Let there be light!

I have mounted all kinds of lights in all kinds of places in the flat over the weekend. All of them worked except the one in the living room which was just flickering and the one the bedroom which did the same. It was a gradual process which reminded me of the Kepner-Tregoe methodology which could have probably saved me hours in the process. Also the RTFM methodology was successfully being implemented.

So after mounting the lamps in the living room and the bedroom they were not really working but only flickered once or twice. It took me a while to discover that instead of light switches I had dimmers and from there it took me a couple of phone calls and my mum finally reading the manual that neither me or my dad read completely to figure out that the nice energy saver light bulbs from IKEA are not compatible with the dimming system. A quick 10 minutes later the energy saver bulb got replaced by a real energy waster (80W) and now I have light in my bedroom. The living room is without light at the moment as I only had one of those bulbs left, but it’s okay as it can be done later.

Lessons learned:
- Apply Kepner-Tregoe (would have found out about the dimmers sooner)
- RTFM (would have found out about the incompatibility sooner)

i like to ride my bicycle

I went to the "Odnungsamt Fahrradversteigerung" (auction) today. Every couple of weeks (you can check on their website for dates) they auction off the used bikes they have picked up. There were around 60 different bikes ranging from complete wrecks up to "fell of a delivery truck straight from the bike factory" condition.

Basically you can go around the bikes, look at them, check out the brakes, the wheels, etc. and then they walk around bike by bike and auction them off. So there were 4 or 5 city bikes in relative good condition for the around 200 people there. Obviously I wasn't very optimistic.

Then the guy picks up the first bike - a mountainbike - and asks for a starting bid. Nobody says anything. So I am thinking: "well, for sure I will not end up buying the one I want, at least let's be part of the game and go for this one". So I say something along 5 or 10 euros - honestly cannot remember (see story from yesterday). Nothing happens for a while until another guy starts bidding. And we continue bidding. I am thinking about stopping at 50 euro. We are at 70 and the guy next to me hesitates.In the end I get the bike for 80.

The guy holding the auction says congratulations and the people start clapping and all i can think is I want to leave! I didn't even want this bike! But then I look at it and thinking - not too bad actually. It's totally not what I wanted and the price is not what I wanted to pay but it sure looks okay. So I pay, take it out of the garage and start riding it home.

Luckily the Ordnungsamt was not on top of a mountain (there are not so many of those in this city) so that the missing brakes on the bike didn't give me a heart attack. They sold me a bike without brakes! Shit shit shit.

So I start walking home with the bike on my side and I pass by a bike shop. Sometimes I really have to wonder about the world around me. So there is this bike store totally next door to the place and I am not the only customer there with a new crap bike and they don't open on saturday for repairs. The shop is open so you can buy everything but they will not repair it for you. So I activate my inner McGyver and do all by myself. New brakes, new metal string to operate them (no clue what it is called but McGyver also never explained anything, there was this music in the background when he performed his magic so just start humming and don't worry about the what I did).

So now I have a mountainbike in my living room that needs to be cleaned and then either used or put up on ebay - we will see.

Note to self - couple of things to remember for the next bike auction:

1. start high: it was pretty unrealistic to think I would get the bike for 5 euros. I should have said 40 or 50 euros to start the auction, then maybe the other guy would have remained silent. It is the same principle that works on ebay for articles starting at 1 euro causing a much higher price.

2. don't go alone to an auction. I could have used a second person shouting "that bike doesn't even have brakes" or something similar to stop other people from bidding

3. check the bike before bidding for it. especially check the brakes and especially check the brakes before riding it!!!

forgetting things ...

i went to ikea today to buy some more small things. rented a car from hertz (they have a cool offer for 3, 6 or 9 hours) and bought most of the things i wanted - mostly lamps. parked the car at the train station and came home. of course forgot to throw in the key before coming home so i had the pleasure of going back to the train station. the funny thing is that i remembered at all to give back the keys. i wonder what is going on inside my brain when i forget things and what brings back those memories?

in any case i didn't forget to get one of those billy anniversary books. but of course i forgot to refuel the car before giving it back too...