Nine Azubis

3 August 2009

Two years ago on the first of July we officially began our business adventure. However, it’s more appropriate to look back on our two years of business experience a month later, the first workday in August. Today is the beginning of the new trade school term, and today four new Azubis are beginning their education [...]

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Lego Theater

29 July 2009

In the category “things my son does that amazes me” is the movie theater he’s been building with Legos the past couple of days. He wants to make a Transformers’ video for YouTube, and had the idea of a making a “film in film”, so he needed a movie theater…

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Liberty’s Crown

24 July 2009

On our way home from Minnesota, we stopped for two nights in New York. That was my first time there, excepting a trip when I was 20 and took a Greyhound bus for 2 days from Minneapolis. That’s not an experience I care to remember or repeat. As first timers for a weekend, we hit [...]

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McDonald’s Versus

23 July 2009

This starts out as an ordinary McDonald’s spot, but there’s a surprise at about 28 seconds.

McDonald’s Versus from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

(via kottke)

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Happy Fourth

6 July 2009

Happy 4th of July weekend from Starbuck, Minnesota! We’ll be back when we’re done relaxing…

P.S. We splurged a bit on the rental car.

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Interesting Drive

27 June 2009

Your drive on the Autobahn A7 southbound toward Hannover between HH-Marmstorf and Seevetal-Fleestedt has just gotten more interesting…

We have something even grander planned for the northbound side. Stay tuned.

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Easy Morning For Free Again!

18 June 2009

We’re doing it again next Tuesday, this time in Harburg. But PapaScott readers don’t have to wait until the coupon appears in the newspaper, they can print out the coupon here and receive VIP treatment to boot! (We haven’t yet decided what the VIP treatment will be…)

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Anatomical Drawing

13 June 2009

Christopher has been busy learning about and drawing whales. This morning he taped together several sheets of paper and started drawing an internal view of a sperm whale with skeleton and organs. Looks like he’ll need more paper to finish.

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Christopher’s Platform

9 June 2009

All the news about elections (European and upcoming German) reminded Christopher of two things. One, because of his dual citizenship, he can vote twice as often as either of his parents. Secondly, if he were to run for German Chancellor*, he would campaign for the following.

More schools More help for victims of natural disaster, and research [...]

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Pesky Parliament

8 June 2009

I’m often annoyed by the politics at Rainy Day, by an Irish expat in Munich, but he produces enough gems for me to keep him in my feed reader. For instance, today on the 42% turnout for this year’s European elections:

The idea that holding direct elections to the European Parliament would somehow create a common [...]

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Buzzard Attack!

5 June 2009

If you bike through our village, you’ll see the following warning as you come into to town…

Yes, our village is protected by an attack buzzard! A couple of years ago 2 cyclists were indeed attacked by a buzzard that was nesting nearby.

However I have no idea how I would defend myself if I were [...]

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Hybrid Fryer

27 May 2009

Just to show that we not only make sexy investments with French models (not to be confused with promotions with German top models), this morning at our restaurant in Dibbersen we installed the new low-oil-volume (LOV) fryer that we’ve been planning for over a year, replacing a double vat with a new triple vat.

Astute readers [...]

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Spur of the Moment

27 May 2009

We decided quite suddenly a few days ago that we’ll fly to Minnesota for a weel over 4th of July this year. Grandma and Grandpa will be quite pleased to see Christopher, and the weather at the lake should be good for relaxing.

Since we’re flying through Newark, we’ve also decided to spend a weekend in [...]

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Rustic furniture

13 May 2009

Seeing Diane’s report of moving her “super-sized, American-made furniture” from Mannheim to Barcelona reminded me that today was a minor expat milestone for us. Today we got rid of the last remaining bits of American furniture we had brought with us back in 1990. It was a bulky oak dining room set that Germans would [...]

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Politically Active

11 May 2009

In a moment of weakness after a week of working middle-shifts, Frauke agreed to take Christopher for an outing this past weekend… only after promising the trip did she see where he wanted to go: to a demonstration in Hannover against policy of the current education ministry. That’s a cause we can agree with, but [...]

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East German Nostalgia

6 May 2009

We just saw a news report about a children’s museum exhibit on life in East Germany. I first visited East Berlin in 1981, and a lot has changed since then. The Wall is gone. The Palace of the Republic is gone. The DDR itself is gone. But my souvenir of my first visit remains: an [...]

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Whiney Expat Bloggers Meetup 2009

28 April 2009

This year’s Whiney Expat Bloggers Meetup will be September 5th and 6th in Munich.

Selecting the place and date was about as long and complex as selecting a presidential candidate, but that’s just how we Americans are. We’re now working on an agenda.

This year we have an online forum at http://www.expatbloggersingermany.com/ to help organize the meetup. [...]

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Stripes from Paris

15 April 2009

Nest week we start a new remodelling project… the satellite in Marktkauf Center. The design hasn’t changed since it opened nearly 8 years ago:

The designers for McDonald’s Europe in Paris have a new series of designs for satellites, and they imagine that our restaurant could look like this:

The transformation will take just 3 days, and [...]

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Yesterday’s News

23 March 2009

Yesterday morning we attended a rally in support of a new school in Jesteburg. I got recruited as a drummer, we were at the front of the march, and the drummers ended up in full color in the Hamburger Abendblatt. That’s me with the white cap and the grim expression on the far left. The [...]

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Irish Crab

14 March 2009

We thought we’d be nice to Christopher and let him decide what he wanted for supper last night. He thought long and hard, about 20 minutes, then told us he wanted his favorite meal, crab legs!

He’s had crab several times in the States, most notably at Crabby Bill’s in Florida. However, we have no idea [...]

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Spring Break

8 March 2009

This year we have the luck that our McDonald’s spring meeting in Munich coincides with Christopher’s Easter vacation at the end of March. So he gets to come along! Christopher also has the luck that Legoland Germany opens that same week.

The meeting ends on Tuesday, and Legoland doesn’t open until Saturday, so we have 3 [...]

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Journalist Christopher

18 February 2009

While helping (well, actually watching) me clean out our basement, Christopher discovered Frauke’s typewriter (which he immediately dubbed an “antique”) and asked if he could try it out. This evening we let him at it.

After experimenting a bit, he put in a fresh sheet of paper and spent over an hour preparing a “report” on [...]

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School Daze

10 February 2009

Last week was mid-term vacation for our school, and as a 3rd grader Christopher got his first report card with real grades. His grades were pretty good, we thought. One of the quirks of German family life seems to be that kids are to share their grades or show their report cards to anyone who [...]

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Mr. Boombastic

9 February 2009

This morning, I had to wait a few minutes before I could enter the kitchen. Mama and Christopher were busy lighting and couning tea canndles on the kitchen table. The first time they had 53 instead of 47, but at this stage of life, what do 6 extra candles really matter?

Since I’m not German, I’m [...]

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McCredit Card

22 January 2009

Our bank offers credit cards with personalized photos, so now that we have some decent pictures of our restaurant lobbies, Frauke just had to create her own credit card…

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Male and Pale

21 January 2009

I love reading bloggers like Tim Bray who can make connections between seemingly disconnected fields, in his case tech and politics. Here’s how he experienced the inauguration in a hotel lobby in San Jose, where the entire room broke in to applause (it’s a short entry, I’m quoting it nearly entirely):

… in Silicon Valley, the [...]

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Ice Fishing

7 January 2009

If Christopher were an experienced fisherman, he’d tell the world he caught this crappie on Lac qui Parle Lake last weekend. But he’s too honest for that. We didn’t get a bite during our short time on the ice, which was cut short on account of an incoming snow storm. This fish was caught by our [...]

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The Boy is Nine

28 December 2008

We spent much of Christopher’s ninth birthday taking Frauke to the airport (6 hour round trip) for her flight back to Germany, but being able to pick out his present at the Lego Store and the ice cream cake in the evening seemed to make up for the boring drive.

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Merry Christmas

24 December 2008

Merry Christmas from cold and snowy Minnesota!

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The Dremel: An Essential Tool for the International Traveller

22 December 2008

Left: Original Travel Adapter with safety tabs (left and right) to prevent use with grounded plugs

Middle: Modified Travel Adapter with safety tabs removed (using a Dremel)

Right: A grounded plug that can now be inserted into the modified adapter

Note: Use of the modified adapter is not recommended with any essential equipment you don’t want to see [...]

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