Last week I was feeling really frustrated and complaining about how Ellis was constantly grunting or screaming for something and I couldn't get a single thing done. I realize now that I was exaggerating and this was not at all the case. The reason for new perspective is that he's been sick this weekend and actually is constantly grunting or screaming and I can't get a single thing done.
When I'm not super testy, I actually do feel bad for my poor little baby. He has a bit of a fever, a runny nose, and just seems to be feeling "crappy all over." Last night, we realized that we were down to 1.5 doses of paracetimol (Americans- that's acetaminophen). So, we had to ask 3 of our neighbors if they had the current weekly paper that lists which pharmacy within a 15 mile radius is designated to be open this Sunday (Americans- this is not a joke). After they dug it out of the their rubbish, we discovered that a happy coincidence of the rotation meant it was the one in our village.
Other bright spot of the day: Trey made a batch of tempura batter and started dipping and frying any edible product he could find in the kitchen. Luckily this was mostly vegetables and did not end in a manner similar to the "What else would be better after a dip in the deep-fat turkey fryer?" episode of King of the Hill. But we did discover that while the crispy chards are rather delicious, tempura batter cannot contain fresh mozzarella.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Saturday, July 28, 2007
A Super-Store, Sorta
I felt like we probably ought to post about our trip into Heidelberg (HD) today, simply to record a post about something we do like here in Germany: Tiger and Dragon Asian Food Store.
This place is an excellent Panasian grocery store in HD. While we had many excellent ethnic groceries in Ann Arbor, we couldn't one-stop-shop for Indian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese and Korean all in one place. We can't even one-stop-shop for decent German bread and German cheese, so it is a pretty novel feeling over here to pull up to an Asian superstore and reload the pantry with 3 months of groceries. Unlike some of the big stores in Ann Arbor, they don't carry twelve brands of mango chutney, just a couple. And unlike many Chinese groceries at home, they don't sell live fish and as a result the place smells a whole lot nicer.
Our haul included several jars of various sauces and sauce components as well as several types of noodle and various table condiments. One of the things I have to come to appreciate about Asian food while here in the-land-of-five-bland-vegetable-choices is that the Asian cuisines know how to concentrate and pack flavors into pastes, sauces and powders in a way that they can be let back out to make something good, often with only a small dab of the thing in the jar. This is a really cheap way to make simple things like noodles really good.
Tonight, to celebrate we had udon noodles on top of big flat egg pancakes, broccoli with black bean sauce, and sesame chicken with sweet chili sauce.
The best thing though about the Asian store: they have root beer, A&W even. Downside: only in cans and a six pack runs about $9. Maybe they think it is medicine. (My coworker says that root beer tastes like toothpaste.) I don't care. I have one cooling now.
This place is an excellent Panasian grocery store in HD. While we had many excellent ethnic groceries in Ann Arbor, we couldn't one-stop-shop for Indian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese and Korean all in one place. We can't even one-stop-shop for decent German bread and German cheese, so it is a pretty novel feeling over here to pull up to an Asian superstore and reload the pantry with 3 months of groceries. Unlike some of the big stores in Ann Arbor, they don't carry twelve brands of mango chutney, just a couple. And unlike many Chinese groceries at home, they don't sell live fish and as a result the place smells a whole lot nicer.
Our haul included several jars of various sauces and sauce components as well as several types of noodle and various table condiments. One of the things I have to come to appreciate about Asian food while here in the-land-of-five-bland-vegetable-choices is that the Asian cuisines know how to concentrate and pack flavors into pastes, sauces and powders in a way that they can be let back out to make something good, often with only a small dab of the thing in the jar. This is a really cheap way to make simple things like noodles really good.
Tonight, to celebrate we had udon noodles on top of big flat egg pancakes, broccoli with black bean sauce, and sesame chicken with sweet chili sauce.
The best thing though about the Asian store: they have root beer, A&W even. Downside: only in cans and a six pack runs about $9. Maybe they think it is medicine. (My coworker says that root beer tastes like toothpaste.) I don't care. I have one cooling now.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Thank you grandma and grandpa!
Before I get on with my thanks yous to Grandma and Ggrandpa, I must say a smaller one to my mother for figuring out how I could sign into my blogger account, after Dad forgot. Last weekend, I heard Dad protesting Mom's claim that she is a more savvy internet user. I guess that is settled then.
Yesterday a big cardboard box arrived at our house. I saw that it came from Aunt Bridget and Uncle Orrin and was excited right away. Mom explained to me that it was actually a present made by Grandma Lisé and Grandpa Mike. I was pretty skeptical that this could be true seeing how the pieces that emerged were wood and not angle iron, known by everyone to be Grandpa's preferred medium. But Mom assured me it was something I would like and even said it had earned the coveted Silas Seal of Approval. I would have to wait a while to find out, unfortunately, 'cause Mom was pretty slow putting it together. She seemed to know what she was doing, though, which surprised me since she was working without one of the helpful IKEA assembly diagrams that usually arrive with any new furniture in this house. Personally, I think it would've gone a lot faster if she hadn't kept stopping to take pictures of me checking out her work.
Finally, the learning tower was complete and I decided I would help Mom make a batch of biscuits for dinner. Can you believe that she was up there spreading flour around and patting dough into rounds? Hello? Perfect Ellis activities. What the heck else has she been doing up there? What kind of world is it where a boy can't even trust his own mother?
The learning tower also lets me keep a close eye on Mom while she is preparing suspect food, such as this weirdo yellow watermelon. Luckily, it turned out to be only slightly less delicious than the pink kind.
So, to sum up. Before the learning tower, I was frustrated and sad:
Now, with my newly acquired ability to see onto the counter and grab things out of Mom's hands even when she is standing, I have powers about which most toddlers can only dream. In short, I am Super Baby!
Yesterday a big cardboard box arrived at our house. I saw that it came from Aunt Bridget and Uncle Orrin and was excited right away. Mom explained to me that it was actually a present made by Grandma Lisé and Grandpa Mike. I was pretty skeptical that this could be true seeing how the pieces that emerged were wood and not angle iron, known by everyone to be Grandpa's preferred medium. But Mom assured me it was something I would like and even said it had earned the coveted Silas Seal of Approval. I would have to wait a while to find out, unfortunately, 'cause Mom was pretty slow putting it together. She seemed to know what she was doing, though, which surprised me since she was working without one of the helpful IKEA assembly diagrams that usually arrive with any new furniture in this house. Personally, I think it would've gone a lot faster if she hadn't kept stopping to take pictures of me checking out her work.
Finally, the learning tower was complete and I decided I would help Mom make a batch of biscuits for dinner. Can you believe that she was up there spreading flour around and patting dough into rounds? Hello? Perfect Ellis activities. What the heck else has she been doing up there? What kind of world is it where a boy can't even trust his own mother?
The learning tower also lets me keep a close eye on Mom while she is preparing suspect food, such as this weirdo yellow watermelon. Luckily, it turned out to be only slightly less delicious than the pink kind.
So, to sum up. Before the learning tower, I was frustrated and sad:
Now, with my newly acquired ability to see onto the counter and grab things out of Mom's hands even when she is standing, I have powers about which most toddlers can only dream. In short, I am Super Baby!
Monday, July 23, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Bunnies and Guinea Pigs Find Cohabitation Harmony
We stayed home in Bammental this weekend, and besides the hilarity of watching Ellis chomp down blueberries, we had a few nice meals and visited a guinea pig and bunny commune of sorts. I actually visited twice, once when my coworker showed me how to bike there and once when I took Rachel to show her this bizarre urban gem.One of the nice things about living in our area is that out through the fields south of us there is a nice network of trails. We haven't done much exploring so far, but yesterday a coworker invited me and Ellis to take a bike ride two villages down with him and his daughter. Our destination, in his words, was, "a small park with rabbits and guinea pigs." Since he had his two year old daughter on the back of his bike, the two kids took turns releasing ea
r-piercing screams and giggling like college freshman playing the "say 'penis' louder" game in Sociology 1o1.This place we visited is constructed out of a few back alley garden plots strung together and split in the middle. In addition to living animals, there are sculptures of extinct animals like this mamoth. On the large animal half of the spread, there is a pony, a deer, 10 or so goats, including one stinky buck, a sheep last shorn in the 20th century, and a house for pheasants. The second half is a utopian cooperative for bunnies and guinea pigs. There were probably close to 100 total little fur balls, living in egalitarian harmony. From what I could see, there was a large degree of sexual openness, including acceptanc
e of interspecies relationships.The most amazing thing about this place had to be the close proximity to the town of Meckesheim. The only thing separating the stinky goat pen from the back garden of some of the nicest houses in town was an alley a couple of yards wide. Additionally, we couldn't figure out who owns or operates this place. There wasn't a single sign and the fences were minimal to contain the animals. A number of people stopped by with a sack of what should have gone in the compost to feed the animals. (Who knew that a guinea pig would eat a papery brown onion skin.) Additionally, I saw at least one family make a deposit in the guinea pig bank, dropping off a little black and white guy. The guinea pig looked as though he was just coming in for a visit.
Perhaps it is a day camp that allows a few guests to board and stay over. With 
so many little critters running around and no cover over the place, I can't believe the cats and birds of prey don't make a smörgåsbord of it.The other two remarkable things were that the animals looked quite well fed and healthy, with the exception of the sheep that badly needed sheering. Perhaps he/she is a rescue and this will happen soon. Even more remarkable was that with fences I could have hopped over, there was apparently no vandalism or shenanigans going on in the dark of night. I easily could have reached over, grabbed an adolescent pygmy goat and then headed out to release him in the nearest high school after
a meal of Exlax and a slathering of Vasaline. Man, even German teenagers have some serious self-control.Ellis really warmed to watching the animals, especially the smaller ones, pointing them out when they got close to the fence and making a noise that in few weeks might turn into "bunny". He found the pony to be a little frightening, but when you consider the size differential it's not too surprising. Unfortunately, it was nearly impossible to get Ellis and an animal in the same pic. We will be going back over in the next bit since one of the does had that "I swallowed an over sized, novelty football in the difficult orientation" sort of look. That can only mean that kids are on the way.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Heidelbeeren junkie
Get ready for a story that would be a whole hell of a lot better with pictures...sorry.
It appears that Ellis has seasonal tastes as this morning he passed over his late-season strawberries and pounced on his early-midseason blueberries like a cat on a pile of foie gras. He loves them so ridiculously much that he will even sign for them, something he has been loathe to do for anything for about two weeks. When he eats them, it is like he can't cram enough blueberry goodness in his pie hole with only one or two so he uses all five fingers on one hand to pick them up more or less as you or I might pick up several pieces of popcorn or six thumb tacks. Then he hoists them to his mouth and executes a three part maneuver I call "stick-smash-rub". In part one he sticks all five fingers into his mouth up to the second knuckle and releases the blueberries. Usually there are too many for a mouthful so he smashes his hand flat against the opening to keep them in there through the initial mandible wiggle that mashes them so they are no longer likely to roll out. Then he rubs his hand against his face a little to get any escapers (trapped between his hand and face following the second step) rolled over his mouth and recaptured.
I left the pressed paper pint container of blueberries back by the computer this afternoon after giving Ellis a little snack while on the phone. I was up cooking dinner when I heard a scream. Apparently, Rachel had been allowing Ellis to eat berries directly from the container and he just couldn't achieve the sort of mind blowing intense blueberry experience he was after, so he just put the container right up to his mouth, tipped it back and let them roll in and then let them roll all over the floor once his mouth overflowed.
I don't know how the big pig in this house is going to handle competition from a young upstart piglet. But this episode, along with a few others, has shown that my son's hoggery, will, in time, rival my own.
It appears that Ellis has seasonal tastes as this morning he passed over his late-season strawberries and pounced on his early-midseason blueberries like a cat on a pile of foie gras. He loves them so ridiculously much that he will even sign for them, something he has been loathe to do for anything for about two weeks. When he eats them, it is like he can't cram enough blueberry goodness in his pie hole with only one or two so he uses all five fingers on one hand to pick them up more or less as you or I might pick up several pieces of popcorn or six thumb tacks. Then he hoists them to his mouth and executes a three part maneuver I call "stick-smash-rub". In part one he sticks all five fingers into his mouth up to the second knuckle and releases the blueberries. Usually there are too many for a mouthful so he smashes his hand flat against the opening to keep them in there through the initial mandible wiggle that mashes them so they are no longer likely to roll out. Then he rubs his hand against his face a little to get any escapers (trapped between his hand and face following the second step) rolled over his mouth and recaptured.
I left the pressed paper pint container of blueberries back by the computer this afternoon after giving Ellis a little snack while on the phone. I was up cooking dinner when I heard a scream. Apparently, Rachel had been allowing Ellis to eat berries directly from the container and he just couldn't achieve the sort of mind blowing intense blueberry experience he was after, so he just put the container right up to his mouth, tipped it back and let them roll in and then let them roll all over the floor once his mouth overflowed.
I don't know how the big pig in this house is going to handle competition from a young upstart piglet. But this episode, along with a few others, has shown that my son's hoggery, will, in time, rival my own.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Is it raining idiots over there?
I ordered 7 items from a company earlier this spring. I attempted to install the last of them today and discovered that it was defective. Another was also defective and a third was assembled improperly. That means that this company has failed on 3 of 7 items. In the auto industry we would have called this ~428,000 parts per million. Come on.
Of course, I need this thing urgently for the previously mentioned paper of great impact on which my portion has been of great impact and my position in the author list makes it appear as though my contribution had a downright puny impact. So tomorrow I go in super early to kludge a solution for the guy who is getting credit for the work of great impact. Actually, he deserves a lot of credit, the problem isn't him, it is the credit I am not getting for my part or for my unpublishable and therefore uncountable contribution to the team by doing things like going in early to come up with an ugly, temporary, functional solution.
On other fronts, Ellis is a learnin' fool these days. He is really getting how to pick something up from demonstration. Today he put his blocks back in their basket after a cheery demonstration. If we could just get potty training to work that way, we would be all set.
I enjoyed this website way more than I should have yesterday. Way more. Read the Gospel of Hank first. I like it because it makes fun (in a slightly mean way) but also makes the point that the point of religion is faith.
I also liked this from Bitch Ph.D. The slogan is funny, but also the idea that those of us who right now are comfortable enough to not feel terror at the thought of where our next cup of coffee or decent meal is coming from or that we might get killed for ideals or values (at least not fucking yet), we are the ones who must act, with our money and time. (I have a lot of guilt that we kept putting off activism for after grad school. It seems like you can do so little, but this is another place where it is best to have faith. The alternative is to sit there and watch it all burn.) I don't know what Dr. B. thinks, but I think the American empire is circling the drain. I am happy to let the empire part go, but I hate to see the way of life lost. Our middle class is entering modern serfdom: how is it that the wealthiest people can avoid paying taxes entirely while the middle class is whittled away paying their fair share? The service industry employs our new sharecroppers; let's just hope there are enough mannies and peddies to be done to keep all of the serfs just barely fed.
That is probably enough vitriol from an expat so onto something a little better: details of my language learning. My new hobby at work is to decipher things about my coworkers native language by listening to the way they speak English. Today I learned that "to wind" is a verb in German. One can say "it winds" just like one says "it rains". I don't know if one can say, "I just winded." But it seems like everyone would know what you meant. I also learned that all proteins are feminine in French. Coworker quote, "The kinase, she isn't very active." I couldn't resist asking him if this was coming in from French and indeed it was. He is rather interested in improving his English so doesn't mind this being pointed out. It is one of the hardest things for me in German, to remember to call things that aren't people according to gender when I use a pronoun.
Ok, having fed the internet a tiny morsel, I will feed myself something, read a book, go to bed and accumulate more stories tomorrow.
Of course, I need this thing urgently for the previously mentioned paper of great impact on which my portion has been of great impact and my position in the author list makes it appear as though my contribution had a downright puny impact. So tomorrow I go in super early to kludge a solution for the guy who is getting credit for the work of great impact. Actually, he deserves a lot of credit, the problem isn't him, it is the credit I am not getting for my part or for my unpublishable and therefore uncountable contribution to the team by doing things like going in early to come up with an ugly, temporary, functional solution.
On other fronts, Ellis is a learnin' fool these days. He is really getting how to pick something up from demonstration. Today he put his blocks back in their basket after a cheery demonstration. If we could just get potty training to work that way, we would be all set.
I enjoyed this website way more than I should have yesterday. Way more. Read the Gospel of Hank first. I like it because it makes fun (in a slightly mean way) but also makes the point that the point of religion is faith.
I also liked this from Bitch Ph.D. The slogan is funny, but also the idea that those of us who right now are comfortable enough to not feel terror at the thought of where our next cup of coffee or decent meal is coming from or that we might get killed for ideals or values (at least not fucking yet), we are the ones who must act, with our money and time. (I have a lot of guilt that we kept putting off activism for after grad school. It seems like you can do so little, but this is another place where it is best to have faith. The alternative is to sit there and watch it all burn.) I don't know what Dr. B. thinks, but I think the American empire is circling the drain. I am happy to let the empire part go, but I hate to see the way of life lost. Our middle class is entering modern serfdom: how is it that the wealthiest people can avoid paying taxes entirely while the middle class is whittled away paying their fair share? The service industry employs our new sharecroppers; let's just hope there are enough mannies and peddies to be done to keep all of the serfs just barely fed.
That is probably enough vitriol from an expat so onto something a little better: details of my language learning. My new hobby at work is to decipher things about my coworkers native language by listening to the way they speak English. Today I learned that "to wind" is a verb in German. One can say "it winds" just like one says "it rains". I don't know if one can say, "I just winded." But it seems like everyone would know what you meant. I also learned that all proteins are feminine in French. Coworker quote, "The kinase, she isn't very active." I couldn't resist asking him if this was coming in from French and indeed it was. He is rather interested in improving his English so doesn't mind this being pointed out. It is one of the hardest things for me in German, to remember to call things that aren't people according to gender when I use a pronoun.
Ok, having fed the internet a tiny morsel, I will feed myself something, read a book, go to bed and accumulate more stories tomorrow.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Komische Frau
The scene: I am on the porch, studying a Bertolt Brecht story for my German lesson in the morning. Rachel comes out having finished a little work this evening.
Rachel: Hey there, wienersaurus rex.
Trey: What did you call me?
Rachel (giggling because she thinks she is so hilarious): wienersaurus rex.
Trey: Well, at least I am still "rex", that means I am king of something even if it is only the sausages.
Rachel: It ain't so great to be king of wieners.
Trey: But think of all the yummy things I am king of like the other sausages. Chorizo, he's my loyal vassal.
Rachel: Oh no, I said wienersaurus. You are king of American style frankfurters and vienna sausages and that is it.
Trey: What about blood sausage?
Rachel: Nope.
Trey: Bologna?
Rachel: Nope.
Trey: Not even Oscar Meyer, I don't have to be king of the mortadella.
Rachel: Nope, you heard me, wieners.
The fact that this carried on as long as it did is probably a good sign for our marriage. Stay tuned for a recounting of the time we spend discussing the gender of fruits and vegetables.
Rachel: Hey there, wienersaurus rex.
Trey: What did you call me?
Rachel (giggling because she thinks she is so hilarious): wienersaurus rex.
Trey: Well, at least I am still "rex", that means I am king of something even if it is only the sausages.
Rachel: It ain't so great to be king of wieners.
Trey: But think of all the yummy things I am king of like the other sausages. Chorizo, he's my loyal vassal.
Rachel: Oh no, I said wienersaurus. You are king of American style frankfurters and vienna sausages and that is it.
Trey: What about blood sausage?
Rachel: Nope.
Trey: Bologna?
Rachel: Nope.
Trey: Not even Oscar Meyer, I don't have to be king of the mortadella.
Rachel: Nope, you heard me, wieners.
The fact that this carried on as long as it did is probably a good sign for our marriage. Stay tuned for a recounting of the time we spend discussing the gender of fruits and vegetables.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Heimweh
Recently, things have been all a-swirl. What with having to figure out what I want to be when I grow up and also continuing to behave like a grown-up in my current job while many of those around me backslide into early adolescence, it has been hard to find time to put much up here in the form of blog posts that could be said to have any real merit.
I am managing to follow the Tigers and watch Barry Bonds run up on old Hank Aaron. Last year I posted on how much I wanted to see this not happen. (Note: in that same post I suggested that the home run derby be eliminated from the All-star festivities in favor of a bunting contest and a contest to see who could hit the cut-off man. MLB seems to have ignored me again.) I will be sad to see this mark taken from Aaron, a fine example of how professional athletic notoriety and fortune can be put to really good use. I think that no one should pressure Aaron to follow Bonds and the Giants around the country to be there to congratulate Bonds when he breaks the record. I also think that Aaron's reason should be taken at face value: he doesn't want to encourage anyone to think that a team sport is about setting personal records.
I am currently reading David Halberstam's 1964, a book about a different time in baseball. It culminates with a description of the 1964 season but begins by chronicling how the Cardinals and Yankees became the teams that collided in the Series that fall. The backdrop is the loss of America's innocence as we began the plunge into Vietnam and the upheaval of the civil rights movement. Perhaps the nicest anecdote so far told the story of how the Cardinal organization found a way for the black and white players to all stay in the same hotel during spring training and how some of the older players (notably Stan Musial), who as stars had earned the right to rent a home and bring their families to spring training, chose to stay at the hotel with his family and the team. That spring, almost certainly, the Cardinal's hotel was the only place in the south where white and black children shared a swimming pool.
I am finally taking German lessons and it is like learning German from the Kaiser. My teacher is tough. The learning is going fast though. We are cleaning up my grammar and shortly I will join her middle level class. She has said a couple of times now that it seems more like we are digging up the old buried German from high school rather than relearning. She is probably right, but I can't see the difference as easily as she. For me, German grammar was always about seeing the patterns (and there are lots of them) and then only memorizing the exceptions. This is exactly how I learn everything else too and German is very well suited to this approach. I think the teacher likes it too because she gets a chance to talk about linguistics (her actual field) as I try to put order to things in my own head. She managed to explain a theory of Noam Chomsky's to me in German (we never lapse into English during the lesson) so things must be getting better. I still understand at a much higher level than I can speak...but I did manage to explain to her (again in German) why we say "simple past" sometimes in English when we mean "imperfect". After much recent criticism about my German from coworkers, this was as good as a 5 RBI, 6 hit game for a guy hitting .210 with the bus to triple A running outside the clubhouse.
The homesickness has been pretty bad lately. I like this German word for it: heimweh. Literally, "homeache". To me this seems more accurate. It isn't a debilitating illness. It is a little twinge you carry around with you. And similar to the way an old knee injury smarts when the weather changes, the heimweh gets a little sharper sometimes when the wind changes directions and for a moment I smell an up north smell. So I read my baseball books and try to figure out what I am going to do for a living when we come home, if I can't figure out a way to be happy doing, more or less, what I am doing now. And in the mean time we go to France for the afternoon and try to find a good time for Prague.
I am managing to follow the Tigers and watch Barry Bonds run up on old Hank Aaron. Last year I posted on how much I wanted to see this not happen. (Note: in that same post I suggested that the home run derby be eliminated from the All-star festivities in favor of a bunting contest and a contest to see who could hit the cut-off man. MLB seems to have ignored me again.) I will be sad to see this mark taken from Aaron, a fine example of how professional athletic notoriety and fortune can be put to really good use. I think that no one should pressure Aaron to follow Bonds and the Giants around the country to be there to congratulate Bonds when he breaks the record. I also think that Aaron's reason should be taken at face value: he doesn't want to encourage anyone to think that a team sport is about setting personal records.
I am currently reading David Halberstam's 1964, a book about a different time in baseball. It culminates with a description of the 1964 season but begins by chronicling how the Cardinals and Yankees became the teams that collided in the Series that fall. The backdrop is the loss of America's innocence as we began the plunge into Vietnam and the upheaval of the civil rights movement. Perhaps the nicest anecdote so far told the story of how the Cardinal organization found a way for the black and white players to all stay in the same hotel during spring training and how some of the older players (notably Stan Musial), who as stars had earned the right to rent a home and bring their families to spring training, chose to stay at the hotel with his family and the team. That spring, almost certainly, the Cardinal's hotel was the only place in the south where white and black children shared a swimming pool.
I am finally taking German lessons and it is like learning German from the Kaiser. My teacher is tough. The learning is going fast though. We are cleaning up my grammar and shortly I will join her middle level class. She has said a couple of times now that it seems more like we are digging up the old buried German from high school rather than relearning. She is probably right, but I can't see the difference as easily as she. For me, German grammar was always about seeing the patterns (and there are lots of them) and then only memorizing the exceptions. This is exactly how I learn everything else too and German is very well suited to this approach. I think the teacher likes it too because she gets a chance to talk about linguistics (her actual field) as I try to put order to things in my own head. She managed to explain a theory of Noam Chomsky's to me in German (we never lapse into English during the lesson) so things must be getting better. I still understand at a much higher level than I can speak...but I did manage to explain to her (again in German) why we say "simple past" sometimes in English when we mean "imperfect". After much recent criticism about my German from coworkers, this was as good as a 5 RBI, 6 hit game for a guy hitting .210 with the bus to triple A running outside the clubhouse.
The homesickness has been pretty bad lately. I like this German word for it: heimweh. Literally, "homeache". To me this seems more accurate. It isn't a debilitating illness. It is a little twinge you carry around with you. And similar to the way an old knee injury smarts when the weather changes, the heimweh gets a little sharper sometimes when the wind changes directions and for a moment I smell an up north smell. So I read my baseball books and try to figure out what I am going to do for a living when we come home, if I can't figure out a way to be happy doing, more or less, what I am doing now. And in the mean time we go to France for the afternoon and try to find a good time for Prague.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
a blow for genetic diversity and our spirits
Looks like the freakishly wet summer has delivered a one- two punch to our hopes of home grown vegetables (one- lack on sunlight, two- attack of the slugs and snails). Though I would forgive you for clicking away at this point, here are the specifics on how everything has failed:
I planted 3 varieties of heirloom "historishe" tomatoes and one modern hybrid. Apparently, none of them were adapted for life in a swamp, as there are currently about 6 small green tomatoes total and all the plants have brown, dead portions.
The broccoli plants both put out tiny little pathetic looking heads, but given the lacy condition of their leaves, I'm not anticipating much.
Lettuce was, obviously, completely decimated by slugs. It never stood a chance.
Much pumpkin and zucchini foliage was lost to snails, but after a lot of coaxing, one tiny pumpkin finally appeared. I checked on it daily and yesterday, found if molded and beginning to rot. I considered a small funeral service, but ultimately chucked it in the compost. Though, we've watched several proto-zucchini rot from the blossom end, we have harvested a couple so far. However, if we calculate what we paid for slug poison, the zucchini would be worth about 15 Euros each. Yeah, this garden is working out great.
I planted 3 varieties of heirloom "historishe" tomatoes and one modern hybrid. Apparently, none of them were adapted for life in a swamp, as there are currently about 6 small green tomatoes total and all the plants have brown, dead portions.
The broccoli plants both put out tiny little pathetic looking heads, but given the lacy condition of their leaves, I'm not anticipating much.
Lettuce was, obviously, completely decimated by slugs. It never stood a chance.
Much pumpkin and zucchini foliage was lost to snails, but after a lot of coaxing, one tiny pumpkin finally appeared. I checked on it daily and yesterday, found if molded and beginning to rot. I considered a small funeral service, but ultimately chucked it in the compost. Though, we've watched several proto-zucchini rot from the blossom end, we have harvested a couple so far. However, if we calculate what we paid for slug poison, the zucchini would be worth about 15 Euros each. Yeah, this garden is working out great.
Monday, July 09, 2007
baby to toddler in one month
It's been kind of rough couple of days around here. Ellis seems to be getting ALL his remaining teeth in one go and his walking has dramatically improved. His will seems to be developing almost as rapidly as the rest of him. And it is manifested by reaching, grunting, and screaming- lots of screaming. In short, it seems he is officially a toddler. I'm feeling like I'm really struggling with it already or, maybe more specifically, struggling with my own temper. Sigh. I don't have pictures to document mine or Ellis's less -than-angelic behavior, but here are some pictures that could've accompanied the last post if Ellis had been able to use the camera/ Trey hadn't been so lazy.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
To me, to me
Hi All,
Ellis here. Seems that papa didn't write down the name of my account when he set it up for me and now he can't remember it and can't log me in. So I snuck into his account. Bet he didn't think he would have to stop letting the computer remember his passwords for at least another ten years. Stupid jerk. He doesn't know that mama has all of his email forwarded to her account anyway.
From the looks of things, there won't be any monthly progress posts now that I am one year old, at least not unless I write them myself. They won't let me touch the camera, so don't expect any pictures. T.S. If anything, the developmental posts should be closer together now since I am developing at an astounding rate, if I do say so myself.
For instance, I got a lot more white hard things in my mouth. If they keep coming at this rate, I don't know where I am going to put them all. They do make chewing up food a lot easier. Mama and Papa seem really proud that I am learning to use the hand signals to communicate with them about what I need. If they had simply read my last post, they would have realized that the simple thing would be to get me my own laptop and allow me to type out what I need. They should also realize that Scout knew more hand signs at one year than I do and she used those to perform useful tasks like killing birds with papa. All I can do is ask for more strawberries.
I now can move into the center of the room while only having my feet on the floor. Finally. I guess they call this walking. I feel compelled to do it, but also hurt myself more often than I did when I was sticking to crawling. The main benefit is having my hands free so I can bring important things with me on my journey. If they would just get me a bag or a purse I could go back to crawling and have the best of both worlds.
I find what mama and papa do right before we eat to be fascinating. I am starting to help with the stirring sometimes, but I know it will be a long time before I can use the stove like dad or the oven like mom. Man, mom made some things that were like sort of a cross between a donut and a pretzel. Apparently, they have these bagel things in shops on every corner in America. If this is the case, I have no idea why we continue to live over here.
Despite their apparent disinterest in my 13 month birthday, they did take me to the used toy store this week and we selected some good toys. I don't really mind that the toys are used since I am part of the generation that is going to have to deal with the mess you guys have made of the environment and don't see any reason to cut down more trees to make blocks. Plus, the toys mostly aren't in boxes so I can try them out first and see if they are stupid. The lady had a box of 114 blocks for 5 Euros! Papa and I play a game with them called, "you build it, I kill it". Babyzilla always wins.
Ellis here. Seems that papa didn't write down the name of my account when he set it up for me and now he can't remember it and can't log me in. So I snuck into his account. Bet he didn't think he would have to stop letting the computer remember his passwords for at least another ten years. Stupid jerk. He doesn't know that mama has all of his email forwarded to her account anyway.
From the looks of things, there won't be any monthly progress posts now that I am one year old, at least not unless I write them myself. They won't let me touch the camera, so don't expect any pictures. T.S. If anything, the developmental posts should be closer together now since I am developing at an astounding rate, if I do say so myself.
For instance, I got a lot more white hard things in my mouth. If they keep coming at this rate, I don't know where I am going to put them all. They do make chewing up food a lot easier. Mama and Papa seem really proud that I am learning to use the hand signals to communicate with them about what I need. If they had simply read my last post, they would have realized that the simple thing would be to get me my own laptop and allow me to type out what I need. They should also realize that Scout knew more hand signs at one year than I do and she used those to perform useful tasks like killing birds with papa. All I can do is ask for more strawberries.
I now can move into the center of the room while only having my feet on the floor. Finally. I guess they call this walking. I feel compelled to do it, but also hurt myself more often than I did when I was sticking to crawling. The main benefit is having my hands free so I can bring important things with me on my journey. If they would just get me a bag or a purse I could go back to crawling and have the best of both worlds.
I find what mama and papa do right before we eat to be fascinating. I am starting to help with the stirring sometimes, but I know it will be a long time before I can use the stove like dad or the oven like mom. Man, mom made some things that were like sort of a cross between a donut and a pretzel. Apparently, they have these bagel things in shops on every corner in America. If this is the case, I have no idea why we continue to live over here.
Despite their apparent disinterest in my 13 month birthday, they did take me to the used toy store this week and we selected some good toys. I don't really mind that the toys are used since I am part of the generation that is going to have to deal with the mess you guys have made of the environment and don't see any reason to cut down more trees to make blocks. Plus, the toys mostly aren't in boxes so I can try them out first and see if they are stupid. The lady had a box of 114 blocks for 5 Euros! Papa and I play a game with them called, "you build it, I kill it". Babyzilla always wins.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Post for Lindy
Recently, I awoke to find the following comment appended to a recent post:
After completing my degree (but not before throwing in the pre-med classes too, as if engineering physics wasn't hard enough) I worked for a bit in the auto industry and decided that I didn't want to be a physician. I also decided I didn't want to be an automotive engineer. While I had felt like I fit in intellectually as an undergrad with my peers in physics, I didn't feel the same way around the auto industry. Despite many lasting friendships with these coworkers, I felt a little apart from the crowd and like I had more in common with the unpromotable, social skill-lacking, super nerd they kept in the basement. My bent for scientifically approaching problems related to testing our designs and building models of complex systems led the chief engineer at the facility to, both flatteringly and unflatteringly, call me "professor" on far too many occasions.
Then it was back to graduate school for many years. Masters and Ph.D. and all engines full blast for an academic science career. Now, I am beginning to turn away from academia and look back to industry for a fulfilling job. So what sent me into science and what is sending me back out?
Getting in:
First, was probably the challenge. My parents weren't terribly educated and I wanted to keep going to the end. Part of it was that seeking a challenge had become a habit. Since age 11 I had been thinking about college and educational achievement. When I went out to work I missed it. I missed pushing myself ahead each fall as the new school year started (sick, I know). So when I had climbed high enough to no longer see the ground, I decided that I just mostly enjoyed climbing and I kept on going.
I definitely saw academia as a palace on the hill and something that was as far from my upbringing as possible. At the end of undergrad-beginning of grad school I hadn't yet embraced my hillbilly, working class roots and I didn't really expect I would go back to the hunting and fishing days of my childhood. I didn't necessarily expect to get married very soon either and then have someone I would want to share a life with. Work and life were synonymous. Work=life=work.
I can't say how much ego played into it. It seems Rachel thinks it mattered a lot. She argues: Why would anyone take a position that will make the them less money for more work and all the pressure? One might argue that the intellectual freedom of the university professor is the reason, but as I will come to later, I think it is a bit of a mirage.
I knew that I didn't like many of the big ego professors but I knew many others who were nice down to earth guys who did really love their jobs. One even told me, "Don't do anything but physics. If you are good enough to do it, and you are, you should find a decent woman and concentrate on physics and being a good husband and nothing else." He was disappointed when I became a biomedical engineer. But, his point is generalized by many in academia giving advice,"If you got what it takes to be a professor, then that is the happiest path and you should take it."
One thing I can say for sure is that I never said, "I really want to discover things." I knew I liked to build things, to get things to work. When I was in the auto industry and someone who had designed something couldn't explain how it worked, it made me seriously nuts. I definitely wanted to understand, which fits with my habitual tendency for more education. But the process of discovery, I can't say really did much for me.
I also didn't do it because I love teaching or because I enjoyed writing. My interest in writing has come later and I still hate the technical article preparation process.
Perhaps the most concrete reason for my pursuit of an academic career was the perception that, as a professor, I would have intellectual freedom. This, along with several other perceptions, I now understand to be wrong. In the auto industry, I felt very constrained by my "tools". I don't mean that I didn't have the right resources, although this could be a problem, and sometimes part of being an engineer was engineering around a missing resource--just one more element in the design space. When I say "tool", I mean the procedures sometimes mandated by my company that were limiting the ability to creatively solve a problem. I wrongly thought that this wouldn't be a limitation in academia, but I was wrong.
Getting out:
This is even harder and the explanations probably less satisfying.
In the vein of intellectual freedom, I have realized that the funding and tenure process seriously inhibit intellectual freedom as much as others inhibit intellectual freedom in industrial jobs. Looking back now, I see that this is how it should be, in the sense that research like any other pursuit has to be results-based. It is an economic requirement. Those who think professors are some sort of dilettantes are wrong in most cases. They work as hard or harder (maybe they get to pick the starting time, ending time and which 75 hours a week to work) than industrial folks. So, if the type of intellectual limitations in academia aren't somehow more pleasant for you than those in industry, then why take the smaller pay check? I don't think the supposed extra vacation is worth it.
But that isn't really why I consider leaving academics. It is for a few much more personal reasons. First, I really miss collaborative efforts. This may shock some of you, but it is very rare to find a truly collaborative effort in research. Generally, my collaborative efforts involve very few "hammer it out" sessions with a coworker. The work gets divided up along the lines of our expertise and we go do it and meet up every couple of weeks. In industry, various small to medium groups of people worked informally and collaboratively all of the time within our group. Of course, in industrial work, the reward is a good product, not a publication. A good product doesn't have to select one of its developers to be "first developer". A research article always has a first author and this is part of the reason projects aren't shared in a truly collaborative effort.
I also find it frustrating that in academics there is nothing of value that isn't published. If it isn't a paper it simply isn't. As I have rebuilt a resume for industrial stuff, I have realized how far into this mind set I myself have drifted. My work experience section didn't taut a single real accomplishment because that was in my bibliography at the back of my CV. Those were the only things that counted. This is of course ridiculous and doesn't capture the fact that perhaps something you did laid groundwork for others. Yes, I could take a non-publishing academic job like being a lab manager, where my contribution will be measured in the overall value to the lab. But, do you know what a lab manager makes at an American university? It ain't pretty. (Lab manager/technician is much more respected over here and often folks with Ph.Ds are found in these positions.)
A lot of folks feel that industry enslaves them to the dollar, and this sentiment is often spoken by those pursuing academic careers. Of course, via the funding process, the academics are also slaves to the dollar. And, in industrial work one can make the the dollar sign at the bottom of a project a part of the engineering challenge they face. So the question is: do you want to use your creativity to work through the grant process for dollars or do you want each of your projects to live or die by its profitability? Personally, I never minded having the profit as a design constraint, sometimes it focused my energy. What I don't like in academics is that even after the research is well thought out and well planned, there is a stage where you have to figure out how to get it funded. If it is well thought out and well planned, what is the extra energy going to? Grant writing diplomacy.
The final thing that is pushing me back toward industry is that I like being an engineer. I like to build things and get them to work really really well. Now I find myself in a job where the goals are all biologically oriented. My engineering projects are few. The ones I have don't get properly finished because as soon as the instrument can be applied to an experiment it is, regardless of whether a couple of more weeks could really polish the device. Most of my time is spent accumulating large piles of data with an instrument that isn't fully polished because in the eyes of my boss, it doesn't matter. Maybe it is that I come from a family of construction workers, I don't know. But, I seem to be the kid that loves building the fort or tree house, but I just don't like playing in it so much.
trey-When I applied to college, I selected engineering school for two reasons: 1) most of my peers who weren't going to Ivy League colleges and hadn't already dedicated themselves to pre-med, were going to engineering colleges and 2) everyone said if you can get into engineering you should go there because you can always transfer to the Science and Arts College but it is harder to go the other way. When I got to engineering college though, only the odd ball disciplines (Engineering Physics for example) really appealed to me, even though this is one of the few degree titles offered in engineering colleges that doesn't directly correspond to a later job title. Via this hybrid major I was exposed to a tremendous amount of technical material in a broader context than most engineering students and, since this wasn't a traditional engineering discipline, graduate school was an automatic expectation. I actually spent most of my time hanging out around the physics department and working in labs there, rather than around the engineering campus.
why did you go into research? was it the ego, the love of science, or the schnitzel? 'all of the above' is not an acceptable answer
After completing my degree (but not before throwing in the pre-med classes too, as if engineering physics wasn't hard enough) I worked for a bit in the auto industry and decided that I didn't want to be a physician. I also decided I didn't want to be an automotive engineer. While I had felt like I fit in intellectually as an undergrad with my peers in physics, I didn't feel the same way around the auto industry. Despite many lasting friendships with these coworkers, I felt a little apart from the crowd and like I had more in common with the unpromotable, social skill-lacking, super nerd they kept in the basement. My bent for scientifically approaching problems related to testing our designs and building models of complex systems led the chief engineer at the facility to, both flatteringly and unflatteringly, call me "professor" on far too many occasions.
Then it was back to graduate school for many years. Masters and Ph.D. and all engines full blast for an academic science career. Now, I am beginning to turn away from academia and look back to industry for a fulfilling job. So what sent me into science and what is sending me back out?
Getting in:
First, was probably the challenge. My parents weren't terribly educated and I wanted to keep going to the end. Part of it was that seeking a challenge had become a habit. Since age 11 I had been thinking about college and educational achievement. When I went out to work I missed it. I missed pushing myself ahead each fall as the new school year started (sick, I know). So when I had climbed high enough to no longer see the ground, I decided that I just mostly enjoyed climbing and I kept on going.
I definitely saw academia as a palace on the hill and something that was as far from my upbringing as possible. At the end of undergrad-beginning of grad school I hadn't yet embraced my hillbilly, working class roots and I didn't really expect I would go back to the hunting and fishing days of my childhood. I didn't necessarily expect to get married very soon either and then have someone I would want to share a life with. Work and life were synonymous. Work=life=work.
I can't say how much ego played into it. It seems Rachel thinks it mattered a lot. She argues: Why would anyone take a position that will make the them less money for more work and all the pressure? One might argue that the intellectual freedom of the university professor is the reason, but as I will come to later, I think it is a bit of a mirage.
I knew that I didn't like many of the big ego professors but I knew many others who were nice down to earth guys who did really love their jobs. One even told me, "Don't do anything but physics. If you are good enough to do it, and you are, you should find a decent woman and concentrate on physics and being a good husband and nothing else." He was disappointed when I became a biomedical engineer. But, his point is generalized by many in academia giving advice,"If you got what it takes to be a professor, then that is the happiest path and you should take it."
One thing I can say for sure is that I never said, "I really want to discover things." I knew I liked to build things, to get things to work. When I was in the auto industry and someone who had designed something couldn't explain how it worked, it made me seriously nuts. I definitely wanted to understand, which fits with my habitual tendency for more education. But the process of discovery, I can't say really did much for me.
I also didn't do it because I love teaching or because I enjoyed writing. My interest in writing has come later and I still hate the technical article preparation process.
Perhaps the most concrete reason for my pursuit of an academic career was the perception that, as a professor, I would have intellectual freedom. This, along with several other perceptions, I now understand to be wrong. In the auto industry, I felt very constrained by my "tools". I don't mean that I didn't have the right resources, although this could be a problem, and sometimes part of being an engineer was engineering around a missing resource--just one more element in the design space. When I say "tool", I mean the procedures sometimes mandated by my company that were limiting the ability to creatively solve a problem. I wrongly thought that this wouldn't be a limitation in academia, but I was wrong.
Getting out:
This is even harder and the explanations probably less satisfying.
In the vein of intellectual freedom, I have realized that the funding and tenure process seriously inhibit intellectual freedom as much as others inhibit intellectual freedom in industrial jobs. Looking back now, I see that this is how it should be, in the sense that research like any other pursuit has to be results-based. It is an economic requirement. Those who think professors are some sort of dilettantes are wrong in most cases. They work as hard or harder (maybe they get to pick the starting time, ending time and which 75 hours a week to work) than industrial folks. So, if the type of intellectual limitations in academia aren't somehow more pleasant for you than those in industry, then why take the smaller pay check? I don't think the supposed extra vacation is worth it.
But that isn't really why I consider leaving academics. It is for a few much more personal reasons. First, I really miss collaborative efforts. This may shock some of you, but it is very rare to find a truly collaborative effort in research. Generally, my collaborative efforts involve very few "hammer it out" sessions with a coworker. The work gets divided up along the lines of our expertise and we go do it and meet up every couple of weeks. In industry, various small to medium groups of people worked informally and collaboratively all of the time within our group. Of course, in industrial work, the reward is a good product, not a publication. A good product doesn't have to select one of its developers to be "first developer". A research article always has a first author and this is part of the reason projects aren't shared in a truly collaborative effort.
I also find it frustrating that in academics there is nothing of value that isn't published. If it isn't a paper it simply isn't. As I have rebuilt a resume for industrial stuff, I have realized how far into this mind set I myself have drifted. My work experience section didn't taut a single real accomplishment because that was in my bibliography at the back of my CV. Those were the only things that counted. This is of course ridiculous and doesn't capture the fact that perhaps something you did laid groundwork for others. Yes, I could take a non-publishing academic job like being a lab manager, where my contribution will be measured in the overall value to the lab. But, do you know what a lab manager makes at an American university? It ain't pretty. (Lab manager/technician is much more respected over here and often folks with Ph.Ds are found in these positions.)
A lot of folks feel that industry enslaves them to the dollar, and this sentiment is often spoken by those pursuing academic careers. Of course, via the funding process, the academics are also slaves to the dollar. And, in industrial work one can make the the dollar sign at the bottom of a project a part of the engineering challenge they face. So the question is: do you want to use your creativity to work through the grant process for dollars or do you want each of your projects to live or die by its profitability? Personally, I never minded having the profit as a design constraint, sometimes it focused my energy. What I don't like in academics is that even after the research is well thought out and well planned, there is a stage where you have to figure out how to get it funded. If it is well thought out and well planned, what is the extra energy going to? Grant writing diplomacy.
The final thing that is pushing me back toward industry is that I like being an engineer. I like to build things and get them to work really really well. Now I find myself in a job where the goals are all biologically oriented. My engineering projects are few. The ones I have don't get properly finished because as soon as the instrument can be applied to an experiment it is, regardless of whether a couple of more weeks could really polish the device. Most of my time is spent accumulating large piles of data with an instrument that isn't fully polished because in the eyes of my boss, it doesn't matter. Maybe it is that I come from a family of construction workers, I don't know. But, I seem to be the kid that loves building the fort or tree house, but I just don't like playing in it so much.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
The Perfect Storm, I Mean Store
Yesterday, we took the short drive over to Strasbourg with the family of my French coworker. They go periodically to shop for their favorite French items and have a nice restaurant meal, often shortly before a visit from family. It must be nice to take such a short trip to a place more like home, where they speak the language and have a favorite brand of items x, y, and z. It is outrageous to me that one must only go 40 miles to the west and the food and drink available is so different and so varied compared to what we have here in Germany. Rachel hypothesized that the fruits and vegetables enter from the ocean (north, west and south of here) and the trucks run out of gas before they get to our equidistant-from-all-waters location. Of course, it is really a matter of culture and market. The Germans don't care about variety of fruit, better beef, more seafood selections and being able to buy a decent tasting and not too expensive bottle of wine in the grocery store.
First we went into the center of Strasbourg. Prior to a long, lazy walk with stops for coffee, cake and a little bit of shopping, we had a nice Vietnamese lunch of sweet duck, spicy beef and little rolls of shrimp. Our guides on the tour had similar stuff but also the "bamboo bowl of steamed goodies" which looked pretty darn good. Throughout, the kids (their two and Ellis) got along pretty well.
The highlight of the trip for me was a beer store which carried several of my favorite Beligian beers, though at somewhat higher prices than I found in Belgium. I was able to get the Triple Karmaliet, Maredsous 6 and 8, Rochefort 8 , La Chouffe Blond, and Kriek Lambic. I ended up spending about 25 Euros for beer that, if I could find it all in one place, would have been in the neighborhood of 50-70 dollars at home.
One of the other reasons my coworker's family wanted to go was to take advantage of the biannual "soldes". This event is one of only two opportunities for shops to give deep discounts on the seasonal items that they need to clear out, but non-seasonal items are also fair game. You might wonder: opportunity to give a discount? That's right, the French government tells businesses when it is ok to have a big sale! This prevents a big box store from pushing the little guys out by undercutting them year round on price or using "bait" items to bring you into the super stores. Our friends did get some discounted baby clothes and I have to say, there was a lot of variety of nice children's clothing in the shop, we just don't need any right now.
After the "downtown" portion of our trip, we headed north into the suburbs to go to our friend's favorite French "big-box" store. More or less, this was a high class Walmart. Imagine going into a Walmart type place but finding cheese that is $28/lb at your favorite specialty shop at home. And, here it costs one fifth of that. Other interesting items included a dairy aisle as long as a football field, the most complete selection of small electric appliances I have ever seen and wine ranging from "box of" to 50 Euro/bottle. My coworker explained some of the small cues on the label that one can use to select cheaper but good wines and we bought a few to try that were less than 5 Euros/bottle. We also got some nice fruit, a fish, some more Belgain beer (Leffe, for everyday drinking), and some hard cider from Brittany. (Even the expensive cider was 3 Euro/750ml .) I was briefly tempted to get a couple of horse steaks. This store, called "Cora" by the way, appealed to my longing for the Midwest in its size and similarity to what we have at home and also to my snooty, food-nerdy pie hole.
By the time we headed back to Germany, it had been a long day, so, with our French friends, we did the most unfrench thing one could conceive and ate at McDonald's. My French coworker had only ever been in a McDonald's once, but seemed to enjoy his burger. Rather than going with a "classic" menu item he chose a crazy burger with jalepenos, bacon and barbecue sauce. The fact that he needed to read the menu reminded me of a stand-up comic complaining about the guy who gets to the front of the McDonald's line and despite years of experience still doesn't know what he wants or what is on the various menu items. Of course that was back in the days before McDonald's had tacos and sandwiches made of pancakes and sausage. My coworker did have some questions about how one could make a sandwich from ribs, so we had to explain the perversion that is the McRib, a very popular and permanent menu item here in Germany.
Rachel says I can't make another French B-double-E-double-R-U-N until we have some beer drinking guests. So, come on folks, find an excuse to be my excuse to go get more beer. Casey, Joe? You are always welcome.
First we went into the center of Strasbourg. Prior to a long, lazy walk with stops for coffee, cake and a little bit of shopping, we had a nice Vietnamese lunch of sweet duck, spicy beef and little rolls of shrimp. Our guides on the tour had similar stuff but also the "bamboo bowl of steamed goodies" which looked pretty darn good. Throughout, the kids (their two and Ellis) got along pretty well.
The highlight of the trip for me was a beer store which carried several of my favorite Beligian beers, though at somewhat higher prices than I found in Belgium. I was able to get the Triple Karmaliet, Maredsous 6 and 8, Rochefort 8 , La Chouffe Blond, and Kriek Lambic. I ended up spending about 25 Euros for beer that, if I could find it all in one place, would have been in the neighborhood of 50-70 dollars at home.
One of the other reasons my coworker's family wanted to go was to take advantage of the biannual "soldes". This event is one of only two opportunities for shops to give deep discounts on the seasonal items that they need to clear out, but non-seasonal items are also fair game. You might wonder: opportunity to give a discount? That's right, the French government tells businesses when it is ok to have a big sale! This prevents a big box store from pushing the little guys out by undercutting them year round on price or using "bait" items to bring you into the super stores. Our friends did get some discounted baby clothes and I have to say, there was a lot of variety of nice children's clothing in the shop, we just don't need any right now.
After the "downtown" portion of our trip, we headed north into the suburbs to go to our friend's favorite French "big-box" store. More or less, this was a high class Walmart. Imagine going into a Walmart type place but finding cheese that is $28/lb at your favorite specialty shop at home. And, here it costs one fifth of that. Other interesting items included a dairy aisle as long as a football field, the most complete selection of small electric appliances I have ever seen and wine ranging from "box of" to 50 Euro/bottle. My coworker explained some of the small cues on the label that one can use to select cheaper but good wines and we bought a few to try that were less than 5 Euros/bottle. We also got some nice fruit, a fish, some more Belgain beer (Leffe, for everyday drinking), and some hard cider from Brittany. (Even the expensive cider was 3 Euro/750ml .) I was briefly tempted to get a couple of horse steaks. This store, called "Cora" by the way, appealed to my longing for the Midwest in its size and similarity to what we have at home and also to my snooty, food-nerdy pie hole.
By the time we headed back to Germany, it had been a long day, so, with our French friends, we did the most unfrench thing one could conceive and ate at McDonald's. My French coworker had only ever been in a McDonald's once, but seemed to enjoy his burger. Rather than going with a "classic" menu item he chose a crazy burger with jalepenos, bacon and barbecue sauce. The fact that he needed to read the menu reminded me of a stand-up comic complaining about the guy who gets to the front of the McDonald's line and despite years of experience still doesn't know what he wants or what is on the various menu items. Of course that was back in the days before McDonald's had tacos and sandwiches made of pancakes and sausage. My coworker did have some questions about how one could make a sandwich from ribs, so we had to explain the perversion that is the McRib, a very popular and permanent menu item here in Germany.
Rachel says I can't make another French B-double-E-double-R-U-N until we have some beer drinking guests. So, come on folks, find an excuse to be my excuse to go get more beer. Casey, Joe? You are always welcome.
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