Look out, Paddy Power, someone's just parked a tank on your lawn

I haven't written anything here in a while. I've been busy with other things, like planning for my trip, working and hugging Mah Girl. Hopefully I'll find more time and inspiration during my vacation, so I can chronicle it here.

Today I realized just how badly I need a vacation. Over the past two months or so I've ranted three times at various things at work, things that I could have handled in a much calmer fashion. They've ranged from small-scale to monumental in terms of the changes it will bring should my gripes be listened to. Time will tell. I believe this is the very definition of my job description: “constructive criticism”. Though I'm not sure its been all that constructive lately...

There's been a lot of construction (con-structive, con-struction. I know, not even a pun, really) going on outside our apartment though. They're building some sort of youth center across the road. As if the daycare below our window wasn't bad enough. Soon we'll have pimple-faced punks tearing it up on their mopeds outside. Hell, we have Homer in the apartment across the hall (as in Sport Fanatic) so why not Pimple Faced Kid a.k.a. Squeaky Voiced Teen across the road? Gods, I'm old.

Also, a couple of months ago they installed what looks like a traffic gate from Blade Runner. It's a big metal rod smack dab in the middle of the road into the yard outside our apartment, topped with red lights. The whole thing slides down into the ground when we use our electronic key on a post on the side of the road. You can stand on it and rise into the air as it slides back up. I'm just waiting for someone to tinker with it and have it go catapult.

Recently they realized it wasn't enough, and started sinking giant rocks into the ground around the road and across the expanses of grass on either side. I guess they're aiming at stopping cars from driving around the traffic gate, but it looks more like they're trying to emulate the Maginot Line. I mean, Flemingsberg is not the best neighborhood, but I seriously doubt Ze Germans are arriving in force anytime soon.

And the funny thing is, it looks like they put the massive rocks on the sides of the gate too close to it. I doubt a truck or a fire engine will get through there. I'm going to measure it at some point, just because that's the kind of annoying guy I am.

Two working days left, and then I need to worry less about work and construction and more about 23 hours in the air over two flights and bringing 240 prescribed pills past two sets of customs officers. Wish me luck.

Screw you

So my landlord woke up and realized there is a problem. With Smoking Woman.

A new security door will be ordered, at our expense of course, but hey, it will eliminate the noise from the stairwell (though I will miss being able to hear Sport Fanatic neighbour scream like Homer).

Also they will measure if the pressure in our apartment is too low, thus allowing Smoking Woman's evil vapors to encroach on our peace of mind. The ventilation, which dates from the sixties and was probably designed in the darkest regions of the Soviet Union, might have to be tweaked. I fully expect this to be perfomed by some long dead service person, brought back to a semblance of life by one of the many necromancers I am sure are in our landlord's employ.

And yes, I'm not writing as much as I would want to. I hope to change that after this weekend when my laptop is back in the game. Words. Do come easy to me.