Peanuts from July

• Dad," Melissa told me, and her eyes opened wide with excitement, "do you know what I can do? I can pour a glass of milk! _By myself_!"
  
• Matt: "X is a lot like you. Except he's rich."
  
• Dad complained that the light reading on probability theory I'd gotten him by Laplace was poorly translated. So I ordered him an edition in the original French.
  
• "Melissa, quit chewing on the suitcase!"
  
• Melissa still asks every morning, "is today going to be a hot day or a cold day?" I wonder how many hot days in a row it will take before she recognizes a pattern.
  
• Glad I was looking out the window as we swung by the Washington monument and capitol on the approach to DCA. Pretty cool.
  
• Matthew has been raised in a world of laptops and all-in-one machines. I tried to explain the concept of a "monitor" to him but I'm not sure if it made sense.
  

Peanuts from June

I'm a little behind on the peanuts entries.

• I still haven't figured out the secret behind hailing a cab in SF. I spent 20 minutes not getting a ride to the training event I was teaching, and ended up walking the 1.5 miles to my client this morning instead. Of course by then I was running out of time so it was more of a run. Then at 12 I asked what the plan was for lunch, and they told me, "we thought you're taking care of that." The money wasn't a problem, but making last minute catering arrangements was. Ended up ordering pizza. The day wasn't an unmitigated disaster, though: for dinner that night, I finally found the magic ingredient that makes broccoli edible: red wine sauce.
  
• New sign you're getting old: [young] guy in your class says, "You look younger in person."
  
• I'm a regular now at SFO See's Candy near gate 85. The cashier recognizes me and we speak Taglish (Tagalog mixed with English).
  
• Melissa charmed all the TSA guards, but they still confiscated her deadly over-three-ounces hairspray.
  
• Me: "No! No! No! Oh, wait: yes, you're right. Never mind." Fortunately my mind caught up before my mouth got to "What the hell are you smoking?" because that was next.
  
• Me: "Dit, 'merci!'" Isaac: "Thank you!"
  
• Rachel would like the record to show that she beat World of Goo before I did.
  
• LAX turns off the power to the outlets in the waiting areas when they're not needed for cleaning machines and the like. I call that a dirty trick.
  

Germany: second impressions

Germans eat french fries with a fork. They are about evenly split over whether the appropriate condiment is mayonnaise or ketchup. At the lunch counter, there was a woman whose job it was to ask "ketchup, mayo?" and hand out the appropriate packet. Having lived in Utah, when it was my turn I repeated back "Ketchup, mayo." The lady laughed and said something I didn't understand. I assumed she was asking if I meant both, so I nodded. (It worked.)

My hotel bed is sized for an eight year old. I didn't know there was a smaller size than Twin. "Single," I guess. Or "German."

Contrary to stereotype, I was not enormously impressed with the sausage I tried. I have no report to make on the beer.

FrOSCon is weird because 2/3 of the talks are in English (some by Americans, some by non-German speakers from the rest of Europe) but almost all the audience is German. So someone will sit down next to me and start a conversation in German and I have to wait until she pauses to take a breath to tell her she lost me at Hallo.

There is a kids area at the conference, which I've never seen before. I think it's a cool idea, although only really useful at conferences that have a high proportion of locals attending.

It is hot today. Everyone's face is shiny with a faint patina of sweat. Fortunately, I wore a Cassandra t-shirt to present instead of "dressing up" in a long-sleeved shirt the way I usually do. Germans don't believe in air conditioning.

Germany: first impressions

This is my first time traveling somewhere that I hadn't spent at least a couple months studying the language. I don't much like the feeling of being a deaf-mute. I understand a little better Dad throwing himself into learning Mandarin for his consulting trips.

Props to Deutsche Bahn for putting everything I need, as a German illiterate, to navigate the 3 train changes from Dusseldorf to Sankt Augustin on my boarding pass printout. The only hiccup was the last leg which moved me to a local train from the main tracks -- the DB lady told me I needed to go "that way" and take a "tram." I went in the direction she pointed and came to a bus stop with a large prominent sign saying that the 513 line went to Sankt Augustin. Maybe a tram was a bus. So I waited for over half an hour, but no 513 buses came. I asked the lady in the bus ticket office, and she pointed me back the way I came, and this time I found the local trains and made it to StA without further incident.

My hotel is near the einkaufpark which I assumed would be some kind of... park... that I could use as a landmark to navigate. No. It means something like "bargain mall."

Ordering food is an ordeal. My first try for dinner (German time) / lunch (body clock) was a Thai restaurant, but the workers weren't actually thai. I tried asking for "gang panang" and got a confused look. "Sprechen sie Deutsche," the man told me apologetically. I don't even know the word for sorry (looked it up: entschludigung), so I held up my hand in apology and left.

I had more luck at the Chinese buffet. It was a sad little buffet, and cost me almost $20, but at least I didn't have to read German. I did have trouble with the beverage order: I managed to communicate the "water" part, but he brought me soda water, which I loathe.

The hotel wifi (called "vlan" here, for some reason) signal does not reach my room, so I'm spending a lot of time in the lobby. I couldn't find my old GSM phone for the trip, so I'm relying on Skype to call Rachel. I found a corner in an employees-only hallway to call this morning. After a few minutes the manager, attracted perhaps by the one-sided conversation he could hear in English, poked his head in, turned on the light without comment, and left. Probably thinking "Crazy Americans" to himself.

Reading lesson

Reading lesson
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Taking a limo to Zachary's pizza

Taking a limo to Zachary's pizza
Originally uploaded by jbellis

The sleepover

The sleeper
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Matthew and Melissa had a sleepover in Matthew's room. They started on separate bunks, but when I went to check on them I found them like this.

Tired boys

Tired boys
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Pioneer daze

Our stake had a Pioneer Day celebration on July 24. They had a pretty cool-looking inflatable gym for the younger kids, and Isaac really wanted to play, but only if I went in with him. It was crowded enough inside that a Dad-sized escort wouldn't have worked, so I declined. So he sat near the action for the better part of an hour, sometimes moving closer, sometimes almost leaving.

Pioneer daze
Originally uploaded by jbellis

A perfect tree for girls

A perfect tree for girls
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Two-fisted bean eating

Two-fisted bean eating
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Little boy Pumpkin-head is TWO!

Two and cranky...

After a late night last night and a very brief nap today, Isaac lost steam around 6 PM. The birthday boy was too tired for cake, ice cream, and presents so I put him to bed at 7. He was nearly out, but some loud noises startled him. Jonathan tried again at 8:30- unsuccessfully. At the moment he is crawling on the bed and very much not asleep. It is 9:45 PM and I am starting to get crabby.

Tomorrow the kids and I fly back to Texas and Jonathan flies to California. We'll have to party when we all get back to Texas together, and Isaac is his cheerful self again. Maybe next weekend...

Here Isaac is helping me prepare artichokes earlier today.


Future posts about our NJ adventures coming soon...

Mom's bicycle

Mom's bicycle
Originally uploaded by jbellis

I told Matthew I would go on a bike ride with him once a week, and he's holding me to it. Even in New Jersey.

Dad has several very expensive bikes, but he doesn't trust me on those. So I took Mom's, which looks like this. She uses it to bring back groceries from Trader Joe's.

I considered removing the crate and bags, but it would have been a Big Deal to remove them, and a bigger one to put them back on. So I rode it as you see it, with the bags brushing my heels on the upstroke.

Writing Chinese

Writing Chinese
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Writing Chinese
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Grant and Lisa have a cement wall on the back of their condo that is perfect for kids to paint (with water). Melissa usually loves this game, and today was no different. But while she usually paints herself, or flowers, or horses, last night she saw Grandpa Ellis watching Chinese television, and that inspired her. "Daddy! I'm writing Chinese! What does it say?"

At first I told her I didn't know, but she persisted, so I made things up: "That means 'girl in a red dress.'" But she didn't like some of my improvisations: "That's not what it means!" Very well then, I asked, what does it really mean? "I don't know. But not girl in a red dress, that's silly."

Medieval Knights

Medieval Knights
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Medieval Knights
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Medieval Knights
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Last night we went on a double date with my brother Grant and his wife Lisa. Rachel was not in the mood for the same-old, same-old, so she looked around and found this Medieval dinner theater place. The horses were well-trained and really stole the show. The actors were also good -- Lisa speculates they were recruited from New York's theater scene -- but the script was pure cheddar.

There was a roll call of birthdays and celebrations towards the end of the night. When the MC got to "Joe, for his bachelor party," he paused and improvised: "So for your bachelor party, you came to watch men in tights? Your dad must be proud, Joe."

As Grant put it, "it's like Chuck E Cheese, for adults."

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Here is Matthew reading a calvin and hobbes book at the lunch table.