Directions

Do you think that there are times for changing directions and times for staying on track?
I do think so. But how to know in what time I am? And how to know the bloody direction?

Sand Tits

The “Tacheles” in Berlin. In former times it was a famous department store, then it was empty and rotten for many years. A bunch of alternative folks captured the building after the wall went down and turned it into a left-wing center for culture with ateliers for artists, pubs and a cinema. It’s a building I automatically fall in love with.
There was a kind of beer garden behind the house. The benches were big characters made of iron. At the first glance they seemed to lay around without structure.
As I climbed the stairway I saw that the characters did have a structure. What kind of man am I when I’m not able to the the basics?
Funny that some basic facts are only visible from above.

Zero

You are not able to avoid Coke Zero these days. The ads are everywhere. I can’t remember a product being pushed as agressively into peoples minds as that black Zero liquid.
There are always big crowds around the pretty girls that give free bottles of Coke Zero away.
Sad but true - it’s very simple to manipulate us.
Hmm, I have to admit that I like Zero more than Diet Coke - it tastes more like the “real” thing. Yes, I know, the definition of “real taste” was also burned into my mind by the black liquid industry.

Punks not Dead

You do what you want, you go where you want, you don’t accept any rules, you claim you are free.
What a glorious life this must be.

Lucy

Lucy and I met at the S-Bahn in Berlin. She wore a dress with a single pocket on the front. One of her hands was always buried in that pocket. It turned out that Lucy hided a little treasure in her pocket - a little plastic Amardillo. I was really glad that she showed it to me after some talk.
My lesson learned from that day is that it’s good to have small treasures. But they grow in size and value as soon as you share them with others.

Speed Team

Click on Image to Enlarge

Walking through the city half the night before shooting photos.....legs hurting from that walk prior to the start.....how stupid can one be?.....perfect sun......amazing big crowd at the start.....Hells Bells from Ac/DC as we count down the seconds.....slalom at high speed on our way forward......pulse 200......heavy legs.....where the hell is the next water station?.....touching the kids hands when skating by.....big grin during the whole race.....fetching bananas from a spectator.....following the girl with the fur bag......to fast for us......don’t split up but race a perfect team......sunset behind the Brandenburg Gate as we reach the finish.....can’t avoid to scream as I pass the Gate......consuming huge amounts of bananas, cookies and Red Bull afterwards....joking with the masseuse girls.....enjoying the party feeling......bad time but best race ever......sitting in an Vietnamese Restaurant with a hurting back.....when the hell can we register for next year?.....wondering whether there’s a Inline Skate Marathon in NYC, too.

Capital Skate

Big things are on the way. This weekend CHK and I will attend at the Berlin Skate Marathon. I’m very curious about the atmosphere there with approximately. 8000 skaters. Finishing the 42km race by skating through the Brandenburg Gate sounds not that bad, does it?
Prior to the Marathon there’s a business trip scheduled for the rest of the week. That means that I probably wont be able to post until Monday.

Reduce

Isn’t is funny that sometimes a situation, a thought or even a person seems to be even richer if you remove all details? From time to time, reducing my life to black and white (or black and blue) helps me a lot. Yes, I know, most of my friends hate me for that.

Caps

Some quick shots taken with my cell phone camera at the ALDI supermarket during my lunch break. The bottles reminded me on animals in a barn. Funny colored animals. But wait - animals wouldn’t stand that aligned. Maybe soldiers. Clean Up Soldiers. I’d like to have a platoon of them in my apartment for some days.

Chicken

Almost every small kid I know has a favorite cuddly toy. Mostly the figures look a little bit filthy because the kids don’t spend a single minute without them.
I spend the last minutes thinking about the favorite stuffed animal of my childhood but I don’t remember anything. It’s a pity that we have so little memory of the first years of our lifes. Actually they must have been the most intense years of our whole lifes because all we have seen or smelled or heard we experienced for the very first time.
A few years ago I read the saying “Childhood is to valuable to waste it to childs”. How true.

I found this cuddly chicken beside the sidewalk and I’m sure that it was the favorite toy of some kid. Hopefully the child that has lost it will forget about it soon. I thought about taking it but then I decided to leave it. Maybe the chicken will return to its kid.

Front Side Butts

One more fashion related photo. I shot it half an hour after the one with the fashion chain.
Usually I’m not aware of the relationships between my photos until I look at them at home. But I often discover a lot of connections.
Today it seemed to be a day for pipes and fashion. Don’t know why.

The shop showed some whole body display dummies in the back and some dummies with the lower half of the body in front. If you looked at them from a special angle it seemed like the dummy girls had a kind of twisted anatomy. I guess it’s hard for the ladies to sit on a chair but at least they can check easily whether their string tanga peers out.

Chains of Fashion

More or less we all follow the stupid orders of the fashion industry. I don’t know why it works whenever Benetton or Esprit or Gap says that Jeans have to hang low on Girls’ hips. But it works. Girls buy the stuff and boys enjoy looking at it. I don’t know how it is vice versa. Do girls like to look at boys’ hips? Strange thought.
Well, from a fashion point of view I’m a complete moron. It’s not because I don’t wanna be dressed cute. It’s simply because I hate buying clothes and I hate coping with the dressed up bitchy sales girls in the shops. Does this mean I already broke the chains of fashion? I don’t think so.
Fortunately I work in the Software industry and a typical programmer doesn’t give a shit about clothes.

Child Pipes

Seen on a Sunday-Afternoon-Walk through the city of Fürth.

Living Colors, Germany

This scene reminded me on the german flag - black, red, gold. Yes, I have to admit that one needs a little imagination to see it. But then it’s very obvious, isn’t it?
I’d have appreciated if the gold part would have been a little bit closer to the red part. But the respect was stronger than patriotism.

Horse Dung Paradise

A dead bug with a wonderful blue color lying stone-dead on the remains of horse dung. A perfect situation for dying, isn’t it?
You as a bug found this incredible huge pile of your favorite food. More than you can eat in the next few years. You look around, think “Oh my dear, that’s to cool to be true”, your bug-mouth forms a kind of big grin and then - click - you pass away.
I hope that I’ll kick the bucket in a similar way one day. Well, not in an pile of dung but with a big grin on my face.

MVP (Most Valuable Places), Part II

Geocaching helped again to visit one of my favorite places. Hidden in a forest near my old hometown Bayreuth there’s a place with lots of lime stone rocks. Some of them look very mystical. Although the place is perfect for sitting there in an warm summer night I never managed to do it. I wasn’t there for many years. Today I went there to find a cache hidden in one of the rocks. I was amazed how fast I found it facing the 3 million possible hiding places beneath the rocks.
I can still smell the forest on my jacket.

Lamp Post Spiders

I missed the Friday posting - more than 3 hour late. Damn. But at least for a good reason.
After I left the cinema (I watched “The Perfume”) I strolled through Nuremberg because there was a small festival with lots of small huts and even more celebrating people. On a small brigde I noticed that one lamp post looked strange. It turned out that it was covered over and over with cob webs with dozends of spiders on it. I never saw such a thing before, especially not in the middle of the city.
First I shot some pictures in the dark but after a while I decided to go back to the car and fetch the tripod for some more pics.
It was a little scary to see all the spiders crouching around - like in the movie Arachnophobia in minature format.
A lot of party people passed my during my shots and most of them had no idea what I was shooting. I even heard one woman say “How dumb must one be to take photos of an old lamp post”. You know what? Those are the moments I love so much. It’s when I realize that most of the folks are blind for the great little things in life.

Zucchini

Zucchini is one of the most dispensable vegetables for me. It’s not only that it tastes like nothing. Its because it looks so impressive and taste like nothing.
It grows like hell and if ain’t careful it becomes bigger than desired.
The world is full of Zucchini-guys. Trying to grow big, looking impressive and lacking any taste, though.

A colleague gave me a monster of a Zucchini and and a recipe for Zucchini soup. I hope I’ll like it. It’s the last chance for those green things.

Toothpaste

I wondered whether the piece of toothpaste would completely sink into the toothbrush if one waits long enough. Probably it would. Up to now I never managed to wait that long. If I don’t forget about it I’ll buy an additional toothbrush only for long term experiments of that kind.
I will keep you posted.

Cans and Holes

The can design of the brand “Bärenmarke” condensed milk didn’t change as long as I can think. For me it plays in the same league as the Campell soup cans of Andy Warhol. Minimalistic with clear colors - I really like it. I even like the bears on it.
I can remember when I was a kid and my older cousin explained to me that one has to make two holes in the can and not just one to make the milk flow. Believe it or not but it took me 20 more years to realize that this works with tetrapacks with orange juice, too.

Blubb-Flops

Another weekend with diving in some flooded quarries near Leipzig. We camped inofficially above the steep face and were the only ones far and wide. It was great to sit near the water and chat and even nicer to dive.
Hidden in a hedge near the quarry I found the flip flop on the photo above. I wondered where the other one might be but forgot about it a few moments later.
Some hours later we dived in the quarry and down there we saw an old beer barrel that some diver arranged at the wall. I didn’t trusted my eyes as I saw what is on top of the barrel. You have to look very close.
I guess I’m the only person in the world who would be able to re-unite the flip flops again. But I won’t. It’s absolutely perfect as it is.


Thanks to R. for the underwater photo

US Postal Service

Receiving packages is a great thing. If it’s too big for my letterbox the postman simply drops it in front of the main door of the house I live in. Usually my neighbour takes care about it and when I come home from work I find the package on the doormat of my apartment. In general I’m aware that a package is on its way but sometimes - very seldom - I get a package without warning. And if furthermore the package comes from the other side of the ocean and the content is of special value, then the day is a good one - independent from all the shit that happened earlier that day.

Finishing

Do you see this? I mean, DO YOU SEE THIS?
That’s me finishing a bloody Inline Skate Marathon - my fourth one. The bearded man and I were lightning fast this time - at least for our very humble means. For all others we were very slow.
I love the minutes straight after the race. Although your legs are shaking like pudding you feel like the speed king and the fact that more than 60% of all other competitors had passed this spot before you doesn’t matter.
It was the rehearsal for the Berlin Skate Marathon later in September. I guess it will be a great experience.
Thanks to the bearded one for shooting this blurry pic (the buffoon was half a minute faster than I).

Synchrony

It’s cool to see that a bunch of colleagues tick the same way you do. You share the same strange kind of humor, work hard on the same stuff, move together as a team in stormy times - and party together from time to time. Some reasons to gather for some drinks are more joyful than others, though.

De-Fence

Fences. They are everywhere. Trying to keep me out or preventing me from breaking out. I don’t know what I dislike more - the fence or the fence-maker.
Stupidly I’m my own fence-maker from time to time and that’s the most annoying thing. But sometimes it seems to be easier to mumble to oneself “hey keep quiet, you have no chance to think further. Don’t you see the fence around you?”
But not all fence-makers are smart creatures. The fence on the photo is called “Hasendraht” in german. This means “rabbit wire” because its often used for the front doors of rabbit cages. A very thin fence. In this case it was used for a more than 2 metres high fence around a factory. I guess Hasendraht is not sufficient to keep undesired human beings out. It’s similar with all the mental fences. Some of them seem to be high and a real obstacle. But as soon as you come near you realize that it’s only ridiculous Hasendraht and breaking through is very easy.

Roller-Horse

We stood in the office and ate some pizza. To use the time useful I asked the guys to draw a horse. One guy started with the head, the next one added the neck and so on. It ended up with a kind of motorbike-horse that looked more than only a little bit strange. Furthermore there was a discussion about whether a horse is able to shift gears with its hooves. I really don’t know why it is that difficult for software developers to perform such a simple task as drawing a horse.

Old Milk

Today I explored an industrial ruin in Nuremberg that is on my list for years. It’s an old dairy plant in the middle of the city but covered behind trees. The only reason I noticed it some years ago was because it’s near the railroad and I saw it from the train. The big fence around the area made it kind of difficult to get inside but I saw that there’s a lot of Graffiti on the buildings so there has to be a secret entrance. Well, I finally found it, but it was tough this time.
Sneaking through old factory halls, climbing dark stairways covered with debris and smelling old rotten machines - amazing. Every time you step on shards it makes a big noise and you instantly stop and listen whether someone noticed you.
The Fat Lotte with mounted flash and tripod made it not easier to climb through the buildings. Into the bargain some of the stairs were missing. But on the other hand, being on a secret mission with a lot of equipment makes it even more interesting.
My love for dead buildings sometimes seems odd to me. I hope it’s not a mental defect.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

Batteries

There’s a strange thing about batteries. Sometimes you think they will never run empty. You work with them on full power and everything is perfect. And suddenly, without warning they stop completely. No phase with half power and no slow running out of energy. Just blackness within seconds.
On the other hand there are those batteries that seem to be weak right from the start. You never trust in them but it ends up with using them for years and years. Not the power of an atomic power plant but reliable like hell. And even when the are almost empty there’s some energy left.
For some reason you never know in advance what type of battery you use. No idea whether I’d like to know in advance. Probably not. Maybe that’s what life’s about.