Germans, worst dressers

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

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!

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!

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

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.

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!

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?

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...

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

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!

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.