I am sitting here in Aachen Germany, three more  days until I can fly home. Bad trip. Mom died, I'm sick Not enough to do. Aachen is filled with people who come for the Christmas Market. It was nice the first two or three times I saw it, pretty mundane these days. I am a prisoner in the hotel, I have a car but if I leave, I will not be able to get back into the parking garage. Walked around town a couple times today, it was a gorgeous day. I was supposed to go flying with a German friend but with my head cold, flying would kill my already pained sinuses. Finished my Christmas shopping instead. If tomorrow is nice, maybe I will go to a local town, one with a castle and see their Christmas Festival. Just the driving to get back will kill me.
UPDATE: Didn't go anywhere. Slept in until 11:00 read until 2;00PM Wandered out on Sunday, nothing open. Went and got some dinner at one of my favorite Gasthauses, The Goldener Schwann. Football tonight, then two more days of nothing, then drive back to Frankfort for the long flight home.

Center of the Worldism

Drives me nuts. people stopping at the top of an escalator, in a group trying to decide where to go next. THERE ARE PEOPLE COMING UP THE ESCALATOR RIGHT BEHIND YOU IDIOTS!!
People driving 55 in the fast lane. A 65 MPH road. Move the hell over!!
People pulling into intersection blocking it so when I get the green turn arrow, it's either sit and stew or smash their car to pieces.
People having hallway conversations right outside my cubicle. I AM TRYING TO WORK HERE!!!
People seeing a free right lane so they dive into it. OH no! It's a right turn only lane! So they sit there blocking traffic with their left turn signal on waiting for some kind (stupid) person to let them back into the correct lane that happens to be backed up three lights mostly from such stupidity.
People with 37 items and a check in the 15 item FAST lane at the supermarket. Those signs are for someone else and besides, 37 is close to 15.
People at the luggage carousel all crowded up against the conveyor. Ummm 1.) no one can get their bag without knocking you on your ass. and 2.) You bag gets there no faster if you stand right up in the way of everyone else. The corollary is you bag gets there no slower if you step back a pace and watch the bags as they come down the line.

The best story is when my friend Scott and I were flying back from Germany. We managed to get center section seats (late in the year, booked flights) me on the end and Scott in the middle of a 5 person row. There was a woman siting in the seat between us. Eh? So Scott comes in from the far isle and I come in next to my isle seat. As I open the  overhead storage bin, the woman looks up and says that bin is full. Ya... full of her stuff. With a nice hat sitting next to her carry on. I explain very politely that the storage bin was for all of us. She gets all huffy until I tell her I will call the flight attendant. I can fit my stuff in next to hers. She says curtly, "Don't squash  my hat." Well I hadn't thought of it until then. As I put everything in, I put her hat at the very top of things and closed the bin.  When we landed 11 hours later I opened the bin, as I pulled out her hat, I took my other hand and popped that hat back into shape. She didn't see it and was most grateful for my concern. Scott almost busted a gut.

I think this post will be updated as I remember the rest of the Center of the  Worldisms and discover more. Feel free to add your own.

So I am old. Get over it. Starting to blog at 59 seems silly. maybe. But then again, who else is going to chronicle my life? Who else is going to get down on paper my thoughts? By most reckoning I have used up 75% of my time on earth. I had better get cracking.
Not believing in the afterlife puts this into perspective. You got one shot on earth. Your life could be over today. My life, tomorrow.
So who is this for? My daughters? They don't seem to care who I am or where we came from. But then, they are young. I would like to say it was different when I was a late teen, early twenties person but no. It comes down to I don't know a lot about my family. I didn't ask. They don't ask. Would it be nice to know now? Sure, but it's too late. Dad passed away in 2004; Mom just one week ago. Of course she was pretty much gone for the last three or four years anyway. I did have some interesting conversations with her a couple of years ago but nowhere near the in depth it would have been nice to have. Her stories, while funny in some ways were like the grooves on a record player, ingrained and worn from many tellings, some of the character worn off in the telling. How much was true and how much was as she wished it have been? I don't know. I do know from the stories she told that her upbringing on rented pig farms south of Buffalo remained a driving force in how she lived all aspects of her life from views on unmarried relations to money to how kids should be responsible for their parents.
Anyhow, Not for kids, not for friends, must just be for me and anyone who wanders in.