The End is Near?

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??

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?

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...

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

Winter Wonderland

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

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

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!