Going by train is gorgeous… you don’t have to worry about traffic jams or time… you just can sit back and wait, until you arrive at your target point. You can also listen to your favorite music as loud as you want (unless you have earphones that are louder to the outside than to the inside). The only thing, that is strange is, that everybody is staring at me. Sitting here with my iBok and my iPod (in a pink sock) listening to Keane. I just feel right.
We are currently halting at Frankfurt Main main station, it took 1:30h from duisburg. We traveled with an average speed of around 200km/h. Really nice.
Archive for July, 2005
Trains to the future
Thursday, July 21st, 2005If this is communication… I disconnect.
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005Currently, I’m on the train to Wuerzburg. Thats the second of 4 Trains, i’ll have to ride until I am in Roedental near Coburg, where Inoad will pick me up. The first train was from my hometown Xanten, departure 12:00, then I waited in Duisburg nearly 45 minutes and am now on ICE727. The other passengeers are very very openminded and talk to each other… that was diffferent in the other train and on the platform, where I was waiting.
4 People were sitting there, all bored and alone (except a couple, that had just devorced or such… they were screaming and shouting at each other until he left on the train and she staied with me and the others at the platform, criing terribly) and quiet. I treid to start a conversation with a man, sitting witch me on the bench, but he ignored me… so I ignored all the others, took me iPod and listened to my favorite “Garbage” Album. Its really sad, how people treat each other nowadays and slowly, I am getting bored. How should i get to know new people, if everybody ignores each other.
In front of me at the table, there is sitting a nice older couple, who travel from Duisburg to Munich. My train goes to Munich, too but they have to change the train in Wuerzburg, just like me. Its terribly strange, how a company can treat people like that.
Currently I am thinking about, what i did to my friend Tim. We decided to live together as a comunity in Oberhausen, but i just can’t. In major, its not him (well… perhaps a bit, but that hadn’t been a cause for me to cancel the whole thing) but me, who messes up the situation. I currently just can’t live with someone in the same flat. I just wan’t to be alone, studiing, achieving my goals and making my dreams come true on my own.
Apart from that, he doesn’t know me very well (even if I am sure he thinks that after the 2 Years we know each other). He really doen’t know or at minimum doesn’t understand how I sometimes feel about lonleyness. As i know him, he’s a person who just can’t be on his own and feels uncomfortable, if he iis alone. Maybe that is why he told me, that I broke his base, he currently stands on.
On one side, i think that i am a coward, not to try it… on the other hand, I think, if i push my self too much to try it without really wanting it, it might break later on… and I don’t want to think, of the base, that might brek for him, then. Hes a friend of mine after all… thats what i think. He tried to call me in the last days, when i was off, so i still have no further reaction, but i could understand, if he distanced totally from me.
So… while thinking and not having to drive by myself… the Starseeker
Gifts from Hell
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005Hello and welcome to the Starseeker GiftShop! Here you will find … only one gift, namely the Model I (short form for Model Inoad). Its a modification of the very populat Model M Keyboard for my friend inoad. Its her favorite keyboard, so I thought, how I could modify it for her to like it.

take a look at the original one first
The first thing I did was cleaning the key caps. This is important, ’cause here the most dirt waits, to give the color a hard time. I put all the key caps into a “bowl” and applied a special “you-dont-want-to-know-whats-inside”-cleaner on them…
Thats me, holding the bowl of key caps… (yeah… with my feet. I needed those hands to make that photo).
mix …
… sicken …
… vomit …
… and i came really close
and look how nicely they’re all sorted
he’s a bit shy on photos
What am I without the right tool in my hands? Nothing. So I searched the right tool… (a really scary uncommon 5mm 6-edge socket wrench) but couldn’t find it. So I used my fine metal rasp and tortured my needle-nosed pliers to be thin enough to fit into the screw holes of the keyboard.
Thats the long haired me at the file…
… really busy. (thanks to Michael for making these Photos)
Even exchanging the leds on the led panel seemed to be managable
Yeah! Senior keyboard body surfing the clothesline!
Watch them dry in small groups…
… or as a perfect couple
Watch nearly the whole family reunited
The other day, I colored all the other keycaps red and black, corrected some errors and went on to the most tricky part… changing the diods.
I’ll entertain you with some pictures first.
Thats the diode PCB… small, simple and normally glued onto the main plate of the keyboard.
‘Your best friend: The third hand’ – exchanging the diods WITHOUT burning myself (really uncommon, cause i seen not to be scared that much about the heat on the solder).
Thats the diode PCB again… can you tell what changed?! Yes! Right! The perspective is different!
Then, I cleanded the main plate of the keyboard and branded the internals for my “sister” inoad
There is some writing on that metal, but you might not be able to figure, so:
IBM Model M
Produced 21.9.1987 07:06 PM
Modification 17.7.2005
by Joel Garske
For his Sister Inoad
new name: Model I
While I was changing the diods and cleaning the main plate, all the parts went dry enough to be reassembled step by step.
The new mainplate with nearly all key caps set up
The new body with nearly all key caps in it.
After breaking my fingers while reassembling the electronics and mountign the screws as carefully as possible, the whole thing, WITH the missing “return” key and the “Short Haired Me” looked like this:
Look at my smiling comfortable and pleased face