Testing out a new platform

I just read a review of this new program "Windows Live Writer" (link here)for creating posts offline and then loading them later. I thought I would give this a try out to see how it works.

So far, the linking to my site and formatting seems to be OK, text entry is working fine and now I will try a photo, here is a monkey from the Stuttgart zoo that I Photographed:

Seems much better. Changing photo size in the post, positioning, effects are all better than in the blogger online editor.

It seems inserting other objects like tables, maps, videos is all a bit easier.

I think this may be my new method of post creation. Much nicer.

Little Snow Elf

Here is a nice old photo of me circa 1980 or so. I think this is a brilliant combination of fashion, the matching touque and sweater set... the flashy check pants, You know that I was rocking the ice with those sweet looking skates in this outfit.

Ahhh, the good old days.

More of the Discount Fair

Back a ways when we were at the "discount fair" we saw a number of interesting things. One of the more fun ones was this very low budget ride. This ride consisted of:

1) one milk crate to place a child inside
2) a conveyor of metal rollers, like the kind they use in warehouses
3) stack of wooden pallets to create a hill
4) one volunteer to push kids



This is about as low budget as a ride can get. To be fair, it was a free ride and all the kids seemed to love it. There was a pretty huge queue to get on. Thankfully it went very fast since we wanted Liam to have a go.

He seemed a little scared of it at first, but as soon as he got to the bottom the first time he wanted to go again. It was not as much fun as a train or tractor ride for him, but he did like it.


Stay tuned for more of the extreme low budget fun at the Nagold discount fun festival.

Horsey Hat

Fairly Recently, Claudia's Parents and the Joneses were over in the US for a visit. Among they other things that they brought back from this voyage was this outstanding horse hat. I am quite a big fan of outrageous hats as many will well know and this one is certainly pretty far out there.

It is made of some sort of soft foam and I don't really think it is meant to be worn so often, more of a special occasion horse head hat. Liam at first was not so interested in it, it has been on his shelf for a few months now with only the occasional comment. Today however he took it upon himself to grab this hat and insist on wearing it for a good long while. Most of the time he was running around the room yelling HORSEY HORSEY and making horse noises.

Cold Weather

It has become very cold here already, reaching -3 at night and we even had snow one morning.

This changing of the seasons brings about the falling of all the leaves... putting snow tires on the car, and winterizing the baby.

Claudia bought him this new hat and I like it.

Front of the House

So the front of the house is nearly finished, the bricks are fairly much in and just some final minor adjustments need to be made. Here is an image of how it has looked since March or so, just a pile of gravel:

So first the garden fellow put down some lighter gray stones in the parking spot.

Next some darker stones next to them in front of the house. The dark stones go into the lighter ones in a sort of triangle poking in pattern. Here is the finished front.

To the left of the door is a little area for plants, we will have a bit more shape to add to that in the next days I think.

Here is a closer look at the front parts.


So what does everyone think? It is still a bit dirty on the right hand side, but that will be cleaned off as quickly as possible. We are still not 100% sure that the pattern was the best choice, but now that it is all in I don't think it can really be re-thought.

I think it is a vast improvement over the gravel pile and it looks OK, but you always come up with a lot of new ideas after the fact. I think that was the case with many aspects of the house.

Construction is finished

Our village has had the main street closed for construction since March. The week after we moved in they started digging. The bridge over the stream was torn out, all the pavement down to the dirt removed and re-done. All the sidewalks ripped up and replaced.

Now at long last everything is open and I can drive through the town without any detours.

On my way home I made a litle film of the drive through the new construction. Since the speed limit is 30km/h it takes a while to get through. Therefore I have sped up the film to simulate what it would be like to drive through my village at around 120.

Enjoy.

Even more pizza

I enjoyed yesterdays video so much, I thought I would go with that again.

Liam, tell us what is in the oven...



And what do you want for dinner?

Does he like Pizza?

What do you think?

Currywurst Graffiti

On a recent trip to Tübingen, we noticed some odd graffiti on many surfaces around the old town.

This graffiti was all talking about currywurst, a typical sausage treat over here. it is a big sausage chopped into bite size chunks then covered in ketchup and curry powder. Here is an example:

I am not a big fan of this, as someone who does not really like curry.

The graffiti however, made me very happy and I am now a fan of the idea of currywurst. I am not really sure what the purpose of this graffiti was, there was no advertising or any indication they were for any purpose other than the celebration of a sausage.

These slogans were spraypainted all over various surfaces, and often repeated in different colours around town. I limited myself to capturing only the different ones to show here.

My only other theory is that this is one of those "Guerrilla art" kind of projects done by black turtleneck wearing arty student types. It was cool though.

Here we go..."Zu Rotwein: Currywurst" = "With Red Wine: Currywurst"

Not the most ideal drink to accompany this snack, but still not too wild a suggestion.
"Currywurst aus Hundehaar" = "Currywurst from dog hair"

I don't understand, this may be some local saying with a meaning that I just don't know.

"Alle Naslang Currywurst" = "All Noselengths Currywurst"

This is a colloquialism that does not translate literally, it would actually mean "Currywurst is all around" according to my wife.

"Currywurst Wider Krieg" = "Currywurst against War"

I don't know if this sausage is protesting a specific war or war in general I am glad that this meat has taken a stand though.

"Currywurst Wird Dich Erlösen" = "Currywurst will save you"

This is one of my favorites. I again hope that this is salvation in the spiritual sense. Although, if it could literally save me from a speeding car or something, I would not be disappointed.

"Currywurst macht XreXglücklich" = "Curywurst makes ??happy"

This is one I could not quite make out and I did not see another example. I think the sentiment is clear though, that this sausage creates happiness. I just wish I knew what kind of happiness...

"Pinguin, Iss Currywurst" = "Penguin, Eat Currywurst"

My favorite. I have no idea what this means. The inclusion of the comma after Penguin makes me think it looks like a suggestion or a command. I really have no idea who Penguin is, or if it is just a real penguin...

"Igitt! Currywurst mit Schmiss!" = "???????"

This is another expression that does not translate. Claudia tried to explain it to me but it still did not make any sense. A person "mit schmiss" apparently is someone with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. My only guess is that this one is encouraging you to eat a currywurst with enthusiasm, but if there are any Swabians around that can better translate, PLEASE TELL ME, it is VERY VERY important to me.

"Ach Faläfle, du beleidigte Currywurst" = "Oh little falafel, you are jealous of Currywurst"

Currywurst is a more traditional streetside snack over here, but has been largely displaced by the Turkish Döner Kebab. Falafel is the vegetarian choice at many Kebab places, but I think it was odd to single out Falafel. Döner is the clear snack leader over here. Maybe Tübingen has a different snacking demographic to the rest of Germany, I am not sure.

Furthering this anti Falafel sentiment is the next (and final) image.

"Falafel Feind Aller Currywurst" = "Falafel, Enemy of all Currywurst"

Interesting as this one departs from the font and style of the previous ones, as well as the inclusion of the clenched fist logo.

Discount Fair

One of the things we did when my mother was here was go down to Nagold, where Claudia works and the home of a nice big park and playground. We were nicely surprised to see that there was some sort of event going on when we arrived.

It was a little fest of some sort for some charity or other. The most important thing is that they had a series of distractions for little people.

The first thing that we saw was a tiny carousel and Liam homed in on this since it had a tractor that he could ride. I think you can see that his little face is about as happy as it has ever been.

The ride actually went on for quite a long time and cost 1 euro per go. Money well spent and of course in the end we had to drag him away screaming from it. "TRAAAAAACTOOOOOORRRR" "EINSTIEGEN!!!" "MORE TRACTOR!"

My Elegant Well Mannered Child

Liam likes cake.

New Job Title

I was just officially informed that my job title has officially been changed by HP.

I used to be:

Product Marketing Manager III

NOW I have become.....

PSS Life Cycle Marketing Manager I

I asked my boss what "PSS" stands for and she said "I would guess.... Product...System and Services..." When I told her she was clearing guessing and had no idea, she admitted that she was very sure the P stood for product, but otherwise really did not know.

Water Taxi Ride

Another fun thing we did in Geneva was ride the water taxi across the lake. In the weather appropriate months, this runs as part of the public transit service, just like a normal bus or streetcar. Liam had never been on a proper boat before so this was another new piece of fun for him.



Of course, Liam decided to sit over with cool, sunglasses toting Aunt and Uncle. He enjoyed looking all around the boat and to make things even more exciting, there was a DOG on the boat. He spent a moment staring and pointing and telling us about the "wow wow" until the boat started moving.

While we traveled across the lake, he was pretty excited to look out the window and see the water going by and look at the other boats. Aunt Doris was pointing out the sights of interest around the lake here. I don't recall what she was showing him, but knowing Liam's general likes, it could have either been a museum or possible an amusing stick.


Here again is the taxi leaving us to go off to the next stop, Liam gave the boat a nice wave and we had to wrestle him away from the water as he screamed and struggled to get back on for another ride. He is such a calm easy to handle little dude.

A Very Long Time Ago

When my Mum was over here, she brought me a nice big batch of old photos to have a look through. Most of them are from my lifetime, but a few were some old old ones and I thought they were fun to look at as well.

Here are pictures of my parents from 1964 when they first arrived in Canada. The house behind my dad is in the wonderful Jane-Finch area of Toronto, I think it seemed nicer then.

I wonder if in the year 2041 or so, Liam will be posting pictures of me arriving in Germany on whatever sort of blog-like forum exists then. That is assuming he will turn out to be a big computer geek like me. Soon he will be old enough for me to start indoctrinating him in the ways of geekdom. I already have a substantial quantity of fine Sci-fi television programs and films to get him going. I saw Star Wars in the theatre when I was 4 years old, that was the beginning of it all for me.

I also need to get started with some good books to read to him. I think most of my Sci Fi is not quite the right thing for bedtime stories, but surely I will come up with a good bedtime reading list before too long.

Tired

Well, I am really pooped today, so here are some photos from our visit to the botanical garden. This is a part of the stuttgart zoo.

I am tired because Liam is a disagreeable little hell baby this week.