Me, Me, Me, and You

It is 3 o'clock in the morning, October 31st, Halloween. One year ago we were having a power outage that lasted for close to 3 days, a blizzard came through and knocked down the trees that were still carrying all their leaves and couldn't handle the weight of all the snow on top of it.

Well, today also marks day 3 of the current power outage, thanks to hurricane Sandy, and no relieve is in sight, promised is that will have power back by next Monday, that's in 5 days! But what does this all have to do with this entry's title? Well, a lot, actually! Since quite a while I was planning to write about the selfishness of the people I come across every day, on the bus, the subway, and life in general.

Although I was fully aware that I am one of the Me-First people, I sure hoped to be one of the Me-Only-Once-In-A-While-First and actually had a hard time finding a fitting example of my own selfishness. But that changed in the last few days, now that I am sitting here, in the cold, in the middle of the night, worried and mad at the same time.

"If only the power came back on, things would be much better" I am thinking, and "why does it take so long to get the crews to fix the lines." And of course thoughts like "what the f#%* are they doing?" are not far behind. But Reasonable-Me recognizes that I got off easy, I didn't get hurt, property damage is minimal, and I have some ability to get to a store that may have some goods that make my life even more convenient. My main concern is that I cannot get to work for the rest of the week, while other people lost all they owned, some even their own lives.

So, what originally was planned to be an entry about the egomaniacs out there, of which we seem to have more and more, it really turned into an entry about me. How ironic, or how selfish, or both!

Ingo

A Short

 Freedom

Strolling on a path through rolling fields of grain

On a late summer afternoon with no need to rush

A warm and gentle breeze kindly touches the skin

Run, but don't move, let time stand still

I wish it would never end!

My Home Is Where My Adrenaline Is

Currently we are in the middle of the European Championship 2012 in Soccer. While I don’t want to talk about this sport in particular, and not even about sports in general, I will use it as an example for attempting to identify what place to call Home.

I don’t think that such a place can live in the heart; too many emotions are associated with this organ. For example, my heart is always with my family, and they are here with me in the US, yet this is not the place I call home. Also, there are no fractions in “heart,” either you got it or you don’t, you cannot have “… my half a heart goes out to you.” So, if heart is not good, then how can I identify where HOME is?

And this brings me back to soccer, and the rush of adrenaline (= epinephrine) I have during the Germany games! No other team could invoke the same reactions, the restlessness, agony, joy, and all the other emotions a rush of adrenaline produces. There are other nations in this tournament that I root for as well (I am a sucker for underdogs - oh surprise), but just not as strongly. And that got me thinking and wondering about this all and I came up with the following definition:

The “Heart” is attached to many sentiments, and either you have it or you don’t. On the other hand, the output of the adrenal glands can be measured, and that allows for the creation of a scale on what can be considered home. For example, while Germany scores a 100% on my “Home Scale,” the US may score an 80%, some other nation a 75%, and so forth.

To sum it up, there can now be many homes, and some are more “homey” than others! Flawed? Maybe, but I like it!

Thanks for reading,

Ingo

More to Celebrate

I don't know if you remember, but just a few weeks ago I mentioned my one year anniversary of finding out that I have Parkinson's Disease (see last blog entry). That was, of course, not a nice thing for me to celebrate.

Well, today, on a much happier note, I am sharing with you another anniversary. This week marks three years since I had my last cigarette, and I am very proud of that. And let me tell you, quitting smoking - after having smoked for over 20 years - was really hard. But let me tell you something else: supposedly there is a relationship between not getting Parkinson's Disease and being an active smoker. Isn't that ironic?

Ah, and before I forget it, the reason why it took up photography is because I quit smoking as I had to do something productive to not think about cigarettes. And that is definitely a major positive that came out of this.

Ingo

Living with Parkinson's Disease - Year 1

Today marks my one year anniversary of being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. You may not know what this really means, but you sure know people who have it, like Mohammed Ali, the best boxer of all times, or actor Michael J. Fox, best known from the "Back to the Future" movies.

The severity of my form of Parkinson's is rather mild and mostly affects my right hand (my writing hand). I am fortunately on excellent medication that allows me to function mostly normal, but I vividly remember the times when I was only on a very low dosage or not on meds yet at all. Every move was a strain and tiring, and some were outright impossible, for example when my right hand went numb and I couldn't even hold onto a pen.

The biggest change though was the revelation that I am vulnerable and mortal. Up to the day when I found out that I have Parkinson’s an illness was something to overcome. But now, well, “Mr. Parkinson’s” will always be with me, till the day I die. And although my wonderful Dr. assures me that I still have a long life to live, and that I will not die of this illness per se, I nevertheless will never feel being whole again!

And in case you wonder how I deal with it, let’s say that for the most part a song title from one of my favorite bands describes it very appropriately; it is called “Suffer Well.”

But fortunately there is my wife and my children, my family at large, friends, coworkers, and doctors, all of them in one way or another are helping me with reducing that suffering.

Ingo

On Skyrim

Oh, what a wonderful game, oh, what agony it can create! Having gotten a PS3 on Christmas for the family, I also bought the season's "best" games and almost instantly got hooked on Skyrim, a dungeon and dragons game, the 5th from the series of Elder Scrolls games which include Morrowind and Oblivion.

After getting used to the Playstation controller, it was a few years back that I played my last console game from Sony, it was quite an awesome experience to see how far game development has evolved in the meantime. Actually, Skyrim in particular has gone so far that it reach a point where the standard PS3 hardware can no longer follow all the calculations needed to keep up with the game progress. And the consequence, the game crashed, the file system on the Playstation corrupted, and Skyrim reached the point of being unplayable.

Oh, the agony! Now the waiting began, will Bethesda come out with a fix? And when? Will it work? And what if not? I don't want to list all the things that went through my head, but I sure was very disappointed by the game makers. Not so much that the games bad, but more about the lack of testing and the willingness to release a bugged product. I would ever dare to operate on such a low level!

Well, in the end the fix came and things have greatly improved, I had since then many great battles with beasts of all kinds, plus the occasional human target! All is well in Skyrim Land, you ask? Not really, but I came to accept the rare instances when the game still crashed and forces me to restore the file and database systems, although each time I hold my breath and pray that I don't have to start again from the beginning.

So what does slaying dragons teach us then? I would say patience and appreciation for what we have (that works)!

Valentine's Day and The Canterbury Tales

The things you find out when digging just a little bit! As we are only a few days away from Valentine's Day, I checked with the good old Wikipedia to find out where this day comes from. Turns out that it probably relates to two persons a few centuries AD who, independent from each other, died as martyrs for some (good) cause, hence the day is actually called Saint Valentine's Day.

Love - not so much at that point, and it took about another One Thousand years until the famous "Father of English literature," Geoffrey Chaucer (best known for "The Canterbury Tales"), connected love and Valentine's Day in a poem in "Parlement of Foules." It goes like"

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
["For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."]

So, with that said, Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

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And here is a link to the source: Valentine's Day