About two weeks ago there was the anual Spring Festival in Stuttgart ("Stuttgarter Frühlingsfest"). It's the vernal counterpart to the Cannstatter Wasen in fall. My roomie and I went to the fair a couple times. On the last evening there are fireworks and we tried to capture at least a little bit.
The last weeks were like programming at home from 7am to 9am for a customer of mine, programming at work from 9.15am to 7pm, programming at home again from 7.15pm to 2am. I finally finished one of the projects I was working on. So there won't be any before-work and after-work shifts in the next weeks. However, our magazine needs quite much attention right now, editorial deadline is next week, and I'm the guy who's responsible for selling all the ads, but that's supposed to be a hobby, it is fun. I need to repeat that sentence some more times in my head, maybe I will finally believe it.
So, today was the first day where I didn't write code until my eyes are closing inevitably. Actually it was a very nice evening. I was invited for a BBQ at Julia and Rick's house. It was a very pleasant evening, and I had a lot of fun. (They're both reading my blog regularly, so I have to write that. Just kidding! I really enjoyed the evening very much.) We played some fun games and laughed a lot. I probably had a little bit too much booze at the beginning, but I had too much ice cream for dessert, so that should make up for the booze.
The way home was quite funny as well. They live in a small suburbian village near Stuttgart. There are only very few busses at night, like three in an hour, but I managed to take a wrong one. So I've boldly gone where no man had ever gone before, at least it seemed like that. But I arrived home safely, the natives didn't tie me up on a stake and set it on fire. Our football team won the national championship today, which came in quite handy for me, so people were celebrating on the streets everywere, the entire city was blocked, and more trains were running at night.
Ok, so you're probably asking what this has to do with the title of the post. Well, we played Cranium, and it was quite funny, because, you know, the language questions are supposed to be difficult for native speakers, they're almost impossible for Germans. So, in my team there was a Puerto Rican, another German and me, the other team were three Americans. Of course we got all the language questions, and they had to build dicks out of clay, or draw a clown. We got things like "Spell floccipaucinihilipilification backwards without writing it down", or "fill in the blanks: F __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ S __ __ __ __ __ __ __ A". It was fun anyway, and I actually managed some of the spelling questions. I'm so proud, I'm gonna wear a tie to sleep tonight.
This morning there was this silence in the office. If you read my last post you know what I mean. It was just silent and everybody was doing his/her work. You know the innocent silence of an office, right?
Suddenly there was a loud BANG that disturbed the silence. Everybody froze, we watched at each other with a what-the-fuck??? look. It soon turned out that a co-worker threw a chair at a filing cabinet. Guess who did that. Yes, right! The guy from the last post. He's back! They've re-moved him back to our office. Yeah! He's just 3 desks next to his old location. I wonder if someone at the other office complained about him?
To make up for the three days we were missing him, he provided some real goodies today. For example the performance of his masterpiece "The Flying Chair".
Or, what our secretary told us during lunch, he came to her with a huge list of office items he needed. A list like that: 5 pads, 17 pens, 2 stapler, 3 puncher, and so on, you get the idea. The secretary asked him what he needed them for. He responded, "I didn't get a pay raise this year, so this is a payment in kind."
Of course she didn't hand over the requested objects, but we laughed so hard in our lunch break that I actually got sore muscles in my tummy.
Well, the girl who called the secretary and asked her where she can make reservations for a (virtual) team room in a collaboration tool, and if there's a video projector and a network port in this room, did the rest.
We're still working on a plan to get her call him. That should be fun.
There was this guy in my office. I neither know his name, nor which team he belongs to. But he's been on the phone almost all the time, I guess he was some 2nd level support, he had a deep and loud noise voice. He's somehow choleric, and I was going did-he-relly-just-say-this quite often. Although his place was many cubicals away, I heard him all day long. He's regularly been the reason of many smiles among my co-workers. It just never got boring with him at the other end of the open-plan office.
Thursday and Friday last week were the best days ever. It was his derniére. They've been moving him and his team to another place. When the movers came, he gave all he could, and there were some loud fights. I'm still pitying the girl that coordinated the moving. Well, she did a good job and showed balls. But I guess it wasn't her easiest week at work. But we had the best show.
Friday afternoon was very weird. It was quiet in the office. Nobody was yelling, nobody was insulting callers on the phone. He was gone. Work will never be the same again ...
A friend never saw you crying.
A real friend has wet shoulders from your tears.
A friend doesn't know the names of your parents.
A real friend has their phone numbers in his address book.
A friend will bring a bottle of wine to your party.
A real friend will come early to help you with the preparations, and he will stay to the end to help you cleaning up.
A friend hates it when you call him after he went to bed.
A real friend asks for the reason why you hestitated that long.
A friend tries to talk to you about your problems.
A real friend helps you with your problems.
A friend is interested in your past.
A real friend knows every dirty detail, he could blackmail you about it.
A friend behaves like a guest in your house.
A real friend opens your fridge and helps himself.
A friend thinks that after an arguement your friendship is over.
A real friend knows that there won't be a real friendship as long as there was no fight.
A friend expects you to be there for him.
A real friend is there for you always.
Last Tuesday (May 1st) there was a holiday in Germany, namely Labor Day. Yes guys, in Germany we have Labor Day on 1st of May. By the way, isn't it strange that "Labor Day" is free, while Friday (in German "Freitag", which literally means "free day") is a regular working day?
Anyway, I went on a hike with some friends. Hiking is the traditional activity on German Labor Day, unless you're a member of a labor union, then it's probably your duty to attend a demonstration or whatever.
We had a blast on our hike, and we had some stops for coffee and ice cream and BBQ and all that usual stuff. A lesbian couple also brought their cute dog "Trude". I have no idea what kind of breed Trude is, but I would say it's close to a chocolate colored Labrador Retriever. The dog has something with her eyes that will get worse in sunlight, so the vet made her wear sunglasses outside. You have no idea how cute a dog with sunglasses looks. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures that day.
Of course I wasn't the only one who thinks a dog with sunglasses looks very cute, so everybody we've seen that day said something about the dog. You might think, "there must be at least one person that didn't say something." No, you're wrong. Literally e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y felt an urge to say something. Hence here's my advice, if you ever feel lonely, buy sunglasses for your dog and go for a walk. There won't be another chance to meet more people than by doing this.