Effective Security

As you can see here, the special baby-proof stove guard that I installed is extremely effective at keeping Liam from working the oven. It now takes him up to 5 seconds longer to turn on the stove. At least we only have to keep our eyes on the right-most burner now, that is the only one he still bothers with.

He can still turn on any of them if he really wants to, but he generally sticks to the easy one.

Forgetful Father

So I was taking Liam out for a walk when I suddenly realized that it was -3 and I had forgotten Liam's gloves. We were already a block from the house and I am clearly far to lazy to walk home, take him out of the pram and carry him upstairs to get his gloves.

Therefore, the only thing to do was sacrifice my poor pram pushing hands to the cold and give him my gloves. They are my cold weather bike gloves, so they have some velcro to close them up tight on tiny little hands. I thought the effect of the giant fisted baby looked nice.

I am glad that his hands are not really that big, aside from the obvious optical strangeness, it would enable him to smash things even more effectively with Giant Baby Fists. With his normal tiny fists Liam has already smashed:

-Both Claudia and my bed side lamps
-2 drinking cups
-several glasses and mugs
-TV remote control
-Mummy and Daddy's willpower

The Photogenic boy

"Liam! Pose nice with Aunt Doris!"

I know that sneezing is really not his fault, nor is anything else considering he is 1 year old. It is not like he takes instructions very well, but my expectations are fairly low.

In the end, I think this photo became much more interesting because of the sneeze.

Liam Likes Helping out

So we were sitting around the living room on the 26th, with when Liam all of a sudden sprang into action. He spontaneously walked over to the cupboard in the living room and flung the doors open. We gave him a bit of breathing room since he did not have anything smashable in his hands.
He proceeded to pull out all of the white place mats, and set them on the table in basically the right spots. It was pretty strange and fun. I guess he had been spending the last days in this room watching the table get set over and over again and wanted to join in the fun.It is now pretty common for him to watch us do something and then try to copy it himself. He also takes my keys and trys to put them in the door, and he is completely obsessed with turning the lights on and off and on and off. It is like living in a disco.

Christmas Day

Well, the big day is all over here, as you may or may not know, the Christmas celebrations in Germany are conducted on the 24th in the evening. We had our gift exchange and a nice big dinner. For the past few years now, we have had a nice big ham that is packed inside a bread, so when you slice it all up, you get what looks like a ham steak with a halo of fresh dark bread. It is really really good.

Here is the family photo I took. I know Liam has his arm up, but this one was the only one where everyone else was smiling. There are plenty of Liam pictures around to whet the appetite for screaming babies:
Liam of course was the big gift getter at Christmas here, pretty reasonable given that he is the smallest one in the family and already owns the least amount of stuff. He received a bunch of toys, many farming related ones (he likes cows) and the big hit was the "Big Bobby" car.
These "Big Bobby" cars are pretty much a required purchase for all babies over here, I have actually seen traffic jams of these things in playgrounds as so many kids are scooting around on them. Since it is cold and rotten out, I have the next months to look forward to being run over repeatedly by the boy and his car. I have already looked into the clever accessory for the car called "whisper wheels."

Then again, it does not do much for the overall noise level to put whisper wheels on the car, then let Liam and his fire engine siren scream drive it. I wish I could get a product called "whisper child."

spooky

Liam hates going to bed, he screams and freaks out like a madman every time. The other night I let him play with my ipod in bed, this quieted him down and I thought it looked cool, so I took a photo.

The Little Party Machine

I took this photo of Liam on his horse this morning. You can see the results of Claudia cutting his hair quite well here too. I think that it turned out quite OK, he was getting quite a bush head, but there is ZERO chance that he is going to sit still for a proper professional hair cut.

My Work Group

Here we are posing for our wonderful Christmas Photo.

Notice I am skillfully placed at the back.

Altogether we are the Consumer Ink and Media team for EMEA region. How outstanding to we look. Doesn't it make you feel great about how HP is being managed. This was a photo that we sent to my boss, who is in the USA for the complete month of December.

New look for the Web Page

So, I just upgraded to the new version of blogger and changed my template.

What do you think of the new look? I like that the posting area is a bit wider, so I can put on the pictures in a bit larger format.

Also, if you look at the history section, you can see the number of posts for a past month in parentheses next to the month, clicking on the down arrow for the month will reveal the post titles so you can navigate to them.

Finally, I am now using my "thumbs up" picture as my profile picture in the upper right section of the page.

House update

So, the house now has windows and temporary front door. This week they are putting plaster on the walls and doing the wiring and water connections. I think that they will also fill in the hole in the front of the house pretty soon.

It looks quite a bit more livable with windows in it, now when I am walking around inside I am starting to get an idea of what it will look like when completed.

Getting Extra Geeky Once Again...

Back in the old days of elementary and high school, I was very much into wargames. Specifically the table top fantasy war game "Warhammer." For those of you who don't know it, essentially you buy many many many 25mm lead minatures representing troops, then paint them to look pretty and use the game to fight little wars against your friends. To say that we were obsessed with this would be kind. I don't know how many hours we all spent painting, gaming and arguing over the overly vague rules. I know that it was really nerdy, but I don't care! It was big fun.

In case any of you old WH players are reading this, remember if you will our respective (and mostly unpainted) armies:

Fraser - Chaos (evil)
Bill - Skaven (rat men)
Scott - Dwarfs
Kelvin - Elves
Dave - Orcs & Goblins
Sandy - Chaos (a different evil)

I think we met at least once a week for some sort of "mass battle" which was not really even how the game was intended. It really was supposed to be a 2-player game, but normally we had these multi-player free for alls or did some sort of team arrangement.

Anyway, my point is this... Warhammer does still exist, but I no longer have the community, time, nor money to invest in this hobby. But a NEW game from a different company has just come out:

YAY for Battle Lore. This is a table top board game that depicts a tactical level battle between two players. The time period is set around the 100 years war (England vs. France) but then throws in a fantasy element of Dwarves and Goblins and Monsters. A single battle can be fought in less than an hour (compared to our multi day warhammer binges) and everything you need to play comes in the box, no more endless visits to the game store for just one more miniature.

Here is the set up:
So, the other appealing thing is that the rules are VERY simple and can be taught to anyone inside a few minutes, so I will be able to pull it off the shelf and play with anyone close at hand. I have high hopes that I can convince Ryan to play against me over the holidays next week. He should like a nice war game...

Anyway, I was just excited by this, and in case any of my old gaming friends are reading this, you should also pick up a copy of this very exciting game.

An Age Old Question Answered

When shopping for toys with a 1 year old, how can you get him to stop screaming when you take the toys away from him?

Answer, to put him in a Ferrari. I will advise Claudia that this would work for daddy too, but I need a bigger one and would prefer a Porsche.

More fun

I did not yet unload my camera, so here is all the excitement of Liam with a calculator.

He is thankfully just about over his flu. It has been a looooooooong time.

Thumbs Up

So, one time on my trip someone picked up my camera and said, "Fraser what do you think of this summit meeting?" I was dearly hoping that I could convey a sense of sarcasm with the dual thumbs up. It is not that easy to gesture feigned interest.

Greatest Town Ever

So, we had to drive really far to a floor studio today to have a look at some possible flooring solutions for the new house. On the way there, we drove through this small village with the greatest name ever... KILLER.

Luckily, I had my camera along to take pictures of flooring examples, so I insisted we stopped and I could get photographed in front of the train station. If it had not been so late, I would have made a tour of the town, getting pictures of everything with killer on it. One of the best signs was on the road on the way there "Killer - 4km" I love this.

The only other sign that we actually saw was the "Killer Volunteer Fire Department" Also genius.

One thing that is possibly even better... If you look at the station behind me, there is a small sign, this is informing that contained in the Killer station is the German Whip Museum. I could not have made that up if I tried.

I am sure that I will be paying another visit to Killer with my camera one day. It is also pretty close to an awesome castle. A killer one.

Exciting New Toy

Recently, Liam discovered that a lot of fun can be had with the calculator. I am not sure why, but it seems that all babies like to play with things with buttons. Liam will ignore his big basket of toys (many which have buttons, lights and sounds) in favour of the TV remote, telephone handset, or now, the calculator.

He will also go into our room and switch Claudia's table lamp on and off and on and off and on and off..... and each time it goes on, point at it and say "LIIIIIIII" very loud.

He is a weird kid.

House Development

Here is the house update.

You can see that the roof is totally on now, and the crane is gone from the front so I can now take a photo of the whole think from a reasonable distance. The front faces North, and is therefore the shady side. That is fine, the "nook" in the house is there to accomodate the local government, who would not approve of a house over a certain size. It will also contain our parking spot. The windows on this side are for the kitchen, downstairs bathroom, and upstairs bedroom. The skylight is for the upstairs bathroom.

Here in the back, you can see the sunny side. Views of the downstairs office and guest bedroom, which open onto the back yard, main floor living room with the balcony, and upstairs two more bedrooms.

A Nice Photo

In my opinion anyway. Click on the image for the nicer, big version.

This is one that I took at night of a bridge we could see off the deck of the ship. I like the way they illuminated the bridge, making some pretty nice reflections.

In the day, this is just a dull white concrete thing.

Queen Mary Luxurious stateroom

This is my room on the Queen Mary where we had our meeting. As you can see, the concept of luxury seems to have changed over the years. Maybe it is because people were shorter in the 1930s and 1940s, but I cannot help but think that they were ever short enough to consider this room big.

Notice the scenic post directly in the centre of the room, or the nice little curtain in the corner, hiding my window. The window is about as big as a dinner plate, but I can forgive that. It is a boat after all.
My super spacious bathroom did not manage to make it on to the Queen Mary Brochure. It is just as luxurious as it looks. For a good sense of size, the shower head is just about at my neck level. Just right for someone of my height. Or perhaps an especially tall dwarf.

cat wheel by Richard Norton

This is outstanding.

Happy Nikolaustag

So, Dec 6 is St. Nikolaus day in Germany. This is when St Nick comes and fills your stocking with some sweets and small gifts. Since this is essentially Santa coming, I had to ask "well then who is bringing the gifts on Christmas then?"

The answer is of course, "The Christ Child." So, in Germany, Santa comes on the 6th and brings you sweets and little things, and then on Christmas eve, Baby Jesus comes and leaves all the presents under the tree. I have not yet had the courage to ask if Jesus also comes down the chimney, I assumed it would be in bad taste.

Anyway, for Nikolaustag, I gave Claudia a little Santa bear and a bavarian white sausage tray made out of marzipan. I thought it looked funny.

Hockey Sponsor

Fressnapf (feed bowl) are the company that was last years official sponsor of the Stuttgart Wizards hockey team. The first team, the pseudo professionals who are playing in the state league, which is the 4th tier league in Germany.

This wonderful logo dominated the arena when you would enter. A giant banner stretching across the wall behind the bleachers. And the team uniform, in the same style as soccer, had the official sponsor's logo covering the full chest of the uniform.

As much as I am sure that Fressnapf makes absolutely fine pet food, I think they were not the best choice of sponsor. I for one think at least a little bit of hockey is about intimidating and frightening the opposition if you can. The happy cat and happy dog are among the least intimidating images I have come across while living here.

Lets hope that Fressnapf's sponsorship is not replaced by snuggle fabric softner or some soft pink toy company.

More on the Queen Mary

Well, I had a pretty busy day today, so I am afraid I did not have much time to update the blog. Here are a couple more photos from the Queen Mary.

First one is just an upward view from the deck in the evening. I am still not a clever enough photographer to get the moon to appear in any photo, it is always an overexposed blob. I think I may have a better result if I switch my light metering from matrix to spot. If anyone has a good tip on this, let me know.
A little further along the deck, looking at the skyline of Long Beach, past a nice green illuminated life boat. Luckily there was no need to use the life boats. Although, if the ship had started to go down, I think it would have just been faster to use the elevator.

And here is a very loooooong hallway that eventually led to my room. I think tomorrow I will post some of the glorious photos of my expansive quarters.

Comments Feature Changed

Hello Fraser's News Readers,

I just removed the 'word verification' from the comments section, so you don't have to type in the odd strings of letters any more.

I am hoping this will encourage some of my many many readers (ha ha ha) to leave some comments on the posts from time to time, since I do like to read some feedback on the stuff/photos I post. Right now it seems to be Dave and Ponter running that show.

If you do leave a comment with anonymous, it is also great if you sign a name in the body of the comment so I know who I am responding to.

Enjoy,

-Fraser

House Update

Well, DSL is finally working, so I can post some more house photos.

You can see here that the roof is on:And inside here is a look at the Kitchen area (left) and a tiny bit of the living room (right) I am standing where the dinign table will go.
And here is a view of the Liam's room. I am actually standing in the next room and a dividing wall will still go up, between the two big windows, making it two rooms.
And this is what Liam does when everyone else is walking through the house taking pictures:

The Queen Mary

While I was away on my business trip, we spent a few days at a conference on the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Most people that heard about this were all impressed, this is because they have never actually SEEN the Queen Mary, but only know it by reputation.

Don't get me wrong, I am sure that this was the epitome of luxury in 1940 or so, but time has not been so kind to this ship. There are still some nice things to see on this boat, but by and large it is feeling very run down and worn out.

Most of the photos of the ship that I took were taken at night. This is due to the fact that we had a pretty full working schedule and any free time I had was from about 10pm onwards. It does look pretty nice at night, but I think almost anything would look good from far away on a foggy night when illuminated with coloured lights. Even Orangeville.

New Family Member

I also realized I did not put up any photos of the new addition to the Wongs on here. Here is a photo with me actually in it of my mother, Sister and her kids, including the new addition, Claire Wong. In this picture Claire is 4 months old, although it has been almost a month since I took it! Wow, seems like I was sitting on that couch yesterday. Probably because I spend so much of my time sitting on my couch locally.

I am irritated with Picasa2, I just tried to make a quick and lazy post from that program and it did not seem to upload. Chances are it will show up onthe site here in a few hours or something, but I expect INSTANT results from my beloved internet.

Finally A Cell Phone Worse than Mine...

I thought this 1988 Radio Shack catalog page was well worth putting up here. $1500 for an amazing looking cell! You can even use it on your boat! Have a quick read through the text to see how amazing this great new technology was in 1988. ahh, sweet sweet progress.

It is pretty funny to look at any old technology ads, I am sure that the Motorola RAZR will be a laughing stock to Liam when he is my age. We will probably just have phones surgically embedded in our brains by then.

One more Airport Sign

I thought I was done with airport adventures, then I was flipping through some older pictures and I remembered that I took this one at the Charles de Gaulle airport when I was in Paris for work a few weeks ago.

I just really like the wording on the sign, I would love to see what techniques the police are using.

An Angry Rant

So, I am sure everyone I know would be happy to confirm that I am a calm, peace loving fellow. A guy who thinks only good thoughts about those around him and someone who only sees the best in his fellow man. Well today I will be slightly out of character then as I have no choice but to have an angry rant about my current nemesis:We recently succumbed to advertising and signed up for the T-online "Call and Surf Comfort" package which has been rammed down our throats from every media source in Germany for the past months. It seems like an OK package, Phone + DSL flatrate for about 50 Euro per month.

We signed up and the nice wireless router arrived in the mail with all the cables and such:
I plugged it all in to the phone splitter, then to the LAN card on our PC, flipped the big switch and... nothing. My first instinct was that I connected something incorrectly as my reading of German manuals is a bit suspect.

So I went and enlisted my native speaking helper, who according to a quiz in "Freundin" Magazine is technically minded:

Claudia read through the book with me and confirmed that had indeed connected it all correctly. We double and triple checked, then consulted the troubleshooting section of the book to decipher the blinking lights. it seemed that the light meaning "DSL Connection not available" was blinking, so Claudia placed a call to T-Online to inquire. The help people confirmed that our DSL service had not been switched on, which was odd, since we paid for Nov 1 connection and at this point it was Nov 12. Anyway, it was after hours, so they could not do anything and we would have to wait for the next day.

Several days and several phone calls later, the DSL was still not going. Claudia was getting more and more angry with T-online and we had no internet in my house.

I was telling this story to my work colleagues, and a guy in my group, mentioned that it took T-online "about 2 months to get his DSL running." oh no...

But that evening SUCCESS! The light was not blinking! I quickly jumped on the PC and set up the account.... SUCCESS! DSL worked, Firefox was browsing away at lightning fast DSL speeds. I set up our firewall, virus, spyware software and then configured Claudia's email account. Everything was going fine. Then it was a bit late so off to bed.

Next day... DSL not working.... Light Blinking... damn... Claudia back on the phone to T-online and the person there actually said "Oh, I see from your file that this is your 12th call on this topic." For reference, that is not the best way to endear yourself to my wife. Claudia had a short nasty conversation with them.

Next day SUCCESS! DSL! one day following... BLINK BLINK BLINK. no DSL. Phone call #13.

Today T-online is sending a technician to our place to see what the problem could be. The house we currently live in is only 7 years old, so it is not like the wiring is likely to be the problem.

The best part is, we will move in spring and have to get DSL connected at the new house! Hooray for reliving the adventure!

Wonderdog Strikes again

One of the amazing, exciting things happening when I was visiting was that my sister had her dog in a dog show. Now I am the last person on Earth to claim I have any idea what goes on at dog shows, or how to tell a good dog from a bad dog. Everything I learned about dog shows was taught to me from the film Best in Show.

Anyway, the dog-powers-that-be recognized the greatness that is my sister's dog (Jersey,) and bestowed upon her the greatest possible award.... first place. So page viewers, gaze with awe at the mighty dog, that which has won more praise than I have from HP in the last years. Although, my team did collectively win "Media Supplies and Solutions Team Player of the Month" for January 2006. We did not get a fancy green ribbon though, just a laserprinted certificate...


 

More house photos

I need to catch up on the house building pictures... These are actually a bit old, but I thought it would be best to put them in sequence.

here is the front, just before I ventured inside for the first time...


This is on the lower floor, and will one day be the office. A nice big door/window open up into the back yard. Hopefully there will be enough room for all the computer equipment I would like to one day have in here. We may need a bigger house for all the stuff I would really like.


Amazing view of the downstairs hallway, complete with many many posts holding up the ceiling.


And finally, what you can see from the back yard... Balcony that leads into the living room/dining room area, and the lower two doors will be the entrance to the office on the left and the guest bedroom on the right.

 

Oh Orangeville, how you have changed...

One of the first things I saw when I returned to Orangeville was this delightful store. Right smack in the middle of Broadway, a tattoo and piercing studio. Orangeville.... population 10 farmers and a dog has a piercing place. I guess it is not quite as backwater as when I left.

What I found even more interesting is that this store is having a limited time offer on two for one piercings! Outstanding! I was then wondering if this means you have to get both piercings yourself or if you can bring a friend...