nothing is decisive

so - last night in herrenberg. as much as i have wanted to return to the USA there are always twinges of melancholy. did i take advantage of the opportunity to experience a new country as much as i could or should have? my mind fights with itself, this is nothing new. i finished my 5th book over an absolutely stupendous rinderfilet at the hotel gasthof restaurant that was apparently only available on the german menu, not the one in english. all this time craving some beef and there was one right under my nose the entire time. anyways, book 5 was "villages" by john updike. his writing style is excellent, but the subject matter not my cup of tea. looking forward to reading the first 2 "rabbit" books on the flight home. couple of great passages at the end.

on the truths of the christian religion (or to me, just western norms):
"one our wish to live forever, however tedious the actual experience of eternal consciousness might be, and, two, our sensation that something is amiss - that there has been a lapse or slippage in the world and things are not quite as they should be. we feel made for a better world, and the fault is ours that this is not eden. the second may be the more solid evidence, since fear and loathing of death can be explained as, like pain, a survival device selected and refined by darwinian evolution. because we fear death, we try harder to live. as long as our genes get through, nature doesn't care how we suffer."

on the onset of alzheimers:
"Owen and Julia are already turned in that direction, talking in baby syllables, touching each other as if for orientation in the dark, squabbling like mated toucans in a tropical jungle and then flying away in perfect forgetful unison."

that last line is a classic description of elderly (and not so elderly) couples...

boredom

2nd to last night in the herrenberg hotel i have spent the last 3 weeks in. i am ready to head back to the good ol' USA. not motivated to write anything new, so here are some of my ramblings (i think i was a bit pissed off that morning) against some george soros' bs a friend emailed me, george's blatherings are in quotes:


"First of all because when you wage war, you inevitably create innocent victims." - Let's see, were the people in the twin towers innocent victims? what is the response - pacifist jimmy carter style negotiation? it works so well for the French. and we should definitely have not responded to pearl harbor or Hitler's genocide of the jews. we created WAY too many innocent victims. He is morally equating terrorists and America, and i resolutely deny that flaccid argument.

"but the whole world order has been shaken as a result of the Bush administration's policies" - more absolute BS. like the middle east was just this stable democracy until big bad bush invaded iraq in 2003. WTF? this takes an absolute willingness to disregard the last 3000 years of history in the region. GW is freaking more powerful than JC and Muhammad in these peoples' eyes - not bad for a hick from Texas.

"U.S. households have a negative savings rate because of the double-digit appreciation in houses. That created equity that people have been withdrawing [in the form of home equity loans and cash-out refinancing]. " - how did this idiot make his millions again?? this has just been a transfer of credit card debt to home equity debt. So blame people's fiscal irresponsibility on rising home values? I have to admit, that is a new one to me. But luckily, Bush is ruining the economy so he is doing some good there. We'll have to blame this one on Clinton since he made the economy SO freaking awesome.

I just don't see any difference between his statements and anyhing else that every other leftist spews out on a daily basis. If you like I will nexus each of his statements and come up with essentially the same quote from some alfrankenjeanneanegarafolo clone (i love how the left can only find spokesmen that were former bad comedians--and they made fun of reagan being an actor). Really, it won't take me long and it is flooding here, so when i leave there will be nothing to do.

Here is what I would say to him -- OK, Israel did what all good pacifist liberals wanted and gave up the gaza strip to the arabs as a show of good faith and what not. Did this give us stabilized peace in the region? No, it just emboldened the arabs to intensify the shelling of INNOCENT victims in Israel and increased attacks on Israieli soil, and now we are on the brink of some real major $hit going down. Or we can take the US approach of going in and kicking ass and being safe at home for the last 5 years (NYT's attempts to help the terrorists not withstanding). I know what lowlifes respond to and it is not hand outs and negotiations. brute force and brute force only are what they understand. he should try his peace and love down at fremont in the max security.

getting lost

is easy in deutschland, i think that is why they have devised such superior road signage informing you at all times the 14 options available to you at any place in the country. so, the trip to stuttgart started on a positive note, arrived in the city in no time, even got to the city ring, that is when the madness started. i somehow was flipped onto an outgoing road and had to execute a bridge u-turn, something I am getting exceedingly good at. got back in the city ring, only to see a familiar town on a sign, tuebingen taking that slight right turn and getting thrown into an underground maze and flipped out onto the outerparts of stuttgart once more. this is the familiar pattern of my life in germany, going somewhere, getting lost, getting frustrated, looking for clues, seeing words like Vierwaldstaetterseedampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft and giving up and returning to the hotel. this is how i look after 3 weeks "in country"...









o well, went to tuebingen an had an awesome steak (rostbroten) covered in gravy and onions. a couple of Plis served up by a fine Kirsten Dunst look alike and it's all good. waiting on the 3rd place game, played coincidentally in the place where i was lost this morning (guess it was a good idea i did not buy tickets). hard to judge the country's mood for this consolation game,mainly because I DON'T SPEAK ANY GERMAN, but it'll kill a couple of hours and pils.




"The one good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain" - Bradlee

Time

too much of it and your mind finds ways to get you in trouuble, not enough and fight or flight cerebral cortex primitive reactions to simple "how are you today mr. millsap?" are met with extreme prejudice. anyways, i am in the former situation, so why not start a blog? get something knocked off the Top 749 things to do before i expire. heading to stuttgart in a few, will hopefully comment on the thrill of it in a pils induced haze.

“Perhaps there was a time when everydayness was not too strong and one could break its grip by brute strength. Now nothing breaks it – but disaster.”
- Binx Bolling, The MovieGoer