Bought a bag!

Thanks to some advice from Ms. Allie and a discount, I ordered this little gem. It should come in handy come May when the Guitar Hero and I are traipsing around the States on my business trip. Yes, grown-up me is being sent to visit some American partners and go to a big conference in DC. Cool, weird and nerve-wracking, all at the same time.

The Guitar Hero's on a mission, too, and that's to travel with one bag only. We've been checking out innovative ways of space-saving packing, and I think about how far we've come in the past seven years. This is the man who carried a portable chess computer and tupperware full of snacks on our first overseas trip together because 'you never know'; actually, he carried that chess computer and snacks with him just about everywhere. The latter can be blamed on his German-ness, the former's just weird.

In other news, we discovered that Friskie might just be more clever than any of us thought. Last Saturday morning, we awoke at 7:30 to the sound of our neighbor knocking on our OPEN apartment door. The cat, of course, was nowhere in the apartment - the Guitar Hero found her in the stairwell, down several flights. That damn cat had apparently decided she'd had enough of our weekend late-sleeping shenanigans and decided to go an adventure, probably to find food. Needless to say, we're being more careful about double-locking the door. I tried to tell the Guitar Hero that a dog, say a beagle, would have warned us, but he's not buying it. Damn.

Back again

Estonia was wonderful - I fell in love with Tallinn and want to go back there soon with the Guitar Hero. The Old Town is a beautiful maze of narrow cobblestone streets. The perfect place to get lost in your thoughts while wandering. It was the first time in a long time I travelled by myself and, although I missed the Guitar Hero a lot, I enjoyed being on my own, talking to no one for hours on end.
Here's a picture of the beautiful Estonian goodness:


I'm back at home now with Friskie and the Guitar Hero having fun with the few beautiful days of fall we're having. And enjoying my better than ever pimped-up laptop - I go to Estonia and the Guitar Hero and his friends take my laptop from close to the garbage can to 2007. That rocks!

We've been cooking a lot, drinking red wine (yes, the Guitar Hero will finally drink wine - only took me 6 1/2 years to train him!) and being happy. It's a really good fall!

Estonia here I come

Going to Estonia, going to Estonia, going to Estonia. Just a few short days. Can't hardly wait.

In other news, Verkaufsoffener Sonntag is a good thing, especially if you need to buy business clothes at the last minute. Because you lost weight and your other business suits no longer fit properly. Unless sagging is in when it comes to business suits.

And in other other news, saw David Cronenberg in person at the Hamburg Film Fest. He seems like a cool guy. He's at least able to give a decent speech unlike the moron from Spiegel who obviously had not read the speech some intern had written for him before going on stage.

And in other other other news, adding peanut butter to chocolate chip cookie dough makes some damn good cookies.

A month

It's been over a month since the Doctor last posted. I have been neither bored nor depressed nor deliriously happy nor lacking for material. I've been incredibly fucking busy. For the first time I have a job that is actually a career job. I have spent the past month (more like two months) working my ass off on a couple of projects. As I'm new to my position, things take me somewhat longer than I like (I don't always know the answers right off the bat) and, due to my annoying perfectionism, I want to do everything right. It's been quite stressful at times (the Guitar Hero's been great at listening to me vent), but being in charge of certain things, bearing responsibility, has had its good side - I know now that there are people out there who think a lot of the work I do. And that's really cool! At the same time, by the time the past several weekends rolled around, my good intentions of posting and finally getting some pictures up fell by the wayside. I usually ended up sleeping most of Saturday or Sunday and spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with the Guitar Hero. On a random, somewhat related note, really liked the Bourne trilogy, especially Identity.

Friday I finished up a big, big project and, let me say, it's a relief. I've got some other projects still in the works (including a trip to Estonia!) but this was the bitch of them. I feel as if I've passed a big test - now I know what to expect with related work projects, and that makes me confident. And being confident makes me feel like I have more time to devote to things like this blog and you, dear reader(s)!