September 2005

Space Shuttle

30 September 2005

With the sun, 9 planets, and the moon.

Read the full article →

Big Big World

29 September 2005

Seeing how my boss and some colleagues current are moving to Cologne (or not), I can’t but think back on our big move… It was 1987, and we were happy young urban professionals in South Minneapolis. We owned a townhouse, my wife had a good job, and I was in grad school. Then the Twins [...]

Read the full article →

Libertarian Democrat

25 September 2005

A lot of people are trying the the politics test. The German Wahl-O-Mat called me a Green Neo-Liberal, this test calls me a Libertarian Democrat. You are a Social Liberal (85% permissive) and an Economic Conservative (66% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian. You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong [...]

Read the full article →

Lie To Me

25 September 2005

Netzeitung: Voters lie to pollsters, maybe because they’ve been lied to so often? (via Bordbuch)

Read the full article →

Good Tickets

24 September 2005

It turned out the luxury lounge HSV tickets for the match against Bayern weren’t so bad after all. We did have seats outside, so we didn’t have to stay in the lounge. And the home team ended up winning, beating Bayern for the first time since 1996. It was my first HSV match since 1990. [...]

Read the full article →

Rocket Science

24 September 2005

When you build a rocket from a cardboard box, you first need to draw the blueprints.

Read the full article →

MySQL Tip

22 September 2005

When tuning a MySQL server, you shouldn’t go too overboard when assigning RAM to key_buffer_size for the indices. The server will be much more stable if you leave some RAM free for programs and the data.

Read the full article →

I Want to be a Strong Knight!

21 September 2005

Christopher drew this castle for his speech therapist to show how he feels about stuttering. He wants to be a strong knight! He wants to be able to defeat the words that sometimes come at him like cannonballs being shot in the heat of battle. He wants to be a strong fighter! He never speaks [...]

Read the full article →

Snow Chaos

20 September 2005

Since the tooth fairy paid a visit to Christopher last night, today he was able to purchase the top item on his wish list: a Siku snowplow. This morning his speech therapist suggested that shaving cream would be the perfect material for a snowplow to, well, plow, so of course he had to try that [...]

Read the full article →

What was Schröder on?

19 September 2005

signandsight: What was Schröder on? There was something surreal about Gerhard Schröder’s appearence on national television last night. Although his party was second in the polls, Schröder saw the victory quite clearly as his own. And anyone who saw matters differently, an idiot. ChicgoKarl is guessing it was sparking white wine.

Read the full article →

Before and After

19 September 2005

Before After

Read the full article →

Who’s On First?

18 September 2005

The Union is just 0.8% ahead of the SPD in the latest count, and the media are speculating that the notorious overhang seats could give the SPD a majority in the Bundestag. So maybe that’s why Schröder grinning so broadly in the ‘elephant round’ in ARD/ZDF (video), At AFOE Tobias Schwarz speculates that Schröder may [...]

Read the full article →

Nobody Wins

18 September 2005

BBC says ‘Slim victory’ for German right, but I would say that Schröder and Merkel both lost. Both SPD and Union lost several percent compared to 2002, neither Red/Green nor Block/Yellow has a majority. The big winners are the neo-liberal FDP (over 10%) and the neo-socialist Left/PDS (over 8%). The most likely result is a [...]

Read the full article →

McCafe Elmshorn

17 September 2005

Today we visited a new McCafe in Elmshorn, northwest of Hamburg. It’s a coffee bar inside a regular McDonald’s restaurant, and the idea is relatively new in Germany, although it apparently hasn’t gone over well in the US. Here they seem to be redoing the entire restaurant rather than creating a separate coffee area. In [...]

Read the full article →

Teppich Angie

17 September 2005

Campaign billboard for Angela Merkel on the A23 near Tornesch, north of Hamburg. Unusual because billboards are banned along German autobahns, but here the CDU has rented space on a pylon for a carpet store.

Read the full article →

Unpacked and in the Rack

16 September 2005

Just so Nico knows that I take good care of the toys he buys for me. The bottom two are a week old, the top two are new today. (The locks are just for show, the keys are all in the glove compartment.) This is my first experience with Dell servers. They are nice and [...]

Read the full article →

Round Numbers

16 September 2005

The head of Der Spiegel’s Berlin bureau sums up Germany’s budget dilemma in the Wall Street Journal: Say it Slowly: ‘Zukunftsangst’. A glance at the state’s finances shows how dramatic the situation is: Of 190 billion euros in tax revenues, 80 billion is passed on to the cash-strapped state pension system, 30 billion goes to [...]

Read the full article →

Tiger in your Tank

15 September 2005

CNN.com – Inventor denies dead cat fuel story: “A German inventor said he has developed a method to produce crude oil products from waste that he believes can be an answer to the soaring costs of fuel, but denied a German newspaper story implying he also used dead cats.” Good thing I read BildBlog, so [...]

Read the full article →

Christopher Explains the Solar System

15 September 2005

Christopher gives a seminar on the solar system using two flashlights. Here is the sun and Mercury on our dining room ceiling.

Read the full article →

The Falling Man

11 September 2005

It’s been 4 years, maybe I can handle the details now. Esquire: The Falling Man They began jumping not long after the first plane hit the North Tower, not long after the fire started. They kept jumping until the tower fell. They jumped through windows already broken and then, later, through windows they broke themselves. [...]

Read the full article →

We had nothing… now we have even less

11 September 2005

Sen. Barack Obama on Hurricane Katrina relief efforts: We had nothing before the Hurricane. Now we have even less. I hope that we all take the time to ponder the truth of that message. He was quoting a hurricane victim, but I think he meant all of us. (via Davos Newbies)

Read the full article →

Nazi sabotage from beyond the grave

9 September 2005

A Fistful of Euros: Nazi sabotage from beyond the grave A true horror story.

Read the full article →

Quality Time

9 September 2005

One disadvantage of living so far from kindergarten in Winsen is the long bus ride. Christopher is first on his route, so while kindergarten starts at 8:30, last year he would be picked up at 7:15. And Christopher is absolutely not a morning person. Good thing that breakfast is served in kindergarten, so he could [...]

Read the full article →

Noone Saw It Coming

6 September 2005

Noone knew the levees would break? Even Mr. Bill knew! (3.2 MB WMV, Link 2, Transcript with Link). (via Accordion Guy)

Read the full article →

Twenty-Two Years

6 September 2005

We went down to the courthouse and the judge put it all to rest No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle No flowers no wedding dress That was twenty-two years ago. Tonight we are getting together after work, leaving Christopher with his Oma, and driving off together to…. a parent-teacher meeting at the [...]

Read the full article →

A Recipe for Waffles

4 September 2005

A recipe for waffles, since we never seem to have one handy when Christopher is hungry for waffles.

Read the full article →

How Could This Happen in New Orleans?

4 September 2005

People in here Germany (she for example vowe for the past few days) how the chaos in New Orleans can happen in a highly-developed first-world country? One answer is that New Orleans was not in real good shape even before Katrina. At 11D I saw a quote from Nicole Gelinas of City Journal (a conservative [...]

Read the full article →

Emergency Aid for Katrina at the German Red Cross

3 September 2005

I didn’t notice it a couple of days ago, but now you can donate online for “emergency aid USA” at the German Red Cross. The donations are tax-deductible in Germany and you can pay by German bank transfer.

Read the full article →