Market Day

Encinitas now has it's own Farmers' Market.
Every Wednesday after I pick up Patricia from the train, we head over to the market.
Great fun and lots of great produce.

Just opened: it's on from 5 to 8PM every Wednesday

What a great display

Beans Beans and more Beans

Strawberries must be in season

And then there is the entertainment, starting with tuning the guitar.

One little job at a time

Patricia and I have been busy doing our thing around Ryan and Aariel's place for the last week.
On Monday, I got to spend a little time with Michal, burning some Sugar-pine cones we had collected at Anza.

Sitting there in front of the fire with a glass of Port.

In the meantime, Patricia is building an above-ground garden, well above,

with a little help from Aariel. On the right, you can see a bit of Ryan supervising.

And it's done, just the right height for the veggies.

It's now time for planting

with Aariel inspecting.  She's not supposed to have her pregnant hands in the dirt!

Here I am walking Sasha and Banjo.

One of my job's has been to paint the garage floor.

First everything had to come out of the garage,

so I could paint it

and put it all back again. Here's the finished product.

Patricia and I are still looking for a place to live, an actual settle in place.




















We have made it

After spending the last hours in the US with Mom before Barbara drove us to Reno, from where we left at 3PM and spend the next 25 or so hours on the road and in the air, so to speak.

Patricia & Mom still working

I did help Barbara harvest some of here grapes  before leaving

Slightly tired but very happy we made it to the other side of the pond and arrived in the early morning hours in OZ.

View of Sydney from the Manly Ferry.

The weather is just about the same as it was when we left CA, so I put my shorts and flip flops on again. This time we tried out to find our own way from the airport and it worked just fine, first we went by train to the harbor, then by ferry to Manly and from there we took a bus to Narrabeen.
Now the last thing before resting I write this, as promised to some of you the readers.
This is it for today.

The first leg

Ok we are sitting here at Gate G93 and outside waiting in the setting sun is the New Zealand Airline plain sitting waiting for us to board.

Our plain is waiting

And Patricia never stops working

The last few days we spend in Fallon NV where we celebrated moms 95th birthday, we had a great party, lots to eat and plenty of loughs. Ethel is in great shape.

Mom is happy to just sit and observe and take it easy,
while Patricia is getting ready for future tasks

On our way up here we visited friends north of Sacramento, stayed there and celebrated Patricia's cousin's birthday. There was also time for Patricia to show me her University in Stockton.

Fighting Nature

There is a path behind our veggie garden that needed weeding, so I decided today was the day, and while I was weeding, I did realize that I can never win against nature, just hold it off.

This is before I started. You can see that grass is coming from the neighbor's yard, without permission. (Just kidding Carol).  The question is, short of building a wall, how can I stop it? 

For now, I have won out over nature; not sure how long this will last. 

Its Time

Just trying to make an effete to write something is not easy, I am at a point right now where I think that I have nothing interesting going on, and part of that is that I have not got any work, meaning income generating work, it's not that I have nothing to do, I love going to GENI and helping out, but in the end it is all up to Patricia who has to keep the ship afloat.
So we are back in California, at home after having had a great trip to Australia, here at home Helen and Michal kept everything going just fine, and now we are looking forward to our next Beergarten Party on the 27th.
For the last week I have had a coughing and sneezing episode, witch kept me at home and  given me a chance to do some resting and recovering. I know this is mot the most inspiring entry I ever wrote, and to cheer me up I am reading Nathalie's http://www.chickenblog.com that gets me out of my funk.  
 

This is amazing, I just love seeing things like this, with all that's going on in the world, we should have a lot more of this going on. Enjoy.


Or go to the YouTube site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp_RHnQ-jgU

BP Experts

This is a great video, just found it.

GETTING FRUSTRATED

Getting frustrated and don't know what to do. I apply for jobs, not even jobs I could do easily, just jobs like stocking shelf's in a store, or doing just about anything someone wants me to do.

As a live saver I have GENI, there I get to do a few hours work that may make a difference.

Getting to work on GENI's website, and suggesting this and that at times makes me feel that my days are not completely wasted. Mind you I have been told by EDD that I can not volunteer, as it will take time away from looking for jobs. They are forgetting that I need to stay in touch with what's going on in the business world as I am looking for work.

It takes quit an effort to check out the job listings every day and then applying all over the Internet or by phone, I am just at the point where I doubt that the Internet was such a great idea, as you get never to see anyone anymore, you fill out a ton of forms, send them of and never hear from them again.

So As you can imagine I am eating lots of chocolate to keep up my spirits.

The Employment Department (EDD) does not help me very much either, I suspect that they have a lot on there hands, and it is very tiring to sit and try to reach anyone on the phone, (which I have not managed so far in the last two years) or try to contact them via e-mail, you wait for ever to get a replay, and when you do get one there is no way to respond.

So for the time I am stuck and if anyone can come up with a moneymaking good for the community idea lets talk about it, I get tunes of e-mails that offer jobs from home, one hour a week making $500.00, for what? That is not it.

I may just have to send my acknowledgment to this banker in London who is holding a million bucks for me in a Nigerian bank account, just waiting to be picked up.

I suppose the only thing that really counts in live is, that the silver is polished and the taxes are payed.

Social Networking

I am having a hard time working my way through all the different stuff on the Internet, like the Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Plaxo, Picasa, Skype (fischermich233),LinkedIn and all the different Blogs I have signed up for, (you can find me in all of them under Michael Fischer or fischermich). Just give me another few years and it either will sort itself out or get so confusing that it want matter at all. I think all this stuff is quit good and gives us a possibility to stay in touch with one another, I just wish that if I put something into one of those it would permeate into all the others, so I don't have to do each one. For right now I stick with my this Blog, and update as much as I feel like and the rest maybe done once in a while.

250,000 Taxation

I am very confused, just listend to the radio, the commentator says that a lot of small businesses will go under when this tax hits again. I used to have several restaurants and other businesses over a period of 30 years, and I am afraid that I must have done something really wrong, because after all the rite offs, the inventory, the wages and insurances I had hardly made a dime. So I would like to see the small business owner who makes over 250,000.00 in income by himself. I somehow think that if a owner makes that kind of money it is not a small business, and is not about to go under because he has to pay 5% more tax, which by the way is the same amount he had to pay under Clinton, and if I remember right we did have a great economy then. So can someone explain to me whats going on?

Security and safety in this World

Listening to talk in the news about our security and safety in this world. So I was thinking about the fundamental reasons why we are not safe, and why people want to do us harm.

I have the feeling that one of the reason is that a lot of people have nothing, and therefore have nothing to loose, in lot of cases they also see what we have got, and want some of it, or at least want to see a way of getting the basics. (Food and a Roof over there heads). Just think what would happened if suddenly everything would be taken from you, and also the possibility to speak out and be heard, and not just as an experiment, but for good and no hope of getting it back, what would you do? There is an interesting example that comes to mind, when I travel through Europe I will see lots of places with castles and fortresses in many places, they are leftover from a time when Kings and Royalty ruled the land and the population. This was a time when the peasants where pure and had nothing to say and got only what was left over by there rulers. As time moved on they became aware and some started to stir the pot and in no time you had a revolution or some outlaw on your hands who disturbed the status quo. Some of the rulers could see that and bit by bit gave there people better living conditions and let them be part of the decision-making process. They are the once who made it through this time alive, in most parts, the rest of them, lost there heads, literally. What I am trying to say is that we in the west are in a similar situation today, and if we want to be part of the future, we either make sure that all the people in the world have a way to really participate, and not just being pacified with a sack of flower or rice now and then, we will never be save, and our castle will one day look like the ruins around Europe, where people go and have a picnic and have no idea what civilization lived there.

Count Down

Well now it is count down time for this job, only 8 days until this one is finished, and I am ready for it, also I am still having fun dealing with everyone, except the occasional aerate customer, every day is cleaning up time and selling the last bits of goods and furniture so we get to the bare wall of the place. I am looking forward to having time writing about cats a chickens again.

Patricia's Birthday

Well it is now official yesterday was Patricia’s Birthday, and what a beautiful day it was, my gift to Patricia was that she could do what ever she wanted, and I would just tag along. Coming to think of it?

Anyhow, we had an easy morning and then went to Torry Pine park for a walk we went on several small walks up there, for about 2 and half hours and indulged after ward in some Mexican food at Roberto's From there we went to the glider port and watched people take of with there gliders having fun in the air, and I knew how much Patricia would have liked to go up there to, except the price was also up there to. After arriving home Michal and I bottled our wine while Patricia was talking to Selina, who just got back from Italy and was on her way home to Hawaii, what a hard live she lives. The crowning of the evening was Daireu’s visit, and this was it. And it was great for the both of us.

A TRAIL

I have just finished reading ‘A Trail by Jury’ written by D. Graham Burnett. The book describes the experience of Mr. Burnett sitting as a juror in a murder trail. There is on passage in the book that was fascinating to me, after sitting in deliberation for 4 days things got really very tens and he describes the feeling he had about the immense power the state has over each of us, that is once you get into its claws. “All of us probably would have agreed in the abstract before the trail even started, that the state was powerful. But after four days of sequestration, we had developed a new and immediate appreciation of just what this power meant: the state could take control of a person, it could refuse to let you go home, it could send men with guns to watch you take a piss, it could deny you access to a lawyer, it could embarrass you in public and force you to replay meekly, it could, ultimately, send you to jail—all this, apparently, without even accusing you of any crime.” Page 160 I found this very eye opening and was living the entire trail.

Exasperation

Looking for a job on the Internet is almost as bad as going to a Porn site, after you have been to one registration site, the spam is coming, and it never stops.

All I am asking for is a honest job, I do not need to make a 6 figure amount, and I do not want to pay anything for a kit, all I want is to do some work that will be useful and make a difference.

I think that is not asking for to much, or am I wrong?

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

Power

There are times when I am wondering how we have organized our lives, we are watching the pictures about the storm on the east coast on TV, and hearing that a lot of the inhabitants there may not have electricity for a while, and I am thinking what it must be like for people around the world who have no electricity at all.

There are so many things we take for granted, that often I think our society is very fragile.

Just found this little video that I think makes my point very well.

Roses

Man I have not had so much fun digging since digging trenches in the army.

 Helen wanted a rose garden so Michal and I jumped to it and planted the roses and now we have to put in the irrrrrigation so the water can flow to the flowers.

 

It was somewhat fun as you can see.

Gardening

Yesterday we had a great day working in the garden, we have formed a garden group with four couples and we work in our Community garden occasionally, that means every few weeks or when needed.

 Yesterday it was a day of harvesting and amending and turning the soil. I is great

 to get my hands dirty, or at least my gloves.

  We had been planting all sorts of veggies, Carrots, Cabbage, Lettuces, Tomatoes, Melons, Squash, Beans and not to forget Potatoes, (being German and so).

 I had been making compost for the last few months out of all the stuff in the garden, a neighbor had a chipper and Michal and I fixed it up, so we do chip anything that comes our way.

If you go and check out our web cam you can see the garden, there is not much movement except for the occasion like yesterday. (It will only work with a Internet Explorer).

 

Looking Forward

It’s funny right now I am listening more to the old songs from Elvis and Roy and so on, I am not sure if I am just an old sentimental fool, it just seems not as easy to find great contemporary music. In the US we have that radio station on the computer http://www.pandora.com/ I have told everyone about it, and it seems that I can only listen to it in the States. From the way I feel sometimes, I seem to be looking back more then forward, and Patricia tell me that all that’s past is past and no matter what I have to look to the future and act accordingly, I know she is right, and I still find it difficult. I know that I am actually a person looking ahead, (not planning ahead) like when I used to go on long walks in the mountains of southern Germany, or on the beach in Australia, I could walk forever, because I wanted to find out what’s beyond the horizon, and I have the same interest in live, I do want to find out what’s beyond the point I know. So I guess I will dwell in the past with the music, they just don’t do music like they used to, and look forward in everything else, I know I can do this. I warned you, they are random thoughts und I take no responsibility.