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Another birthday has nearly come and gone. And I'm happy. When I was a youngster I thought that the only things I wanted in life would be a good wife and a nice car. And I have that. Anke is a good woman and wife. Things aren't always all peaches and cream with us, but right now they are pretty good. I'm a believer that happiness is a choice. Of course there can be barriers to this, like financial difficulties or finding out you spouse isn't who you thought you married as has happened to a couple of friends of mine. Luckily I'm not really burdened by those things. And it is luck. I could have easily ended up with a different career that paid less well. There are girls that I might have married that would have resulted in much rockier relationships. Anke and I aren't rich, but we earn enough that money isn't an issue. A lot of that is that we do live rather more frugally than we have to. Anke and I have also evolved as we've been married. Together in some ways, apart in others. But we both want it to work out, so we try to make it work through difficult parts.

At work today I think I've found a solution to an issue that has been plaguing me. I haven't coded, let alone tested it yet so it can all still go sideways on me. But I think it'll work and that makes me feel good about myself and getting that damn project done.

I don't feel like I thought a someone in their mid 30's should feel like. I feel as spry as I ever have, aside from the occasional back and knee pain. I feel young still. And that's good.

Peace with the Opossum

This little fella was clearly just a wayfarer and not some rogue raider like others that will remain nameless. I let him travel in peace.

War with the Raccoons

So Sunday night we hear this loud banging rumbling sound at around 3ish AM. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I really should find out. Our fear is that our furnace is about to blow up as it's nearly 30 years old and all. But first I check in Corwin's room as occasionally he'll go a bumpin' in the night. He was sound asleep, sans blankets. So I cover him and move on down the the basement and check the furnace. It's running fine as usual. No bumps or explosions.

I check out the front door and don't hear anything. I check out the back deck door. And there is a raccoon on the deck railing trying to eat the woodpecker suet cake. I run back in the house to get the camera, but when I return he buggers out down the deck support pole.

Monday night, he is at it again but this time he's after the seed in the swanky bird feeder. It really makes quite a racket as the tree is just outside of our bedroom window. But it's nearly empty of seed so we go back to bed when they quiet down.

Yesterday I refill the bird feeder and move it further away from the deck railing, hoping that he can't reach it there. More clattering sounds at 3 am again. Louder than ever. This time he's invited a friend to come along. As I look out the bedroom window one of them is in the tree, shaking the bird feeder for all it's worth. The other one is trying to get at the suet cake. I bang on the window to scare them away. They proceed to ignore me.

So I stumble down the stairs open the door and find one of them has taken off. But the other is hanging out in the tree, cool as you please. So I wander back in and find the little point and shoot, cause there is no focusing the DSLR in this dark. So I snap a couple of photos. Then I roar like a great ogre, flailing my arms. He just looks at me like I'm some lunatic. And a harmless lunatic at that, cause he isn't running.

I think the better of engaging him in hand to mouth combat, because he has sharp little pointy teeth and eyes that glow with the fire of Beelzebub. That raccoons dynamite! I think a broom vs. a raccoon will even the odds in my favor. I run in the house and get the broom and return to the deck. When I return he's advanced on the door, surely thinking he's scared me off. But when he sees me return wearing nothing but glasses and boxer briefs wielding a green broom, he knows it's better to cut his losses and run. I swing at him whacking the deck a few times but he gets away. As he stops halfway across the yard to glare at me, I whack the deck railing again with the broom making a most satisfactory sound. He hightails it for the forest after that.

As I return to bed, victorious, Anke tells me that I'm much louder with a broom than the raccoon raiding bird vittles. Ungrateful wench. I bet she couldn't do half so well with a mop.

Squirrels!

The squirrels are under the impression that spring is coming. They've been more active recently.

I'm so happy that there is a black squirrel living in the forest behind my house.

His coloring is really awesome.

If you look closely you'll notice that there's a red squirrel glass squirrel house.

Life

I've been feeling a bit down lately. Anke's paternal grandmother has been ill lately. We fear that when we visited at Christmas will be the last time that we meet her. My Dad had accident with his truck a few weeks ago, so he's been off the road during that time. That weighs on my mind. One of my retaining walls behind the house is deteriorating. We knew when we bought the house that it'd have to be redone at some point, we just didn't think that point would come so soon. We're going to go with the lowest bidder- still being 4K- to fix the wall and hope that'll hold until Corwin is in school. After that we'll have more disposable income to rebuild the wall completely. The drain for my drive way is currently frozen shut, so I've been fighting the thawing snow that pools into ice at night at the bottom of my driveway. And I discovered this week, that by clicking the wrong button while signing up for group benefits this fall, I diverted $2000 from my HSA plan into a limited benefit FSA plan. The HSA plan can be used for health care expenses, builds interest, and rolls over from year to year. The limited benefit FSA plan can only be used for dental or vision expenses. Doesn't earn interest. And doesn't roll over. On the bright side, it looks like I'll be getting that lasik surgery for my eyes a few years sooner than anticipated.

Life isn't all bad though. Corwin and Conrad are doing well. Conrad moved into his room this week, and has been sleeping pretty well after the first night. We've been doing some more decorating around the house. We got a couple of our nice but not worth much German prints framed and hung up. I'm happy with how they look. Anke is doing well also aside from general exhaustion. My new laptop should be arriving tomorrow. I went with a Dell XPS over a Macbook Pro and Sony Vaio. The day after I ordered the Dell, Apple introduced upgraded Macbooks. Grrrrr. I don't know that I would have ordered the Macbook Pro, but it would have been something else to think about.

Fontenelle Forest a couple of weeks ago. I love the matching coat and boots.

Corwin after his bath

We spent Saturday at the Durham Western Heritage Museum Saturday. Lots of trains (model and full size) meant that Corwin loved the place much more than one might have expected.

Conrad tries to steal some of Mommie's rice at the Thai Kitchen.

Corwin on his little bike.

Conrad and Anke.

Bad things happen to everyone, but posting and looking at these photos remind me that I am truly lucky and blessed. I have a wife and children that love me. And that's only the people in these pictures. There are parents, a brother, in-laws and friends too.

3 Conrads, 2 Corwins, and a Squirrel

Fresh pictures! Only hours old!

Cars

My Cutlass still has the original radio in it, in addition to the after market one mounted below it. I have never really liked how it looks, but have been hesitant to cut up dash in my car. I'm not sure why. I'm not all about keeping the car original, hence my replacing the perfectly fine 3 speed transmission for the 4 speed 1.5 years ago. But I just like how the old school radios with two stalks look. So I've been hoping to find a radio that would fit in my dash, but had an auxiliary input that I could plug my iPod into. Finally, Autoblog introduced me to a radio that'll do that. Some company called RetroSound put together a shaft radio that has an auxiliary input but also will allow one to plug in a USB flash drive loaded with MP3s and play them strait off the flash drive. I think I'll be able to get one this year, now that I'll actually get a tax return instead of having to pay in this time for the first time in 5 years. Buying a house and having a second kid really helps out in this area.

But this radio is a good thing in that it's gotten me excited about my car again. I haven't driven it in months. All it does is sit in my garage under a car cover most of the time. And I really wouldn't bother with the car cover except that I have a hyper active 2 year old. It doesn't provide total protection from him, but it's better than nothing. Anyway, I've been having thoughts of eventually selling my car and buying one of these:
I'm really excited about the new Dodge Challengers coming out. I'd really like an R/T with the 5.7 Hemi and 6 speed manual, when they release them later this year. I've never been married to the idea of driving a 37 year old car. But Detroit stopped making cool looking cars around that long ago. Until a couple of years ago with the new Mustang. I've never been a Mustang guy so that didn't excite me overly much. But that Mustang convinced Chrysler to make the new Challenger that looks like an old Challenger after a hotrod shop has gotten hold of it. Plus it'll be faster, handle better, be safer and more comfortable than anything built in the era of my car. But the Cutlass is paid for and I have no illusions about how much it's actually worth on the open market. It is a nice car, but there's probably a 20-25 grand difference in price that I'd be forced to pay. In addition to the yearly taxes and insurance. I only pay $27 a year for plates on the Cutlass, whereas the Vibe is over $200 by a fair amount.

Anyway I know that we won't be getting any new cars until Corwin starts school and gets out of daycare. And even then, I don't think a new muscle car will be able to take a priority over trading the Alero for an SUV or 4 door pickup. So my new black Challenger is a pipe dream at this point. It's good to be excited about putting a radio in my old blue car.

Illness

Conrad got sick on Sunday and in continued on thru yesterday. We kept him home today because we weren't sure if he was over it, but he's mostly better now. Unfortunately Anke is now down. It might be catching Corwin and/or myself. Corwin was telling me his tummy was owie, but when I put him down for bed he said it was OK. My tummy feels a bit funny now, too. Normally I wouldn't give it a second thought, but with the flu running though my house, I'm afraid it may not let me ignore it.

update, 8:41 poor little Corwin has been sick now, too. I'm going to sleep on the floor of his room, so he won't be alone if he gets sick again. I fear it's only a question of if it gets me tonight or tomorrow at this point.

Random

We had a very nice weather day today with a high of at least 56. Yahoo says the high tomorrow is 13. I know anyone reading this, has or is experiencing this too. But still! It's just wrong.

For Christmas Mom got me a couple of CDs on my Amazon wish list. One is Flogging Molly's Whiskey on a Sunday and the other is Dropkick Murphys' Warrior's Code. They are similar in that they are both a sort of punk/Irish folk music bands, but they come at it from different angles. Flogging Molly are more rooted in the folk music, but all of their songs are written by them. They don't have any traditional folk songs on their albums. Much of it sounds old, only with some electric guitar and a fast punk beat thrown in on occasion. Whereas Dropkick Murphy's is a full on punk band with an Irish influence of bagpipes and the occasional fiddle. And they will cover some old songs such as a rolling rendition of Captain Kelly's Kitchen and a beautiful cover of The Greenfields of France. Both good bands and recommended by me.

On Satur- day Anke built a couple of snowmen. She then made a couple of signs to wish her Tante Ursel a Happy Birthday. Not surprisingly Corwin didn't fully cooperate, despite his love of getting his picture taken. You'll also notice that Conrad is sitting up by himself. This is something that Corwin didn't do until he was over a year old. Corwin was always trying to get somewhere and was never content to sit and watch.

We went to the zoo on Sunday morning and it was great. The weather was nice and you get few other zoo patrons there at 9:30 on Sunday morning. While in the aquarium the octopus was out and about, which is rare. One of the keepers was there and he told us that the lifespan on at octopus is only one to five years. I hadn't known that and was surprised. Evidently when the female lays the eggs and young are hatched the female dies shortly thereafter, so HDZ doesn't even try breeding them.

Cast iron skillets rock. I got a cast iron skillet this summer so that I could cook some side dishes on the Webber grill this summer. But you have to cook the skillet in the over for a couple of hours after slathering it with Crisco, and I never got around to doing that until fall. So it never made it to the grill, but we've been using it constantly on the stove. It cooks more evenly than a nonstick skillet and if you oil it regularly it is even more nonstick than said nonstick skillet. The only downside is it's heavy and the handle gets hot, it being iron and all.

Sharp-shinned Hawk

While sledding with Corwin in the back yard today, we noticed a small falcon perched in the tree that borders with my downhill neighbor. I was only able to get four pictures with the DSLR when the bloody battery went dead. So I ran back inside to get the new pocket sized point and shoot that Maurice got Anke and I for Christmas to get a few more photos. But as I was turning the little camera on, the Hawk flew into our blue spruce tree to chase a couple of chickadees. Dinner then zoomed between the houses and across the street I presume, with the falcon in pursuit.

With the help of my National Audubon Society Field Guide to Birds (Eastern Region North America) I was able to identify my new non vegetarian friend as a Sharp- shinned Hawk. It feeds mainly on other birds, which it can catch in midair. It's short rounded wings and long narrow tail make it rather maneuverable and able to dodge around trees and branches while in pursuit. They tend to migrate along rivers, so I suspect he was just passing through. (I believe it to be a he, as the females are significantly larger than the males, and he wasn't a real big fella, being maybe 10 inches tall or so.) But he really should stick around. Between the bird feeders of my neighbor and us, there are plenty of sparrow sized birds for him to buffet on.

Germany Photos

Anouk, Inga, Oma Alfriede, Conrad, Anke, Oma Renate, Corwin

Corwin does a puzzle

Conrad

My Family

"Want more water fishies? Here ya go."

Mule Deer

The Blue Wonder

Feeding birds

Snow

Ferrets and Guns

I feel like I have some sort of obligation to post on the mall shooting here in Omaha. But I really don't have much to say. It mostly comes down to these kids having shitty parents and friends. And how easy it is to get assault rifles. I remember back when Billy and I were wee pups of 17 or so, we drove the Cougar down to the Rutledge Missouri flee market/swap meet thingy. It was like a giant hill billy garage sale. Billy found a couple of good 'ole boys selling an SKS rifle, which is like the Chinese equivalent to the AK-47 or something. I think it was around $100 or so. I loaned Billy an extra $40 or $60 to get it. So we picked up an assault rifle for an even c note, no papers to sign. No idea who we were. We could have robbed a bank with the gun, wiped the finger prints off. Dropped it in the foyer while leaving, and there would have been no way to trace that particular gun back to us. Happily we were neither bank robbers nor psychos, so that gun did no damage to objects that were animate. I hope it's harder for 17 year olds to get guns like that today. But somehow I doubt it.

What did I get? Well, I nearly bought a ferret, and right now I can't remember why I didn't. Mom would have loved that. I probably didn't get the rodent due to my loaning Billy most of my folding money. I should thank him for that. In the end I picked up a used Damn Yankees cassette for an even 99 cents.

Those two purchases are accurate descriptors of who Billy and I were at the time. One must wonder how we became such good friends.

Red Bird

We hung up this swanky new bird feeder on Thanksgiving, and already we're getting high brow clientèle- like this refined cardinal.

This photo was taken with our new telephoto lens, so you can expect more bird pictures as the winter progresses. Along with a pictures of the elusive black squirrel, I assure you. I hadn't seen him for a couple of months, but with the foliage from the trees gone I've noticed him scampering through the forest recently.

Dresden 1996

The my little family is going to Germany for Christmas. It's been 11 years now since my first trip to Dresden, during Christmas break from Iowa State. How young I was then. Just look at the picture. I could be 12. Anyway, I was going to visit this girl I had only met four times. How insane was that? My heart had been crushed and battered around 6 months previous to meeting the cute girl in the fall. She was something and she really liked me. She made no doubt that I knew that, which was something I had never really experienced before. So I was going to go visit her for Christmas. Being young and dumb really paid off in that instance. I had these thoughts of, what if we don't get along when I get there and she kicks me out? I'll have to wander the streets of Dresden alone for two weeks until my return flight! As I think back now, it's patently ridiculous, but I did have that thought. It just happened to work out.

It was bloody cold when I got there. A cold snap had started the day I arrived. It hung around zero Fahrenheit most of the time and the temperature never reached above freezing until the day I had to fly home. Which is really odd for Germany, the weather there is generally milder than the Midwest. No one there could recall such a long cold, cold spell. At the time Anke was living in this old apartment building that had yet to be modernized. The place had a coal stove to heat it! And being a poor college student she was frugal with her coal. It was bloody cold!

The neighborhood she lived in was cool and trendy. We would go to these little bars that were only lit by candles. Another one was in the basement of an old castle. We met up with Maurice one evening while he was there visiting his Anke, and had tandoori chicken and many beers. We went camping in a cave up in the mountains with some of her friends one night. Had Christmas with her family and New Years in Prague. I'll tell you about Prague later in another post, but I love Prague.

The visit went mostly well and she never did kick me out. I never had to sleep on a park bench by a frozen fountain. Who'd have thought that I'd end up marrying the old roommate of Maurice's girlfriend at the time? That I'd be visiting again almost exactly 11 years later with Anke flying with me and our two very small children in tow? I was too young to have thoughts and dreams like that.

Thanksgiving

Thanks- giving this year was nice. We had dinner here in Anke's and my new house. We had feared that it would be a stressful event, but it wasn't. We had cleaned the house last weekend, but the little hurricane known as Corwin struck during the week. So we recleaned Thursday morning. So the house looked fairly good (aside from us not getting around to hanging any pictures yet.) But it was only Mom, Dad, Maurice and Bernie coming, so even if everything wouldn't be perfect they would understand. But weather aside, everything turned out damn near perfect. Maurice fried the turkey in the back yard which turned out scrumptious, and he didn't burn my house down in a ball of fire. We filled the table out with fruit salad, lettuce salad, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and bread. For dessert Anke made possibly the best cheese cake ever the night before. Her cheese cake is always top notch, but this one was even a step above. It was all pretty low key, and just really nice.

As I was running around trying to organize the house and Anke was cooking we didn't get many pictures taken. So thanks to Mom for these two.

Happy Thanksgiving all. And to the few of you who are reading this, I assure you that you have enriched my life in one way or anther. And for that I thank you.

Halloween

This was Corwin's 1 year old costume, but it's still great so we recycled.

Corwin the Pirate after a few too many grogs.

Off to ravish the neighbor girl I'm sure.

Gnome

Doesn't he look just like a little gnome?

Friday Evening Pix

October

It's been a while since I've posted, I know. The kids are wearing us out and work has been very busy and stressful for both Anke and I.

So in the past month: Anke's parent's came for a visit. My parent's came for a weekend visit. We went hiking a couple of times. Went to the farmers market and a Harvest Festival at Gifford Farm. Corwin got to ride a pony there. I installed a new alternator in the Alero. Corwin was sick. Conrad was sick. Scotty was sick. I had a terrible headache and all of my joints hurt. My spine, neck, ankles, knees, wrists. Not very pleasant. Anke was luckily spared. We borrowed Uncle Mo's jeep for a couple of days. That was perhaps the highlight of Corwin's month. Maybe the pony was, it's a tough call, he is very fond of Jeeps. I donated blood today and my arm hurts more than usual from it. The blood girl was friendly and cute, but not so good with a needle. I'm not sure if the friendly and cute make up for the lack of needle process or not.

Conrad starts growing into a real little person. He is really interactive now, instead of just an eating, sleeping, pooing machine. His little hands get nimble and grasp each other and anything else coming into reach. Conrad smiles and laughs. I had both children on my lap the other night and Conrad grasped the back of Corwin's jammies. Corwin decided to get up and run around, because that's what he does, and Conrad was still grasping the collar of Corwin's jammies. Corwin turns around and says, "Conrad! Stop pulling my jammies!"

Corwin's rides the pony. He doesn't look so excited here but he was. The pony was a bit of a rougher ride than the carousel, and requires more concentration not to fall off.

Corwin traps Uncle Mo in Conrad's playpen

Yellow Leaves on History Trail in Fontenelle Forest

Conrad plays with the gym that Anke and I built for Corwin originally

Corwin sweeps the leaves around Conrad

Conrad laughs at Papa's funny Hair