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2003-06-30
Chocolate'n'Cheese
Must. Stay. Awake. At least long enough to finish this post.
So I've been to the land of chocolate and cheese for half a week, and I haven't had much of either. But let's start a little earlier, let's in fact start at Thursday morning at 3:30 a.m., because that was when an unrelenting alarm clock was disturbing the sacredness of my sleep. Two and a half hours later I was at the airport, meeting up with the two collegues who would go with me to Switzerland to attend the seminar about our corporate culture. (Whince all you like, it wasn't that bad!)
When we arrived at Zürich airport, we still had a few hours before the seminar would start, so we locked our baggage away and did the tourist thing by walking through the old city. If you keep yourself to the city center, Zürich is a stunningly beautiful place. There are lots of old streets and alleys, some of which manage to look almost unchanged since mediaeval times. There are streets which look like the typical german mediaeval alley, others with a distinctly italian feel to them, and still others which manage to mix the two styles into something unique and breathtakingly beautiful. And all of them are populated by a colourful mix of restaurants, street cafes, tatoo parlours, fashion boutiques and all kinds of things, one tightly pressed beside the other and filled to thronging with patrons cheerily going about their businesses.
What struck me though, was the disproportionately high number of beautiful young women in Zürich. OK, there were only a few of them who were breathtaking, heartstopping beauties, but walking along the quais of the Zürich lake was quite the sight for sore eyes. The other impression I got from my half-hour of people watching by the lake was that in contrast to most Germans, the Swiss seem to do a far larger amount of communication through their facial expressions. It was quite interesting to follow the emotional undertones of nearby conversations through nothing but watching faces and body language.
After that refreshing pause near the lake, which by the way is breathtakingly beautiful with its backdrop of rolling hills and the craggy peaks of the alps in the distance showing through a mild summer haze, I again ventured into the old city to have a look at three of the bigger churches in Zürich. I found the Großmünster (Great Cathedral) rather boring, and the Frauenmünster with its stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall didn't do much for me either, but I surprised myself by really liking the church of St. Peter with its tower clock measuring almost 29 feet in diameter, the biggest in Europe. The interior was neither filled with the offensive gaudiness of many of the Catholic churches in Europe, nor did it emanate the slightly desolate austerity one usually finds in Lutheran churches in Germany. Instead, the place displayed a serene harmony in its interior design which used lots of warm wood tones, and fit hand in glove with the impression of solidity and steadfastness the building wore on its mediaeval outer skin.
In the early afternoon, all the people attending the seminar met, and our bus drove us to the congress hotel an hour away from Zürich. The first item on the agenda was a 90 minute walk through the beautiful Swiss landscape. Unfortunately, it had become blistering hot outside, and I hastily grabbed a bottle of water before we marched off. And boy was I ever happy that I did, because those 90 minutes would have been quite an ordeal without it. Even so, it wasn't easy and I lost quite a bit of water during the march. How much in fact would only become apparent afterwards when I got a sunburn on my forehead and drank almost two liters of water during the evening without any of it showing up in my bladder even until the next morning...
I'll not say much about the seminar as such, as it was not so much different from other cultural indoctrination seminars I had witnessed or heard about, but I'll note two things here. For one thing, there was not one person at the seminar I actively disliked, and in fact I hit it off rather well with a handful of them, which was quite the pleasant surprise for contact-shy me. The other thing is that even my cynical self couldn't help notice that these guys obviously mean what they say about their corporate culture and actually try to live by its mostly rather reasonable tenets. The discordant fact in this (there always is one, afterall) is, that due to the personal leadership style of the boss of our local branch, many aspects of that corporate culture are neglected at my place of work. Oh well.
The Friday as well as the Saturday morning were filled with more seminar stuff, excellent food, and a bicycle tour around a nearby lake including a dip into the cool, clear water. Hmmmmmm. Although I noticed after that bicycle tour why I vastly prefer recumbents to normal bikes: my butt hurt, and so did my wrists, none of which ever happens when I ride my 'bent.
We arrived back in Zürich at Saturday noon, enough time to go to the National Musuem near the central train station. Sadly, the museum was mostly disappointing, at least if you're like me and don't have a fondness for church altars and church icon figures, which were on display in rich abundance.
After a short, pleasant flight, we arrived back in Berlin in the evening, dead tired but mostly content. And with the weariness from the trip still settled in my bones two days later, I'll now end this and crawl into bed...
2003-06-23
Relaxing on company time
When you wake up, turn around, wrap you arms around your wife who spoons up against you, you turn on the radio so you don't miss the time to get out of bed over the cuddling, and the first song that plays is the Bloodhound Gang's "Bad Touch", you just know the day is going to be great. (It happened on Friday, and it happened today as well, when before I had to go weeks without that song. I'd really like to know how theses guys compile their playlists...)
And great it was. When we met up before the office, I was the target of a lot of stares. But I had expected this, since the other 'bent rider I know of was on a business trip, and being the only one present with a recumbent bike tends to do that kind of thing. The questions persisted throught most of our trip, but at least they were thoughful, intelligent questions by bikers actually interested in the subject matter instead of the snarky comments which riding a recumbent usually provokes in the majority of people. (Note to self: I once saw a t-shirt that had the three most frequently asked questions and answers for recumbent bikers printed on the front. Find someone who sells them and buy a few!).
But it also transpired that a female collegue had recently found herself in possession of a recumbent quite similar to mine by way of inheritance but had as yet not found the courage to try it out unassisted, although being an avid biker she was more than willing to give it a try. I foresee another 'bent convert in the not too distant future. And this raises the recumbent ratio in our branch of the company to a whopping 10 percent, i.e. 10 percent of the employees in our office own a recumbent. Wow. Just wow. :-)
The guy who had organized that trip had done a fantastic job, the route was extremely nice, as were the food places we stopped at, an Italian restaurant and café. We passed by a few sights I hadn't seen before and drove through a lot of beautiful nature while avoiding roads with heavy traffic. So for large parts of the trip I was able to blank out my mind, drink in the sights around me and just plain have a good time on my bike.
To my considerable surprise and joy my recumbent nerve was tickled even more, though. When we had some time while waiting for a ferry to take us across one of the numerous lakes in the area, the represantative from the company headquarters (there usually is one of them on these trips, I was told later) expressed interest in a test ride. So I positioned him in the seat, told him not to let the speed fall to low and to keep his shoulders firmly against the seatback, and off he went after a shove to overcome his starting problems. And what can I say? The guy is a natural, displaying none of the wobble usually seen in first timers. When we got back to the ferry, another surprise was waiting for me in the form of another recumbent and its rider, a petite girl I had met shortly at last years recumbent festival in Berlin. It was nice to meet someone to discuss recumbent biking on equal footing for a change, so we chatted while the ferry crossed the lake and then waved goodbye like old friends when she zoomed off after the boat had reached the shore again.
Soon after that we reached the end of our trip and while the majority moved off into a nearby bar, I went home, not wanting to destroy the afterglow of a bicycle oriented day with a smoky, loud bar. On my drive home it suddenly became apparent to me how stressful the last few weeks at work had been, and how good that day had been for my general mood. I haven't been this relaxed on my way home for ages!
I sure could get used to more days like this...
2003-06-19
Looking Forward
This week has somehow drained me of most of my energy already, and it's barely half over, so advance apologies if blogging remains light. But building a house is a lot of stress, there was an awful amount of stress at work as well, and the situation with my uncle shows no signs of improving, either.
If course, my uncle has done absolutely nothing at grandma's appartment over the last few weeks, except perhaps remove all the garbage bags. So I will probably have to drive over to him on the weekend, or otherwise nothing will likely continue to happen. I don't see how we'll manage to clean out the appartment until the end of the month that way, but that's when the rental contract ends, so end of month it'll have to be. I already hate the coming weekend, and how much wronger than that can you get?!
Fortunately, there are other things that make the future look a bit less gloomy than the past few days. Like, say, seeing more than 3500 cubic feet of soil and sand piled up in our backyard, and a big gaping hole in the ground that will soon be occupied by our very own basement! Yay! Provided that we find someone to put in the drainage layer of gravel first, which neither the construction firm nor the guys who dug that hole seem to be able to do but is still necessary for the whole thing to proceed. I hope we'll get this sorted out with the architect tomorrow...
But let me tell you, 3500 cubic feet of soil in your backyard is a whole damn lot! :-O
In work related news, the truly rantworthy situation that sparked the last sex post (because I needed to write something, anything, to relieve that tension, and ranting about work is something I'd rather not do too much of here, besides, sex, even if it went fizzle, is better than suckage at work in my book) seems to be mostly over: No, or at least considerably fewer, offers and specifications to write in the near future, less project management duties as well, especially for projects that go basically nowhere, instead some solid bugfixing and programming ahead in the months to come. Sure, I'm the project manager for this as well, but this project will with certainty demand much more programming skill than management prowess (snort!) from me. Whew!
Plus, tomorrow is the annual Company Excursion Day, which means a whole day of bicycling around the landscape, occasionally interrupted by talking and eating. Now, why can't more days be like that? ;-)
And now excuse me while I go back to reading Janny Wurts' "Peril's Gate"...
2003-06-16
If at first you don't succeed...
Mike is asking for it, Layne is looking forward to it, and who am I to deny the latest addition to my commenting readership and my favorite blogger? So more sex it is. But just so you don't fall prey to the false belief that all is sexual bliss at Casa Gudy, I'll write about what happened last Saturday.
It all started innociously, or not-so-innociously, enough. Soon after getting up for breakfast it became apparent that my wife was horny as hell and just plain couldn't keep her hands off me. But there were a few things that urgently needed doing and thus forestalled any attempt of ours to get back between the sheets or into any other place where relief was possible. So during the day she copped a feel here and a touch there, such that we were both incredibly hot, bothered, and generally impossibly horny in the evening.
So with the day's chores finally done we set to relieving that tension with considerable fervor. We were naked in record time and busy pleasuring each other less than a second later. Since we were not only horny but also a little playful, we tried out a new position for me to excite her, which despite putting some strain on her back was incredibly nice for me and, uhm, stimulating for her: while I was sitting on the bed, knees drawn half-way up, she placed her butt on my knees and her back on my lower legs while gripping my back with her legs. The result - all of her nether regions nicely relaxed and in easy licking, kissing, tweaking, stroking and fondling distance to my mouth and hands. :-)
We didn't have to wait long for a nice little shuddering, convulsing, heavily breathing orgasm from my wife. Soon after this the strain on her back proved too much and we had to resort to a more comfortable position, when she announced that she wanted me, or rather a very specific part of me, in her. Now. No further delay allowed. No substitute accepted.
All too happy to comply, I plunged into her and started heavily thrusting when it became apparent that something wasn't right. Things just didn't fit and felt like those first few times we did that intercourse thing almost a dozen years ago. It was as if somehow my eager tab and her hungry slot had been exchanged for something else, or at least someone else's. It was a decidedly weird feeling, and of course, by the time we both really became aware of it independent of each other, I was too far gone to stop the inevitable.
So something happened to me, something else failed to happen to her, the weird feeling persisted for both of us, and the mood for an encore performance was somehow thoroughly ruined in the process. After this somewhat disappointing finale to a day of much work and pent-up desire, we just spooned into each others arms, her back to my stomach, and peacefully succumbed to an exhausted sleep...
2003-06-13
Eric Flint, Dave Freer: Rats, Bats, and Vats
So what do you do if you're a conscripted vat-grown grunt in a war that mankind is slowly loosing against the swarming millions of insectoid Maagh, and you are stuck behind enemy lines with a cadre of gene-spliced, cyber-implanted rats and bats? Rats, which although capable of thought and speech, still have rat priorities - sex, food, booze, in roughly this order. Bats that are entirely too eager to employ explosives in the solution of any problem they might encounter, or just for kicks when there's no problem around. Well, you do what you can to stay alive, hope for the best, and pray that it doesn't get any more complicated. Which of course it does when during what should have been a simple enemy panty raid this motley band frees the newly orphaned only child of the privileged family which literally owns more than a third of the whole colony. And as it happens, said child and her two companions not only harbour a few secrets, but the girl actually develops a massive crush on her not-so-heroic rescuer.
I somewhat surprised myself when I downloaded this book from the Baen Free Library, because both the title and the cover text implied that this would be just a cheesy attempt at cheap comedy on the basis of a military science fiction background. Which, in a way, it is. Except it's not quite so cheesy or cheap. The book works suprisingly well, in fact. The humour, most of it derived from the impossible situation and the interaction and culture clashes between the two very different humans, the perpetually horny, hungry, thirsty rats, the taciturn but trigger happy bats, the egomaniacal pet of the girl, and her strange, alien tutor - although somewhat cheap in places - is thoroughly funny. The plot, of course, is screwy but works well enough in the context of a military SF comedy.
But it's once again the characters, their interactions and development, definitely Freer's forte, which make the whole thing such a joy to read. Although most of them are a little tacky and over the top, no doubt owing to the comedy nature of the book, they are all believable and fleshed out in detail. This is especially true of the two humans, but I admit that over the course of the book I grew fond of several of the over-sexed and voracious rats as well. OK, maybe it's because I'm an over-sexed foodie myself ;-), but I think there's more at work here, namely, the complex, deep characters and the fact that the authors are pleasantly candid about their heroes also being sexual beings without turning the book into a one-handed read. This is something I've missed in altogether too many books over the years, and is probably also part of the reason why I liked "The Forlorn" as much as I did.
Another aspect "Rats, Bats, and Vats" shares with "The Forlorn" is that the end, although better in the former than in the latter, is still a little weaker than I would have liked. If I had to describe the book in a word, though, "fun" would be it. It's recommended reading, especially if you fancy some SF-based levity in your life.
(I have, in fact, downloaded "Pyramid Scheme" by the same authors yesterday evening, hoping that it'll prove to be another worthwhile read. Still, I expect the next book review will be a few weeks off, because I made the mistake of starting on "Peril's Gate", the latest installment in Janny Wurts' utterly gripping and excellent Wars of Light and Shadow series. And judging from the previous books in that series, that means I have before me more than 900 pages of complex plot and characters which will so completely hold me in their spell that reading another book in parallel, like I did over the last few months, just plain won't work.)
PS: both Layne and the Kims seem to be back. I'll update my link list accordingly this evening...
2003-06-10
Explosive Growth
[Metablogging alert]
It seems that a lot of people have spent a lot of time reading Layne's blog and are now looking for other things to do... In any case, that's my theory as to why after having the first look at my Sitemeter statistics for some time, I've had to pick my chin off the floor. Where I've had a steady 2-5 visits per day before, most of them coming in either through Plain Layne, Intellectual Poison, and lately increasingly Anvita's blog, I'm now averaging more than 30 visits per day. And apart from the few people who have come here by salvaging the address of my blog from the google cache of Layne's blog, most seem to have actually bookmarked me (or alternatively have JavaScript off or are otherwise monkeying about with their referrer info.
I guess I should perhaps be grateful and just enjoy my apparent growth in popularity, but I confess that all of this just creeps me out a little... Anyway, for those of you who are just coming here for info about our favourite blog and haven't looked at the comments to my last post, there are again stirrings of life there. Layne has posted a picture of Cassie and her baby on her site. So thanks to Layne, thanks and congratulations to Cassie, and a heartfelt welcome to David!
And I can now drop my alert level to yellow. (Apologies to all USians, who have been plagued by entirely to many meaningless alert level changes lately... ;-)
My plans for this week involve posting the reviews of the two books I've finished over the extended weekend and also possibly doing some more personal stuff, perhaps even of the ear-torturing kind and perhaps even doing this week's Cheddar X if I feel like it. All of this hinges on me actually having enough energy to blog when I get back home from work though, and with the current situation there, which is a rant all to itself which won't happen here, and our house building project going forward by leaps and bounds now, and me feeling an increasing drive to get bent instead of blogging, that looks kind of unlikely. But we'll see.
(And yes, there has been more lawn mowing, and more employment of the Bobby Sue, but this time I'll just leave the details to your imagination...)
[Update: fixed the Proxomitron link]
2003-06-05
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
She did it again. Layne has vanished off the face of the Earth with no more than a "Take very good care of you", and has taken her whole site with her. I know that I care about her entirely too much, more than is probably healthy in any case, but I can't help it, and her suprising, unannounced departure is sending me and my over-active imagination into a frenzy of worry, reducing my productivity to an absolute zero as a side effect.
I hope this is just a temporary hiatus to take care of, say, the arrival of the baby or some other problem in her life, instead of a more permanent affair. And I also hope she'll be back soon, because a life without her and her beautiful writing somehow feels diminished, robbed as it is of one of its more wonderful aspects.
Layne, in the name of the German GNP, my sanity, and all that is good, let me know how you are. Please.
2003-06-04
Is it just me, or is blogger becoming more unreliable by the minute? Anyway, here's what I wrote yesterday evening but only got around to posting just now, because blogger was basically unreachable...
Threesome with Bobby Sue
To say that my wife wasn't accepting of our new household member would be understating things. Her basic policy seemed to be that unless it's part of my anatomy, she doesn't want it in her. A bit of mowing lawn seems to have changed her mind, though.
But let's start at the beginning. With my father-in-law now at home for good, most of the heavy gardening duties have moved into his realm of responsibility, and that includes mowing our half-acre of lawn and meadow. This weekend though, he had other things to do, so the duty fell back to me. So I discvored the hard way that my arms, wrists, and hands are no longer accustomed to the strain of pushing the lawn mower across 2000 square yards of lawn and bumpy meadow, especially with the gear box of the darned thing being irreparably broken and thus me heaving to provide all the locomotion on my own instead of just giving it an occasional shove to keep it going in the right direction. So at the end of the day my arms were pretty much done for.
Which of course didn't keep my wife from demanding I fulfill some of the more pleasant nuptial duties in the evening. And who am I to gainsay her, especially in that respect. So we set to in wild abandon, but after I started giving some attention to the place that has to my never ceasing amazement and joy provided her, and by proxy myself, with a lot sexual stimulation over these last few months, it quickly became clear that after all that lawn mowing my fingers were just not up to the task of providing enough pressure to properly stimulate her g-spot. Faced with the prospect of having to go without g-spot-induced ecstasy for the rest of the evening and having to make do with just a clitoral orgasm or two (which she finds second rate ever since our discovering the joys of Dr. Gräfenberg's little discovery) she finally thought about my february purchase, and with a little hesitation and trepidation in her voice asked me to bring it out and try if it would help us with the problem at hand.
And help it did. :-) Contrary to my previous thoughts, the Bobby Sue is sufficiently stiff to be used for stimulating her g-spot. Plus, its shape makes it more convenient for me to provide additional oral stimulation to her tender parts than when using my fingers. What all of this boils down to is that thanks to the guys and gals at Vixen Creations, the sex that evening was pretty damn spectacular despite my limp arms.
So I am glad that my wife is becoming more accepting of a dildo in her life, and I foresee more employment for Bobby Sue in the near future, but not before I have finally gotten my ass into gear and visited that somewhat inconveniently located sex shop I found some time ago on the net, because we've run out of lube, and none of the shops near our home carry a decent high quality assortment of the stuff.
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