backseat…
• let me visit my parents, about 40 km from here, maximum allowed speed 100 km/h
• allow me to go to Munich, should I ever decide to ride my bike so far. Highway (Autobahn), lots of traffic, about 170 km.
• perhaps allow me to join a group for a tour of 100-200 km, should I ever decide to want to do something like that
• should not complain about standing in the rain a lot - I have no garage for my bike (only for the cold season), during riding season it is usually left out and open to anything the planet brings up as weather and atmosphere
• carry my bulk - 187 cm, overweight
• carry me and return me safely from wherever we go
• be reliable and not need to many visits to the doctor technician
• let me look like a man, of course, not a sissy

I have had a real-life look at Suzuki´ s new Bandit 650 S with ABS which could be fine (and my dealer is very nearby - which would be the case with BMW, as well). But I have no idea what would really make this motorcycle ideal for me, of what should point me to another (what?) product or brand. What about Suzuki´s other 650 machines? Should I look for water-cooling instead of the Bandit´ s air-cooling? How do I make a choice that suits me with the little technical knowledge and the little practical experience I have? Are there any checklists or such?

You see - I will need help in this (and dealers usually are not much help, are they? Can they be trusted in making a choice?). Go ahead and let me know your opinion…

motorcycle, motorbike, Suzuki, Bandit, choice, scooter

• ttaglist: motorcycle motorbike Suzuki Bandit choice scooter