Dive-Monster Rhoody

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

I came over that quote while reading a book on my Off-Sunday laying at the beach. I couldn’t stop thinking about it as it brings quite some truth with it. Somehow It could have been be said on a TV-show just yesterday or 10 years ago.

It made me thinking a couple of years back when I left Germany. At that time people were demonstrating for the 35 hour week and retire with 60… I never had that. I was working in the music-business 14 - 18 hours daily since I was 19 and spend all weekends, Christmas, new years-eve, birthday’s somewhere in a crowd or a dark backstage area. I still loved my job and still don’t wanna miss a second.

Since I am 12 I write diary. As a typical German I also wrote down my working hours, places where I have been and a lot of statistical stuff. For example in 2000 I had 21 off-days the whole year and spend some of them in the outskirts of Bari, probably on of the ugliest towns in lovely Italy…

I quit my job and company early in the 30 to move to the Philippine. When I went to my tax-officer in my hometown I could not resist to tell him that I have already more working hours than he will have in his entire life with his 8am to 4pm job (37 hrs-week, and I know in English it’s a 9to5-job) in case he will live that long and can retire one day with 62.

His face expression was that of a deer standing frozen on a lonely road in pitch-black night, facing the fast closer coming bright headlights of a 40-ton-truck.
(Btw, you can get the same face-expression asking a local beauty if the moon or Berlin is closer to the Philippines… hmmm I can see the moon, but Berlin ? anyway what is that…)

When I went to the Philippines I reduced my time on Job to about 12 hours a day with 1 or two off-days a month and 10 days vacation (of course unpaid). Even now I easy beat the 40 hours a week on job.

So lets put my taxman in numbers for a year (365 days, 5 working days or 37 hours a week)

104 days weekend
30 days vacation
7 days sick (average in 2006, when I left Germany it was 9.5 days sick a year)
10 public holiday (normally 17 but some are on Sundays or fall depending on a year on a sunday)
3 other (days like Christmas eve where people work only half day and other stuff like socialising trips of the company and celebrations where nobody works)

That means there are 211 working days left, or a total amount of 1,561 working hours in the whole year. I reached this number in 2000 in less than 100 days.

There is obviously a reason why I can read a book at a beach surrounded by lovely people and pretty girls, great diving and cold beer. For my part, I won’t accept if my tax-officer whining around that he need to pay more money for his medicine and other stuff.

oops, sorry I almost forgot about it.

The quote above is more than 2000 years old and from

Marcus Tullius Cicero - 55 bC

Deja Vu

Rhoody

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A week ago or so I was writing about depression or something… It all happened in the middle of a cold or fever I caught. Being sick and feeling dizzy all the time just turned out to go into the second week now. I already feel way better than before and made my first short trips into Dumaguete for some hours.
I can’t explain how I feel being trapped at home. I need to be out and roaming around, meeting people and having fun.

During all that time at home I tried to be a bit healthy and did not drink any SMB. I finally  bought a scale for my bathroom (after 1.5 years) just to find out what I knew anyway… Fmucking hell, I am getting way too fat. … I still can see “my little Rhoody” while taking a wee without bending forward but it’s time to start the Project UHU.

UHU means simply “Under HUndret” and is in direct relationship to my weight…  so what is involved in that project?

First is no SMB for a while, water and coke light will do.
Plenty of vegetables and fruit, to get my daily Vitamins and all that crap… (I hate taking vitamin-pills and stuff in a country where there are fresh Mango, Banana,Pinapple,Coconut  and much more.)
Eating small portions… I am normally a plate licker… no matter how full my plate is, I will finish it completely. I won’t leave one rice corn on it (normally no need to wash my dishes…)
I’ll do some workout to get my boobs in better shape again, my shoulders even wider (six pack won’t work out with me)
and I’ll do some more stuff to get back on gwapo-track

UHU is about halftime of what I plan to reach in the next 2 month.  I may have some days in between, where I am going out and eat all I can just satisfy my brain. No Rhoody can life on that healthy stuff over a period of 2 month.

A funny sidenote. I was drinking way too much when I was going out, I am pretty aware of that. I was suspecting some kind of problems with stopping SMB. I did not go out each evening, but about 3-4 times a week, so I count myself as a kind of alcoholic. But guess what, I don’t feel  any difference or any demand that I need a beer now. I was with good friends at Mikes place yesterday and stuck to Coke-light without problems.

Guess I am just a stubborn german fat fart, hehe. It’s about 250 hours without SMB and the only problem I had were the complaints of some local places that they can’t pay the salaries due to lacking income. I’ll keep you posted how Rhoody’s project UHU will continue.
Cheers
Rhoody

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I just decided to make another category here on dive-monster.

Many things going through my head where I wanna talk about but they don’t fit in any of the existing ones. There are quite personal thoughts and I guess a blog is the diary of the 21st century. Like in some of my other reports before I will insult, laugh and cry and put my salty fingers into fresh wounds
…  so if you are sensible, just stop reading exactly here !!!

My life changed a lot the last few years but the biggest change was about one year ago when one of my course-directors and bosses at the dive-shop I was working  was not man enough to tell me that I am fired. Kim a one of the rare real friends took little Rhoody by his hand and told him: Man, why don’t you do the same I do….

Hey, great Idea – I thought by myself- and started beer drinking and mongering around in many regions of the Philippines. After a while Kim told me…. Rhoody not that, why you don’t start a webpage, I help you to get on your feet and show you how to earn your cost of living with that. 

OK-ok, sounds like work but give it a try… as I am not under financial pressure; I started a bit slow but after a 2 days or so I had my first Dollar earned. Yeah only a dollar, but it showed me that it is possible. Kim told me some secrets and helped me with ALL stupid questions I had and still have.

Now my first year of a new existence is done and there were many up’s and downs. One great thing of my life is that I am still diving a lot but I am not a slave at a Dive-Mc Donalds in Dauin. I am now diving up and down the beach, have bookings on Siquijor and help Mike at his Adventure-Diveshop. Next to all of that I am not sitting in a wanna-be-the-best dive-center and waste my life.

I can go out meet great people and know that exactly at this point I earn the money I spend on a good meal somewhere in Dumaguete.

I pissed more people off than I did in my 6 years before in the Philippines but I also met more great guys and friends. At this point I need to thank a couple of people without them I would never be at that stage I am now.

First of all Kim and Tom who showed me that things are possible (in many ways),

 my little little one and her mother (couldn’t do anything without the love, energy and the support you 2 give to me).

Mike and Bruce (who are responsible that I still dive for free AND have some cold beer)

My good friend, The “Fat Austrian” (who ensures with his monster-portions that I don’t get too skinny)

All the lovely people here in the country who make me feel welcome, who make me smile, who make me happy… I am proud to be in your wonderful place as a guest…

Enough tears…. My reputation is to be a bad guy… do I wanna be one ????  yeah, 100% …. good guys are boring and go to heaven… bad guys  go everywhere…

Just saw on some boards that guys asking for some advice…. and insults…. stay tuned, I am on the way

Rhoody

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