I have a new website

I am no longer on blogger.com

My new website, full of pictures, music and opinions, can be found here:

tim.potten.life

From the book "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis

I am reading "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis again and I just came across one of my favorite paragraphs...

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claims to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a Demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about Him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

single

i'm single. first time in a long time. if you are a timmy fan, smile - i'm feeling healthy, happy and very focused.

The joy of raw fish

It’s been a hard three weeks. I was, along with the time a similar thing happened four years ago in Turkey, closer than I have ever felt to dying.

I ate sushi for lunch at a meeting in Frankfurt. I woke up at 4 the next morning and laid in, on, under and around the toilet until 9. There was a war going on in my small intestine, and I lost.

After two weeks of general agony and testing, I was finally diagnosed with what the doctor described as “a fairly dangerous bacterial infection”, most likely caused by something I ate. NO SHIT. I do enjoy the look on doctors’ faces when they finally diagnose you with basically the same damn thing you told them was wrong from the beginning.

After a week of heavy antibiotic treatment, I am finally feeling normal again. Tell you what, a damn good start to that diet I’ve needed for some time.

heaven and hell

Heaven is where the police are English,
the cooks are French,
the mechanics are German,
the lovers are Italian
and everything is organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the police are German,
the cooks are English,
the mechanics are French,
the lovers are Swiss,
and everything is organized by the Italians.

Opinion poll. Where do the Americans fit in, both "heaven" and "hell"?

on panther pond

although i grew up in central Illinois, i spent the majority of my summers in my birth state of Maine on a pond named Panther.

a pond for the majority of vertical challenged midwesterners means that little bit of water that swells up in the cornfield when it rains too much. i am talking about a lake - and a big one at that. big enough to take us a good 20 minutes to cross in our state-of-the-art metal "boat" with a 15hp outboard engine.

for two months every year, my flatland existence turned into an adventure of woods, swimming, sea air and lobsters. For those of you who have been, you know. If you haven't visited Maine, you should put in on your "special things to accomplish before I'm worm food" list.


my feet are bare
used to the tiny stones
deep dark woods
bring kid fears

green and white
white and green

ein Mass bitte..

i just returned from a weeks vacation on a lake house in Barvaria, not far from Munich. It is a beautiful area down there.

Barvarians are very proud of their state. I get the feeling that they wouldn't be all that sad if they had their own little country (much like Texas).

Do you see people walking around in Lederhosen in downtown Munich? Well, yes, actually you do.

Beer is such a part of the culture. I mean really built into the culture. They have these huge beer halls from breweries such as Hofbrau, Paulaner and Loewenbrau.

You drink big beers.

You eat Weisswurst (white sausages) with saurkaut, mashed potatos and sweet mustard.

The common one liter beer is called a "Mass" (pronounced Maas) - what we as Americans think of as a "stein". Stein, incidently, has no meaning in German other than "stone". I assume we got that because the original Mass was most likely made of stone. They are now just big ass beer mugs made from glass.

After only one Mass, you smile a lot and sing.

Oktoberfest just started today. Little known fact - It accually mostly takes place in September. But Septemberfest just doesn't have the same ring now, does it.

two in August!

Wow, only going to be two posts in August.

Sorry boys and girls. A whole lot of no time on my hands the past weeks. I have some vacay coming up soon and I promise to write a post per day. Pinky swear.