Chaos theory

Missed the deadline

2011-03-13T22:54:00.002+01:00

I went to make myself a cup of hot chocolate this afternoon, but I discovered that I was too late:

My cocoa had expired 50 minutes earlier.

Domestic goddess

2011-01-23T14:45:00.003+01:00

Ages ago I bought a cookbook from Otus called Brot backen - Hausgemachte Spezialitäten, and I haven't really made much out of it. I guess I keep thinking I don't really need the recipes, but some of the ideas are nice (I am pretty happy with the breads I normally bake, but it is fun to look and say, "Oh yeah, I could mix bacon and gouda in before I bake it!") although I will admit that they have some that look softer or breakfastier or whatever (mine tend to be quite crusty). Anyway, one day I was flipping through and laughingly showed Allan a picture of a 2-pound (boneless) pork chop (a Kasseler) baked inside a loaf of bread. He told me that he had actually seen Kasseler at the store and thought they looked good, and since then often when we talk about what to eat for dinner, he mentions this. I stalled awhile, because with two-hour prep time (plus the foresight to have purchased a Kasseler) it doesn't really lend itself well to evenings, but earlier this week we committed and he picked out a Kasseler for Saturday. Then we left work early enough on Friday afternoon, so that I said I could get it done for dinner. And here it is!

I'd rather not ...

2010-07-13T22:10:00.002+02:00

So, I was in a meeting this morning where there was some talk of a new policy and whether everyone had been informed, and I had been told second-hand last week that it was made public, but hadn't seen the information first hand, and so I didn't know how to answer the question of whether everyone knew, but my boss was there and then after the meeting he said "Can you take care of making the announcement." I answered, "I can, but I won't do it with pleasure," and he said "Do it anyway."
So, I got busy as the day went on (as I do), and completely spaced it out, until around 4 when he came to see me and brought it up, asking me to send it to him for review. So I painstakingly write this email, full of formalisms like "bitte beachten Sie" and "mit sofortiger Wirkung" and "auf eine erfolgreiche Zusammenarbeit" and send it to him for review, and he answers with "great. now can you write it in english? :)"
Dude, if you had told me at 10 am that I could write it in English, I could have had it done at 10:15.

Resolution J10010

2010-07-13T20:49:00.001+02:00

I, after going to the outdoor pool at 7 pm on a 28° day, firmly resolve not to claim that the pool is too crowded at 6:07 am.

Darn shame when people throw away a perfectly good book

2009-11-07T22:09:00.002+01:00

In Heilbronn, there has been (since we moved here) recycling bins for glass and paper scattered around town, while other recycling (e.g., plastic, cans) has been picked up at the curb once a month. This has tended to work for us, but there have been some changes making it even more convenient. Our building got dumpsters for both recycling and paper, which saves me from having to make sure I get the bag to the right corner the right time of the right day or lugging a heavy bag of newspaper a couple blocks down the road. Unfortunately, the paper dumpster here has proven to not be big enough for once a month pick up, and the city says they won't be able to increase the frequency until next year. Which will correspond to them taking away all the paper collection bins at the unmanned recycling centers (too many problems with misuse, fires, etc).

Our paper dumpster isn't big enough, partly because there are some offices in our building, and partly because on occasion, there have been boxes thrown in without being broken down. This resulted in an open letter to the residents on the bulletin board and seems to be better, but the effect on me has been that I do actually have to note what day the dumpster is emptied and run out with my full box of recycling soon thereafter, before the dumpster is full again. Tuesday it was emptied, and so I said to Allan today that on our way out we should make sure that we take our paper out. The dumpster was surprisingly full (or not so surprising - since we aren't the only people saving ours up), and while I was holding the lid for Allan, my eyes caught not only some things that I don't consider to be recyclable paper (a whole box of panty liners????), but some things that just shouldn't be thrown away - brand new paperback books! Without even digging, I pulled 17 books back out, all released within the last two years, only two of them even looked like they had been read.

I was just stunned - who throws away books? Who doesn't have friends that want them or a book exchange to trade them at or a library/charity to donate them to? And why does this person live in my building?

Things I broke/fixed this week:

2009-01-10T13:38:00.005+01:00

Things I broke this week:

A bottle of slivovice that fell out of the fridge 2 minutes before I was supposed to go to work while I was pulling celery out to pack my lunch.

Things I fixed this week:

Nothing, but I did spend 11 hours one day characterizing cause of failure for things IT broke during the cut-over.

Oh wait, I just remembered: I fixed a pair of jeans and reattached the string to my hat, both of which tore on the 10-day, 3-country holiday extravaganza.

More news already?

2009-01-07T19:45:00.002+01:00

Goodness, nothing like starting writing to make you want to write more, is there ...
of course now I have forgotten again what it was I needed to say ... I think it was more about the subsets of food we ran into.

First of all, with the holiday we had some trouble finding anything open (or within 2 km of a parking space) in (the outskirts of) Genova other than pizzerias, so we ended up eating our fill of pizza (one of which had anchovies, because even though we had an Italian dictionary with us, the word acciuga was not in it. Hello?!? Who prints an Italian dictionary, no matter how compact, and doesn't include anchovy??? Granted, we had some suspicions even before we ordered, but I convinced Allan that no matter what it was, it wouldn't hurt him, and there were enough other good things on the pizza to surely render it edible.).

Speaking of rendering, in Lyon, we deliberately didn't eat at one restaurant which had an English translation for their menu, making it clear that they were serving calf's head, calf's liver, black pudding and tripe, and headed instead to a restaurant without an English translation where we could be in a bit more denial about what was being served. Unfortunately, my French let me down a bit, and the waiter didn't stop me from ordering cold foie (terrine) for my starter and hot paté (foie) for my dinner ... Allan on the other hand ordered Gratinée Lyonaise (under his standard premise that anything topped with cheese is good) and an Andoullie sausage, which he had long been wanting to try, for his main. Even though the waiter correctly (it turns out) served Allan a soup and me a paté, I convinced Allan there must be some confusion and made him swap with me (since I didn't know my main would be hot, I was afraid that I would end up with two cold patés, and the weather really couldn't accommodate such folly). So any way, Allan was a bit disappointed in the texture of his sausage, leading us on the following day to look up Andouille sausage in our not-so-handy (but (to Allan, at least) long-term (and generally) trustworthy) French dictionary, unfortunately only to find the rather vague definition 1) a sausage made primarily of chitterlings 2) fam, pej silly; stupid

I have now looked up chitterlings, but I am not allowed to be more specific because I got in so much trouble in 2004 for laughing about the tripe incident. Which, to be honest, I also told Allan to eat. Sorry Allan! But I ordered a salad with mystery food on it, too!

Random updates

2009-01-07T18:44:00.002+01:00

Hola, amigos. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya. I am working on changing my style because what I considered to be the level of drama required to make a story interesting was sometimes mistaken as complaining, and I got tired of being asked if I was unhappy. And besides that, too many people I know read the blog, and so I can't complain about things that people do - too big of a risk that they are among the readers!

I can't really catch ya up right away, but here is some idea of my current status:

I finished Allan's scarf. It has Space Invaders on it. Maybe there will be a picture someday.

Just rode Allan's bike to the movie rental place where we just got an account on Monday. Still a little shocked/annoyed that they charge by the calendar day, but they have deals that make it seem affordable. And actually, I guess compared to Blockbuster they are a steal, it is just that I didn't ever rent from Blockbuster either. Took Allan's bike because he has fenders and a generator, and since he wasn't going it was free. I knew that my leather gloves couldn't compete with woolen mittens, but I am shocked at how cold my fingers got! Then, oddly, on the way home it was my toes that were cold and my fingers were fine. Perhaps because the skin on them is already dead. Binged his bell at people (another feature his bike has that mine doesn't) and they moved. Yippee! Now maybe I will hop on my indoor bike for another round. In the warm.

Made chili. Seems like we do that a lot these days, but we were talking recently about how our repertoire is so much different than it was in the US - mostly because we cook what we can't get served, and that is a very different subset of the whole.

Speaking of subsets, we ate Ethiopian in Nice. Nice!

Oh - this might be exciting to some of you: my branch of the company finally got sold. It is expected to take about three more days before we are allowed to officially use our new name, so I am not sure what I am supposed to change my e-mail signature line to tomorrow. Because, oh yeah!, the IT split is finally going to happen. So I get to go to work at 5 am tomorrow and counsel the operators if there are any problems and be their contact to IT. Here's hoping for the best!

In other news, hope that everyone had a fabulous Christmas and New Year's! If you made resolutions, I am rooting for you! You can do it!

I love Cologne!

2008-11-26T09:38:00.004+01:00

No, not the smelly stuff that makes my nose itch; the city - Köln! By the time the train pulled in last night I was getting sleepy, even though it was just after nine. Maybe sleepy isn't the right word. Seasick is more like it. And I think it just started to press down on me.
I caught an U-Bahn to Friesenplatz and after consulting three maps started walking the couple hundred meters to my hotel. While walking there I saw so many bars and restaurants with big open windows and so many happy people out and enjoying the night. I could feel the energy of the city changing my mood and exhilarating me.
At the hotel, I was told that I had been upgraded because the hotel had overbooked, and that I should walk up the white marble staircase (oooh!) and take the elevator to the 7th floor. As I opened the door to my room and cleared the bed by a mere centimeter, I wondered what this room could be an upgrade from ... then I saw the bathroom, as big again as the bedroom, and the balcony running the length of the building (doors heading out from both the bedroom AND bathroom!). The balcony was decorated with lit Christmas trees and overlooking a Weihnachtsmarkt. I stood there for a while looking at and listening to the people before I put my coat back on and headed out to live in the city.

Back home!

2008-11-02T20:12:00.001+01:00

OK, we are back from 10 sunny days in Crete. But other than writing that note I don't actually have the energy to say anything else ... got a couple chores I want to get done yet tonight.

Things I love

2008-10-15T20:45:00.004+02:00

I love it when people make completely unqualified comments, like "If you didn't get a tax refund this year, you didn't do file your taxes right."

Um, maybe you should have asked me how much money I had withheld before you say that to me. And besides, I don't take tax advice from people who turn their returns in 6 months late (especially when they are getting refunds!!!!!) and have to field calls from the Finanzamt asking where it is.

Beer tickets

2008-10-09T20:54:00.002+02:00

So, we got our armbands and tickets for the Cannstatter Volksfest, but I am dismayed to report that they already smell like vomit. Crazy!

Oops!

2008-10-09T19:21:00.001+02:00

Came home from the store with yet another jar of mango chutney ...

Pacifically

2008-10-09T18:39:00.001+02:00

For the record, I neither pacifically nor atlantically chose Robbie Williams songs to load onto my iPod.

Top spam I have received this week:

2008-09-27T18:23:00.007+02:00

A summary of the best and most eye-catching:

3. Smooth date wheel adjustment. - because I can't tell if this is meant to be an enticing message or a random collection of words

2. Only 7 days left for Free* NFL Football tickets (Participation required) - I think it is the (Participation required) that won me over. I was hoping that they would just write to me and tell me that I had been chosen at random for a qualified something that I don't want and probably can't use even though I didn't participate.

1. bad news xhiler8ion... flea season just got worst! - the combination of bad grammar and irrelevance to my life.

but the winner is ...

everything that I received this week from info@cheesemines.com. Because all my life I have been dreaming of this mythical location where I could just go with my pick-ax and carve out cheese. I hope there are lots of different kinds. Like cheddar with pickle and Frischkäse and chevre and raclette cheese and ... oh, today there is a French market downtown - I think I need to be there instead of sitting in front of my computer!

"Cumshots caused my computer to panic!"

2008-09-25T22:04:00.003+02:00

I apologize profusely for the profanity, but seriously ... I was trying to check out the band playing in Weinheim with Firewater and it turned out the day before a band called The Cumshots were playing, and I wanted to see if they were the same punk scandinavian garage sound as the Heidelberg band Memphis Bitch and so I went to MySpace and it told me that I had to upgrade my version of Flash to listen to sound (Hello?!?!?) and so I was watching their video instead via the YouTube link on the MySpace page ... and yeah, I should've known better, but seriously. You know, there is a reason that I don't allow JavaScript and other crap, but I am glad that MySpace has found a way to not only blind you with their flashing hideousness (which Facebook is starting to resemble, make no mistake), but to just make you shut down and go to bed. Thank goodness I have backup computers so that I can bring you this public service message.

Steak with balsamic vinegar reduction

2008-09-04T22:06:00.003+02:00

So, when we were in Bologna however many Easters ago, on the last night Allan had a steak with a balsamic vinegar reduction (or so we read the Italian menu to say), which I remember being very nice, although I forgot about it afterwards. Since then Allan has occasionally mentioned it, but since we almost never cook meat (or so I claim), it just hasn't come up. But some time ago (um. 4th of July) we bought some steaks, then realized we wouldn't eat them in time, threw them in the freezer, and then brought them back out to thaw on Tuesday. Then forgot them again, made other plans for Wednesday dinner, so when reminding ourselves this morning that they had to be eaten, it seemed like the chance we had been waiting for. And it was quite nice, so I have decided to share. I made my reduction using:
1 c balsamic vinegar
1/3 - 1/2 c beef bouillon
couple glugs of cherry juice (maybe 1/4 c?)
Tb or so of brown sugar
Keeping it just at the edge of boiling, it took me maybe 30 minutes to get it down to 1/3 cup. During that time I boiled water for penne, and when I put the noodles in to cook I also put my steaks on. I seared both sides, then continued to cook the steak for about 6 minutes before removing them from the heat. I degreased the pan with some more beef bouillon and added that to my reduction, along with 1 - 1.5 Tb butter.

The steaks were actually in better shape than I expected, and the sauce was luscious. I have about a 1/4 c left that I think will go wonderfully on some ciabatta tomorrow.

Dr. Horrible

2008-07-19T11:24:00.000+02:00

Awesome! And only available until tomorrow!

Stress

2008-07-18T21:32:00.006+02:00

All friends, family and even long-term readers should know how I get with dreams. From the turtle flying out of the truck when I rolled it and getting two legs sticking out the same hole to Special K with dried bluebirds to being ready to release a new SCSI driver but realizing I hadn't yet tested the spherical drives, my dreams are complex, intense and disturbing. And usually closely related to things going on in my life. And while sometimes ridiculous, often close enough that I can't tell the difference between dreams and life even after I wake up. Last night was one of those nights.

I am sure that most of our jobs cannot really be summarized in the three or four words of our titles, but I still need to work on my "elevator speech" - I find that I still get stymied when asked what I do because there are so many things. As time went on at my last job, I often answered "perform miracles", but I knew "test software" (derived from my job title) was a good description, even if most of my time was spent training, writing test cases and software, managing people, debugging, talking to developers and setting up a compatibility lab rather than actually testing. It fit. But now my job title is "Equipment-Integration and Automation Engineer", and even though that actually is a good summary of what I do, it doesn't really make sense to people, and so I find myself having to describe, but details don't really help when talking to outsiders. Heck, sometimes it doesn't even help when talking to people down the hall, because even though my department is called Dispatch & Yield, many people refer to us as "Fab IT". I guess that what I do really does fit the true definition of information technology, but too often people seem to think that means that I will tell them why their computer isn't working or swap out the toner. Or somehow magically restart all the database applications or the connections to the terminal server, when I don't have a key or a password to any server of interest (or non-interest, for that matter).

Anyway, even if I can ignore the requests that _aren't_ part of my job, the ones that could be or sound like fun can pile up faster than I can handle them, and so my list of current and future projects just keeps getting longer and a lot of information comes my way either as a request or a heads up of a future request. So, I am working like crazy to finish up a big project and make sure that people actually use it, while testing and re-launching a project that started before I did but had to get pulled back out of production due to instability, covering for a guy who is out on a 5-week Kur, preparing for the second phase of the big project, and juggling the everyday data requests and log checks. So it probably should come as no surprise that last night I had an insane dream where I was suddenly reminded of a completely unrelated task involving someone I never see, in a room I have never been in and which was a matter of life and death. Logic did seem to have a fighting chance this time, though, because even in my dream I was saying: Jeannette, this can't be real. Even for your job, this is too outrageous. And if you had been told to do it it wouldn't be today and you would've remembered. But it can't be real. Get some sleep. You need it.

I don't know how effective it was, because I woke up exhausted and unable to get out of bed, but I didn't watch the digital clock changing at 4 am and I didn't have to get out of bed because of lack of ability to sleep, and the details have already started to fade, all of which are good signs. But I am especially excited about my ability to judge likelihood of reality in my sleep and attempt to steer my dream (called lucid dreaming, it is something I read about years ago and have hoped to be able to apply). This is a big step for me and will hopefully lead to more nights of good, relaxing sleep.

Check out this craziness ....

2008-06-17T20:24:00.005+02:00

So, I rode Allan's bike to Lidl (mine is still at Shelly's house) to look and see if they had any more cheese with pickle (they did). On my way home I dropped Allan's sick note off at the insurance company, looked into the record store across the sidewalk from it, rode to the Stimme to read the article Allan told me about (the one talking about flooding in Cedar Rapide and showing Iowa's location between Minnesota to the north and Montana to the south), picked up the movie theater's schedule and rode home. After parking my bike, I saw the couple who had been in line in front of me at Lidl walking past my house.

This triggered two thoughts - 1) Man am I fast! and 2) Why did they go all the way to Lidl when there are so many stores closer? (I know why I went (cheddar with pickle), but they bought three bottles of fabric softener! (Although on further thought, maybe they didn't go there to go shopping, they were in the neighborhood and stopped in for things they needed, because they didn't have enough bags with them for what they bought and had to buy an extra one. (Although further thought has trouble putting "three bottles of fabric softener" and "what they needed" in the same paragraph ...)))

Didn't run my half marathon

2008-05-26T13:20:00.002+02:00

Just to head off all the questions and congratulations now, I need to announce that I didn't run the Trollinger Half-Marathon yesterday.
My training started in January and was going well until my trip to the US in April, when I had a lot of strange knee pain. It wasn't a big problem, since I only went on two or three runs while there, and cleared up after I got back, keeping me on-track according to my training plan. The wonkiness kept recurring, though - it would hurt, I would take a week off, start slowly, run a couple kilometers without problem, think all was good, only for it to get wonky again. For weeks I hemmed and hawed on whether I would run, run part then walk, walk, or start and drop out, but I finally admitted to myself that I couldn't risk anything else with this knee, and that I shouldn't push it just out of stubbornness.

It was an agonizing decision and I actually promised myself that this was the last year I was going to try, but when I told the organizers that I couldn't run, they wished me well and offered to send me a half-price coupon to next year's run, which I accepted.

I am just such a sucker!

Your hair looks like a bird's nest

2008-05-23T11:42:00.002+02:00

"Your hair looks like a bird's nest." That, and "Your room looks like a tornado swept through it" were two common advisements from my mother as I was growing up. (The bird's nest becoming more common and the tornado less, the older I got.)

I considered those to generally be metaphors, though, until this week. No, I didn't get hit by a tornado (those are fortunately rare here in Germany); I was attacked by a crow on my way to work.

We were walking in to work the same way as always (as long as always is considered to be the way we have walked for the last year or two since we quit stopping at the bakery on the way to work). This way isn't necessarily shorter, but it is usually nicer. We walk under an arcade of trees along the river and not only do we avoid the stop light, we cross few streets and get to see duck sex or baby ducks, depending on the season, as well as the early morning drunks (also somewhat season dependent).

It is generally a very peaceful walk; the only exception that comes to mind are the couple weeks in late winter, before daylight savings time starts and while the trees are still leafless, when the murders of crows perching in the tree tops caw raucously as we walk beneath then launch in a great swarm or the occasional near miss of bird poop calls attention to the near solid sheet on the sidewalk, reminding us that we are engaging in risky behavior walking where we are.

But Tuesday was very different. Allan and I were walking along and talking, when suddenly a crow swooped down, passing through my hair, then continued on to perch on a branch. It watched us and screeched, we watched it and talked about the shock. I kept an eye on him as we walked past, even turning to look over my shoulder; it looked back. I started looking ahead; it was still cawing. Allan turned occasionally to keep an eye on it, and told me that the crow was moving from tree to tree, following us, when suddenly he made a second pass, once again touching my head.

Now I was really kind of freaked. I've read The Crows; I know that there was a special on TV about whether or not flocks of crows were dangerous (I didn't watch it, so I don't know the answer). Even though the crow didn't pull my hair or peck or scratch anything, he definitely brushed past it or went through it or something. I tried to pull my coat up over my head (with little success) and we crossed the street so we wouldn't be under the trees, but by then Allan said that the crow wasn't following us anymore.

What was it? Was my hair blowing in the breeze and looking alive? Did it look like good nesting material? Do I smell like whatever-it-is-that-crows-eat?

I've put a pony-tail elastic in my bag, so that I can pull my hair back on the way to work in the coming weeks ....

Whoo hoo!

2008-04-28T22:11:00.004+02:00

Today, barely a week before my birthday, I got the most fantabulous present!

On my everlasting search for a workable treatment for my psoriasis, I am currently doing the Dead-Sea-salt-soak regime. It seems to be going well, and has the benefit of only making me sit still for twenty minutes two to three times a week (a big improvement over the UV treatment, which involved a ten-minute walk, up to sixty-minute wait, fifteen minutes of standing around naked with my eyes closed, and another ten-minute walk). Unfortunately, the soak does still require me to sit/lie still for twenty minutes. Which is where the new toy comes in:

A bath caddy that holds a book, two drinks, and a candle, and promises to make the otherwise boring but unavoidable bath time at least doable! (Although, to be honest, today I lit the candle, spilled my wine in the tub, and put a book there but didn't open it; I still insist it has potential.)

Well spotted, Allan! (But to be fair, he had a little help: I told him I wanted it and how much it should cost, told him where and when it was for sale, and went and bought it. PS, Allan - you owe me 5€!)

The new me!

2008-04-19T15:28:00.003+02:00

I talked on the phone today! To four people/answering machines! The day started with the phone ringing and then I actually called three other people. Now I am exhausted by all this human/machine contact, and am ready for a break. Oh, yesterday I called someone too! Hopefully this isn't some kind of crazy exponential growth thingy where I have to talk to 9 people tomorrow!

Vizslas in advertising

2008-03-13T21:40:00.002+01:00

Came across this picture in an ad today. Perhaps the photographer isn't aware of the danger of buying kids jogging clothes and then giving them a vizsla. I assume that everyone with a vizsla is well aware of the danger ...

Pottery booty!

2008-03-02T21:05:00.004+01:00

So, back in January I took a two-day pottery wheel class. I always thought I would be good at throwing pottery, but other than making one pot on a wheel in Turkey when the potter asked me if I wanted to try it (and I couldn't keep that one, because I couldn't go back the next day to get it) I hadn't had an opportunity. It was a little weird when I showed up for the class, though - the teacher had specified a max of 8 people in the class, but even though I had gotten the confirmation, my name wasn't on the list. And 8 other people showed up. I got to stay, though, and I had a great time. The teacher asked if I had done it before and said I was a natural talent.

Since there weren't enough pottery wheels to go around (even before I showed up unannounced), we had to take turns throwing and the instructor gave us modelling clay to use during our off turns. I wasn't terribly thrilled about the idea of modeling based on past disastrous experiences (family and friends can probably vouch for 12 years' worth of awkward art-class pottery), but it was that or sit there while waiting my turn. After rolling out some clay and rolling it back together several times, I followed a how-to from of one of the books the Lore had made available and tried my hand at an Art Nouveau-style platter, and although it looked bulky and awkward in the red clay, I put my name on it and left it to dry.

Before the next morning, I decided that there was something I had always wanted to make - pre-Columbian masks. I searched the web for some pictures to take with me before I headed out to the second day of class.

Although the class description only promised us white glaze, late in the day the instructor offered the option of either white glaze that we could paint when we met again in 5 weeks, or black-brown or blue glaze. Recognizing that my painting skills are as poor as my modelling skills, and clueless as to what I was going to do with the stuff I had made anyway (I really only went to this class because I wanted to throw the pots, not because I had any use or place for the products!), I marked 80% of the stuff to be glazed black-brown or blue.

On February 15th we had the third meeting to paint. I was surprised to find that painting was more fun than I expected (and that the black-brown glaze was kind of 70s kitchen tile colored and not nearly as nice as it sounded) and so completely changed my mind about what should end up which color. I tried to hurry home because it was Allan's birthday (although his new World of Warcraft phase meant that he barely noticed I wasn't there), and Lore told us that we could come back on the 29th to pick up the finished products. So, here it is! My pottery booty!

Procrastination, ha ha!

2007-11-08T19:10:00.000+01:00

OK, I have always been a procrastinator (as Allan, trying to get me to pick a date and actually get married, can attest to). But this time I have really taken it to the extreme. And now I am still not doing what I am supposed to be, but blogging about it. Man, am I bad!

Too many voices!

2007-11-05T21:22:00.000+01:00

OK, we just had a long weekend and for the first time in ages there was a long enough break in the voices outside of my head for me to listen to the ones inside (the source of blogs). It's been fairly blog-free lately because there has been a lot going on, although I am not sure I got much done. As anyone who reads Allan's blog or views his photostream has probably figured out, we were in Italy at the beginning of the month. Got back from that on a Wednesday night; I went in to work Thursday on the way to a trade fair to pick up my business cards only to discover that the printer had decided I couldn't be trusted to spell my own name and had changed it in both the bold type and the email address, as well as getting my phone number wrong, making them entirely unusable; went to the trade fair unsure what exactly my purpose was, but had a good time anyway, managing to talk straight through lunch. At three I realized that I was scoping booths to see how many had unguarded chocolate near the outside and decided to just go home. Friday I went to work where I had one day of overlap with my boss before his three-week vacation, during which he told me that while I was gone someone else had presented on my most recent software project, and that he found that so cheeky he expected me to present on it at the next cross-functional team meeting; I came down with a cold (which my mother told me I had only because I was bored) and dragged myself through a rather unproductive week at work because I didn't think I was bad enough to skip altogether, and besides I have so much work to do! Went looking at apartments with Shelly, which was interesting; remembered that it wasn't much fun when I had to do it for myself, and can't decided if it is actually more or less fun to do it when you don't get to/don't have to decide or move yourself. Baked 18 dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for three different occasions; ate probably 18 of them myself.

Since I am in buying-myself-Christmas-present/
putting-previously-received-Christmas-presents-to-use mode, I bought myself my first ever guitar and have worked my way up to page 10 of the Play Guitar Today! book Nick bought me while I still lived in Colorado. Which isn't bad considering it took three days to get it tuned/stretch the strings enough to keep it in tune for more than 5 minutes and I caught another cold and we went on vacation again, this time to Austria.

I still have a thousand things to do for work, another vacation to plan, and a turkey to baste. Maybe sometime during those there will be enough peace and quiet for me to formulate another update.

Merry Christmas to me!

2007-09-24T21:45:00.000+02:00

I finally took my Christmas money out and bought myself what I had petitioned for - the Elite Chrono Fluid indoor bike trainer. By last winter when I wanted it it seemed like I would be outside again soon, but Allan mentioned it last week and we went out and picked it up. I not only wanted to be able to bike inside when the weather was bad, but I justified it in part because it would give Allan a chance to try some different bike sizes and settings. I of course went through the usual lengthy decision process - which model exactly when one feature and 50Euros was the difference between every step, to buy in person or online, to buy at all....

So we carried it home from the store just before going out Saturday but it is now set up and we have both taken a turn on it. After much discussion of which bike to put on it we started with Allan's bike, but its tires just made so much noise I brought mine in and hooked it up. I had read and been told that the trainer was really rough on tires, but the explanation of why didn't prepare me for the fact that after 20 minutes of riding the rubber was flying. It is what I wanted, though - quiet enough to watch TV (as long as you turn the TV up), stable enough to read and ride, the comfort of my own bike, a surprisingly tiring workout, and convenient. Thanks, everyone! Merry Christmas! (And if I am actually going to start buying Christmas presents, what is next? The guitar or the bass?)

Just for attention ...

2007-09-14T17:07:00.001+02:00

So Knut, the celebrity polar bear at the Berlin zoo, who was reported way back in April to be getting steadily less cute (happens to all of us when we get bigger, Knut! Don't take it personally), has reappeared in the news this week (well, reappeared to me - I guess depending on where you get your news he might not have dropped out) because he is suspected of feigning a limp in order to get attention. And it is working. The article goes on to say that Knut has gotten hundreds of emails since he started this. I guess he was checking his email and complaining about the lack of new messages. If he hadn't been abandoned as a cub, his mom probably would have told him, like mine told me, that if you want people to write to you, you have to write to them.

Welcome back!

2007-09-03T19:30:00.000+02:00

Well, I have been pretty anti-social for a while now, neither reading nor writing blogs nor even really calling people, even people that I knew I had to catch up with. But maybe I made the calls I did make count. I called Stefi, a friend I went to school with in 8th grade (and went to Munich with when I was in college). It was a call I knew that I should make, but I had been putting off because it was too much effort. First, I had to call her parents to get her number (and imagine how you would feel if someone called you at your house in a town of a couple thousand, spoke to you in a foreign accent, and asked the name and contact information for your youngest daughter, claiming to be an old classmate...) But they gave me the info, even telling me not to put off calling for long, because she was going to go on vacation after the weekend. I wasn't going to stall, because the pressure to get her info was due to the upcoming
Pop im Hafen, a free open-air festival in Mannheim, the city she went to university in. I had only known about the festival for a couple of days, during which I had been invited along by a friend, and then told that she couldn't go.

Well, it turned out that Stefi couldn't go either, because she has two kids, her father-in-law's birthday, and, as her parents had mentioned, was getting ready to go on vacation. But we had a really nice chat and promised to stay in touch and visit eventually. I unfortunately forgot to ask for her e-mail address, my favorite way of making plans, and I don't know when she gets back from vacation, so I don't know if I should invite her up to visit for the Heilbronner Weindorf. Which might be ok - a lot of other people are going to visit. But with nine days and 300 different wines, I can use all the help I can get!

Earlier that week I had been in Erlenbach at their Weinfest and royally amused myself. I rode my bike over after work and met Katja, Swen, and their daughter Selena. To avoid lines later, I bought a bottle of Lemberger mit Trollinger at the first stand I went to, while Swen stood in line for Zwiebelkuchen and Perterlingkuchen and Katja bought Apfelsaftschorle. When Katja got back, I said "I bought a whole bottle, I hope that the varietal is ok with you." She looked at me, shocked, and said, "A whole bottle? Was that a language problem, or just bad judgement?" What? It wasn't even a whole liter, merely a .75! And we were three adults, right? OK, one was driving ... but it isn't like neither of the rest of us and never drunk two glasses of wine. While we were standing in line, a woman in front of us (nosey biddy!) asked us if we were American or German, she couldn't tell. Katja laughed and cleared her up, quite amused because K. is pretty sure that the woman was an English teacher at her high school. She never did volunteer to speak English with us .. hee hee.

Anyway, what suddenly got me back into the blogging mood could partly be getting Allan back, but definitely had something to do with going to Munich for the weekend! I haven't been on a good self-determined vacation in forever, and it was wonderful being alone with Allan and able to make our own schedule. I don't know that there is that much to tell about being there - an uneventful journey in a cabin to ourselves where Allan could take a quick nap, a nice hotel, a good Thai curry, some olives stuffed with cream cheese in the beer garden on Viktualienmarkt, a bad pastry, a really good Shahi Baingen with eggplant and paneer chunks, a Maß at the beer garden, a bad Jean-Claude movie on TV, a great night's sleep, too much breakfast, the Deutsches Museum where I got to look at retired fab equipment, one of the best Käsespätzles ever, another nice beer, and a train ride with a couple delays but which got us there in time to get on a train without waiting very long and gave me time to read not only my Heilbronn Stimme but also a Mannheimer Morgen that someone else had left lying there. Then I took a bath in my Dead Sea salts, and curled up in my own bed again. A weekend as they should be!

Scary!

2007-08-05T17:20:00.000+02:00

So, Friday I am at work, as I tend to be, and my meeting-filled day was just getting going when I decided a coffee would help me through my 10:15 "Cross-functional Team" meeting. I don't drink much coffee, but at work I have a bag of instant cappuccino (hazelnut/chocolate flavor at the moment) that I can mix with boiling water, or I can run down to the machine that spits out cappuccino for 33 cents. I decided to go to the machine, so I picked up my mug, looked at the sticky little puddle formed by the undrunk drips of the last one I had a couple days earlier, and headed down the stairs.

The coffee machine in my building was turned off, so I went back up, down the hall and down the stairs to the vending machines near the cafeteria. A service guy was there with his cart of coffee powder but he was busy talking to a girl who said that her candy bar didn't fall out and trying to make her a deal so I squeezed around them, pushed button 3, option 1, paid my money, and waited for the mug to fill.

I finished my coffee while cleaning up the code for the oven monitor I am writing, and went to my meeting. For some bizarre scheduling reason there were two groups presenting and they promised to keep it quick (which the first department did), but the head of Quality had come to this meeting and so in the second half some new discussions about process started.

At about 11 I was starting to feel uncomfortable - stiff, mostly - but I blamed it on the chair and sitting in one spot. By 10 after 11, my mind was wandering and my neck was hot and my back hurt, but again, I figured it was just the meeting doing it. By quarter after, I had alternating phases of goosebumps and sweat, and I was afraid to try and stand up and leave. At 20 after the meeting broke up and I was trying to decide if I would actually survive leaving. I told the oven guy, even though he didn't seem the right distance away, that I needed his process times, and a colleague approached me about project status we were supposed to discuss. I told her that I needed to go to the bathroom because I felt funny, but that I would check in with her soon.

When I got to the bathroom and sat down, my legs started shaking really bad, and the goosebumps were back. I know that I was jittery when I went back to tell her that I couldn't talk and I wasn't feeling better, and so I just passed her the print outs of what I had done. Walked past my boss's office and said "I suddenly don't feel well, I am going home." He barely looked up in time to see me walking by wearing my sweater (in the middle of July!) and leave; I felt like he nodded, but it didn't really matter. I couldn't stay.

I actually considered laying down on my office floor and locking the door, but that didn't sound like much fun, so I grabbed a bottle of water and my bag and headed for home. Just after I walked through the turnstile (the point of no return), it occurred to me that maybe I was actually too sick to walk home and that maybe I should've stayed and gone to the nurse's office or something. As I was walking along my fingers started to hurt and I looked down and saw that all my fingernails were blue. Thinking that that only happened when your heart stops, I checked my pulse. It seemed ok.

I walked down the riverside path flexing my fingers. I had to put the bottle of water in my bag after I noticed it slipping out of my hand, and I eyed the benches longingly. Thinking back to our stops on benches post-marathon, though, and remembering how hard it was to get off them then, I knew it would be a bad idea, and told myself (probably out loud) that I was almost home. I walked into my apartment and crawled straight into bed - jeans, sweater, contacts, everything. I tried to find a way of making my summer cotton blanket seem warmer by doubling it over, and then I lay there for two hours, shivering.

Around two o'clock I decided that sleeping wasn't going to happen, that maybe I felt a little better anyway, and that laying in front of the TV was just as good a way to recover. Before getting up I took my temperature and came up with the (to me) completely worthless number of 38.2 (yeah, I have never taken my temperature in Celsius before). I converted that to Fahrenheit and got 101, but then I had to google to see if that was a dangerous number or not. I didn't really find an answer, so I mic'ed some Spätzle, put in a Battlestar Galactica DVD and settled in on the couch.

I started to feel well enough to care what was wrong with me, and put my symptoms into a diagnosis search engine - blue fingernails, sweating, shivering, goosebumps, muscle pain, headache - couldn't get a match on all of them, but depending on how I grouped them (which I included and which I left out) it seemed to be heart attack, liver failure or a panic attack. I decided to stick with my original self-diagnosis of food poisoning or the flu.

By the time Allan came home at 6, I had shed the sweater and showered, and other than a headache was feeling a lot better. Better enough to want to go to the annual work party. I was slow moving and light headed, and I didn't stay very long, but it was nice to get out of the house (even if it meant seeing people I had been supposed to meet with but had cancelled due to illness). I was also shocked to see two people from my department (including my boss) there, because a mere two days earlier we had talked about it at our staff meeting and no one seemed to even remotely be considering attending.

Interestingly, while there I talked to a friend who told me that they had just, as of that day, changed the brand of cappuccino mix they were using in the machines, because they had all run out - could it be an allergic reaction to the new formula or a result of gunk sitting in the tubes?

The next Monday when I was back at work, the two co-workers who didn't go ask me how it went and I told them that I didn't stay long and described my symptoms. One of them told me that sounded exactly like what he and his wife and daughter had been through recently, except that they ended up bed-ridden for 10 days. Perhaps my three- to four-hour attack was just the time it took for the antibodies in my flu shot to identify the cause and take out the virus.

Alumni-only social networking site

2007-08-01T17:08:00.000+02:00

So, just over a week ago, the Iowa State University Alumni Association announced that for a limited time only (through Homecoming, October 20th this year), their social networking site or online alumni community, CySpace was going to be open to all alumni, whether members of the Alumni association or not. Unfortunately, they didn't tell all of us about it ... I heard about it from my husband, not from the Alumni Association themselves, although they always know how to find me when they want money. (Actually, though, they may have cut back a little since last year when they wrote a money-begging letter to "Mrs. Maiden Name" that touched a nerve and triggered a lecture from me about how considering how long they had known me and that they knew my name when I was 17 and were an institute of higher learning and had tracked me across more moves and addresses than I could recall, I thought that they were capable of choosing the right title.)

After hearing about it I went to the website where I found no mention of the deal nor any way of logging in as a non-member. But, if I followed the link to update my information I got a message that I needed a nine-digit code from the Alumni Association to verify my identity (email address provide to request this), and it turned out that the same nine-digit code would get me into the site.

The search ability is much better than it was 7 years ago when they released a directory on CD as a DOS application, but there are still problems, the gravest of which are, in my opinion:

1) No search by hometown. The phone books during school always listed a person's hometown, and there were a lot of people whom I remember as e.g. "Pat from Cedar Falls" or "Debra from Clinton". A big improvement with the current version is the labeling - in the previous version, the "current residence" field was labeled "hometown", which was misleading.

2) Missing information (that can't be changed/entered by the user). If I look up members of the Forensics team, only a few names are returned, and mine isn't among them. According to the Alumni Association information, I didn't do anything while I was at the university. There is an email address I can write to to get information added. I haven't bothered yet because it feels like something I only get one chance at and have to make sure my information is complete first.

3) Inconsistent data formats. For example, my "Residence as Student" is listed as "Willow Hall, Linden Hall, Off-Campus". This is correct, although in the wrong order. Not really an issue, but if I want to search for "Holly who lived on my floor", I have to choose from a drop-down list. This list includes the entries "RCA", "Maple-Willow-Larch", "Willow Hall", and "Willow Hall, Tompkins House", which is increasing granularity, like saying "I live in/on Earth, Europe, Germany, Heilbronn". But the search doesn't know that Heilbronn is on Earth! So, until I find a person and know what term was used for their residence, I have to search or select each term. This is a real pity, because there were people like "Zach from Birch-Welch-Roberts" or "Michelle from Oak-Elm" where I can't be more specific, but depending on how their entry is written, I might not be able to find them (or, I have to select every floor in the dormitory, which is a little less than fun when the TextArea only shows five lines). And to make it worse, not only is the format questionable, but information is missing. Allan's entry shows only one dorm floor, not "Off-Campus".

4) Address entry is free form/has fields that can't be searched. Let me be more specific. It is actually great that the form accepts addresses outside the US. And I don't really want anyone searching on/viewing my address. That could be a little creepy. But, the problem is how it is entered. When I enter or view my information, there are five lines for address, plus city, state (a drop-down list of the fifty states, three armed forces addresses or the option "Not in the US" - this field is not required!) and ZIP, plus "County (if domestic) / Country (if international):". OK, I wrote my full address in the first three lines, the way mail to me would be addressed. I filled in City, skipped State as inappropriate, and filled in County/Country. The problem is, you can only search on the fields "City" and "State".
When I entered "Not in the US" as a search term to try and find fellow alumni in Germany, there were only three matches. If I try "Armed Forces - AE" I find one person in Germany (not one of the above). Allan and I don't turn up in either of these searches.

5) Since the Alumni Association didn't widely publicize the availability of this service, no one is ever on line or has provided contact information!

6) According to Merriam Webster, an alumnus is: a person who has attended or has graduated from a particular school, college, or university. And yet, CySpace only shows people who actually graduated from ISU - how many of the people I can't find transferred to another school or took a break or had a life issue and just didn't finish? Where are the guys from Merrill I studied with my freshman year (I didn't know at the time that they were all on academic probation and wouldn't come back - I thought it was possible to listen to Rush and drink under a black light and pass!)

Why do I care? I don't know ... I have some random names in my head of people I went to school with; I am curious as to where they are now; I am wondering if there is anyone else in town or close by to meet up with; if I were looking for a job (and someday I probably will be), it could be great to contact some people that I have some kind of tie to; you know, all the reasons behind social networking sites to start with. This one has potential because we all have something in common to start with - I just can't find the people to make the connection!

P.S., if you know any of the people I mentioned above and where they are, or are one of said people, get in touch! Other than that, what do you think? Should I write to the people I did find and say hi if I have nothing else to say?

Movies

2007-07-31T20:20:00.000+02:00

So, we almost never go to the movies. We almost never did anyway, but the move to Germany made it even rarer - the benefits of watching movies at home (volume control, backing up if missed something, subtitles if really missed something, price) just made it seem like the obvious choice.

I have actually known almost since we got here that the "art house" cinema around the corner showed movies in the original language on Thursdays, but even that was never really a draw. Since it is the artier theater it wasn't necessarily what I wanted to see and with only one show time a week it didn't necessarily fit into my schedule. Even movies I wanted to see seemed to sneak up on us due to the schedule not coming out until Thursday, the same day of the showing, and the fact that the show time ranges from apparently 5 to 9 pm.

Anyway, we were talking to a friend about seeing H.P and the Order of the Phoenix when it came out and trying to make plans and I called to see if they could tell me what was playing as early as Monday or Tuesday night. I didn't understand what the employee told me (something like "hat fizz") at first, but as soon as I hung up and started saying it out loud I was like, oh yeah, "Hot Fuzz"! It didn't take us long to make that a higher priority than Harry Potter (we've read the book), and so we went. Along with all of 5 other people at 6 pm. And it was fabulous! Allan and I still say "Yarp!" to each other almost daily and giggle insanely.

And it looks like it kind of broke us out of the not-going-to-the-theater slump, because last week we went to see Shrek III (this time at 8:45 with 8 others - the ticket girl did say that experience shows more people come to the later showings!), and we are planning on watching Die Hard IV this week just because we can.

And then, the next week is the Order of the Phoenix. Hee hee!

Self-abasing make-up post

2007-05-31T19:00:00.000+02:00

So, I haven't been allowing myself the fun of blogging for a couple of weeks because I hadn't done my taxes yet and I felt the need to punish myself. But I gave them their final read-over last night, recopied them, and biked them over to the office this morning at 8. Yes, I do know that they were due today, and trust me, I am embarrassed by my own behavior.

This is the third time I have had to do my taxes in Germany, so I knew what to expect. I thought. And really, my general feeling about this tax return is that it is doable. So why did I wait so long? Well, I sat down one Sunday to work on it, but I expected too much of it to be copy-over-able from last year's return, and so I let a couple of points confuse me.

In a funny aside, twice I have now asked friends if they understood the whole deal and could look at it, and both times the people I asked told me that they weren't the people in their family who filed the returns. There aren't a lot of people I am comfortable showing my tax return to - these two were people who already knew what one or both of us get paid, so other than that there was only the one question about whether I didn't have additional insurance. I was like, What?! I pay gobs of money every month for the obligatory stuff, what more could I need?

There were some more comments I meant to make about the whole tax return in Germany process, though. My first year, I went in with my year-end income summaries and an employee at the tax office told me what I needed to fill in. My second year, I filled in the numbers I thought I should, took it in and showed it to an employee, and she told me what was and wasn't right. After dropping off my second tax return, I found out that there are instructions! Why hadn't anyone decided to tell me about these earlier? I think this is also one of the reasons I thought this year's return should be so easy - if I had gotten through it twice before, how hard could it be now that there were instructions?

Since last year I also knew that there was a program released by the tax office so that you could do something electronically - as far as I could tell, only type the numbers in and submit electronically, but because I was running Linux and that wasn't supported, it didn't really matter. This year I got a packet of forms and the instruction book in the mail before Christmas. There was a note in it telling me that I could go on line for the electronic thing, but remembering what I remembered from last year, I didn't bother. So what did I see this morning (when it was too late?) - yes, loyal readers, a poster on the door that said that now the electronic helper thing is available for MacOS and Linux! And, that it will "automatically fill in the numbers". This is actually a pretty big thing, because all a German tax return consists of is copying numbers off of a document that the tax office and you both received a copy of, putting them into a couple of differently numbered lines (you know - copy line 14 into line 2, then line 2 into line 17, then line 17 into line 14). Or did it say that it would copy over the old numbers, like American tax software does? Hmmmm. That doesn't seem like such a big deal, because that is just the number of people in your family, SSN, address, right? I mean, those number are pretty long here, so that would be nice, but not that big of a deal.

Either way, though, it does sound tempting, and next year in January I will have to check it out.

Or maybe February.

Food, glorious food.

2007-05-31T14:29:00.000+02:00

Some people I know are ambivalent about food and can't understand how excited/obsessed I get about food or how I can come home from a trip to, e.g., France and my first mention is the snail, tomato&mozzarella baguette, or Indian food that I ate while I was there, when they were perhaps expecting to hear about the Pont du Gard, the Cathedral, or the Eiffel Tower. But what can I say? I was raised with great food and I enjoy trying new things.

Well, after knowing for something like a year that there _was_ an Ethiopian restaurant in town (we tried to go, really! But they don't do lunch, and they have a band every night, and so we just never got there when they were open for dinner!), we went. And it was SOOOOO good! And I am SOOOO stuffed. We both got the vegetarian sampler plate, as usual. I don't know why I didn't bring some home - in Denver I always used to shove the leftovers in a box and eat it for breakfast/lunch the next day. I guess because restaurants don't really pack stuff up for you here and if I don't take my own plastic box into which I can stealth said leftovers I don't feel right.

Anyway, it is definitely on the list for future dates! I know that we were probably there earlyish by German standards, but we were the only people there, and that always scares me when I see a restaurant like that (take as an example the two good Indian restaurants that were in town and closed because we were the only ones there. But the good Indian restaurant in the town next door remains open even though we are the only ones there. Granted, we take 10 people with us when we go, but it still feels strange ...)

Always a bridemaid, never a bride?????

2007-05-30T22:01:00.000+02:00

As I was rubbing Allan's feet with Foot Therapy Peppermint Foot Scrub and Creme, I mentioned that if he liked it he would have to approve me being bridesmaid at another wedding (because this specific product was a bridesmaid gift at Brigitte's wedding), and he answered "You can be a bridesmaid as often as you want, in fact, go for it. As long as you don't become a bride."

Hunh????

Very disturbing dream ...

2007-05-19T11:18:00.000+02:00

Maybe this is the karmic result of my previous laughter (see the last post) - although I assumed that was reflected in the non-stop rain we have had here for over a week - but I had the craziest dream last night.

I was on a plane with Allan, and it landed and I got off behind him. As I walked down the sky steps and stepped down to ground level, I saw a dead body. Police and other officials were already there, and someone turned and yelled at me that I had exited the airplane the wrong way, and that I had to go back. Allan didn't get sent back, but I thought to myself, fine, I will follow the rules, I will catch up with Allan later. So I went back up the stairs, crossed the plane, and exited from the other door. On the way down the other side, I ran into Michelle and her son. At the bottom of the stairs we got shuffled straight onto a bus and I couldn't see Allan any more, but I didn't worry much, figuring we would catch up at baggage claim.

The very crowded bus (I was shoved in the front right at the little turnstile that keeps people from pushing the driver) took what I thought was a rather long route, acting more like a city bus than a plane-to-terminal bus, including one stop at an icy field in Chicago where 90% of the passengers got off to play "moon walk" (yes, I was watching a documentary about the faking of the moon landing just before bed). Michelle, Trevor and I stayed on the bus waiting for better weather. For some reason Michelle and I both had big, unwieldy trays of food, both meat and fruit, that we were carrying with us from our origin. We got off the bus and had to go up and down stairs, through dark hallways (with the trays in our hands we couldn't reach the light switches), into a parking lot where we picked up Michelle's SUV (I know that you would never have an SUV, Michelle, no offense! Compare that minor detail to everything else in the dream!), but Trevor kept wandering off or dawdling behind . When we found him, he was very upset, but as soon as we started walking, he would disappear again. (Sorry to you too, Trevor! I don't mean to imply that that is typical behavior!)

Every time I looked, the tray in my hands had fewer items - between people snatching things every time I looked away, items falling off that I couldn't pick up, and, finally, leaving the tray itself on the roof of Michelle's car before she drove down a flight of stairs, before long there was nothing left. We finally got to a busy street, and, in theory, the airport was in sight (yes, I am officially acknowledging that I had gotten lost between the plane and the terminal).

There were tour guides in Victorian dress at the stop lights, walking with us and the other pedestrians when the light turned green, telling us local trivia in the hopes that we would tip, who then continued to accompany us down the street. Michelle mentioned, though, that she recognized the neighborhood, and since it had taken us so many hours to get there, she was sure that Allan would be at the Vietnamese restaurant we had eaten at the day before, waiting for us. We left the tour guides and ducked down an alley, before arriving at a truck stop/bowling alley/Vietnamese restaurant, and, sure enough, Allan was in there, eating dinner with Brigitte and Randy. They mentioned that they had thought about trying to call me on my cell phone (at the words cell phone, I reached my hand toward my pocket and suddenly realized that I did have it with me, something I hadn't thought about up till now), but that they knew that it wouldn't work in the US because of the varying standards.

Allan had already ordered me dinner, as if he knew that I would get there any second.

A bad karma thing to do

2007-04-14T15:10:00.000+02:00

Allan already warned me once and said everything was closed in Paris because I laughed when I saw the weather report on CNN, but I can't help it. Hope that spring and summer come your way soon, friends and family in Iowa!
(That is 75°F for me and 31°F for you, if you don't think in Celsius.)

They are so cute when they are young ...

2007-04-04T21:53:00.000+02:00

Today I had a Schülerpraktikant - a co-worker arranged to bring his son to work during the school's spring break and he was assigned to me for the day "because he likes working with computers and I thought he could get a feel for everything from you". It turns out that "he likes to work with computers" means "he runs Windows and plays video games", but whatever. I had high hopes. I was going to show him an application we are working on and get him to write test cases for me. I have always thought that test is a great approach to programming. I mean, you can't write safe code unless you know how people will break it, right? Although I am sure that I just took my last application a little bit over the top - idiot-proofing an internal application the same way I would a web form for the public.

The experience started out poorly, as when I met him yesterday he was too shy to answer a direct question, but by noon today he had interrupted my description of the application with a wish list for improvements that he was sure would save the fab time and money. So I asked him how much money he thought our current method was costing us and how long it would take him to implement his suggestion. His answer, "Well, I don't know how to program yet, but if you show me how I will do it."

Busy, busy bee

2007-03-25T21:45:00.000+02:00

So, February 19th my boss tells me that a co-worker is going to a specific Java class (Java II, offered by a company I will call UI) in April in Frankfurt, and that I should look into it and sign up for the same class. While I understand that I could learn enough Java on my own in my free time to catch up with whatever was taught in Java I, I feel like I too often take the wrong class, and I really wanted to get filled in on the basics and start in the right place, rather than skip ahead and always have a hole. So, I was really excited when I looked at the company's website and found out that they offered "Java intensive for programmers with previous experience in other object-oriented languages" (believe it or not, the name of the course was shorter and sexier in German, I just can't find a good translation at the moment). And, the good news was that there was a class offered in March in Frankfurt, and when I checked my calendar I realized that VNV Nation was playing at the Batschkapp one of the nights. I was stoked and went back to my boss with the news, but he side-tracked me. He started asking about other possible dates and cities, and before I knew it I had mentioned the coming week and Munich. He latched on to that, although I said that I wasn't sure it would work. He asked me why, and I had to admit that it was because we were planning on going to see Dan Bern on Friday night (I stopped myself from saying that besides, I wanted to go to a concert in Frankfurt when the company had me there anyway).

Somehow I also let it slip that really Friday wasn't the best day to go see Dan, but since no one knew the address for the Saturday concert in Achern, we were going to go see him Friday in Offenburg because we could at least find the hall there (even though the people in Achern would hold tickets for us, something the Offenburgers weren't willing to do). It turns out my boss had an agenda, though, and so he actually sat down with me and helped me find the general area of the concert venue on a map. Crazy. Anyway, that cinched it and next thing I knew I was scheduled to take off for Munich in just a couple days.

As he signed the paperwork, he said "Excellent. Three flies with one blow." Only later did it occur to me that I only know what two of the flies were. That makes me a little nervous. Anyway, I went to the class, all went well, and now I know Java (ha ha!). The weather was pretty rough, and I am having a tendon issue in my heels that can make walking painful, but I had a good time even when I wasn't in school. As far as the material goes, I always either got it or didn't. All the example programs were about some oven object with chamber objects and burnable objects. As long as we were working on real processing stuff, I was always the first done with the exercise. The day we did GUI stuff I was last. I have never done a GUI for anything, and I was lost. Anyway, the teacher was good, I guess. He would get really excited and stammer in a Viennese accent, but once I got used to that I was okay. He even pronounced the English reserved words in Viennese instead of the standard German that I have gotten used to.

During the exercises he tended to hover, though, and would tell me to have the IDE automatically fill in the imports and create the procedures instead of writing them myself, and even when I told him that I wouldn't learn if I did that he would repeat it the next time. Or tell me what errors he could see on the screen instead of letting me wait until I found him. By Thursday I would cover the screen with my hands when he walked by and refuse to work until he left, because it was driving me crazy!

It has now been three weeks, and I haven't had a chance to write anything in Java yet, because I am swamped with other projects. I will start by trying to maintain/expand someone else's code, which I have mixed emotions about. The structure and examples are already there, but will I be able to find my way through them? At the moment I am struggling with the IDE, because it has been showing me that all the necessary libraries are in the project, but still tells me that it can't find any class declarations. Grrrrrrrr.

On a happier note, here are a couple pictures I snapped in Munich on the couple occasions when the clouds broke:

So much to say,

2007-03-25T19:40:00.000+02:00

but no good starting point. I don't know what is up with me lately; I have so many things I want to talk about that I can't get started. I know that is probably textbook-procrastinator or generally overstimulated behavior or something, but it is the case at the moment.

I guess all I can do is get started somewhere and take it as it goes, just like I do with my task list at work (although the work task list is a topic in and of itself, which I won't go into at the moment).

My new office!

2007-02-25T11:34:00.000+01:00

So, at the moment I have an office all to myself! The peace and quiet is lovely. I even have windows, but the view is less than spectacular.

(I mean the view out the windows, you punks! For more detail of what is blocking my view, see here.)

Not talking about work for a minute.

2007-02-13T21:09:00.000+01:00

OK, the weirdest thing just happened. Or I just noticed it, at least. I was making a shopping list while I was at work and I wrote myself a note, "Didn't I buy dumplings the other day?". I just found this shopping list and mentioned it to Allan. He agrees that I had them in my hand. We both remember it because then Allan picked up a loaf of garlic bread and told me that he was going to buy it and eat it for dinner. And here is where it gets weird - we haven't seen either of these items in the house, and we didn't eat them for dinner. I just looked in the fridge and neither of them are there.

Very very troubling. I can't think of anything else that is missing, and we are planning Allan's birthday party so there has been some rather organized shopping going on lately. But without a car we go to the store something like three times a week, so there are too many occasions to keep them straight. Allan just reminded me that we put some stuff down while looking to see if all the eggs were whole. Did we forget to pick them back up?

I am sure we will never know. I am just afraid that one day they will come to life and crawl out of the corner they were forgotten in, or that on Saturday I will be half done making something, ten minutes before guests arrive, and realise that I don't have half the ingredients, because they got lost in the same place. Not good. Not good at all.

More about the new job!

2007-02-12T21:23:00.000+01:00

OK, you want to know more, and that is perfectly understandable. Let's see then. I got to work the first week and, like I said earlier, got flooded with information. One of the first tidbits was an introduction to the system that all the SQL scripts are running on. I received a log-in for it, and what did I see? VAX/VMS! VAX/VMS is like the first OS that I knew was an OS. I mean, I had used a Commodore before college, and my mom had an 8086, and I knew of people that had Macs, but when I started the pre-engineering program at ISU I was given a log-in for the VAX cluster. And 4 minutes of CPU time, which I was supposed to make last the semester; and which actually worked, as long as you didn't mess up and create an infinite loop, or really recklessly compile code. And by reckless I mean without proof-reading, so that it would make a list of syntax errors and fail out and you had to do it a lot of times, like many of us do today. I remember the stories from the grad students about the "olden days", when you could only turn in your programs for compilation at night, coming to get them the next day - then you better hope it was right! Of course, I am pretty sure that was how it was still working at ISU if you wanted to print something.

Anyway, VAX/VMS and DCL were completely new to me then. I was supposed to be learning FORTRAN programming, but I don't remember much of that at all. I remember "talk" and aliases and meeting a lot of people. And as I skimmed through a guide to VAX/VMS earlier this month, more memories came flooding back. Hacking into other people's accounts and remapping all their keys so they couldn't type commands or turning the echo off or remapping the echo so that they did type it right but thought they didn't. Aliasing everything to logout. Sigh. No wonder I love computers.

Anyway, this year I am supposed to be more practical and do stuff. So far, so good. Things are actually pretty obvious, once you get used to the syntax, like - for the parent directory and . for a subdirectory. I still catch myself typing cat or hitting the ESC key in the editor because I thinking I am using *nix and vi, but I can get what I need. Although I am really missing something a little more flexible & grep-like than the current search function.

Wow! (The new job)

2007-01-31T22:23:00.000+01:00

OK, I know that I haven't really found time to post since I started my new job, so I will try to start that today. And I won't worry about getting everything said, because that would be too long and mean that I don't ever post. So accept that it might be incomplete.

I'm in my fourth week and I am exhausted! I didn't think I was nervous going into it, although I almost sat down and learned Java the day before my first day just in case. Of course it turned out that it wasn't necessary. If I had any "how to remember 50 people's names" or "list of acronyms used in semiconductor fabs" that would have been good. Actually, finding the second is probably the best thing I can do for myself these days. Then, of course there is the language barrier, that makes me have to really think about every acronym, and try to figure out if I am being given German letters to English words or vice versa. Like when I am told that the station "eff eee" should be easy to remember because the "eee" stands for "eye cee". And I was being quizzed to see if I remembered what I had learned and if I knew the facility in question, and I said "VW" instead of "FW", and was met by laughter.

And I have been so feverishly taking notes and slavishly following them! On Monday I was told to check the following logs daily for errors: daily_monday.log, daily_uptimes.log and weekly_statistics.log. On Wednesday I realized that I was still checking daily_monday and hadn't moved on to tuesday and wednesday, and then I checked timestamps and realized that the weekly_statistics are only run once a week. Sigh.

And that is why I really have to go to bed now. More to come, I promise.

Long-ish silence

2007-01-26T23:26:00.000+01:00

Sorry there hasn't been news lately. I started a new job and my parents came over and I wrote my Christmas letter. Most all of you should have gotten it, although I have a half a stack of addresses I need to verify. Oops. Tomorrow, I promise!

Anyway, last week Allan was sick, and I wanted to make him a Heiße Zitrone to make him feel better before I left for work, and I dropped his mug, the one with the A on it, which I had just gotten him for Christmas. The handle fell off, of course. It has been a bad couple months for ceramics here at the house, so I am out of super glue, but I looked to see if the parts would fit back together smoothly (which they did). But then I had a dream that we tried to fix it and when we were done all the parts were really random so when we were finished it looked like macaroni art. I told Allan, and he suggested reinforcing the handle with macaroni. That is actually a nice idea. It would probably cover the cracks that sometimes remain even with the steadiest hand. And it shows that he is feeling better (either that, or he is delirious).

New Year's Eve in Germany

2007-01-01T19:55:00.000+01:00

So, after more years in Germany than I care to count, I actually spent a New Year's Eve here .... We got invited over to some friends for a quiet couples night of fondue and games. Even though we took Twister, no one wanted to play. We had poppers and lottery tickets, I don't know how traditional that is. I thought that all Germans cast lead to tell their fortunes for the next year, but apparently not. I had hoped to get a kit anyway and bring it along, but since they didn't go on sale until the 28th when we were in Spain, I didn't manage to get my hands on any. They might still be selling them tomorrow when the stores reopen, I don't know.

Anyway, what was totally weird to me was the fireworks! Where I grew up fireworks were illegal, and although they were sold in neighboring states and we knew other kids whose parents drove across the border to buy some, my parents wouldn't agree to that. Here they are allowed to be sold only from the 28 to 30 December to people over 18, and they aren't supposed to be lit until midnight, continuing as long as they last. We've been inundated with ads for fireworks at all the stores for two weeks already but we didn't buy any nor did our hosts.

In spite of the law, they have been going off since the day they went on sale, whether that was a test period so people knew what they really wanted or just because the temptation was too great. On Saturday we even saw kids lighting them about ten meters outside the store and our neighbors were lighting some on their balcony and throwing the down to the ground in front of our window (not sure what kind they were, that didn't shoot up into the air, but I guess that is just my ignorance!). I didn't actually know that that was the neighbor until I saw him come down in the morning to pick up the remains, making him, as far as I can tell, the only person in town who did pick up their trash - the town is really covered with sludgy (it's been raining) burnt cardboard tubes.

Anyway, the entire evening we saw occasional fireworks out the window, but about quarter till peoples trigger fingers must have gotten really itchy, because the show really started. All around us there were constant explosions, with a show lasting for probably an hour. The town I grew up in never would've been able to compete with this, and considering the town I was in last night was barely twice the size, I think that it is interesting how big a show gets put on by private people all buying as they see fit (ranging from 0 to ????). My hometown's annual budget for fireworks is $3000, or about $3 per person. Here packets range from 5 to 20 Euros, although I can't really judge their effect from the description printed in the ads. I wonder how much was spent here? Of course, there is the added benefit of getting to light them, which none of us ever got to do. Maybe next year I won't be able to resist ....

(Wait ... I just read about a local group that puts on an impressive show for 150Euros, and the designed said the trick is buying fireworks that give more bang for the buck. Is this another case of oppressive taxation in the States? Does the money from the taxes at least go to the fire departments to put out all the fires started and the hospitals that treat all the burns and missing fingers?)

Christmas in Barcelona

2006-12-31T12:13:00.000+01:00

We had two weeks off work over the holidays, and with no family to stay home and hang with, we wanted to go somewhere. Somewhere warm (even though it isn't that cold here) seemed especially inviting. Recently work had been hectic (not necessarily for me, since I was home sick), and with little time to plan, something low-stress, possibly even with a little beach time, seemed the order of the day.

We achieved this all to some extent. A search for reasonably priced flights on our dates yielded Barcelona, and affordable hotels and lots of information on the destination cinched the deal. The weather wasn't beach appropriate, but we couldn't actually find anything that was, except for isolated, all-inclusive beach complexes, with no hope for escape or culture, and that isn't our bag, baby.

Christmas day train connections required us to start our trip a day early, heading out in our warmest clothes (even though it was really only around 0 to 5 degrees) to Stuttgart at our leisure to spend the night and get to the airport. Since it was a Sunday, all the stores were closed, the Christmas market was packed up, even the restaurants we thought we might have a nice Christmas Eve dinner at were closed, so we surprised ourselves with some sushi. Christmas morning we went to the airport and packed our mittens, disembarking around noon in Barcelona. We knew that there was a regular train into town that would drop us near our hotel. We knew that it went every thirty minutes, but didn't know when, so we bought our tickets and headed for the train standing there. A woman was just in front of us, and as she passed the first couple compartments (which looked full), I assumed she had a plan and followed her. Suddenly, with no warning bells or announcement, the train doors shut. We pushed the button to open the door, but there was no response. The train pulled out of the station, and we learned lesson number 1 - in Barcelona if you see a train, get on it.

We checked into our hotel, found our way to a metro station, and headed downtown to check out the city. We left our coats behind, and although we may have been the only people without coats, we were happy. At a forecast 15 degrees daily high, we found our cardigans and fleece to be perfect for pretty much the whole day. A quick sandwich took the edge off our hunger, and we got acquainted with the main drag and closest sites, keeping our eyes open for a good dinner option. We saw lots of open restaurants, mostly of the pita, pizza, sandwich variety, but hoping for something a bit more traditional we zeroed in on a restaurant named Burrito. A quick glance at the menu showed th prices to be reasonable, and sure to find something we wanted, we decided to come back at 8 when it opened and to wait out the opening in a smoke-free Irish pub around the corner. Allan was asking the bartender if they had a Murphy's Irish Stout in addition to the Irish Red he was drinking, and she told him that they had "Guiness; that's a stout". OK, duh. But you can get Guiness anywhere. "Maybe you can get it in England" was her surprising reply. Not always the first destination when searching for an Irish beer, and considering that England is barely closer than Ireland, and that the chance of getting an Irish beer in Ireland is probably slightly higher, it wasn't particularly helpful advice. Which is the main reason I am against advice to start with.

Anyway, we got back to the Burrito restaurant, which I admit that I had rather naively hoped would serve burritos (which they didn't), so I was enlighted when Allan pointed out that considering the many pictures of donkeys decorating the interior and exterior, that perhaps burrito is Spanish for donkey, and I ordered a cold grilled vegetable appetizer (all the entrees being listed under the category of "Meat dishes" suggested that I was unlikely to find anything I wanted there ...) while Allan ordered a Catalan sausage. This Catalan sausage had been rather elusive during our last trip to Catalan, earlier in the year, when he was told that they didn't have any. This time when he ordered it, the waiter told him that Catalan sausage was a dish for girls and really inappropriate, suggesting that he get the kabab instead. We heard this conversation repeated at other tables as the night went on, until finally a girl did order it and was approved, so Allan watched intently as it was delivered, trying to see what about it was so gender and age specific. In reality, it looked like food that boys, possibly even men could eat, and he was disappointed at having been refused a sausage for the second time.

With dinner sorted, we headed back to our hotel for a rather sleepless night in single beds and a very noisy hotel.

Day two started early (at least compared to everyone else in Barcelona, a city famous for the night life and clubs that don't even open until 2 am), but not everything was open yet, so we planned to hit the main parks. Played around the Arc de Triumf and Park Guell, walking insane amounts in spite of hopping on and off subways all day.

Wednesday was the first day in Barcelona that the Sagrada Familia was open, and knowing that it was a major site we wanted to make sure we got in and out before the crowds. We were the second people in, but we were having so much fun and dawdling that we had to fight crowds to get out. We decided to make it a Gaudi day, and we walked to the main Gaudi sites. As we walked and walked and walked, we talked about how some towns have something interesting every other step, and others have a lot of sights, but they are all separated by generic city. We put Barcelona in the second category. I wonder if that explains why I have no real memory of my trip to Barcelona ten years ago. Everything looked familiar, but without any emotional attachment, which is pretty much unheard of for me. I think that my memories are primarily emotional, so without that it doesn't feel quite real.

Thursday morning we got up early again and took a train to Figueres to see the Dali museum. It had been another mostly sleepless night, and so I had to ply Allan with caffeine after lunch to keep him on his feet. Lunch was a success for Allan, who finally got his Catalan sausage, while I had the daily menu of noodle soup and paella. Allan had to help me with the insanely large portion so that I would have room for the cookies I planned to snack on on the train.

We walked around the neighborhood of our hotel looking for a dinner, and eventually ran into a big mall, giving Allan a chance to look for some CDs that he can't seem to find in Germany. Couldn't find them here either, but it was interesting anyway. Since we hadn't yet found a restaurant that seemed inviting and open, the mall food court was very tempting, especially once we found a Mexican restaurant there. Tasty! While eating, we made a list of what we still wanted to see before going, and wrote out our schedule to make sure we could do it all. Only one more day of vacation, then back to Germany on a relatively early flight!

Friday morning we found ourselves back on La Rambla when I caught sight of quite a bit of skin up ahead between all the other bodies. Telling Allan that there was a man walking down the road in just a Speedo, we laughed. As we caught up with him, though, we noticed there was something odd about his suit, then we noticed that it wasn't a bathing suit - it was actually a tattoo on his butt that looked like a suit. We were still behind him, but we could definitely see dangle, and as we got closer we could see that people were giving him looks and wide berth. It turns out that public nudity is not illegal in Barcelona, and he seemed very comfortable with his choice of being naked, even though most other people were wearing coats and scarves that day. Now I have memories of Barcelona!

(Allan has been on so many fun vacations this year, and he is a perfectionist, so there will be probably be a slight delay before pictures are up, but I will update this when they are available. No pictures of naked guy, though, although I am sure you can imagine it yourself.)

I am sick

2006-12-22T08:44:00.000+01:00

It all started with a cold. Last week I had the sniffles, so on Tuesday I stayed home from work and slept all day. I thought that took care of it.

On Sunday my nose was starting to get drippy again, and then during the night I quit being able to swallow. That really freaked me out, so I went to sleep on the couch so that I could sit up. When morning came I called in to work sick. Took some nice symptom-management pills, and started to think I would live.

Monday night was also bad. On Tuesday my doctor's office didn't open till ten, throwing a spanner in my plan of being at his door at eight, so I got dressed and took some more drugs. This meant, of course, that by ten when I called, I was feeling half alive. So when I was told it would be better if I came at four, I said sure. Made it to my four o'clock appointment almost feeling like I was imagining the whole thing. "You see, my throat hurt, like it was swollen, and I can't feel anything on the outside, but I still thought maybe it was tonsilitis." (Because I always get tonsilitis when I am in Germany - isn't that weird? Never in the US.)

He looked at me and thought for a while. I am still not quite sure of my doctor's sanity (the Hausarzt I mentioned this spring in the fourth paragraph here) but since I never go to the doctor unless I am sick my judgment might not be in top form and I don't have the energy to look elsewhere, I mostly listened as he ran through options. "Antibiotics or not, what should it be? If she has A it won't help, but if it is B then she'll need the headstart. OK, lets make it antibiotics. And some nose spray, and gargle with iodine - not straight up - cut this solution four to one with water. And how long should she stay home. End of the week, yeah. Can't be going back earlier than that."

Since I was feeling relatively decent at the time, I felt so decadent when he said 'end of the week'. That would take me straight into the year-end plant closing! I was off till the end of the year! I went home before going to the pharmacist, because I wanted to compare the nose spray and iodine solutions he recommended with my home stash. Then when Allan came home he walked me back out to the pharmacist for my antibiotics. I had been told to take them every eight hours, so there was no real rush - couldn't take the first before bedtime, or I would end up setting the alarm for 3:00 am for the next week.

Night came around and I got ready to take the first pill, and I opened the package to see this:

You remember I said I can't swallow, right? And do you see that this pill is twice as big as my mouth? It gets worse, though - it tastes like ... like ... like a basement! It smells dusty and moldy and stale. And it is powdery and starts to fall apart the second you put it in your mouth. Not like the nice cold-symptom-relief OTC drugs I have that have slippery coatings with a faint taste of orange. They couldn't do that to penicillin?

And it gets worse - three days into this treatment, I found the same smell coming off me. Yuck.

My local take-out

2006-12-17T14:10:00.000+01:00

I have been here long enough to be known at my local take-out! And it doesn't mean that we order out that often, I promise.

Here is how I know: Last week Allan and I stayed at work really really late (think 9 pm or so), and as we were leaving, we both agreed that we weren't cooking dinner. So someone suggested the take-out place we walk past, and Allan knew its name so he looked up the telephone number on line. Since we walk past this place every day, some of the employees have recognized us, and wave or chat quickly when we walk by. So, I called them and recognized the voice of the guy who answered. I said, "Hi. I don't have a menu in front of me right now. Do you remember what I usually order? I think it is called murgh madras or something."

He laughed. "Yeah, you usually get the 201. Did you want that with rice today or flat bread?"

Hee hee. Isn't that great? Normally we turn down all the extra menus they try to give us, claiming that we already have one. When we went to pick it up, this time, though, we couldn't really say that. And he says there are new options, anyway. Not that I need anymore choices - I am happy with what I get! Allan took the menu to work, in case this happens again.

Vacation all I ever wanted, Vacation had to get away

2006-12-17T13:04:00.000+01:00

It is that time of year again. And, as seems to happen, we were swamped leading up to it and couldn't discuss or agree on any plans. So, there we were, four work days away from two weeks off work, with no plans. Thank goodness there is the internet! Allan and I sat ourselves down (two computers - always the best way to coordinate bookings) and looked for a place we could book on short notice, with nice weather and stuff to do.

And we decided on Barcelona! Yay! Flight and hotel are booked. There was a last minute panic when we noticed that we couldn't get to the airport on time because trains were running on the holiday schedule, but that is now solved by the addition of an overnight in Stuttgart before the main vacation starts. Unfortunately the museum I wanted to visit in Stuttgart will be closed that day. I am sure we will find a way to amuse ourselves! (Time will tell if Allan is as good a travel companion as Brigitte was back in the day.)

When you are sitting in your living rooms looking at the snow that needs to be shoveled, think of us!

I needed this!

2006-12-10T23:12:00.000+01:00

I had half-ass been looking for a world map that had states and countries together so that it didn't look like I had been to Alaska when I haven't, but too lazy to do it myself, and now I found one! So if I didn't forget anything this time, here it is! (Although the old one had the states bzw. countries encoded in the title, which was nice when you realized you had forgotten one. This doesn't have that, unfortunately.

Still missing what allanimal so smartly brought up - a two- (well, three-) color map, so you could mark the places you want to go to!

Courtesy of www.travbuddy.com

Stop the presses! Christmas wish list part 2

2006-11-28T20:33:00.000+01:00

OK, the last list was just silliness. I hope it amused people. I thought of something I actually do want and have always wanted (and you can tell that I am really serious this time, because I haven't even mentioned the Tyco Night-Glow Race Track).

One of those fluid- or magnetic-resistance stationary trainers that you use to convert your outdoor bike to an indoor bike! (The previous link is to one of the models currently for sale. I haven't compared features or brands yet, it is meant to be illustrative and informative only.) There are many reasons I want this:

I love my racing bike
I hate clunky horrible gym-issue indoor bikes
I still can't really run
Winter is coming and it is dark every hour that I am not at work
Hee hee - I could watch Desparate Housewives without feeling guilty at all
They are starting to be reasonably priced, as far as I can tell (certain models, at least)
They also seem to be getting better
I might even share with Allan, who doesn't think his bike is properly fitted but doesn't know what a properly fitted bike feels like because he has been riding his so long and needs to try other bikes (of which I have a couple) for long periods in the comfort of his own home. Once or twice when Desparate Housewives isn't on, that is

There are a bunch on/for sale at my around-the-corner-but-moved-so-that-it-is-actually-no-longer-around-the-corner bike shop, more details could surely be provided or logistics could be coordinated via Allan, if there is any interest in chipping in to buy one of the nice ones. (Haven't done any research yet, just throwing the idea out there!)

Christmas Wish List

2006-11-22T20:10:00.000+01:00

OK, since I have been told repeatedly that I am difficult to buy for (since I already own everything I need, it is difficult to give people ideas. The easiest thing, of course, would be for people not to buy me stuff, or limit it to the things I just haven't found here and am destined to run out of before the next trip to the States, like Spray n Wash Stain Stick or Oil Of Olay Complete UV Protective Moisture Lotion (unscented, of course) or any unscented stick deodorant/anti-perspirant), I have decided to make things easier by shamelessly posting a wish list from Archie McPhee (the fact that Archie will put me in a drawing to win the items on my wish list if I post this on my blog is also a major reason I am posting this, if you were wondering). Maybe it will give you insight into the real me, though, while we are at it.

Now, of course, the question is, where do you start? First of all, Archie has a fabulous collection of bacon items, and I am a big sucker for bacon (I even drank Kelley's bacon-flavored wine coolers!) - I am amused by much of the bacon collection, but I think I really need the What Would Bacon Do? Deluxe Spin Folder. I like the Meat Bath Mat (although I think it would be a better kitchen mat), but I have so many rugs, it is out of the question. The Bacon and Eggs Bandage Assortment is probably the only other useful thing. (I haven't smelled it, but I have the feeling that the Corn Dog Air Freshner is a bad idea.)

Ooh - here is something I haven't seen before - The Tub O'Flying Cats to go with the Cat-A-Pult. But on second thought, that probably isn't a good idea either.

OK, you know what? a lot of things sound funny the first time you look, but then it is hard to imagine what you would actually do with any of them. I can always use advice, so I suppose the whole line of "What would .... do?" spinny folders would be nice ... the pirate, the unicorn and the ninja (in that order of preference (after the previously mentioned bacon, of course)). Or, because I am incapable of lying, perhaps the excuse ball could get me out of the occasional sticky situation.

Maybe the magic of Christmas is to give, rather than receive. If so, I could get the urban refuse aquarium floaters for Tort, so that she knows that we still care. But if you want to get them, please send them straight to her (c/o Lita), so that we don't have to ship them back!

Perhaps the nihilist chewing gum (We don't believe in flavor!) is the appropriate way to amuse my mouth and express my beliefs. Or the bite the bullet mints for when I am stalling.

The black cat bandages would add a colorful touch while treating my re-occuring torn cuticles, or I could use any and all of the cocktail danglers (demons, black cat, and squid to make myself themed bags a la this fab knitty creation and keep my hands busy so I can't pick at my cuticles.

Alright, I guess that is probably it. I mean, I could be really ridiculous and claim that I want some of those bracelets that everyone wears (actually, do they really? I don't think that I have ever seen anyone wear one. But I keep hearing about how they are the coolest thing. Or was that last year? I mean, it isn't like I am cool or anything.) Not a big deal, I am probably allergic to them anyway. So then there is the nice glowing cattle skull, but that might violate Allan's jeannette-can't-bring-any-dead-animals-into-the-house policy. Maybe if we get him the avenging narwhal play set that he has his eye on, he will overlook all my silliness.

Oops. Missed the deadline for the contest. Oh well, forget it then.

Frankfurt report, day 2

2006-11-20T18:57:00.000+01:00

So, as you found out on Friday night, I went to Frankfurt for the weekend. My true goal was to pick Allan up at the airport, but that only took an hour. My main personal goal was to go to the flea market, and so early Saturday morning I did. A comfortable walk from my hotel, I got out into the beautiful weather, walked between the old buildings, crossed a new (to me) bridge, and landed in the middle of the flea market, still about ten minutes before it officially opened. Some stands weren't yet set up, but the buying and selling was already going strong.

When I lived in Frankfurt I was a regular at the flea market, bought pans, plates and silverware there my first week, a coat and '50s evening dresses on later visits, and stopped every week at an Indian(?) jewellery shop to try on rings and negotiate on a chain-mail bra and panty set which I never bought. I did buy a pair of lapis lazuli rings, though, which were some of my favorites, but over the years they have disappeared (I think in the flood, but there have been several moves, so who knows). I was hoping to replace them, and since I have taken belly dance classes (I assume that was the purpose of the otherwise-impractical underwear set), it was fun to consider that maybe this would be the year for me to buy that as well.

I walked slowly through the market, inspecting every stand that had hope of yielding my treasures. I walked past the ubiquitous fist-sized "jewels", only to tarry at a button stand, buying enough dragon buttons to make matching cardigans for Allan and me. (To warm up my negotiation skills, I started with some cheaper items, asking if she would throw in two buttons free if I bought ten. I must not have been that tough, though, because she offered to give me three.) For a minute I considered some coffee cups that seemed to match the four I just bought at IKEA for an upcoming gathering, but the seller wanted more than the new price, and I didn't really want to carry breakables anyway.

When I reached the far end, the market branched to yield clothing piles closer to the water. Big heaps of textiles were being pawed through, while the barkers called out "Any piece, 1 Euro." I spotted a pile of Levi's 501s, and asked about their price - 5 Euros. That seemed fair, and I asked the seller to verify that the pair I was wearing said 34 on the label, but he said it didn't have a waist measurement (I have two pair of 550s, one men's and one women's - the men's have the measurement on the tag, but the women's don't, only the length (an incredibly helpful "L")). That was ok, I knew that I was wearing 34s, and so I said, ok, I will take these, holding onto the least worn-looking. He asked me if I was sure, and pulled a pair of hideously large straight-legged jeans out of a different pile and asked me if I didn't think they would be better. "No, I want these!" OK, he replied, and took my money, telling me that he was there every Saturday, if it turned out that these didn't fit.

Convinced it wouldn't be a problem, I stuck the jeans in my bag and continued on my merry way. Leaving the clothing piles, I returned to flea market proper and stumbled across another table of Levi's 501s, these looking more new, a pair of 34s at the top of the stack, and asked the seller for a price. He didn't answer, but took a look at me and said "What size?" "34" "Are you sure? I have a 38 right here." What?!? "No, I wear 34." "I have just the thing for you," he answered, and dug through a different stack, these still tied together with twine. "Here you go," he held up a pair of 38s. "15 Euros." "No thank you," I replied with as much haughty pride as I could muster after essentially being told by two men that I was lying to myself about my waistband.

A little further I saw a tarp spread out with a variety of items, two sewing machines included. They weren't the first I had seen today, or at the markets in Heilbronn, for that matter, but I guess once I had started shopping I couldn't stop. I tried to lift the first machine, knowing that I still had the walk to the hotel and the trip to and through the airport before I would get into a car with Allan, and it was way too heavy. Tried the second and decided it could be done. "How much?" "20 Euros." "15?" "Sure. Test it and see if it works." There were no accessories, so he let me pull two presser feet and bobbins out of the heavier sewing machine's drawer, then put me on my way.

Hands full and goals accomplished (except for the jewellery) I headed back to the hotel to drop off my booty before going to meet Paul and Carol. I tried on my jeans, and with a little effort I even got all the buttons buttoned.

That's not cool!

2006-11-17T23:23:00.000+01:00

Man, I am so uncool.

I left a pause there, so you could all say "No, that's not true. You are cool!" or "Duh, we have known that for years." Whichever. As long as you follow it with "But we love you just the way you are."

I am in Frankfurt for the weekend. I like to be in Frankfurt on my own. I don't know why, exactly. I think because Frankfurt is all about reminiscing and stuff. It is funny, there are so many things I never saw here. I never went to the zoo, for example. But I worked in an office on the Hauptwache, and I walked daily on the Zeil, and I played softball in the park, and I occasionally went to discos or bars with people in places where I never found the club again. But this weekend I decided that I was going to the Batschkapp. As far as I can tell, I was there twice before. Once, I think I saw the Hoodoo Gurus play. Once I was on a date. Isn't that crazy? When I get around to digging up and writing down old stories before I forget them, that will be on the list.

So, I made the mistake of looking up the weekend schedule at the Batschkapp before I came. That wouldn't normal count as a mistake, but in this case it turns out that And One, like totally the best band in the world!, is playing there the day after I leave. That is something I really didn't want to know, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, so tonight is Idiot Ballroom, just a DJ night. And since Batschkapp is 30 years old this year, entrance is free for people over 30. Which I am. So, I thought that it was a no-risk offer. And at my age I am all about no risk, you know. So, over dinner I got into a very odd conversation with a guy here at the hostel, and I set off around 8:30. I know, that is early for going out, but since I had to wait 20 minutes for a train, and then I made a wrong turn leaving the train station, it was 9:30 when I got there. Which meant that I had missed the book reading that took place pre-disco. Some peeps were still hanging out, and I ordered a drink. Then all the people left, except me and 4 others. Then, at 10 pm, three of them left. It was me and an old man, sitting at a disco. Music was playing and stuff, but there was no one there! At 10:30, floodgates seemed to open. OK, I thought. Then I looked around.

You know how, when you go out on a Friday night downtown and you see kids cruising, and you think, "There is no way I was ever that young, and they can't be old enough to drive?" Well, replace the word "drive" in that sentence with "go to a club and buy drinks", and you might understand how I felt. I turned my glass in and left. Sigh.

Oh, interesting side info - when ordering, I was thinking to myself, do I want wine or beer, then I saw the äppelwoi glasses, and I said to myself, "Of course. I am in Frankfurt." So I ordered one. The girl behind the bar asked me if I wanted it with water, with vodka or straight. Why don't I even remember those all being choices? I went for straight. (Considering that Äppelwoi itself tastes like an Apfelschorle with a shot of vodka, I wonder what the vodka-upped Äppelwoi tastes like - Apfelsaftschorle with two shots of vodka????)

In Absentia

2006-11-14T19:09:00.000+01:00

Hmmm. It has been so long since I actually completed a blog post I will have to think about how this goes (I have tons of half finished drafts, so what is the difference? Oh yeah, structured, complete sentences in a logical order, stop and take a breath occasionally (press the return key to start a new paragraph) and when it is done, press the Publish button. OK.)

So, I must seem clingy, or something, because people keep asking me what I will do/am doing/have done with Allan out of town. So let me try to remember and let you know.

OK, Sunday Allan was still here until like 7 or so. So obviously, I put him on the road, promising to follow up on some stuff for the project, then sat down and watched tv until midnight. ;)

Monday I got up, took a shower, and went to work. Came home a bit on the earlyish side to try and call Allan and make sure that he got there ok. Tried to call my contact at the Stadtsiedlung to ask about bike parking spaces, but she wasn't there, and was told to call tomorrow between 8 and 8:30. Ate Hawaiian chicken because I had leftover Hollandaise sauce. Got in touch with Allan after a couple tries and he told me all about his first day in Singapore.

Woke up Tuesday morning, took a shower, tried to call the Stadtsiedlung at 8 - of course there was no answer. Went to work, class, came home, called Allan. Also got through to the Stadtsiedlung, and she told me that sure I could just put my bikes in the spots vacated by the neighbor who told me she wasn't moving out but did, but I said, well, her bikes are still there. She told me that she would call said ex-neighbor and remind her to get them. Planned to go to the movie, but didn't make it. Don't remember why. Stayed up past midnight.

Wednesday I slept in, didn't take a shower or put in my contact lenses, and went to work. My hair really looked awful. Someone sniffed my head and told me that it didn't stink. Don't remember what I did, but went to bed earlier. Did laundry and dishes, and had to put them all away as well (that is normally Allan's job). Looked into the bike rack three times to see if the neighbor got her bikes.

Thursday, at work one of my colleagues is learning how to program, and suddenly started asking me questions (I know that he has been working on this for weeks already, because he sits with his back to me and I can read over his shoulder with my super vision). God I haven't looked at C++ in years! But I have been using my best teacher methods with him. "Let's think about what the goal is here." and "If you know that it needs to go into a loop, but you don't know where to start, solve the problem without a loop and see what parts repeat." and based on personal pet peeves, "Maybe you can use variable names that are more descriptive." Got my new computer at work. Something went wrong when they ordered it back in June, and it never came in. Then, they called to say that they were setting it up and I got all excited, but they never delivered it. Then IT called again, and said that they were confused - why had two different managers ordered computers for me? Was it a mistake? Should they even order the second one? (Why were they asking if they should order it?!?!?!? It should have been ordered months before! Another colleague ordered hers the same day as mine and had had hers for months. In July at the picnic an IT worker told me the reason she hadn't come down to see why backups weren't being done on my computer was because she had seen that I was getting a new one.) I couldn't explain about the two managers because it was the day before I told my colleagues that I was transferring to another department.
Ran home from work to meet Azra. Drank my first coke since Allan's absence. Looked into the bike rack three more times.

Friday, went to talk to patent attorney, hoped I wouldn't have to work, chatted around work till 10, ran errands in three different batches, made an Indian curry. Tried to reach Allan for ages. Had to spell his name every time (tried to skip it on like the fourth attempt, because I was sure it was the same person answering the phone and figured they were probably annoyed, but I was asked how to spell it after all.) Allan was at work really really late, but I got to talk to him quickly, then went out for Thai with my Stammtisch people. I think I checked the bike rack 7 times today. The neighbor's bikes are still there.

Saturday, got up, cleaned the house, accepted a package for one of the neighbors and had a chat with the delivery guy about how the day before he couldn't find anyone in the whole building; went to Stuttgart with Gretchen. Brought her back, walked into the house, decided there was nothing to do here, so I went back to Stuttgart to shop on my own. Actually bought something this time. Also tried on a couple pair of running shoes. Watched fireworks. Came home. Waited thirty minutes, and called Allan. It was 6:45 his time and he really wasn't amused. Sorry, Allan!

Sunday - chilled on checking the bike rack. Only once all day! (Probably because I didn't leave the house.) I was going to go out, because it was one of the six Sunday shopping days, but it was rainy and cold and so I didn't. I figured there was actually enough food here, what with the Indian and the Thai leftovers and the box of cookies I bought on Thursday. Didn't pay attention to the time and couldn't figure out when to call Allan or what country he was in. If only it were Tuesday, I would know that he was in Belgium! I was watching Navy CIS when the neighbor came to get her package, and I chatted with her for a couple of minutes. Got back to the TV, and the program seemed to end rather abruptly and without explanation. After screwing around and laying in bed but not falling asleep, I realised that the NCIS rerun was just about to start, and so I got up and watched it again. It turns out that I didn't miss that much of it, the episode really did just end abruptly and without explanation. Went to bed at 1:30

Monday. Showered and went to work. Skipped out at 1 pm for an "appointment". IKEA was expecting me. Had to hurry back out because Katja had to pick up her daughter (kids are only allowed to stay at day care for 10 hours). She asked me all kinds of questions about day care and kindergarten, which of course I don't know the answer to. Katja and Celina came over for Apfelsaftschorles and we watched one of our pet swans float by (yes, surprisingly, there are still some here). Katja asked me if I had watched NCIS and if it made any sense at all. I said No. Called Allan at around midnight, since I hadn't talked to him in days, but he didn't have much time, so we decided to talk again after work. Didn't sleep much.

Tuesday. Got up, went to work. Worked. Came home. Skyped with Allan. Picked up a couple more hooks for the kitchen rails, and tried to get some diet coke, but to no avail. Oh, scored on a pineapple today, though - this morning on my way to work I noticed that they were having a wicked sale, but I didn't want to carry my pineapple to work and back. When I stopped in after work, they were all gone! I was going to leave the store without buying anything, but then I saw an abandoned pineapple on the ice cream freezer (ice cream was on my way out the door - I wasn't looking, I swear!). Couldn't find a price, because they had taken away the whole section where they were missing from, but I decided I might as well get some other groceries as long as I had to go through the check out, so I added a box of pears and some yogurt to my bag.

OK, I know that doesn't sound very exciting, especially compared to Allan's stories of foreign countries and puffer fish and airports, but it is actually kind of what normal life is like (aren't you glad that I don't blog in this much detail more often?)

Anyway, I guess that means that the next time people ask me what I will do with Allan gone, I will say "Pretty much the same thing I do when he is here, except for talk to him."

Coming out ...

2006-10-25T16:45:00.000+02:00

OK, I think that everything is public (or will be tomorrow), so I can finally come out with it.
I know that Allan is laughing that I am considering any of these secret, considering the number of people that know both, but that is just a case of me needing to vent excitement to a controlled audience. Like I said, no matter how few people read my blog, I couldn't publish these things until specific certain people know what needs to be known.

1) My first ever proposal submitted in response to a Call for Papers was accepted! Allan and I will be presenting at Embedded World in Nürnberg in February. Now we have to get everything finished up and the paper through legal before the deadline, though, and with Allan gone two weeks on a business trip, it could get hairy.

2) I have a new job! OK, I don't yet, but everything is finalized and as of January 1, 2007 I will be in a new position at my current company. That is really funny, because I accepted ages ago, but then the old and new boss had to work out a transfer day and stuff. We will tell my co-workers tomorrow.

P.S. - Here is the job ad for my old job - let me know if you want it, I can put in a good word (and then I get a referral bonus!).

Absence

2006-10-23T21:22:00.000+02:00

Wow. Somehow I have two months of not blogging to account for. I can explain, really. Well, not 100%, but I can try. You see, I had secrets. I know what you are all thinking, But, Jeannette can't keep secrets. Exactly. That is why I wasn't allowed to blog. No need to worry, I did find some people I could talk to in order to keep from exploding, but they are the kind of secrets that can't go on web pages, no matter how few people stop by to read them.

I considered various work-arounds, like publishing that some people could write to me personally and ask me for the secret, but then I thought, what do I do if the people that the secrets are being kept from write to me? I would need to have back-up secrets to forward to them. It would have been very complicated, so the only solutions was a complete media blackout.

Soon, everyone, soon.

Teusser Triathlon

2006-08-26T21:23:00.000+02:00

So, Friday (July 28) was our annual work party, and I was on the organizational team, so I spent all day at the site moving tables and doing other set-up. And eating ice cream, but within reason. And drinking water.

The party went well, I think, but shortly before 9 pm I decided that I had had it, and headed for home. I had signed up for a triathlon on Saturday. The day after I signed up I had a really bad knee day, which Allan claimed was just performance anxiety on my knee's behalf. I limped around all week and used a hot pack on it as often as I could, and promised that I wouldn't run. Friday was mostly a good day, and so when Saturday morning came I packed my running clothes.

In Colorado the triathlons I did started at 6 or 7 am, and Run Like a Mother in Cedar Falls was pretty early too: for those events I hung out in a sweatshirt waiting for it to start so I could move and warm up. But why do these races in Germany start so late? The marathon in town started at 10:30 am, by which time it was already swelteringly hot, and this triathlon started at 1 pm. Why do I keep putting myself through 2- to 3-hour endurance sports in 30+ degree weather? Because I am too stubborn to not, I guess.

The late start was much appreciated when it was time to get up, though, and since I have to use public transportation there was an added benefit (the benefit of it being possible to get there). I don't know that I could have gotten there at 6 am, if necessary. I hadn't really planned ahead, and talking to people in the days leading up to it, I found out that it would be a hilly course. Friday night I decided that meant I couldn't take my favorite bike, a sexy Sekine that I am still trying to get back into perfect condition after an accident in college. Even though I love riding it, I always have to take a wrench, because the shifters are in rough shape, and I sometimes get the chain stuck between the two front chain rings. Unreliable shifting would not make me happy. So instead I took my heavy-duty Novara. Which meant changing a tube that I (mistakenly) thought I had successfully patched several weeks earlier.

Well, sigh, it turned out the tube I bought was the right size for the Sekine and not the Novara, and so I had to run to the store and get another. And by run I mean ride my bike. So, there I am on the path, loving the feeling (I don't know what it is, but I have just never found another bike that felt so right!), and thinking that maybe I could use the Sekine after all, so I ran it through its paces quickly, and lost the chain. Sigh. Coasted the rest of the way to the store and had to walk back home.

I always try to make Allan go along and keep me company, even though I know it will be boring for him, but Saturday he was having none of that because of a summer cold or allergy attack that he has been suffering through for about a week already. I begged for a while, but he wasn't swaying, so I headed out the door, only to figure out that I had missed getting the tire all the way tucked back into the rim. Or had it exploded back out? The store didn't have inner tubes in the right WIDTH, and so I was a little panicky about the situation.

Got on the train, and before long noticed a guy with a really nice bike and a fair amount of equipment (<mean jab at allan> and his girlfriend, who came to watch him do his triathlon</mean jab>), so I decided to follow them, till I noticed him asking a guy if he should get off the train in Weinsberg (which is totally NOT the right place to get off), so I talked to him and said I was getting off in Affaltrach, showing him the map of the bike course and how it entered Affaltrach, but was miles away from Weinsberg, but that I wasn't sure of how to get from the train station to the starting point.

We all got off in Affaltrach, but they dawdled, and I was already halfway down the hill asking the first people I saw if they could tell me how to get there when the couple caught up. At the next intersection, though, when I said that I understood we had to go left, and went, they didn't come along. Which is ok, because somehow I managed to go through Eschenau on the way to the lake. Oops. I was still there twenty minutes before the couple, though, so maybe they went through Weinsberg after all.

Shortly before reaching the lake, I noticed that the bike lane had crossed the street without me, and so I crossed. I had to jump a little creek, and when my bike landed, suddenly the back wheel wouldn't turn. That was really not what I needed at this point, so I released the brakes and decided to worry about it after I got signed in. Sign-in was uneventful, although I had money on me because I thought that I needed to put a deposit down on my timing chip, which it turned out I didn't need to do (they held all the bikes hostage to get the chips back. Interesting method). Drank three liters of water while waiting, and broasted even though I had SPF60 sun block on. Wondered to myself some more how these people get it in their heads to start races at the hottest part of the day, and looked at my bike again. Finally located the problem, not in the brakes, but in that somehow on the bounce the back rim had come somewhat loose from the quick release on the axle, and was not sitting properly. At least that was an easy fix, and necessary in order to pass the helmet and brake check at the transition area.

The pre-race talk finally started, and the race director told us in (to me) incomprehensible detail about how we were going to go west on some road until some street and then turn and go somewhere until some town, etc. And then he mentioned that one of the hills had an 18% grade. It wouldn't be easy, but it was possible, he said. Or did he say "doable"? No, I am pretty sure his word was "possible". Great. I hadn't done much hill training at all, and certainly not on this clunky bike, which I hadn't even ridden in a month. Which brings up another interesting point - I thought that my ass had just gotten into bike riding shape, and that was why it hadn't hurt lately, but the couple kilometers I had ridden from the train station to the race site had convinced me that, no, it was just that this bike makes my ass hurt. Great. Something else to look forward to.

Start time came, and we lined up at the edge of the lake, ready for a 600-meter open water swim.

Before I continue with this story, there is something you need to know. I love to swim. I would swim anywhere, anytime. I was on swim team when I was a kid; I certified as a life guard the year I was old enough. I have swum in pools, flooded quarries, rivers, reservoirs, the Mediterranean (off the shores of two different countries), the Aegean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico.

So, the pistol went off, and I started swimming. I was near the front of the pack, trying not to get kicked in the head, when I suddenly decided that I was going to die. I don't know where it came from - just a sudden feeling of dread and panic everytime I put my face in the water. I tried to talk to myself and say that nothing was wrong, and I flipped over to do backstroke for a while, but I could feel how quickly I was breathing. When I bought my wetsuit, the salesman tried to sell me some big face-mask goggles, because he said that there is some claustrophobia thing related to swimming in lakes that is worse with normal swimming goggles, but I couldn't imagine it. I think maybe that was a mistake. Anyway, it seems that it might have something to do with putting my face in the water and not being able to see more than a couple inches. Which makes me wonder, did I not have goggles when I was swimming in the oceans? Did I just keep my eyes closed? That is entirely possible, because these were all long vacations or business trips, where I might have felt that the chance of swimming was too remote to bother taking goggles. I think I am going to either have to practice in murky lakes more often, or convince myself to close my eyes while swimming these things.

In a combination of backstroke and breast stroke (minus the kick because that is something I haven't been able to do right since the first surgery), I finished the swimming course in a less-than-stellar time of 14:37 (that includes running up the hill to the transition area), only to find that someone had moved my bike. Not far, but still, very distracting. Hopped on my bike and started out through the course. It started out just mildly hilly, and I thought I was doing ok. And then I came to the 18% grade. Not only steep, but long. Argh. I made it up at a really slow pace (sometimes you really hate those people on the side of the road cheering you on, don't you?) and made the first loop. Unfortunately, this was a course that required a double loop, and when I got back to the same hill 35 minutes later, I was in even worse shape, and the second time I had to get off and push the bike up the hill.

My legs felt so heavy and horrible. I wasn't moving fast even on the downhills and flats, and when a van started following me I was afraid that meant I was the last person riding. That didn't seem possible because I had seen people still coming at me on the double backs. When I got into the transition area and parked my bike, I was relieved that I had promised not to run. I know that is bad, but 1)I shouldn't have been doing it anyway the way the week had gone, and 2)as tired as I was, my form wouldn't have been good and I probably would've hurt myself even if I wasn't already injured. The volunteers were really nice, and once I told them I wasn't running they got chatty, asking me, among others if I knew if there was anyone behind me. Yeah, at least two, I said (sad, isn't it? My own fault for not training better, though!)

Straightened out my stuff and wandered over to the finish line, where there was water and apfelsaftschorle, pretzels, watermelons and one last energy bar (and some bananas, I guess, but after the marathon I don't eat outdoor bananas). I took the energy bar and ate it, even though every other energy bar I have ever eaten has made me sick. I just thought of one new disadvantage to the late start - I slept in and ate two muffins that morning, then left my house. By the time the race started two and a half hours later (and ended another two hours after that), I was starving. Drank and ate and petted a dog and watched people cross the line and started to think about getting out of there. Got my bike and got on a path. Which didn't seem to be the right one, but I thought that would be ok and kept going, when suddenly I had a feeling that I had forgotten something, so I sat down and dug through my bag. Sure enough, my goggles weren't in there.

Frustrated, I thought about how much I would miss my goggles, and whether it was worth it, considering how tired I was. Of course it was, because otherwise I would just be bothered like I was the day I forgot my water bottle at the pool. Dug through my bag one more time, and found another surprise. When we went to Bologna on Easter weekend, the super fancy cool hotel we stayed at left us chocolate Easter eggs on our pillows, and I pocketed (i.e., backpacked) the one I didn't eat for later. A couple weeks earlier I noticed the egg still in my backpack and mentioned to Allan that I should eat it, even though I wasn't hungry, and he said, No, I should save it as a nice surprise sometime when I wanted it. Well, after five hours in the sun, it was no longer a pleasant surprise.

Anyway, convinced that my goggles were forgotten, I went back to get them. Which was nice in a way, because it gave me a second chance at finding the right path away from the lake. From there, the rest of the trip was uneventful, other than missing by seconds the train because I couldn't figure out how to cross the tracks and then hitting some weird time of day when the next train didn't come for 45 minutes and then calling Allan and telling him when I would be home and that I would be so hungry he had to have dinner options lined up for me when I got there, and then getting home and taking a shower and just collapsing on the bed, telling Allan that he had to help me get dressed or I wouldn't be able to leave the house. And then we ate dinner and everything was better.

Right now I am swimming more or less regularly (not often, but regularly!), I seem to have fixed the problem with the chain rings, because I haven't had the chain slip off since then, bought toe clips (which just came in today! yay!), and rode my bike up some hills last weekend, but I haven't been running since early July. There are some runs coming up soon that I won't probably be on, but at the moment I am ok with that. Maybe by next spring I will be back in the circuit.

Another lesson

2006-08-20T15:16:00.000+02:00

Is this the month for me to become wise, or what? You would imagine at my age I would know that a scissor is not a good solution to a temporary hair problem. Sigh.

New Shoes

2006-08-07T22:25:00.000+02:00

This morning when I was putting my shoes on, I put one shoe on, and knew that I had recently seen another shoe under the couch, so I reached down and grabbed it and put it on. When I got outside I noticed that I had two different (un-matched) shoes on, so I went back in and promised (Allan was waiting) to just put on the first shoe I found. I am looking for some new shoes and thinking about ordering them on-line, so I looked in the shoes I was wearing to get my current size. And the answer was 9.5D(wide). Which didn't really seem familiar, but they fit well so it must be right. When I got home, I looked in another pair (same brand) and noticed that they were 10B. At first I was like, 'Grr. That will make it hard to order.' But then I noticed that one pair was a men's style and the other was a women's style. Looking in the third pair confirmed the size I wear in women's shoes (10B). Then Allan remarked that actually he wears 9.5Ds. And now he wants to know if I took his shoes. I really don't think I did, but I don't have a very good explanation for the whole thing.

Lessons in Life

2006-08-03T23:59:00.000+02:00

Today I learned the hard way that there are limits to how much watermelon the body can take.

German consumers:1; Wal-Mart:0

2006-07-29T21:17:00.000+02:00

Wow! Wal-Mart announced today that they are selling their remaining 85 stores in Germany (assuming that the anti-cartel authorites approve the sale).

Take heart, America! There is hope! Stop the evil!

FYI

2006-07-29T20:07:00.000+02:00

Just wanted to let those who ask know that information about the status of my knee is contained in a separate blog, MyRunningDiary . You don't know about the blog because it started as a chance for me to write down how fast or slow my kms were every training session, and how my distance was doing, but it seemed like a good storage place for the day-to-day reports as well. So, don't read it - it is boring. But if you ever say to yourself, "Hey - I wonder if Jeannette is out and about or if she is training," that is the place to get the latest snapshot.

Some differences between Germany and France

2006-07-23T20:10:00.000+02:00

OK, I have been really bad about blogging about vacations and stuff, because Allan does such a great job covering the details, and he adds pictures. But I don't want my story of Europe to sound like I never left the house, so let me 'fess up some details.

This year I have been to Brussels, Bologna and southern France (and since I went to Brussels alone, I can't expect Allan to report on it at all, so I will put that report up one day as well).

There was a bit of a culture shock in moving to Germany, and it is sometimes easy to think of that culture shock being about the differences between Europe and America, rather than between Germany and Iowa/Colorado/Texas, or even between cities of 100,000 in south-western Germany vs towns of 10,000, cities of 100,000, and university towns of 50,000 in Iowa, cities of 500,000 in Colorado, or cities of 700,000 in central Texas. What I am trying to say is, sometimes you tend to think that Europe is Europe, but it is not.

My trip to Brussels was pretty quick and relatively surprise free, although I came home with twice as much stuff as I took, after stopping into a couple housewares shops that we don't have in Heilbronn, picking up the obligatory Belgian chocolates for workmates, and buying Allan some beer that doesn't comply with the Deutsches Reinheitsgebot.

When we went to Italy in April, we got confused at the first restaurant when trying to figure out how to pay. Once the waiter gave us our food and put the bill on our table, he wouldn't even look at us again. We noticed that all the other guests went into the restaurant (we were sitting out on the terrace) before leaving, so we picked up our bill and took it inside as well. That is actually a nice feature in a foreign country - in Germany, when you want to pay, you ask your server and he/she calculates your total (or, increasingly, brings you a printed bill), and waits while you dig through your wallet and decide how much to tip, which can make discussion of how much to tip and satisfaction with the service rather embarrassing. So it was kind of nice in a foreign country to be able to see the bill and then actually be rung up by a third person at a register.

We ran into the normal problem we have as tourists in Italy - the siesta. For two hours every afternoon (usually about the time we get hungry), everything closes. With our hotel providing breakfast, though, including some cakes and cookies individually wrapped up to go and the delicious lunch options we came across (Indian wraps ... mmhh), we got along pretty well. The hotel we stayed at was gorgeous - newly opened and close to the trade fairgrounds, on the holiday weekend they had really great deals, and so we were at a much nicer hotel than we normally stay at. Which meant they offered, among other things, Intimate Hygiene. We got through our couple day trip without any major faux pas, though, and just said "That is Italy." I mean, there were things that were different - all the buildings seemed to be shades of red, the streets were narrow, the buildings were old. People were sitting outside. It was hot.

In May, for my birthday, we went to France. The day we got there was a holiday, and yet we found restaurants and corner shops that were open. Since in Germany very few, if any, things are open on holidays, we took this as a sign that perhaps stores would be open late or on Sundays, that perhaps the hours or rules there weren't as strict as Germany. But that wasn't the first of our surprises. France had strange differences from Germany. In Germany they don't serve you water, for example. It is one of the things that always makes it hard for me to travel in Germany - the lack of liquids. In the US, I am always fond of the bottomless Diet Coke, but if the restaurant serves Pepsi or if I am just not in the mood, I will just get a water, and know that I can drink quarts and quarts of ice water during my meal. But not in Germany. Here, you always have to order a drink. Apparently, there is a legal requirement that every establishment have something that is cheaper than alcohol, but the thing is that it doesn't seem worth it. If you are looking at a menu, and they have a 0.2l glass of water for 2Euros, or a 0.5l glass of beer for 2.50Euros, what would you choose. Oh well, I would choose the beer. Unless I am driving, and then I would probably get the alcohol-free beer.

Well, at the first restaurant we went to in France (Indian - ha ha - something we have trouble finding in Germany!) we were asked if we wanted water in a pitcher or a bottle - we were in a country of free drinking water with our meals! The funny thing, though, is that across the region, we found that the meals cost 2Euros more than in Germany. I guess that is what they have to do to be able to make a living and serve free water.

Throughout our trip we were still occasionally caught by the siesta or the opening hours of stores, sights, and restaurants. But maybe the biggest surprise was that even though we thought it was hot there, the hotels still had the heat on, the pools didn't have water yet, and it took a lot of begging to be allowed to eat outside on the terrace. Explaining that we were American or lived in Germany allowed us to be "kooky" and open windows or sit outside, though.

On the day of departure, though, we discovered that just because stores might be open on holidays, they weren't going to be open on Sundays. The pickings were slim, but we got what we needed and headed home.

Dreams ...

2006-07-22T09:04:00.000+02:00

Thursday night I dreamt that I went to a job interview, and when I got there it was Jesse who was supposed to interview me. Neither of us said anything, we just stood there nose to nose for hours. Other people were moving around in the room.

Polenta, day 2

2006-07-16T18:59:00.000+02:00

OK, just keeping you informed of the war with the polenta. The goal is to use the polenta I have without gaining more leftovers. This means actually making chili to go with it is out, because a batch of chili always turns into multi-day quantities by itself. Trying to convince A. that microwaving polenta and cheese was good wasn't getting a buy-in as dinner. So I am reaching back to those Midwestern roots and making a casserole. Simple chili (just beans and tomatoes mixed with the leftover peppers and onions from yesterday), alternating in layers with the polenta and cheese (in nearly A.-level quantities, I swear). I am hoping the spice in the chili will make it seem less like "another day of polenta", and also hoping that there isn't a horrible clash between the veg broth I used to make the polenta (kind of Provençal, I think) and the Tex-Mexiness of the chili.

Quantity-wise, the casserole is in the smallest dish - one and a half meals, usually, although I may have eaten too much today already to pull my weight here - and the spare polenta is half used.

Urgent plea for help!

2006-07-15T19:49:00.000+02:00

So, sometime this afternoon I decided that polenta and grilled peppers/onions would be a great dinner. Ran the idea past A. and got approval.

As dinnertime approached (or, as the Bourne Identity ended), I got ready to cook, and noticed that my corn meal had a best before date back in March, and in the heat of the moment, decided that cooking more than I had planned would be the best way of dealing with the long-past date. So, I made 8 cups of polenta. (Which is still only half of the package.) A. and I each ate about one, before declaring that eating more was impossible, so I now have at least 5 cups of cooked polenta in the fridge (would I be better off freezing it?), as well as another ~pound of corn meal.

Does anyone have suggestions for me? I am considering making a batch of chili tomorrow and using the existing polenta as corn-bread dumplings, but how much will I gain?

Any other ideas?

The most disgusting thing I have ever seen

2006-07-09T22:11:00.000+02:00

I have a colleague who doesn't talk much, but when he does it is classic. Not Silent Bob inspirational insightful classic, but classic nonetheless. Recently (allowing for how long I have been going to write this, at least), he mentioned that there would be a summer festival in Böckingen and that among other attractions would be a Bierkastenlauf. I was instantly intrigued. Apparently, this is a very popular, newish sport in Germany (and perhaps the reason they haven't won the World Cup in 16 years), and many different competitions country-wide can be found by the interested.

The common factors to all competitions is a case of beer, a distance to cover, and the fact that the case has to be empty by the time you cross the finish line. The variables are the length of the course, the number of people on a team, and the size of the bottles.

Since finding out about it, we had debated technique and strategy, as if we were actually thinking about doing it. Do you sit down and drink half the case (so it isn't so heavy) then start to run? Or do you run while you can, then drink the case in peace at the finish line? Can you have a designated drinker and a designated runner, or do you need to split the case evenly? Is this a sport it is better to train for, and if so, by the same principles used in most other training plans (intervals, rest periods, work your muscles then recover)?

With all this planning, what option did we have but to watch? (Well, we could've competed, but Hello!) I had trouble finding any information on the local race until the day of, when I saw a mention in the newspaper that it started at noon. We went to the fairgrounds looking for it. When we got there, we found a sign saying that it didn't start until 5, so we wandered over to the marching band competition (and heard a lovely brass rendition of Black Sabbath's "Crazy Train") and watched for a while before going home to do homey stuff.

Around 5 pm we went back to the fairgrounds. We had missed the beginning of the race, but we found some nice seats right on the finish line, and got ourselves a couple of drinks to wait. Some time later there was a commotion, an announcement, and a crowd started to build around us. The first team came running toward the finish line, but they still had beer in their case! So, they stopped just feet short of crossing, put the case down, and started chugging. And then they started vomiting. Conveniently, there was a sewer drain located right there, and the organizers had planned ahead, bringing a hose to wash down the mess.

The first guys we saw, the previous year's champions, were the ultimate winners, and we watched them puke their way to victory. I don't know how many places were awarded prizes, but we watched at least 10 more teams come stumbling up to the finish line and try to finish off their cases, with limited levels of success. I think the female duo is the only team that I didn't witness puking - they should've gotten a special prize for that!

Summary is, we aren't doing it. Not next year, not ever.

At least not in town ... some of the other towns I saw hosting similar competitions give female teams a three-bottle fewer requirement, and one town lets you mount the case in a harness (one team we saw that didn't wear gloves had bloody hands)...

What I learned from TV and advertising

2006-06-27T21:03:00.000+02:00

I was talking to some friends the other day, when one said that he had never had the any interest in visiting the UK because he didn't like any television shows he had ever seen from there. Some other friends scoffed, but I know what he means. We had a long chat about American TV programs that are on TV here and what people therefore think life in the US is like. Think of 90210, Melrose Place, The Young and the Restless, Dallas, O.C. California, etc. (ignoring SF/Fantasy for now, because I assume that everyone knows they aren't real). When Americans watch these shows, we know that life isn't like that because OUR lives aren't like that. But what do foreigners who see these think? I had an aquaintance who said that the first call she got from her cousin when he moved to the US was something to the effect of "TV lied! The women here aren't all thin and beautiful." So there are some people who believe it.

Well, in a rather random transition (but related to our perceptions of different countries that we haven't been to), Allan and I haven't been to India, although we would like to go. We aren't obsessed with Bollywood productions, but we are pretty well obsessed with Indian food. The more so because it is rather hard to get here. (The last two times we found Indian food I ended up eating myself sick. I couldn't help it! I was afraid it might be my last chance at it or something.) And I watched a film in my Eastern Cultures class in high school that made it look like everyone wore orange, so I know that I would love it. Anyway, with the lack of good Indian restaurants, we have been quite fond of Indian week at Aldi. The discount grocers here have revolving stock (kind of like Hobby Lobby's sale on each item in 6-week rotations), and every once in a while they will have a sale on Asian food (sate, ramen, and wasabi) or Indian (cans of chicken korma, rogan josh, and tikka masala). Well, when Indian week comes up, we kind of stock up (just one backpack full, nothing out of line) to tide us over for I-don't-want-to-cook-dinner emergencies until the next sale.

Allan pointed out that we only had one can left, and so when the paper came, I headed straight to the ads, looking to see if we were back to stock-up week. Instead of Indian week, though, it turns out that it is American week at Lidl. What an eye opener. Not like I thought that canned korma was the epitome of Indian life, or anything, but the food offered for American week really made me think. Corn flakes with 20% maple syrup, frozen microwaveable rib burger sandwiches, premixed cinnamon sugar,"barbeque marshmallows".

Is that what they think we eat?

On a second read, though, some of it doesn't sound so bad, and I might even go pick some things up. (Seriously, there are some things you don't normally see here. Pecans (although they can be found sometimes at Plus), onion rings, the rib burger ... But pancake mix, dried cranberries, muffin mix and cheap wine are on the shelves at every store.)

Assertiveness training

2006-06-27T17:52:00.000+02:00

I lost some assertiveness points today, as I decided to fix something someone at work did in a dumb way instead of making him redo it himself. In my defense, I will claim that it was faster to do it than explain the whole thing, but that is just a defense. Allan suggested that G. and L. could probably give me some training, but I don't know yet when we will be able to schedule that (September or October is the current estimate). The funny thing on that subject, though, which wasn't the intention of this blog post is that when I got a reputation for being a bitch at my previous job, my boss sent me to a class called "Communication Skills for Women", thinking it would make me better, when really it was assertiveness training, not be-a-nice-girl training, like he obviously thought. When did I lose it? Oh well. The point is that maybe I didn't, because something else happened today.

I talked to a marketing manager who has a habit of rubbing me the wrong way. Usually by saying something like "Americans are stupid. Present company excluded, of course." It was such a surprise the first time that I wasn't prepared, but then I thought about snappy come-backs for the next meeting. Which didn't happen, of course. But today I saw him (sneaking out of an empty conference room with a bottle of orange juice, but that isn't the point either) and he said to me "The majority of Americans don't care about soccer, do they?" And I said, "What, you mean not more than 150 million do?" He laughed, and said "Good point."

Then we had a chat about the last several games, the up-coming couple, why the American sports-inclined in general go to the better paying American sports unless there is a personal love of the game, etc. And without any statements like "All X do Y".

It was actually rather civilized.

German dogs

2006-06-24T15:33:00.000+02:00

Allan has always had a theory that German dogs were smarter than American dogs (I think his logic had something to do with the fact that they understand German...), and I must say that after three specific dog experiences today, I am willing to agree.

We saw a woman walking her dog and they went down a path to the river. The dog came out of the water on the muddy bank instead of on the concrete slip, and the woman told her dog " Now your feet are all dirty. You can't come back in the house like that. Get back in and rinse your paws, then stay on the concrete." And the dog did.

We were standing in the same place (ask Allan about the picture we waited half an hour to take!) and another woman and another dog went to the same riverside path. This woman "bathed" her dog in the river, and when she stepped back and let the dog out, she told him "Don't shake until I move back," and the dog stood there patiently dripping until she took four steps away, then he shook.

Stopping at a beer garden on the way home, a guy sat near us, and when the resident dog went by he noticed a small twig in the dog's whiskers and pulled it out. The dog looked at the twig and decided it would make a good throwing toy, and asked the guy to throw it. The guy told the dog that the stick wasn't big enough, but that if the dog brought a bigger stick he would throw it. The dog went into the shrubbery to look for a stick, and came back with one of the appropriate diameter. Unfortunately, it was only about 3 - 4 inches long, so it wasn't really ideal. For a game of catch between the benches and tables I think it worked, though.

Whoo hoo!

2006-06-18T00:05:00.000+02:00

So, you may have heard that the World Cup is going on.... well, last Wednesday (which happened to be the day before a holiday), we went to the beer garden to see Germany play Poland. There were many discussions leading up to the choice of location. What time would we get there. Would it be early enough to get a seat. Would it work together with my dragon boat practice. Etc.

We got there around 7, and while we were far from the first, there were still plenty of good seats with views of the banks of monitors. We even had time to try out different locations and get food. There were plenty of people with black, red and gold face paint, shirts, wigs, hats, etc., and even promoters with noise makers or paper hands making the rounds. On the table was a contest description where you could SMS your bet for the final score (at 49 cents a shot) for the chance of winning a free 2.50 drink. Ha! But there were also girls walking around for entry forms from a local radio station, where the question was much simpler: At half-time, will Germany be winning, losing or tieing? Allan assured me that Germany would win the game, so he checked winning, and I checked tieing.

Then, there was a check box at the bottom that send "Yes, send me junk mail!" We both left that blank. When half-time came, the girls went to the middle of the beer garden and started saying something into megaphones. I couldn't understand any of it, but occasionally someone would run up and win a prize. I thought to myself, Hmmm. I wonder if I would recognize if they said my name, and suddenly, I decided that they were saying my name. I ran up and said "I think that is me." They didn't ask me any questions, and they handed me a licensed Germany jersey.

I sometimes wonder if they really called my name, or if I just wanted to hear it. No one else went up. And if the name they were saying had been something obviously not me, like Jürgen or Matthias, I assume that they wouldn't have given me the shirt. Oh well. I have a jersey! Whoo hoo!

Rental cars

2006-06-13T17:08:00.000+02:00

We had a fabulous weekend of traveling around in our rental car. There are two things that the experience has left fresh in my mind.

One, why is the car you reserve never anywhere near the car you get???? There was a weekend special, and I chose the cheapest car that the deal had - the rental company gave me a choice of the following three at the same rate:
-Peugeot 107 or equivalent (2-door, manual transmission, no AC)
-Ford Fiesta or equivalent (hatchback, manual transmission, no AC)
-Volkwwagen Polo or equivalent (4-door, manual transmission, AC)

No, I really don't remember which I chose. If I am really bored or indecisive when I am reserving I sometimes look up the mileage and choose the lowest one, hoping to save money later, as well.

I am not sure that we have ever gotten the car we reserved (maybe the time that we asked for a SmartForFour?). Much like Jan, who got a big van when she came (but we needed room for 4 people, so it was better that it was too big than too small), I got a VAN this weekend. And it was an automatic, which sounded like it would be ok but was very annoying, because it didn't react the way the driver thought it should (Allan suggested it is maybe because European auto manufacturers have only recently started making automatics, so they have to learn how to do it, unlike the American manufacturers who have been doing it for years).

Two, on my list of weird new car rental issues (perhaps they are new issues because I never had to rent in the States because I owned a car?) is the turn-in process. Ever since the bastard car-rental company from hell (BCRCFH for short) in Illinois, I have this semi-phobia about opening my mail for a week after returning every rental car. So, it was with great relief and only a little trepidation that I opened my copy of the bill from the always-super even if they-don't-give-you-the-car-you-reserved car-rental company around the corner (ASEITDGYTCYRCRCATC) today, to see that the check-in process went by without a hitch.

Details, part 4

2006-05-30T21:18:00.000+02:00

I had a 9 am appointment the day after surgery. Unfortunately, the doctor doesn't deign to show up until like 10. Anyone else wonder why he spends the rest of the day behind schedule? Allan walked me to the office (after the dizziness early in the morning, the fresh air seemed nice, and I was supposed to be putting 25-50% weight on my leg). It was crisp outside, and so it didn't take long after I got inside for the heat to make me sick. I tried my hardest to get my body horizontal on the most random waiting-room benches you have ever seen so that the room would stop spinning, and Allan brought me a cup of water, which I then held onto, gruesomely wondering how much vomit it would hold when the time came ... I lay there, turning, I assume, increasingly green, and as the waiting room filled up no-one dared to sit near me. It was a relief when I was called to go into a examination room, allowing me to comfortably recline on the exam table.

The doctor finally came in and told me absolutely nothing of interest ("I am sure that you are fine and aren't even taking pain killer, right?" Ha!) An assistant had taken off my bandage before the doctor got there, and after the couple words and the doctor leaving, I continued to lay there, assuming that someone would rebandage me. Otherwise why did I need an appointment in two days to have the bandage changed? So I lay there. Allan and I told jokes, and continued to wait, wondering if maybe no one was coming and I was just supposed to go. Some time later the doctor stuck his head back in and looked at me, and told me that he would send someone to wrap me back up.

With that bit of excitement behind me, Allan walked me back home, but I felt that his attention and sympathy were waning. Where my first day home he was at my side instantly when I said that I needed something, today if I asked for help he would say "Just a minute," and finish his turn and save his game. After agonizing over giving myself my first injection (I read the instructions five times and then told Allan that he had to do it for me - he even agreed to, isn't that sweet?) and being brought lunch, I decided that I was ok and Allan could go back to work. After all, I had a 2-week sick note, and I wasn't going to get this kind of service the whole time; no need to milk it now.

The next couple days were a bit of a blur of ice packs, reading till late in the night, and sleeping most of the day, when I suddenly realized that it was Thursday and I was supposed to start physical therapy the next day, but hadn't found a therapist yet. Started by mapping out the ones I found in the phone book, and called what looked like the closest. I was told that it was no problem, and I had an appointment for the next day.

I went on Friday, taking my surgical report and insurance card, and met my physical therapist. With his deep voice and his rolled rs when he said his name was Aleksandr, you could tell there was no e between the d and the r. He rubbed some very numb and swollen spots on my knee, and pulled and stretched things to where they should be. Sometimes he would just watch my knee from all the different angles as I moved it, or close his eyes and feel the moving parts move. It made me suddenly very self-conscious of my hairy legs and the orange layer of disinfectant covering my leg that I hadn't washed off yet (I wasn't allowed to take a shower until the stitches came out, and I hadn't even unwrapped the bandage myself before going).

One of the most fun things, and the most encouraging, was how everytime I did anything (lift my leg, bend it without screaming, stand - you know - things you take for granted) he would say Erstaunlich as if he really meant it. He didn't over use it, really. I mean, he also said it when I did my first knee bends and as he put my foot against his shoulder and told me to push. He asked me twice who did my surgery, as if the doctor was going to be given credit for it, and not just my will-power.

Two weeks after surgery I was back at work. I was approved up-front for 6 physical therapy sessions (oh - did I tell you what the butt-head doctor said? Before surgery, I asked about physical therapy, and he was like "If you think you need it I will write you a note, but most people don't bother." Then I was told at work by a co-worker that she couldn't believe I only had 6 physical therapy sessions - the insurance companies only approve 6 at first, and then you have to go back to your doctor and get prescribed more.) Well, because of scheduling issues, I only had three sessions with the physical therapist before my final post-surgery check-up, and although he didn't say it the same way, the doctor apparently also found my recovery to be pretty amazing, and he sent me home saying he never wanted to see me again (which was ok - the feeling was mutual!). So, he didn't approve me for more physical therapy, and so I had to enjoy my last three sessions, riding my bike from work to the office on my lunch breaks. One day I was at lunch with Allan and Martin, joking about how Aleksandr "touched me in ways that Allan didn't". (Was it the hairy legs? The fact that we weren't sharing a bed?)

Anyway, like I said before, the surgeon said that I could run in 4 weeks. Aleksandr said that it might be a good idea to switch to another sport, given my history (this is my, what?, fourth torn meniscus? fourth surgery, anyway, and even the first surgeon said that I had scars from previous injuries when he did his work). And he is probably right. At least until I lose 10 kilos ... So, I am currently swimming and biking. Walking is almost always good (there were still random shooting pains, but I think that they stopped. No wait, there was still a weird issue on Sunday or Monday night ...), but other than a couple odd 100m here and there, there has still been no running. Sigh.

Details, part 3

2006-05-25T19:57:00.000+02:00

I know that this is much delayed, but this is the next part of my knee surgery story. It is a lot of detail, but it is my diary, darn it, and I can write as much as I want!

So, I went to the front desk, and the assistant started making appointments for me. Two weeks till surgery. Four days before that a pre-op Q&A. One day, and again two weeks after, post-op check-ups. I also needed a physical from my Hausarzt (who I don't know yet), to show I was healthy enough for surgery, and two appointments within the two following weeks, again at the Hausarzt, to have the bandage changed and the stitches pulled. The assistant told me that I would be given a prescription for crutches at my next appointment, gave me some more brochures about the day clinic where my surgery was scheduled, and told me not to eat as of 10 pm the day before.

With these things scheduled, the next two weeks flew. Between trying to get a little ahead at work so that I could survive a two-week sick note and getting to all these appointments, I was pretty busy. And the fact that walking was getting worse didn't help. I looked around and asked around work to see if anyone could recommend a doctor, but everyone lives out of town and their doctors were too far away for invalid me. So I hit up the phone book. Actually, Asra had told me that she kept hearing about a great doctor, but when I called him it turned out he was on vacation. The next closest to my house was one of the doctors his answering machine referred me to in an emergency, and so I called. A very cheery assistant answered the phone, told me that I could get an appointment on the schedule I needed, and told me how to get there.

Apparently I didn't listen very well, though, because when I showed up the next week, I realized they were on the third floor of a building without an elevator. Hmmm. Not going to be the most practical next week on crutches ... But too late for anything else, I did it. Things started well, although the assistant today was not the same cheery one as on the phone, but went downhill when both doctors made some rather ridiculous comments. Oh well, I never have to see these guys again, right? Anyway, again, it was too late to change ... Blood tests the next morning, results available on Friday, and I was good to go. I had an EKG, even though I wasn't required to have one unless I was over 40. It was mostly boring, but it left big hickeys on my breasts. Friday I picked up my results, and when I asked the doctor how they looked, he kind of mumbled something. The (cheery) nurse/receptionist told me that they were good. (I think the doctor just didn't want to tell me because he thinks that I weigh too much, but the fact that all my values look great, and that my creatine level is on the higher side of normal (as it is with athletes) doesn't justify his being so mean to me earlier in the week. OK, just my opinion, I know!)

Friday I had my final pre-op chat with the doctor, and on my way out, I asked if I wasn't supposed to get a prescription for crutches. He looked at me like I was just being a big baby (Hello!!!! Having my knee cut open!!!), then asked the receptionist, "Don't we normally give those out when the surgery is scheduled?" She answered affirmatively, and he sighed and told her to give me a prescription today. I suppose he might've been sighing at the incompetence of whoever in his office didn't give me the prescription two weeks earlier, but after the looks of frustration I had gotten from him earlier, I took it a little personally, as if it were my fault that his staff couldn't get things right. (See? That is the retrospect of two months - that day I came home cursing about what an ass he was!)

Survived the weekend, didn't eat on Sunday night, and packed all my stuff to take on Monday morning. ("Packed what stuff?" you are probably asking. Well, check out the list of things I was supposed to bring:
1) My insurance card
2) Results from my GP
3) Filled out agreement to do surgery
4) Clean sheets (pillow, blanket, sheet)
5) Sweat suit, or other loose, comfortable clothing
6) A book or toy
7) Clean underwear
8) Kleenex
9) Cookies, crackers or other snack for recovery time)

Sitting at home on Monday morning, I kept almost walking into the kitchen to get food or a drink, and it was driving me crazy, so finally (at like 9 am) I just decided to go in and get it over with.

They let me check in right away, and as I was telling one of the nurses that I was there early, she said that that was actually great, and I would get in early. (Ha ha! I budged in line for the operation!) I made my bed, got undressed, and lay down to read my book. Before long, the anesthesiologist came in, read my file and said "We're just gonna give you full anesthesia. OK?" which was kind of a relief, because I still hadn't really decided how I wanted it. The surgeon came by, looked at my knee, looked at my MRIs, and, turning out to be the nicest doctor of the whole experience, just said "OK, this is going to be a snap. You've been through worse; we'll take good care of you." Quick sigh of relief. OK, I am ready.

Nurses came in, talked to me, put a needle in my arm, and gave me shots (and lessons in how to give myself shots!). They left, I lay back down with my glasses off, thinking I was all set to slip off to pre-surgery sleep, when one came back in and told me to get up and walk down the hall to the O.R.! Since I was glasses-less, following her wasn't as easy as she seemed to think it should be, but I made it. I sat/laid in the chair while a flurry of people who knew what they were doing all did their things at the same time - one strapping my arm down, another lifting my leg, a third putting a hat on my head - and had one of those fabulous conversations with anesthesiologists that I always seem to have: A - "So, how are you enjoying life in town?" (or whatever friendly question they always ask). Me - "Well, I ... "

Next thing I know, I am being wheeled down the hall, and I find myself telling a woman about a dream I had had. No idea what language I was speaking, or what the dream was, but she didn't seem to mind. She put me back in my room and I fell asleep. I woke up some time later, and picked up my book.

The surgeon came in, told me that all had gone well, that I had picked a good time to come (which I am interpreting as having to do with the fact that it kept getting worse, but that I made it in in time), gave me some fabulous pictures (now on display in my guest bedroom!), three copies of my surgery report, a note saying I should start physical therapy on Friday, laughed when I asked him when I could start running (4 weeks), told me to try and lift my leg, was impressed that I could do it, told me if I felt like it I could get ready to go home, and said good-bye.

A nurse came back and asked for Allan's number so she could tell him to come get me. I mentioned that she should speak slowly (sorry Allan, I know that you speak German, but I didn't want her to catch you off guard), but that scared her and so she passed me the phone. When Allan didn't answer I asked her what time it was, and she told me 1 pm; figuring that he was at lunch I called his boss's cell phone (but the two of them were at lunch together, so he passed the phone to Allan), and I told him to come get me in an hour. Over the course of the next hour I unmade the bed and put stuff back in my bag. When I was ready I crutched over to the waiting room, and opened my box of crackers.

Sitting in the waiting room with other recovering patients (including a family with kids talking it up) I started to not feel so well, and put my crackers down. Still not feeling well, and thinking that a visit to the bathroom would help, I stood up and left the room. Standing up was apparently the wrong decision, because I was no sooner out in the hall when my vision went black. I leaned against a wall. Fighting the darkness, I leaned toward the nurses' station and said "Hello?" "Yes?" one of them answered. I must have felt worse than I looked. "Um. I am kind of dizzy." Nurses came running, took me back to the chair that I had just vacated, reclined it, and gave me a cup of water. "If you are too weak to hold it, ask someone here to help you," one said.

"Yeah, we would've been glad to help before - you didn't need to go to the nurses for help," one of the people in the waiting room admonished me.

"I didn't ... I didn't mean to .... I didn't know I was sick, I was just looking for the bathroom when I got dizzy," I tried to explain, but I knew that they thought I didn't trust them. Allan came and found me all reclined with my leg propped up. "I would still kind of like to go to the bathroom." So we waited in front of the bathroom door for a couple of minutes, when I decided I could probably get home faster than the person in there would finish up, and the heat and anesthesia after effects were getting to me. I just wanted to be outside.

We had discussed all the options for getting home, from having a friend pick me up, borrowing a car, taking a cab, taking the tram, or walking. We hadn't decided. Since I really wanted the fresh air, we decided to take the tram. I was feeling great. The pain killer was still going strong, and I was perky when Ursula came over to watch over me while Allan went to his German class.

When bedtime came, Allan and I decided that we couldn't sleep in the same bed, what with the large, immobile and sensitive mass posing as my leg, and so he made a home for me in the guest room with water, pain killer, my crutches, and books. I fell asleep, but woke up around 5 am, and with a slightly odd feeling (similar to the one at the clinic), I decided that I would feel better if I were in the bathroom. And just like at the clinic, this was a mistake, because a few minutes later I found myself in my front hall, standing on the cold floor, mostly naked, and starting to black out.

Allan came running, but I think that I really confused him, because he couldn't guess what my priorities were regarding buckets and getting off my foot. He tucked me back into bed, where I stayed until it was time to go to my first pre-op check-up just a few hours later.

The Trollinger Marathon

2006-05-21T14:19:00.000+02:00

So, today is/was the 6th Trollinger Marathon, and I didn't run because of my knee injury. In fact, on Thursday they made me give up my registration so that they could sign up someone else to run in my place.

So, I got to watch it. It was funny to be on the sidelines, because I really never watch sports. The weather was much nicer than last year, 16°C, and I was pointing at people running by - "He looks about the way I felt last year.", "She looks good!"

I am not a pretty runner (actually, I have never been a very glamorous mover at all, as all but the most posed pictures of me prove), but I was kind of sad watching instead of running, because in January I was so psyched, thinking this was going to be a good year. Last year I did a couple 15-km runs when the weather was good, so I figured if the weather was decent I could have come in in good shape.

Oh well, I picked up some flyers for upcoming triathlons this summer - I think I can get back into shape for a 5- to 6-km run without too much trouble, if I can just get started. Perhaps the 1 km to the swimming pool is my chance! Ummm. Can't be bothered to run with my towel and stuff, so I will just have to go on a short run independent of swimming.

The dentist

2006-05-18T12:08:00.000+02:00

So, we had our six month dentist's appointments on Tuesday at 8 am, which ended up kind of sucking since at about 5:30 rain started pouring down, and it didn't stop all day. Once we were dressed it seemed like there was a pause in the rain so we decided to go. By the time we were out the door, though, it was raining, and too late to turn back. So we rode our bikes in the rain, which kept getting worse. We stopped under a bridge with some other bikers to try and wait it out, even though we were already soaked. When the rain seemed to have lightened up, we rode on.

We got to the dentist dripping. Since I had my swimming suit and a towel in my bag, I dried my face off and sat on my towel in the dentist chair.

The dentist said that my teeth look good, but I really have to do something about my gum issue. The last three (four?) dentists have all told me that I have receding gums, and all had different advice. This time, I was told that I need to learn a new way to brush my teeth - only red to white, gum to tooth. No more up and down. No more round and round. No more back and forth. No more scrubbing. The benefit, he assured me, (other than hopefully saving my teeth) would be that I would get big strong arm muscles from this new motion.

He seems to be right, because it is certainly hard to do, and my arm gets really tired.

Trust a dentist to take the fun out of brushing your teeth!

Here's where you can find us ...

2006-05-11T18:34:00.000+02:00

So, recovering from vacation and thinking about calling people to get together this weekend, I stumbled across this item in the Heilbronn Marketing newsletter about the regional wine producers association's "Open Cellar" this weekend. When clicking through to the website for more information, I came across this fabulous map labelled "Where to find us".

Now, THAT is what I like to see! So, if you are looking for us on Sunday, Here's where you can find us!

Birthday faux pas!

2006-04-20T07:58:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, a colleague had a birthday. She doesn't work today, I don't work tomorrow, I am taking two weeks off starting Monday, and during that time I will celebrate my birthday.

On her way out, we wished her a happy birthday again, she told us to have a nice weekend, and me to have a nice vacation. I told her that she might as well wish me happy birthday, because she wouldn't see me until after that. She changed the subject and left without saying it, and I remembered that in Germany it is not acceptable to wish people happy birthday early. This is strange for me, because in my experience, it is better to tell people happy birthday early than late. How many people have I accidently cursed through my thoughtlessness?

Ah, the little details of life abroad!

Details, Part 2

2006-03-24T18:38:00.000+01:00

OK, that last line was kind of a lie. They told me that they could see me in two and a half weeks if I could come in at 7 am. I decided I couldn't. If you think that means you shouldn't have to listen to me complain about pain anymore, fine. That is your right.

So, time goes by (the next day I called and tried to take the 7 am appt., but they had already given it away), and the Monday of the appointment comes. The nurse asked me some questions about my history (yes, tore my meniscus before, 1984, cut stuff up pretty bad, had to have ligaments and tendons reattached/shortened, etc), she told me to take out my belly ring, I had my MRI. I was sent back to the waiting room, then called back in. I met a doctor who scrolled around in pictures of my knee a little bit, showed me a picture of a triangle with a line through it, told me that I had a torn meniscus, asked me if I had any questions. I said no; I left.

As I walked to work and as the day went on, I thought to myself how I should have asked some questions. The doctor seemed nicer or more willing to talk to me than the orthopedist, and my co-workers started asking me some things, and I thought, darn it - why didn't I ask anything? Why should I have to wait until my appointment with the orthopedist on Wednesday, when I can get some answers today? And so after work I went back to the doctor's office, and asked the receptionist if the doctor could take another minute to answer some questions. She asked him, he agreed. I went in. I was nervous. "Hi, sorry to bother you, surprised that you asked me if I had questions so I didn't have any ready, thought of some, is that ok?"

Him: "Yeah."

"OK, well," (I had a list - not a long list, but a check list so that I could be methodical), "the orthopedist's concern was that I didn't have any meniscus left to tear because of previous surgeries. So, you can see that I have a meniscus, because you said there is a tear in it. That is good, right? Can you see how much is left?"

Him: "You didn't tell me you had surgery before. That changes everything."

Shock. Dismay. What does he mean I didn't tell him? I told the assistant. She wrote it in my file. I didn't tell him anything. Did he ask? Why does it change everything? What does it change? It threw me for a loop. "Well, yeah, I did."

Strangely, the conversation really fell apart after that. I don't even remember how the next transition came about. He didn't tell me what it changed, he didn't seem to want to rethink his diagnosis. Somehow we moved on, and I asked him some questions that weren't really his job, but he is more expert than me, so I asked! If it seemed fixable, how bad comparatively it was to other tears he had seen, etc.

He got stubborn, and refused to answer any more questions, so I just got up and left. Since the whole fabulous experience had only taken about 5 minutes, I decided that going to me UV treatment would be a nice, warm, sunny change to the cold, cloudy day. I got into the light booth, and started to cry, releasing the tension and frustration. Why was it so hard to get a decent answer from a doctor? Why do I fill out a patient history if the doctor isn't going to read it?

By the time my appointment with the orthopedist came, I didn't have much for expectations. After waiting an hour past my appointment time (and then sitting in a room with my file for 20 minutes - I couldn't read the orthopedist's handwriting, but the mean old MRI-guy's report was in there - it said that I had a grade 3 tear, plus grade 1 degradation around the edges - how come he told me that he couldn't compare my severity to others or give me any information? OK, it didn't tell me what the scale was, but I had learned more from this page than I did from two "Q&A sessions" with the doctor. I also found out that he was only the Urlaubsvertretung at the MRI office. Can I make rude comments about how he is temping instead of working there for real because he has no social skills?)

The orthopedist didn't say a lot. He looked at the note from the MRI guy and said, "OK. Your meniscus is torn. How does it feel?" I said, "The pain is pretty much unbearable." He said, "OK, we will schedule surgery, then. Read this informational sheet, you need to sign approval at least one day in advance of the surgery. You can ask questions at that time. Stop at the reception desk to set up the appointments. Who is your General Practitioner?" "Um, I don't have one." "Get one. You need to get a pre-op certificate of health and someone to pull the stitches." OK.

Details, Part 1

2006-03-15T22:33:00.000+01:00

Funny. I guess between not wanting to say anything until it was confirmed, running out of time with all the doctors' appointments, and posting running-related things to my running blog, I forgot to ever tell most of you what was going on.

Sometime in January I tore my meniscus (that is the little plate that goes between the femur and tibia to keep them from rubbing against each other). So, a torn meniscus means, at least in my case, pain, pain and more pain. Sometimes (like after I ran), it was more an aching pain in the back of the knee that I felt with every step for a week. Other times it was a crazy stabbing pain between the tibia and the patella. The worst part of the second was that it would come and go and strike at anytime - I might be walking to work and get half way there just fine, when all of a sudden the next step I would just more or less collapse.

So, since I have a history of knee issues (three surgeries in the '80s) and even 20 years later occasional pain especially when it is cold or rainy, it took me about a week to decide that this was a real, new problem, not just a flare up. I found a local sports medicine specialist, but had to wait two weeks for an appointment.

I had a couple of good days leading up to the appointment, and was worried that I wouldn't be able to figure out how to describe the pain if my knee didn't hurt at the moment, but then the day of my appointment I was about ten steps outside the apartment door when a really bad cutting pain kicked in. I sent Allan on to work alone and limped back inside to call work and tell them that I would be in after my appointment. I limped to the doctor and stood behind 10 people in line, then waited until an hour after my appointment time to get called up. While waiting I talked to other patients who told me that they were all quite happy with their surgery, but to expect to always sit in the waiting room for an hour after the appointment time.

When I got called in, I described the two main kinds of pain I had, the doctor looked at the scars on my knees, and guessed that there was maybe a shard of meniscus that had been missed in the previous surgery. Till he found out that the last surgery was 20 years ago. OK, that would be a long time for it to be floating around. He ran a thumb along my knee and said "Tell me if this hurts." Unfortunately, when he hit the spot that hurt (I swear he pressed a thumb in between bones or something) it took my breath away so quickly it seemed an eternity before I managed to emit a noise indicating that it hurt and he should stop. "Oh yeah," he said, "I think you have torn your meniscus." I grunted in return, still trying to find enough strength to talk. I asked some questions about treatments and chances, but he refused to discuss anything until I had an MRI and he knew what he was talking about. OK, fine.

He referred me to a doctor who could do my MRI, and when I realized that that office was on my way home, I stopped in. They told me that there was no way they could get me in within 3 weeks, though. So, for the next three weeks, I limped around: some days more, some days less.

To be continued ....

Survived!

2006-03-13T21:52:00.000+01:00

OK, just a quick note to let you all know that I survived today's surgery. The surgeon was much nicer than the office doctor: very nice and reassuring before the surgery, and afterwards came and told me that it was good that I came when I did and that everything is all fixed up. And he gave me the pictures and the surgical report (which is nice, because I called around to old doctors and hospitals to see if they still had any of the information on the previous surgery, and they all said that they throw that away after 7 years. How come they didn't tell me that before they threw them away?) and referred me to a physical therapist (and without any of the snide comments that the mean doctor made, such as "People don't normally need physical therapy, but if you aren't doing well you can go later."). I will see if I can get the pictures of the inside of my knee up soon, after I can walk and stuff.

Actually, I can walk pretty well (considering) - I am supposed to be on crutches for a couple days, can ride my bike in two weeks, and start running in four weeks.

I thought that the lovely orange disinfectant gave me a nice glowing fake-tan look, and I wanted to share.

Oh - some other fun information. I went to the Apotheke to get my post-op pain killer pre-op, and when the pharmacist handed me the package, she said "Be careful, this is really strong." My answer - "I hope so!" I mean, really - that is the point, right?
Also, I get to give myself anti-thrombosis injections for the next five days (or make Allan do it for me!). How much fun is that?

About me!

2006-03-09T17:37:00.000+01:00

I never do crazy quiz-type bloggy things. Really. Well, ok, once before. But I think I can still say never. Anyway, I was in kind of a crappy mood (see the previous post), and I noticed this on Beth's blog, and my results were so good I couldn't pass it up.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Jeannette!

Contrary to popular belief, Jeannette is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases she may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol!
Ancient Chinese artists would never paint pictures of Jeannette.
Jeannette is actually a vegetable, not a fruit.
The risk of being struck by Jeannette is one occurence every 9,300 years.
In 1982 Time Magazine named Jeannette its 'Man of the Year'!
By tradition, a girl standing under Jeannette cannot refuse to be kissed by anyone who claims the privilege!
Jeannette is the sacred animal of Thailand.
Jeannette was invented in China in the eleventh century, but was only used for fireworks, never for weapons.
If a snake is born with two heads, the heads will fight over who gets Jeannette.
If you lie on your back with your legs stretched it is impossible to sink in Jeannette.

I just saw Heinrich and Lars jog past my apartment. Heinrich was looking, and I waved, but I don't think he saw me.

Bastard doctors

2006-03-09T16:59:00.000+01:00

Well, not all of them, obviously, but 2.5 of the 4 I have been to this month. My dermatologist is nice, I guess, but I haven't seen him lately. And my Ob-Gyn is cool, too, but I don't see her regularly either.

What has mostly earned them the title of bastard is the look they give me when I ask any question. Just because they have heard the question 100 times today, doesn't mean I got the chance to ask it. If it is that obvious, write an FAQ and post it somewhere.

And, if you don't want to answer questions, don't ask me if I have any, and especially don't schedule a special appointment after giving me a week to think about questions.

Take today, for example. I am handed a packet of information about my upcoming surgery which includes a list of questions, some of which I have reprinted below:

1) You shouldn't be left alone for 24 hours following surgery. Is there someone who can stay with you?

2) Would you rather have general or local anasthesia? General can kill you, but local might leave you with migranes for 18 months or so.

3) Ask the doctor about your chance for success, and how the surgery is expected to go.

OK, so now, listen to how the interview went.
1)"I haven't found anyone who can stay with me because everyone I know has a job. How important is that?" (OK, I was kind of fishing for him to write a note for Allan that says that he has to stay home with me.)
Answer - "Yeah, it actually isn't that big of a deal. They won't release you from the clinic if they don't think you will make it."

Hmmm. So I guess they are just covering their bases. Fine.

2) "Should I make a decision today about the anasthesia, or should I go to the office hours that are tomorrow morning?"
Answer - "Don't worry about it. You can settle all that on Monday." (Monday is surgery - don't they set this appointment in advance so that I can make my choices in advance. Whatever.)

3) "So, what do you think are my chances of success, considering that this is my third surgery on this knee?"
Get ready, because this is what shot the guy into real bastard zone (IMNSHO, of course - let me know if you agree).
Answer - "Well, we aren't actually so keen on doing the surgery. But you wanted it."
Um --- EXCUSE ME?????
"What do you mean, you aren't so keen on it?"
Answer - "Well, we are kind of busy, and your knee isn't the best, but it was your choice."
OK. Right now I am in pain when I walk, in pain when I sleep, in pain when I sit on the couch. I can't walk up or down the stairs. I can't run. OK, running marathons might not be a life or death issue, but I can't run across the street if the light turns red; I can't chase my hat if it blows off on a windy day; I can't run to get out of the way if a semi is careening out of control and headed right for me. How fucking optional is that?
"Because you said without surgery, there was no hope for improvement."
Answer - "Well, yeah."

So, what do you think? This isn't actually the guy doing my surgery, so my liking him doesn't have anything to do with it. But this is the guy with the office, and his colleague is the surgeon. Don't they normally leave the one with the better personal skills to talk to people?

Embarassing things I say in foreign languages

2006-02-28T20:05:00.000+01:00

This weekend was a fun, speaking-a-foreign-language weekend. I did lots of things right. I got beer, I got food, I got chocolate. A couple things were less than stellar. Some were functionally less than stellar, like when I asked the driver of the train "Train station. Is right?" He said yes, though, and we did. When I was ordering fries, and I said everything in my most glamorous French, but when he asked me what kind of sauce I wanted, I couldn't remember how to say "garlic". (It is "i", as I now remember, but can you imaging answering a saucy question "i"?) So I said it in Flemish instead. It worked.

The not so proud moment was similar to the incident in Italy that Allan still laughs at me about. I was walking down the street, when a girl stopped me and very politely asked me a question. I thought about it a second, and said "I am a tourist." She laughed (nicely) and spoke slower and with more hand gestures "Do you have a lighter?" Oh. "No."

Body piercing

2006-02-27T19:34:00.000+01:00

So, today I had an MRI (which was louder than I remember them being, but last time my head was inside - maybe the machinery shielded the noise then) and before I went in I had to fill out and sign a sheet that said that I knew what I was getting myself into. One of the questions asked whether I had any metal splinters or plates in my body or removable dental work (and went on to provide an example of potential metal splinters, e.g., grenade remains or bullets). Well, I thought about this for a while, and decided that no, I did not have any metal, and went on about my life. I got called up, and went into room #8. The assistant met me there, and told me to take off my shirt, pants, bra, but leave on my undies and socks. Then she asked me if I had an undershirt on, and I said no, so she told me that she would bring me a smock. I started to get undressed, and was between my shirt and pants when she came back. She took one look at my belly, and said "That has to come out!"

Ten years ago I pierced my belly button. At the time, it was pretty hard to find replacement jewelry, and then I gained some weight and quit showing my stomach to people, and I didn't think much of it. In the last five or so years, I saw more and more fun jewelry for sale, and I tried to take the ring out. But I couldn't. Allan got some pliers and tried to help, but it hurt really bad and I told him to stop. Some more time went by, and I craved funky jewelry more and more. I talked to my sister, who had pierced her navel in the meantime, and she told me that she went to a shop to have hers changed. I called a shop, and they said that they would be glad to do it if I bought something. I told them how long it had been in (wondering if it was rusted shut or something) and they assured me it would be no problem. I think by then, though, I was already packing up the house for sale. That makes that another year and a half ago, during which time I had again forgotten about it.

So, when the assistant said it had to come out, I kind of said "Uh oh. I don't know if that is possible."
"You have to."
"Hmmmm. Do you have a pair of ....." the word failed me, and so I made a kind of pinching motion.
"Pliers?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"I'll look."

She came back with a really industrial looking pair of pliers. Which was a good sign, I think, because Allan used needle nosed in the failed attempt. I held one end in my fingers, and the other with the pliers and turned. And the ball turned. Yay! The girl came back. I proudly showed her my handiwork - "Look what you can do when you are desperate."

She didn't seem so amused. "OK, come with me. Here is a pair of headphones for ear protection." I put them on, and she kept talking. I don't know what she said, so I took them back off. She got me settled, and told me to not move for 30 minutes. That is really hard. She gave me this nice warm blanket, but somehow one of my feet slid out from under it, and my toes got really cold. That made me want to wiggle them.

Anyway, after carrying my belly ring around in my wallet for the day (and showing it to people who had never seen it in my belly (ok, well person, anyway!)) when I got home, I put it back in. That was pretty exciting too. But since I didn't use pliers to tighten it down, I think I will be able to get it out again.

What? Me blog?

2006-02-20T23:25:00.000+01:00

OK, you may or may not have noticed that I don't blog anymore. But Allan challenged me to fill out my Visited Countries map, so I did.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

And the State count:

create your own visited states map

Looks like I still have quite a few places to go!

Vacation and Dreams

2006-01-22T21:17:00.000+01:00

Well, we have been on vacation since last Friday, and we went off to visit some friends and meet up with some others on their travels. That has meant a week of sleeping in strange beds, different eating and drinking habits, and time outside in the elements. That all leads, apparently, to really strange dreams.

.....

Which I have of course forgotten, because I started this post a month ago and never finished it. I don't know what is up with me and the lack of posting. I've been really busy. I think. And I started a running diary for all those things that I feel the need to record every day that never fit anywhere, so I get my babbling out of the way there.

But this morning I had another freaky dream. I was attending a friend's wedding, and it was one of those that brings the average up to $30,000 when you pair it together with ours. (What does that make it? Somewhere around $55 to 58 thousand, right?)

Anyway, it basically had every gimmick that you could ever be told your wedding could have, with 8 hours of ceremonies and five changes of clothers; performances by choirs; ornate dances; different locations. I lost track of Allan, and I don't think any of the meals got as far as my table, because they were so complicated and the schedule was so tight that it had moved on to the next event before those of us at the lowly guest tables got served. To top it off, there was a mix of people I get along with, people I don't get along with, and strangers, so I was always on my toes behavior-wise. And the younguns! I learned new slang and about the current state of acceptable behavior. I was exhausted just dreaming about it, and stayed in bed until 10.

I did eat rather late last night, and we spent most of the day outside, so maybe there is something to my earlier theory about my dreams being affected by that. At least I am back in my own bed. But Allan is testing different blanket configurations, so it isn't necessarily as sumptuously feathered as I would like.

Eggplants and Blade

2005-12-23T21:53:00.000+01:00

Today, I made an eggplant parmigiana and watched Blade. Sound familiar, Shelly?

Buttered Pretzels

2005-12-16T16:49:00.000+01:00

I have a colleague who works part time, and when she comes in with her smile and friendly greeting, she also brings a buttered pretzel. The first time I demurely told her it wasn't necessary, but ate the delicious thing. Since then, she has made a habit of bringing them, but won't take money from me. (My office mates and I went together and bought her a Christmas present as a thank you.)

The problem is, though, that she comes irregularly. Some days I sit here starving and she doesn't show; other days I am full and suddenly a fresh, buttered treat is lying before me. I don't want to be greedy and not eat breakfast expecting a pretzel, but on the days I do eat (enough) breakfast, I really shouldn't add these calories at snack time. I could tell her to stop bringing them and feed myself properly, but how would I feel when everyone else gets their pretzel?

Thanks, or bad dreams?

2005-12-15T22:04:00.001+01:00

I am writing my essay on giving thanks, really. But it is taking a while. I haven't been sleeping well - I keep waking up, and lying awake worrying about things. My taxes. The rental car and insurance and snow tires. I even had a dream that I applied for a job and interviewed and was offered my choice, and I took the least challenging because I wasn't sure that I could do it. That is proof that it is time to put me away, because if there is anything that doesn't fit in my personality, it is the belief that I can't do something. Although I guess when I took the final test for senior lifesaving, the last question was "Would you be able to save someone from drowning today?"; I wrote "I think so" and the instructor glanced through tests and said "I will close my eyes and let someone change their answer to the last question." Should I have said "Yes"? I can't guarantee that I will save someone's life or that they won't die. That seems like a ridiculous promise to make. Can I code a device driver? Yes. Can I release a product from test in two weeks? If it works. That is honesty, isn't it? Realism? Confidence? The fact that I am a damn good test engineer doesn't mean that a product will work in two weeks. It just means that you will know whether or not it does.

So, is life here diminishing my self confidence, or is it making me more realistic?

When I was a teenager I was overwhelmed by regret or something. I used to lie awake thinking about things I said or did and try to figure out if I could change them. In college I acknowledged that I couldn't change things, and I put the past behind me, where it belonged. Only once in awhile does it crop back up. I still wonder if Christy heard me when I said that she was breastfeeding in the bathroom. And if she did, does it matter? She was, wasn't she? OK, she was actually in the bathroom hallway. Is that different? What is it about random, spur-of-the-moment comments from 7 years ago; why do I even remember it?

Whew. Putting that behind me again. I just found a terrific job ad, and I have all the experience they are looking for. This weekend I will send out my application. Will I get the job? I don't know. Some things are beyond my power.

Grrr!

2005-12-06T22:17:00.000+01:00

OK, I was in the middle of writing my "thanksgiving" post, talking about about what I am thankful for, but I had to take a break in the middle of it to complain. I want to get this out of the way first, then I can go back to my happy post.

I went to the tram stop today, to catch a ride to the Finanzamt and turn my taxes in; I got to the tram stop about three minutes early, giving me time to buy a day pass, and the tram was about three minutes late. When the tram pulled up, I pushed the button to make the door open. It didn't open. The people inside looked at me; I looked at them. I went to the next door down, and pushed the button there. The door didn't open. The tram pulled away from the station, leaving me standing there. That was not ok.

I had a pleasant chat with the tax woman, as always. Anything that costs me money makes me nervous, especially at the point when it seems final (I was ok with Target and their liberal return policies). When I am getting ready to book a cheap, non-refundable flight, I read the dates and times out loud, read them to Allan, write them down, check another website one last time. Finally I click ok. Turning in my taxes was correspondingly stressful.

I came home, but then I wanted to go to a furniture store and buy a guest bed, as we are expecting our first overseas guests in just three more weeks. As you might expect, this involves spending money. I have already been to the store and done a test lie-in on all the beds. I sat, I bounced, I rolled; I took notes; I read the notes to Allan. He said he trusted me.

I went to the bus stop, and the bus was scheduled to have left two minutes earlier, or thirteen minutes later. I waited one minute, looked up the road, didn't see a bus. I decided to walk to the train station and wait there, rather than on my forlorn corner. As I was walking, it started to rain. I got to the train station and waited under their awning. Seven minutes till the scheduled bus. Buses came and went, but not the one I wanted. Seven minutes came and went. Finally, 21 minutes later (two minutes before the next regularly scheduled bus) the bus came.

Sigh. Not really a day to convince me that public transporation is working, and I am one who is already convinced!

Book review - Designing Embedded Hardware, Second Edition by John Catsoulis

2005-12-02T23:58:00.000+01:00

Because I know that you all care, I wanted to share my first book review:

Title: Designing Embedded Hardware
Author: John Catsoulis
Publisher: O'Reilly
Publication Date/Edition: Second Edition, May 2005
ISBN:0-596-00755-8

After 5+ years of Systems and SW Test Engineering for various embedded devices, it seemed like it was time to learn how to design the hardware myself, so I was excited to see this title listed by O'Reilly. With only one Digital Electronics class in my past, though, I don't know if I was the intended audience.

Reading the book cover to cover started great for me, with Chapters 1 and 2 providing quick overviews of Computer Architecture and Assembly Language Programming. I was flying through the book and enjoying the review of classes I had taken, while warming up to the author's style. John Catsoulis then moves on to a one chapter discussion of the specific assembly language Forth, discussing many commands along with a fair amount of sample code.

At Chapter 4 I ran into a road block, however: Electronics 101. As I said, this is not my strongest background, but I do read data sheets and schematics on a daily basis, as well as having designed and implemented working projects on breadboards, so I did expect this chapter to mostly just provide a review as the previous chapters had. After all, how in depth could it be in 40 pages? Unfortunately, everything in the chapter seemed wrong, in a way that I can't quite put my finger on, and after repeatedly going back and rereading, I decided to just move on with the book. After I finished, I passed the book to a co-worker to get a second opinion. According to this Electrical Engineer, the chapter was “all over the place”, and while not wrong, confusing.

Throughout the rest of the book, in each chapter Catsoulis introduces one function useful in an embedded system (e.g., processor, DSP, protocol), names one or more manufacturers and sample chips, and shows sample layouts. Like a data sheet and application note in one, but with more description of personal experience, warnings of pitfalls, and “teachy” information than you would likely find in either of those documents. The examples helpfully move in each area from simple to more complex.

Here I realize that I was hoping for examples of actual things I could build, so even though I recognize that the general-purposeness of this book and the examples is more useful, for me, it relegates this book to reference status.

All in all, this was a very interesting and useful book, but with some really annoying faults. Throughout my reading of this book, I noticed some rather unfortunate errors that may not bother other people, but drove me crazy. These included: grammatical errors and typos (along the lines of subscripts not set, principle instead of principal, is instead of in); lack of or different style guide applied to text and pictures with regards to spaces between numbers and units; the character mu not used in text (except for once?), but used in pictures; line breaks repeatedly appearing between the value and the unit, and, twice, actually at the decimal point in a number.

I am sure that it is hard to lay out a book like this, with the many diagrams and tables, but it seemed like nothing was ever on the page it was referenced on. In the chapter on Power Sources I let myself be bothered by two references to decoupling capacitors without any discussion of their purpose, and flipped back to the electronics chapter to see if I had missed the discussion, to no avail. On the third reference, there was finally a mention of what they were, and a promise to discuss it later in the chapter. After that frustration, I tried to turn off that part of my mind and not let unknowns bother me.

Designing Embedded Hardware has the layout of a book to be read straight through, but the contents of a reference book. It was educational to read it once and get an overview of different parts of a system, but I will need to return to specific chapters as I find the need for that component in future projects.

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dbhardware2/

Concerts. Yay and Wah.

2005-11-17T22:33:00.000+01:00

I haven't really ever lived in an area where there were concerts I wanted to see. Or I didn't have time or money or a car; there was always something. And then two years working concert security for the likes of New Kids on the Block, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Warrant, ZZ Top, Living Colour, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Eric Clapton didn't do much to improve my love of the concept.

That changed, though, when Allan introduced me to some bands I actually liked who played smaller venues in Colorado. I started to look forward to shows. But they still never played in the Springs - there was always a tiring trip to Denver or an overnight in Boulder.

Now I live relatively close to a lot of big towns; I have a job; I have a lot of vacation; I have some money; there are places I should go visit. But I don't know how to find out about the kind of shows I would like to see.

I will randomly be listening to a group, and think - hunh - I should check their concert schedule, but then it always turns out that their tour is coming to an end, or they are playing a big festival that sold all 100,000 tickets the first week, and I haven't even heard of it until 4 months later. Yeah, there might still be tickets on E-bay, but it gets complicated.

Today, for example, we are listening to Apoptygma Berzerk's new album - I found it instantly listenable in a calm way, but Allan wasn't impressed. Today he reports that it is growing on him. I go to their website, and it turns out that their German tour is coming to an end. Or is it just their §?$?%?& website? They only show tour dates one week in advance! Is it because the tour ends, or is it that they won't let me plan????

Anyway, it does turn out that next Saturday they are playing at a festival in Sweden - and not just any festival, but the Tinitus Festival! I am currently looking into flights - I don't know anyone on the line-up but APOP, but sometimes descriptions are so convincing. I mean, the Voodoo Organist in COS was good, right? So how can you pass up a band introduced with:
Dance chaos erupted in front of the stage when our german friend fired up his mangling Knarz-machine at the club :Gutter! in Stockholm earlier this spring.

I have to find the place that announces concerts like this with more than 6 days' advance notice!

Three new things!

2005-11-16T20:10:00.000+01:00

Just when I thought I had seen it all, done it all, I broke out of the mold this week and did three new things.

It started on Sunday, when we got up early to, at Allan's suggestion, visit Worms (as in, the Diet of ...). Really, how could one resist? If I found a town called "Raw Vegetables" I would probably go there too. So, bright and early Sunday morning we hopped out of bed and got ourselves ready in order to catch an 8:05 train. And then Allan cut a big hole in his thumb while trying to make breakfast. So we got a 9:05 train instead.

In Worms we saw the remains of a 6th to 16th century complex where the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (can I call them Holy Roman Emperors?) held court; strolled through the Jewish cemetery; visited the Cathedral where Kriemhild and Brünhild fought over who got to enter the church first; and looked for lunch, which, after finding several restaurants that weren't open, we eventually got at a Gaststätte advertising a "gut, bürgerliche Küche". We sat down and ordered beers and asked for a menu, but weren't sure that we were going to get one as we were left sitting for a while. Then the bartender came over and said, "Today we have beef with boiled potatoes and peas. Do you want it?" Hmm. No choices? Hungry. "OK. We'll take two." And two we got. It was very nice.

Then we went to the Nibelungen Museum. You may know about my fascination with the Nibelungenlied, a Middle High German epic story written c. 1200 AD about Siegfried and Kriemhild and a treasure and a cloak of invisibility and bathing in dragon's blood to become invincible and Gunther and Brünhild, the queen of Iceland who could fight better than any man. And so much fun to read aloud:

Uns ist in alten maeren
wunders vil geseit
von heleden lobebaeren,
von grozer arebeit,
von frouden, hochgeziten,
von weinen und von klagen,
von kuener recken striten
muget ir nu wunder hoeren sagen.

Well, since the Nibelungen treasure hasn't yet been found, there isn't too much that they can physically show at the museum, so it was more of a discussion of the work and its significance. But they took a really creative stance, with a narrator who played the role of the author and talked about what he knew at the time he wrote it and what he had learned since his death, since in the afterlife he can talk to all the other dead people and speak every language. And he has copies of "dead" documents, as well, such as the Edda which only exists in part here among us living. The narration spends a lot of time telling us how the epic, as he wrote it, was not intended to be used by the Nazis as an example of blond German superiority.

That kind of caught me off guard, because I hadn't ever heard that it had been used as such; not that that surprises me, because there are a lot of things I don't know, but it just seemed to be so over-emphasized that I found it a bit distracting from the rest of the information being provided. We had a lot of fun, though, and when we finished we just had a leisurely walk back to the train station and headed for home.

While we were on the train, we talked about how it felt different travelling in Germany now that we live here. When we were in the States, and went to, say, Italy for two weeks, all two weeks were vacation, and even if we had to catch a train or eat dinner or spend the night, we were spending the night in Italy! We could laugh about trying to speak Italian and saying embarrassing things, or order mystery food from a menu we didn't understand. But to live in Germany and go out for the day feels different. It feels like home, and it is just an out and about; during which you have to stop and eat, and after which you go home. Nobody misunderstood us. I didn't proudly answer questions about bus schedules with "I'm sorry, I don't speak English", only to have Allan point out later that I should have said Italian. Wow.

OK, on that kind of down note, let me tell you about the second new thing I did this week! I went to the dermatologist, and he said that we have to get rid of the last dots of psoriasis. I agreed. He suggested UV-Bestrahlung. But then, he wanted to be cool, and so he translated for me: "UV Radiation!" No, I said, call it UV therapy; that sounds much better.

So, I was supposed to go and make appointments to come in three times a week and "tan". I never tan. I have never tanned. Not only did the Arzthelferin tell me that they don't bother with appointments for it, she also said that I could start right away if I wanted. So I said ok; I stripped down, and I went into the light box for - 20 seconds! Yes, it is true. They looked at my skin tone and considered that I had never had UV treatment before and started me low. I went back Tuesday and I was upgraded to 48 seconds. I haven't really seen any improvement yet, but I am hopeful. My face felt so hot after Monday, though, that I put on sunblock before I went in Tuesday. It might have just been the fact that the weather got cold and windy, not the "sun". I don't think I have a tan yet.

So, number three. I went to a German Linux Unix Users Group. I have been using Linux since 1997. I went to my first Linux Expo in 1998. I met Linus. I have no idea how to say anything about Linux in German. The LUUG (pronounced loog, like loogie) meets twice a month at a bar/restaurant/sport clubhouse a couple miles from my place. I put on my Red Hat jacket, and got out my bike. It was raining and just above freezing, and Allan wasn't home from work yet, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I went to the restaurant, locked up my bike and went in. There was a big room with no people, and a side room with two people. They were in their 50s or 60s. Making no assumptions, I asked them if they were the Linux Users Group. I tried my hardest to say it in my best German accent. They just looked at me. Inconclusive.

I went to the bar, and asked the bartender if there were a Linux Users Group that met there that might. She said, "Boys with laptops? Yes, they are in the other room." Boys with laptops. Gotcha.

I went into the room, and there was one guy sitting there (with a laptop). I introduced myself, he did the same. He said Du to me, and I heard it. Whew. I have so much trouble catching whether people say Du or Sie to me, and I am always afraid that I am offending people. He commented on my jacket, I told him about my history. We chatted some more. More people (men) came (7 total). I heard words that I could associate: Benutzeroberfläche, das Protokoll, TaySayPay/EePay, SuSE, Daybeeun. We drank beer (is that what the PPLUG is missing?). Nobody asked me out, but there was the typical "Great time at the conference but at the disco later I discovered that if you wear a tech shirt the girls keep their distance." and the completely shocking "I haven't been to any meetings for the last two years, because I had some family planning issues I had to take care of. But now that that is settled, I will be able to attend regularly." Perhaps I underestimated how well they all know each other, if I let myself be shocked by that. Perhaps not.

On my way out, I expressed a little surprise that the meetings were every two weeks. I have seen groups unable to maintain membership meeting once a month. Perhaps the frequency really is the key to their success, though. There were new people like myself; there were long-absent people. One I talked to comes regularly once a month; the guy next to him schedules his other appointments around it. I think that Verein life is more important here than I had realized. Although I knew it was important. I think the LUUG was exactly the right size (this meeting, at least - I was told that attendance was actually low last night) for me to be able to get to know people without being overwhelmed.

So, of this week's events: I am currently finished with Worms; I will continue to get my UV therapy three days a week; and I will go to the next LUUG meeting.

What a random day ...

2005-11-14T22:04:00.000+01:00

I mean, Mondays always are. But today had a funny feel to it.

I am sure that I spend way too much time sitting in front of a computer, but lately it has seemed half like a chore ... I sit down, but I can't think of anything that I want to do. I browse a couple of webpages, more out of pflicht than enjoyment. (How sad is that - "Sorry, honey, can't talk to you today. I have an obligation to check out what's new in the internet.")

Today I had a couple of tasks to accomplish. First, there was a book review that I needed to write for a book I finished almost a month ago. Whew. You will see that soon.

Then, I wanted to make some iron-on transfers for a friend's T-shirt, and I still need to make one or more for myself, so that we make good use of the sheet. (And, I had some things I wanted to print, but you know how it is with random T-shirt slogans - they sound great when you are joking with friends, but would you really ever actually wear them?)

I was trying to use gimp to design these iron-ons, and for some reason gimp tortures me. Things that work for me one day easily and without thought, are impossible the next. But Akkana on Linuxchix had run a "course" on using gimp that I was way too swamped to follow at the time (I think that started about the time that I had to replace my power supply, and so I had a two week late-start, and just couldn't do it). And while looking through the lessons, I found exactly what I was looking for (actually, no, I found something better than what I was looking for), plus a couple great tips that explained why things disappeared on me and how to get them back.

So, I made some great logos for the shirts, and I was finally going to use the iron-on set I had picked up at the store a couple months ago. In the past, I had only found ink-jet iron-ons that worked on white or pale t-shirts, and that isn't really my style. Now I had just bought a set that claimed it worked on dark colors, and even came with one black t-shirt, meaning that I was ready to go. I converted the pictures to a pdf and got Allan to print them for me (on his photo printer. Since it is his baby, I haven't even told my computer that it exists, and even though I was no longer yelling at gimp, there was no point in starting new fights when there was such a simple work-around).

So, I had a deadline for the gift, and I had planned ahead and washed the shirts and hung them to dry. I borrowed an iron from a friend, because the instructions said that travel irons didn't get hot enough. I ironed away. And it looked like crap. Why? I assumed that since the iron-on was designed for dark colors, it would be invisible, but instead, it stayed white. I am guessing in retrospect that this is supposed to make up for the fact that there is no white ink. But it didn't work in that sense either. Basically, it ruined a shirt. I had to go out and buy another shirt, one that wasn't black. To use for my "designed for dark colors" iron-on. Grrr. And, because the instructions say that it has to be prewashed and absolutely dry, I also had to iron it dry. Grrrr.

On top of this fun, I have all my normal things that I have to take care of on Mondays, like doctor's appointments and grocery shopping that we are too lazy to do on Saturdays. And my daily requirement of the internet.

German class

2005-11-12T19:40:00.000+01:00

So, I had my first couple of German classes, and I am sure that you are all interested in how they are going.

Well, I was shocked at first when I arrived at the class and found out that the teacher isn't German. That didn't seem fair for an intensive grammar for advanced students class. But then it turned out that she moved here when she was in high school some 16 years ago and I started to think it was probably good to have her for a teacher, because she knew what we were going through.

One of the first things that she said was that there were a certain number of things that we were just going to have to memorize, and that there was nothing she could do help us there. That made me sad, because I was kind of hoping that she could instantly transfer a complete list of German articles into my mind, but I realise that that is impossible. So, we don't discuss articles at all. We are here for grammar! (OK, articles are probably part of grammar, but I am going to ignore that for now.)

We went around the room and introduced ourselves. We haven't again had the full crowd we had the first day, but people come and go, so I don't know if anyone actually dropped. There is a Mexican woman married to a German who has lived in G for 15 years; a Romanian with roughly the same history; a Montenegrin, married to a German, 12 years; 3 Au Pairs, here one to three years, from Kenya, Poland and Italy; a guy from Spain who taught English there, teaching Spanish here, one year; a Chinese guy, c. one year; a Ukrainian, two years; me; and, in a rather surprising twist, a German. He is a really strange case: born in Heilbronn, went to school here, but child of a Bosnian and a Serbian, who each speak their own language at home; he isn't fluent in any of the three languages (according to the Montenegrin on the Slavic side, according to him on the German (Oh, and mom - I told her you were learning Bosnian, so when you come over you can hang with her and chat)). I had recently heard about this problem that some kids growing up in bi-lingual households have, and couldn't quite imagine it, but here, sitting next to me, is an example.

The teacher was quite shocked when he introduced himself, and a little disturbed, telling him that she wasn't sure that she could teach him anything if he hadn't learned it in the 10 years he was in school (taking German classes) or the 20 years he lived in the country, and I can't blame her. We are a generally well-matched group, with good language skills, and the desire to learn, and this guy is in a really strange situation - he is dedicated enough to enroll in the class, but he doesn't ever do his homework. The first day of class he said that he had "been out of school for ten years, and can barely remember what a verb and a noun" are; then, today when we got paired up, he pulled the same thing on me. We've been doing nothing but verbs for four weeks, so he ought to have looked it up by now; besides, if you have taken a foreign language you probably remember how the exercises go:
1. In the changing room, the students ..... (to lay or to lie) their things on the benches or .... (to hang) them on the hooks. (Past tense)
Whether you know what a verb is or not, couldn't you fill in the blanks in your native language? (And yes, German is also tricky with the lay/lie issue, just like English, so I could go easy on you if you miss that, unless it was your homework for the week!) So, I can understand that it is a little frustrating for the teacher to have him in the class; I was frustrated having him as a partner, because I could hear the other groups all running through the exercises amongst themselves, while I spent ten minutes explaining to him that he had to conjugate a verb, and that neither "the students lay lie" nor "the students to lay laid have laid" was right.

From the first day on, all the students have kind of looked at each other and said "Hey, we could get together outside class and talk", but it didn't really happen (unless they didn't invite me) until last week when there was no class due to fall break. I met everyone I could round up at a bar, and we just hung out and talked for three or four hours. It was good, because in class we sometimes get talked to too much. I don't know how, at our ages, some people still are shy within this group. I, personally, am a talker. That is how (and why) I learned German - so that I could talk to people. So, if the teacher asks if we did our homework and how it went, I wait five seconds and answer. If she announces that we are going to go through the exercises, same thing.

Habits like that can get me in trouble, though - at the Colo Spgs LUG, at the first meeting I attended, I opened my mouth and got signed up to give a presentation on rebuilding the kernel at the next month's meeting, and by month two I was in charge of scheduling speakers. Next Tuesday I am going to my first LUG meeting here in Heilbronn (just found out that the group existed the day after last month's meeting. Don't know how I missed that before. There is also a Mac group meeting the same day, so A and I will each go off separately and hang with our respective type of geeks) and I hope I don't get in the same habit! This group looks pretty well organized, so hopefully that won't be a problem.

Anyway, I should get moving - I wanted to make a set of flash cards to take on our train ride tomorrow - what better opportunity to practice!