Do you have your papers?

Do you have your papers?

Col. Hogan ! Where is my pocket protector!

Hello Gentle Readers, I write to you from Dusseldorf, Germany.  I love this goofy sounding name.  It is a little known fact that this is where the pocket protector was invented.  Or maybe not.  I have no idea where the pocket protector was invented, but just saying “Dusseldorf” makes me feel a bit dorky.  And I know what you are thinking….”Gee, he must always feel dorky”.  OK, you got me.  I have no right to disparage a perfectly good German city name just because it sounds silly.

I am here to attend an industry function.  I will be here for four days and most likely I will not see anything more of it than the street that runs from the airport to the convention center, which is only a few kilometers long.  It is early December and pretty cold.  It is not snowing, but is very dreary.  I like cold weather, but the short days makes me want to hibernate.  There are good reasons why bears do it.  In fact, I have been working on storing belly fat all year long in support of bear hibernation.

Before I left home for this trip, I shaved off my mustache. If you look at my profile photo you will see I was sporting what many consider to be handsome manly growth.  But I got tired of it. (Not the manly part; the growth part)  I had been thinking about getting rid of it for a while now, so the day I was to depart, it came off.  In honor of going to Germany I shaved all but a short, Hitler style mustache, just under my nose.  I started to goose step into the next room to present my new look to my wife, Fraulein Intrepid Traveler, but I knew she would not be amused.  So I quickly dispatched the last of the offensive facial hair.  I guess I need an updated Glamour Shots photo for this blog, now.  The sad truth is that without the mustache I look like a very old Smurf.

If you are a faithful reader of this blog you know that I, among other things, am a master of foreign languages.  I can quickly adapt to any culture and flawlessly communicate fluently.   At least that’s what I wrote on the entry form when I applied for my new International Man of Mystery Identity card.  I am hoping that when it comes in the mail, I will also receive the disguise kit that includes a fake mustache.  

Anyway, back to language skills.  All my German vocabulary has been gleaned from listening to the Nazis from the “Indiana Jones” movies and from TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes”.  So my repertoire of German words is limited to “Dumkopf !”, “Achtung !”, and “I see nutheeng”.   I think one of the tricks to sounding like a German is to raise one eyebrow as you speak and look suspiciously at the listener, as if you just uncovered his plot to overthrow Fearless Leader.  And consider wearing a monocle.  It may be a good look for you.  

Irrespective of my linguistic skills, the German language is difficult to master.  Whoever invented it apparently just chained together a whole bunch of words into one long word to make new meaning.  In English we refer to that as a sentence.  Seems like a simple concept to me, but these Germans like to control their language as they like world domination.  It used to be their thing to invade another country just because it was sitting there minding its own business.  Take that, Poland! Achtung !  But Germany has finally gotten over that bad behavior.  Americans don’t need a VISA to enter Germany.  In fact, they hardly even looked at my passport.  I was anticipating a short, fat man wearing a trench coat and a sneer, to ask me for my papers.  I guess the control culture does not extend to border protection.  

After I had been in the country for six hours I texted my wife that no one here seemed very Nazi-like.  Getting carpet bombed in WW2 probably cured them of the tendency.  Now Russia’s Vladimir Putin has taken over the role of European Bad Boy.  Since I know fewer Russian words than German, it would be even harder to make fun of that language.  And Russia has their Nuclear Warheads, so I probably shouldn’t poke too much fun at them.  They may know where I live.  That International Man of Mystery disguise kit may be my only hope.

Obama's Wonderland

Sing with me, Cousin Pooky!

I was listening to Christmas songs on the radio the other day and these lyrics just came into my head.
I know you will be singing this tune through out the Holidays now.  My apologies to the author of "Winter Wonderland".

Barack Obama was elected
When Hope and Change was selected
His prior job was a Prof
Now he only plays golf
Welcome to Obama’s wonderland
 
He can’t talk without a teleprompter
Now the Dems are in the dumpster
He has done liberalism in
By being just him
Welcome to Obama’s wonderland

To shrink our Army is his mission
While Russia invades another nation
Obama will not do a thing
The world knows he’s a weakling
Welcome to Obama’s Wonderland

He spends our money like a madman
But wants more via the taxman
It’s to increase his voter base
Which is mostly the black race
Welcome to Obama’s Wonderland

The Tea party is mobilizing
Good old values are arising
Just two more years
Till he exits in tears
Say goodbye to Obama’s wonderland.

Romanian Chicken Death Match Contenders and other observations

Romanian Chicken Death Match Contenders and other observations

Warning:  Chickens are larger than they appear.

I am in Romania to do a field check of some equipment that was recently installed here.  The field location is about a two hour drive from the small city of Medias, Romania, where I am staying.  Fortunately, I am not doing the driving.  I say fortunately, but I wonder about that.  The driver, Fione, is very familiar with the area, but these are winding two lane roads.  The asphalt paving has long ago worn out. And the patches have been patched. I sneak a look at the speedometer and we are going well over 80 kilometers an hour, and we barely slow down for curves.  We are in a small European manufactured car with those tiny 14” tires, and I am fearful that we’ll hit a pothole at these speeds and a tire will disintegrate. We pass all the slow moving vehicles like they were parked, and once we nearly pulverized a dog who decided to challenge us as we sped by.  

Fione crosses himself, as in a Catholic ritual, when we pass certain churches.  With the aggressive way he drives I hope he is building up Catholic points for godly protection. If he continues to pass cars on curves I may start to cross myself too.  It can’t hurt to hedge my religious bets.

On trips like this I tend to spend a lot of time in other people’s cars with drivers that don’t speak English.  There are two guys in the backseat and I am in the front with Fione.  He has one of those cell phones that sticks in his ear, and with no warning, he’ll suddenly starts yakking.  Since he speaks Romanian, with a few English words mixed in, I don’t know if he is talking to me, the guys in the back, or to the phone.  He’s one of these guys who cannot talk without using their hands, so he will begin gesturing wildly and raise his voice for no apparent reason.  I wish he’d just keep both hands on the wheel.  I am getting old, I guess.  I wonder if I should tell him not to run with scissors.

The guys in the back are blathering on in Romanian too.  It always seems like everyone talks at the same time.  Don’t they take a breath?  And there is talk radio on too.  So I am surrounded by voices but completely ignorant about what is being said.  It is easy for me to filter all this out. (I am married, you know). I ignore the voices and daydream in my own world.  For me it is a cacophony of silence.  

The rolling hills are full of the past season’s corn crop.  Either the dried corn stalks are still standing, or stacked in shocks in the field.  I see corn cribs stuffed full of dried ears.  I guess it was a good harvest.  As we drive past the farms, the modest homes have livestock milling about in the yard.  I see milk goats, sheep, cows, and a few horses.  It is common to pass a horse drawn cart that is used as the family station wagon, loaded with feed, or people, or nothing, being pulled by a trotting horse.  I notice that there are very few power lines in this country.  I am told that these homes have running water, electricity and gas, but their power consumption must be low.  

Most homes that we pass have small vineyards, where I suppose they grow grapes to eat.  They certainly could not produce enough grapes to make wine, in the spaces allowed, unless they grow them for a cash crop.  When you live in the country you do what you need to do to put food on the table and money in your hand.  I also see lots of giant free range chickens that seem to be in every yard.  Compared to the chickens that the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler raises on our property, these Romanian chickens are huge.  They look like they would kick her chicken’s asses.  Make no mistake, I do not advocate chicken fighting.  I am not the Michael Vick of the Global Poultry Death Match Competition.  I’m just saying that these Romanian chickens look like they could bench press a Volkswagen bus.  Col. Sanders would be salivating.

I admire the folks who live out here.  The ones walking on the road, or in the villages that we blast thru, are the generation that lived thru the communist years.  They probably grew up knowing nothing but Totalitarianism.  I would love to have a conversation with some of them.  I am very interested in how European cultures live.  The problem is we don’t speak the same language.

I hope that I get our equipment problems solved here on this trip, but I would love to have an excuse to come back here in the summer.  I want to experience Romania when the crops are growing and the days are longer.  This is a beautiful, peaceful place.  Just don’t piss off the chickens.