More Useful stuff to know

Date: Mar 19 1993

Transportation:

About a week or 2 after I got my car, I caved in the front end. An evil miniscule piece of snow parked in front of my car, and during the day it grew in strength, crystallized, multiplied and got real mean and nasty. So I go wandering out late looking for my car in the dark on a unlit street, find it, jump in and turn on the lights. I didn't see anything because this iceberg crouched real low under my field of vision. So I go peeling out at about 2 mph and it caved in my car.

^ & %^%*% & !!!!

It's about 1,500 DM damage. (> $1200 CDN). No, insurance doesn't pay for it. No-one in Germany can afford comprehensive insurance and you'd be a fool to tell them about any accidents you have because your rates would sky-rocket. No, I haven't been driving (myself) on the Autobahn yet. Partly because I haven't found it (it's 5 km away), partly because I haven't been motivated, and partly because I don't want my ancient, crappy, leaking, bald tires to crap out at 200 kph. I'll probably eventually buy new tires, but I haven't even got around to ordering a telephone for my apartment yet.

Health:

Jayne mentions that I never did say anything about the outcome of my Doctor visit and how I am. I am perfectly healthy and the uncontrollable twitching is only caused by nerve damage from excessive drinking of margaritas under palm trees. I'll guess I'll start avoiding palm trees.

Social Stuff:

So my new buddy 'Ralph', (whose name I've changed to protect Patrick) was telling me about his nerve damage from drinking 70 DM worth of margaritas, and I'm thinking, wow, what a manly he-man he must be to be able to drink all that. oh yeh?!? Big deal. I followed him around one night and 2 margaritas alone cost me 25 DM. When you're not drinking beer, it starts to really cost a lot. So Ralph and I stumble outta one place and he takes me to this place called 'The Cave'. It really is a cave. It's carved outta rock underground and has a spiral metal staircase going down which is wide enough for one person but has 2 way traffic anyway. I think it's an old air-raid shelter. People cram in like sardines and there is a miniscule dance floor and everyone else stands around and watches.

It costs 25 DM for taxi from downtown Heidelberg to the vicinity of my apartment in Leimen. So Ralph has this idea that he and I should start a club at EMBL, which gets sponsored by EMBL with money, and we should drink it all. But we are having a hard time thinking up with a club that only us two would show up at. I figure no-one will believe that Kendo is held in a bar... The answer is probably software related since he and I are probably the most sophisticated software dudes here. Maybe a YACC Appreciation Club (YAC)?

Weather:

This last week it has been about 15-20 degrees C or so. t-shirt or light sweater weather. I wish it would rain as much as it did 1 and 2 months ago. My car needs a wash.

Fines:

ok, the fines have started. Mostly I just go to a bank and pay them there. I have a fine for buying a car that has to be paid in a few days or I will be shot. I got a fine for wanting electricity in my apartment. They are also going to fine me a fixed rate each month to pay for East Germany and pay back some in a year since it's unlikely I really will use $21,673 a month of electricity. There was a fine for moving into a apartment. I have a really stupid bank. There is only one branch in all of Heidelberg, downtown, and it's never open. They send a bank-lady to EMBL ever Friday and I mostly get in line for her.

Anti-Fines:

One nice thing about German bureaucracy, is that when you try to find out who's being depositing large sums of money in your bank account that you didn't expect, you will probably never find out and get to keep the money. There is still 2,200 DM reimbursement that appears to be travel expenses for a Swiss trip that I didn't take.

Food:

I like the food alot better here than in Hell. When I was living in Hell, I had tried a few salads, but finally gave up on the rotting slimy rhubarb leaves in favor of tree-bark until Sir told me the hot setup for starving GastArbeiters was to frequent flower-shops. However, the salads I've had here are actually quite good and I often have one, which is surprising for a carnivore like me. Whenever I go to the super-market and try to buy hamburger meat from behind a counter, I always seem to end up with ground up chicken beaks. Which can be ok since they are much cheaper than real hamburger meat. Maybe they are running out of Hamburg citizens... I'm eating out alot. I probably spend 800-1000 DM/month on food.

Hair:

People are scared to get haircuts in Germany. You might lose an ear, or end up real silly looking. Many people come away with Swiss-Army haircuts. A friend of mine has been here 4 years and never had a hair-cut here. Last summer, he just shaved himself bald and has been growing hair since. He probably does this every year. Since my hair was starting to drive me nuts, I just went home and cut half off myself. I still have both ears. Many people here often have a perpetual 3 day growth of beard like I do, (except the women in the 'Lab of Fabulous Italian Women') so I am not the only dirt-ball.

Work:

I got my workstation today! Wow, only 2.75 months. Too bad I can't use it. First, there is no room on my desk to put it. I would have to move this temporary Sun somewhere. I can't just power it off because it's needed. The empty room that I want to put it in requires a ethernet cable running through it. Since this requires a cable from the other side of the wall where there is a concentrator, it will only take a month or so for the Computer Group to do it. And if that wasn't a problem, it's a base machine. ie: almost no disk and memory. If more is ordered right now, and marked as URGENT, maybe in 2 months I can get it. So maybe in a total of 5 months, I will have acquired a usable workstation.
It's nice being employed in a place where I don't have to work... I'm an old-timer now. I've heard that the turn-over here is 40% a year. largely because contracts are < = 3 years and there are lots of visiting scientists. I saw one confused new guy wander out of the womens washroom. As an intelligence test, many aren't labelled in the conventional means.