This week

Monday was busy as always. There is something wrong with my weekly planning. I seem to plan all my tasks for Monday and then not get them all done and they slowly get delayed to the next day and the one after that until on Friday I'm feverishly trying to get something ready this week.

On Monday we wanted to open a business account at the bank. They had confusingly many alternatives so we had to leave that for a while. We met with our financial advisor, who wants us to give him a few of our friends' names as reference so he can try and sell them his advice. Unfortunately, I don't like the whole idea of "ratting out" my friends and so far I haven't been able to find any volunteers. It bothers me somewhat. So if anyone of you readers in Germany (around Bochum) is interested in good advice in financial matters, let me know. Mr Neumann analysed our finances and suggested a few improvements following our wishes in where we want to focus and all in all the experience has been a positive one.

My first customer has been confirmed. I'm flying to San Diego, California and I'm going to train "Tick-The-Code" inspection method for about 100 people! Officially my independence begins 01-Feb-06 and the Transatlantic flight takes place on Friday 03-Feb-06! Quite a beginning!

In the evening, Theo held a kegeling party because of his 44th birthday. "Kegeling" is German bowling. The idea is similar but it's completely different. The party was in a Greek restaurant called Troja, which meant that Ouzo was flowing (on the house). Once again something you can't have in Finland. Alcohol for free. The party was fun and I enjoyed practicing my kegeling skills late into the night. I still can't quite get the curve to the right.

On Tuesday, Mr. Pester, our insurance guy, came an hour too late for a visit by mistake. We waited and when he didn't show took advantage of the situation and moved some stuff to clear the chaos. We also started to put shelves on the new massive book shelf, which Kaj helped me to build on Monday. When Mr. Pester finally arrived, we just agreed a new date for Friday and sent him on his way. Well, he did get a glass of water for his troubles. These things happen.

In the evening, we (I, Virpi and Kaj) went to see the original film in RuhrPark, as we do Tuesdays. Tuesday is Kinotag, which means that there are not too many people there and the films are a bit cheaper than otherwise. This time we saw "Family Stone", which was more emotionally charged than expected. Not great cinema, but watchable.

Yesterday was a full working day. Virpi typed in the rules I've been developing for training material. They still need to be divided into cards ("Tick-its") after which a design can be added to the cards. Then they will be printed and laminated. I'm really excited about the cards, they will be great!

We still need to open a business account at the bank. For international access and based on experience, we are selecting Deutsche Bank. We are actually leaving right now. After the bank, we'll pop in to our car insurance company HUK Coburg, which we for some reason keep mixing with Burger King, don't know why. Then the plan is to drive to Düsseldorf and select Finland a new president!