June 2005

Chaos Management

30 June 2005

This week we’re painting and laying flooring upstairs or, more correctly, having it done. However, the carpenter is behind, he’s only half done, and is flying off on vacation next week. Currently all rooms upstairs are impassable, except (thank God!) the bathroom. The cleaning lady also comes on Thursday. (Notice how we outsource much of [...]

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The 10 commandments of system administration

27 June 2005

The 10 commandments of system administration, from NewsForge: I. Thou shalt make regular and complete backups II. Thou shalt establish absolute trust in thy servers III. Thou shalt be the first to know when something goes down IV. Thou shalt keep server logs on everything V. Thou shalt document complete and effective policies and procedures [...]

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Tas Kaf

27 June 2005

German waiters in Vienna, and they can’t serve decent coffee, at least not to Horst.

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Mickey D’s and Me

27 June 2005

Interview with Soso Whaley, director of Mickey D’s and Me, counterpoint to Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me. She lost weight and improved her cholesterol after 30 days of McDonald’s. I imagine the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute always stick up for poor defenseless corporations, but the point remains that you can eat stupid [...]

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Red Jack

25 June 2005

We can testify from personal experience that the Playmobil web site is a fantastic sales builder. Ever since Christopher discovered the online games, it’s even more popular than Super RTL (children’s TV channel half-owned by Disney and scourge of responsible German parents). His current favorite is Red Jack, in which you aim a cannonball-riding pirate [...]

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Too Many Arrows

24 June 2005

Joel on Software: “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, on Sony UI design: ‘I have a lot of trouble with your remote controls. Too many arrows.’”

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Business Lunch

23 June 2005

Take a Döner, remove the healthy parts (the bread and the salad), keep the meat and sauce, add fries and put into a paper cone. The result is Dönerchips. Don’t accept cheap imitations.

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The Girls from Ipanema

21 June 2005

I spent a summer in Brazil as an exchange student, but was only 16 and missed out on some of the finer points. Brazilian women on American men: in short, too shy. Ask Brazilian women what they think about American men, and most respond precisely the same way: with gales of laughter. Then they tell [...]

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Am I Next?

20 June 2005

Seeing Seth’s post about a Washington Post story on Iowa National Guard unit in Iraq, a unit which has had 20% casulties, reminded me that the Guard unit from my hometown has been deployed there as well. I’ve been gone too long to know any of them, except for a kid I used to babysit [...]

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Travel Plans

20 June 2005

In case anyone is tracking our movements… 9-10 July we’ll be in Berlin for our postponed family weekend getaway 20 July-3 Aug we’ll be in Minnesota visiting family, fishing, relaxing, and maybe catching a couple of ball games first week of May 2006 Mama has a conference in Orlando; hopefully we can tack on a [...]

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Including Britain

19 June 2005

OK, it’s an old joke, but given the collapse of the EU budget talks over the British rebate, it’s more appropriate than ever that The Economist web site explicitly states that Europe includes Britain.

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Your Blog and Your Career

18 June 2005

Die Welt is a year late and a few Euros short. Just today they report that revealing details about work in your blog can cost you your job. Doh! Revealing them by cellphone or e-mail can be equally dangerous, better stay away from them too! Fortunately my boss Nico doesn’t feel that way. We don’t [...]

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Blackberry

16 June 2005

I am important. I now have a Blackberry 7230. Actually, it’s a hand-me-down, so I’m actually not all that important. (No, it is not Nico’s famous Blackberry with wings.) At least I now have cell reception at home (Vodafone instead of E-Plus), which is convenient. This is the “No Messages” screen. My favorite command is [...]

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blo.gs has been acquired by yahoo!

14 June 2005

blo.gs has been acquired by yahoo! Note the favicon. Well, that’s cool.

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Terminal Panic

14 June 2005

The airport Fühlsbüttel in Hamburg used to have Terminals 1 (charter), 2 and 3. Then they built a new Terminal 4. The ancient Terminal 2 was torn down to build a second new terminal. The entire airport was renamed Hamburg Airport. Terminal 3 was then closed to be rebuilt into a shopping center. Last month [...]

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Oral Exams

13 June 2005

Almost exactly a year ago Christopher met with the state speech expert to be approved for his speech therapy kindergarten for one year. Today was the follow-up meeting to be approved for an additional six months. While we had been assured by the kindergarten that an extension would be no problem, since the extension would [...]

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We’re A Happy Family

12 June 2005

The German Blogosphere is all a twitter about the new weblog network Spreeblick Verlag KG founded this weekend, with weblogs concentrating on music, games, poltics, culture, and broadcasting, with even a mention in tomorrows Focus magazine (as in dead-tree glossy paper). Does this mean that weblogs are selling out? No, I think that progress is [...]

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A Rose From Christopher

12 June 2005

This year I thought I had the problem of Mama’s birthday present licked. I’d let Christopher take care of it! I had asked him early in the week what we should get, and he immediately answered “A rose”. The perfect answer, since Mama loves her garden and she would love any present that came from [...]

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‘Grandpa Gang’ bank robbers jailed

10 June 2005

CNN.com – ‘Grandpa Gang’ bank robbers jailed. Nice to see CNN covering the really important German news. Good thing there’s no Michael Jackson verdict yet today…

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Where the US comes up short

9 June 2005

Davos Newbies: Where the US comes up short “In so many ways, American life is very easy (for those of us fortunate enough to have jobs and money). Things work smoothly and technology is generally advanced. That’s to be expected in the richest nation on earth. What’s not expected is the number of areas where [...]

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Why Not Us?

9 June 2005

Red Sox play in Wrigley Field for first time since 1918 In the middle of the sixth inning Tuesday night… the (black) cat bolted from its underground quarters, crossed in front of the Cubs’ dugout and leapt into the third-base box seats before security guards could corral it… Cubs Manager Dusty Baker discounted the significance [...]

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Turning Germany into Delaware

9 June 2005

.de domains for Delaware. Really? Well, no, actually not.

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McDonald’s Europe Names New President

7 June 2005

McDonald’s Corp. Appoints Denis Hennequin As President of Its Europe Operations For the first time, a European is in charge of McDonald’s Europe

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Our Tagesmutter on TV

5 June 2005

Christopher’s former “day care mother” Heidi was featured today (along with Family Minister Renate Schmidt) on German TV in a story about home day care in ZDFfor the Mona Lisa program. Even if you can’t read German, her picture in the sandbox leads the story on the web page. Unfortunately the story was rather sensationalist, [...]

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I Love Berlin

4 June 2005

Maybe if I get in early, I can also get out early…

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Experience Not Required

2 June 2005

One interesting thing about Angela Merkel, newly annointed CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate, that I haven’t seen anyone mention is that she’s never before been actually elected to anything. I don’t mean her seat in the Bundestag, I mean to an office where she actually leads a campaign and runs a government, for instance as a mayor [...]

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