My Four Cigarettes

We shelter my daughter's tomcat (name: Kater/Fuchs/Fox, it's a kinda 1000 $ Maine-Coon) for four weeks. My daughter and her Turk are at vacation in the Caribbian. This animal (I love animals ... if they are roasted ... wuahhhharrrr) is a bit deranged. He doesn't like to be with me at the same place. Oh, maybe he is right, because I am a strange person. He loves my wife and has no problems with sitting on her legs, dozing while she watch TV and tickles his neck. Okay, okay ... I am the problem in this relationship. He despises me and fears me likewise.

Today I went from my room through my wife's living room. Kater laid at a chair-back and glanced shortly at me. Just to ensure that no attacks from my side would happen. I passed by and entered our loggia to smoke a cigarette.

Cigarette One
Standing outside in the cold, smoking, some thoughts came to my mind. And when I went back Kater glanced to me with wide eyes. I stopped, bend to him and told him:
"Hey Kater, why do you glance at me with that wide eyes? Guess what, I was out there to smoke a cigarette. This is something you arn't able to do. I can hold a cigarette with my fingers. You can't hold a cigarette. That's the reason for we humans amount to much and you cats don't. You can't hold a cigarette." Kater closed his eyes and turned his head away.

Cigarette Two
One hour later, same scenario. Back from smoking I told him: "Yo Kater, guess what, there is another reason for we humans reached way more than you cats did: We are not only able to hold a cigarette. We can manufacture a cigarette. Cigarettes don't grow somewhere. You neither can harvest cigarettes nor trap them." Kater didn't react, just laid at the chair-back.

Cigarette Three
45 minutes later, same scenario. This time I got Kater's attention. I told him: "Look dude, another important difference between man and cat is, that I can talk about cigarettes to other humans. Talking to others helped us humans to be way better than you cats." Kater was not impressed.

Cigarette Four
Finally, again 45 minutes later, same scenario. When I came back to the living room, Kater was sitting at my wife's legs. I thought I should tell him the last lesson. "Kater, here comes the main difference between you and me. Before a human can manufacture, talk about and finally hold a cigarette, he can imagine a cigarette. Imagination of a cigarette is really what makes me better than you are." Kater yawned by opening his mouth widely, blinked shortley to my direction, turned back and enjoyed my wife's tickles.

Finally I went back to my room and thought: Damn! Who has a better life? Kater or me? Is it - at the end - important who has the better life? I think Kater really doesn't care about. Probably he got the better way?

 

Oh ... this section's name is "Life, the Universe And Everything", isn't it? I love Hitchhiker's Guide so much. It's so twisted and accurate at the other hand. It helped me to think different about many things.

Want another cigarette outside at the loggia?

Cigarette Five
It's late in the night. The sky is clear. Nearly all stars are visible - the complete Milky Way. From all constallations I know Ursa Major and Orion only. Crazy, we make images from random sightings. I stood there and was overwhelmed by the fact that all I see is from far past. The stars of one constallation have nothing to do with each other. The light of the stars I actually see in Ursa Major is between 29 or 492 years old. I don't see them now. I see their past. OMG! 429 years! That was 1523! 1517 Martin Luther pinned his 95 theses to the portal of the church in Wittenberg. Gutenbergs inviting of letterpress from ~1460 enabled folks to print Luther's translation of the Bible in 1522 wich lead directly to the "Reformation". Imagine! I see the light of this star from the time when all this happened.

And the closest: 29 years ago. 1986 - I was 32 years old at this time. Wife, three children, job, house. All fine. Today it changed a bit. Wife, two children, one grandchild, no job, a rented flat, all ... ehrm ...

 

LOL!
A smoker shall smoke for non-smokers, eh? Regarding this request I find myself in a strange role. Alas, why not use this retirement home at EP for strange ideas and thoughts? I smoke a lot out there at my loggia. And sometimes it's really the point to pause a bit and think about "Life, the Universe And Everything". Today I got a very special offer. It dipped me way back into the past ... 2005 ... finally 2001. Additionally I watched Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino". Worth another cigarette? Guess so. Okay, role play.

Edit: Ahhhrg wait! Smoke cigarettes on demand? That's insane, isn't it? Role play must wait.

 

Today I sent a message to a german automobile club, ADAC (Allgemeine Deutsche Automobil-Club e. V.) regarding methods to examine and rate the visual field of a cardriver. I did the examination with 3DS Max


I got finally a rating of a BMW 3 and a VW Golf (using CorelDraw, SolidWorks and Rhino3D)

Actual I want a job there, just doing such things for ADAC. Either as freelancer or employee.

Cigartte six
Standing outside at the loggia (12°C at December 6th!), smoking, a strange idea came to my mind. About democracy. We are ~80.000.000 people here in Germany. We have well-established and new parties who rule our gouvernment via a parliament system. So far so good. But seriously: How much of our people do they represent? Let's have a look into the number of members.


And what is this number compared to the members of ADAC? Well, I assume we have a wide range of ADAC-members: from Nazies to Hippies, morons and family men and what not

And what does it mean to all?

That's crazy, isn't it?

What if ADAC would start to become a party? ADAC would imediately rule the whole nation ... even Europe. LOL! I like the smoking pauses at my loggia.

 

Cigarette seven

Out at my loggia, smoking another cigarette, one thought came to my mind: MindArk did it right with the skill system. It's open, no end cap. I doubt that even the big players, like Star, reached the end yet. Kinda 20k in one profession? And would this be the real end? That's a staedy challenge.
Actually I play TESO since 1.5 years (since they made it free-to-play). I have several avatars. Among them one at veteran level 4 (close to 5), one at veteran level 1. Zenimax set an end cap at VR14 once. Lately they launched a DLC and extended the end cap to VR16. A few days later I saw several VR16 guys. For me it became boring meanwhile.
While running the main stories it is a very nice, interesting an fascinating game up to level 50. (Well known from all the old ElderScrolls games. They drag you deeply into an exciting story, you are the hero. Pure fun.) Than you kill the endboss Molag Bal and become a veteran: VR1. From now on it's a stupid grinding game.
Last weekend Bethesda/Zenimax showed us an act of desperation:
They started a US$ 1.000.000 lottery. One player will win this sum in February 2016. One player. All.
All you have to do is to register and play TESO at least one time between December and January. No need to buy the game if you used the chance of the "free-to-play-weekend" lately. Additional they offered to buy the gamy for 22 Euro at this weekend. Holy shit! I paid 57 Euro once!

There is an easy system for roulette to be always the winner. It's easy:
Use always the simple chances like red/black or even/uneven numbers. If you lose, double your stake and set at the same. The trick is to be able to coninue with it until you win. And you will win small amounts only. Even your entire stake. So, if doing nothing but play a bit roulette and earn ~50 Euro per day only, it's probably a good way to live from. Unfortunately MA doesn't offer such a system. I think they know why ;-)

 

Cigarette eight

Regarding "Life, Smoking And Death" ...
Once several governments started campaigns against the tobacco industry (Exactly this should be theme of another cigarette later. Because of it's schizophrenia.) In Germany they had to print big labels at the boxes: "Smoking causes cancer", "Smokers die earlier" and much more. When this new cigarette boxes appeared I felt a strong urge to collect them all immediately and bought more cigarettes than before. And additional I made my own, labeled: "Never ever a non-smoker survived". At that time I thought this was a funny idea.
But there is a deadly serious aspect in it.

I will die. Smoker or not. I will die one day. Did you ever realized this for yourself?

Death. Everything will change dramatically. It'll blow me away. Me? What is that "Me"? Mumble: how much "Wistrel" or "McCormick" is in me? LOL! (The right stuff for several other cigarettes out at the loggia.) For me there will be nothing after death. All this existence I enjoyed for so many years meanwhile will stop immediately. Nothing will be left. It'll be all over and out. Beyond recall.

All our life this determination hangs over us like a Damocles Sword. But we avoid to take it serious. I mean, dieing at cancer in 50 years after smoking all the time - okay. But dieing next morning on the way to work by a car accident? Such things happens to other people soleley. Or?

My experiance is, years feel shorter and shorter the older I am. Live accelerates each year. So, what do I expect with 61 years?
Accept it: All this, what you enjoy or what you bear will end within a relative short period. For me something between 10 and 20 (short) years. The main part is: "Accept it." That's pretty hard. In my oppinion it should be unimportant for the first 50 years. But than one should become ready to face the unavoidable and accept it. Sooner or later you'll really die.

Question: What to do with the remaining time? Waste it?

 

Surfing the web I found this today - Wendelstein 7X fusionreactor is short before running: [kk, it's in german, but it's part of the future of mankind]
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/...nsanlage-erzeugt-erstes-plasma-a-1067167.html

Cigarette nine
Again out there at the loggia I took a deep breath. I was involved in the development of this precious. I was working for FARO Europe in 2002 (?). We were up to kick out Leica with their lasertrackers. We used our lasertracker for outside measurement and - through a manhole - a mobile measurement arm for the inside. OMG! I was the one who climbed into the inside and did this measurment. It was not allowed to step to the wall but only special plates. Kinda this picture shows:


Okay, Leica won :-( Probably my fault? Dunno, Leica made a better offer ...
But later, during 2005 - 2007 the company I worked for at this time - Fischer 3D-Messtechnik, measured all the inductors for the reactor with FARO mobile arms. That was a really crazy job. All this strange forms (blue). Eachone different from all others:

The yellow part is what I had to inspect in 2002.

Isn't it worth to rest a moment and think about being part of such a story? It is!

Just google pictures for "wendelstein 7x". You will get tons of really crazy pictures. I was two times only at Greifswald. But hey! I stepped from plate to plate at the inside of this monster like Indiana Jones on that plates in an ancient temple. I mean ... suddenly ... IF they succeed ... I am part of something really big - lol! Worth another cigarette. I will ask if I'm allowed to publish one or two photos of our work. Stay tuned.

I got two nice pictures from our job with the parts.



[Cigarette 9a]
Just happy and proud. That's all. Wide grin.

 

That's a point. Please accept another point of view: Cigarettes are made for being smoked and burned. The harm for cigarettes is to not being smoked. Same with us animals. We are determined since thousands of years. Over the time of our lifespan we act regarding this determination. An imagination of an unlimited life is completely strange for our mind. Our mind won't be able to accept it. Animals don't reflect about it very much. They simply die when the time has come. We humans do reflect about it. Why? It's a waste. Believe me, Wistrel, you would start to hate your life before you reached 100 years. Part of this determind mechanism is, that your point of view will change over the years. Even if we are able to reflect about "Life, the Universe And Everything", we are still biological beings. Animals even. Determind animals. And even if medical science would be able to keep up our body, our biological existence alive for ever or at least for a few hundred years, our mind wouldn't accept it. Our life would first become boring and sooner or later poor pain. I think your father is on this way already. My father wasn't. He died at 52 at cancer. To early. I am nearly 10 years older meanwhile. I don't want to die soon. But I have the chance to accept it now. I won't live forever. Realistic for me: 5 to 20 years. Oops wait! FIVE? That would be a very short time. But it's a matter of fact (smoking alcoholic here). Well, my mother died at age of 91. She was a hardcore smoker as well. She simply died because her body was too old. It failed. Not at cancer. But her life ended years before, because she got dementia. Finally she became a non-smoker because she forgot to smoke or to buy new cigarettes. Something I don't want for me.

I remember well when I was young, life seams to be endless. Ahhh no, wrong! I didn't think about my lifespan. No reflections about it. And that was good. But it changed meanwhile. Probably you remember that in 20 years. For now: Don't care for it.

Dreaming of an endless life is nice but bullshit. Live forever in paradise would be the hell in it's poorest form. One day you will understand your father and be happy with it. Or you will be unhappy about it. What's better? To be happy or to be unhappy?

Well, kinda inofficial Cigarettes 8a, 8b, 8c and 8d meanwhile (they don't count). Nearly 06:00 in the morning ... time to stop here. Hmmm, 8e and I go to bed. So I made five cigarettes happy while writing this post, don't I?

 

LOL! Guess what: I made a little woodelf today in TESO

After short thinking about I could resist to name her Wistrel ;-)
Probably she won't be allowed to buy some Nordmead up there in Rifton. Although she is a young elf at the age of 125.

 

Cigarette 10

This one is a bit tricky. No wonder, I smoked this cigarette at the parking area of a supermarket and not at home at the loggia. It's tricky because it's a language issue. I am german and not sure if I can explain it in english. Finally it's a problem of correct description, of categorise.

The basic plot is: If I am told "red", I understand "red". Mechanical engineer even ... Today I bought a fresh box of cigarettes and opened it while in the supermarket. We germans must sort our waste. Supermarkets offer different containers for different materials. I got to parts of waste from opening the cigarette box: some cellophane and some silver paper. My options containerwise were: "Papier" (paper) and "Kunststoff" (artificial stuff). I stood in front of the containers completely helpless. Two minutes? Finally I put both to the "Kunststoff"-container.
Most people understand "plastic" if they hear something like "synthetic stuff" or "artificial stuff". That's a story of history of language. It doesn't represent the facts. It's an arbitrary categorization.

In fact we have natural and artificial products. A natural product is an apple, a potato, milk, water, air. You can harvest, dig or grab them without special processes. Other products need special treatments, processes, additional materials and so on. Are those still "natural"? Or are they artificial?

Example Cigarette: It's made from tobacco and paper. A natural product? Oh wait! It is made? Not harvested or grabbed? Tobacco plants and trees (for the paper) are definately natural. But cigarettes arn't. You can't earn a single cigarette while amble through a wood with trees and tobacco plants like a blackberry. Let's have a closer look how the process works:

Cut tobacco plants
Dry and ferment it
Cut it again

Fell trees
Shredder the wood
Chemical and thermical treatment (Natron- and Sulfid additions)
Roll out and cut the paper

Portion the tobacco cut
Roll cigarettes from tobacco portions and cutted paper sheets

Now, is this cigarette still a natural product because it's parts were natural? Or is it artificial because of all the processes and additions?
Let's have a closer look at the cellophane:

Fell trees
Shredder the wood
Chemical and thermical treatment (Natron-, Glycerin- and Sulfid additions)
Roll out and cut the cellophane

This is clearly plastic, isn't it? LOL!

Paper is artificial in the same way as cellophane is. Or even ABS (made from petrol instead of wood), Aluminium (made from Bauxit) or Sauerkraut (made from white cabbage). It's all "Kunststoff". It's made, not harvested. It always drives my crazy that people are so careless while using incorrect categories. But alas ...

 

Cigarette 11

watching "The Walking Dead"

Out there smoking at my balcony I thought how backwardly and underdeveloped the United States Of America must be.

• neither pharmacies and weapon shops nor hospitals
• no military or other security areas (except a bad secured prison)
• only old and accident-sensitive vehicles
• no big grossary storages with useful stuff and food
• neither emergency generators nor petrol stations or breaked down road tankers
• only old-fashioned farmhouses without stocks of food and medicine
• NO SUPERMARKETS AT ALL!

This is the most stupid story I've ever seen. It is partwise fascinating. But at least the protagonists do everything wrong they could. They always live and walk at abandoned roads and in the woods. Even a few miles south of Washington DC (season 5) they are thirsty and hungry. Really? LOL! What a bullshit!

Of course I love Michonne with her Samurai blade. She is the most trustable character because she keeps cool in most situations and don't say much but just kills the zombies.

So what does it say if this serial is one of the most popular series ever? Most TV watcher must be unbelievable stupid.

Alas, I play fantasy and si-fi games. I shouldn't judge others who watch irrational stories. All good. I calm down already ;-)

 

Cigarette 12

Clicking through the last excruciating minutes of "The Walking Dead" I hope that most of the US folks arn't that stupid as shown in this TV spectacle. I pretend to myself they arn't. At least they shouldn't.

 

Cigarette 13

I own a stone. It's part of our family history. I think it was in the early 80's when I put it to a shelf in our living room and labeled it as "The first stone". It is still here. Even in the 5th place after leaving our original home back in the past and missing its label meanwhile. It's placed at our loggia and I see it each time I go out and have a cigarette. And it's still this "first stone" for me.

John 8:1-11New International Version (NIV)
8 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

I am an atheist and this story was added late to John's gospel. Many scientists doubt if it's authentical. Alas, beside of all this it's important to think about it, isn't it? "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

 

Cigarette 14
Sitting at my loggia today, smoking several cigarettes (14a, 14b and so on) and have some red wine, I started to reread an old book from my library. I stumbled about it 16 years ago in 2000 but its way older. 80 years to be precise. Published in 1936.
It describes Donald Trump.
His populism, his faked statistics and non-proven numbers, his aim to reach especially low educated, crestfallen and upset members of the US society and his strategy to be more present in modern media (radio, press photos and photocopy during the thirties of last century = TV, YouTube and twitter today) than other nominees. Even with brute words against women, legal and illegal foreigners and especially against the establishment. Just offering drastic simple solutions.
It's really crazy to read this 1936-stuff and compare it to the present. I didn't remember well that it describes the current situation in USA in such an accurate way.

The book was written by the first Nobel prize winner for literature from USA Sinclair Lewis. It's "It Can't Happen Here". Okay, the guy is named Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip and he is a democrat not a republican. But I think this dosn't matter much nowadays. Finally Buzz Windrip established a fascistic dictatorship in the USA. A crude vision for free press, jews and other minorities. A nazi-regime even with isolation from and contempt for the rest of the world.

Serious, would you give access to the red button to a man who says "Belgium is a nice city"?