Winter Impressions....

Finally, I managed to take and upload some pictures. This picture I took on Sunday, BEFORE the big snow came!

This was taken from my living room balcony....

It's supposed to get colder the next days.... down to perhaps -13° C (8.6° F !!) and probably snow some more...   


Take care everyone!!

Dorrie

Snow....

That's right, it's been snowing here.... non-stop since yesterday. It's quite unbelievable and they are expecting record low temperature's for the next days!

I almost didn't get my car into the garage.... I may have to take the train to work tomorrow. It's not so comfy from my new village but possible.

I'll try to take some pictures. I took a couple the other day but haven't uploaded them yet.

Otherwise not much to report at the moment.

Dorrie

Job Perks ... and TGIF!

Another very busy week is over.... and I intend to do NOTHING particular this weekend except some paperwork I've been procrastinating about.

Sometimes my job offers some pretty good perks. One of those happened this past week. A former traffic controller friend from Frankfurt tower offered my office a tour of the new Frankfurt tower, which is presently being built. We of course jumped at the chance and had a nice field trip there last Tuesday. Here are a couple of pictures I took....

looking east...

looking south... and you can see the present tower in the background....

looking west...the brownish area is the new runway under constructio...

me, standing behind the controller tables. They not only have the monitors you see, but also touch-screen ones built into the tables (seen covered with those yellow papers).

We happened to catch the only day this week with good weather and great visibility... it's been cold and rainy all week and we may soon get our first snow.

That's all from my world for now. Because of being busy I not only don't get around to writing much but also not to visiting many journals.... sorry.

Dorrie

It's Saturday, but my week is not over!

It's 4:30 am on a Saturday... crazy, right? I'm already awake and my hair is washed. I like having time for it to air dry before leaving the house. Well, I don't have to leave until around 7:15, but my internal alarm woke me before the normal alarm, in spite of it being Saturday.

And it's STILL stormy outside! It's been stormy almost all week, with wind blowing more or less strong.... it's strong now. It was strong enough to do some damage, like uproot trees, etc. So far my area was pretty much spared.

Today's schedule: drive from here to the town I work in (27 km), then get one of our business cars (a nice Audi A4) and drive 100 km north. I have to be there by around 09:00 am. I teach a class there all day.... 31 pilots have signed up. So wind or no wind, I have to drive there. After that I have a work-related speech to give at 4:45 pm (over 50 pilots) at a town which is another 38 km north of that. Then, when that's over (around 6:15), drive the 138 km back to where I drop the car off. Day over? Nope! On the way home I take a detour a detour to a village located between there and home to attend an Irish music concert with a girl friend. If lucky, I'll arrive there on time (8 pm). 

Tomorrow I'm staying home!!

This whole week has been crazy. It started last Sunday when I attended a reading of a book, a crime book I had happened to just finish reading which takes place in the city I work in, by it's author. Yes, he even signed my book! Then off to visit my dinner where I joined her family for dinner.

Monday: Go to work, leave at 1 pm as usual Mondays because my eyes burned. Originally I had intended to stay later so that I could go from work direct to my son to babysit his kids. As it was, I drove the 27 km east to my place, took a nap, then drove the 38 km west to his place. Watched the kids until 11 pm, got home at midnight. Originally they had wanted me to stay later and spend the night, which would have meant leaving the cat unattended until late Tuesday night. Oh, she would have survived that, but I do prefer sleeping in my own bed.

After work Tuesday, driving 50 km south to give 4 English exams (all 4 passed).

Wednesday night: dance class.

Thursday night dance class.

Wow, Friday I had nothing scheduled after work! Well, I did check my presentations to make sure they are ok and packed my stuff so I don't forget anything today.

See why I can't work on a new journalspace site? 

Anyway, if I haven't been visiting your journals, now you know why. It's now 6:00 am and I have to start thinking about what I plan to wear.... with that wind I shall refrain from wearing a mini-skirt!   

Dorrie

Motivation.... and journalspace-revived

Our dear former JS'er, Bobby, made an entry about motivation and I could so relate to it, that I've decided to follow suit. Most of you know that I rarily write "philosophical" entries... mine are usually fun or family with lots of pictures, and at one time LOTS of smilies! Anyway... theme today: motivation.

At the moment I'm not motivated to do ANYTHING!

I love my new apartment, and it's 90% finished. That other 10% is minot stuff, extras that aren't necessary, so I'm pleased and comfy. I now have lots of space and room to work (and play) in. I could do some dance recordings on one computer while working on English exam lessons or my homepage on another. Instead.... it's all lying dormant.

I'm not even motivated to go out somewhere, and I even visit my kids only if they call me, instead of me calling them! (SHAME on me!).

I am often glad that some things MAKE me work on stuff because I have deadlines or fixed dates. Like my dance classes... I HAVE to attend because I'm the teacher, otherwise I'm sure I would have discontinued going long ago. Yet, these same classes have, because I attended, saved my sanity more then once.

I will not go into my job... that is one of the real main reasons for my demotivation in lots of things. I avoid airfields, haven't flown in months and don't even want to fly anymore. My instructors licence is no longer valid and I may never renew it. Again, no motivation ... but more job related. NEVER turn your hobby into your job! Yet I did just that with my dancing and my flying.

I haven't even been motivated to blog... anyone notice that, after the pictures of the air show, I haven't added anything more about my trip home? 

My job? Twenty more months and I can retire!! YAY!

So, when the new Journalspace group started up in facebook, and within one day over 200 people signed up, it motivated me to finally start up a homepage I had been thinking about for so long. I wanted to reserve the domain name anyway so I went ahead and started working on it. No, it's not a blogging site, though that was my original intention, which is why the domain is journalspace-revived. There is no way I can do that yet... maybe in 2 years. So I decided to make it a JS nostalgic site.

I've added a homepage, trying to match the original set-up using screen shots I had once made.

I have links to JS member lists, matching people's former JS handle with their facebook names, and old profiles photos if available.

I added a profile of me, adding one of my JS entries and an old layout I once used, with the hope of others doing the same and sending me similar profile pages to adde..... so far, I have received NONE.

I added the JS Saga that Simon had once written, using many JS members as cast. It's one of the things I tried to save back then and thus survived the big JS crash.... and is so fun to read!

I added the JS Legend, which was something I had started on... yet is still unfinished.

I added a link to one of my blogger sub-blogs for people to use and comment on... so far, one follower only.

So far, the only really echo I got were requests from people asking me to remove their REAL names from the list! Yet, those are the names they are signed up on facebook with! Why, I ask you, do they use their REAL names on facebook if they don't want people to know about it?? You CAN sign up on fb with fake names.... lots of people did! geeeeez

So now, once again, I am asking myself WHY do I even bother with these efforts? I can see now that motivation to keep this site full with interesting updates is not going to last very much longer..... *sigh*


Anyway.... I needed to let this bit of ranting out. Sorry.....

Dorrie