What a fantastic week – and it’s only going to get better.

This week I’ve accomplished a lot of things on my personal to-do list, including tackling a mountain of paperwork. I’d put off some of it – partially due to a linguistic barrier, partially due to intimidation.

On that front, I’ve reached that point in my life where I take retirement planning really seriously, and I’ve committed to getting a relatively miniscule paycheck in November – because I’m going to maximize my contribution to my pension plan for 2012.

If you visit in December, expect to eat baloney and white bread sandwiches.

Beyond that I filed all kinds of accumulated paperwork and shredded the rest – my new shredder is fantastic. Unfortunately I need to buy more binders: one can never have too many when living in Germany.

At home, I’ve done a lot of cleaning – getting ready for my guest who arrives next Wednesday evening.

And why am I getting ready right now instead of this coming weekend?

Simple: I’m leaving town tomorrow for the weekend, going somewhere to sit on the beach and do nothing important: watching the ocean, reading trashy books, and getting tanned.

Meanwhile back in Berlin I’ll be missing at least three things that I want to see: Hauptstraßenfest, Folsom Europe, and there is some kind of skateboard contest that I think would be fun to photograph.