I Heart Schnitzel

Overheard last night

2009-06-06T20:09:00.003+02:00

Last night my neighbor and I went to the little "club" here on post to catch some of the live music. It's nothing special, but within walking distance so we tripped over there since we had heard one of the bands previously and they weren't dreadful. They did a commendable cover of "Whole lotta love", which isn't the easiest thing to pull off.

Anyway, while at the bar trying to get a couple of drinks, I overheard this exchange:

Bartender: (Addresses some BBWs that have approached the bar) Hey ladies, everything a'ight with you?

Girl: Yeah. Can you make a Long Island iced tea out here?

Bartender: Long Island iced tea? Shhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiit... (proceeds to make the fastest Long Island iced tea I've ever seen)

I guess I just love the fact that "Shhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiit" is being kept alive after all these years.

White Haitians

2009-05-30T13:19:00.003+02:00

I went out to run some errands this morning as I prepare to get everything ready for the upcoming move. Prepping the cars for sale, getting paint for the apartment, etc. At one store, I was waiting in line to pay for my stuff when the guy behind me asks me if he could set his Cokes and booze on the counter. The guy ahead of us was taking a while, and my new line buddy was carrying a case of Coke and a handle of rum. I gladly slide down to make room for him and his stuff.

He's an middle-aged black guy who I would describe as a "loud talker", but friendly enough. He's there with two teenage kids that I assumed were his kids. He sees that I'm renting another movie, and starts what I can only describe as one of the strangest conversations I've had in recent memory. Here's the gist of it as best I can remember:

Him: You know what you should see is that Benjamin Buttons.

Me: Oh yeah, I've seen it. Pretty good, right?

Him: Yeah man! I love that Benjamin Buttons! He's all "oohh oohh" [pantomimes an old man walking], and then singing up in there! 23 Psalms! This one here [gestures toward one of his sons] was watching that up in Church and laughing his ass off! Ah ha!

Me: [Startled by that reaction to Benjamin Buttons] Oh. Yeah, that was funny!

Him: [Shifting the conversation without any noticeable transition] Man, I know guys who been in the army four years and can't pass a dang-gone PT test. I can't believe that. This one guy... Hey, [directed at me] you ever heard of a white Haitian?

Me: A white Haitian?

Him: Yeah. A white Haitian.

Me: You mean someone from Haiti who is white?

Him: Yeah!

Me: No, I can't say I ever have.

Him: Yeah, me neither! This one guy tells me he's a white Haitian, and I tell him that he's crazy. I looked that shit up on Google [pantomimes typing on a keyboard, but with his arms fully outstretched and even with his shoulders], and you know what Google said?

Teenage kid: What?

Him: Said "Could not find". And if Google can't find it, than it's not a thing!

[Teenage kids and dad both break down laughing at this]

Me: Alright, see you later.

At this point, I had been checked out and left the store. But when I got home, I couldn't resist performing the same search for white Haitian that my new friend had suggested. There's about 1,700 hits for it. From what I can tell, there's a certain population in Haiti of Arab decent that calls itself "white Haitian". What's more, they do not like waiting for the bus. So why couldn't my friend find it on the Google? Dunno. Maybe he was spelling it wrong, maybe he did it a long time ago and there weren't any hits then. But I think I can safely say I'd never thought about white Haitians until today.

Family Feud

2009-05-24T11:11:00.002+02:00

Hello friends.

I'm going to let you in a little Springer family secret: my brother and I have a feud. While some families feud over who is getting the family estate, my brother and I are at odds over who is getting a small wooden bear that my parents have at their house.

While my parents were living in Japan in the 70's, they bought a small carved wooden bear that they kept with them as they moved around and eventually settled in Georgia. This type of bear is typical of a style of Japanese folk art carving done by the aboriginal peoples called the Ainu. They are found of carving bears in a variety of different settings, often with a fish. Like so:

This is almost exactly the same composition of the carving that my parents have. For whatever reason, my brother Justin and I got into an argument when we were in school over who would eventually get this bear carving from my parents. Neither one of us was willing to concede over this bear issue and it will probably have to be resolved over a lengthy and costly legal battle. At least that was the most likely course of action until the events of this weekend.

We went to Stuttgart over the weekend to visit friends of ours who had recently moved there. On the morning that we were leaving, Jessica insisted that we go see the flea market that was set up downtown in one of the squares. I reluctantly went along, being a good sport even though I never take any pleasure in these things. To me, everything there can be sorted into two categories: old shit that nobody wants, cool shit that's too expensive. But as we were walking past the the tables of junk, Jessica spotted something that caught her eye. It was a wooden bear. The guy at the table saw that we were interested and held it up for us to see. He said that it was a Russian carving, solid wood, very difficult to make. I didn't know if he really thought that, or if he was just bullshitting us to make a sale. But I knew immediately what it was. It was an Ainu bear carving. He wanted €30 for it, but I got it for €22. Here's a picture of it, with a dollar for reference:

It was a little dusty, but no worse for wear. With a little wipe down, it'll look as good as new. Plus, compared with what comparable carving are online, I think I got it for a bargain.

Maybe the feud will finally come to an end. Unless of course the one at my parents' house looks cooler that this one.

Collaboration

2009-05-17T21:52:00.003+02:00

Photoshopping was mine; the caption is Jessica's.

This was from last year's Paris trip when we visited Versailles.

Still Not Hipsters

2009-05-12T23:43:00.005+02:00

There was a little excitement from a previous post that I put up when a celebrity podcaster made a comment on the entry.

I was going to respond to his comment with a pithy repartee, but with the move coming up and my work not cutting me any slack recently, I decided to take the only logical step: photoshop clown heads onto the picture.

The gauntlet has been dropped, sir!

Baby Went to Amsterdam

2009-05-10T13:29:00.003+02:00

I have to start off saying that 50% of the reason we went to Amsterdam was so we could make a video of the kids there and put it to that song, but the other 50% was "wooden shoes." I have actually seen many people in Europe wear wooden shoes as part of their traditional costumes, including the French and Germans, but we all know they are quintessentially Dutch. So, I made sure everyone in the family got shoes while we were there. Well, at least everyone who was willing (not spoilsport Joel!).

The kids were so crazy about them! Even Ava, who has been a non-smiler lately, cheesed it up for her clog pictures:
Aidan wore his for a little bit before deciding he'd rather get naked and clop around the house with just his shoes on:

My kids are nuts.

Not Hipsters

2009-04-14T13:48:00.003+02:00

Jessica and I have started listening to a podcast called "Jordan Jesse Go" (or alternatively "Jordan/Jesse--GO!!"). It's produced by a couple of guys, Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorn, and I believe they have a radio show called "The Sound of Young America" that may have some sort of national syndication.

"Jordan Jesse Go" is a free podcast that they put up on iTunes for subscription. Jessica found it on a fluke and we've been listening to it over the weekend. It's not bad and has it's moments. It's basically two guys riffing on miscellaneous pop-culture topics. By their own admission, their show is a "collection of distractions." They come off as a pair of late-20 hipsters who occasionally have some indie celebrity guest host.

However, I took a peek on the internets at what these "celebrity podcasters" look like and discovered this:

That's Jordan on the left, Jesse on the right.

I sent this picture to Jessica and her response deserved to be shared with the world:

H-S! Which one is which? They look so ridiculous. They pass themselves off as hipsters, but they are clearly bozos.

Bozos indeed, Jessica. Bozos indeed.

Do you like fishsticks?

2009-04-12T21:31:00.002+02:00

If you haven't seen the latest episode of Southpark, I recommend you get on over to Southpark Studios and watch the Fishsticks episode.

It's not the best one I've ever seen, but it does contain one of the greatest single one-line jokes of all time. And it has a fantastic Kanye West video at the end.

'Nuff said.

Shout Outs

2009-04-12T21:01:00.003+02:00

Happy Easter!

Also, a quick couple of shout outs to some fellow bloggers.

My friend Eric Y. has a annually updated blog that has a web comic on it. I don't know if it qualifies as a web comic per se, since he originally drew them back in the early nineties before the internet is what it is today. Nevertheless, he's since dug up these old strips and put them up on a blog of his. Take a look-- That Old Goat. My hope is that the surge of traffic from this megalith of a site will spur him onward to actually create some new content for the strip. For the record, I'd like to see one featuring the ghost of Natasha Richardson. You know, something light and topical.

Another friend of mine, Cory aka Bart B., has a couple of blogs out there. I'd like to draw your attention to his latest(?) one: Under the Muck. Cory's pretty good about keeping the updates fresh and content-packed. He writes about the bands that didn't quite make it in the biz. Acts that maybe had a hit here or there, but just didn't break on through to the national scene. Cory used to (still does, maybe) write for Pitchfork Media, which is a hipster music review vehicle, so he knows what he's talking about. Lots of the music over there isn't really my scene (which happens to be atonal acapella groups), but Cory makes it interesting and fun to read.

Check 'em out!

The T.I. - Numa Numa - OZone Connection

2009-04-07T20:57:00.014+02:00

There are no new ideas. Nearly everything that you've seen, heard, or read has been done before. Let me illustrate my point--

You may or may not be familiar with the rapper T.I. I guess he's popular with the kids these days. I saw a story on CNN that he was arrested for a weapons possession charge just prior to attending a BET awards show. I guess he was trying to get his bodyguard to buy $12,000 worth of machine guns for him, since he was unable to buy them himself due to a previous drug charge. What?!? A rapper arrested for guns and drugs?? Way to break a stereotype, T.I. Anyway, I guess if the mainstream media makes your arrest national news, then you've "made it" in the business.

It turns out that T.I. has a popular song called "Live Your Life" featuring the lovely Rihanna singing the back-up hook. You may remember Rihanna from getting beat-up by her boyfriend about a month ago. Somehow, that was national news also. Anyway, I know that this song is popular because it's been playing over the speaker system at the local grocery store. Take a listen to the hook from this song on YouTube. Ok? Remember what that sounds like.

If this doesn't sound unnervingly familiar, then maybe you haven't been on the Internets very long. That hook is nearly identical to the "Numa Numa" guy's song. Remember him? Take a listen to refresh your memory:

So T.I. ripped off a fat internet star? Not quite. Turns out that Gary Brolsma (the fat kid in the video) just lifted this song from a Moldovan boy-pop group called O-Zone. For reals. But as if all this wasn't enough, you really have to take a look at the original video from this band. It's cringe-worthy enough to sit through the whole four minutes. They're singing on the wing of an airplane, for Christ's sake!

There you have it. A L.A. based American rapper gets famous by sampling an Internet YouTube star who in turn sampled a Moldovan pop band. So it goes...

Long Live the Rock

2009-03-28T13:37:00.003+01:00

Aidan was playing around with my Guitar Hero controller today while Ava and Jessica were taking a nap. I was working on the computer, when he came up to me and said, "Dad, I'm going to turn a song on in my room and play guitar. You come in and take a movie with the camera." It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

With a little coaxing and a couple of different shots, we were able to pull of this totally sweet video. I hope you're sitting down, because this is going to rock your ass off!!!

We like to show off

2009-03-24T20:55:00.006+01:00

Here are some pictures from the past month or so that we weren't able to upload earlier due to some pretty big issues related to our ISP switch. It's still not 100% resolved, but we can at least get online occasionally and bore you with our photos.

Here is Joel with his acceptance letter to GA Tech- I decorated the door to our apartment while he was at work:

Here is Ava eating Valentine's Day candy, hence the mess. Despite a worrying incident in January (see "Should I Be Concerned About This Type of Behavior?"), Aidan seems to like her again and made her a cute Valentine. The dog was his happy Meal toy, so that was pretty generous of him to part with it.

Before you knew it, we were celebrating St. Pat's by, uh, going to work in green shirts. Woo hoo! Good times. Aidan wore this funny outfit to daycare, and when he came home, he told me that a lot of the teachers took his picture. Wonder why...
These next ones are totally gratuitous...just nice pictures of us with the kids.

This is me at my school. We had a big celebration for Black History Month, and, despite your feelings about the necessity of such a holiday, I hope you enjoy this set that the drama teacher made. The background says, "CHANGE: A Dream Wrapped in Hope." It's ridiculously positive.

Finally, we have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Joel, who turned 40 this week. Here he is at Rock Band practice with Aidan:

Mad Max, Australia Needs You More Than Ever!

2009-03-24T20:36:00.002+01:00

Just the first paragraph of this story about Australian bikers "brawling through the Sydney airport" says it all.

Яolcats

2009-02-20T15:16:00.003+01:00

Drat, thwarted so close to freedom’s sweet caress… I dreamed for but a taste of the decadent west, and now my eulogy is sung by guard dogs and alarm bells.

I found this site while drifting through the interwebs and thought enough of it to share it on here.
It's from a site called "Яolcats" that is somewhat of a parody of the "lolcats" phenomenon that can be seen on sites like ICanHasCheezeburger and others. The idea is to take Russian captioned lolcats and put funny soviet-era mis-captions under them. The site is pretty simply laid out, but some of the "translated" captions are hilarious.

By the way, the "translations" aren't real. Some of the people on the comments have either failed to realize this, or are simply being trolls. A third possibility is that they are actual Russians that have stumbled upon this English language website and are incapable of grasping the joke. Not that they would to begin with. It's a proven fact that Russians are incapable of actual humor. For example, the above picture's actual translation is something like this:

"Boxer: How should I deal with insomnia? They have instructed me to count till 10 but right after I reach 9 I immediately jump on my feet."

If you didn't squirt borscht through your nose after reading that, don't worry. I didn't think it was that great either. Plus, why would anyone want to ruin all that delicious borscht?

So maybe we've been ignoring you...

2009-02-18T13:37:00.004+01:00

But we have lots of great reasons!!

1. I made another quilt. It is not your average t-shirt quilt, made from Aidan's old shirts and jammies. I was waiting to get some non-Spiderman materials, but I gave up and just made it. The front was 100% free- well, let's say the cost was covered by Aidan's wardrobe allowance- and the back is an old set of Spiderman sheets. The binding is from a bed skirt (which I didn't need) that came with a bedspread (which I did). I used this recycled plastic material as the batting because the fabric store here was out of Warm and Natural, my usual pick. Anyway, he really likes it and that's what counts.2. I started my student teaching! Yay! I am hella busy, but it is the final phase of my program, so I am pushing through to get this done. I am working with a 7th grade English language Arts teacher on post, whom I like well enough. The biggest part of this is that I am also trying to get my certification in Georgia (huge pain), because...

3. Joel was accepted into the Bioengineering Master's program at GA Tech!! Yay!!! We are still trying to figure out how everything is going to work, but it is pretty much a done deal that we'll be in GA in the fall. Of course, this is going to be a hectic move... Joel is allowed to leave the Army around August 8th and he starts school a week later; I need to find a job and a house and cars and daycare and kindergarten by myself before Joel gets to town. So, wish me luck!

4. We went to Belgium and Holland with some friends last weekend. It was fun, but a little hectic with six kids and six adults travelling between three countries. We went to a fun flea market in a Belgium town called Tongeren, and then ran across the boarder to a town in Holland where my friends lived several years ago so we could peek at a windmill.

Also, we are switching phone companies, so we didn't have Internet or phone for a while there... but all is good now!

The End is Near?

2009-01-13T16:31:00.003+01:00

I saw this article on reddit, and was initially pretty depressed by the outlook for the U.S. I know, I know... everyone loves to be a reactionary, and I probably shouldn't start stockpiling rice just yet, but this constant stream of distopian predictions is wearing on me! So, I decided to read more of the article, trying to find something that would be really over the top and discredit the "trend forecaster" Gerald Celente in my eyes. It took most of the article, but I found it. The context is that the outlook will be far worse than the Great Depression, because people today are using drugs and prescription medicines, and are therefore much more dangerous. I quote:

"So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension."

Chemically blown beyond anybody's comprehension?? You jumped the shark, my friend. I'll sleep more soundly tonight. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

WTF??

2009-01-05T13:48:00.007+01:00

OK, I was doing, ahem, RESEARCH on amazon.com, and saw a link for a book quiz. Not really a quiz-taker, I was persuaded into taking this one. Just check off the things you have done, and it tells you "what kind of person you are." This struck me because, in the car yesterday, Joel asked what I was thinking about. "What kind of person I am," I said. Why waste my time with introspection?? Here was my answer! God, I love the internet.
So, I check off the things I have done, and this is what is says:

You are a Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager

0% of the 35785 people who have taken this quiz are like you.

Zero???? Out of over 35,000? I find this ridiculously supportive of individualism. I will have to ask Joel to do some math on this- out of 43 items, what are the odds that someone would get exactly the same things as you? Math is so tricky- maybe that is a very reasonable number. Anyway, here is their ad. Take it and see if you are the extreme individual that I (supposedly) am... lots of zeros would make more sense.

And, as a footnote, it didn't occur to me to wonder, "Am I a romantic, tree-hugging money manager?" in the car, I was actually thinking about consumerism and some of Joel's strong views about consumption, and wondering how far down the path I think I can go with him in this respect. Yes, DIY Christmas WAS awesome... but I would also like some power windows/locks on my next car, thank you very much.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz
and found out I'm a

Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager

***Joel's Math Update***

Jessica just pointed this out to me and wanted me to weigh in on the probability that another person would choose the same answers that you would on the 43 questions. It's actually pretty slim.

First of all, the questions are 'yes/no' types, where only a positive or negative response can be given. If there was only one question, there could be two possible ways for the test to be filled out; if there were two, four possible configurations; three questions, eight configurations; etc. etc. You can see where this is going. The possible unique ways that the test can be filled out grows exponentially with the arithmetic growth of the number of questions. If you crunch out the numbers, you'll see that for 43 questions you get 88,000,000,000,000 (that's trillions!) possible ways that the test could be filled out.

So the chances that one of the 35,000 that took the test filled it out the same way as you is almost statically impossible. And just to cover themselves, the folks that give the test tell you that "0%" scored the same as you. For this group of 35,000, 350 people would have to score the same as you to get even 1%.

Slim odds indeed.

But I'm sure you're really unique regardless.

Should I be concerned about this type of behavior?

2009-01-05T10:47:00.004+01:00

A few days ago, Ava and I were painting with watercolors at the kitchen table. She was doing her typical abstract work that starts out as fun, colorful zig-zags and ends up being a black or brown puddle, and, to pass the time, I started painting a little portrait of her. I got a head and hair done before she toddled off and it was time to clean up. I left the pictures on the table. Hours later, as I start to clear the table for dinner, I see this:

Me: What is THIS?
Aidan: DEAD Ava!
Me: What?? Why?
Aidan: It's just a joke! Ha ha ha ha ha!
Me:... It's not very... nice... make your sister... uh, dead...
Aidan: DEAD AVA! HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Even in the middle of this exchange, you can see by my gratuitous use of ellipses that I was not sure what line to take on this. Approach #1: "Woo hoo, that is hilarious! She's like a zombie! She's going to eat your brains! Raaaar!!" This is also known as the "Joel Choice." On the other hand, I have friends who have super calm, well-behaved kids, who would never dream of doing this. I have to think they would approach the situation more like this. Approach #2: "Honey, that's not very nice. That makes my heart hurt to see you make a picture of Ava with a boo boo. Let's color this Barney picture instead." BOR-RING!
While more age-appropriate, and also morally superior, I really have to go with Joel on most of these. I really value the creativity and imagination that Aidan shows when he does stuff like this, and I know that he is just kidding around. On the other hand, I feel like I have to be the counter balance. I fear for how Aidan might turn out if he had two parents who encouraged him to pretend-kill his sister, make fart jokes, pick out his own outfits, draw on his furniture, pee outside, and otherwise vote the Joel party line. So, I make a half-hearted attempt to reign him in... some. Wait 20 years; we'll see how he turns out.

As if the weather here isn't depressing enough...

2009-01-05T09:10:00.003+01:00

... I find this article about the sad state of affairs in the United States. I think I'm headed back to bed. :(

Winter Wonderland

2009-01-04T21:53:00.004+01:00

Hey E'rybody.

Today was the last day of my 4-day weekend. We had the 1st and 2nd off from work, so we had some time to all hang out together. Since it doesn't snow a lot in this part of Germany, we wanted to take the kids somewhere that did. Yesterday was our first attempt, but it just wasn't in the cards. We got too late of a start out the door and then accidentally punched the wrong town in the GPS and drove the 45 minutes in the wrong direction. I had been prodding everyone all morning by being the "fun police;" not so much keeping fun from happening, but more like ensuring fun was occurring whether anyone wanted it or not. However, after we got turned around the wrong way, my fun police authority was compromised and we decided to run a couple of errands and regroup for the next day.

So we took off early this morning for the Black Forest in search of snow. We were heading for a place called Feldberg, but we knew we would hit snow before then. After about 2 hours, we reached the heart of the forest and were surrounded by beautiful snowy hills, forests, and countryside. Eventually, we stumbled into the town of Titisee, parked, and explored a little. Titisee is named after the little lake that it sits next to --here's a map with our parking place marked:

View Larger Map

It's green in that view, but imagine it all white and the lake frozen.

We bought a little sled from one of the shops and took turns sledding down the hills around there. There weren't a lot of downhill skiers there, but there were tons of cross country skiers. I don't think I've ever seen cross country skiing in person, so it was a little bit of a new experience to me. We'd be walking along the snow paths, when suddenly a couple of old Germans would silently and quickly glide past us. There was something--unsettling?--about it. It didn't stop us from having a good time sledding though. We had done a little sledding in Italy last winter, but Aidan was a little too young to enjoy it. But, he took renewed interest in it this time and we had fun running up the little hills and sledding down.

There was an unexpectedly funny moment when we went out onto the lake to slide around. It was -5 C there, so the lake was frozen solid and lots of people were out there skating and sliding around. As we arrived at the edge of the lake, I noticed a sign nailed to a tree at the edge of the lake. It said, in three languages(!), "Don't go on the lake." Below is the "ironic" picture I snapped with some of the Germans on the lake. I originally thought that this might only apply to the lake in summer, but a look at the German statement makes it clear--Entering the Ice is forbidden! What's funny about this picture is that so many Germans are clearly disregarding the sign. I'm not sure how much you know about Germans, but they are nothing if not law-abiding. There is a special joy that a German gets from following the rules, especially if they are able to correct someone else who isn't following them. So why the sudden departure from their usual law-n-order nature? Is it the cold, the snow, the winter-wonderful-ness? Who knows?

We took a lot of pictures while we were there, but here's a little montage of some of the highlights. Enjoy!

Sad Tree is Sad

2009-01-01T11:59:00.004+01:00

Christmas time is always fun around here, but it has to come to an end eventually. Jessica took all the ornaments off the tree yesterday and packed them up for next year.

We had a real tree this year, but when I brought it home I discovered that we did not have a tree stand. I rushed off to the store, but the only place that I thought would have one was sold out. No problem; I bought a large planting pot and set to remedy the situation. A little potting soil and indoor gardening later, the tree was successfully potted. The only problem is that the pot doesn't hold the tree too well. It has a tendency to tilt when Santa's little helpers get a little over-enthused with tree trimming.

So after Jessica stripped the tree down, it was bumped from it's usual upright alignment and slouched against the back wall. This prompted Jessica to comment that this was the "saddest tree ever". I disagreed. It was sad, but not the saddest; not yet. I went to work with some of Aidan's reams of construction paper and birthed this creation:

Now that's a sad tree!

Joker Ava

2009-01-01T11:54:00.002+01:00

Ava had jelly toast this morning for breakfast. This was the only logical conclusion:

Big ups to ICanHasCheezburger.com for the picture builder.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Christmas, 1957-ish

2008-12-31T22:48:00.003+01:00

I am working on putting together a bunch of old family photos, and I have this one of my mom as a little girl, coloring under the tree with her dad. Cute. What's with using the right hand, mom??

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-31T22:22:00.005+01:00

So, I'm a little late with this one. We were very fortunate to have the Springers visiting us for Christmas this year- sorry Justin, I think it's pretty obvious who they love the most- but almost everyone got sick at some point over the holiday. We are fully recuperated, and are now catching up on things like this.
Here are some pictures of the kids, no explanations necessary:
OK, maybe one comment: Mom, of course Aidan loved the light saber, but you HAD to know that this was coming:And I just want to say those are Christmas presents that we just opened all over the floor...mostly...

I did mention I'm going to be a teacher, right?

2008-12-31T22:09:00.003+01:00

I think my teaching ambitions are spilling over into my personal life. Here is a craft/art project I have been forcing Aidan to do for the past two seasons.

Here is our Winter tree, with snowy fingerprints:And here, under our alphabet and other seasonal projects, you can see our fall tree, with leaves we picked up on walks, pressed, painted, and taped on, all STRONGLY against Aidan's wishes. It's good for you, kid!
I am already planning my-uh, OUR- spring tree- I see a bird's nest, definitely, possibly involving some weaving, maybe some pom-pom chicks peeking out... this is totally my element.

I made a quilt!

2008-12-04T14:58:00.004+01:00

Well, I made it a while ago, but here is the final product. The front is made from Ava's receiving blankets from when she was a baby, and the back is some crib sheets I pieced together. It is really no great example of terrific sewing, or quilting, for that matter, but I was happy to make it for my sweetie pie. Of course, the first thing Aidan said was, "Where's MY quilt?!" so I am already planning a superhero one next.
You can see the back better here:

My "little helper" pulling it off of the crib... thanks a lot!

I'm thankful this year for... cheap air fare!

2008-12-04T14:17:00.005+01:00

We went to Stockholm last week, continuing our tradition of being international over Thanksgiving. 2006: Italy; 2007: England; 2008: Sweden. We have almost forgotten the American traditions at this point... what is it you all do, eat a chicken or something?

So, here is a picture of the little apartment we rented. I am standing on the stairs taking the photo, there is a tiny bathroom and kitchen counter to the right... and that is the entire downstairs. Good thing we like each other!
We went to the Junibacken, which is a museum dedicated to Swedish children's authors. It has a Pippi Longstocking house, two adorable playgrounds that look like some other stories, and a ride through a pretty dark story called, "The Brothers Lionheart." It is about some brothers who die and are reunited in the afterlife, where they must fight an evil dragon, who paralyzes one, and then they commit suicide. Talk about goth. On a lighter note, here is a cute mobile of some characters from the playground room:
Ava hiding in a giant mushroom:
Aidan, Nordic skiing:
On to the Vasa Museum. They brought this 300-year old ship up out of the bay about 10 years ago. Apparently, it sank on its maiden voyage, before it even left the bay. So much for being the prize of the Swedish navy at the time...

OK, next day. Cute architecture in Gamla Stan ("Old Town"), followed by the little Christmas market there. Aidan ate three waffles, and Joel bought reindeer meat sausage. Yum!
Changing of the guards at the Royal Palace:

And, finally, trying to ice skate with Aidan. I only fell once, which is a miracle, because I think he was only on his skates for about 8 seconds at a time. It was pretty fun, though. I liked being the one to go do something with him while Joel waited with Ava. By the way, this picture was taken at THREE P.M.!! Sweden is freaking DARK.

Om nom nom

2008-11-15T16:40:00.002+01:00

This is an actual window sill that we saw in Verona, Italy while we lived down there. The house lures unsuspecting vagabonds in through the window with the scent of delicious pasta, then eats them.

Hipsters, help me understand...

2008-11-14T20:25:00.003+01:00

Let's just get down to it- WHY?????

This is actually my listing. I was searching for a tea set for Ava for Christmas, and somehow I came across a set of six POM tea glasses, with no lids, that were selling for over $60. I have no idea what the final price was, but I can not imagine why someone would pay so much for used drink containers. For those not in the know, these are just the containers that the tea comes in when you buy it at the store- like the old glass milk bottles. Whatever the reason, I'm cashing in.

A few months ago, I had a bunch of these, and thought they were cool, so I saved them. When we moved, Joel freaked out that I had moved "trash" to another country. I saved six and recycled the rest. So, now those six remaining glasses will finance a huge chunk of the kid's Christmas gifts. AWESOME!! To quote Steve Carell on The Office, "How do you tell someone you care about, 'I told you so?'" Indeed.

Oh, and to any hipsters reading this- ahem, Byroms- here is the link for you to get your bid on.

Terrance and Phillip?

2008-11-10T20:28:00.002+01:00

After dinner this evening, the kids and I watched a couple of monkey movies on YouTube. Aidan was thrilled with the idea of having a monkey movie on the computer that he decided to make his own with some stuffed monkeys that he had. This was the result:

It's worth noting that Aidan has never seen Terrance and Phillip. I guess that form of humor is just universal.

It sounds better in German

2008-11-10T16:31:00.003+01:00

I had the day off today as part of the Veteran's Day holiday. Aidan had pre-school this morning, so Jessica and I were able to go have a coffee and strudel at the mall with only Ava to watch. While we were there, I saw this cafe:

That's right, Wiener Cafe. No, it's not a gay coffee shop; Germans just like to put "wiener" into the titles of many different things. I submit for your approval: the wiener schnitzel.

Doing it wrong?

2008-11-07T19:24:00.003+01:00

In a previous post, Jessica had mentioned my current fascination with "hypermiling". I read a story about it in Popular Mechanics, or some other such magazine, and it seemed like an interesting idea. Unfortunately, I was unable to accurately track my MPG due to the way that we had to get fuel in Italy. It's a long uninteresting story, just take my word that it was not feasible.

Germany, on the other hand, is another story entirely. Once we arrived here, I was able to accurately track the amount of gas that I was getting at each fill up. So after being here for a couple of months, and having multiple fill ups, I'm able to present some of my initial results from my hypermiling.

This chart shows the first four fill-ups since I arrived here in Germany in on June 1:

I should preface that chart with some facts about the situation. I have a '94 Fiat Tipo (four-door compact). My driving is almost entirely city driving to and from work; it's about a 7 mile commute through stop and go traffic. My best MPG was 36.07 on 31 Jul, and my worst was 30.28 on 1 Oct. The average of the four months is 32.67 mpg. I'm a little stymied that there was such a drop from July to Sept, but I attribute it to the move up to Germany in June. The mileage that I used in my first July computation included the mileage for the autobahn driving on the move up from Italy. I think I must have been getting much better mileage during that trip, which accounts for the unusually high MPG for the first month.

But overall, not too shabby. Considering that I'm getting almost as good MPG with a 14 year old car as some get with a brand new hybrid is pretty noteworthy. Not only that, but I paid €600 for my car, as opposed to $22,000 for a new Prius.

Palin is Dumb: Even O'Reilly Concedes

2008-11-06T21:20:00.006+01:00

So many have heard by now that this year was an election year, and in the U.S. we had a presidential election between an old guy and a black guy.

I'll save you the suspense: the black guy won.

I voted for the black guy, and I hope the best comes from it, but I'm not getting my hopes up. More on that later. One of the biggest reasons that I voted Obama this year was due to the extremely poor decision made by the McCain campaign in selecting their VP nomination. It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of Gov. Palin. McCain's choice of her demonstrates, to me, that he failed at one of his biggest decisions of the campaign, and was not ready for the "big show" of the presidency.

I've gotten some feedback that my assessment of Palin may have not been "balanced". I think I backed up my inquiry of her intellectual capacity pretty well, but I guess those documents could be "doctored". So for those people needing a more "balanced" source revealing Palin's ignorance, I present to you Mr. Bill O'Reilly:

For those that can't/won't watch this clip, let me sum it up for you:

- There was plenty of in-fighting in the McCain camp about Palin. McCain's campaign manager was initially against it and thought it was a "hail Mary" play.

- Palin's knowledge base was "limited" in the following areas: government civics, basic government responsible at the municipal/state/federal level, U.S. and world geography, didn't know the nations involved in NAFTA (U.S., Mexico, Canada), didn't know that Africa was a continent and not a country, and basic tenants of U.S. foreign policy.

- She refused interview preparations for the Katie Couric interview. When the interview turned south, due to her complete and utter failure to answer softball-sized questions ("what magazines do you read?"), she turned on her staff and "suggested that she [Palin] was mishandled."

- Staffers went to meet Palin at her hotel room on the campaign trail and she greeted them "in her bath towel" after just stepping out of the shower. They were taken aback by this "rather uncommon" practice from the vice presidential nominee.

It goes on, but I think I'm going to get nauseous if I have to type any more.

So for all you "fair and balanced" types, there's Bill-O sharing the truth about Palin on your beloved Fox News. But of course, no one will concede that they made a mistake with their candidate, and we continue down the road of political gridlock that's entrenched this country for so long. So it goes.

Earlier in this post I said that I'm not getting my hopes up with the Obama presidency. I know that "hope" and "change" were themes of his campaign, but I guess I'll believe it when I see it. Why my pessimism? Because I know that the government is financially broken. I posted about it earlier. We spend an outrageous percentage (over 50%) of our national budget on defense. We spend more on defense than any other country in the world. Not just that, but we outspend the number two spender (China) nearly 10:1!!! U.S.=$623B, China=$65B. So the argument that Obama is going to "raise taxes" to pay for all his "social programs" a little bit without merit. Even if he started $20B in social programs in his first year, that's only 3% of what we spend on defense.

Unfortunately, I don't think Obama can get away from defense spending enough to make a difference in our overall economic picture. Although he has pledged to get us out of Iraq in 16 months (which at $9B a month will still cost us $144B), Obama has insisted on pursuing the war in Afghanistan. Unless he has a change of heart on this matter, I'm afraid we're going to be facing the same crippling financial situation in the coming years.

Of course, it would have been worse with McCain. How do you propose to continue our level of military operations overseas in both Afghanistan AND Iraq, while cutting taxes for everyone? It doesn't take an economist to realize that high levels of military spending + tax cuts + trillion dollar bank bailouts = poor national economy. I don't see how that made sense to anyone.

Halloween Highlight

2008-11-05T21:33:00.004+01:00

During my Halloween Wrap-up, I neglected to post this awesome video of Ava's sweet dance moves:

Now that's what I call a "dancing baby".

Good Job America

2008-11-05T21:26:00.002+01:00

You didn't screw it up.

I guess this means that I'll think about coming back stateside.

Halloween Wrap-up 2

2008-11-03T21:16:00.007+01:00

On the "big day", we were ready to take our two trick-or-treaters out on the streets. Ava donned her chicky costume, and Aidan was the blue ranger once again.

Everything was going great until the blue ranger shot the chicky:

But he felt bad about it and laid down with her to make her feel better:

Here's Ava at her first house, getting her first treat:

Here she is showing it to me so I can check it for razor blades:

Jessica and I had a couples costume this year, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. PS-I'm the wolf.

Halloween Wrap-up 1

2008-11-01T21:23:00.009+01:00

Well, we survived through another Halloween this year. The kids were both old enough this year to do trick-or-treating, so it was a fun for everybody.

Jessica and the kids went to a Halloween party on Thursday at the library on post; kind of a "pre-game" to the big event. Aidan wanted to be a Power Ranger, despite all pleading to let me make him a cool costume like last year. Here he is, decked out as the Blue Ranger:

Ava had two costumes; one we bought and one we borrowed from our neighbor. This is the borrowed one:

Thursday night was pumpkin carving night, or "pun-kins" as Aidan calls them. We had two pumpkins this year, and Jessica and I each took a hand at carving one. Jessica went more traditional with hers.

Aidan had been given a Marvel comic pumpkin pattern book at his birthday party. So he wanted me to carve a pumpkin from one of the patterns. Naturally, he picked the one with the "Challenging" tag. Here's me toiling over this pumpkin masterpiece:

The final product of our carving efforts:

Next post will be the wrap-up from Halloween day.

At least we're winning Afghanistan

2008-10-19T18:14:00.003+02:00

Read an interesting story in Rolling Stone that I recommend you take a look at. It's about a reporter that manages to embed himself deep into the Taliban territory and speak with some of the local Taliban commanders. He almost gets himself Daniel Pearl'd, but squeaks out with some frantic phone calls to the right people.

My favorite line from the article is this fitting analogy:

"More troops are not the answer," a senior United Nations official in Kabul tells me. "You will not make more babies by having many guys screw the same woman."

His logic is indisputable.

They will greet us with candy and flowers

2008-10-18T17:08:00.003+02:00

I know that Sarah Palin was on SNL last night, and I'm sure that's taking the lead story on most news outlets today. But did anyone catch the huge protest in Iraq against the "extension" of the US withdraw timeline? Probably not, since no US news outlet would cover such an "insignificant" story. Who do those Iraqis think they are? Telling us when to get out of their country? The nerve!

Thankfully, the BBC had camera crews there to catch the whole thing. I don't know about you, but when I see tens of thousands of angry, young men protesting in the streets, I get nervous. Why? A couple of reasons.

#1. If they are there protesting, that means that they probably aren't working and being productive members of society.

#2. If they're not contributing to society, then what are they doing all day? Most likely trying to figure out how they are going to support themselves and their families.

#3. If you have a large group of angry young men with no jobs, and no means with which to support themselves or their families, what do they do? They either turn to crime, or join the "freedom fighters" and attack our forces, thereby reducing security in the region and prolonging the conflict.

Sorry if this gets anyone down today. Go back to watching that hilarious Sarah Palin - SNL sketch! That'll cheer you up, you betcha!

Political Linebacker

2008-10-18T15:37:00.004+02:00

If you don't think this is funny, then you have no soul.

When I was in the "Advance Course" (and those quotes are intentional), our small group really got a kick out of the Terry Tate "Office Linebacker" videos that were on the interwebs. As soon as I saw this gem, I knew that I needed to post it up here.

"Hey Katie!"

Cafferty did it, Cafferty did it

2008-10-11T11:30:00.004+02:00

Well, after my rant yesterday about Palin, I found this clip from Jack Cafferty on CNN.

Jack Cafferty, hats off to you sir. Crotchety old dudes are usually going on and on about "these kids today" and "high gas prices", but Cafferty treats that Palin clip with the visible contempt that it so richly deserves. I just wish that I had posted before he made his commentary.

Fun fact: as old and crotchety as Cafferty appears, he's only 65 (born '42). McCain is 6 years his senior (born '36). Damn it. That's old.

I heart Sarah Palin

2008-10-10T11:32:00.004+02:00

Ok, not really. I have to admit that the whole election was really set for me when Palin was named as the vice-presidential candidate. It's unconscionable that this dummy would be the #2 elected official in the nation. If that idea doesn't worry you, then you should seriously consider not voting this year. You may not, in fact, be qualified to be a citizen of the US.

Now this isn't anything groundbreaking. There's been plenty of press on how poorly qualified she is. Not to mention that ridiculous Katie Couric interview. PS - when you're running for VP, it would probably help to #1. know some reputable national newspapers, #2. know a little something about your running mate, and #3. maybe have a more than cursory knowledge of the branches federal government, like the Supreme Court for example. I don't think that interview could have had more softball questions, and Palin whiffed most of them.

"Hold on Joel," some of you might say, "everyone knows that these journalist aren't entirely objective in their covering of the news. There's all kinds of spin that they can place on her answers to make her appear less than qualifies." I will concede your point. After all, O'Reilly does his own share of news interpretation in his "No Spin Zone". So how do we measure the qualifications of Palin? Well, I think that standardized testing gives us a good starting point. A document was published that contains many publicly available documents all about Palin.

Here's Palin's SAT scores from 1982:

To sum it up, she scored a 841 (425V/416M). That places her in the 38-39% nationwide for high school students. Wow. That means that about 6 out of 10 kids scored better than she did. For a reference, I scored a 1420. I consider myself a pretty bright guy, but I don't think I'm presidential material. But apparently Palin does.

Hey, maybe the SAT was a little difficult for her. Maybe she was out flying her airplane hunting wolves the night before? What about her IQ? How does she stand up with the rest of the country?

An 83. Sweet Jesus. Let me be absolutely clear: I'm not saying that someone with an 83 IQ can't be a fully productive and happy member of society. Absolutely not. I do firmly believe that "all men are created equal" and everyone should be afforded the same rights and privileges under the Constitution. That being said, I think that the person holding the 2nd highest office in the land should be held to a little bit higher standard. If you look at the bell curve, the two segments of the graph on either side of the 100 mark represent one "standard deviation" from the national mean. This is where the bulk of the population will score. You can see that Palin's score falls outside that section. From the test info, it shows that her "National WIQ percentile (1982)" is 12.8357%. This means that roughly 87% of people scored higher than she did. Think about that. If you're reading this, odds are your IQ is higher than Palin's. Do you want to have her handling complex national issues and dealing with foriegn head's of state? BTW, she's rarely been outside the US except briefly to Canada and Mexico, and a trip to Iraq, Kuwait, Germany, and Ireland as part of a 2007 visit to the Alaskan National Guard troops over there. And the Ireland visit wasn't so much a visit as it was a refuel stop.

"But Joel," you may still ask, "she's just going to be the vice president. McCain brings plenty of experience to the ticket." While I'm not going to discuss the merits of McCain's experience in this post, I would like to point out that McCain's health is less than stellar. He's currently 72, and would be 76 at the end of his presidency if elected. FYI, the average life expectancy in the US is 77.8. That's the average. Now consider that McCain did undergo years of torture and has already had malignant melanoma removed. Would that have an effect on his life expectancy? What about the stress associated with the office of President? Would that contribute to lessening his life expectancy? Here's a study that connect stress to premature aging, and is there a more stressful job than president? McCain's doctor maybe?

So here's Palin, a documented dullard with no foreign policy experience who doesn't know "what exactly it is that the VP does everyday." If elected, this dummy is one 72 year old's heartbeat away from being the president of the US.

Are you worried now?

At these prices, I may reconsider rocking Fila...

2008-10-03T15:21:00.004+02:00

I got this strange email message a couple of weeks ago, from harputs.com :

As a valued customer we're offering you the ulimate adidas Micropacer at $200.00 off
discount code :
Hamper
$200 off this week, come and get it

So, of course I'm thinking, what the hell would I buy that is $200 off??? From a shoe website??? Well, this is it:
Product DescriptionThis is the one. The ultimate shoe. Comes complete with: adidas branded miniature shoes in metal shoe box, memory card, action figure, laser trefoil projector, duct tape, pewter tennis racket bottle opener, large round trefoil belt buckle, key chain, lanyard, phone charm, roll of adidas stickers and an adidas originals balloon.
WTF?

Germans, worst dressers

2008-09-29T15:25:00.003+02:00

These speak for themselves, although I just want to say that I'm sure I could fill the capacity of the internet with just bad pictures of people in my town, but it's hard to casually snap a picture of a mulleted kid in an acid-washed jean jacket when you're not in a touristy spot. So, these are from Rothenberg au der Taub, or something like that, which had lots of people taking lots of pictures, and I blended right in.
Again, not the worst offenders, but pretty bad... especially the last one.

These guys like hats:Black socks:Yes, those are elbow patches, and yes, that is a bow tie:

Black Forest trip

2008-09-29T15:11:00.003+02:00

Last month, we went to the Black Forest. We went again with Justin and Kimber a couple of weeks ago, and we'll probably post those pictures as well, so I thought I'd get these up so they would be somewhat chronological.

This is a big church/marketplace in Freiberg, "Gateway to the Black Forest." It is on the southern end of the forest area.
Veggies and stuff at the market:
We took a tram and then hiked up a little to get these views of the city. You can really see that the city sits right in the middle of the forest:Afterward, we drove to another town where they had an open-air museum, with lots of little traditional huts in the Black Forest tradition. They were all big, wooden, and dark, and had an oppressive atmosphere that gave me some impression of the difficulty of just surviving 100 years ago. On a lighter note, here we are having dinner at the museum:

We went to Luxembourg!

2008-09-29T14:58:00.003+02:00

On the spur of the moment! I guess being in the Army does have some perks, but don't be too jealous. Poor Joel was in a combat zone almost a year to make this happen.

Shopping area, with lots of Luxembourg flags:

Joel with the "old town" behind him: Big bridge connecting the two halves of the city:Market day:Aidan loves any city that has ice cream:

How to Make Pesto- yummy, yummy pesto!

2008-09-29T14:35:00.004+02:00

We lived in Italy for over a year, and I never posted any recipes or anything... just plain rude, if you ask me. So, here I will offer you some help in this area. I tried this basic pesto recipe from 101 Cookbooks, which is OK but she uses a lot of ingredients not available at my local commissary. This one was pretty simple, though, and I took pictures to add my two cents. It came out really well, so please try this at home and let me know how you like it!

1. Print out recipe from 101 Cookbooks (link here, again). You do not need a "mezzaluna," just use a big vegetable-chopping-type knife.
2. Tear up your basil. Instead of buying the fresh basil in the packages, I thought I'd go ahead and buy some plants- renewable and cheaper! These were, like, $3 over here- not sure what these are running back in the U.S. of A. these days. So, see how much I used? It seemed like a lot, but it made about 6 portions (from one plant).
3. Wash and spin.
4. Now, here I forgot to take some pictures. I did lots and lots of chopping, of basil and pine nuts and then more basil and more nuts. I added some olive oil, and then tossed with gnocchi and topped with Parmesan. Here is the final product:

Ava's room

2008-09-29T14:17:00.003+02:00

I posted pictures of Aidan's room, but not Ava's- sorry for the oversight! Aidan said the other day, "I don't like Ava's room. Everybody sees it and says, 'Cute!' and then they don't think my room is cute." I can't believe my four year old is jealous of his sister's room decor, of all things.

So, starting with her door. Aidan made this for her shopping cart- like a license plate, I guess- but it was getting torn up so I put it on her door. I asked, "How did you know how to spell 'Ava'?" and he said, "Oh, I see you write it all of the time." Well, he almost got it right.

This is the window- if you go in her room, this is straight ahead. I know the picture is dark- use your imagination:
Here is the wall to the left. I have a picture in that empty frame now!

The wall to the right- I have new pictures in these frames.

OK, that's it! I made her a quilt (my first, ever) but that will have to wait for camera repairs, or Joel to have free time. Not sure which will be sooner...sigh.

Sorry, I broke the camera.

2008-09-29T14:13:00.002+02:00

So, that pretty much explains the lack of posts lately. I have to wait for Joel to upload the pictures he takes with his phone- which I am not allowed to touch, and really can't complain about since I have lost 2 phones and now broken the camera- to photobucket or whatever, before I can write posts. Because, really, who would read this crap without all the cute pictures?!?

But, I do have some old pictures I didn't post yet, so now I will get to work posting them. Right now.

Halloween Super Costume Fun!

2008-09-13T21:18:00.003+02:00

We're getting ramped up for Halloween at the Springer house. It's one of our favorite holidays. Since we're overseas, the costume selection is limited to what's at the on-post Army store. And that's pretty poor. So we turn to the interwebs to find costumes for the kids and us.

As we were looking around for something cute for the kids, we found some unusual specimens out there. First up, the "plus-size" costumes. Now, I'm not just making fun of fatties. I realize that fat people want to participate in Halloween too, and they need a costume just like everyone else. However, here's a plus-size costume that truly, truly horrifies me:

Ughhn! This is the "Be My Baby Jammies Plus Size Blue Adult" costume. Horrifying. It's available from Buycostumes.com, and includes the "Got Milk" bib. Yuck.

Next up are baby costumes. Now there's a ton of cute baby costumes out there: animals, little superheroes, little fruits. Here's one particular costume that I wanted to share just because the kid's face tells a whole story:

If I had to caption this photo, it'd have to be "who farted?". Priceless.

Copyright Infringement?

2008-09-13T20:46:00.004+02:00

Today we were at MediaWorld (think German Best Buy) over in Mannheim, looking for someone to repair our camera. Jessica had accidentally dropped it on our trip to Burgundy and it broke. When I asked at the service counter, the the Germans said they could repair it, but to the tune of €150. Thanks, but no thanks Fritz.

Anyway, right next to the service counter at there was a life size cut out of this strange dude:

WTF, right? My german is a little rusty, but the phrase "Das kauf ich euch ab" translates to something like "I buy that you on". What does that mean? I have no idea.

Who's idea was this? Does this seem like it'd be a great ad campaign? But after looking at this guy for a while, it struck me that I've seen this guy's look before. Does this face ring a bell??

Napoleon Dynamite? Is that you? I guess that Napoleon Dynamite sequel never panned out like he'd hoped. At least he's working.

We're from the government...

2008-09-11T16:36:00.003+02:00

And we're here to help you.

The caption is mine, but I'm sure someone can think of a funnier one. Any suggestions? I also played around with making a joke about "zero tolerance" gun laws in schools, but the punchline escaped me.

The funniest thing about the picture is that it was included (without caption) as part of a Powerpoint slide show from my office. It was part of the splash page at the end of the presentation intended, I suppose, to illustrate what a great job we're doing fighting the war. The other pictures were a guy jumping out of an airplane and a guy aiming his rifle at the camera.

Also, aside from bringing heavy firearms into a classroom of ten year olds, was it really necessary for them to wear the helmets and body armor? Just what are they expecting to happen in this classroom? Would it have been such a big deal to leave the helmets and body armor in the truck with a guard when they're visiting the school? And for full disclosure: I have been deployed to Iraq. I'm not just some dude spouting off on a subject that I have no experience with.

Happy 9/11

2008-09-11T14:08:00.004+02:00

Today's the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

I had written about it last year as well, but then I was more disgusted with the fact that it was buried in the media next to the Paris Hilton/Lindsey Lohan horse shit that was leading most of the major news outlets.

This year I'd just like to recap the state of things seven years since the attacks:

+4100 US casualties as a result of our invasion of Iraq

No clear timeline or conditions for withdrawal of troops from Iraq

The largest opium poppy harvest on record in occupied Afghanistan

Federal agencies most likely won't be held accountable for their illegal wiretapping activities on innocent US civilians

An estimated cost of three trillion dollars to the US taxpayer

Not even a whiff of the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden

Happy 9/11 America!

Dude, I'm so wasted!

2008-09-11T13:55:00.003+02:00

At my work, there's this giant picture outside the one of the boss' offices that is a composite of all the soldiers in his company. It's like a giant class photo. I walk by it probably ten times a day and never really pay it much mind. Almost all of the pictures fall into two categories:

1. Guys trying to make the "hardened" face, revealing just how tough they are.
2. Guys making a normal smiling picture face.

The other day I spotted this dude in the mix and I had to take a picture:

What happened with this guy? Did he just finish drinking the bong-water? Is he drunk? He looks like Jim Breuer after a particularly bad bender. What must be tough for this guy is that every day he has to walk by this giant photograph posted in the hall and face down this image. Bleh.

The lesson here is to always be mindful of who's taking your picture. You never know where it's going to end up.

Justin's Film

2008-08-28T16:06:00.002+02:00

So my brother Justin got back from his second tour in Iraq, dropped his paperwork to get out of the Army, moved to Austin, and has started making his first film. It's a documentary about traumatic brain injury in soldiers returning from the war. His website went live a couple of weeks ago, but he just got some of the final kinks worked out of it recently. The movie is called "Along Recovery" and he's in the early production stages right now. Go to the site and you can watch a 5-minute preview reel. It's not like you don't have 5 minutes to spare if you're reading this drivel.

If you really want to "support our troops", then go to his Donate page and cough up a few shekels. Justin's a 2-time veteran who's trying to tell a story about this war and the thousands of unsung soldiers that will bear a lifetime of pain and suffering for their actions downrange.

Or you could just buy a "We support our troops" yellow ribbon magnet to stick on the back of your SUV. I know I feel totally supported when you do that. /sarcasm

Fixed that for you

2008-08-26T21:29:00.004+02:00

I was checking my mail this afternoon at the post office. Nothing special. On my way out the door I spotted this sign and it stopped me cold.

"Consistent Excellence"? O RLY? Of all the phrases to misspell, they had to pick that one.

If it's hard to make out what's going on in that picture, I'll spell it out for you. They've misspelled "consistent" as "consistant". Fortunately, some brave typo corrector has placed a small piece of tape over the offending A and written a little E on it. Disaster averted!

This Job Stinks

2008-08-25T16:32:00.004+02:00

Alternate Title: "This Place is (near) the Dumps"

So I work in a dump. And by that I don't mean that things are worn and/or broken down around my office. I mean that there is a dump right outside the place that I work. It's not a straight up "landfill", but it's pretty close. Here's the bird's eye with my office in relation to the dump. My office is the helicopter, the dump is the red hazard sign. After that is a close-up of the dump itself. Pretty good resolution around here. You can almost see the rats.

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

Anyway, I'm about 3/4 of a mile from the dump and on a hot day (like today), you'd think it was right out my window. For some reason, the wind almost always blows northeast around here, placing us upwind from the stench.

Let's say you lived and worked in the dump, or perhaps a sewage treatment plant. So every minute of every living day you'd smell the unrelenting stink of decaying refuse and/or human feces. After a certain period of time, you've got to become immune to it, right? The same way that you don't notice the smell of your house unless you leave on an extended vacation, then come back to realize that your house has a particular odor that you've just gotten used to. In the same vein, the stench of crap and trash would just become part of your smell landscape. You'd stop noticing it. Assuming that to be the case, then would you every think anything smells bad? If you forget to take out your trash, or an egg rolls under your counter and starts rotting, would you notice the smell? Would a different kind of stench register with you, like a skunk? Or would your sense of smell just become dulled? Would you be able to enjoy a pleasant smell, like fresh baked bread or flowers, while living in the foul air everyday?

It doesn't smell bad enough here for me to conduct an objective observation, but maybe I can get the Germans who work at the dump to help me out.

Jokes and Jokes and Jokes and Jokes

2008-08-22T21:36:00.005+02:00

Joel says a lot of really funny things when we're just hanging out at home, alone, with no audience, so I wanted to give him some credit. Here's what you've all been missing out on while he's stuck in the Army instead of on his comedy club tour.

Last night, I was reading a guidebook for our upcoming trip to France. Innocently, I decided to share some interesting information with Joel, and this is the following dialog:
me: Joel, it says here that if the royal family of Monaco runs out of male heirs, the country will become part of France again.
Joel: Yeah, I already knew that.
me: What?! WHERE did you possibly hear that, Monaco Heirs Magazine??
Joel: No, I think it was Modern Male Heirs of Monaco Monthly Magazine. Or, M²HM³.

Ha ha! It turns out that he was thinking of something else I told him (see, I'm, full of information!) about San Marino, an Italian microstate. I had heard somewhere that the country was full of wealthy old men, and that the government had made some restrictions about the men marrying foreign gold-digging women. However, I did not find any support for this online, so it's probably fake. Oh, well.

Uncle Rico? Is that you?

2008-08-21T14:59:00.004+02:00

How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?

I was riding my bike home when I passed this van. I got about 50 feet down the road before I realized that I had better take a picture or it was going to be near impossible to describe it properly. I mean, where do you even start?

"It's a purple van, but it's got this crazy custom paint job and it looks like it's busting through a wall. But for some reason there's a girl sprawled across the hood. Except she's a ghost or something, because she doesn't have any legs. Oh, and she's got claws like Wolverine. And then on the sides there's some graphic design like a blue lightning bolt mixed with a checkered flag, 'cause this sweet ride is taking the pole position."

I have no other explaination other than, "WTF Germany!"

Germany WTF??!?

2008-08-17T20:57:00.004+02:00

So I've been thinking about splitting off and starting a new blog that focuses on the wacky and f-ed up things that we come across in Germany. Jessica talked me out of it, but I'd like to submit this finding to our audience.

We live in Mannheim and it's a good sized city. We get pretty big-name bands coming through here. REM, Linkin Park, Stevie Wonder. So there's no shortage of the band posters around the streets advertising the shows that are coming up. Now, every band that comes around can't be REM. There's got to be some B-listers that come through M-town too. And those B-listers have their own posters plastered around town as well. And this post is about one of them.

So apparently there's a German techno group floating around called Lexy and K-Paul. Let me start by saying that I'm not a "techno" guy. I don't really "get" it. I've tried to listen to it, and I enjoy it on a extremely superficial level. I can dance to it, but I couldn't tell you the first thing about house, jungle, drum & bass, trance, etc. I know there's supposed to be some sort of distinction between those, and even with the great B.K. trying to explain it to me, I'm totally at a loss to tell the difference. That being said, these two clowns may be the next greatest techno DJ group to come out of Germany. But I doubt it.

Anyway, they're coming to Mannheim soon. And there's these posters up all over town hawking their show. The picture on this poster has really bugged me for the last couple of days. I don't get what it is they're going for. I've got the picture, minus all the show data. I guess it came off their latest CD "Ponyboy".

Why are they in their underwear? Why are they wearing feathered headbands? Why (and this might be the part that I don't understand the most) are they in that ridiculous "prancing" pose? Are they gay? That would explain a lot, except that I don't think that's the case. I think the explanation is a little case of "WTF Germany"?!?!

Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

2008-08-17T17:23:00.010+02:00

We've been taking weekend day-trips the past couple of weekends as a way to see a lot of Europe on the cheap. It's been working out pretty good, and we've been able to see the Black Forest, Luxembourg, and now Trier.

Trier is nestled in the south-west corner of Germany, near Luxembourg. It prides itself as being "Germany's Oldest City", claiming to be founded by the Romans in or before 16 BC. That's pre-Jesus!! Every year they host Germany's largest Roman festival during the summer. We saw it mentioned in the local "what's going on" circular that the army puts out for the troops and decided to hit it up.

We arrived in the afternoon and headed toward the old "arena" that dates backs to the Romans. Here's an aerial shot from the Google:

View Larger Map

So we get our tickets and head into the arena. It's pretty cool looking and the only thing really negative about it is that it's filled with Germans. Seriously, they're starting to annoy me with their... German-ness? Even though I usually abhor anecdotal stories to make a judgment over something, I'll relay a little story to you from the Romanfest:

There's a little tent set up where they're selling concessions for the show. Nothing crazy; beers, sodas, fries, brats. The line is about 10 deep, but we're thirsty and I cue up to wait my turn. I get up to the front and I'm about 2 back from ordering. Suddenly, a couple of fat, old Germans (is there any other kind?) sidle up into the line in front of some kids that were in line in front of me. I voice my objection, but they kind of ignore me. Fortunately, who should come to my aid but some oddly-mustached German guy behind me. He had a long waxed mustached, a little like this guy:

So he hears me and reaches over and taps the rude German on the shoulder to get his attention. He yells something to him, I assume about how the line is behind us and who does he think he is to cut in front of us. Fatty acts flustered and pretends that he didn't know that he was supposed to be in line. This is a classic German move that they pull if you catch them doing something that they shouldn't. So finally the line moves forward and we get up to the front. As the girl at the counter is finishing up with the last order, I quickly jump the gun and yell my order at her before she has the chance to ask. It kind of throws the counter girl and the fatty off. She looks at fatty, as if to say "who's next?" Fatty insists that he's the next guy in line but I interrupt him and tell the counter girl that I am indeed next guy in line since fatty cut in. My good looks and confidence played out, and the girl serves me my drink. Better luck next time, fattius!

So once we get to our seats and settles, the show starts. Now, we had been hyping up this show to Aidan for a couple of days. We were telling him about gladiators and all the fighting that was going to be going on during this "Gladiatorial Spectacular" (That's what they billed it as on their website!). But when the show starts, there's a couple of things wrong. 1) There's no gladiators anywhere to be seen. Just some dudes in Roman robes. 2) They're speaking German. I totally understand that I'm in Germany, and that's to be expected. However, I wasn't expecting this to be a drama of some sort with lots of dialog to shift through. I just wanted to go in and see some gladiator fights. 3) Holy shit, it's 15 minutes into this thing and they've had a freaking musical number, but not one gladiator.

Aidan is starting to get antsy. "Where's the fighting?," he wants to know. "It's coming, just be patient," I try to assure him. But I'm getting a little worried myself. It's only a matter of time before he starts to hit me with the dreaded, "This is BORING!"

Fortunately, the fates smile on us and out come about 10 or 15 gladiators. I'll give it to them, they're costumes were pretty cool. So finally, they start with some fighting and Aidan is satisfied. They started with some practice bouts, with wooden swords, and then worked up to the full armor and swords. I managed to get some pretty decent video of the matches. Just so you know, the music wasn't my addition; that's what they were playing there.

So all in all, it was pretty good. As a bonus, after the show we had dinner in the town and while we were there we saw some crazy rally car race finishing up. We were just sitting there eating some Italian food and we hear this crazy noise coming from outside. I take Ava going out to investigate and we see all these rally cars coming down the little German streets. Oddly unexpected and wonderful.

There's something wrong with this iPhone...

2008-08-08T21:24:00.003+02:00

What's Aidan been up to?

2008-08-08T13:57:00.004+02:00

Again, funny you should ask!

Here he is, trying to steal Ava's popsicle, after he had finished his own:
We've been going to this summer reading program on post, and as part of it, they had a kids' photography contest. Aidan won third prize, a DVD. Here he is with the post commander and Sargent major, accepting his "Pocahontas" DVD:Here is the picture that won the prize (it was a bug-themed reading program):

And here he is, pretending to be a very, very serious waiter:

Spending quality time with dad:

What's Ava been up to?

2008-08-08T13:42:00.002+02:00

Funny you should ask! Here is Ava playing with a Fisher Price Little People nursery school:And we got her a doll, since she was playing with a lot of Aidan's old toys that weren't really girly. She didn't know what to think at first, but she eventually warmed up to the baby:
And finally, two of her eating. She sits in this ridiculous way every time we put her in the high chair, as if the tray were her ottoman. I think she's eating a cupcake in the last one, although I see corn on her, too. So, obviously, we've given up on clothes while eating at home.

Germans Love Old Stuff

2008-08-08T13:03:00.003+02:00

While the Springers were visiting us, we took a drive to a medieval walled city, about 2 hours away, called Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It is really well-preserved, and has lots of cute old buildings. As a side note, it has a famous legend that the French came to burn down the town during the 100 Years War, but the mayor made a wager that he could drink some insane amount of beer, and he did, so the French left the town alone. The main square has a cuckoo clock that reenacts the drinking contest on the hour. (And somehow America is the country with the binge drinking problem?)

My favorite architectural feature- well, decorative architectural feature, if it can even be considered that- is this:I don't know what is says, but I really like when Germans (and Austrians) have writing on the side of the building. Cute!

Aidan made out during his grandparents' trip- they bought him this shield while we were in Spain, and then on this trip we got him the helmet to finish the costume.
This town- like all of Europe, it seems- is famous for its wine, which comes in these funny shaped bottles that are kind of flat and squatty. Here, some enterprising restauranteer has re-purposed them into an..um.. hanging thing:

By the way, now we're thirty!

2008-08-08T12:47:00.003+02:00

I took pictures of Joel's birthday, but they didn't amke it up here yet, so, here are some pictures from our birthdays, in March and July.

Close-up of Joel's cake, with candles in the shape of "30":

Aidan's Room

2008-08-08T12:40:00.004+02:00

Just a short post to show you Aidan's room. This was really Joel's idea, so give him all the credit for the awesome result!

And here are two cute pictures Aidan drew of robots. Actually, the first one is Iron Man, and the bad guy is holding onto his foot.

Springer Family Curse

2008-08-08T12:21:00.004+02:00

This all started when Joel's parents visited us in Italy. His mom somehow fell and scraped up her legs and arms pretty bad, and had to go to therapy for her wrist, I think. Then, his parents went to a Dave Ramsey financial conference, where someone threw a t-shirt out into the crowd. Jo caught her little finger on it, somehow crushing it, and requiring operations and months of therapy, which are still continuing today. Then, Joel fell while he was riding his bike to work here in Germany, scraping up his palms really, really badly. (On a bright note, he said that one guy at work thought the bandages were from a suicide attempt, ha ha!!) Later that same week, Joel's dad fell riding his bike, and broke his arm and hurt his shoulder pretty badly. Now, this week Joel cut off part of his little finger cutting an onion. Dear God, when will this end!?!

Here is a picture of the RIDICULOUS bandage they put on him at the clinic, complete with a metal splint:
Now, I don't want to alarm anyone, but we WERE living in Italy when this started, so I can only assume that it is due to some sort of elderly Italian woman's curse, or possibly that of a gypsy who was living in Italy. If anyone has any ideas about how to remove ancient curses, please forward your comments to me, here at the blog. Grazie!

What's cool on the internets?

2008-07-10T09:02:00.003+02:00

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a list of cool things on the internet? Like, if you were just wasting some time online, and you had already checked your email and made sure there wasn't anything new at the Gap (yes, yes, tan chinos, white dress shirts, plain t's, we get it!), and you still had some time... but how do you stumble upon that cool stuff? You know, the stuff other people dig? It seems like someone had already read it they cold tell you about it...hmmmm....

Ha ha- so anyway, I found this site (look at my striped shirt) after reading something on reddit- so I guess everyone who is cool already knows about it, but whatever. I guess it is really an ad for a book, but it reminded me a lot of the op-ed pieces the Onion does.

Coolest Letterhead Ever

2008-07-09T21:50:00.004+02:00

If you remember, I wrote earlier about the unexpected email I received from the Army that said that I had passed the first astronaut selection board and that they were going to send my application on to NASA for the next phase of selection. Well, I was surprised again to receive this awesome letter from the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center:

For those that can't read from the photo, it says:

Dear CAPT Springer:

We have received you application for the Astronaut Candidate Program from the U.S. Army. You will be notified of any decisions concerning your application.

There's more there about updating my application, but nothing of interest.

So there you have it. I'm in the running to be an astronaut. We'll see where this goes...

Less depressed...

2008-07-01T15:33:00.002+02:00

It has taken me a while to get on here and post- for a few reasons.

#1, It was pretty depressing to pack up and leave Italy any earlier than we were supposed to be there. I know, I know- I should be thankful that I had the opportunity to live there any time at all, but I am having a hard time focusing on the positives. Which brings me to...
#2, Germany isn't that great. The weather is so weird- I was ironing the other day, and I thought, "It must be getting close to the end of Daylight Saving Time" before I realized that, due to the chilly weather here, I subconsciously thought it was fall. I think I've only worn shorts three or four times in the past month we've been here. Mannheim is kind of famously unattractive as far as posts go- I'd send some example pictures, but, you know, opsec and all.

Also, let's just say it, #3, Germans are pretty difficult to love. My friend's baby was crying at a restaurant- not a fancy one- and I think you could hear every person drop their fork on their plate and collectively gasp as they turned to angrily stare at her. Rude! Maybe this is why Germans don't like their babies (and if you follow the link, we live in Baden-Wuerttemberg).

#4, Unpacking with two kids is even less fun than it sounds. You know, they try to cheer you up with promises of daycare for your kids at the childcare centers here, but it took me three visits to the registration center, three trips to the hospital for shots and record updates, and an hour long orientation at the center for my kids to be eligible for this supposed respite care, so, thanks for nothing, jerks. I've pretty much got it under control by now.

In the interest of being fair and balanced, here are the pluses of the move.

#1. Smaller apartment means less to clean! (Click this link- it has the floor plan of our actual place)
#2. Was getting tired of knowing where everything was in my town.
#3. Didn't really want to finish my Master's Degree this fall (moving has delayed my student teaching... again)
#4. Had eaten enough gnocci and drunk enough prosecco

OK, for reals... four things that are actual pluses:

#1, The post is like a giant playground with some housing spoiling the view. There is a pirate ship playground, a teepee playground, the sports park... and many, many more. We can see two huge ones just from our apartment. So, Aidan is totally psyched.

#2, We have a new home base for Northern European travels. I think Amsterdam is only 3 hours away, and we're close to Belgium, Switzerland, France, etc. Plus, I guess there are a few cool things to see and do here in Germany.

#3, Living on post is a new experience, and I would feel remiss if we had somehow managed to try so many new things during Joel's military career and not ever live on post, be it good or bad.

#4, Joel has a new job that he seems to really like- ok, it's only been one week, but it looks promising. He shouldn't have to go away as much as he did in Italy, which made it hard for us to travel around and see/do stuff there anyway.

So, I'm breaking even. I think things will turn up as the days go by- we're pretty settled in, my in-laws are visiting, and I'm getting a very special 30th birthday present from Joel... more on that in a week!! Yay!

Who saw this coming?

2008-07-01T14:01:00.002+02:00

I received this email in my inbox on Monday morning:

Congratulations. The Army has submitted your application to NASA for consideration for the Astronaut Candidate Program. You will receive an official letter from our office, but with the closing date coming up I wanted to let you know as soon as possible.

Here's some background: I received an unsolicited bulk email from the Army back in February notifying everyone that the Army was holding it's Astronaut Candidate Selection Board in June. At the time, I hated my job and I was trying ANYTHING to get out of it. I thought, "this might work," and submitted my application for the program. I didn't expect it to go anywhere. While I do have the educational background that they wanted, I didn't think that I had the professional experience that they were looking for.

I guess the Army thinks that I have the "right stuff" and pushed me to the NASA selection. I don't really expect it to go any further, but I didn't expect it to go this far either. Who knows? Maybe I'll have to change the name of this blog to "I Heart Freeze-Dried Ice Cream"?

Aidan-Wan Kenobi

2008-06-30T23:06:00.004+02:00

Some fooling around in After Effects and Premiere created this masterpiece.

Economic Fail

2008-06-30T11:12:00.003+02:00

This guy needs to have his econ degree revoked. Fail!

From the abstract, published in 2003:

Can the euro ever challenge the dollar as an international currency? This article argues that Europe's new money is fated to remain a distant second to America's greenback, for four reasons...

Har-de-har-har. I wish ol' Benjamin J. Cohen had an email address on his article so I could ask him how he's doing after this brilliant bit of inductive reasoning.

Fat Germans

2008-06-27T14:32:00.005+02:00

Yesterday I had to make a late night milk run for our baby. So at 9:45, I went down to the Real (like a German Wal-Mart that is open late) to pick some up. I grabbed my milks and got in the only check-out line that was available. As I'm waiting, I took a look at the couple in front of me and behind me and what they were buying.

I know it's popular to bash Americans for their increasingly casual dress, poor eating, and rampant obesity, but the Germans aren't that far behind if the two couples that I saw there were any indicator. The first couple was in their mid-to-late twenties. They looked like they had been living out of their car for the past week. That may have been the case, but either way they looked like bums. T-shirts, old shorts, flip-flops; an overall disheveled appearance. Among their "groceries" were:

- a six-pack of 1L Fantas ("with more orange taste" on the package)
- 4 or 5 bags of those Haribo gummi candies
- 4 or 5 large sized candy bars
- several packs of gum
- two additional 1L bottles of soda
- some assorted types of chips

Yum. That rung up for 38€, or almost $60. For junk food. Of course, there's places in the American marketplace where this isn't so outlandish. But you won't find me ordering the Junk Food Junkie anytime soon.

The second couple was a little better dressed than the first couple. At least their clothes didn't look visibly dirty and wrinkled. However, there was one big distinction: their size. The second couple were both well over 6'4" or more. The woman was bigger, easily 6'5" and +250 lbs. They were giant specimens of human beings; more stout than fat. Their groceries consisted of:

- two bags of Haribo gummi candies
- a 1L tub of ice cream
- a large bag of assorted cookies
- a bag of brotchen-style rolls
- another package of cookies
- a large piece of meat (I believe it was pork)
- a stick of butter

Clearly these people love carbs and meat.

After seeing what other Americans buy at the commissary on post, and now seeing the caliber of shopping that these two anonymous German couples did, it's not hard to see why obesity is so rampant. I think people have forgotten how to prepare and cook real food. So they buy this "ready-to-eat" mess and their body slowly breaks down as it's deprived of the nutrients that it needs.

I realize that my "field study" of Germans and their shopping habits is fairly limited, but I've just gotten here and there's plenty of time for me to accumulate more data. In the meantime, eat a salad.

Wir wohnen aus Deutchland

2008-06-15T21:13:00.003+02:00

It's been a couple of weeks since our last post; for that I apologize. However, I think everyone can cut me a break considering that since our last post on 23 May, we received orders to move to Germany, packed up all our things and drove up to Mannheim. It's been a fast-paced couple of weeks.

We currently live on Sullivan barracks, located in the city of Mannheim. Here's a overhead from Google Maps for those that don't know where that is:

It's a pretty industrial area, but there is a large city park and lots of bike trails around. And there's plenty of smaller, quaint German towns nearby and we're just a short drive away from the famous Black Forest (Schwarzwald in German). We've just gotten our house somewhat in order from the unpacking. The movers were here just last Tuesday, so there's still a fair bit of work to be done.

Although we were sad to leave Italy, we're trying to make the best of the German experience. I will say this: they certainly know how to make a beer around here. I've had some incredible beers already, and that not even going out and looking for a good German beer. So although I am going through Italian wine withdrawals, I'm trying to explore the alcoholic traditions of our new host country.

Once we get some picture of the area, we'll through them up here for you to gawk at. I guess we'll also have to get a new name for this blawg too.

What's this blog about, anyway?

2008-05-23T22:46:00.003+02:00

I was telling someone the other day about a comment someone posted on the blog, and she said, "What do you even write about on your blog?" Except, that's not exactly correct... I am not sure what kind of punctuation or italics or whatever you could use to convey the subtext of her comment, relayed through her facial expression combined with the tone of her comment, which was what would I, personally, have to say on my blog, that even one other person in the whole world would care about? Why would anyone- anyone at all- care about the lame, "Dear diary" musings of a stay-at-home mom, she was clearly asking?

So, hurt feelings aside, I wasn't really sure how to explain. It's a lot of kid stuff, for family back in the states, and travel photos to make you all sorry you don't come visit more often, but... how do you describe Joel's post charting his job satifaction against our location? Or the look at government spending you were lucky enough to see this month? We're no Perez Hilton, but we have some Miley Cyrus coverage. We're not Fox News, but we do have quite a bit of campaign coverage.

Hmmm... looks like the odd ones come from Joel, so I guess I'm off the hook for explaining them.

Hyper Coasting

2008-05-23T22:11:00.007+02:00

Well, those of you that know Joel know that he can be a man on a mission when he makes up his mind about something. Take hypermiling. He comes across this information, and then the next thing I know, we are coasting all over town- down overpasses (acceptable), into right turns (scary), and 100 yards away from stops (boring). Basically, you use extreme driving behavior modification to increase your gas milage. Like, take all day to get up to fifty, and then immediately shift into neutral and coast. And keep on coasting, right through turns and down exit ramps and whatever else you encounter while you still have momentum.

I don't know if it would be so bad in the U.S., but here, the Italian drivers will pass you if there are six feet of space between you and the car in front of you. They have no patience for this snail's pace driving, even if it is eco-friendly, which the Euros usually go for. And, I am terribly afraid of going over 15 mph around curved overpasses, so I lose on that end as well.

I'm planning on showing him this anti-hypermiling article, and see what happens. If he doesn't go for it, at least I have his Christmas gift picked out- as hard as he is to buy for, putting up wth his nutty driving may be worth it.

Your Tax Dollars at Work!

2008-05-09T10:55:00.003+02:00

The Military-Industrial/CounterTerror-Industrial Complex is alive and well. The below chart is the enacted discretionary funding for 2008, as reported by the OMB. Specifically, it’s tabulated from “Table S–3. Discretionary Funding by Major Agency” of this document.

By the way, this doesn’t include any “supplemental” funding that Congress authorized for the Global War on Terror. For 2007, that was $173.6B. That’s 19.7% of the $880B Discretionary Budget, except that 19.7% isn’t included in the $880B Discretionary Budget; it’s additional spending. For 2008, there is a proposed supplemental funding of $108.1B dedicated for the GWOT. That’s in addition to the $479.5B that’s already slated for Discretionary Spending, for a grand total of $587.6B to be spent on defense this year.

Oh, and we’re operating at a deficient of -$410B this year. That’s an increase from the -$162B deficit that we spent last year of $248B.

I wish there was a joke here somewhere, but I can't seem to think of one.

Enjoy!

Puppets, as promised

2008-05-07T23:29:00.004+02:00

These pictures kind of stink, admittedly. I took them in a dark theatre of a brightly lit stage full of fast-moving puppets, from six rows back. Not exactly ideal conditons. But forgiving that, check out these crazy puppets- what kind of show are they staging with these characters??

Canio, from Pagliacci:A James Bond villan:
The Gay Chinaman (he has a chinese-style skull cap with the long braid and wears a vaguely Asian tunic):Most racist puppet ever- I'll leave the specifics to you:

It's really a surprise that France is having immigrant trouble, what with their refined views of other cultures that they are imparting to their young, via PUPPET SHOWS. Dang.

Happy First Birthday, Princepessa

2008-05-07T22:48:00.008+02:00

That's "princess," of course, although I'm not sure I spelled it correctly. I hear the Italians say it all of the time, but they don't exactly write it down for me. Anyway, here are some pictures from Ava's first birthday:

I'm Aidan, and I approve of these cupcakes.

Our Italian neighbors came by: This is reckless misuse of helium in a time of worldwide shortage:
I'm not sure why he's wearing a knight costume, either.

Ava tests the waters- "What is this pink smooshy food they are shoving at me?".....

....and decides it is yummy!

It was Bring Your Own Baby (of course, that's any military function):

Taking a ride on her brother's bike.My guess is she's calling her friends to report on the motherlode of pink dresses stacked up in her shopping cart. Also note the cute dress I made for her to wear (and my friend made the bow):
So, now it's like you were there! Without the 8 hour flight! You're welcome!

Fake Outrage

2008-04-30T20:24:00.006+02:00

What's going on in America since I left? I turn my back and leave for a couple of years and the wheels are about to fly off the whole enterprise. America! Get your shit together!

Case in point: the Miley Cyrus photos in Vanity Fair.

In case you missed it, and I'm sure you didn't since it's the top story on all the cable news networks, teen singer Miley Cyrus of "Hannah Montana" fame posed for a Vanity Fair photo shoot. One of the pictures shows her with a bared back, covered with a sheet. According to the news, I'm supposed to be outraged by this picture:

Well, I don't get what the problem is. Is she exposing anything to make this picture lewd? No. Is she being exploited by the photographer, Annie Leibovitz? If so, Miley wasn't letting on in the article:

“I think it’s really artsy,” Cyrus says. “It wasn’t in a skanky way.… And you can’t say no to Annie. She’s so cute. She gets this puppy-dog look and you’re like, O.K.”

The issue people have with this picture is the feeling it brings out in them, in Americans. Americans can't accept the fact that a 15 year old girl would want to express some measure of her sexuality. Everyone wants to believe that children are innocents until they're 18, at which time they become adults and are capable of making every adult decision of what to do with themselves and their bodies. The truth is that kids, people, are in a constant state of growth and discovery. Everyone is always entering a new stage of their life that they have no prior experience with. This picture is good for Miley. It shows she's growing and adapting as she gets older. If she continues her (and I'm biting my hand to force it to type this most hackney of phrases) "tween-queen" image, she'll soon find herself in the irrelevant category with artists like Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. Gibson's later career can be summed up in this entry from Wikipedia:

In January 2006, she joined the cast of Skating with Celebrities on Fox Television, partnered with former Canadian World Champion figure skater Kurt Browning. She was voted out in the third episode.

I'd like to turn your attention to another former "teen queen" that should be raising the ire of the American public for her assault on decency. I had seen the following picture while I was in Paris, riding the Metro. Except there it was 20 ft tall and plastered on the walls. It made me throw up in my mouth a little everytime the train would zip past it. There's nothing "shocking" about this picture, although I'm sure the artist would like to think that there was. This picture is simply an assault on aesthetics. It's like seeing a grandmother in her underwear, then having her come onto you. Actually, it's almost exactly like that. Behold!

Yes, Madonna, we get it. Just because you turn 50 this year doesn't mean that you're not sexy. Oh wait. No, that's exactly what that means. I'm so tired of the "40 is the new 30, 50 is the new 40, 60 is the new 50" horse-shit that continues to be trotted out as Americans get older. Whatever happened to "aging gracefully"? Whatever happened to becoming distinguished as you get older? We're suffering from a distinguished-deficit the likes of which we've never seen. Madonna turns 50 this summer, and she's in her underwear giving the world a crotch-shot while she licks(?) a ribbon or something. Oh, and there's "HARD CANDY" plastered across her chest. Mistress of subtlety, thy name is Madonna. Of these two photos, there's no contest as to which is more inappropriate. And if I have to tell you, then you lose.

By the way, while all this Miley picture BS continues to distract everyone, don't mind the fact that we just rolled another carrier(!) into the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran. Looks like John McCain is going to get his wish! But don't mind that, America. Here, look at this young girl's photo, watch American Idol, here's a shiny piece of foil and a bit of string...

Les enfants en Paris

2008-04-18T23:34:00.004+02:00

Last week, we went to Paris for spring break. Before you get too jealous, we ALL went to Paris. Somehow, even Paris loses some of its luster with a crying baby strapped to your side and a hungry four year old begging to go to "Uncle Donald's." Again.

Well, I'm really exaggerating... the kids did very well, considering. It really was beautiful, although the weather didn't quite cooperate. It was still a little cold- in fact, it started snowing while we were on the top of Notre Dame. Proof:

I'm including this one of me only because I really like it, and it's my blog, so there.We did all of the big things, but we also tried to take some breaks for the kids. We took Aidan to Luxemburg Gardens for the puppet show (and little sail boats, but it was closed), which he liked enough, but it was really no match for the huge, awesome playground right next to it. They also had a super-cute track and old-style pedal cars for a euro a ride (U.S. $2.80)- here is Aidan taking a trip around the track.
The puppet show is a whole other post, to follow. Eventually. And I was kidding about the exchange rate- it probably won't be that bad for another couple of weeks.

Another big highlight for Aidan was the impromptu canoe ride at Versailles. I am so paranoid about the children drowning, it is a miracle that Joel convinced me to get into the boat at all, let alone without a baby lifejacket. At least this little boy was wearing one:Joel is bending down so I can get Aidan's picture. It was actually a nice ride once I calmed down. My mom said that my grandfather was at Versailles after the war, so I am anxious to talk to him about it.

Of course, the big news was that Ava decided to start walking in Paris! What a fancy baby. We thought she might do it while we were in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence a few weeks ago, which would have been a good enough story, but she was holding out for Paris, I guess. She isn't quite doing it in this picture, but it gives you an idea.

Enough for now, I suppose. I will work on the puppet show info...crazy French.

New Recruit

2008-04-18T23:06:00.004+02:00

Sadly, there is a line of maternity clothes available at PX stores all over the world called, "New Recruit," and the logo is a dog tag with a pacifier on the chain. Putting aside the fact that anyone using a pacifier is a little young to be thinking about a military career, let alone acually signing the recruitment paperwork, I think it would make more sense to have the children's line be named "New Recruit." Are they insinuating that pregnant women are being targeted as potential soldiers, or are they reaching out to the yet unborn?? Sick.

Which brings me to my point: today was "Dress like Mom or Dad Day" at Aidan's school, as a part of the Month of the Military Child celebration for April, and this picture made me think that perhaps they had child recruitment in mind when they orchestrated this:

Still, the worst "celebration" of military children was a t-shirt I saw a kid wearing on Ft. Campbell that said "Military Kids ROCK/When mom and dad have to ROLL," showing the stick figure kids cheering as their stick figure parent drove off in a tank. Or, is this the worst thing attempting to celebrate military children? What'chu think about that? Or, perhaps this is the worst- I guess they've got the war all figured out there at the Pentagon, so they took the afternoon off for sand art and t-shirt making. And yes, Aidan is wearing a Pentagon t-shirt in the photo, eagle eyes.

Worst Cover Ever

2008-04-09T20:41:00.002+02:00

If you'll recall, we went sledding in Asiago with the kids Back in February. It was fun, and you can read all about it here. Anyway, we took a lunch break while we were up there, eating some packed sandwiches that we brought with us. As we're sitting there on a bench, enjoying our lunch, I look over and see a conspicuous truck parked beside us. At first, I thought nothing of it. But after a minute, something about the truck struck a cord with me. Here's the truck in question:

Is it me, or is there something strangely familiar about that logo? Hmmm... Where have I seen that logo before? Maybe some government agency? It's got that eagle and all. Wait a minute! Could it be the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY!?!?

What the crap? Do we have the laziest spies ever? Is this some sort of lame CIA collection van strategically placed in northern Italy to spy on the ski conditions? And if it is, could they have picked a little more surreptitious cover? How are we supposed to win the "War on Terror" with this kind of sloppy intelligence operating abroad? I guess we won't this election cycle.

Campaign Songs, Part 3

2008-04-04T09:52:00.003+02:00

The past two posts have focused on the Dems, but I'm sure many of you are wondering, "What about Johnny Mac?" Don't worry folks; today's his day.

Now I'll be the first to admit that it hasn't been as easy to hunt down the McCain songs as easily as it has been for Hillary and Obama. I've got my theories on why that is. For starters, he's an older guy and probably not in touch with the whole "intertubes" thing. Probably saw Andy Rooney saying something about it on the 60 Minutes. Perhaps, when you're 70+ years old, it's difficult to embrace the greatest information sharing medium the world has ever seen. It's understandable; I'm sure he's having a hard time figuring out these new "cellular telephones" too. But I digress. For whatever reason, there isn't the deluge of supporter made songs out there for McCain. There was this gem, written and sung by a loyal supporter in his living room:

I'll give him an A for earnestly, but that's about it. [Insert "don't quit your day job" joke here]

Next there's this one, which has a pretty good production value and makes parody of the Obama "Yes We Can" video. Unfortunately for McCain, it also parodies him. Still pretty funny, though.

Now this one I'm a little stumped on. I'm not sure if it's pro-McCain or anti-McCain. There's not a lot of substance to it; like the first Hillary video, it's just a song played over a slideshow. Now this particular one uses some more elaborate transitions and some special visual effects on the pictures, but it's nothing groundbreaking. Let me caution you before you give it a listen: it gets stuck in your head easily. You've been warned. Having said that, on with the video!

going insane for the McCain campaign, going insane for the McCain campaign, going...

Campaign Songs, Part 2

2008-04-03T21:49:00.002+02:00

So that last Hillary song maybe wasn't the stuff of legend. Just a crappy voice over a slideshow with some boring campaign stills; nothing really wow-ing me. Good thing there's a lot more Hill-dog supporters out there! I guess I would ask you to watch this through first, in its entirety, before reading down "after the break". PS- using "after the break" on you blog is totally played out.

Now that you've seen that, consider this: someone had to conceive of that idea, someone had to write that song, someone had to organize the singers/musicians/"dancers", someone had to set up a practice, someone had to get those "Hillary" t-shirts made, someone had to set up the lights, someone had to film it, someone had to take that film and edit it, and finally someone had to load it up on YouTube. And what was the end result of all those people's effort? A load of crap. I'm torn between wishing them all the most violent of deaths, or endlessly pitying them for being involved in that abomination. I guess I'll go with the former.

For comparison, here's one of the more popular Obama campaign songs. I could give two craps about celebrity endorsements, but if you're making a campaign song it helps to get will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas to do it. More so than whoever made the Hillary one.

Looks like Obama wins this round. But in the name of fairness, I think I should show the "Obama girl" video to illustrate that it's not all Grammy-winning production in the Obama camp. They've got their sleazy-side too.

Campaign Songs, Part 1

2008-04-01T23:15:00.002+02:00

With election season in full swing, Jessica and I have been following the campaigns pretty closely over the past couple of months. One aspect that always fascinates me about them are the campaign songs. How does a song get selected for a candidate? Is it by committee? Does the artist get paid royalties? Would a Democratic candidate select a song by a Republican-leaning artist? Would Obama pick a Nugent song, for example?

But the most interesting, and I believe telling, part about the songs aren't the "Official" Campaign ones that the candidates select. It's the unofficial, supporter-generated songs that I really love. Jessica and I had wanted to do a big post comparing and contrasting all the campaign songs out there (we've become somewhat of a campaign song aficionado), but I think we'll need to break it up into a couple of smaller posts to get all the goodness in.

Here's a little gem from the Hillary Campaign that I think you'll recognize the tune to:

Atrocious. And yet, there's something insidious about that tune. It gets into your head and causes you to perhaps perform it in an embarrassing falsetto. Not that I would know anything about that.

Damn you Hillary Clinton!!

More firey words from controversial pastor

2008-04-01T22:02:00.002+02:00

Some excerpts from another speech by that fire-brand minister that’s been in the news:

“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about [Iraq]? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.”

“If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in [Iraq]. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad [Iran] into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of [Iraq] immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.”

“The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: ‘This way of settling differences is not just.’ This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Are these words from the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright? No.

These words are excerpts from Rev. Martin Luther King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” which he gave on 4 April 1967. I’ve replaced “Vietnam” with “Iraq” and “China” with “Iran” in the excerpt above. If you have a minute, read the speech in its entirety here. It’s strangely prescient.

Behind the Power Curve

2008-02-26T21:04:00.003+01:00

You know how every once in a while you find something on the internet that's cool and you want to share it with everyone? Only then you realize that it's been around for a long time, and you're just late to the party? Well, that just happened with me.

I followed a link to a link to a link and stumbled on The Perry Bible Fellowship today. It's a web comic, and it doesn't really have anything to do with the bible, but it is pretty funny. Here's a sample:

The best way I can describe the strip is like a 3-panel Far Side. I was clued in that the artist, Nicholas Gurewitch, might not need THIS blog's endorsement when I read that his first book sold out the first two printings and is on for a third re-print. It's worth a look, if you're trying to kill some time at work.

Kid Art

2008-02-10T21:39:00.000+01:00

We bought Aidan a kid's camera for his birthday. He seems to take a lot of inspiration from the dog, his toys, and holiday decorations. There is an obvious need to work on his composition, but there does seem to be some evidence of an inate eye for photography...

Here are some of the pictures he has taken, just for kicks.

Bob Like You Mean It

2008-02-10T20:58:00.000+01:00

So, we went sledding this weekend in Asiago, or, as they call it here it Italy, "bob." I mean, I get it- like bob sledding, but it is so wierd. I have no idea how you would talk about sledding in Italian, since they conjugate their verbs. I bobo, you bobi, he/she boba? More on that later...

We had heard about this place from some friends, and they were really talking it up. When we got there, it did not disappoint. There was a really nice sledding hill, with a "magic carpet" that you rode on to get back to the top of the hill. I have never been skiing, so I conceed that it IS possible, but I have never heard of such a set-up in the U.S. Do we even have sledding hills?

Kids on the magic carpet:

My ignorance about sledding was just about immediately obvious, as I was the absolute worst sled driver there. Eight year old kids were flying by me, with excellent control and steering. On the other hand, I felt like I could crash or possibly defy the laws of physics and flip my sled at any moment. Joel said, "I could pick you out right away- you were all over the place." Thanks!

For his part, Joel managed to make a spectacle of himself by wearing some Army cold weather boots that, based on performance, were possibly made out of solidified Crisco. On top of his many, many near misses, he fell right on his ass at least four times. At least he had boots on- the rest of us (including our friend and her two kids)were in jeans and running shoes, amid a sea of ski pants, ski coats, designer sunglasses, "Moon Boots,"and mid-length fur coats. We might as well have had Toby Keith t-shirts and American flag bandanas on.

Check out this Italian Nonna (grandma) enjoying her day at the slopes in style:

Of course your big question is, "Did Aidan have fun?" I think his expression in this picture says it all:

So, no, he didn't. Fortunately, we found a small playground with the equivilent of a bunny (sledding) slope that he and the other kids we were with could handle much better.

And maybe your next question is, "What did you do with the baby?" Here is your answer:

Close up:

No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.

2008-02-04T22:51:00.000+01:00

A couple of posts back I wrote about the grappa tasting that we went to in Bassano. It was at the Nardini grappa factory. In that post, I wrote about how the building itself deserved it's own post. And here it is.

The building was designed by a "high-art" Italian architect named Massimiliano Fuksas to commemorate the company's 200th anniversary of being in the same family. The story goes that it the design was drafted on a dinner plate while the architect and the boss were discussing the plan over dinner. I don't know how true that is, but it's a kooky story.

There's not much that I can saw about the building that is going to better than the actual pictures, so here they are:

External shot

Another external shot, closer to the building. The whole building rests above a reflecting pool. The small glass domes that you see in the water are windows to a concrete and wood basement.

View from inside the upper-most dome.

External shot, reverse angle.

As we were touring this building, I couldn't help thinking how this looked like a Bond villain's hideout. Maybe from Dr. No? At the very least, it looked like it could belong on Buddy's island from "The Incredibles".

The two glass bubbles are made of glass and steel. Apparently, it took months for the builder to find someone that is could make the special curved glass to fit the complex shapes around the corners and edges. The glass rests on a cushion of special rubber spacers on the steel frame and the whole building expands and contracts with the heat. For heating and cooling, there is an underground artisan spring that they use to cool the building in the summer and the sun heats the domes like a greenhouse in the winter. Clever.

By the way, all these pictures were taken by me with my awesome N95. Take that, iPhone! pwned!!!11!

It's Alive

2008-01-31T21:19:00.000+01:00

After many months, my computer is finally back up and running!

As long-time readers may recall, there was an incident with Jessica and my "big computer" back during the summertime. Due to a number of conflicts (work, Christmas, trips), I was not able to diagnose the problem, order parts, and troubleshoot all the issues with the computer. Only this month have I been able to really look at it. And it was a doozy.

So after replacing 1) the power supply (didn't fix it), 2) motherboard (half-way fixed), 3) the hard drive (better, but needed optical drive to load OS), 4) the DVD drive, I finally have a working computer.

Since I was ordering parts anyway, I upgraded a little. There were some really great deals after Christmas, so I now have a hot new video card and upped my RAM to 2 Gb. Now, my machine smokes, but in a good way.

Europe: Not for Religious Fundamentalists

2008-01-30T21:17:00.000+01:00

I forgot to put this picture in the last post. Around Neptune's Fountain are four bronze statues of women, representing the four known continents, lactating water. Is that even still called lactating??

Which reminded me of something we saw in London. In this case, it's what is not there that is indecent:

We haven't even been to Florence to see David yet. I have a feeling updates will follow...

Hey, we've been busy!

2008-01-30T20:42:00.000+01:00

Well, thank god Joel and I both got posts up tonight. I hate to go longer than a month without posting- not that exactly a month is doing awesome. Anyway, thought you'd like to see what's been keeping us away.

First of all, we went to Bologna. At least, three of us went to Bologna; Aidan got to stay with a friend for the day, which I'm sure he MUCH preferred. It was really fun- it is the gastronomical center of Italy, home of tortellini, and also the site of the first university in the WORLD. Crazy. We went to the anatomy room, marble slab and all, where the medical students did human disections hundreds of years ago. Here I am at a Neptune fountain in the city center:

I also broke my toe, so I was a little laid up. I stress "little," because with my two kids, there is no way to relax. Here I am at the Italian hospital, waiting to get an x-ray to make sure it wasn't anything serious. Check out my hot slippers!

Thanks to Uncle Justin and the Build-A-Bear store, Max has a new purpose in life:

Even Aidan has been busy; here he is running his "toy store." He talked me into buying some of those cool knights on his "desk" for my son. Wonder how he knew he'd like them??

Ava's just been busy looking cute. I have been trying to take her picture in her Christmas gifts, but it is a full time job.

Anyway, we will try to make up for lost time. Hope you enjoy!

Grappa Tasting

2008-01-29T22:36:00.000+01:00

It's been awhile since I last posted... blah blah blah.

Last weekend Jessica and I went to the Nardini Grappa factory and took le grande tour. For you non-alcoholics, grappa is a fragrant grape-based pomace brandy of between 38% and 80% alcohol by volume (75 to 160 proof), of Italian origin. Think of a whisky, but made of grape skins and seeds instead of grain. It's hella popular over here.

So this Nardini company is one of the oldest producers of the stuff. How old? Try from the late 1700s. For the tour, we went through their facilities (which deserve their own post. More later) and got to taste some of their wares.

Now, I'll preface this video by saying this: their grappa is actually very good. It's smooth and goes well after a big dinner. But they had other varieties for tasting beside the regular grappa. I can't remember the exact name of the liquor that Jessica is sampling below, but the host there said it's made from star anise and some other Italian mountain herb and is the bitterest digestive available in Italy. As you can tell for her reaction, they just won over another convert.

A Very Lethal Christmas

2007-12-29T14:23:00.000+01:00

We got some great gifts this Christmas. Thanks to everyone that sent us some goodies. I know it can be a hassle to send things overseas to us, but your efforts are appreciated.

There was one gift, however, that was unintentionally funnier than it was intended. It came in a box that Aidan got which had several other toys in it. This one toy immediately stood out from among its peers.

It's an old-style G.I. Joe; the 12-inch tall variety. He's got on a real fabric uniform and he also came with a hat. He also has what appears to be a fatal chest wound. The view from behind shows that it was a "through and through."

Now everyone knows that some soldiers die, but does this fact have to be so clearly illustrated on Christmas morning? Not to mention that this particular guy is wearing a 101st patch. That's the same patch that I wear on my right sleeve. Is this like one of those voodoo dolls? Maybe its a mob message? I better start checking my brake line before I got to work in the morning...

Knights of the Round Radio

2007-12-27T21:18:00.000+01:00

For Christmas, we got Aidan a set of knights and a big castle for them to rule/overthrow. I have to admit, they're pretty awesome. The castle did take a good part of the morning to set up, but we had a good time putting it together.

Today, Aidan had some of the knights out at the kitchen table during lunch. They were "fighting" each other, or at least squaring off for a fight. Just for kicks, I asked Aidan what the knight's names were, expecting something like "Aidan knight, Daddy knight, etc." Instead, he rattles off a slew of names for every knight and their dragon. We tried to write them down, but some of the names changed after he said them the first time. Here's the snapshot, with labels:

Just to re-iterate, that's Strongeo, Red Radio, Black Radio, Grey Radio, Blue Radio, and Frick Freyio (the dragon). I can't tell you where all the "radios" came from, but when we asked Aidan to clarify that he in fact meant radios, he held his hand up to his mouth to pantomime talking on a CB. Red Radio, it is.

Baby Terminator

2007-12-26T22:13:00.000+01:00

Let's face it: Terminator 3 was a flop. A girl terminator?? What kind of horrific dystopia are we facing in the future?

I think this is a much more plausible scenario...

And let me save the grammar police the trouble by acknowledging that I spelled desperate incorrectly. I admit it, I'm not Daniel-effing-Webster. Get off my back.