I went to my first protest this weekend. It was here in Stuttgart. An anti-war/peace rally. I was going to go to the one in Berlin, but since there was one in Stuttgart, and I am still paying off Christmas, I figured I should save myself the fare. Honestly, I was a little disappointed in the event. It probably would have been more meaningful had I spoke the language, but I just didn’t get a strong feeling from the crowd. There were a lot of people though. And that certainly says something. It says a lot. People in Europe and really everywhere else in the world do not want a war. We get a different story than they seem to get in the States. We hear about how North Korea has turned back on their nuclear reactor and the Int’l Atomic Agency has escalated the issue. We hear that Japan, a declared passive defense country, has warned North Korea that if they build missiles that can hit Japan, they will take the offensive to disarm them. The far east politics are melting down and yet Dubya bitches about Iraq where Hans Blix says there have been found NO weapons of mass destruction. Where it has been recognized that MORE weapons of mass destruction were destroyed by inspections and inspectors after the Gulf War than destroyed with the bombing. We hear about how the sources that Colin Powell cited as to how Saddam got weapons into Iraq, were actually academic papers of how he COULD get weapons into the country. Why does our government treat us like we are dumb? Why don’t they respect us and our opinions being they are our ‘representative’ government. Oh well. I’ll just keep calling my congress people.

Don’t forget to go to MoveOn.org and sign up to help or download a poster or get info about calling your senator. I’ve added their icon and link to my KAOS page if you want to use that in the future. (often it is easier for me to go somewhere that has stuck in my head to get to a further location than to go to that further location directly, so I offer this logic, however bizarre.)

This week was mellow. Lots to do at work. Lots of reports to upgrade and fix. Much sweating at the gym. I have achieved a level of fitness where I can run on the laufband (treadmill) for an extended period of time. That is the kind improvement I need to keep up the spirit. It is the tangible improvement I cannot deny (’tis easy to deny that my thighs are getting smaller, I mean just look in the mirror.)

My friend John Zapf has his new website up. So far it is simply a single coffee talk like page but he is tremendously articulate and thoughtful so it is worth reading. He is also an aspiring Mac geek. An excellent combination, I think. He is an architecture student from UT Austin who has an internship with a prestigious firm here in Stuttgart. I swear God is trying to tell me something about me and the field of architecture, though I don’t know what. I have met, recently, a lot of architects. Funny I always thought it was a solid and conservative industry. By that I mean, you studied architecture, graduated, got a job as an architect and then did architecture. Apparently that isn’t how it works. Apparently it is very much like the accounting industry. You graduate, get a slave job with a firm, accumulate hours doing certain things, sit for the exam, pass, get another job and then worry about where the next job is coming from. There are lots of architects and not a lot of jobs. If you stay with a big firm, you do shit boring work, like bathroom layouts for malls, until you make partner but by then you don’t know how to be artistic anymore. I sort of sounds like the artisan field that bumps up against the machine the hardest. I mean sure if your painting disintegrates in an earthquake no one is killed but still. Architects seem like artists that are held down by the man in the ultimate sense.

Life seems to be about achieving a position where you are free to be the rebel you want to be while maintaining enough respect and authority to pull down the paycheck. If I could make 50K a year by working at a coffee shop or as a bank teller or something that allowed me to be myself, enjoy my customers but walk away when the work day was over, I would have achieved Nirvana. Then my brain could spend time creating things. I could slowly but surely build the home I want to live in. I could take the time to sift though the bins at Salv A again. I could try and learn to sew. But alas, I can’t seem to release myself from that paycheck. There are the student loans too. I don’t regret them, though they are holding me back for sure. But really isn’t that what we all want? We want a job we can walk away from every day and still be happy. That or a job that is exactly what makes us happy, though I think that is near impossible. Like Rock Stars, sure they get to make their music and live ‘the life’ but is it exactly what they want? Isn’t it more trouble than that? Fans stalking you, having to make appearances, ratings and record sales. I bet that a lot of Rock stars want to make their music and then go hang out downtown or something. Not worry about the ‘business’ part at least. I want to teach university level but I don’t really want to deal with the whole publishing thing. Sure I want to continue my education so that I remain worthwhile for my students, but I don’t like the idea of publishing because it is the thing to do. I want to teach. So maybe the next best thing is working at a coffee shop and using my brain for things that have no expectations. If money were no object, I’d like to think this would be my plan but most uber rich kids are just spoiled party animals. I wonder why.I went to my first protest this weekend. It was here in Stuttgart. An anti-war/peace rally. I was going to go to the one in Berlin, but since there was one in Stuttgart, and I am still paying off Christmas, I figured I should save myself the fare. Honestly, I was a little disappointed in the event. It probably would have been more meaningful had I spoke the language, but I just didn’t get a strong feeling from the crowd. There were a lot of people though. And that certainly says something. It says a lot. People in Europe and really everywhere else in the world do not want a war. We get a different story than they seem to get in the States. We hear about how North Korea has turned back on their nuclear reactor and the Int’l Atomic Agency has escalated the issue. We hear that Japan, a declared passive defense country, has warned North Korea that if they build missiles that can hit Japan, they will take the offensive to disarm them. The far east politics are melting down and yet Dubya bitches about Iraq where Hans Blix says there have been found NO weapons of mass destruction. Where it has been recognized that MORE weapons of mass destruction were destroyed by inspections and inspectors after the Gulf War than destroyed with the bombing. We hear about how the sources that Colin Powell cited as to how Saddam got weapons into Iraq, were actually academic papers of how he COULD get weapons into the country. Why does our government treat us like we are dumb? Why don’t they respect us and our opinions being they are our ‘representative’ government. Oh well. I’ll just keep calling my congress people.

Don’t forget to go to MoveOn.org and sign up to help or download a poster or get info about calling your senator. I’ve added their icon and link to my KAOS page if you want to use that in the future. (often it is easier for me to go somewhere that has stuck in my head to get to a further location than to go to that further location directly, so I offer this logic, however bizarre.)

This week was mellow. Lots to do at work. Lots of reports to upgrade and fix. Much sweating at the gym. I have achieved a level of fitness where I can run on the laufband (treadmill) for an extended period of time. That is the kind improvement I need to keep up the spirit. It is the tangible improvement I cannot deny (’tis easy to deny that my thighs are getting smaller, I mean just look in the mirror.)

My friend John Zapf has his new website up. So far it is simply a single coffee talk like page but he is tremendously articulate and thoughtful so it is worth reading. He is also an aspiring Mac geek. An excellent combination, I think. He is an architecture student from UT Austin who has an internship with a prestigious firm here in Stuttgart. I swear God is trying to tell me something about me and the field of architecture, though I don’t know what. I have met, recently, a lot of architects. Funny I always thought it was a solid and conservative industry. By that I mean, you studied architecture, graduated, got a job as an architect and then did architecture. Apparently that isn’t how it works. Apparently it is very much like the accounting industry. You graduate, get a slave job with a firm, accumulate hours doing certain things, sit for the exam, pass, get another job and then worry about where the next job is coming from. There are lots of architects and not a lot of jobs. If you stay with a big firm, you do shit boring work, like bathroom layouts for malls, until you make partner but by then you don’t know how to be artistic anymore. I sort of sounds like the artisan field that bumps up against the machine the hardest. I mean sure if your painting disintegrates in an earthquake no one is killed but still. Architects seem like artists that are held down by the man in the ultimate sense.

Life seems to be about achieving a position where you are free to be the rebel you want to be while maintaining enough respect and authority to pull down the paycheck. If I could make 50K a year by working at a coffee shop or as a bank teller or something that allowed me to be myself, enjoy my customers but walk away when the work day was over, I would have achieved Nirvana. Then my brain could spend time creating things. I could slowly but surely build the home I want to live in. I could take the time to sift though the bins at Salv A again. I could try and learn to sew. But alas, I can’t seem to release myself from that paycheck. There are the student loans too. I don’t regret them, though they are holding me back for sure. But really isn’t that what we all want? We want a job we can walk away from every day and still be happy. That or a job that is exactly what makes us happy, though I think that is near impossible. Like Rock Stars, sure they get to make their music and live ‘the life’ but is it exactly what they want? Isn’t it more trouble than that? Fans stalking you, having to make appearances, ratings and record sales. I bet that a lot of Rock stars want to make their music and then go hang out downtown or something. Not worry about the ‘business’ part at least. I want to teach university level but I don’t really want to deal with the whole publishing thing. Sure I want to continue my education so that I remain worthwhile for my students, but I don’t like the idea of publishing because it is the thing to do. I want to teach. So maybe the next best thing is working at a coffee shop and using my brain for things that have no expectations. If money were no object, I’d like to think this would be my plan but most uber rich kids are just spoiled party animals. I wonder why.

I think I might be getting closer to understanding what I want in life. I think it may be very different than what I am doing now. I think to some people it might look like dropping out. But really, what of significance am I doing now? I sell inkjet cartridges. Don’t worry people, this is actually a good feeling I have. All of you that know me, know I have been looking for this balance in life, the connection with what is real, what I can look back on and say made my life worthwhile. I more ever closer.

As long as I am giving people being credit for being far more clever than me, I should mention my new God-Geek coffee talker..glenn mcdonald. He does a beautiful job of tying topics together in a breathtakingly amusing and effective way. Check out his talk on losing weight, sort of.

The star of this week’s outfit was something I got in NYC while we were there in November. It is a Comme de Garcon (w/accents!) skirt overlay. It is picnic table tablecloth material and covers 3/4’s around. It was just fun and silly and on sale, so I bought it.

Cheers.