Random Ramblings of Indiscriminate Observations

I am told the readers want more. I got nothing, well, almost nothing. Maybe this is a good time for the first ever random topic quick hit blog entry. "Scatter Shooting" for all of The Ticket radio listeners out there. 

Since school has started things have began to settle in to a little bit of a routine. We still plan on sight seeing each weekend, but the week days have been work for Cindy, school for the kids, then dinner and bedtime routines. I have managed to stay busy so far, but not sure what I am going to do with my time here shortly when we really get into a routine. Considering a German class since the Rosetta Stone is not helping much.

I was driving back from dropping off Cindy and the kids this morning via the northern route back to the apartment. It is the rural road route that avoids the autobahn and has little traffic. It was about 9am, the sun had almost completely broken through a thin fog in the morning air. It was about 58 degrees and I had the windows rolled down. The shuffle play on the iPod landed on U2's Beautiful Day song. I believe the overall meaning of the song is to find the positive even in tough situations. Today, I was just focused on the title words and enjoying the drive. I smiled.

What is up with the lack of comments on the poop-nuts story? Thanks to those that did, but come on you other two people, that was greatness. 

I have been getting to see the Rangers games now. A few days ago I spent $20 to buy the rest of the season and playoffs via MLB.TV Internet streaming. When they play a day game I can tune in late in the evening here and watch live. Most night games in the US mean I have to wait until the next morning to tune in. Not sure what to do about the Cowboys yet. I can get all of the games live with a similar NFL offer but it is around $200. It is hard to justify $200 to see 16 games of a team that will play no better than .500 (8 and 8) when I can see 50 games of the first place Texas Rangers and probably get to see them in the post season too. We are moving into the house in 30+ days so I am investigating satellite offers to find out if I can avoid the cost of the Internet streaming option. 

It looks like Internet and television service here are significantly less expensive. From what I have seen on German television I can understand why TV service is less. The Internet service is bundled with home phone service and all together is $30-40 per month, tax included. It remains to be seen just how good the high bandwidth services they are offering actually perform.

Did you know that a half liter of German beer in a restaurant or biergarten is about the same price as a coke that is served in a much smaller quantity?

Cindy has been investigating a little discussed phenomenon. She wants to know.....(get your Seinfeld voice ready in your head).......what is the deal with people not having drinks with their lunch? The TI cafeteria is where the sample data has been taken. She estimates that up to 40% of all TI lunch goers have absolutely no beverage at their disposal while consuming solid foods of various kinds. She has gone so far as to interview a few of them. Some are saving $$$$, some claim to have a beverage at their desk after lunch, others have no explanation. Something to think about I guess. 

Random enough for you?

Do we have any Nutella fans out there? We tried it early on after relocation and L-O-V-E it. It is a hazelnut chocolate spread. We have been eating it on crackers or thin wafer crackers and Butterkeks. Butterkeks is another discovery. By themselves they are a thin cracker like thing that has a little sweetness to it. We found after Cindy decided that her favorite gelato at the shop that we visit every night is the Butterkeks flavor. 

David and Katherine have been asking to go back to a particular Biergarten close to the apartment. They have a kid menu that serves three Viennese style brats (about the size of a breakfast sausage link) with fries or mashed potatoes. Well I found a similar version of these at the store and cooked them up a couple of night ago. Cindy thought I was crazy for cooking 20 of them. Katherine only ate 1 or 2, Cindy was having a bacon wrapped chicken thing because she had brats for lunch, and I had about six of the sausages. David ate 12 of them. Along with a large banana, some pringles, and a small coke. The night before Katherine did some serious eating, more than we had ever seen her eat before. I think school is burning off some energy for these kids, or they are about to start growing fast.

David is sans tablet and all other electronics for the past 2 days. He was busted watching Youtube gaming videos after he was specifically told to go to bed, that it was too late to watch any longer. This kid is tough to parent. We ask him if having mommy and daddy disappointed in his actions makes him feel bad he says no. He is just sad about the punishment, has no desire to please us. He says that, but he does look for recognition when he does good. I think our disappointment has some effect even if he does not admit it. This is not new and we have figured out how to make the punishment effective enough to direct the behavior. He has come a long way and we have certainly learned a lot about parenting with this one. 

David has big plans on starting his own Youtube channel. He wants to be the voice of some Mine Craft game play videos with his narration. These are the type of videos that he watches on a regular basis. I have left it up to him to figure out how to do it, and I am trying to make him figure stuff out. We will see how far this goes. Making these videos is going to take away from actual game play time. He is determined that he will get some subscribers. He has no videos up yet but he is recruiting subscribers at school with some of the new kids that he has met.  

School is still going well for both kids. I attended the first PTO meeting on Wednesday. The primary school (pre-K thru 5th) has about 475 kids and the secondary school has about 540 kids. Just over 1000 total enrollment. The school has grown to the point they added twenty new positions in either teachers or administrative staff this year. The executive staff is a very down to Earth group. They have made a point to show their availability and involvement by standing outside at the main entry greeting students and parents each day before and after school. Following up my previous description about this being a heavy Apple product environment; they have a help desk for parents and students that is always staffed before, during and after school. What is the name of this help desk? You guessed it, the Genius Bar. I do wonder if there is some sort of trademark infringement in that name. At the meeting they also announced the new school website that is much more fluid. They plan to stop emailing out reminders and event announcements and are counting on parents to check in daily or several times a week to the website event calendar. Not sure how well that is going to work. 

You know, it is very difficult to set up a budget in quicken when you are dealing with multiple currencies across different accounts. 

We have a couple of picture worthy events planned this weekend so look forward to a topic specific post coming up. Cindy is on a plane to Nice again Sunday returning Wednesday. She is going alone this time since the kids and I have been there and done that.