Well, of course any reason is good to celebrate or to party. But in this case it is all about my apartment, or home-base.

Home: An environment offering security and happiness, a valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin….

And that is exactly what I have celebrated with my girlfriend and friends! The place shows our first signatures, such as the oil painting in the hallway. That is a first start, time will have to take care of next steps, such as growing comfort of shared memories and emotions.

Looking back on past couple of weeks, about time spent to choose the kitchen furniture, get everything delivered (what a painful bureaucracy, shame on you IKEA!), mount all pieces together.. Getting the walls and ceilings painted, floors laid, furniture set and buying the party ‘refreshments’ was quite a challenge all-in-all. But hell: it was all worth the effort! It meant a great deal to me to pull this off and to share that with my friends!

It’s so nice to be at the other side of the line: to organise a party myself once, instead of joining other (wo)man’s party!

It is about time to prepare for party and start living in that place instead of only redesigning and reconstructing the whole thing! So here it is: houswarming party invitations are sent and so the deadline is set! Main things on the to-do list: finish the paint-job in kitchen, bathroom and toilet, mount the kitchen and prepare the (laminate-)floors in the livingroom and the yogaroom.

The yogaroom is our invention for a quiet space. The main ‘user’ of the yogaroom will be Angelika, but it will also be our oase for reading and watching movies and it will also act as our occasional guest room. Both the livingroom and the yogaroom are oriented at the frontside with sunshine in the morning and in the later afternoon.

It is amazing and wonderful to see the results of our designing talks! Combining vibrant colors in all rooms resulting in a great atmosphere. I love these talks, crazy- and absurd ideas spoken without hesitation and then slowly moving those ideas into real dicisions. I will publish some more photos over the next weeks, we have some more surprises under the hood!

The apartment needs work: painting walls and ceiling, tiling (laminate) the floors and still to do: mounting the kitchen. But all that work adds to the experience of living in this new place! If all goes well, expect a house-warming party by June!

Valentine hearts ;)

The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of “valentines”. Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged cupid. So how and where did I spend Valentine’s day this year? The good news is: I spent Valentine’s day with my Valentine! We spent the day (weekend) at Budapest. Budapest is a lovely city, a perfect ambiance to spend Valentine’s day!

Post Office Savings Bank

The idea for this trip started with Angelika’s proposal to visit Budapest. Budapest was (still is) one of those ‘must see’ cities on my list of places to discover. We traveled by bus from Vienna and spent the nights in a youth hostel. But most of our time was spent on the streets! Budapest is easy to navigate, the city is devided by the river Danube, ‘Buda’ at one side of the river and ‘Pest’ at the other side. While walking the streets, I felt immediately taken by the city’s atmosphere of rich culture and great history. So many remarkable buildings all together! Most visitors of Budapest will know the parliamant building, very dominant at the banks of the Danube. There are many more, but my favorite was the Post Office Savings Bank (Postatakarék-pénztár) of architect Ödön Lechner. The building is located at two narrow streets so Lechner designed a fairly straight face with not much ornaments, but the roof is all the more spectacular! The roof is designed of bright ceramic tiles and ornaments. All parts showed very much care for detail and I was very impressed!

I found a quite spectacular presentation of the interior of this building, have a look at: http://www.panoramablog.eu/media/convert2.php?format=qtvr&cat=budapest&file=kincstar4 (It’s an animation, press Left-CTRL and Left-SHIFT keys to zoom in and out, move the mouse to rotate)

Ethnologic museum - traditional burial

To Angelika and me, this was a first trip into another country together. I have enjoyed every bit of the trip; we had great fun, lovely moments and many shared interests. We spend several hours at the ethnologic museum which was quite an impressive experience to both of us. At the first day of our visit we found a very nice and good Indian restaurant where we made reservations for Valentine’s day to have dinner together. We both stopped at the same buildings when fascinated by the architecture. But we also enjoyed the funny or hilarious moments when making pictures in the streets. I have found my Valentine and travel companion..

I live my dreams together with her!

….”
I: Well, I try to set for an appointmet with her, but that’s not easy.
A: Some people are like that.
I: Yeah, well I will try again this week, will see.
A: Tell me, when is her birthday?
I: Somewhere early june
A: Oooohh!… Well that explains!
I: huh? How do you mean?
A: Well, she is twins!
“….

I always thought there were two main categories of people: believers (christians, muslims etc.) and non-believers (atheists). I found out, there is another category: the zodiak people!

Getting out of Vienna was the difficult part. I had decided to travel north and choose direction to the area above- and parallel to the river Danube. Once I got out of the city, the surrounding was a wonderful mix of smaller villages and country roads in a hillside country, farmer’s nature. The wine-grape plants beautifully red and yellow colored, leaves pretending to be blossom. Sometimes I drove through the center of a village, passing narrow roads perfect enclosures to amplify the roaring sound from the exhaust.

Rabbits, biiiiig rabbits!

Near Vienna, the farmer roads are all closed to other traffic. But at some point, I started to realize that more-and-more roads were open to all traffic. Invitation to explore and discover! Driving the BMW motorcycle, I always feel tempted to explore the dirt roads and drive off into nature. It only took 2 or three minutes driving to suddenly find three running rabbits, three magnificent silhouettes running along the rim of a hill. They disappeared over the top of the hill and I continued along my path, following the curve of the path along the foot of the hill and once I got at the other side, there they were again! Passing only 10 or 20 meters in front of me! One instant thought occurred to me: ‘how can people for God’s sake hunt these animals?!’.. It’s Beautiful!

Imagine driving along this grace for hundreds meters!

I continued the ride with these thoughts in mind until several loud, dangling sounds distracted the peace! I looked back, to find out that my passenger seat had come off and I was loosing my tools from the toolbox underneath! Shoot! So: I pulled over and stopped immediately, shut down the motorcycle and started walking back along the track. Upon returning with my passenger seat and all tools I could find, I found some company near my motorcycle: 2 deer were nervously looking at me from a distance of no more than 50 meters! I continued to return to my motorcycle and I placed everything back where it belonged, securing the passenger seat with a spare belt to avoid the same procedure. All the time, I was observed by the deer who meanwhile had become more relaxed. So I decided to approach them a couple of meters and sit in the grass. We spent a relaxed 15 minute brake together, sharing the peace between the three of us. I have to say: I can not recall my thoughts or feelings of those 15 minutes anymore. Those 15 minutes are gone, I call it a moment of freedom! To me it were just 15 minutes, but my 2 companions of that moment LIVE the freedom almost full time! I envy them..

At some point, the deer decided to leave and they passed me in graceful gallop. I returned to my motorcycle, started and followed them as they were galloping parallel to my track. To my pleasure, at some point 5 females joined the 2 males! Wooooww!……

Some time later (time had gotten subjective), I got a puncture in my rear tire. Since I had packed my travel gear, I had all necessary tools with me to repair my tire and within half an hour (including a short and friendly talk with a passing farmer) I was on the road again!

(copied both pictures above from: http://naturfotografen-forum.de)

Much of the work is still ‘behind the scenes’. It’s about installing software, configuring everything to work together and install the small pearls that make it possible to configure the graphics to my taste. Now that I’m ready with that tedious job, I suddenly notice a message on my screen, notifying about yet again a new version of the software. So now I will sit down and work out a way (hopefully easy) to make a backup of the Blog, so I can play around with the new versions.

But all that work is nót what this Blog is about! The software is just a vehicle and it is nót the purpose of this Blog! This Blog will be all about the message in word and photos, writing about experiences and who knows -in time- the message might even generate readers.

I’m currently sitting at my favourite desk, in my favourite office. Back home, I still don’t feel my ‘touch base’, there is still much to do: stretching the budget. Yesterday, I got myself a new couch and that is a big improvement! No more improvising on camping chairs. But it’s a first step of many more. Unfortunately, my camera died on me, so I cannot provide the pictures to the story. The picture at the left was only a trial excercise: It’s a shot taken with my cellphone (HTC Touch), I just placed it on the table crossed my fingers and using the built-in timer made  the picture. At least it looks halfway steady and not too bad (technically hahaa). It’s at Maria HilfeBräu, a bar with free internet, just a 10 minute walk from home.

Of course, Vienna has much more to offer. But that is a different story!

While browsing the net, follow news-item came to my attention:

october 5, 2008 - Burgenland.

137 Puppy dogs stowed in boxes, whining and moaning – this dog-transport was pulled from traffic by police in Burgenland. The puppies were about to be transported in agony for 2.600 kilometres from Slovakia to Spain. Their destiny is now in hands of authorities…

The vehicle was found during routine check in the village ‘Loipersdorf’. Not only serious technical problems were found - from the back of the truck, heartbraking whining was heard from 137 puppy dogs. „Transportation documents stated that the dogbabies were age 17 to 18 weeks. The real age of these dogs was not more than maximum 6 weeks.” Stated the chief of traffic control.

The destiny for all puppies is a matter of juristic law and lies in hands of the president of state Burgenland. The authorities have to decide if the dogs remain in possession with the state (animal care) or if they have to be returned to the Slovak owner. Legally, the owner does not have to fear serious consequences as he only faces possible charges for document fraud.

Mass-producing dogs is a practice, well known as ‘dog mafia’, a multi million business. A dog with good pedigree is known to be worth up to 1.000 EUR.

What struck me in this situation is the fact that there is a possible chance that all dogs will have to be returned to the owner, so be transported into Spain once more. It seems that authorities are dealing with this situation in their own ruleset and bound by local laws.

In any case: these examples of animal(NON-)care make me mad! Very mad!

This seems to me a matter for international government line-up. If incidents like these remain like they are: just a plain ‘incident’, hardliner animalcare activities will continue to grow in this society! Of course, there needs also to done much about ‘customer awareness’; these stories need to be told and people who want to find a dog should know about these mafia practices. Unfortunately awareness will not be enough, as there is always a (substantial) price tag. And the pricetag is interesting enough for the scruples dealer with no- or low moral….

Besides that: who can resist a puppy face?……

Puppy face

(source: http://www.tierheim.at/front_content.php?idcat=135&idart=272)

Blink

Run Raaki Run!
The chains of pain removed,
don’t look at your right side for Terra
and not for me.

Here ends your destiny….
Me lasts the memory.

Blink

To me, this ‘responsibility’ is an extreme dilemma. The live and wellbeing of Terra and Raaki have always been my most important goal. At the moment where they stepped into my life, life changed and has been molded to meet that goal. It was never a sacrifice, only a blessing. And now, I feel obliged to decide for euthanasia for the same sake of wellbeing!?

It’s not horrible, only because I know this is the right way.

In this ordeal, I have been very fortunate. I have found a new, bright, supportive mind with whom I can share these difficult events. But it seems that our connection goes way beyond! Last Tuesday, she met at our place and I was able to introduce her in real life to Raaki, subject in many of my stories! Our connection has grown over past weeks to a level where it grew very important to me to make this possible. It’s probably a psychological importance to myself, but then again: is this a promise to new opportunities????

That will be a whole different story! I will save that for a next time..

Blink