Fragile Moments

I started reading "Truck: A Love Story" by this guy Michael Perry expecting a rather humorous tour of what happens when a guy with not too much knowledge and a whole lot of passion tries to revive his International L120. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that this is one component of the book, but woven throughout is a reverence for human relationships and the changing of the seasons. Gardening provides a secondary story line that accomodates these themes in the subtext. He bookends a chapter with the story of Sarah's tomatoes. Big, yellow, Amish, heirloom tomatoes which she sought out at the source and raised indoors in anticipation of spring. Spring came and she went, the victim of a car crash, only 7 weeks a newlywed with the author's brother. The author harvested the seeds and maintains the line in her memory and ends the chapter discussing his brother's reaction to this loss, his attempts to help him, the brother's eventual return to living in the world and Sarah's mother's role in bringing him to his second wife. Perry freely admits that tears flow often as he considers his garden and its attachments. This isn't really what I expected from a guy who admits early in the book to liking where he lives because he can leave a broken washing machine in the front yard as long as he wants.

I guess that first paragraph has turned into a bit of a digression but I am going to leave it alone since I don't mind giving Perry's book a little advertising and it leads in the direction I hoped to go with this. Our trip to America from our home in Germany is now heading toward sundown. Dinner and dessert will be fabulous: we are still looking forward to the return of all three of my sisters-in-law and a couple of husbands for a delayed Christmas morning. This will be followed by many visitors including the author and cast of "Expectant Waiting" which is one of several blogs I read and find myself occasionally wishing I could just call the author up and have a normal conversation.

After nine expatriate months followed by a few weeks at home, the themes in Truck are occupying a lot of my emotional space and causing a little pressure in the salt water holding tanks behind my eyes. Ellis met the remaining unmet grandparents and all four great-grandparents and we are approaching the end of a year that saw us move to a foreign country and become parents while my sister survived cancer on this side of the Atlantic. We have a lot to be grateful for this year as it ends with everyone healthy and able to get back to the farm for the holidays.

So, why don't we recognize and embrace it better? We will look back on these few weeks as happy times and hopefully will not be forced to remember them as the last time anyone was with us. Yet, somehow, I feel myself not enjoying them enough now and I can see the others also missing some of what we have here. Why isn't it enough to hunt together, make music together, make meals together? These are the fragile moments. Ellis will never be this age again. He won't rediscover his hands and eventually he will stop doing his public tongue acrobatics. And, there is the sad chance, that was brought home this year with my sister's illness, that we could lose someone.

All of this, the new baby, life in Germany, needing to move my career in a new direction, makes me feel the need to make some new year's resolutions. It seems like a silly thing on one hand, but I also see that we are missing things everyday.

Brown, No Red

I ended my abbreviated deer hunting season yesterday. I saw 7 or 8 deer but didn't have a good shot at any of them. The tree stand I was hunting from had slightly overgrown trees around it which limited my ability to shoot in some directions and the deer seemed to know this. A little buck came through in the morning but kept obstructions between us the whole time he was in range. Then 2 nice does came through on the same side and also managed to keep the obstructions in my way. They were so close, that when one came to a thin spot in the branches I decided to try and "thread the needle" but only connected with a tree branch which sent my shot off course. Off to my other side I had excellent shooting lanes but a deer never showed up over there. We moved to hunt the last hour in a new place and I scared up three more deer in the forest there, but because I didn't know the area, I was too quick, my hunting partners weren't yet in position and none of us got a chance.

The time in the woods was nice and I did see a lot of wildlife including, hawks, kestrels, fox squirrels, red squirrels, bunnies, and wild turkeys. The others in the group also saw a bunch of quail which was nice. Since deer hunting involves a lot of sitting around and that means time to think, I often find myself getting a little crazy and anxious when I am deer hunting, but this year I managed better. Maybe it was the large amount of time off of work to unwind, who knows? Getting to hunt did make me miss home all the more.

"If it's brown, it's down."

A few weeks back, I posted about missing the opener of deer season in Michigan. This afternoon, I will get out for the first time in Indiana, the first time with a muzzleloader and for the first time with my father-in-law. We will also be joined by a friend of Mike's who knows the land owners. With three guns in the field, we are hopeful that we will get at least one.

Being that it is the two last days of the season, we will be operating according to the edict in the title of the post. As long as the deer is of reasonable size and we have a reasonable shot, then we take it. Often this edict applies on opening day and at the end of the season. Opening day, we are looking to get meat in the freezer while the deer are still active. After opening day, assuming there is meat in the freezer, we usually hunt antlers and then the last couple of days we reduce our standards if a second deer wasn't taken during the part of the season when we were hunting antlers. Since we have three tags and Mike's first deer was a little torn up, if it's brown, it's down.

An update, hopefully with pictures of deer, will go up tomorrow.

America vs. Germany

In her post, Rachel referred to the perspective we now have as temporarily repatriated expatriates. I agree with her that I do feel more at ease and like things are more possible here in the USA. This is partially due to being back in a country where my first language is the preferred language, but it is also the fact that things just move quicker here. Here are a few impressions as I look back from America on our first piece in Germany.

Living over seas has put some things about America in very sharp relief such as the urban sprawl, American consumerism and the general unworldliness of many Americans. After living in Germany long enough for the culture to "soak in" and develop a consistent impression, it is easy to see why Europeans believe what they do about Americans. Driving through town, you see homes with so many lights turned on that they can't possibly be using them all. The vehicles are indeed huge here by comparison-I have coworkers who are content with 75 horse power.
Very few Americans make any effort to live in a foreign country or learn a foreign language and for many it isn't even possible. This creates the impression that Americans don't much care about anyone else which was heightened by our unilateral plunge into Iraq. Add to this the European impression of our President as equal parts fundamentalist pastor, frat boy, Yosemite Sam and idealogue, and it becomes hard to plausibly deny this impression. Since more than half of us reelected him after a four year trial, why should a European not feel free to think we are more than half a bubble off?

Most Americans aspire to have homes larger than what a German would even consider practical. Our 1300 sq. ft. flat is a bit extravagant by German standards. A home the size of the farm house, consuming energy in proportion, while occupied by only two, would be offensive to most German sensibilities. While the Germans are more environmentally conscious, there is also a bit of arrogance around this and also a bit of zealotry and misinformation. For example, while everyone seperates their trash, many municipalities end up recombining it and dumping it into landfills because the few who don't sort are enough to prevent using the refuse as an input to a recycling process.

Surprisingly, even as an economic end-user, the differences in the German and American economies are very apparent. I am a believer that the American economy may be approaching one of the possible end states of a capitalist system that will result in the destruction of the American middle class. The German economy is set up in a way that will prevent this, but they pay an outrageous price for it and a severe economic downturn could pull down the social welfare state. Furthermore, one gets the feeling that it is very rare for someone to fall very far behind their neighbors, but they can't get ahead either. More on this in a later post.

The Germans are also highly phobic around issues of firearms and are quite comfortable with the laws that make ownership difficult, open you up to random searches and large fees if you do own, and completely bar carrying. So, when they hear about a shooting here they are completely flabbergasted by the fact that Americans persist in owning guns. This is an area where the Germans fail to understand the deep roots of gun ownership in America, how many guns are available in America and that European style gun control would be unacceptable to many Americans including those on the left. This is also an area where Germans, like those involved in the American gun control debate (both sides) fail to aspire to understand the available data. They are ideologues in this area. I have been told on several occasions by Germans, "But, if I come home drunk and get angry with my wife, I can't shoot her, because I am not allowed to have a gun." I always say, "But you could stab her, hit her with a rolling pin, run her over with the car." But they see a purpose for the knife, rolling pin and car that they don't see for the gun. For a German, a gun is for killing.

Of course, the fact that America is home, is one of the big positives for us. Many of the conveniences of shopping anytime you want and cheap gas feel really nice. Americans, have much more freedom than the Germans. We have more product choices and can engage in many activities (gun ownership, hunting, fishing, building a home, modifying your car, seeking a better car insurance deal...) that are expressly prohibited or require high fees and taxes for a German. In a more personal vein, we also simply feel more at ease here in the States, like we can let our guard down. In Germany there was always a feeling that some new and difficult-to-deal-with thing could pop up and cause us difficulty or financial loss.

Looking over this post, it seems like I have a lot of negative stuff to say about America, and I suppose I do, but I feel like when I move back it is time to become more involved in repairing America. I am beginning to believe that we can learn things from the German way of government that could be helpful without fully embracing their system with its many problems and I also believe that it is time for real reform to the manner in which we govern and maintain our economy. Maybe I will post on this topic yet during the trip.

back in the habit of "thanks" instead of "danke"

Here we have four generations of Scheks

We've been back in the States for about a week now and Germany feels a million miles away to me. Trey and I have both noticed feeling much more at ease being back in our own country and own language. It just feels like we have more possibilities here and are more able to get things done. On the other hand, we've also noticed just how terrible suburban sprawl is here and I've completely lost my ability to navigate a big box store (more than one brand and style of diaper? how can I possible choose?). More notes on our temporary repatriation will undoubtly follow.

Hanging out with Aunt Lindsey

We spent the better part of last week in Ann Arbor where we stayed with Trey's cousin. They were excellent hosts providing tasty meals, clean towels, a comfy bed, a bedside bowl of midnight snacks, and roadside assistance when our wheel fell off. What more could we ask? Ellis met his paternal grand parents, 2 great-grandparents, Aunt Lindsey, and many more exteneded family members.

And with Aunt Kellie

The Wheels Have Come Off

The rough chronology of events is as follows: In the afternoon, I thought I could detect a slight thumping wump-wump-wump at certain speeds, but it disappeared as soon as I heard it, so I figured a stick had gone up in the wheel well and made some racket. This evening, driving home from visiting with friends, I heard a slightly louder WUMP-WUMP and immediately the left front corner dropped a couple of inches. Rachel hollered, "What in the hell are you doing?" and I replied, "losing control of the truck, apparently." Then the truck's front left dropped several more inches and sparks began to come up as high as the driver's side window. I managed to get it stopped and off of the road and said to Rachel what was obvious, "sweetie, the wheel has come off."

I left Rachel and Ellis in the car, headlights on/hazards on, and headed down N. Territorial to get my cousin to give me a hand. Thankfully, we were close because I couldn't get cell phone reception. The cousin and I went down and rounded up Rachel and the baby and took them home and then headed out to find the wayward tire in the dark and attempt some sort of maneuver that would avoid calling a wrecker.

We found the tire mercifully quickly in a briar patch and extracted it. By inspeciting the mark left in the road we were able to estimate the point at which the truck and wheel seperated and this gave us a place to start looking. We noticed evidence that the disk brakes/hub and stayed inside the wheel for 4-6 revolutions after the studs had left their mating holes in the wheel. This was responisble for the two step drop that we experienced as the wheel fell off in stages.

It took several tries to find an arrangement of the two jacks suitable to raise the truck, now sitting on soft, freshly plowed earth, but we managed to get the tire back on. The cops showed up, of course, but were helpful, situating their car such that they shielded us from traffic. Before remounting the tire, we had to use the tire iron to clean a bushel of dirt out of the brakes and suspension. The lug nuts were, of course, long gone so we stole one from each of the other wheels and managed to limp her the 500 yards to our cousin's drive. The wheel still wasn't mounted straight for this short journey, but we got there. The next morning I was able to clean out the dirt, check the brakes and remount the wheel.

Thankfully, no one was hurt. Ellis slept through it entirely. (Not just the initial wheel falling off and the underside slamming into the pavement, but also waiting in the car with mom, transfering his car seat to the other car, the ride home and being carried into the house.) Also no cars were coming the other way so no one got clobbered by our tire run amok.

Of course we are wondering how something so crazy could have happened. Since Rachel's father is so careful about such things and always uses an impact to put on tires, it seems likely that recently when a mechanic in Iowa worked on the truck he took off a tire for some reason and failed to get it on right. Alternatively, some vandal thinking he would be funny could have fooled with our lug nuts. Of course this is an outrageously dangerous thing to do, but it could have happened. I suppose it is also possible that having lived in Ann Arbor for 30 years, I have enemies here who couldn't afford polonium.

Considering my family history in such situations you might wonder how I coped. In fact, the cousin that was helping was also the cousin that watched my dad jack up a car and pull the bumper off and get so angry he threatened to drive it into the lake. He was 19 and a new member of the family back then. Now he has three kids, two in college and its 20 years later. There was a small pond on the road side where we were working on the car and I have to admit, I thought about exclaiming, "I have had it with this goddamned piece of shit, get out of my f---ing way I am driving it into that m---er f---ing pond." Not seriously, just for old time's sake. But I didn't. I tell this part of the story for those of you who come from slightly nuts families or worry about turning into one of your parents. I have come full circle and am now living proof that it is indeed possible to break the cycle.

The Midwest Sinks In

We have been here for a little over 24 hours now and the ease of home is starting to sink in. I did some hunting with the dog and got some fresh air on a sunny and warm December day down here at the farm, inhaled the comforting farm smells and read a few Garrison Keillor essays to really drive home the midwestern vibe.

The fact that I could call the Michigan Secretary of State office and immediately speak to an English speaker was indeed luxurious. While listening to the phone ring, I found myself rehearsing my speech in my head, as I often do in Germany, in preparation for the miscommunication that is about to ensue. Twice at the airport, I had to catch myself to prevent German from coming out of my mouth as I prepared to speak to someone.

If I get nothing else from our German period, it will be an appreciation for how hard it is to be a foreigner and how tough it must be to permanently leave home for a supposed better life. We are fortunate to have our home in the place with the better life. The ease of just speaking in my native language has also lit a fire under me to improve my German faster. In January, I will start taking the course offered by the institute and hopefully make a little time to study and more time to practice speaking.

Being around family has reminded me of several good stories from Germany that I have failed to post. Here is a language one: One coworker is preparing for a typical German holiday to Africa and we were discussing what he hopes to do. Turns out, he really wants to see some gorillas and he has a good chance of being able to do so. The funny thing is, he pronounces gorillas with a soft "g" sound as though it is spelled "jarilla". He speaks excellent English, which makes it even a little funnier, because it sounds really out of place. Try it out loud in the following, "After we get done on Kilimanjaro, we will have a short safari and I really hope I can see some jarillas in their native habitat." Now didn't it make you smile a little bit?

On the ground

We are here. By here, I mean America at the farm. Ellis was very good for the flight. We are tired but all well. Scout made it safe and sound and has already put up a pheasant for me...which I missed.

Pretty soon, we will put up a few pictures. We can't wait to see everyone.

Quick updates

Obviously we aren't getting as many posts up lately. More or less, this is because we have so much going on that we don't have any time to really write about any of it. So, here are some quick updates.

My job: Things are well. I am settling the paper work for my fellowship and my projects have expanded again to include studies on some different molecules and a secondary role in the projects of others who would like to use my techniques. My boss has decided to hire another post-doc who has proposed a different type of experiment using the instrument I will build next year. I am feeling a tinge territorial about this, but this guy is good and will be a good partner and another engineer with whom I can discuss technicalities. Such a person doesn't really exist at a biological institute. We got the budget for the instrument for next year and were told we can have almost that much more this year, so the next day or two before heading home will be a spending spree. Also, some of you remember me mentioning doing some DNA work. That has been going on in the background and seems to have been successful.

Rachel's job: Rachel continues to do writing work and look for new ways to work from home. She has been working writing test preperation manuals for teacher recertification exams for quite some time. The company has asked her to coordinate a large one on physics. Like a lot of writing jobs and non-traditional types of work, getting started doing technical writing from home takes a lot of pounding the pavement and doing small jobs as they come. I am proud of how tenacious and successful she has been in this area and thankful that it can bring in some extra income while she does her main job: staying home and taking good care of Ellis.

Visitors: Bridget and Silas took off for Ireland a week or so ago after a nice visit. Rachel's cousin Lindy is here now for her final visit (sniff) before she returns to So. Cal. after her study abroad semester in Scotland. We are having fun and trying reacquaint her with her midwestern roots. She is sooooo Californified. Lindy on the craziness that is Southern California, "I am so glad I was born in northern California, otherwise I would be a freak."

Christmas Markets: I personally have been to two more: the one in Heidelberg and one in a small town north of here called Ladenburg which boasts certifiable history back to A.D. 98. My opinion: gluhwein is good, better with rum. Lindy had her first flammkuchen at Ladenburg today and seemed to like it a lot. I had a little. It was good.

Trip Home: Started packing today. Got a lot of presents to bring home. We have been putting the pooch in her kennel for a bit everyday to get her accustomed to it. Now that the trip is closer and work is going well, I am really looking forward to getting home, seeing everyone, hunting a little and getting Ellis to meet everyone he should meet.

Ellis: Well you saw the six month post. Obviously, he is doing really well. He had his next vaccination yesterday and gets better everyday at getting up into a crawling position.

I have lots of ideas for things I would like to post about like recent news, how I feel about the first six months of fatherhood, a real evaluation of our first nine months in Germany, more about trying to learn German, mental health issues, goals for the next bit in Germany and how long we might be staying and who knows what else. So if you stick around you can expect some posts that aren't just baby pics, if you like that sort of thing. If you really come back for baby pics, well, those will be here too. We will try to post while we are in the U.S. at least a few times. I hope we see many of you in the next weeks.

t minus 5 days

We are working on preparations for our trip to the US. I'm sorry to say we are both freaking out a bit about it. Even after we manage to get Christmas shopping finished, everything jammed into suitcases, and the three of us plus the dog at the airport and checked-in, we are still facing an 8 hour flight with a six month old. Yup, it's gonna be awesome! I know we will manage, but I'd really prefer some sort of Alien-style travel where you are placed in suspended animation for the duration of your trip. Stupid United/Lufthansa doesn't offer anything remotely like that. Honestly, what amenities will the airlines slash next?

Preparations are going fine, though. Trey took Scout to the vet for her pre-flight health certification, which went fine. The vet assured us that getting dogs into the US is quite easy and that Scout looked very healthy. Tomorrow Ellis goes to the pediatrician for his pre-flight health certification, er, second round of vaccination. He was pretty crabby for almost a week last time, so I hope he's less sensitive to it this go-round. Lindy arrived last night (yeah!) and we are hoping to head down to the Christmas Market today. I must concentrate on finishing up my shopping, though, and minimize the sausage and gluhwein consumption. Lindy may not know it, but I have plans to make her a pack animal for my purchases, or at least my child.

6 Months-Naked Babyzilla

Ellis was 6 months old this afternoon, so it is time for the update.
Height: 25"
Weight: about 20 lbs.

With Christmas coming, Ellis wants you to know a few other measurements. For dress shirts he needs a 10" neck and 10" sleeve. For pants his waist is 13" and inseam is 7.5". Because of the diaper, he requests a roomy seat. With such tight restrictions, he figures you probably will need to have them tailored, in which case you might want to consider that he dresses to the right.

The sixth month has been a big one:

Teeth: He had his first fever preceding his first and second teeth which have just broken the surface.
Mobility:He has figured out how to roll over and does it lickety-split when not wearing a cloth diaper which seems to make matters more difficult. He isn't mobile yet, but he can push up on his hands or get his rear up in the air, but not both together. Just tonight, during his six month photo shoot, he managed to get himself in a crawling position with the back of the couch behind his feet. He can inch backwards very slowly on his back which means he cannot be left on any surface.
Motor Skills: Getting better everyday. He can even reach out and touch the furry patch in his feely barnyard book without you having to help him. He is also sitting up well and can right himself from pretty big excursions from upright. He still tips over if he gets too excited.
General Appearance: The hair is really growing now. The eyes are staying blue and his skin, which was a bit darker at birth, now appears to be tending toward his mother's coloring.
Hobbies: Looking around and seeing things. Inspecting his fingers very carefully. Blowing through pursed lips to make "engine" noises. Kicking mama and papa in the belly when it is time to get up in the morning. Putting a foot in his mouth, literally.
Favorite Outfit: Nothing. It's breathable, doesn't bind and gets clean with you in the shower. Man, does this kid love being nude. When he has no clothes on, his mannerisms totally change. He giggles and moves with jerky motions like a crappy-special-effect-produced-japanese-movie-monster. Watch out for naked babyzilla, wreaking havoc with pee.

less than 2 weeks til we see you!

We're headed back to the states a week from Wednesday. And in case we're all too jet lagged, here's some proof that Ellis is in a good mood sometimes.

Saxony and Everything After

This week I made my first foray into the former East Germany to visit the Max Planck Institute and learn some new software that was developed there that will speed up my own work. The trip started with a cab ride to the train station, then a train to Frankfurt and finally the high speed intercity express train across into Dresden. My buddy from the Max Planck was waiting for me at the train station and we saw a little of the town on the tram ride to his place where we had a quick supper and then dug into learning the software. The second day was spent primarily at the institute working with the software which I was excited about, but I will spare you the details.

I did see a bit of Dresden as we headed to lunch to meet with the guy commericializing the software. It is easy to see that the town is in flux and trying to grow out of its former self. After the end of the Communist era Dresden lost a whopping 20% of its population which can be seen in the low demand for housing and its therefore low cost. Quite a lot of the city wasn't bombed (although some of it was incinerated) so there are some very beautiful houses and a castle on the hill above the Elbe built in the 1800s by a mouthwash baron. But, that was about all I got to see. They did make me promise to return with the baby for a proper sight seeing visit.

On Thursday after work, we headed back to the apartment for dinner and a rousing game of Settler's of Catan, which my buddy won, just barely with a lucky draw from the development card pile. For those of you who might care to know, he got the road building card and a victory point allowing him to take the longest road card from his wife and eek up to ten points.

That same night I was also informed that I had been selected to receive one of the fellowships I had applied for. You might remember from a previous post that this sort of fellowship is the kind that pays my salary freeing up money in my lab for other things. It won't give me a raise, but it is a feather in my cap, means I can stay at EMBL for at least 2 more years and is a good confidence builder after the struggle to publish my last paper and the letter from the other agency saying they would have funded me if the other paper had been out.

Friday morning it was straight to the train station. It was a beautiful foggy morning and the sun was still very low in the sky at 8 am when we pulled out of Dresden. The farm fields of Saxony reminded me a lot of home, especially rural Michigan where the farm land is mixed with woodlot and swamp. I saw several herds of roe deer, many hares and a huge flock of geese breakfasting in the fields.

I finally made it home at 3:30 after taking the regional train to Bammental. Rachel and Bridget tried to meet me at the station but we missed each other. Ellis was excited to see me and I got a good look at tooth number 1 which was just joined by tooth number 2 today. While I was playing with him, I had the following conversation with my hilarious wife:

Me: So was there any new progress on the crawling while I was gone?
Wife: Oh yeah, he just started going all over the place while you were away. And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon....

duh? of course everything is better coated in chocolate

Still enjoying the visit from Bridget and Silas, though we are without Trey for a couple days. He's gone to Dresden for work but will be back tomorrow. Bridget and I went to the Heidelberg Christmas market once yesterday and once this morning. We like this one- some nice stuff for sale, good crepes and sausages, and tasty gluhwein. Also, sticks of fresh fruit covered with chocolate are fairly popular at these markets. Delicious! They include chocolate covered grapes, pears, and kiwis in addition to the more common banana. Who knew chocolate covered kiwi could be so yummy? Though you might not know it from all the food talk, I am finally getting a bit of Christmas shopping done. Not really enough, though, when I consider there are only 26 shopping days till Christmas and 14 days till we head to the US. Eek!

In other news- Ellis's first tooth has emerged! I think there are 2 on the bottom, though only the first one is visible right now.

Craciun

On to Sunday...

We headed across the border to France and the Strasbourg Christmas market. This market was much, much bigger than the one in Frankfurt and we were optimistic that it would be even nicer. However, it was very crowded and a lot of the wares seemed less unique and even kind of tacky. Bridget and I agreed we'd enjoyed Frankfurt's market more. Still, we had a nice time and have plenty of pictures.

The architecture in Strasbourg was really lovely and the second floors of nearly every building were decorated for the season.Most of the markets were near the cathedral, which was incredibly ornate and amazing. We didn't have a chance to explore the inside, though.
Orrin and Silas had a chance to try on the traditional Alsatian Christmas outfits:There was a tent labeled Marche de Bredle, which contained many tables of Bredle (small, usually slightly crisp and butter cookies) . They were sold mix and match by the kilogram and the vendors were extremely generous with the samples :) We eventually realized the name of this tent was "Cookie Walk", the same as the event we've long heard about from our great-aunt's church. So perhaps this tradition is Alsatian in origin. Or maybe cookies sold by the pound is just a great idea in any culture. They also had a demonstration table:An example of some of the ornaments for sale:One really interesting thing the Strasbourg market had was a "guest country" , which changes every year and so introduced some variety to the markets. This year's country was Romania and we were pleased to see some of their crafts and sample their unique sausages, fried cheese bread, and Dracula wine. While it was suspiciously like gluhwein, Bridget called it "Draculicious". Here's a picture of the Romanian musicians. Craciun is Christmas in Romanian.

gluhwein makes you glow from inside

I'm behind in my posts, so here's what happened Friday and Saturday. On Friday morning, Bridget and Trey went down to Heidelberg and picked up a rental car big enough to hold us all. Upon their return we headed north to Frankfurt to check out our first Christkindle Markt. We didn't really know where we were going and drove around in ever smaller circles, crossing the Main River three times, before finally locating a parking garage. Upon entering the parking garage, we obtained a little disc that looked like a poker chip and I was suspicious that it contained any information about when we arrived. Then we drove several levels down to find a spot that would fit our giant (by German standards) rented minivan. Things were a little dubious up to this point, but we emerged from the parking lot to see this:
We zipped by the hundreds-year old cathedral in search of sausages and cheap wine doctored with spices and heated. This gluhwein typically comes in white or red and sometimes apple or cherry. The cherry type we tried was quite delicious.The Christmas Market was fun with lots of booths featuring ornaments and other Christmas decorations as well as many street foods and baked goods. There were even 3 carousels in this relatively small market. I can't include too many details about some of the more unique things we saw, as they are likely Christmas presents. We did try some of the other beverages and baked goods, inlcuding one we had never heard of before, magenbrot. Silas was happy to try them and smear the chocolate coating all over his face. After a couple hours walking around, we headed home, where Silas was even happier to see Scout. Saturday we headed to Frankfurt airport to drop off Catherine and pick up Orrin. To get between the terminals, we rode on the tram with a giant front window, making it feel like a slow, less exciting roller coaster.Then we said goodbye to Catherine. We had a great visit with her and are looking forward to see her and the rest of the family in a few short weeks at Christmas.

A fresh wind is blowing

I haven't put up a post for quite a stretch, and the next week or so might remain a little thin, at least from me. We have a backlog of ridiculously cute baby pics though, so Rachel will keep trickling them out for your hungry eyes.

On my end, work has really heated up. The old stuff from my lab in America is finally about ready to publish. Sadly, I also received a letter from one of the agencies I had applied to for funding. The letter said, more or less, "Hey, you seem like a really smart guy with good ideas and a good education. Too bad that last grad school paper isn't out. If it had been, we would have given you a bunch of money." Since I applied for 3 other possible funding opportunties, I could get this letter three more times. On the upside though, I think things are finally going to get published this time.

Here at my current job, my projects have largely swapped priorities with the result that I have been working non-stop on a project related to mitotic organization. I can't get into details on the searchable internet where our competitors might get a hint as to what we have up our sleeves, but we have found ourselves in a place where we can see a whole complex behavior; our competitors on the other hand can only see a tiny portion. It's as if they are looking out of a porthole and we are standing on the deck of the ship. Because they study the same thing though, we have to be quick and cautious. They may have come up on deck in the last couple of months with the possibility that they are already ahead of us.

Part of this project will mean traveling to Dresden this week to visit with an old labmate from America and learn a piece of software he is using in his work that will aid me in analyzying the data coming out of this new project. We only have a couple of weeks before we take our holiday to the states, which adds to the urgency to accumulate as much data as possible. Besides learning the software, I will get to visit at the Max Planck for Molecular Biology and hopefully visit with my Ph.D. advisor's advisor to discuss current and past projects. This will let me do some continental networking.

We were also approved for an additional 100,000 Euros for the equipment I need to buy for my next project. This project will combine some of my know how from grad school in a new type of application for studying larger forces. Tomorrow I will go down to Heidelberg to have a demo of some of the equipment.

So, I am finally carving out a niche over here for myself in my group and hopefully getting to stretch a little bit beyond EMBL and connect with folks in Dresden. Work is going faster, new ideas our bouncing around all of the time. It has been a long time since work has been this interesting. We missed our families for Thanksgiving, but, we also took a day trip to France today, so life over here feels pretty good right now. Stay tuned for posts on the Frankfurt Christmas Market and our visit to Strasbourg....coming from Rachel this week.

Thanksgiving Day

Hi all. Most of you probably haven't sat down to your turkey and stuffing yet, but it's almost pie time here. We had a fairly stripped down Thanksgiving menu (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts, and pumpkin pie). Only one kind of pie and no cinnamon rolls!
Shopping for ingredients didn't present as many challenges as we thought, though we couldn't find celery and ended up making stuffing with fennel root. We have so much to be thankful for this year, but frankly, I am too tired to type it all up today. It is my mind and heart though. Ellis slept right through his first Thanksgiving dinner, but here are the rest of us:

Silas helping prepare brussel sprouts
Finally, let's eat!

Silas used the halved brussel sprouts only as dippers/shovels and really only liked the cranberry sauce
It was great to have Bridget and Catherine here for Thanksgiving, but we missed the rest of our family of course. The fact that the rest of the country isn't celebrating a holiday today also made it feel a little less Thanksgiving-ish. But tomorrow we plan to head to the Frankfurt Christmas Market, so at least we'll be able to participate in the traditional American Friday after Thanksgiving shopping day!

lots of pictures to make amends for a week without posts

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Bridget and Silas arrived Saturday followed by Catherine on Sunday. So we had to get ready for the invasion by stocking up at Aldi's.Tuesday we went down to Heidelberg and found the town undergoing preparations for the Christmas season. Giant Christmas trees and stands for the markets starting next week were going up. Also, the holiday baked goods were starting to appear: lebkuchen, stollen, buttercookies of all shapes and fillings, and intricate springerle cookies meant for decorations. Which of these can I transport in my suitcase successfully? Here's Bridget getting ready to sample a zimtsterne (cinnamon star); Silas is saying "moe?" and grabbing for it.

Next we took the steep path up to the castle and arrived just in time for the tour, which allows you in certain areas of the castle (not the ones infested by bats, though). Below are Bridget and Catherine standing over the moat. We learned that it was rarely flooded, but often filled with hogs and deer kept as a food supply. Further, it's rumored that the nobility used to "hunt" those animals from the level at which we were standing. I don't have to be the daughter of Hunter Ed instrutors to know this is very unsporting. Here we are in the balcony of the castle's chapel with the organ behind us. The chapel is available for weddings and baptisms, should you be interested.

Finallly, here's the view from the castle. You can see the (once Catholic) now Evangelical Church of the Holy Spirit on the right.Can't write much more now. Ellis is running a bit of a temperature and being fussy. So maybe that little tooth will finally be showing itself soon.

The Most Wonderful Day of the Year

Today is the third straight opening day of deer season in Michigan that I have missed. You might wonder what could be so wonderful about any day that is considered successful if it ends with pulling the warm guts out of an animal roughly the same size as you. Not to mention getting up early, lugging around all your crap and most likely either freezing or roasting because you dressed with the expectation that you would freeze and there was a sudden heat wave. Deer season and its allure is simply one of life's great mysteries.

Of course, it is the comraderie of the hunt and all of the rituals that surround it that make opening day so special. Since we started hunting in lower Michigan rather than heading up north, we have gotten to sleep in our own beds and enjoy the advantages of staying at home. This means we miss the atmosphere of deer camp, but also improve our chances by hunting better ground. Typically, our opening day started with a planned 4 a.m. pickup. But my dad was usually so excited that he would get there at 3:30. At quarter to four I would notice him in the driveway and we would head on out to the Dixie Cafe in Stockbridge for breakfast.

On the way to breakfast, my dad would ask me 10 times if I thought I was dressed warm enough and offer me his extra boots because he didn't believe that my slim gortex boots would stand up to the cold as well as his nine pounders with felt liners. Breakfast was a delicate balance. It was easy to get caught up in the occasion and get the extra side of biscuits and gravy, but over eating could mean spending part of opening morning with your pants around your ankles wondering if you could have found a softer log over the next hill. On the other hand, underdoing it, especially on a brutally cold morning, could mean wearing out your breakfast before lunch was at hand.

After breakfast we would head over to Neil's pole barn to put on our outer wear and get ready. Again I would be asked if I was dressed suitably while my dad, who at six foot one and sixty years old weighs 180 lbs. would walk into the woods looking like a portly 300 pounder. We often had conversations like this:

Dad: Are you sure you are warm enough? It ain't no fun to be cold out there.
Son: I will be fine. Too much clothing is dangerous too. You might be the first man ever to die of heat stroke on opening day of deer season.

Then we loaded up in Neil's hunting vehicle (called "Lurch") and rode over to the farm/swamp land we hunted feeling properly prepared. Often opening morning would see a couple of deer taken and on clean kill shots we would wait until lunch to dress them out so as not to miss another opportunity. On cold days we would stash a dead deer but on warm ones we would haul it back to the pole barn cooler immediately. After the day was done it was time for a quick supper and then the story telling in the pole barn as friends and neighbors cycled through for a nip and to see what we had bagged.

When I was 13, the year before I could legally carry a rifle and hunt, I was allowed to cut school to go up north for a real deer camp with my dad and grandpa. This was the last deer camp up north for my family and I never did get to return and hunt that wilder country with a rifle. Through my teenage years, I rarely hunted having too much tied up in school and sports and music. College saw no more free time and then at 25 I returned to hunting and joined those guys standing around the cooler on the evening of Nov. 15. These were guys different than me. They were all blue collar and we cound't speak to each other about our jobs with understanding. We just had opening day. Sadly, my dad was one of those guys. We have the outdoors and little more to share between us.

My second year, I got my first deer. My dad was sitting in a spot where he saw me shoot and connect. We had agreed that if either of us shot, the other would wait for 30 minutes in our stand before coming to help. That way the shooter could judge the situation and decide to stay put or get down and chase if so required. In my case, the deer crumpled and I stayed put hoping more were coming along behind the first. And sure enough they were there ninety degrees to my right by the time I was convinced that my deer was staying down. I gently edged the action of the gun forward until the bolt clicked home, ready to fire again. Before fully diverting my attention to my new targets, I glanced back where the first one went down and what did I see, but my dad standing right over it waving. When he saw he had my attention he hollered, "You got it." And, the standing deer were gone in a flash. This all happened in less than 90 seconds. I am fully convinced that my dad must have jumped out of his tree stand, rambo style, and hit the ground running in order to have gotten there so quickly.

Of course, my dad's quick arrival on the scene cost us an opportunity for more deer, which in the moment made me a little angry. In retrospect, though, I realized he had waited 12 years for this. It was supposed to happen up north that next year after my first visit to deer camp and it didn't work out that way. I never missed hunting in those intervening years, but my dad missed hunting with me and this was his moment too, a rite of passage for both of us.

Finalmente, Venezia

So, those of you who follow the link over to "Never Here Again" have probably already read a report of our trip to Venice, but I will regale with a second account of our lavish four days and three nights in Italy's premier sinking city.

Our trip began by car to Frankfurt Hahn airport. Once parked we waited for the shuttle to the terminal. Or I should say, Rachel waited and I sprinted back to the car with Ellis tied to me in order to save my knife and leatherman from security. I know, I will never learn. Who, this day in age goes to the airport with a knife? Ellis thought the sprint was a carnival ride and giggled like a maniac the whole way while I huffed and puffed and found out that I am in no shape to go sprinting anywhere with an extra 20 pounds tied to my chest.

Our flight got away without incident. Once on the mainland in Italy we bought very reasonably priced 5 Euro tickets for the coach bus to Venice. Then it was the water bus to meet the rental agent and head over to our apartment. Everything went smoothly and we settled in to wait for Bridget and Orrin and Silas. You can read their account of late flights, water busses that were no longer running and Venice at 1 am over on their blog.

While waiting, we went out for some quick food and got our first taste of expensive Venice. A small pizza, very small sandwich, a coke and a bottle of water, was way over 20 Euros. But, Piehole was not deterred and our eating improved greatly the next day.

On Saturday we got up and headed for the famous Rialto market. On the way we had some Paninis including one with seafood salad that was really delicious. The market was the highlight of the trip. The variety of produce was almost unbelievable after the limited selection here in Germany. We brought home sea bream, the freshest shrimp we have ever eaten and a whole bunch of produce. Having an apartment gave us a lot of flexibility with how we handled meals, and this was a big bonus. On the way back we had a little pizza, nice and crispy and a good deal cheeaper than the frisbee sized disk of the previous night.

Then we were off to Saint Mark's to begin our tour of the embarrassment of cultural riches that is Venice. I can't really even tell you how crazy this place is. Every thing is tiled in gold, encrusted in jewels or otherwise decorated in an outrageous manner. I always picture god in a nice simple white robe, but after seeing one of his houses, I have to conclude, the guy likes his bling.

After a nice visit we headed back to our apartment for a little rest while Bridget and Orrin sought a grocery store. They were unsuccessful but managed to pick up a few things to supplement our dinner, including some white wine and prosecco. While they were out, I gutted and scaled the whole sea bream and made the rest of the preparations for dinner. Our first course was the shrimp, boiled and unadorned. Pretty much the only care used in cooking them was being careful not to over cook them. I wanted to chill them, but was overruled by those who weren't willing to wait. I have to say, these were the best shrimp I have ever eaten. They almost tasted like crab and I might not even have identified them as shrimp in a blind taste test.

Dinner was the bream poached with fennel, white wine and a little tomato. Side dishes were sauteed baby zucchini and pasta with two types of wild mushrooms. We had a little chocolate with our prosecco and a game of cribbage before turning in after a full 24 hours in Venice without gelato.

The next day was largely dedicated to seeing some of the shopping areas and a trip out to Murano island where the really serious glass work is done. In the middle ages, the glass blowers were thrown out of Venice proper because their kilns started damaging fires. They removed themselves to Murano, which on our day there was quite peaceful. We had a sit down 3 course lunch in a restaurant there that I would call just so-so. But, as is often the case in Italy, even the cheap wine on the menu was quite good. After lunch, I tried licorice gelato and it was as bad as you might expect.

On Sunday we also tried the Italian version of tapas while Rachel took a little rest with Ellis. There were about 15-20 hors d'ourve size items in a case for around 1 Euro each. We sampled a broad selection which included canapes of crabmeat, chestnuts or fish and one with slices of octopus in what looked like aspic. Simply put, it looked like octopus head cheese. There were pickled onions wrapped in anchovies and another with raw or possibly lightly cured salmon. Again, a 1.50 Euro glass of cheap red was better than what one would hope for from a glass three times as expensive in an american restaurant.

Sunday's dinner was less impressive. Without having found a grocery store to fill in the gaps, we simply had to make do with the stuff we didn't put in the previous night's supper. So we had big plates of mushroom pasta with broadbeans in tomato sauce and raddichio cooked with apples. It was pretty good and dessert made up for it. We had read about a place which served a dish consisting of a big cup of whipped cream into which they put a brick of very dense ice cream flavored with chocolate and hazelnuts. It was more or less a Nutella sundae. The ice cream was indeed dense and frozen hard enough to be sliced from a bigger brick. The ice cream wasn't especially fatty, but this was made up for by the 3-times-the-volume-of-the-ice-cream portion of whipped cream that went with it. Bridget failed to acknowledge on her blog that as we left she had an additional cone with gelato to fill in the spaces in her belly. I feel that this is an important detail that must be recorded. Other than this hazelnut-chocolate concoction, I generally found the gelato to be dissapointing and not as good as the ice cream we have here in Bammental.

Monday we hit the Doge's palace before heading home. This place, again was an undescribable embarrassement of wealth. Sadly, some of the art is in a state of disrepair. The treasures in this palace include a fresco by Titian that is above a doorway that leads to stairs. One can climb the stairs halfway and view it straight on from only about 10 feet away-close enough to appreciate the labor that must have gone into creating a painting in a plaster skim coat.

After the Doge's palace, we hit a quick museum and then had to repeat the sequence of water bus, land bus, airplane, road bus, car that would get us home. Ellis had a pretty rough flight. I would say he was more or less miserable and everyone knew about it. I have to wonder though, why does a six foot eight, 300 pound Italian getting on a half-full plane think that it is a good idea to sit in the seats at the front where Ryan Air concentrates the babies?

All in all it was a good trip. Venice was really interesting and really expensive. I am glad I have been there, but might never go back. The place is sinking and part of its charm is the fact that it is currently exists in a state between "city" and "ruin". This did give me the feeling, though, that it is no longer a fully alive city, but that it is becoming more of a Venice theme park. That is fine for what it is, but also made it feel a bit hollow.

Some Culture Notes

Just a couple of notes to keep you all informed. I won't resort to bullets, but they would be appropriate.

Today, the car passed its inspection with only a mere 170 Euro expenditure necessary. And, that includes pulling out a bent up fender and sealing up some small rusty spots. We have a car now that no German could love. But it is in great shape under the hood and if someone dings it up, I don't have to get to bent out of shape about it. Since cars take a beating in the cramped parking lot at work, all the better. My German coworkers think I am crazy for being satisfied with this state of affairs, but when I ask them what their pristine cars do that mine can't, they are left speechless. And I think, yeah, it just makes you feel better. Bah!

Interestingly, as I prepared to leave the mechanics this morning, he told me not to worry too much, because generally Toyotas and Hondas do better in the inspections than the German and American made cars. Even better than Mercedes and BMW. The German auto club also reports every year that the Japanese cars result in fewer roadside assitance as a percentage of the total road fleets.

That leads me to another story. One of my labmates has the typical German obsession with his car. He picks on me all the time for having all-season tires. He has even jokingly said that when I slide off the road and into the pasture at the end of the lane down from EMBL this winter, he won't call me a tow truck. I tell him I come from a place with Aprils that look like their Januaries and that we learn to drive differently in bad weather rather than relying on the false security of changing our tires.

So the other day, we were chatting at work about buying a car in America and how American's feel about their cars and how important they are etc. And they were asking my why I like Japanese cars and why Americans like Japanese cars. This coworker mentioned above turns around and says, "I bet mostly American's who like Japanese cars really are thinking, 'I really wish I could afford a German car.'" He was pretty much serious. I suggested that perhaps, not everyone was interested in the same things as a German and some folks might like something more reliable. He said, "But, who would want a car that isn't built right." So there you go. Ideology over data is rampant over here too.

Potato Soup with Papa

"Look deeply into my eyes. Follow my slowly moving hands. Give into sleep...see Papa, it is annoying when someone tries to put you to sleep when you want to do something else."

"Papa, that potato soup was made with cow's milk. The union contract says only mother's milk."

*No babies were harmed in the production of this post. Nor were they fed anything that their immature digestive tracts weren't ready for.

excuses, excuses

Post on our trip to Venice is in the works, but delayed due to Ellis's recent extreme crabiness. I am chalking it up to a reaction to Tuesday's vaccination. The pediatrician prescribed a couple things to help him deal with any mild reaction (fever, fussiness, etc). The pharmacists described it as being for "unquietness." Well, that certainly sums up my darling son's behavior these last couple days. We also have visitors from the East: a former labmate of Trey's and his wife who are living in Dresden. So I had to clean the bathroom, vacuum, and a few other household tasks to make it look like we're not complete slobs. Finally, just as I was telling my sister that a break from writing work might be nice as we approach the holiday season, more has popped up.

5 months plus a little

Sorry for the lateness of this post, but here is the 5 month update and a few pics. We have official height and weight from the doctor's scale, which indicate that our scale is somewhat off.
Weight: 18.2 lbs
Height: 25.6"
Vocabulary: He's pretty much noisy whether he's happy or sad. Lots and lots of grunting all day long, plus a couple happy screaming/ squealing session each morning and evening. His vocalizations are also increasingly varied and he's giggling now, rather than just smiling.
Mobility: Sitting up is getting better, as these pictures show. He still tends to lose his balance if something exciting catches his interest. Tummy time is become somewhat less distasteful, but there's no further progress with rolling over.
Motor skills: We've definitely entered the "I must taste all items" phase. His grip has become stronger and more precise, for better or worse. Thus, he can grab and item and get it right to his mouth. Watch out!
Favorite hobbies: Watching and grabbing for the dog has become very popular. He's sucking his thumb a bit, but not too often. More aggressive sort of play (being tossed up in the air or spun around) really get him laughing these days.
Solid foods: I'm hoping to delay solids a bit longer, at least until Ellis is sitting up confidently and showing some signs of still being hungry after nursing. However, he did accidently get fed a tiny bit of Silas's sea weed snack by his Uncle Orrin last weekend. I'm happy to report there were no ill effects from this.

coming soon to a blog near you...

Okay, I know it's been a while. But we've been to Venice, Ellis turned 5 months old and had a doctor's appointment today. Plus, all the Christmas stuff is out in the grocery stores here! So, there is plenty of fodder for posts and we will be reporting on all happenings soon. For your trouble, here's a pic of us bundled up and headed out to the pediatrician's this morning.

even now, i should be doing laundry

Dear internet,
Sorry for being such bad bloggers this week. Trey is being very industrious at work, I have been sleep deprived and in a crappy mood, and Ellis only bangs the keyboard when we offer to let him post. Thus only Scout has been available to report the happens from our household. But it's only going to get worse since we are going to Venice with Bridget, Orrin, and Silas. I'm not too proud to resort to bullets:

• Ellis is being super cute and getting so interested in the world. He's been making this little chimp face whenever he sees something he wants to "taste." Will try to obtain photographic evidence.
• Just yesterday I was thinking that I was tempting fate, by leaving our kale and chard in the garden and that I must pull them out and freeze them before we headed to Italy. Last night, it frosted for the first time. Perfect.
  
• Forgot to post saying that the piñata went over well at the party on Sunday. It broke pretty easily after all the kids got a couple turns.
• Experiments creating a pretzel-chocolate-peanut butter confection have begun. It would be wrong and too Sandra Lee-ish to call it a recipe, but I will post the results when my taste testers and I are fully satisfied with them.
• My writing assignments from the company I've been working with have (possibly temporarily) dried up. So far I have been too lazy/afraid of rejection to send out queries for freelance work. Why am I so lame?
  
• Here is a picture to tide you over until the 5 month post next week (eek!).

la piñata: un cuento de la frustración

A journal of my piñata experience....

Wednesday
8:00 pm- Assemble materials and get on with papier mache-ing while Trey and Ellis watch Walk the Line. Cook together flour and water to make paste. Create lumpy paste the same way one might create lumpy gravy. Use it anyway. Run out of paste halfway through. Make more and admire the batch's silky smooth texture. Complete first layer and calculate that piñata should be ready to fill and decorate by Friday night leaving plenty of time before the party on Sunday. Congratulate self on efficiency.

Thursday
9:00 am- Notice that last night's layer is not yet dry. Experience mild displeasure. Email mother to determine best course of action.
12:00- Decide that since first layer is tacky, it will be okay to go ahead and apply second layer. Do so with remarkably little fuss.
1:30- Receive answer from mother indicating NOT to apply second layer until the first one is dry at the risk of creating an impossible to break piñata. Curse own impatience.
10:00 pm- Note that papier mache still isn't dry. Ask husband if balloon should be placed in low oven over night following mother's suggestion. Be told that putting paper in the oven overnight would be a fire hazard. Curse husband.

Friday
9:00 am- Put balloon in oven. Turn on convection fan and prop door open with a dish rag. Consider the implications of rising temperature on the balloon and vow to keep a close eye on it.
9:45 - Check oven for the first time. Discover bits of paper have fallen/been burned off by oven light, but it's much drier. Remove from oven for one hour during German lesson.
10:15 - Return to balloon. Note real world implications of the Ideal Gas Law: air in the balloon expanded in the oven and now has returned to previous volume, leaving holes and wrinkles in the paper layers.
10:20- Consider options. Realize it is now clearly me vs. the piñata. Push thoughts of everything else I should be doing today out of my head; do likewise with the idea of abandoning this project and just buying the little girl a regular birthday present.
12:00-Put baby to sleep. Start piñata over. Apply one layer of papier mache to balloon. Note how much faster it's going this time.
12:15- Locate hair dryer in attic. As I turn it on, recall reading on the internet that many babies the white noise created by household appliances.
12:17- Curse internet baby experts. Feed baby and try to get him back to sleep.
2:00 pm-With aid of hair dryer manage to get three layers of papier mache done before evening. Despite this, curse the entire project.

Saturday
8:00 am- Find papier mache layers still slightly damp. Whine to husband about this. Listen skeptically to arguments about the humidity being too high.
10:00- Return from grocery store unusually sweaty and sticky feeling, then notice the wet spots surrounding the bit of salt on the pretzel bread. Reconsider "high humidity" hypothesis.
10:30- Find Exacto knife and prepare to pop balloon/ cut a hatch in the piñata. Pray. Complete operation and be pleasantly surprised when the papier mache actually holds its shape (mostly). Fill it with candy and crappy plastic toys. String a hanger through the top in a manner that ensure the piñata will hang lopsided.
3:00- Whine to husband until he agrees to help complete the piñata. Discuss possible decorative schemes. Notice that they become simpler on each iteration.
7:00- Finish applying paper fringe to piñata. Curse its amateurish appearance. Notice Ellis's complete fascination with the piñata. Wonder if this is because of its color or the crazy behavior it elicits from his parents. Listen in annoyed fashion to husband's explanation that this object is specifically designed for children to destroy. Agree, but still feel embarrassed by jankiness of this effort. Decide fault lies with being conditioned by years of exposure to my mother's PERFECT art projects. Vow to never attempt one this far away from her again.

Brainstorming stupidity

One of the blogs we read has offered a prize to the best self disclosed story of rampant stupidity. Rachel thinks I have a shot. I can enter more than once of course, but don't know that I should take the time away from other things, so I will ask you, readers, to consider some of the options and help me decide what to submit.

Option 1:
The time I blew off Rachel's warnings to be careful fueling the truck at the farm becasue it was easy to grab the wrong pump and put in diesel. I got distracted, filled up, jumped in the truck and made it all the way back to the house before the diesel hit the engine and choked it. Opened the gas tank and took a sniff, yup, $@%&, diesel. Bonus stupidity: Had a sip of the diesel while starting the syphon to get it back out.

Option 2:
The time I went up north for some late season trout fishing and got in a little too deep in a stretch of river I hadn't fished before. My fishing partner had gone way up stream, so I knew he would be a long while. I had seen a second fisherman on his way down as I came up and found his car right behind ours. Being soaked through, I had to change my underwear or they would simply soak the new jeans from the inside. So I rounded up all of the necessaries and changed. In warm dry clothes, I found a soft patch and set down for a nap. I was awakened by my fishing partner and the other guy coming back up the hill together discussing whether or not it was an old wives tale that the salmon come into the rivers early at the last August full moon. As I stood up, the door to the other car opened and the other fisherman's wife jumped out to greet him. She had sat in that car 4 feet from me and not said a word the whole time I stripped and somehow I had failed to notice she was in there.

Option 3:
Does childhood stuff count? If so, the time when I was 5 or 6 I returned from a family gathering where those nasty candy apple rings had been served, but I had not been allowed to have as many as I wanted. That night after going to bed, I snuck down to the kitchen and decided to kill the craving with a generous serving of marachino cherries. But there were only two left! So I had those and a couple of big gulps of the juice from the jar. Back up in my bed, my tummy got way upset and without even a single dry heave of warning the entire, now slightly pink, holiday dinner came up all over me and the bed. Rather than fessing up, I went into my parents and told them that I had had a bad dream and needed to sleep with them. I managed to get into the bed and ruin their sheets before my dad detected, by odor, that I was coated in sugar vomit. How did I think I was going to get away with that?

Option 4:
I was the sixth grade boy who let his mom talk him into getting a perm.

Option 5:
I was the seventh grade boy who let his mom talk him into getting another perm as a solution to the problem that what was left of the first perm was making him look really weird.

Option 6:
One more from childhood. At the age of 5, I got into a fight with my sister while using the toilet and, on an impulse, decided to pull hard right and pee on her. It is pretty hard to convince your folks othewise when your sister shows up from the general direction of the bathroom with a wet stripe on her clothes screaming that she has been peed on. Time for a whippin'. (I thank my sister for not realizing she could reproduce the stripe on her own with water and get me in trouble over and over again. I did not at that time realize the demeaning horrible act it was to pee on someone. My parents were so horrified that they certainly would have believed her.)

Option 7:
While on a two week business trip to Mexico I got a little bored with the food that was "gringo safe" and as my first foray into the local food I had the a broiled ball of fish and cheese in a restaurant where I was the only gringo. This thing was easily the size of a softball and was served all by its lonsome with only a lime garnish. Either it was damn good or I was hungry. By the time I had "digested" this thing, I thought I might never eat anything again. It was like it reassembled itself into a softball sized lump in my belly and refused to be digested while somehow controlling several of my bodily functions that even on a good day aren't under my own conscious control. I ask you, who goes into a restaurant in a part of Mexico where they aren't supposed to drink the water and eats a ball of cleverly diguised, probably rotten fish?

Option 8:
Gasoline in my eye, more than once, same day.

Option 9:
John Smoltz, you are not alone. Burned myself ironing a shirt while I had it on.

Option 10:
Anyone in the audience care to chime in?

DNA Mechanic

I haven't put up a work post in a quite a while. I know the fan base is small for such drivel, but they are dedicated so I will supply.

First, I will say that the protein woes of the past are over for now and I can see single motor proteins doing their thing pretty much at will. One person has even offered to make me a bet as to whether I will publish a paper here in my lab before the last paper from my grad work comes out. I have to say I am not sure which side of that bet I would even want to take. I guess that means the odds are one to one. Anyway, the projects are moving forward now and that means that my work is entering a new phase that includes nuts and bolts molecular biology which is a new thing for me.

My current task is to take a protein I want to study and add a green fluorescent protein (GFP) to it. This is done at the DNA level. I have bacterial DNA (called a plasmid) for both of the proteins and I am pursuing a strategy known as "cut and paste". As compared to working with proteins where each protein requires carefully adjusted buffers and individually optimized handling, working with DNA is remarkably well worked out and very uniform. Nearly every step along the way can be performed using a kit. It is something like wanting to put a Chevy engine in a Ford truck and going out and getting an adapter kit. In the case of the DNA though, you start with a kit that lets you remove the engine from the Chevy, then another kit throws the Chevy's carcass away retaining the engine. You apply the same kit to the Ford truck to remove its engine, but modify how you use the kit a little bit, so you retain the truck and discard the engine. Because the bits are submicroscopic, you then use another kit to make sure you have all of the right parts, you know, to make sure you didn't drop that custom screw into the floor drain in the garage. Then you finally use another kit to drop in the new engine. The DNA itself takes care of making sure all the lines and wiring gets hooked back up correctly. So far, I have removed the engines. Tomorrow I check to make sure I have all the right bits and then drop in the new one over the weekend.

With these techniques, and a few others, one can create just about any DNA sequence. What I am making is called a chimera or a chimeric protein. Actually, it is a mutant and a chimera. A mutant because the DNA sequence has been changed in a critical spot to prevent the addition of a phosphate group to the protein. This phosphate is thought to be a critical point of regulation and now I will be able to prevent it from ever coming into the picture at all. It is a chimera because the final product will be partially a motor protein from a frog and partly a fluorescent protein from a jellyfish. Actually, the GFP is also a mutant because it has been reengineered to enhance its performance in microscopy applications. So my protein is a chimeric double mutant. Once I have the DNA, I will trick insect cells into producing big piles of my protein from the sequence.

With all this talk of chimeras, you might wonder if my alter ego, Pie Hole, has considered jumping into this game to create even tastier more delectable animals. The answer is that, no, he hasn't. Lisa Simpson pointed out long ago, when she was still 7 years old, that ham, bacon, sausage, Canadian bacon, pork chops (and I might add pork tenderloin, prosciutto, serrano, and several varieties of excellent barbecue) all come from one magical animal making it easy to be humble before Mother Nature and not screw around with something that she (and years of selective breeding) have made nearly perfect for us.

Pie Hole wants it noted, that he would kill for a lunch time roast pork panini with carmelized onions.

You know you are almost 5 months old when...

Tonight we went to Aldi's for our monthly stock-up. I was slated to go alone, but Ellis just really wanted to come, so we all went together. He hadn't been in his car seat for a week or two and it was notably a snugger fit.

At Aldi's, for the first time, he rode in the kid seat in the cart (with close supervision). I wish I had had the camera along with me. Between the stabilization offered by the bar between his legs and the fact that he obsessively clutched the cool metal bars, he managed to keep himself mostly upright.

He was quite the little ham, smiling at all the nice people. He really responds to attention now, usually with a big smile, which seems to surprise some people and of course that encourages them to engage in further antics to keep him smiling. While I waited with Ellis while Rachel returned the Apfel Schorle bottles a retired woman got a big smile out of him so then she showed him the pretty flower she was buying. Then she talked baby talk in German to him for a minute or two. When he stopped smiling and looked a little bored I leaned over and said to her, "Es tut mir leid, er kann nur English." (I am sorry, he only knows English.) She found this humorous as did I.

last post till I wash off all the flour and water paste

My Halloween box from mom finally arrived yesterday. Yeah! And it was worth the wait. Bridget has already detailed the approximate contents and how awesome a mom we have for taking the time to put together these care packages and paying the exorbinant international shipping rates.

Unlike my charming sister, I did not dive directly into the Oreos, but am instead focusing on the chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels. They are more delicious than I can possibly describe here- think Chubby Hubby ice cream minus the ice cream. Now, I wouldn't usually advocate for the removal of ice cream from any dessert, but in this case it just allows you to focus on the best bits and so must be agreeable. My mother actually covered peanut butter filled preztels with chocolate herself, though I believe these delicacies used to be sold at Target. I certainly hope they have not been discontinued. Since peanut butter filled pretzels are not available here, I have been thinking of making some modifications to that standby of mini-4-H foods project, the haystack. I was thinking that substituting pretzel sticks for the noodles and chocolate for the butterscotch chips could not fail to leave me with something scrumptious. Will report back on this later.

In other news, Ellis discovered his feet last week and now loves to play with his toes during diaper changes. He has also begun his first experimentation with his pincer grasp. He hasn't actually considered grasping anything with it yet, but he does love to push his thumb and forefinger together very hard, stare at it intently, try to bring it to his mouth, and then draw it back out again when he realizes he can't see it anymore. Oh the tragedy of not being able to look at something and taste it at the same time! It's hard being a baby.

Finally, some Americans we know here are having a birthday party for their 6 year old daughter this Sunday. Somehow, I have agreed to make a piñata for this. I have finally managed to procure newspaper and an appropriately sized balloon, though I fear tissue paper may continue to elude me. Now, my mother is telling me I should cook the flour and water to make a stronger paste. I fear this will not end well.

Google Earth: A Dangerous Place to Seek Comfort From Home Sickness

Tonight, I sat down to write a blog post with nearly nothing to write about. Life over here has been a little boring the last bit. No trips, nothing new for pie hole, and as yet we have not been cornered by men with dogs who will make a commission by forcing us to pay a tax on every ball point pen in the house. Although, I expect them any day now and you will hear about it when they show up!

A week or so back, Rachel had asked me to load Google Earth on the computer so we could go see the farm on the satelite images. Tonight, when nothing came to mind to write about, I started roaming around to some favorite places using GE. You could probably put together a pretty good personality test based on where someone goes in their first 15 minutes using this program.

My first stop was back at the farm where I noticed some favorite landmarks and hunting spots. The images aren't great in this sector of GE, but even at low resolution, I could make out the grain dump, shop and the different fields. I couldn't see individual cattle, but you will be glad to know that the junk pile is visible to the whole world from space. Guess it is time to push it in.

Then I went to Ann Arbor which is captured at very high resolution. You can make out the block M on the seats in The Big House. You can even see that the stadium appears to be set up for graduation or was under construction. Then I went to look at all of the places I had called home. For kicks, I cruised over to my best friend Aaron's condo from childhood. I noticed the first bit of a drainage creek which, when we were 13, in May of the dwindling days of our 6th grade year, Aaron and I followed that small creek to see where it went. We ended up being gone for four hours. Where it went was a drainage pond near the local mall. At the end of our journey we found ourselves at the opening of a large pipe staring out at the pond. Not exactly the top of Everest but we had had one hell of a good time. I probably new I was getting into trouble. Unbelievably, we ran into some friends from school back there whose parents had released them out onto this land with a bag of chicken livers and a net/trap contraption to catch crayfish. I remember thinking, "your parents bought you the livers?" It seemed to good to be true.

Upon returning to Aaron's, it took one look and no words to know we were in deep shit. Perhaps me more than Aaron. His mom was still in a state of mind that allowed her to engage in other tasks such as washing the car, which she was doing when we returned. As near as I could tell, my mom had spent the time from when Aaron's mom had reported to her that we were missing up until our return alternating between making plans for my funeral and deciding which tree would provide a good switch. Aaron and I weren't allowed to see each other until school was over, more than a month. This was an awful punishment since we spent every weekend together and at least for me this let me block out some of the stresses of home and school. Not to mention that we were just two kids cooped up in town who probably could have used a few camping trips to remedy the restlessness, rather than a whippin' and grounding. Incidentally, you can only see the beginning of the creek now. The rest of it is underground as that land is a big industrial development.

You can all probably guess that after that, I headed up north. The resolution is low in rural northern Michigan, but good enough. I found a cottage we stayed in only 2 years ago, nearly to the day, on Shelter Bay. A few months later, things would be changing for us and those friends who spent the weekend with us. They joined each other in Boston and were married the following summer. I defended, we packed in our apartment and then spent nearly a year commuting and living apart as I tried to seperate myself from Ann Arbor and my graduate work. Finally, we moved to Europe and had Ellis. Now I live farther away than ever. Ellis hasn't even set foot in America yet, let alone been up north. But we will get there before he is a big enough boy to really need it.

I stopped by the beach on Lake Superior where I proposed to Rachel a few years before. You can't make out the pictured rocks, but the beach is clear. Then I stepped a little further back and looked up the small lake and cabin where I spent the best days of my childhood. The cabin is gone now and my dad is thinking about selling the land. The shoreline of the little lake is clear and I could spot the places where we had a salmon double header when I was in the fifth grade and the spot, where as an adult, I landed a 18 inch rainbow on a perch rig with my dad's help. It would be surprising if I ever fish there again. Maybe I don't want to. There is a big casino now, just 500 yards from the lake, plainly visible on the satelite images. Not too enticing. Maybe it is better that the images weren't good enough to make out all the details like the individual cottages that stand where ours is missing now or the cars in the casino parking lot. A little faded and pixelated is probably better. Happiness is a memory.