Mike's Ramblings

This morning, I tried to mount Aubrey's GPS on my 'bike. Aubrey recently purchased a little Medion Pocket PC PDA with integrated GPS (this one is very similar, but not exactly the same: www.pocketgpsworld.com/medion-review.php ). He was going to use it this upcoming weekend for his trip with my aunt Uta to France. Instead, he was nice enough to offer it's use to me for my trip to my Mom's in Flensburg and then on to Sweden. It has a handlebar mount for motorcycles and/or bicycles, provided the handlebar is round and the right diameter for the clamp. There is a small part of my handlebar right near the hand grips which looked like it would work; the rest of it is a bit oval or squarish shaped. In order to install the mount on this section, it looked like I would need to get the grips and the clutch lever mechanism off. As I was trying to get the hand grip off, it was being a bit stubborn and then suddenly it came off. I realized I had ripped off the wires for the heating element in the grip; that was why it seemed so hard to pull off. I decided I had done enough damage (and I definitely did not want to risk any more serious damage) so I put everything back together without getting the GPS mount on.

After giving up on that, I decided to take a quick drive into the nearby village where there are ruins of an old castle. I'd been there oftentimes when I was younger; it's a neat old place to explore. Apparently there used to be a family which built this castle and two others on neighboring hills. One was this one on Gleiberg (though in German, this site has some interesting history and information: www.burgenwelt.de/gleiberg/gleiberg.htm), another was within sight on Vetzberg (www.burgenwelt.de/vetzburg/vetzberg.htm), and the third was on Merenberg (www.burgenwelt.de/merenberg/index.htm); I'm not sure where the last one is located in relation to the first two. Another flood of memories came as I walked around and through the castle and drove through the village. Unfortunately, when I was at the top of the tower in the castle, I was overwhelmed by swarms of flying bugs and so could not stay very long to enjoy the incredible views.

Burg Gleiberg Entrance Burg Gleiberg Tower

View of my Aunt's house from Tower View of Vetzberg from Tower View of Krofdorf village from Tower