Yay Christmas

Christmas is here. It's the whitest on 5fordhams record. We have received nearly 12" of snow since yesterday so we're spending the day indoors.

Click on the view from my window to see the slideshow.

Daisy Daisy

I watched this movie on TV with my father when I was around 8 (what was he thinking). Anyway, this song and this scene are what's playing in my head now. You can surmise that my head is not a happy place to be.

Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do.
I'm half crazy all for the love of you.
It won't be a stylish marriage,
I can't afford a carriage.
But you'll look sweet,
Upon the seat,
Of a bicycle made for two.

Thanksgiving by the numbers

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Sunday.

17-pound turkey

14 potatoes (mashed)

10 different dishes

9 children

6 adults

4 pies

3 families

1 bathroom

So many things to be thankful for, including... Logan and Heidi's engagement!! Congratulations.

Trunk is Done

The trunk is finished. I'll start this week on a new bed. Also thinking about a kitchen table.

School Field Trips

Today, Micah and Maddie made the annual school field trip to a nearby chocolate factory. The highlight of this trip is the opportunity to design your own chocolate bar. Choose your chocolate, specify additional accouterments and pour into the mold. It's far cooler than picking the toppings for ice cream.

Pause now for parenthetical but relevant digression. Speaking of ice cream, my oldest daughter long ago learned to choose carefully when ordering ice cream. Pick chocolate or vanilla and her dessert was likely to be taxed by a certain blog writer. Choose more strategically and the bowl would be hers and hers alone. These days, she's partial to mint. Bleck.

Anyway, back to my point. Micah made 2 lovely dark chocolate candy bars filled with sprinkles, smarties and jelly beans. He offered them to Piper and I for dessert after dinner tonight. We opted to pass.

Tomorrow, Tess has a field trip to an Astronomy school in Heidelberg. I'm signed up to escort. Yippee.

Photos and Random Happenings

First, a commercal. I have been given a kindle and my uncle Bob is publishing a book. The cosmic balance of the universe appears to be in balance. I'm impatient to buy a copy. Uncle Bob, who is freaky articulate for a math nerd, has been maddeningly silent on the plot these past 2 years.

4 members of teamfordham survived halloween with no casualties or injuries though the sugar rush has not yet abated. Piper took the evening off to see a show with a German friend. Quite clever of her to plan that out 2 months in advance, I will admit.

We are freshly back from Belgium and Luxembourg. I'm still a bit twitchy from driving our American van through tiny European streets for 3 days.

Piper bought the kids gourmet Belgian waffles with chocolate sauce while we were in Belgium. Maddie pronounced my Bisquick waffles superior. You can't buy loyalty like that. I'll bask in that memory of that praise until she hits puberty and her taste buds mature.

A new record was set during this trip when the kids enjoyed not one but two different museums. Normally, they find museum tours to be mind-numbingly boring grown-up stuff. The chocolate museum in Belgium and the Military History museum near Bastogne were both declared exceptions. Sadly, they were less amused by the 3-hour tour of Luxembourg (in the rain).

Here are photos.

Happenings

Piper has successfully survived the first 3 days of the fall break with absolutely no assistance from her deadbeat husband. We are off to Beglium tomorrow for 3 days. Piper has decreed that it is time for for her to learn to order Cappuccino in Flemish.

Maddie survived an interview with a prospective violin teacher. She was accepted as a student. Alas, fortune did not smile equally upon her violin and it was deemed unworthy. Piper is off to the store to rent a better one.

Beglium update to follow next week. Also, I have Halloween pictures that I promise to post.

Halloween Costume Advice for the Kids

Kids,

At first glance, the black ninja costume seems much cooler than the pink princess outfit. This I admit is true.

However, you should consider the ramnifications of your costume decisions in advance. For instance, it's much easier for a parent to misplace a black ninja on a crowded street on a pitch black night (...one could argue that is the intended purpose of the black ninja outfit).

Further, the pink princess outfit can be counted on to elicit a certain amount of parental sympathy when you start crying as your sugar rush fades.

Finally, if you choose the pink princess outfit you won't need to worry about your little brother taking your katana and hitting people with it.

Remember: with great coolness comes great responsibility. Choose wisely...

Quote of the Day

Me: "Welcome home, Micah. Tell me about your day."
Micah: "Good."
Me: "Can you include a verb in your description."
Micah: "No."

It looks like he's progressing well on the path to male conversational stereotypes.

In Memorium

Here's to you, Alexander Anderson. Thank you for making my kids laugh so hard that milk came out their nose.

Birthday Quote of the Day

"Of all the presents that I got, I think the ninja sword is the one that I'll use the most."

--Maddie Merrick, age 8
New owner of a lap desk, dolphin backpack, pink foam ninja sword and bicycle

Piper would like to add that Maddie's bicycle is the only 24" Specialized girls bike with factory flower decals in southern Germany. The full saga of our questing for this bicycle will one day be chronicled in the oral history of our people. But not today.

Click here for photos of the weekend.

Raising the next generation of shoppers

Maddie: "Mommy, can I buy that fuzzy turtle with my allowance please?"

Piper: "You know Maddie, there are lots of fluffy things in the world..."

Maddie: "Yes, but that turtle is one of them."

Hmmm. Not sure how to argue with logic like this.

What's in your wallet?

Today is a teacher conference day so the kids are off school. We're off to an amusement park.

The contents of Maddie's travel back-pack.

1 Ninja Sword
1 Ninja Costume
1 Portable bathroom (not sure about this one)
1 Stuffed animal
1 Water bottle
1 Toy gun
1 blow gun

We are, apparently, ready for every sort of hardship or adversary. Wish us luck.

New Day, New Quote

"The key, Micah, is to maximize surface area. This is why we cut the waffle before pouring syrup on it."

Uncle Kevin K.
Teaching Micah how to get the most syrup possible onto his waffle

Quote of the Day

"In every grown up movie, there is too much kissing. If I made a movie, there would maybe be a hug but that is all."

-Maddie Merrick

Spoken after she was forced to endure the sight of Han Solo kissing Princess Leia yet again.

Longing for a taco

One of the things we really miss here is good Mexican food. It was with some eagerness that I saw a local take-out place has a Mexican section on the menu. Then I read, "Chili con Carne: Scharfer mexikanischer Bohneneintopf dazu Pizzabrot" which is spicy bean soup on pizza bread.

The search continues...

Google's German Unity Day Logo

This was cool...

Today's Mail

Family members are once again massing in the town square with pitchforks to demand pictures of the kids. Below are a few cuts of film that I just had developed.

I'm experimenting with infra-red. Most of the black and white pictures are shot in the near IR which is why the trees look white. (pedigree for my remote sensing co-workers: 715nm cut-on, FWHM at 720 and 750nm).

Most of the pictures are from our weekend in Copenhagen last month. Click on the photo to view the slideshow.

Return

My repatriation is officially scheduled for 1 June 2011.

Yay.

End of summer catch up...

The Black Forest:
We caught a rare rain-free weekend in August for the Black Forest. It was stunning to walk through the woods and along the rivers near Forbach in the northern national park.
Highlights:
--Any time we go hiking with the Schmitserwitzes is a good time (and it wasn't even raining this trip).
--Going on a 1.5 kilometer Rodelbahn
--Black forest cake and ice cream
--visiting a glassblowing museum and having the kids take turns making vases
--driving what was apparently a goat track to get to the youth hostel. When they said it was in the woods, it was really in the woods

Click on the photo of Forbach for more images

Denmark

We are winding down a 5 day weekend in Denmark with a friend of Piper's father. It has been a charming, wonderful time. We all want to move here.

Stefan clearly has alot in common with Piper's father. He handed over the keys to his beach house (a tiny, 200 year old cottage with a thatched roof) after inventorying the kitchen with us. He left us a minimal supply of vegetables, a large loaf of meat substance and several cases of beer. Clearly a man who knows what's most important.

I'll include a longer update after we're home and I can download photos. Also, when I don't have to struggle through the Danish keyboard layout trying to figure out how to type simple words.

An ever so brief update

Apologies to those who I've been ignoring for the past week (it's a long list). Things got out of hand with work, evening cub scout camp and a long list of weekend activities.

They culminated this morning with a trip to the US Consulate in Frankfurt (280 mi round trip) to pick up a new passport.

On a sidenote, my work tempo resulted in an interesting finding. It's been 5 days since I've logged into facebook and I haven't experienced any withdrawal symptoms.

Visiting the US Consulate was on par with a trip to the dentist. On the "annoyance" scale, this puts it far below a trip to the DMV but slightly above a service call from my German telephone provider.

We're off for the rest of the week. I'll be using up the last of my vacation helping the kids bid adieu to summer. School starts next week.

Piper has photos to post but I don't think I'll have time to upload them until next week.

I am considering disabling the comments capability for the blog. What say you?

Paris

Matcy (hereby referred to as La Matcie) bravely took her youngest daughter and youngest grandchildren for a jaunt to Paris. It was a great three days out on the town.

Highlights and quotes:
--"Mommy, we could never be Paris people. Paris people don't go to bed this early." This spoken by a seven-year-old after she was out for a 23:00 snack with La Matcie. She was so wired by the excitement of the city that there was no getting her contained in a hotel room while the cafes were still crowded.

--"Look! A famous thing." said at every monument.

We bought two-day tickets on the double-decker, open-topped bus and used it as our taxi to get around. It takes a while to get places, but how else are you going to learn that there are 2.5 million rivets in the Eiffel Tower?
Touring around Notre Dame and Ile de la cite took the whole of day one. It is amazing how long it can take one to get through souvenir shops with children who have 10 euros each that they must spend RIGHT NOW. Out to Place du Trocadero that night to see the Eiffel Tower shimmer.

Day 2 was the gardens of Tuileries. So beautiful. We were going to head up to Sacre Coeur, but MM fell off of a high wall, landing on her head and necessitating a taxi ride back to the hotel to monitor for signs of bad things. She had rallied enough by nightfall to join TG and I on a climb up to the Arc de Triumph.

Wednesday morning we finally made it to Montmarte. Sacre Coeur is my favorite church of the large architectural marvels of the city. Perhaps because it feels more like a church of a living faith instead of an amazing, beautiful museum of what people used to believe.
Chatted with great people on the train. On the way up, an engineering student from China and a business student from the Basque country (referred to Spain as "they." I didn't ask him what he thought about the ETA). Rode back with a Hungarian student financing his studies as a folk dance instructor.

Click on the photo for a slide show.

More Photos

I have an old-time twin lens reflex camera that I sometimes shoot with. It doesn't have much going for it. It's film, not digital. Expensive, quirky, hard-to-find film. It's inconvenient, expensive to use and heavy. The 1970's vintage construction is totally mechanical and the focal length was carefully chosen to ensure equally sub-optimal performance in a wide range of real world situations. Developers shake in fear when I show them the exposed rolls I need processed.

It is a demanding mistress. I carry it into all kinds of fantastic places, spend hours setting it up, and manually composing the shot on glass.. Sometimes, at the end of it all, it takes a great picture. It's basically gambling so I'm sure that somewhere, there's a 12 step group waiting to help me manage this addiction.

Click on the TLR to see the latest round of pictures.

Vacation Photos

I arrived home safely this morning after a long but uneventful trip. I didn't get any sleep on the plane so my day has been consumed with a variety of mindless ephemera chosen to distract me from taking a nap and further bludgeoning my sleep cycle. Mostly, I spent the day at work. Mostly.

My latest pursuit has been compiling random vacation photos to put on the blog. Click on Laguna fireworks below to see the slideshow. Thanks to all of the folks who helped us have fun this summer.

DISCLAIMER: Given my current mental condition, all photos are in random order without captions. I'll try to tidy up later.

Bad News.

Oh no, he's retiring. I suspect my wife will be in mourning for the near future.

Reader Contest

Tell me what this dream symbolizes.

Maddie dreamed that she was playing outside a house and talking to Benjamin Franklin. Precise details are sketchy up until the point where she ran inside and Benjamin Franklin was eaten by a lion.

Sort of disturbing in a Terry Gilliam / Tim Burton / Neil Gaiman sort of way.

Perhaps we should ratchet back her intake of British bed-time stories.

Waterpark Quotes of the day

FIRST PRIZE
Entered in the "You keep using that word; I don't think it means what you think it means" category.

"I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Let's do it again!!"
-Maddie Merrick

RUNNER UP
Entered in the "Now I'm quite certain you don't know what that word means" category.

"What if we went down that slide in a tire instead of an inner tube."
-Micah Anderson

World Cup detox

I got a little excited about the World Cup this year. Some would say that I went off-the-deep-end bonkers. I retort that the face paint and nail polish come off (eventually), and I can use the shirts to run in. I find myself perusing YouTube late into the night looking for video good scores or memorable misses.

The business reporter part of me will miss the Tim Howard-like stretch of German companies to get a soccer ball on their product.
--Soccer balls on shampoo bottles (to wash out all the temporary hair dye).
--Special WC savings accounts offered at the banks.
--Bakeries selling pound cake dyed like the German flag
--hard boiled eggs at the grocery store dyed either like the German flag or decorated like soccer balls.
--"Half-time snack packs" of yogurt: tapioca, chocolate and strawberry.
--Soccer car flags as a special give-away at restaurants.
--The South Africa WC logo on shopping bags.

My favorite was at a sushi stand: soccer balls made from round rice balls with bits of nori

It was great to support the US and German teams. I wish I could have done so longer. But it's over now and four years is a long time. I'll have to stop wandering aimlessly through the halls looking for the schedule for the next game. It's a good thing the Bundesliga starts soon...

Culinary Happenings

Barbequed shark for dinner with a side of barracuda.

The children were not amused.

Random Thoughts

Quote of the day:

"Now I know how my mother feels..."

--Maddie's reaction after being sent to the counter to handle restaurant orders for the family. She was not amused by all the special orders and modifications that she was expected to keep track of.

We are safe in CA after nearly 24 hours of travel. Prior to the trip, I was given a precious horde of several tablets of Ambien. As a result, I had high hopes that the flight would be uneventful. Unfortunately, the ability of the tablet to put me to sleep was exceeded by the ability of my five year old to keep me awake.

World cup madness continues. Since Germany won this morning, it will be at least a few days until my family returns to normalcy. 4 hours later, my kids are still sporting face paint of German flags on their cheeks.

Fair and Balanced Reporting from 5fordhams

I am pleased to introduce today's guest correspondent, "Crotchety Dave." Dave brings us the following quote on World Cup Soccer. Given the utter madness that has consumed my house since the world cup began (has anybody seen my wife in the past week?), I thought it fair to include an opposing opinion.

//QUOTE:

Any sport that
A- celebrates a tie
B- often has the inferior team win 1-0 by dint of dumb luck
C- rewards low melodrama 'I'm hurt' antics
D- is hugely dependant on penalties for any scoring at all, and
penalizes dumb luck like having a ball bounce off your arm
E- considers blindly kicking the ball to the other end of the field good
strategy

...is inherently suspect...

//UNQUOTE

Sorry Dave. You wouldn't last 5 minutes here in Germany.

Quote of the Day

"What is that??"

--The question separately asked by each of my 3 children when they saw a pot roast in our crock pot after school.

For those viewers who have just joined our regularly scheduled programming, I should explain that my wife is a quasi vegetarian. Sightings of 10 lb bricks of meat in our kitchen only occur during rare astrological confluences, holidays, or visits from out of town relatives.

Quote of the weekend

"Good. I hope we find more human remains."

--Maddie. Upon being informed that we were going back to Hohentwiel castle

Full disclosure: The editors would like to point out that the "human remains" Maddie found in the dungeon of Hohentwiel castle during our last visit were, in fact, sheep bones. Also, I suspect the "dungeon" was a medieval root cellar or somesuch. But don't tell Maddie or you'll quash her twisted sense of joy.

Morning meetings

Rumor has it that the Januzzi clan is now snaking its way south along the autobahn to rendezvous here in Stuttgart.

The weather is bleak. To capture the moment, I think that Piper and her sister should meet on a bridge, wearing grey trench-coats for the planned exchange of prisoners (or nieces and nephews, whichever you prefer).

Oops

Turns out that my mother in law is not coming today because Piper misread her itinerary.

Fortunate for me. I got to eat an awesome dinner in a spotlessly shiny house.

The Team of the Day

A Thousand Words

Father's Day is Early!

We have company next weekend so my family celebrated father's day a week early.

Quote of the day:

"This morning, our focus is on daddy. This evening, our focus is on soccer."

-- Micah Anderson (age 6)

It's time to check my shed for pods...

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"Honey, I love you for buying this television"

-- Piper (while watching world cup soccer)

... UPDATE

Definitely pods. She let the kids eat dinner in the living room in front of the TV.

What Piper is Watching

What is happening to me.

I now own a pair of reading glasses. What's happening to me? When do I start walking around in shorts with black socks pulled up to my knees?

Saturday Plans

Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. I am--briefly--a hero. I stride upon the earth as a Nephilim of old. Soon this will pass but until then I bask in the radiant gratitude of my children. It is amazing how much appreciation can be squeezed into a small bag of processed sugar.

Tonight, I have spousal permission to torment my children. My plan is to let them watch Han Solo frozen into carbonite. It has been decided that my first choice (Raiders of the Lost Ark) is problematic since we live in Germany.

I've beaten Tess in her last 5 chess games. Unfortunately, she's quickly getting better and will soon be unstoppable. I think that I'll have to get cousins Brigg and Barnes to teach her some humility this summer (5 years of chess club should be sufficient for that). Without these preventive measures, she could become insufferable during her teenage years.

Hmmm. So this was my mistake.

SOLD

I was told moments ago that my engineering group is being sold.

No data on who my new owner is. I hope their vacation policy isn't as stingy.

UPDATE: It seems that I'm not supposed too worry because we're only being divested, not sold. However, they add that the reason for divestiture is to sell us off so apparently it's the same thing.

More from Prague

To add to your Olympic DVD collection, the water park slide event...

What are they teaching in school these days?

Today, Maddie had her class presentation for a unit on "Kings, Queens and Castles."

Maddie had not been very excited about this unit until she realized that she could present on Japanese castles. Japanese castles, it turns out, are much cooler than the proletariat fare here in Europe. The castle she picked, Osaka castle in Japan, had a solid gold tea room and gold dolphins and tigers on the exterior. Very cool.

More importantly, it was attacked many times by ninjas.

Below is a photo of Maddie with the special guest she located for the presentation. Any similarity between said guest and members of 5fordhams LLC is purely coincidental.


Maddie did an awesome job. The class was fairly... *energetic*. By the end of the 20 minute presentation, I was ready to throw down with anybody who doesn't think that teachers deserve summers off.

Saturday Update

Life continues. Last weekend, I spent roughly 35 hours in planes and airports while heading home to see my parents. It was awesome seeing my parents but I've decided that I'd rather rather visit the dentist than fly Delta airlines transatlantic. I need to find a pusher who can get me a subscription for Ambien... or switch to Lufthansa.

This weekend, we're hanging out here. The girls had a sleepover with their Japanese friends last night. They were all quite giggly as they settled into Grandma's feather bed.

There they are--4 girls and Maddie's assorted stuffed marine life. Speaking of which, Maddie has a new stuffed Dolphin named Nietsche. Nietsche, it turns out, is Japanese for rainbow. Possibly you'll notice that I've taken some liberties with the spelling but the pronunciation is the same. (Late Entry: The family linguists have now pointed out that the pronunciation isn't exactly the same but it's close enough for my American ears).

I quite like their friends. They're teaching Tess and Maddie to make beautiful origami and do Japanese calligraphy. Our kids are teaching them to make loud noises and play cops and robbers. All in all, an even trade I think.

Career Development

Maddie has made great progress in her career goals in the past few weeks. I blame this movie.

Now she wants to be a ninja. This week, she started working on her next school presentation on Osaka castle, apparently motivated by the fact that the castle was once attacked by ninjas. Tonight after dinner, we made grappling hooks for said presentation. Several unlucky coat hangers were euthanized during construction operations.

Anybody know where I can find her some black pajamas (please, no throwing stars).

What do you want to be when you grow up...

Running the kids to their church group tonight. The theme tonight is to dress in the costume of what you want to be when you grow up.

Tess chose to dress up as a policemen.

Maddie picked a dolphin trainer.

Micah decided to dress up as Barack Obama.

Hmmm. Care to place bets on which goes over best at our Baptist church.

Tulip Photos

Sadly, no windmills were harmed during the making of these photos ... sorry Alison.

Click the flower for slideshow.

Quote of the Day

Tess: "Good night daddy. Thank you so much for not crashing the car into a tree while it was dark and rainy and you were driving with everybody asleep."

Ummm. I suppose it's good to know that they don't take the little things for granted.

This is, obviously, my oblique way of saying that we just arrived home safely. Given the mess on the floor, I suspect pictures are a few days away.

UPDATE: For those of you who submitted votes. The windmills lost but we did see plenty of tulips.

We're to to see the... to be determined

Tomorrow, we leave for the Netherlands where my wife has made great plans to see the tulips in bloom. I'm moderately excited since their tulip crop is world renowned. That said, flowers are kind of a girly thing so I'm starting to scheme for a chance to see some windmills.

Windmills, as this article points out, are chock full of all kinds of cool engineering minutia and design trades. Much geekier than flowers. For added nerd enjoyment, I may also try to look at some dikes. I know at least one five year old boy who would love to stick his finger in one.

I'll try to have photos next week. What will be in those photos is yet to be determined.

Sticks and Stones

My oldest is developing a gift for veiled understatement.

Me: "Why does it make me nervous that Maddie wants to make a slingshot?"

Tess: "I have no idea. Does it have something to do with the fact that she and Micah argue alot?"

Against my judgment, I assist this endeavor. Raising up a future generation of nerds requires some dedication and a minor tolerance for risk. We sacrificed an industrial rubber band, a stick and a bit of duct tape to build the thing. Maddie is off to the woods to test fire it. Here's hoping that my homeowner's deductibles having risen by tomorrow morning.

(50 minutes later)

Update. Maddie is back from the park and the slingshot didn't work. Thank goodness. Hopefully tomorrow's dangerous goal will be something that doesn't assume good aim around other people's cars (like mixing dynamite for instance).

Ice Skating

Yesterday, Tess had a short test with her ice skating class. Photos are shown below. She did great and we were really proud of her. Click on the photo below.

Jenga Part II

Turns out that Tess reads this blog. While this has all manner of disturbing implications for our long term content, in the short term it allowed her to learn of my Jenga game with Micah.

On Friday, she threw the white glove of challenge in my face and demanded satisfaction.

Jenga with my oldest is a whole different level of play. In particular, I found her laser focus to be a little off-putting.

For the first time in my experience, we played to a draw. There were simply no more physically possible moves. Since it was my turn, I suppose that means I lost. Possibly it's time to move onto Chess. Or maybe raise the stakes and try this game.

Questions of the Day

1. How did I survive lower back pain in the years before I had a 10 year old to walk on my spine?

2. Is this quote equally respectable if I substitute Diet Coke for coffee? If so, I'm at least in good company.

3. Given the photo below, may I assume that I can add Jenga to the list of diversions that Micah has converted to Calvinball rules? The current listing includes Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Dominos, Trouble and Go-Fish. I regret to inform the Lowell clan that Iron Dragon has not yet made the list.

At the movies

This week, Maddie Merrick discovered that there was a new movie out featuring dragons. While dragons aren't on the same tier as dolphins in Maddie's pantheon, they do breathe fire, break things and fly around outside after bedtime. For all of these reasons, Maddie thinks that they're really cool.

After quickly screening this opportunity on youtube, the team decided that this was not an opportunity to be wasted. Despite the nice weather, the girls and I ran out to see it in all it's 3d glory this afternoon.

Micah, exhausted after a grueling morning of touching every single not-to-be-touched tool in the local hardware store, stayed home and napped.

Best of all: we got to keep the glasses.

Not Fair

I planned to be home alone for 2 evenings. I didn't anticipate being left here with an empty checking account and a refrigerator stocked exclusively with health food.

Happy Easter

I have been informed that townsfolk, having grown tired of the Old Spice commercial, are massing with pitchforks in the village square. A short post to slake their thirst.

The Ennis visit continues. I took vacation Friday and we traveled south to Lake Constance. We toured around a few small German towns landing in Freiburg for Easter.

We also visited our new, favorite ever (thus far) castle in Germany.

This morning, we went to mass (German) at the Freiburg cathedral. We then deposited the Ennis adults on a train to Paris. I returned to Stuttgart tonight so I can work tomorrow. Piper has kept the kids (all 6 of them) for another day of touring.

Click here for photos.

Good news for coffee fans

My wife, queen of the coffee aficionados, is going to be especially pleased by this news.

Just announced today, the glorious first of April.

Tomorrow, we are off to Lake Constance with our friends, the Ennis's. Dave is gassing up his rental car, a mercedes diesel SUV, to rock down the autobahn. I didn't have the heart to tell him how hard it would be to find parking where we're going.

Piper's New Favorite Commercial

Brilliant.

Our Heroine Returns

Piper arrived safely home today to the overwhelming joy of my children who have now forgotten how cool I was 24 hours ago. How quickly they forget.

My shock and awe campaign to impress my wife with my household management skills has also failed. House cleaned... check. Bed made... check. Dishes... check. Laundry... check. All evidence of non environmentally-friendly recycling practices during the past week removed... check.

She seemed to take it all for granted. Possibly this is how she feels when I don't notice her new haircut for a week.

...Come to think of it, I shaved my head nearly bald on Monday and she hasn't commented yet. Upon further reflection, maybe this neglect is just the jetlag.

...I'll be a hero tomorrow. I'm sure of it.

Our Story So Far

When last we left our hero, the heroine had abandoned him at the bottom of a mineshaft. Alone. In the dark. With 3 small children to feed. Fortunately, there was a refrigerator filled with processed foods down there. Also a a few boxes of crayons and a TV. All in all, not a bad predicament. Better than being tied to the railroad tracks but some villain with a greasy mustache.

One could almost forgive our heroine if she weren't in Texas eating really good Mexican food. There are, alas, no fresh tortillas in our mineshaft.

The week without Piper has actually been quite good. I would characterize it as great but Tess told one of her teachers this morning that it was merely OK. I think she's still sulking because her Dad forgot about her karate class last night. She did get cookies in her lunch today instead of the traditional orange but we're not going to talk about that. We're also not going to mention the lunch bags in lieu of environmentally friendly tupperware. What happens in the mineshaft stays in the mineshaft.

Being mom has caused me to learn lots of interesting minutia about my children. For instance, I thought that Maddie wore mismatched socks as a deliberate fashion statement. I now know that she has a whole drawer full of hundreds of socks without a single matching pair. Who knew? Possibly this explains the composition of dark matter. Or maybe it just balances out the bad kharma created by Micah's missing shoes.

I have one more day to ponder this.

Sometimes you eat the bear

Sometimes you eat the bear... and sometimes the bear eats you. This week, I was eaten. Final score:

Andy -- 0
IRS -- >>1

In lighter news, Piper arrived safely in Austin sometime last night or this morning depending upon the observers frame of reference.

The kids and I are faring quite well. Last night we had pizza and a movie and then made cookies. I let them each take cookies to school with their lunch. Phase I of my plan to ensure that I'm never trusted alone with the kids again is now complete. I won't mention phase II since Piper might read this and quash my plans for world domination.

Weekend goals are still undetermined. There's a medieval festival 2 hours from here but that seems like an ambitious drive. Particularly since my son appears to have converted his floor to use as an open-air laundry hamper. I suspect my weekend goals will be more domestic.

Schmuckle

Huckle's friend Schmuckle arrived by plane yesterday. There was much rejoicing among the littles.

Apparently, it was noted that there was a shortage of stuffed marine mammals in our family. :-)

Odds and Ends

Apologies to all for my lack of communication. I've been digging out after a couple of busy weeks. Between work, family, a little exercise and visits to the woodshop, all my time seems to have disappeared. My goals for the coming weeks are to make some time for the dentist and the IRS. The IRS, in particular, seems to have plans for me.

I am continuing to train for a marathon with 2 guys from work. Based on last nights 13 mile run, a marathon isn't looking like it will be a whole lot of fun.

3 months ago, I started making 2 beds in my spare time. The upcoming visit of some Philadelphia friends has caused She Who Must Be Obeyed to elevate the priority of that project. Apparently, it's bad etiquette to ask your guests to sleep on the floor. I finished them this week and set them up this morning. Photos below. I'm reasonably happy with them. The final design was more contemporary than I was aiming for. The original plan was to pin the joints but that didn't work out.

Prague

Informed sources have reminded me that 5fordhams visited the city of Prague 2 weeks ago and still haven't posted photos. While I won't say who those sources are (sorry mom), I'll acknowledge that the 2 week delay is nearly glacial.

Allow me to redeem myself now while Piper is driving the kids off to a sleepover.

Missing from the slideshow below are photos of our hotel. Piper scored a coup by booking us into a hotel with its own indoor water park. She reminded the kids before each days trek down thousand year old streets that anybody who whined or complained wouldn't visit the water slides that evening.

There was no whining or complaining.

Click on Micah's mud puddle to see the slideshow...

Snow Day

Schools and work are both closed due to snow.

I won't say exactly how much snow we got because it might cause my friends on the East Coast to snicker in derision.

On the plus side, it looks like pancakes for breakfast.

Quote of the Day

from Micah:

"Mommy, I cleaned my room! My bed is made. My toys are put away. My dirty laundry is scattered on the floor."

Januzzi Haiku

In bleakest winter
Late Christmas gifts from Tucson
Do not disappoint

Missed the super bowl but saw the commercials

This has to be one of the most elegant commercials that I have ever seen.

Funny for people over 30

Today the kids are walking around the house singing the Buddy Holly song...

Ooo wee ooo, I look just like Buddy Holly,
Oh oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore.
I don't care what they say about us anyway.
I don't care about that.

It has not yet occurred to any of them to wonder who Buddy Holly and Mary Tyler Moore are...

Teach a Boy to Fish

I pulled Micah out of school Friday to take him fishing. This lack of regard for the importance of education is frowned upon in Germany. Fortunately, Micah is in kindergarten in the international school. These twin distinctions must have moved his truancy to a different category. Teachers lined up in the hall to congratulate me and tell us to have a good time.

Fishing in Germany is not a simple thing. Getting an actual fishing license is a huge investment in time and money. The 6 week class reportedly costs 1,000 Eu ($1,300).

Fortunately, there are fully stocked fishing farms that don't require a license. On a sporting level, they are probably on par with the quail farm that Dick Cheney hunted at. The fish don't have much of a chance. Since I was using a vacation day to pull my son out of school, this was exactly what I wanted.

We bought some bait and went straight to the salmon pond. The clear shallow pond was full of beautiful salmon. We had a great view of watching them look at our bait. After an hour and a half and another bait purchase, it turns out that the salmon stood a chance after all. We moved on to the trout pond where we quickly caught several trout.

Today, it developed that I'm quite good at gutting and cleaning trout but not so good at deboning them. Probably there is a youtube video out there that will explain what I did wrong.

Quote of the Day

"There's no way that I'll be going to college this year."

-Maddie.
Age 7

What Maddie is Wearing Tonight

Well... you can't say that the outfit doesn't match.

Micah's first karate class today

I am troubled by tonight's exchange with my young padawan

Me: "Micah, did you like it?"
MAA: "Yes"
Me: "Do you want to go back?"
MAA: "Yes"
Me: "Did they teach you to be respectful and not to use it to beat up your sisters."
MAA: "...no"

I fear his attraction to the dark side of the force.

Finland Photos

First round of Finland photos. Piper's camera to follow...

Click photo below to view slideshow.

Student video

Some of my students made a joke-y Christmas video. Not thrilling, perhaps, but it shows the people I work with. Click here, and then on the guy in the Santa suit on the far right to see the video. Santa has been in both of my modules.

Home

Some vacation statistics.

6 days, 4 airline flights, 1 train ride, 2 trolley-car rides and multiple bus trips later (alas no boats).
-25 C: Lowest temperature recorded.
3: # of boxes of granola cereal consumed.
4: Estimated # of pounds of reindeer consumed. Tasty.
73: Estimated number of doors that Maddie left open in her wake. The count continues to rise.
4: # of episodes of junkyard wars viewed during past week.
93: Unviewed e-mail messages in my queue.

Random Thoughts of the Day

Reindeer for dinner. I feel like a cannibal.

Piper can now order a cappucino in Finnish. 6 languages down. Her life goal is to be able to do it in 10.

-21˚C today. The silver lining is that the ice is no longer slippery. It's almost as if the ice has fled in terror from the extreme cold.

Quote of the Day

The sun in Finland is kind of like the lightbulb in a refrigerator. It occasionally gives light to see things while providing no warmth whatsoever.

--Charles Lowell