Coffee from a Cardboard Cup

So, my mom surprised me with another baby shower, but this time, in Ohio. I think I have finally caught on now (I am pretty easy to surprise when I am not paying attention). Dad and mom are staying with her family over the weekend on their way back to Phoenix - 2 sisters, one brother and a whole mess of kids, grandkids and great grandkids. I am starting to think of it as mom’s cross country baby shower tour. As if she doesn’t have enough to do packing up their lives for the past 20 years and preparing for my dad’s retirement. I am so amazed she has the energy to think about planning baby showers!! I wonder if I will be such a thoughtful mom - she is setting the bar pretty high.

I haven’t seen most of the the family in Ohio in over ten years, and some of the kids didn’t exist yet the last time I was there. It was really nice to see everyone together. I think my mom had a really great time playing the proud grandma hostess.

I also learned that my cousin Michelle reads the blog! Yea!! I am always happy to know that I am more in touch with family than I realize. It’s like people are watching over us even when we don’t know it.

I think everyone had a good time, and everyone was so generous with gifts for the baby and for us. We are starting to get worried in our little apartment with baby stuff accumulating quickly! We better start getting organized….

Our fourth of July picnic was totally laid back. Christina, Oliver, Andrea, Benjamin, Sarah, and I all went to a beautiful lake outside of a little town called Hemau outside of Regensburg.

There were practically only Americans there - all five of us, if you count the little ones up as one person. It wasn’t quite as popular as we expected with the 4th of July crowd. The place was pretty deserted. Christina pointed out that it kind of felt like the backdrop to a horror movie. The fact that Benjamin has a habit of singing quietly to himself as he putters around added to this effect - what is it about kids and horror movies?

Anyway, we had some great food and lemonade (with ice!!). There was a great little kiddie pool, and Benjamin played in it until he was shaking uncontrollably from the chill. It was a bit too chilly for any of the rest of us to get into the water. The lake was actually pretty warm, but getting out in the cool air would not have been fun. I’d really like to go back when it’s warmer and their are more people. They have a nice beer garden as well, so it would be a great place to spend an afternoon.

Here are a few more photos from the day:

permanent superhumpers

According to a group at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, permanent superhumpers are helium-rich Cataclysmic variables (CVs) : no hydrogen has ever been detected in any of them. They have much shorter orbital periods than the hydrogen-rich systems….. It seems that the two crucial criteria for a system to show superhumps are the following: first, there must be a high rate of mass transfer through the accretion disc; and secondly, the mass-donating red star must be much less massive than the accreting white dwarf (its mass should be no more than a quarter of the white dwarf’s mass). Interestingly, the superhump phenomenon is not confined to CVs: they have also been observed in the weird neutron star binary SS433 and in black hole soft X-ray transients (see e.g. O’Donoghue & Charles, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 282, 191).

The reason CVs are so fascinating is that they have such a rich variety of behaviour over all wavelengths and on a wide range of time scales. You want X-rays? They’ve got X-rays! Gamma rays! Infrared! Radio, even!! Also, CVs display variations on time scales from fractions of a second to millions of years.

But, does it really matter what they are? The name is one I am bound never to forget.

It’s official, mom and dad are in retirement! They are taking off for the long journey from PA to Phoenix today. I think stops are scheduled for Ohio and Texas among other places. I think they are booth too tired from clearing out the house and getting everything shipped to enjoy and embrace the transition, but I think they are both happy to be going back home.

Dad already has his first pet project lined up - an air conditioned dog house! No idea why, but he seems excited about it…..

OK, I need to stop blogging now because Matthias wants to take the comfy chair. (I’ll post a photo of our awesome new chair - we got it for breast feeding, but it is the most comfortable chair ever! I am using it for work now too. Only problem is that we fight over it now…)

This post is directed at anyone (living near me) who has a free Friday to chill. Since I have the day off, and Christina made the great suggestion, I thought I’d through it out there and see if I can organize something through the blog for once.

The swimming pool in Beratzhausen is a nice, outdoor pool that is rather close to the military base in the area. Since Friday is the fourth, I (meaning Christina) thought it could be a nice place to chill out as there maybe a bunch of others celebrating too. I could bring some of the disposable grills and we could do a pot luck grill at the pool! Granted, it’s not quite as cool as a big fireworks display, but it’s as close as we can get over here.

Anyone interested? I was thinking of heading out late morning and being back in the late afternoon. If you’d are in to it, just comment or send me an email and I will coordinate.

PS - I met a woman last night who raised an interesting question - why to English speakers usually refer to themselves as ‘Expatriates’ rather than ‘immigrants’? Good question.

The best thing I can say abut the European Championship final between Germany and Spain is that we slept well afterwords. Germany was not having a good game, and the Spanish were on top of their game, so it was pretty certain that they would take it early on. Lehmann (Germany’s goalie) did an amazing job at keeping out most of the attempts, and there were many.

The good thing about Germany losing is that we weren’t kept up all night by the fans. That has been the case for the last two Germany victories. I also realized that I don’t like watching soccer when Germany doesn’t win. What fun is that? I thought that was how the game was defined!

An interesting note on a cultural shift over here. Matthias was amazed that the team and half of the stadium sang along to the national anthem! That may not sound strange to an American, but it was unheard of here until the world cup in 2006. The fact that the fans started spontaneously singing it in the middle of the game was even more impressive. The Germans have not been very attached to their national anthem, for very good reason, for a long time. It is nice to see Germany proud if itself again.

According to European Commission Regulation No. 1277/88, if a cucumber bends more than 10 millimeters per 10 centimeters (0.4 inches per 4 inches) in length, it cannot be categorized as “class one” and may therefore only be sold as a second-rate cucumber. But who wants to buy one of those? Most second-rate cucumbers — at least according to conventional wisdom — never make it to market.

What do they think people use cucumbers for that requires them to be straight??? - I’m just sayin’

They are considering changing this VERY import import rule. Can you imagine the chaos if they allow bent cucumbers to be sold as first-rate produce?!

A Bavarian man (with a Bavarian beer belly) walking around wearing a speedo on the construction site across the street….. Just thought I’d share.

I received a note in the mail this morning that a starter pack for the cloth diapers had arrived and was waiting for me in the customs office because I needed to pay taxes on it. I picked Matthias up after work and we drove over before going shopping. It was a much more stressful event than I had planned.

First, on the short ride (maybe 5 km) from Matthias’ office to the customs office took about 20 minutes as there had recently been a huge tractor trailer accident on the autobahn that we needed to pass on the way. Once we got there, Matthias got to experience the joy of the customs guy, whom I’ve had to deal with twice already. First, he speaks “Tief” Bavarian! (meaning I have no idea what he is saying most of the time). Luckily, he LOVES to talk and does, ad nauseum. There were literally no other people in front of us and it took 40 minutes to get our stuff, pay and get out! And speaking of paying, we made a tactical error on getting the diapers I wanted.

Most things that I get over here are sent by my mom and are gifts. The diapers came directly from the company, and at the end of the day, we had to pay 30% of the total price (including shipping!!) in order to get the damn things. Plus, like I said, we had to sacrifice 40 minute of our life with the customs guy - Matthias said he would have paid 50 euros more just to make him just up. He wasn’t the only one who took a long time. The cashier, who is another guy at the office f course, wrote out a beautiful, hand written receipt. Not only that, but when he had to make a few lines on the receipt, he used a ruler to do it! I actually started laughing as I watched him use a ruler to cross out a word on the form, because I couldn’t imagine anyone working any slower than these guys. Matthias was not quite as jovial about the whole situation as me, but he survived.

Anyway, after 40 minutes in customs purgatory, we headed out, into the autobahn traffic with our package. As soon as I got home, I immediately updated the baby registry. I had a few things from Amazon.com and other U.S. sites. I added a note to those items (over $25) with info on shipping to mom in Phoenix. I need to tell her that tonight. It will be easier for me to pay for shipping from there than to go through the customs game here! Poor mom, she mails me so much stuff! If anyone sends us something from the US, please make sure it is categorized as a gift - stupid customs fees.

Germany will play Turkey On Wednesday night. For those of you who don’t know, there are many Turkish people (and Germans of Turkish descent) living in Germany, particularly in the north. When Turkey won there last game, there was as much celebrating as when Germany won. It will be an eventful night on Wednesday when the two teams go at it again. This may not have been an issue a few years ago as German fans were not so proud up until the 2006 world cup when the team got back some of its old glory. Now, you actually see people with German flags flying out of their cars!! Before 2006, I don’t think I ever saw in public displays of the flag outside of government buildings. The kind of people who did proudly fly their German flags before then were not the kind of Germans most people I know would be comfortable with.

Anyway, as a result of the upcoming excitement, I got the following message passed along from Democrats Abroad today (message coming from the US embassy):

June 24, 2008 Warden Message

We remind American citizens in Germany that even mass gatherings and demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. American citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations. American citizens should stay current with media coverage of local events and be aware of their surroundings at all times……………

It goes on from there with information about registering with the embassy, etc. I am already registered, so I didn’t pay much attention. If the US Feds need to track me down, they can find me.

I am just starting to enjoy a professional sport, so I hope things go well for the disappointed fans. I, for one, am planning to route for whoever comes out of this game. I feel a bit of a kinship to Turkey since coming here.