this week has been hell at work - I have already missed Firman's Birthday Party on Monday so I had to make it for Eugenios. I did - even if with a more or less 2 hours delay. Happy Birthday my Italian Friend!!!
By the way this reminds me - at the same time last year we were in Vienna and this year I missed the summer in Vienna! Oh, well - it's not like it hasn't been fun around here - still maybe next year - or the one after - hmmm ...
ok - it was a great day, this one. But as I am lazy - I will simply copy the article I wrote for the company (with a headline and all - well, more or less ...)
Ok, here goes:
Rain is only liquid sunshine
“Testsieger” team comes in second place at the Company Dragon Boat Race in Frankfurt!
The Frankfurt Dragon Boat race is traditionally part of the Museumsuferfest, but this year it was shifted to the Osthafen to promote this area of the town. It was the event the national diversity team was looking forward to participate for the last 2 months. And finally this weekend we managed to participate very successfully with two full dragon boats at this wonderful yearly event on the river Main.
Our “Testsieger II” team (the blue group) consisted mainly of the Schwalbach summer interns and friends, the “Testsieger I” team (the red group) a group of other employees. And the T-shirt colours turned out to be shaping the happenings of the day with the intern boat having to fight in the first of many races in pacing rain and the red boat making it into the finals.
With the first race at 10:20 in the morning the meeting point was the Frankfurt Osthafen at 9 o’clock Sunday morning. Surprisingly most of the people actually showed up at this indeed very early hour. Once the T-shirts and badges were distributed, there was not too much time for coffee so the intern boat had to race quicker to earn their morning coffee. And they did! They came in second in their first race – setting a high standard for our other boat and thus motivating to also make a good race. Here is a photo of the intern boat participants shortly before boarding the boat (still dry!!!)
Only half an hour later our other boat had its first race and to another big surprise of us all we won our first race!!! This qualified us into the semi finals straight away!!!
Here is a picture of the second boat – highly motivated as you can see ...
The next race followed at 12:30 for the interns as a last chance to qualify into the semi-finals. This is where it started to rain which only motivated all to paddle even more to get out of the soaking rain quicker. Too bad the other teams also got motivated and so the intern boat finished the race third in this race against a full-man team of the Mainova.
The time between the races was spent eating potato salad, fish & chips and all kinds of other typical food of the region (Bratwurst), a show of race boats and watching the local diving unit dropping a car into the river and diving for it. Unfortunately the weather was a very mixed one with rain and sun rapidly changing – though overall rain was dominating the day.
In the semi-finals our red boat raced against Mainova and another team we raced against in the morning. With the Duracell – Bunny as our drummer we had enough energy to also win in this race to our and the other teams full surprise - a team that has only trained once and even had people on board that never trained winning against an all-men team! With team work more important than muscles our hopes were up for the finals.
When the finals approached it was raining cats and dogs. The boats were ordered back from the river as a thunderstorm was approaching. Five minutes later as the rain started to really come down on us and we were waiting in our drenched clothes to get into the boats, someone said the words “Rain is only liquid Sunshine” and then the magic happened. We got into the boats, paddled to the start and raced our biggest race of the day. At our third and final race of the day we had the most fun of the day as we managed to almost catch the winning team after a bad start and finished in SECOND place.
And only 13 hours after we met in the morning we celebrated our victory with our prize – an original Dragon Boat Drum (in a bit smaller version of course for practical reasons).
PROLOGUE
after the ceremony Alba dropped me at a cash machine near my place to get some money to be able to order some take-away as I had no food at home. Needless to say the cash machine did not work and so I kept walking to the next nearest one in my wet clothes. Oh well - f*** it - after such a day, I don't really care - my laundry has also been waiting for me all day, nothing really matters any more...
oops - almost forgot - here are all the photos including the weird place with the fan performance and the kid who put his arm into the water without his mum noticing
after the long evening yesterday I had tons to do today. First of all there was the wedding of Caroline and Frank to attend at 14:00 in the AndreasGemeinde in Niederhöchstadt. Being a mixed English - German couple the wedding turned out to be bilingual also. Plus all the singing - let's just say it was an experience.
I met up with Alba who was buying half the kitchen accessories store with her birthday voucher near Hauptwache and we went for Sushi with Rodrigo. The only problem was, I should have gotten home to get some sleep before showing up at Paritosh's for his Birthday Party - which I could not really do any more as I have gotten home when we were supposed to be showing up for the party. So I went to bed for just 10 minutes that turned out to be 2 hours so I missed half the party.
Anyways - we ended up at Unity later on and I got home only in the morning - only to remember to wake up 4 hours later to participate in the dragon boat race.
to be continued ...
So Alba called when I was leaving work and commanded me to come to Joe Pena’s for a drink and a drive home afterwards as she got a rental car like no other. I am not going to mention the type (I forgot to be honest), but I want to say only that it was a Mercedes and it had about 39 buttons just for adjusting the left back seat, windows and heating / cooling. It even had a DVD player inside. I think there is something wrong with my job...
Yara organized a goodbye party for Christian, who left the Schweinshaxe for some smelly bottles a while ago. And guess where this Party took place - Yes, it's right - in the Anglo!!!
Later on The French Girl joined and even later on the Indian couple made this evening one to remember. Got home after 3 in the morning and totally exhausted. This reminds me of what I heard a while ago - you can sleep when you are dead...
too much work this week - not too many things happening - except It's Paritosh's Birthday today!!!
I found this very cool birthday cake photo on flickr - check it out!!!
What a stupid movie - or is it? I must say this was one of those movies that I didn't want to see. One low pubescent joke after the other and I was just about to leave the cinema after about 10 minutes when the movie started to get really funny. I know this sounds ridiculous, or maybe I was just too tired after another shitty 12 hour working day but I kept laughing out loud in the cinema with all the rest.
I mean I would not recommend spending 8 Euros on it, but if it is raining outside and the only alternative is going to the opera for 80, I would go and watch it. Or just wait for the DVD to come out and invite some friends for a DVD night.
By the way this makes it 3 non-horror movies in a row at the sneak preview. I think I will go next week again. Wanna join? (***WERBUNG***)
After a Sektfrühstück in Metropol and a round of Bluff - Spiel des Jahres 1993 we all felt like a walk. So we happened to bump into the open doors of the Portikus. We were lucky - today was the last day of an exhibition called on the other hand which constisted of simple graffity made by black paint on the white inner walls of the building. Some funny, some disturbing, some political - a perfect way of keeping some short-attention-span-people occupied for 20 minutes.
Shortly after this visit we happened to bump into the Brunnenbegehung with the Brunnenkönigin in Alt-Sachsenhausen. We also discovered a strange statue in Sachsenhausen of an old lady spitting water on bywalkers. Apparently Frau Rauscher (that's her name) was a "Sachsenhäuser Original" and there is a song commemorating her adventure with the Apfelwein.
Die Fraa Rauscher aus de Klappergass
Am Sonndag warn mer dribb de Bach, was hammer do gelacht,
so warn zwaa Eheleut beschleucht unn hawe Krach gemacht.
Uff aamal duds en dumpfe Schlag, die Fraa lieht uff de Gass
unn alle Kinner singe laut, des mecht en Heidespass.
En Griene hot den Fall geseh' un kimmt im Laafschritt aa.
Der Ehemann ruft ganz erschreckt, ich hab er nix gedaa!
Mei Alt, die kennt kaa Maß un Ziel, die hot zuviel gebaaft,
drumm hot der liewe Herrgott sie mit aaner Beul gestraft.
Jetzt gehts uffs Bolizeirevier, die Buwe hinerdrei.
Des is en intressanter Fall, des leucht doch jedem ei.
De Kommissar is ganz empeert un segt, des is doch doll.
Der Griene, wie sich des geheert, der gibt zu Protokoll.
Jetzt wärs genug, die Rauschern hat sich mit ihrm Mann versöhnt,
des kennt mer schon un is mer aach in solche Fäll gewöhnt,
doch so en beeser Zeitungskerl dut mehr als wie seine Pflicht,
am annern Dag stehts dick un braat im Bolizeibericht:
Refrain:
Die Fraa Rauscher aus de Klappergass, die hoot e Beul am Ei,
ob des vom Rauscher, obs vom Alte kimmt, des klärt die Bolizei.
(Mit dem "Alte" im Refrain ist der "alte Apfelwein" gemeint und der "Griene" ist ein Polizist.)
Here are all the pics.
The hippopotamus is not born going:
"Cool bean, I am a hippo." No way, José.
So he tried to paint a stripe on himself to be like the zebra...
but he fool no one.
Then he tried to put the spot on his skin to be like the leopard.
But everyone know he is a hippo.
So, at certain point... he look himself in the mirror and he just say:
"Hey, I am a hippopotamus... And there is nothing I can do about it."
And as soon as he accepts this, he live life happy.
Happy as a hippo.
You understand?
[Pause]
I'm gonna kill you!
quote: Origami, is Japanese art of folding paper. Boulder is round rock. Origami Boulder is wadded up paper! You understand now, dumbo? Then hurry up and buy wadded paper! You see picture at top of site don't you?
This site about origami boulder very fine wadded paper artwork. I make artwork for you and you buy it now. I am famous Internet artist.
YOU BUY WADDED UP PAPER NOW!!!!
one of those spontanous "why don't we go for some food after work" things turning out to be one of those very cool nights. Special suprise guest was Mareile, who was visiting Kasturi and Paritosh.
To avoid repeating the catastrophic dragon boat race results from last year, this year we are going to try with two boats. Here are some pictures of our one-and-only training for the big race next week. Some of the photos were shot via digital zoom, that is why they are like they are.
By the way I think people should be informed more on what exactly digital zoom means - I think it is the dumbest "feature" in a camera and people have no idea that it is nothing else than cropping the middle part of an image. I salute the marketing person coming out with the idea of calling it a "zoom".
Here is a pretty cool explanation - no surprises ...
A really witty and at the same time very american (pun intended :-)) movie about freedom, job motivation and all the other stuff that you can think of when you think of anything that is not considered good by one part of society
The cast is simply amazing - starting with Aaron Eckhart (I also remember now, where I saw him before - he was the bad guy in paycheck!) There is William H. Macy in a typical loser role (according to IMDB he shot his scenes in an hour - I guess this makes his hourly rate look pretty good).
Then there is that boy from Birth - he has this calm freaking-out look on his face all the time (I hope for him, he will not end up like Zoolander with his single face expression). There is Adam "O.C." Brody playing an asshole version of himself; there is the guy with the coolest voice of all times from The Big Lebowski playing the Marlboro man; Katie "girlie-face" Holmes; and last but not least there is the legendary boss of the Daily Bugle from Spider Man playing the same role - he basically shouts throughout the whole movie.
Very funny - go and see it!!!
another day shopping in the city so that we arrived with a 2-4 hour delay to the Birthday party of Elisabeth. All-in-all a cool party with very cool food and the coolest bar-stools on the world. Unfortunately I am still waiting for the fotos from Jack so nothing at the moment ...
For our August Diversity stammtisch we finally managed to get more than 25 people to show up!!! I don't know why there are no photos though - well - Shit happens I guess. Anyways, this was a very entertaining evening with lots of new people around. Go Ebbelwoi!
First sneak preview after a very long time - a very cool trailer show and a funny movie called Friends With Money that not only had something for the eyes but was one of those movies, where you leave the cinema thinking aaah, life is good!
guy - and you are really a maid?
girl - yeah!
guy - hmm. can i come and watch?
GO TEAM ANISTON!
The annual HP BBQ was held on the premises of the Hundeverein in Schwanheim this year. Cool games, very cool steaks and nice weather - a very nice evening altogether. Check out the photos here.
The originally planned beach club press conference had to be shifted to a more dry location after local meteorologists predicted heavy rainfalls, so Preeti invited into the nice Schöneberger in Bornheim – upper Berger Strasse.
So it’s finally official!!! The Preetiest girl I know will marry her prince on the white horse early next year in her trendy Indian home town of Pune. Oh, by the way – there will probably be a hundred times so many people than on above photo. A wonderful evening with some happy tears and lots of laughs ...
