Ramblings and odd thoughts

Tech Tragedy!

Michelle

We’ve had a major injury here at the Squirrel household. Sheridan’s laptop, typically stored on the keyboard tray of her desk, suffered a nasty fall when said keyboard tray slipped off its tracks and crashed to the floor, taking her laptop with it!

The good news is that it still works, mostly. The bad news is that the screen is cracked, so it’s now a very small desktop — LCD’s are fidgety, and while it’s mostly viewable at the moment I’m afraid if she moves it around too much she will lose the screen entirely. Continue reading →

Mind Boggling

Michelle

Things like this just blow my mind. Two people I knew are dead, and an entire community I’m friends with is rocked to the core. Just when you think you have this crazy thing called life figured out, an incident like this occurs and reminds us all how damn random and fragile it all is.

That’s about all at the moment, really. My mind can’t get itself around much else at the moment.

Eggs

Michelle

Germans love their eggs. Year-round you can buy brightly-colored hardboiled eggs at the grocery store, in 6- or 10-packs just like regular eggs. Also, most of the “belegte Brötchen” (literally, little breads laid with stuff, or sandwiches) will have slices of hard-boiled egg on them. And I’ve seen a number of pizzas with “Eier” listed as an topping! Continue reading →

And there was great rejoicing…

Michelle

Well, I finally got a call from Vodafone today! Apparently we’ll be getting our DSL hooked up on 30.04.09 – two weeks from the phone call (sigh)…. So I was wrong about “three weeks and a stamp” – apparently it’s going to take more along the line of 6 weeks!

So here I am again, sitting in the ubiquitous Mr. Bleck, plugging away at my Lappy. I have to say, I’m really glad I got the Acer netbook. At about a kilo, it’s a hell of a lot easier to carry around that my MacBook, and I’m not as worried about losing it. Not that I want to lose the Acer, but it was only $300 rather than $2500, and it doesn’t have all my research work on it either! So it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it disappeared. Continue reading →

I'm Still Standing…

Michelle

… and that’s about it, right now. In case you’re wondering, no, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. We moved to a new apartment on March 20, and the only internet access I’ve had since then is at the local coffee shop (Mr. Bleck, it’s called, and that’s about how the coffee tastes. I hate German coffee, but that’s a topic for another post!).

Continue reading →

Fasching!

Michelle

We’re coming up on the end of Fasching season here in Mittelfranken, otherwise known as Karneval, or as we know it in the South, Mardi Gras. It’s much more of a family celebration here, though, with lots of parades and parties for the kids. It’s been interesting explaining to the students in my English classes that Mardi Gras is NOT a kid’s holiday! Explaining the whole “bead” thing was a source of great amusement. Continue reading →

Aversion Therapy, or, why I'm not writing…

Michelle

It’s around 11:00 Monday, and Kev and I are in our usual positions in front of our computers. Kev is playing an early 90s point-and-click known as “Day of the Tentacle.” I’m, of course, typing this. This weekend I set a goal for myself that I will post a minimum of three days a week, rather than leaving things untouched for two months. It’s a start. Continue reading →

Cooking in Germany

Michelle

I’ve had some interesting trials in adapting my cooking to the German lifestyle and grocery stores. The biggest change, of course, is the conversion to metric measurements and temperatures. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind when packing in Athens to include my US measuring cups and spoons: dry, liquid, and tea/tablespoons. I also brought several of my favorite US cookbooks. Continue reading →