On my trip back to the US in January, I had my performance review, and in it, essentially the discussion was with regard to WHEN I was coming back the United States, not a matter of IF I was coming back.
So here is what it looks like my schedule will be:
20 June 2009: SGBern Saanen Operations begin. (And I plan on being there!)
4 July 2009: Kids last day of school.
18 July 2009: Last day of SGBern's operations in Saanen.
31 July 2009: The family living in our house in VA must be out.
31 July 2009: We must be out of the house in Rüfenacht.
Now some of the less certain dates:
When the family goes back to the US: Unknown for certain, but Stacy wants out of Switzerland before the kids are out of school. I am not sure on the reasoning behind this, she's explained it to me many times, but it still doesn't click for me.
When the movers come to pick up the house's furniture and such
When I have to have the car returned to the dealer.
I do plan on living in a tent for like 3 weeks in Saanen, and living like a mountain man. I think the only stuff I will have will be a suitcase of a suitable number of clothes, my tent, my pillow, my air mattress, and my flight-related papers, such as logbook, etc. Oh I guess I will have my work laptop, too.
Now that we realize the end is near, I am trying to cram as much Swiss time in as possible, and trying to enjoy or savor every moment. I think Stacy and the kids all see this as the end of a miserable saga of torture and pain (Especially Jake would think that), and I know the relatives back in the US will all be so happy to see us come back to the US.
But me? I'm not as excited as everybody else.
The real estate agent has already started showing the house to prospective buyers; the real estate market is pretty sour right now in the US, and also in Switzerland, although to not the same extent that it is in the US. I suppose the owners wanted to have as much opportunity to try to sell the house while there are paying renters in the house, as they can.
(Pronounced like yoh-HAN-niss-BARE-ren, not like Joe hayn niss beer rin)
(Ribe Jam)
First, About the Garden Our garden is an amazing expression of nature. The owners of the property (and previous tenants) clearly put a lot of work into this house and the garden to make it beautiful. There are roses everywhere, and all sorts of other plants that I do not recognize and can not identify.
This inability to recognize and name plants goes for the weeds, as well. As an American without a flora identification book, I can not distinguish between the flowers and the weeds. What to do with all these plants growing in the garden? Is this a weed? Is this some flowery plant we don't have in the US? What kind of plant is this?
"Let them grow" said a friend in the flying club. "You can later decide if you want to keep that plant or not if it has flowers." Great advice.
Now, About the Weeds Unfortunately, this gave time for one weed, which I do not know its name, plenty of time to gain a foothold in the garden. I had to call it something; "that weird sticky plant" just didn't satisfy me. So I had to come up with a German name for it. I call this the "Teufelpflanze" (Devil's plant). It does not have any sticky glue on its leaves and stems, but it sure acts like it does. It is a weed with a very small root system, and a very excellent ability to stick to other plants and grow like crazy. It chokes out all the other plants as it takes over.
The good news is that they are easy to pull out. The bad news is that when you pull them out, their seeds drop into the dirt ensuring the next generation. These weeds are an excellent demonstration of evolution in action. The perfect storm of weediness. Survival of the most annoying and insufferable weed. Darwin would be proud. I spend many Saturdays fighting, cursing, and uprooting these awful flora.
"Don't bother composting these weeds, they are too terrible. Throw them away" was the advice I got about these Teufelpflanze from a local. Too late. I had composted these plants by the heaping arm-full. I figured it would be a great fate for these plants to rot with bunny poop and old kitchen scraps. I may regret this.
One great strategy I found against the Teufelpflanze is to get a pitchfork and stab it into the patch of these plants. Twirl the pitchfork like a fork twirling up spaghetti. Take the pile and put it into the compost heap. Another strategy that has proven effective is to just whack the pile with the pitchfork, and make the sticky-quality of the weed act against its self. You can flatten a whole bushel of the weeds and make the weeds at the bottom hidden from the sunlight, doomed to die a fate of darkness. After a week or so, you can remove them all with the spaghetti technique I mentioned above. The weeds are not always easily reached, as they are on a ledge not easily accessible to people.
Stinky Compost Heap Our compost heap is an environmentalist's dream. We recycle almost all food scraps (not meat), and the bunny poop too. Also destined for the pile are the weeds and any grass-clippings from my small lawn. Within a few weeks, all traces of food are turned into dirt. I haven't had the chance to make use of any of the excellent soil from this output, but I will be sure to make Stacy shovel it out of the heap. There is currently a tomato plant that has taken advantage of the rich soil and is growing out of the side of the container.
The heap is not stinky, unless I have just added a fresh batch of bunny poop. The only really disgusting thing about this heap is when we let some of the vegetables go for too long in the little kitchen composting box, (called bioabfälle eimer or rüstabfälle eimer) If we wait long enough, the contents will liquefy and settle; causing a mushy slurry of decayed and stinky vegetables to slip from the green bioabfälle bin.
Among the roses (which I have to admit I don't like very much), there are other plants. Some wild strawberries that have disappeared before I have gotten a chance to eat, Johannisbeeren (Ribes), about three bushes full, mint, some sort of ferns, other weird plants I have never seen before that may in fact be weeds that have enough flowers to fool us. (Another interesting evolutionary adaptation that would be). Of all of these plants, my favorite are the Johannisbeeren.
As far as I know, they are pretty much unknown in the US. At least I had never heard of them before coming to Switzerland. Last summer, we bought a nice little box of assorted berries: Raspberries, blueberries, and these weird berries we had never seen before. We sampled them and occasionally Stacy would shout "WOO!" when she gone one that was a little too tart. These little guys are not very sweet, and have a lot of zing that I really enjoy.
I was at first not sure if this bushy plant was a weed or some sort of plant. There were no flowers. The only indication that I had that this was not a weed was that some of the bushes were tied up to stakes with some string that looked like it was very old. I patiently waited for the development of these strange plants. There are apple trees in the backyard which I will get a chance to harvest starting in mid to late August.
Around early June, these little green berries started to form on the plants. I found them to be a familiar shape, and looked around the Internet to find out what they were. I had correctly identified them as "Johannisbeeren" and was excited for the eventual ripening and output of these bushes. I hate the rose bushes; their thorns scratch me as I mow the lawn, and my poor remote-controlled helicopter crashes into them occasionally, causing me to reach into the bushes to draw back a bloody scratched-up nub of an arm with undamaged helicopter. They give me flowers that are OK, but the thorns I hate too much. These Johannisbeeren, on the other hand; They give me these awesome berries.
Berry Exciting The week before I headed to Stockholm, the first batch of berries were ready to be harvested. I scoured the bushes to find a bowl's worth of berries to triumphantly bring to the kitchen. I washed and cleaned them, and Stacy and I enjoyed them with a batch of blueberries, strawberries, and home-made whipped cream. Jake joined in on the berry action. We enticed him to try the Jo'beeren by saying "They taste just like Nature's Sour Patch Kids." He tried them and enjoyed them as much as we did.
I left for Stockholm, the family left for the US, and the berries ripened. When I returned from Lithuania, there were way more berries than I had ever dreamed could come from these little bushes. I quickly gathered bowl after bowl of these red jewels. With nobody around to help me eat them, and their prime time berry joy quickly fading, I had to find something to do with them.
Making the Jam One of the bowls I gave to the neighbors one night when they invited me over to dinner. Those neighbors speak many different languages, but English is not one of them. That evening's conversation was all in German, and I think I did a pretty good job in keeping up with the conversation, with not too much frustration at not being able to explain myself. The only part I had a hard time explaining myself was to describe my job. I had never had the opportunity to talk about what I do to people who are not computer literate. It is generally a hard time to explain what I do to people who don't know much about the Internet, or computers, or networking in English; let alone German.
With seven bowls of freshly picked berries, and time running out, I had to find something to do with them. Why not do what people did in the old days to preserve fruit? Put them into jelly! I searched the Internet high and low to find a Johannisbeeren recipe, or a ribes recipe, or something that would help me out. I had never done anything like this by myself before; so this was going to be a great learning opportunity for me.
I finally find a how-to general guide to making preserves/jam/jelly. Although nothing specifically about these berries. I give it a shot and make use of the empty jars I had just bought.
First step: Clean up the Berries. These berries you can not easily pick from the branch without getting all sorts of non-berry items: Twigs, leaves, dirt, bugs, etc. So I took the spaghetti strainer, and emptied out bowls of the berries into the strainer and washed out the berries carefully. I sprayed everything off with the sink spritzer, and separated the non-berry components, and any berries that weren't satisfactory.
I put a few spoons into the freezer to chill them down. It sounds weird, but there is a reason for this. Then I took one batch of berries a time, and added them to a sauce pan. With one of the specialized tools for making smashed potatoes, I squished the berries in the pan until they were a slurry of juice, seeds, and berry slush in the pan. With low heat, I added large amounts of sugar and stirred constantly. A little bit of lemon juice just in case this is the sort of berry that doesn't have enough pectin naturally, and lots of stirring. I take a taste to see if it has enough sugar. The trick is to not add too much sugar; it still has to be tart.
When the juice has started to thicken after boiling off for a while, take a spoon from the freezer, and pour some of the jelly into the cold spoon. Place it onto a clean bowl, and put into the refrigerator. Let it sit in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes, while still stirring the pot. If it has cooked long enough, you will find the jelly on the cold spoon will congeal and have jelly/jam consistency. It should slowly slide off the spoon just like you're about to put it on toast. If it is too watery, cook it a little longer and take another one of those cold spoons from the freezer and try again.
While stewing the berries, have your jars ready for the introduction. I washed the jars with soap and water, then sterilized them by putting them in the oven at 150°C for 20 minutes or so. It is also important to note that if you leave it in the oven for TOO long, the jars will be too hot, and the jam you drop into the jar will sizzle. If you put a 150°C jar into boiling water, it still will be too much of a temperature difference, and the jar will shatter (ask me how I know this).
While stewing the berries, and while baking the jars, take the lids for the jars and throw them into a pot of boiling water to sterilize them. Once all parts are ready, carefully pour out the stewed berries into the jars. Remove the lids from the boiling water if you like, or keep them in the vat of boiling water. Place the jars with the jam into a pot of boiling water and let it simmer for about 10 mins or so. Make sure that the lid of the jar is clean from jam that has gotten on the side by your sloppiness.
Take the lids out first, then take out the jars, and lid the jars quickly. the lower air pressure inside the jar will get even lower as the fewer air molecules inside the jar start to cool, and reduce the air pressure. If done correctly, there will be a partial vacuum on the inside of the jar. If you have one of those lids that pop up when the jar is opened, the little button will eventually pop-down as the jars cool.
Ta-da! I now have something to give to people when I go back to America for a week on Monday. Since we can not import live berries to America, this is the best way I could come up with sharing these berries with my friends and family back in the US.
Here are pictures of the various flowers and plants in the garden. No pictures of the Teufelpflanze, which I think I should include to see if somebody out there can identify its real name for me.
Another thing to mention: my American accent rarely shows through my German, but it definitely shows when I say "Johannisbeeren." One of the locals thought I was talking about Johannis bären, the bears named "Johannis." I will have to work on that pronunciation.
We have been surprised that the little pond outside our house is home to about 35 frogs. We previously thought that only koi were the main inhabitants of this small pond, and now that it has gotten warmer recently, the frogs are out in force. The last two weeks in February were quite warm, by Swiss standards.
This site maintained by the Swiss weather service MeteoSwiss shows the actual temperature versus the average. You can see that last two weeks of February is well above average. I don't think the frogs in our pond knew that they were going to be in for two more snowy days, and they emerged ready to procreate. Our pond had frogs everywhere. On top of each other. Some parts were writhing orgies of frog-pile. They emerged from the pond long enough to lay about a zillion tadpole eggs. Walking around our patio in the evening had to be done carefully, for fear of stepping on one.
One evening, a frog wandered all the way to our front door, and looked as if he was trying to get inside through the kitty door. Stacy made me get him out of the way. Of course, I had to pick him up and look closely. It was rather a chilly night, and his cold-blooded disposition really enjoyed the few minutes of sitting in my warm hands. I took the frog inside to show to Joey, who was terrified. He hid his head under the pillow, "I don't want to look at the frog!" His mood turned as I was about to return the frog to the pond. I think Joey only got a short glimpse of our amphibian friend from outside, and he changed his whole demeanor. "I like the little frogs." Joey said. It soon became a struggle to return my new friend outside, as Joey wanted to keep him; at least long enough to look at him.
It snowed twice in the first week of March, and we haven't seen the frogs since then. I hope they didn't get frozen to death (the frogs and the tadpoles). I suspect they are fine.
To be honest we don't really know if these are frogs or toads, so I am presuming they are frogs for the meantime. I have also recently learned that the difference between frogs and toads has no taxonomic basis, so maybe I should just refer to them as "Anura", the name of the biological order for "frogs and toads."
Let's be honest. Jake may never forgive us for this trip to Switzerland. I have adjusted to be quite comfortable, even with the longer commute from Rüfenacht. The other kids seem to be have adjusted, made friends, gotten used to the change. Jake: not so much. "This is the worst thing you guys have ever done to me."
We sent him back to the US over the winter break to help cheer him up. I used 80,000 of my United Airlines frequent flyer miles to send him back in business class. We were hoping that this trip back to the US would remind him that he still has friends and family who support and care for him no matter what. Upon his return, (with a broken arm and a cast), we were hoping for a refreshed and renewed Jake ready to take on the new semester at school with enthusiasm and vigor.
Not so much.
"Dad, I hate the ISB." Jake mumbled. This was the same sentence that he has spoken many times before, as if it were a prayer chant, a meditation, a mantra. "Can I be home-schooled?"
"No"
"Can I go to a Swiss school?"
(Are you crazy?) OK we'll see what we can do.
The kids went to school at the ISB for one week. Friday was the "Ski day" where all students from the second grade on up go to a day's worth of skiing. The kindergarten kids and first graders go to the ice rink to go ice skating. Jake, of course, was not allowed to go skiing with his broken wrist. So he stayed home. But instead of actually staying home, he was given the opportunity to visit the local Swiss school in Rüfenacht. The school had a special day to try out the new environment called "Schnuppertag" (snooper day).
Jake enjoyed it. Actually said, "Let's try more". The school had a "Schnupperwoche" (snooper week) that Jake tried out the next week. Since the vacation days between the two schools are completely different, we decided to ask the other two kids at the ISB if they wanted to try the local Swiss school. They went to the local public school on the same week as Jake's "Schnupperwoche"
After a few days, it was pretty clear that they are no longer going to go to the ISB. They all chose this themselves. We didn't pressure them. We can't believe it either. All three children has withdrawn from the ISB, and are now attending the local Swiss schools full-time, in a fully German environment.
Josh is going to the Kindergarten named, this is so cliche, "Hansel und Gretel". The class is all in Swiss German, and he has no clue what is being said. He just follows along and plays with the kids. There are rules in the Swiss education system that prevent Kindergarten from being like the Kindergarten in the US, where it is almost as much pressure on the poor Kindergarten kids to learn as is pressure on the high school kids trying to get into college. So in a Swiss Kindergarten, you're pretty much guaranteed to goof off, play, get in lines, sing, stuff like that. No writing, or reading, or deconstruction of iambic pentameter.
Jake spends the day in intensive German training. He goes to some of the classes that involve not much lecture; classes like Gym, or Industrial Arts. Cecilia has much the same schedule.
I may give more details on the kid's educational progress and schedules in the next few posts.
Moving is a serious pain. You would think that moving once every 5 years would be enough. You might even think that moving once in the last six months would prevent any plans for moving any time in the near future.
Apparently the pain of cramming all of our family in that tiny apartment in Bern was too much to handle for my wife and kids. There was no place for the kids to retreat. Any time they walked down the hall any louder than a tip-toe, and I would yell at them to walk more quietly. I am sure that the neighbor below appreciated this. Eventually, everybody realized they were miserable, my wife included. She even was toying around with taking the kids back to the US without me, until my contract to stay here finished out. What a revoltin' development!
My wife set out to find some place new. She found several places, all of which made my daily commute even worse than we already had. There was one in Oberscherli, which wasn't that far from our apartment in Bern. After a review of the public transportation, I found out that I would have to get a Post bus that comes twice an hour, and then take another bus to the Bern Bahnhof train station. Total projected commute time, one way: one hour 56 minutes. Up from one hour, 10 minutes. Amazing, considering that this place was only a few km away from the first apartment.
Oberdiessbach, even further away. The house was awesome, the view stunning, the commute beyond dreadful. Apparently Stacy was taking this this "One man's quiet suffering" idea to the morbid extreme.
Finally she found this cute little cottage two tram stops from the International School of Berne, within a short walk of Joey's baby sitter. A short tram ride from the Gümlingen train station, which takes me straight to Fribourg. The same rent as the apartment in Bern, more space, a yard to play in, a parking space, and a most spectacular view of the Alps from the dining room table.
Faced with the very uncomfortable prospect of paying double-rent for another 8 months, Stacy set out to find some renters for the apartment in Bern, so that we could break the lease with, as the Swiss call it "ein Nachmieter" (an after-renter). We set up an ad in the local newspapers, and on-line to find a renter right away. During the whole month of December, we had two visitors. (This is really not the best time of year to rent out an apartment). Things were looking pretty desperate, and we had no prospects to assume the rental of the apartment when we finally moved in January.
With so few prospects, this was an increasingly morerevoltin' development!
Anybody who expressed a vague interest in the apartment was met with great enthusiasm on our part. We met everybody who wanted to see the apartment. There were a few guys who got out of medical school and were looking to find a place after their landlord decided he wanted his apartment back since he was coming back from an extended relocation to Ireland. They were desperate to find a place to live, they need it now! And I have just the place!
We showed them the place in the first few weeks of January, and they indicated their interest, eventually signing the lease two weeks ago, to take residence in the middle of February. Stacy had the protocol inspection with the tenants, a real estate agent, and a representative for the cleaning crew just yesterday, and as of last evening, we are finally free of that apartment! I should have a drink to celebrate.
We've been here for 6 weeks as of today, and have been settled in quite well. The kids seem happy -- something we certainly haven't seen in them during the crowded months at Somazzistrasse. We have met the two neighbors who share the house, a very nice lady above us, who was originally from Muri, lived in Berlin for 20-some years, and has recently moved back to Switzerland. The other neighbors have lived in this shared dwelling for a very long time. He first moved into this dwelling in 1945, when he was 8 years old. Retired, and terribly nice.
We have also gotten the "yellin' at" from the locals too. Not by the neighbors mentioned in the above paragraph, but by the neighbor who got angry at us for some cardboard we left out on the sidewalk, that wasn't picked up by the local trash company. As many of you Americans may think that the trash company is at fault for not picking up the trash, please understand that in this case, "the customer is not always right." Here, the trash company is usually right. We didn't follow the protocol for the recycling of cardboard and newspaper -- all cardboard has to be neatly tied up. We just chucked the cardboard -- neatly stacked -- into a big cardboard box and hoped for the best. We got away with this sort of behavior in Bern, but not here in the Worb Gemeinde.
Not good enough. They didn't pick it up, I didn't notice. A day went by. It rained. The angry neighbor shuffled through the papers, and found our address and left an anger-o-gram on the outside of the box. We didn't notice the cardboard or the anger-o-gram. Another day goes by. The neighbor visits Stacy during the day and gives Stacy a good yellin'-at -- in Bärndutsch. Well, in Switzerland, I guess it's not home until you get yelled at by a local about some critical trash or noise violation. The Swiss are sensitive to trash, and especially sensitive to noise.
So finally Christmas time is here. It has been a hectic December, so I'll try to go in order of the events as they happened:
New Apartment This place is crowded. With 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room/kitchen, this place is definitely not enough for the six of us. Especially since the largest room is inhabited by 3 children, and one of the "bedrooms" is actually an office, so that I can have a place to retreat when the office calls me for an emergency of some sort. It was a requirement that I could escape the noisy rambunctious kids.
To top it all off, something we never considered when I found this place, (or rather, when it was presented to me) is that we're on the fourth floor; the kids have never been in an environment where running was strictly prohibited. I'm sure our neighbor below us, a very nice French Swiss named Ann, is quite aware of the exact moment that the kids wake up in the morning; and also quite familiar when bedtime is. I'm sure somebody could map out a pretty good chart of seismic activity (from the thumping sound of running feet) versus the awake-time for the kids.
A few months ago, a Human Resources person had a conference call with my co-workers about our relocation experience. Stacy got an opportunity to vent all of her frustrations: coming without a permit; the long time to get the paper work in order, the long time to get the contact in order, the size of the apartment. She complains a lot. I could be perfectly happy with a tent and a few sleeping bags for the 2 years here. I guess she is more in-tune with the needs of the family than I am, since I'm not in the house 5 days out of the week. During the conference call, she got the idea that maybe moving to a bigger apartment is what this family needs.
So she began her search. This started around October. After looking at lots of places, some in quite convenient locations (a few blocks from the train station), and some that were terribly inconvenient (like some that were closer to Thun than to Bern; and another in the middle of nowhere, with 2 bus rides to the downtown train station ( horribly horribly inconvenient for me). After several visits where I sighed, "this is going to make my commute suck even more", some places where they looked at the "Four Kids"part and replied, "You will never find this place suitable", which to me means "there is no way we will allow four children to live here", We finally found one that was convenient for 5 of us, and only a little more inconvenient for me. The new place is in Rüfenacht, just outside Gümlingen -- very close to the kid's school. More inconvenient for me in terms of miles traveled, but not necessarily much longer in terms of time spent commuting (strangely enough). Best of all, the new place is essentially the same rent as the older one, with more space, a view, and a yard. I'll get more into the amenities later.
I pretty much gave up fighting back a long time ago. Stacy found out how to advertise the current apartment in ImmoScout24.ch, in the local newspaper, "Die Anzeiger". We found a few prospective tenants to take over our lease. Unfortunately, for the meantime, we will have to pay double rent, which really hurts my pocketbook. (Yeouch!)
As we had our multiple visits to see the apartment, which is really a house divided into three parts, the kids played chase outside in the yard. They would come inside being their typical loud selves, and we told them "Go back outside.", and they did. The house was built in 1777 (yes, really), and has recently been renovated to be completely modern inside. The downstairs was renovated several years ago, and the upstairs has been renovated within the past 3 or 4 months, I suppose. The upstairs still smells like fresh paint.
I don't have many pictures, only a picture of the outside hieroglyphs, the view of the Alps in dusk, and a picture of the wrap-around view from the patio. More pictures will be sure to come, and will get put into this folder on Picasa.
Opening Christmas Presents Recently Joey has been enjoying a particular DVD over and over again. He first saw the trailer at the beginning of some other DVD, and called it "the commercial movie." Probably in response or to the question, "Do you like that commercial, Joey?" The movie in question is Pixar's "Cars."
Of course, the Christmas present that will be the biggest hit with Joey is a present of the same theme. One day in a toy store with Joey, he found the Lightning McQueen Talking Car toy that just has to be had. He screamed that he needed the toy. Thankfully, Stacy was doing this shopping with a girlfriend, who was instructed (quietly) to go purchase the car discretely.
Definitely, this toy was the biggest hit for Joey. The Bob the Builder shirts -- meh. The train tracks, usually a hit -- meh. The puzzle of the construction vehicles and Thomas the Tank Engines -- meh. The Duplo Legos of the "James" engine from Thomas the Tank Engine -- meh. But this toy was the choice on Christmas Day. In the display box, the toy had the "Try Me!" buttons that could be pushed to see if this toy was any good or not. Of course, Joey was pounding all those buttons to make the wheels spin, make him talk before I could get it out of the package.
Funny thing about this toy is, that seeing as we bought it in Switzerland, of course Lightning McQueen speaks German. I don't think Joey cares much. It took us a while to figure out that there is a switch underneath that makes him get out of "Probierfunktion" (trying-out-mode), into the "Ein" mode (on). No matter what button you pressed, Lightning McQueen would always say, "Ich bin schneller als schnell." (I'm faster than fast). When the green "go" button is hit, his wheels would spin for about a second, and he would repeat his one liner.
We later discovered that this toy has a whole programmable set of command you can put in. Go forward twice. Turn left. Turn around. Turn right while going backwards. Of course, each time you type in a command, the voice responds, you guessed it, in German. Vorwärts! Vorwärts nach rechts! Kreis! Vorführung!" (Forwards! Forward and right! Circle! Demonstration!).
There's a "Sprachknöpfe"button, which makes him say a few more one-liners,
Ich suche meinen besten Freund. (I am searching for my best friend)
Wo ist die nächste Tankestelle? (Where's the nearest gas station?)
Wo geht's nach Radiator Springs? (How do you get to Radiator Springs?)
Wo geht's zum Highway? (How do you get to the Highway?)
Bin ich falsch abgebogen? (Did I turn the wrong way?)
Hua! Wo bin ich? (Huh? Where the heck am I?)
Of course, Joey doens't use the program function. He just crawls as he pushes the car along. There's no real need for batteries in this car for Joey's appreciation. Just the wheels. Hope it holds up to the abuse.
This wasn't the only hit for Christmas. Up late last night wrapping presents, getting everything ready, putting the stuff under the Christmas Tree... uh.. wait. Stacy did all that. I was just playing video games. That's right. Anyway, we were up late last night, and I was quite tired this morning, but not too tired for me to hear the sound of an excited kid, not sure which one -- running down the hall at full speed. I'm sure the neighbor below also heard this. The sound ended with a pause, as if the pause was long enough to take in the view of the spoils of Christmas. The brief pause was immediately followed by a running of full speed back up the hall to the bedroom, a pause only long enough to wake up the sibling, and then followed by two sets of excited feet running full speed down the hall.
Somehow the kids restrained themselves from opening all the gifts. I am quite honestly amazed at their willpower. Somehow I'm reminded of a movie once where the bad guy and the good guy meet. The bad guy has two well trained attack dogs ready to destroy any interluder. The bad guy throws a juicy steak to each dog. The dogs sit and wait for their command. The tasty morsels at their feet are untouched. The bad guy snaps his fingers and the dogs then proceed to devour the steaks. This was the restraint that the children exhibited this morning. I guess all the housebreaking lessons are finally starting to pay off.
I was awoken later to Joey, who burst into our room with his proudest discovery: A box of cereal -- not just any cereal -- AMERICAN cereal. Kix! Kid-Tested, Mother Approved! Joey burst into our bedroom with his newest prize, "Look Mommy! Kix!" A very thoughtful co-worker sent a care package of the things we can not get here in this country. While America has crappy food that could never be found here in Switzerland, such as Velveeta, Wonder Bread, Ritz crackers, there is also a huge gaping hole of selection for some of the good things that America has to offer.
Breakfast Cereal Rant Tangent Come to think of it, I think that a good breakfast is a sure sign of a nation ready to grasp the spoils of victory over communism. This enthusiasm for truth, justice, and the American way of life can only be explained by the most excellent selection of breakfast cereals that America's amber waves of grain have to offer. Upon our arrival here in Switzerland, it was quickly noted that such champion breakfasts as "Cookie Crisp", "Kix", "Cheerios", and "Raisin Bran" are not to be found in the pathetic breakfast food section of the local Migros. I am presented with insults to my breakfast pallet, Müesli, some other sorts of suicide breakfasts -- various mixture of nuts, anaphylaxis and death. (For those who don't know me well enough, I am horribly allergic to most tree nuts).
You Swiss should be proud of your cheese technology; your pocket knife technology, your technology for well-made windows and doors surpasses even the most luxurious homes in America. (Our windows are usually painted shut) (No wonder we don't like to go outside, we're constantly sheltered from it). You should be proud of your chocolate technology, and maybe even your snappy hats and scarves. The skis I brought from America were (literally) laughed at by the ski maintenance shop.
However, you Swiss seriously are behind in at least one category -- LIGHT YEARS behind us... Breakfast technology. Have a bowl of Cookie Crisp sometime. You will bow to our might! Chocolate Chip cookies IN A BOWL ! FOR BREAKFAST! Now that is just genius in a bowl. Seriously. You have no idea. Back to Christmas .. or ... On to the very important subject of LEGOs Yesterday, I spent the day re-assembling Joshie's busted-up LEGO toys. He had a friend back in the US, Steven, who could not be trusted with Josh's LEGOs. Invariably, 5 minutes of our backs being turned, Steven could be counted on to destroy the LEGO creation that *I* had to put together. Actually, I don't mind the destruction to much. It's the random re-distribution of the LEGOs that drives me nuts. Once Stacy would go through cleaning up the basement, some pieces would be lost, some eaten by the bunnies, (that's my only explanation), or distributed to various bins of LEGO toys (the worst).
Yesterday, I spent most of the day re-assembling some of the long-busted up LEGO creations. Of course, Josh doesn't make me reassemble the ones that I could probably figure out by myself, he makes me reassemble the horribly complex ones. If they were space toys, I might be able to put up with it. But no, this was the Medieval Castle. Ugh. I could not bare to look at the castle after reconstruction was hampered by the search for a part that did not exist in 4 different tubs strewn with zillions of legos within.
I opted for the easier fix, the Trade Federation's Droid dropship. This was a "welcome to Switzerland, Josh" present, bought a few days after we arrived to Switzerland, before any of the air shipment had arrived. Its demise was met a few weeks ago when the sound of shattering glass, followed by shrieks of horror and pain actually turned out to be the dropship falling off the shelf and blowing up in to a zillion pieces.
At least this destruction was caused by a more innocent "It fell off the Shelf and blew up into a million pieces" instead of the wanton destruction from the neighborhood hell-boy Steven. In its reconstruction, I had pieced together most of the parts myself, without much reference to the manual. There were a few times when I had to refer to the original construction plans to make progress. But: One piece can not be recovered. We don't know where it is. No clue. I can't blame it on the bunnies as they live outside now. With this omission, the drop ship remains blemished by this external and patently obvious corner-stone. Literally: the corner of the ship has gone missing.
I surfed online to Lego.com to find that you can get them to ship replacement parts. To Switzerland! I didn't get charged online, so I have to wonder if they're going to send me a bill. I found the Lego unique number for this toy, selected the piece that was missing, gave them my address (I gave them the address in Rüfenacht), and that was pretty much it! I also discovered that they have the plans from all of their lego toys as far as I could tell. If you lost your construction plans, you can always go find the PDF online and use that as a guide.
This following the instructions business was never my strong suit as a kid. I seem to remember following the construction plans long enough to build it the first time, and then the plans were lost, probably the cat puked on it or something. My LEGO foo was enhanced by my own creations -- I would model toys from my own imagination, or from cartoons I watched, or for some new space ship I imagined on my own. I made submarines from LEGOs that were water-tight (no small feat, I might add). I made VOLTRON out of LEGOs. There was no feat that could not be accomplished with my 3 boxes of worn and chewed-on LEGOs. Even to this day, I have a hard time envisioning any sort of construction tasks being solved without the ample use of LEGOs.
They stopped being such a huge part of my personality around the age of 13. Junior High school. We're all supposed to be grown-ups so quickly after 6th grade, when just a few weeks ago you were still expected to still be a kid. Now in Junior High school, you're not supposed to wear Garanimals any more, you're supposed to wear a denim jacket preferably with some sort of hard-rock band on the back. There was harsh punishments of ostracism for any behavior that could be construed as Elementary school, childish. You're expected to like girls, not think they have cooties.
You're expected to not play with LEGOs. I was caught by a girl whom I fancied playing LEGOs. Upon this discovery, and the threat of imminent ostracism, the LEGOs quickly were repositioned to the darkest corners of the closet. No longer cool. No longer fun to play with. It happened so quickly. I also lost, in a sense, that magical ability to create anything with simple blocks, or to have the same story-creation imagination I had as a kid. After that day, I lost the ability to come up with a plot of some fantastical whimsical intricacy that I had before. I don't think I have ever gotten it back. Gee, it's no wonder Teen-agers are so depressed.
I'm trying to figure out why I now dread being called back into the kids' bedroom to repair the busted LEGOs. I used to love these toys so much as a kid. Perhaps it's this new style of play that leaves me with such distaste for LEGOs now, and not some sort of L. Ron Hubbard-esque engram of the Junior-High social ostracism from LEGO enjoyment. The LEGOs can not be built any way you want, they have to be assembled as per the instructions. No deviations. Any deviations will result in the incomplete or busted project being returned to the LEGO bin.
This attitude, I think, comes from Stacy. Her brother Bryan recently gave to us a vast treasure trove of 1980's space LEGOs, many of the same models I had as a kid. I only vaguely remembered the original LEGO models, as I mentioned before, because I soon lost the box, the construction pieces, or a random LEGO went down the bathtub drain, or the cat puked on it. I went on to use these pieces to power my own creations.
This vast treasure trove of original almost mint-in-box LEGOs was because Stacy's mother dictated the style of play that Bryan had to follow. You will construct the LEGOs as the plans dictate. Upon completion of playing with the LEGO, you will dismantle either completely or partially dismantle the original LEGOs, and replace them in the original box. While I certainly befitted from this in the form of these awesome original LEGOs that we get to play with, I think it came at a price. Perhaps Bryan preferred to play with his LEGOs this way, and it didn't bother him. It would have driven me crazy as a kid.
As the so-called LEGO expert from childhood (I guess Stacy was painting, or putting on dresses, or playing with dolls or whatever girls are expected to do at that age), the role of LEGO guidance counselor for Joshie falls to me. Jake doesn't understand LEGOs, having gone directly Baby Crib toys to computer games, without any interest in any of the logical progression of kids' toys along the way. The LEGO construction gene/meme has certainly taken root in young Joshua.
Josh (6) is coming along quite well. When we got the Trade Federation Dropship, I was expected to do all of the construction. I had Josh help though. I had him sort the pieces by color, which made my task much easier. With each new LEGO toy which has been gifted to Joshie, we have assembled the LEGOs with more and more help from Josh. Recently, as a birthday present, I had him do the entire assembly of a Fire Marshall Helicopter, as I only told him what pieces to use and helped him with each step. When he received an identical LEGO set as a birthday gift, I had him do the whole assembly without my supervision, and he performed the task flawlessly. Now he can pretty much assemble, with the help of instructions, any simple to medium LEGO toy unsupervised. Repairing LEGO castles, and Drop Ships -- not so much. But he's coming along fine.
Cecilia got a Barbie doll and a matching Horse that I picked out for her at the local Loeb. Some of her promised gifts have not yet arrived from the US, so her celebration of Christmas for some toys will have to be delayed. She also recently got a book about a dog called "Mitsy." This is a book she insisted on having. The strange thing about this book is that it's entirely in German. Of all the kids, Cecilia has the most genuine interest in learning German -- not just something that is forced upon her to assimilate like a good kid.
Jake enjoyed Christmas immensely. Or so I heard. He's not here. We shipped him back to the US so he could be with his friends. We could not get the company to approve his travel on company money, so I sent him with my United Airline Frequent Flier miles. I had 106,000 miles on account, which I work out to be about 212 hours of me sitting on some commercial Jet-liner. I spent 80,000 to get him home for Christmas.
Did I mention he went business class??! That is because it took us so long to make the decision, that we couldn't fit him on to a flight to the US in Economy class, and I had the miles to do it. These are the frequent flier miles I have been saving up since 1999. To put this in perspective for Jake, I noted that 106,000 miles is almost half-way to the moon (225,000 miles). I hope he really enjoys this, and comes back to Switzerland less-miserable. His lack of enthusiasm is like a morale Kryptonite, poisoning those around him, and I sincerely hope this change of venue with the new apartment, along with the trip back to the US will change his attitude.
Me? I scored two cookbooks, so Stacy won't have to eat "Pizza and hotdogs and schnitzel and pasta" (her words) day after day because of the picky eater children. One a Vegetarian cookbook, the other a traditional Swiss cookbook. See the biggest problem we have with our American cookbooks is that they require ingredients that simply don't exist here. For example, Velveeta cheese, and Wonder bread. (no, I'm kidding). I also got a Flight Simulator for Gliders called "Condor." The disappointment for this gift is that once installed, it asked for a registration code that could not be found anywhere in the box whatsoever. I wrote to the email support, and expect a response something to the tune of "Please return it to the vendor." Thankfully we still have the receipt.
I had a Christmas present from several months ago, that I played with again today. The Ghetto Copter. I have promised to share this tale, and since I'm in the rare writing mood, and not the more common video-game playing mood, I'll share the tale with you.
The Ghetto Copter is what I called my repair attempts for my previously-super-cool Blade CX2 remote controlled helicopter. The day after my depressing Bautag with the Swiss glider club, where I was isolated in my non-Bärndütsch stage-two nadir, I realized that it would be a long winter without any soaring. On 7 October, the Swiss Toy expo was being presented at the Bern BEA Expo on the northern side of town. I took Cecilia, Josh, Joey and Stacy to see what could be found. Jake stayed home with an upset stomach.
The Swiss Toy expo was a huge arena of toys, toys, toys. They had train sets that Joey could not be torn away from. They had a huge video game area that Jake certainly would have loved, if it were not for stupid region encoding on all console video games sold outside the US. (i.e., any video games we purchase here in Switzerland for the Game Cube, PlayStation, or Xbox can't be played on our US equipment. Region coding is the stupidest invention of all time, and I can only hope that the WTO finds it in violation) (for you geniuses out there who invented on this idiocy, upon meeting you I would seriously be tempted to kick you in the sack).
In the Swiss Toy arena, they had a huge netted-off area with remote controlled toys. Airplanes, and remote controlled helicopters. The local Helicopter RC shop had a demonstration of the counter-rotating helicopter called the Blade CX2. This copter was so maneuverable that he flew it over to an object that he picked up with the heli, flew it over to the other side of the demonstration, dropped it off, and repeated. Not only did he have real skills in doing RC heli flight, but this beast actually obeyed his commands.
My previous experience with RC helicopters, especially the counter-rotating kind, was the MicroMosquito, sold exclusively by Radio Shack in the US (and only for a limited time). Although quite fun to fly around the house, it also had some really bad habits. Because it was so small, it was vulnerable to even the slightest breeze. How slight a breeze? If you had a cigarette, and its column of smoke was not perfectly vertical, this MicroMosquito would not be able to fight upwind. It also had a bad habit of getting into what we call a divergent oscillation -- an uncommanded oscillation of increasingly large swooping circles. As the blade speed was low, and the diameter of the blades not very long, the tendency for coning was huge, which led to this oscillation. With counter rotating blades, the upward coning blade met with the downward coning blade spinning in the opposite direction, ending in a crackling smack, followed by a crash. With one blade-strike too many, some parts of my MicroMosquito (which I carefully included in the air-shipment from America), made it no longer airworthy.
From the expert handling of the demonstration at the Swiss Toy expo, it was quite clear to me that this battery-powered helo Blade CX2 did not exhibit the fatal design flaws of the MicroMosquito, and therefore must be purchased immediately. I bought the boxed set for way too much money (all in Swiss Francs of course), along with the trainer kit. The trainer kit was essentially four ping-pong balls with precision holes cut in them, and some long plastic rods. The assembly was installed under the landing skids, so any landings not truly vertical wouldn't result in a dynamic roll-over causing blade-strikes with the ground. The diameter of the training set was also long enough to prevent blade strikes with the wall.
I set outside the next day to play with my new toy. It was a dream to fly. After watching the video that came with the helo (on YouTube), I adjusted all the adjustments, and managed to hover it very nicely, much easier to fly than the MicroMosquito. Of course, hovering doesn't last long until you think, "what else can this thing do?" It wasn't long until I was doing turns, flying forward, backwards, sideways. I flew it down the sidewalk. Hmm. Battery is getting low. I will have to shut it down soon. Too low! Not! Into!
Crash
...the concrete bench.
Pieces flew off. I winced. I approached it slowly. Two rotor blades eaten by the concrete bench. Good thing this guy is in Belp, and I can easily go and pick up replacement parts. Wasn't that training rig supposed to prevent blade strikes? Somehow I managed to crash the blades into the overhanging part of the bench, and out of the reach of the protective gear. Arrgh This is going to be not-cheap.
I bought some replacement blades that week, and set out in the local Soccer field instead. This should be plenty big, and won't suffer the same fate. And when I do crash (it always ends in a crash, doesn't it?), at least I will crash into soft grass. I can do this in the morning, before any soccer players show up.
I get out there, start hovering for a few minutes. Good, the replacement blades are doing fine. Let's do some forward flight. Hmm. Not going very fast. Let's do some turns with me in the center of the circle. Wow, this thing is going faster. Wow that's really fast. Woah that's getting far away from me. oh NO!!!!
Crash
This time, I had the upper blade and lower blade collision happen, apparently, I did too abrupt a movement at high speeds, causing lower blade speed, excessive coning, and a counter rotating blade strike. What is worse is that instead of crashing into a bench, or a soft soccer field, I managed to crash it in between a tree and a hurricane fence. The blades of the copter got stuck in the fence. In the terror of the moment, I forgot to shut off the throttle of the crashed copter. This is a fatal mistake that you are sternly warned against in the instruction video, and repeatedly in the manual. Now I learn why.
Strangely enough, the blades are not harmed. I take the copter to the soccer field and try again. This time, the copter won't take off, and spins madly to one direction. One of the blades does not power up at all. I later investigate the matter more closely, and discover that I burned out the left motor, which powers the top blades. Arrgh.
Another trip to Baumann. 30 Francs. Arrgh.
The two extra batteries I bought come in handy because I over-drained the battery when I crashed the helo into a fence. This old battery is useless and won't take a charge any more.
Another trip to Baumann. 25 Francs. Arrgh.
Followed by some good flights in the park over the fallen leaves of fall (and blowing them all over the place, way cool!) Another crash in the soccer field, all blades chipped or broken off. The fuselage is seriously compromised, cracks, some pieces fell off.
Hmm. This is getting expensive. I start doing the low-budget copter approach. Index cards taped where there were gaping holes in the fuselage. Scotch tape for the shattered rotor blades (which actually while I would not recommend for legal liability reasons, worked great), scotch tape wherever there were cracks. This cut down on the violent vibrations I noticed on the tail.
I present to you: The Ghetto Copter -- still flyable! Note the index card covering the vast section of fuselage that broke off, and the (un)healthy supply of scotch tape on the rotor blades and fuselage to hold it together.
I had no idea this was such an expensive addiction. I should stick to soaring. Not nearly as many accidents there.
The flying came to an end for a time when the landing gear broke so badly that I could not repair it with scotch tape, and I could not fashion any paper clips to handle the role effectively.
The helo has since been repaired by a not-cheap visit to Helikopter-Baumann by my wife, who found replacement landing gear, fuselage, and a huge supply of replacement rotor blades. I have been flying it safely indoors now, where I am forced to fly so conservatively that I don't get the temptation to fly fast and high any more. The cold weather causes the parts to become particularly brittle, and much more vulnerable to disaster. There is a huge selection of videos on YouTube for the CX2 in flight, most of the pilots shown there are much better than me.
My favorites so far:
Videos to Share
My friends who also relocated here to Switzerland had a quiet Christmas Eve dinner with their Swiss friends, and made a time-lapse video of the event. It was so clever, that I thought I would share it with you:
... Along with the unwrapping of christmas presents, also in time-lapse. I wish I was as creative as they are.
