Addendum

Joe Mauer: Hot catcher or hottest catcher?

I had to share this with all of you. Speaking of the Chairman, did I ever tell you about the time that Joe Mauer dated this a girl on my swim team? Let's just say that his taste in females was not too great then, and it does not seem like it has improved since....

Walpurgisnacht, Hexennacht, Maifest and Beltane

I have finally gotten around to writing this post, which has been rattling around in my brain for a few days. One of the reasons why I am finally getting around to posting it is because I am procrastinating studying for Español and Flugmedizin. But, since I have had a four day weekend, which continues tomorrow, I am not too worried about having time in which to study.

Reason for the four day weekend: Today is 30 April, which means tomorrow is 1 May, which means that tonight is Walpurgisnacht (the Night of the Witches) and tomorrow is Maifest. This also means that tomorrow is German Labour Day, which means NO WORK. And since no one goes to work tomorrow, no one goes into work today. Which, unfortunately for hungry students short on time, also included the main Mensa (cafeteria). There is a decent history of Hexennacht here, but, in summary, the witches are supposed to be meeting on the Brocken (the highest mountain in the Harz) and do whatever it is that they do. The most notable thing about this is that the Brocken is not very far from here and Braunschweig is the closest larger city. So this is a fairly big deal here. My student residence has a huge Maifest party, so I am probably not going to get too much sleep tonight (whether I go to the party, or not).

Of course, if you had not made the connection, Walpurgisnacht is named after the saint Walpurga (there is a good Anglo-Saxon name for you) and it is, incidently, also the name for the first section of Goethe’s Faust. Which (the saint, not Faust) also leads to the fact that it is a catholicised version of a old pagan festival, known as Beltane in the Celtic world (and lot of other things elsewhere) and symbolises the final coming of spring and the triumphing of light over dark (as opposed to Samhain (Hallowe’en) which is the beginning of winter, where darkness over comes the light).

But, what is really comes down to, is a built-in excuse for the Germans to have a huge party and not go to work for a couple days to recover from said party.

In other news, as there always seems to be some: everything is coming along smoothly, class is class and work is work and crew is crew. One thing of note is that I have decided to expand my blogging, and, once I am back in the States, I hope to continue this blogging thing. So, in preparation for that, I have made another blog by the name of Fifth Dimension Tesseract, which you can find a link to here. The first entry at that site explains a little bit of my goals for that blog, so you can go there and read it, if you would like. If you have any other ideas for topics on the blog or anything else, let me know.

In sporting news: After having a terrible week last week, the Twin’s bats came alive and they took two games out of three in Detroit. Hopefully they will keep up the good work after their off day today.

And you are lucky, oder? I managed to keep today’s post to just over five hundred words, instead of over one thousand as I have been recently.

When U was spelled V, how could they tell the difference between U and V?

I am sure that you all have been wondering the exact same thing. If you have any theories, feel free to share.

As you are all aware, I am sure, this last week has been a rough one. As I have said before, events like these show us how connected we are. It also reminds us to keep our friends and family close, and when you are far away from both, it makes it double difficult to deal with some of the reactions; especially when the media is chock-a-block with coverage so you cannot get away. As the days progress, I find that I am listening to music a lot more than I had been previously and I only listen to a little bit of the news before I have to turn it off. And that is just the news magazines. I have not been able to listen to any of the interview/talk shows on NPR at all.

While I was off in emotional numbness, many things have been going on here, so I figure I will bring you up to speed:

Crew has started with a bang, rowing five days of the week. This is very exciting, since it gets me out of the flat more in the evening. (Though this also means that I am not quite as likely to sit down and write a post, do not worry, I will work on it… not that I have ever really been that regular.) The Twins managed to sweep the Mariners and then go down to Kansas City and loose the series to the team that is pretty close to an automatic last in the division. I am now taking beginning Spanish as well as Flugmedizin (roughly, flight medicine, but you knew that, right?).

The circumstances of my taking Flight Medicine is a little round about. I do not know if I had vented any of my frustration at my academic advisor at Purdue to you, but to sum it up, he ignored me for two months until I got my mother to call him. It all comes down to the fact that I had been trying to figure out if I needed to take any classes while I was here for two (TWO!) months. And he never replied. Then, after I ‘pulled out the big guns’ (direct quote from Prof Wms.) and finally broke the stalemate, he tells me that it would be nice if I did take one class here. I nearly lost it. I had been trying to get this information out of him for two months and he finally tells me a week and a half after the semester starts. Let us just suffice to say that I was royally teed (speaking of royalty, did anyone not hear that Prince William and Miss Kate Middleton broke it off and then about Willie’s boozing spree? If so, you win a prize for being able to pick you media outlets a lot better than I…). Anyway. This news led me to frantically figure out what class I should take (that had been another issue, nothing was really fitting), which led me to discuss it with my ‘overseer’ at work, which led us to finding a little class called Luft- und Raumfahrtmedizin—did I mention that we found this class at 1:30 Friday afternoon…when the class started at 2:05? And I was at the airport? Well, let’s just say that that was the quickest bike ride to campus that I have even pulled off. The normally thirty minute route took me less than twenty. All of the rushing turned out to be not needed, since it ends up that the class will actually start at 2:30 (and go until 5:30—long time for German listening). And that is how I came to take Flight Medicine, which, luckily for me, only started last Friday (a week after other classes) because it only meets every other week, because it is taught by a doctor who works for Lufthansa, and has to come down to Braunschweig special to teach the course. So I did not miss any class, and it only meets twice a month.

Now that you have heard my rant about Prof Wms., what else is there that I can relate to you? Mario moves to Berlin this week. And if he does not get his act together he is going to leave the things I borrowed from him when Dad was here here. His sleeping bag is going to do him a lot of good on my book shelf. Spring is really here. The wild flowers and later flowering bushes are popping up everywhere. Including the dandelions. Hopefully I will be able to get out and take some pictures of the lovely greenery this weekend.

I am sure that you do not want to read any more of my rambling at the moment, so I will leave you with the Worldwide (but really Europe-wide) Security Status Report:

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from ‘Miffed’ to ‘Peeved’. Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to ‘Irritated’ or even ‘A Bit Cross’. Londoners have not been ‘A Bit Cross’ since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from ‘Tiresome’ to ‘A Bloody Nuisance’. The last time the British issued ‘A Bloody Nuisance’ warning level was during the great fire of 1666.

Also, the French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from ‘Run’ to ‘Hide’. The only two higher levels in France are ‘Surrender’ and ‘Collaborate’. The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.

It is not only the English and the French that are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from ‘Shout Loudly and Excitedly’ to ‘Elaborate Military Posturing’. Two more levels remain: ‘Ineffective Combat Operations’ and ‘Change Sides’.

The Germans have also increased their alert state from ‘Disdainful Arrogance’ to ‘Dress in Uniform and Since Marching Songs’. They also have two higher levels: ‘Invade a Neighbor’ and ‘Lose’.

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed sibs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

It is not terribly charitable and not really even all that true (even stereotypically) to some of the countries that it mocks. However, the first bit and the last two bits just about make up for the other bits. To fully disclose, I found this lying about the printer room at work (incidentally, also my office) and it was, in my opinion, obviously written by an American, or some one quite Americally oriented. And that is not just because the spellings are American and not British.

Another Update....

I found out today in an email from the Purdue Crew President, that one of the victims at Virginia Tech, Kevin Granata, was not only an alumnus of Purdue, as I said on Tuesday, but he was also an alumnus of the Purdue Crew team... Best wishes to all of the families and people more directly connected to the massacre than I, but this just goes to show how closely this world is intertwined. Also, good luck to both the Va Tech crews and Purdue crews this weekend at SIRA's. Boilers: Kick some major SIRA's butt. BOILER UP!

Something to Lighten the Mood a Bit...

I found this online, much like all the others of its kind, but still quite amusing.

You've studied abroad in Germany if:

1. You have sorted your garbage into at least 3 garbage cans and you know the difference (or should know the difference) between "Gelbe Säcke" and "Restmüll".
2. You have ever drank: a Maß, Meter or Stiefel of beer.
3. You have ever had or not had "lust" to do something.
4. You get excited that CNN is in English.
5. You know what a Döner is, and you've eaten more than one in the same week from a different "Imbiss" each time.
6. You've been to Oktoberfest.
7. You've worried before about catching "the last Strassenbahn" home.
8. You've ever been stressed out at the grocery store while checking out, and have noted that you will never take "baggers" for granted ever again.
9. You've enjoyed the ablility to walk down the street/ride the strassenbahn/hang out in public
drinking a beer or other alcoholic beverage.
10. You've watched the Simpsons in German and hated it.
11. You've ordered more than one Kugel of Eis a day...everyday...
12. You've laughed at someone trying to say "squirrel".
13. You know what a "Klo" is and you've gone "auf" one.
14. You know what the "German Stare" is.
15. You know what DB stands for.
16. You've ever explained to someone what a "pinata" is.
17. You've ever visited the local gas station on a Sunday because it's the only thing open.
18.You know the difference between Milka and Ritter Sport.
19. You know what a WG is, and have lived in one.
20. You've ever been totally confused on how to open any and all windows/doors/locks.

Sad, but pretty accurate. I will leave it to your imagination to decide which of these has befallen me...

Update:

This tragidy comes even closer to home than I previously indicated: Two of the professors who were killed were graduates of Purdue.

Gun control, or not to gun control? That is the question.

As you can probably surmise, I am writing this post in response to the recent happenings at Virginia Tech. It is always hard to come to terms with the facts of life when things like this happen, and I have found it harder now that I am away from my friends and family and have no close friends here in whom to confide.

The massacre at Va Tech comes even more close to home, since I have several connections to the school (colleague studied there, know a couple kids who currently study there, crazy novice men’s coach from freshmen year went there….). Even more disturbing—to me at least, I have no idea if there is any significance to it. I will leave that to the FBI—is that (from what I can tell from the news coverage from both here and in the States) the largest group of students killed were in that class room in Norris Hall (an engineering building that seems to have housed a part of the School of Mechanical Engineering that did more Aerospace related work) and those students were in their German class.

Being a very rational type of person (there is a reason that I ended up in engineering), I know that these facts are probably not related, just the victims of wrong place wrong time, but there must be a reason why that particular building and room were targeted, since human beings, even mental ones, can never be completely random. And I know that it is just pure happenstance that I have so many random connections with the event.

What I find even more inconceivable (Inconceivable!), is that the Bush administration still thinks that there is no need for stricter regulations on fire arms. Yes, I know the circular argument of: well, the bad guys have guns so I need to have a gun also, so I can protect myself. There is also the thought that if one of the other students in the class had a weapon on them then they could have stopped the rampage. This thought, however, is almost scarier than what happened yesterday (and at Columbine and at Red Lake and at Austin and too many other places in what seems to be increasing frequency). I would definitely not feel safer if the random kid sitting next to me in class was carrying.

In my opinion, it would just escalate until no one felt safe unless they are carrying a weapon and that would be a very, very, very scary world in which to live.

I do not have any specific statistics or what-not to cite, and I do not really feel like doing any intensive research on the subject at the moment (yeah, yeah, how can you expect people to believe what you say, if you do not back it up with substantiated information, well, tough, this is basically a personal blog, so I can come up with unsubstantiated arguments when I feel like it) but I would certainly feel safer in a country with tighter gun control, and I believe that there is some evidence somewhere to back this up: that in places with tighter control on guns, there is less gun violence. And in a strictly analytical-causal approach, that makes perfect sense; fewer guns = less gun violence.

Those are my not carefully edited and randomly organised thoughts stemming from yesterday’s incidences. On a happier note: I changed the tire on my bike by myself; I am taking Spanish twice a week, we will see how that goes; and crew goes into full time tomorrow.

Finally!

I have finally posted the London pictures. I did not take a whole lot, due to the real dislike of looking like a tourist. But those that I took are up now. As is typical, the one day that I really took a lot of pictures it was cloudy. Luckily though, the only cloudy day of all eight.

That, my friend, is a Teapot.

So, if you could not guess by this post, I am back in Deutschland. I had an absolutely AMAZING week in London and I think that the best way to tell you about it is to go day by day:

MONDAY: While planning for this trip I kept having to remind myself that a trip to this foreign country did not involve so much pre-planning, since every thing is in English in England—go figure—meaning I would have no trouble figuring things out. On the flight over, at the airport, on the train and the tube I got this little jolt when it struck me anew that the advertisements were in English and most of the people around me were speaking English. Frankly, it was a really weird feeling to feel so astonished that I could understand what people were saying in my native language.

TUESDAY: Did the whole tourist thing—London Eye (I did not go on it), Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Saint Margaret’s, Harrod’s (I bought some tea—for some reason I felt sort of bad free loading on their amazing interior), Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Wellington Square. Very touristy—most of my pictures are from this day (see the link to the left). If it was within walking distance of the south bank of the Thames, we hit it. The only day that it was cloudy and mizzling—typical for the day that I am taking pictures.

WEDNESDAY: While Shana had coffee with some friends, I spent most of the day at the Victoria and Albert Museum. To all of you who said that I should go there if no where else, were right. It is an amazing museum, however I was not as impressed with the clothing exhibition as I thought I would be and some of the galleries I would have like to see best were closed. (They seem to be in the middle of an exhibit remodelling.) After being museumed out (I was at the V&A from 11:30 until sometime after three), I got a picnic lunch and went and sat in and wandered around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. I also got a start on the sun burn that I am currently sporting.

THURSDAY: Another great day in a week of great days. Shana and I went out to Notting Hill and wandered around. Man, those are some amazing houses. We also walked down Portobello Road. And before you ask, yes, I had the song from Bed Knobs and Broom Sticks stuck in my head for most of the afternoon. Such is the way my brain likes to work. After Notting Hill, we made our way down to Covent Garden. From there we wandered down through Trafalgar Square and passed Whitehall on our way back to the River, where we wandered down in the opposite direction from Tuesday and saw the Globe Theatre, the Millennium Bridge and Saint Paul’s Cathedral. After that wander we went to a play. It is called Landscape with Weapons and the main reason we went to it was because one of Shana’s favourite characters from a show called Green Wing (a British medical comedy-drama a la Scrubs) was in it. And, of course, because when you are in London, you just must see a show. As it turned out, it was the premiere and the play was quite interesting—it is about a scientist’s moral dilemma in the development of technologies that could be used as a WMD: Quite interesting to me, since the scientist was an engineer working on swarming UAV’s (unmanned aerial vehicles). Hence, he worked in the aerospace/defence sector. Hmmm, what am I currently attempting to get a degree in?

FRIDAY: Friday was concentrated shopping day. We went to Oxford Street and made our way down that street. After some partially successful shopping (I bought the aforementioned teapot as well as some books—Victoria’s Wars, Ireland Awakening- sequel to Dublin, and The Interpretation of Murder. I will let you know what I think of them as I read) , but did not see any clothes along what I was looking for), we headed down to Tower Hill to the last of the major attractions that we had not hit: the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Those are two quite imposing structures. It was also Shana’s last day in London. This was very sad, but since she is in medical school, it is probably good that she went home to revise for her exams.

I will pause in my daily recounting here to say that it was really, really great to see Shana again. I had not seen her since the last time I went to Saint Paul (i.e.: A criminally long time ago.) We stayed at Shana’s friend, Alison’s, flat on the east side of London. The tube station that we used was Bromley-by-Bow which manages to remind of both Lady Catherine de Burgh and one of my favourite nursery rhymes, Oranges and Lemons* . After Shana left on Friday night, Alison was kind enough to let me continue to sleep on her couch, since I had three more days left in the city.

SATURDAY: Really the most amazing day, and great timing on my part. From the first time I got on the Tube, I noticed that they were advertising The Boat Race. After inquiring as to what that was, I found out that this was none other than the boat race; otherwise known to Americans as the great duel of the crews from Cambridge and Oxford. I cannot even begin to explain how overjoyed I was when I realised that I was going to be in town for the event. So, I spent all of Saturday down in Putney on the banks of the Thames working on my sunburn and watching one of, if not the, most historic races in the history of sport. Let me tell you, the number of people who where on the banks of the river was amazing (there are a couple pictures of across from where I was sitting to illustrate this, and I was only at about half way… not the starting line or the finish). Granted most of them where there for the party and I heard one group on the Tube back say that they had managed to miss all of the race, but it was still amazing to see that many people there. The whole thing was also broadcast over the radio and television all over the world. Evidently it was aired for the first time this year live in the States on ESPN. Way to go crew. I think we owe a lot of that to the amazing performance of the men’s national squad at the Olympics in 2004. (By the way, I have I ever mentioned that I have also met the US Men’s Olympic Eight? Yeah, yeah, you know how much I like to brag.) Anyway, in case you are curious, Cambridge won both the second boat race as well as The Boat Race. Which is good, since they were heavily (both literally and figuratively) favoured and Oxford has won the last two years.

SUNDAY: And if anything could top off Saturday, which I do not think anything can, my activities on Sunday come pretty close: I went to a couple Easter services at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Which, I have to tell you, is an amazing structure. After church, I continued my sunburned ways by sitting along the river and reading and snoozing.

MONDAY: I took my last day in London slow. I did not have anything planned, so I slept in, watched a TV Agatha Christie movie, purchased provisions for my bivouac at Stansted Airport, and then made my way to Green Park (near Buckingham Palace) to further acquaint myself with London’s many and beautiful parks and read and snooze. A nice lazy day, and since I hate feeling like and looking like a tourist, it suited me just fine.

MONDAY NIGHT/TUESDAY: My journey back to Braunschweig started at ten o’clock Monday night, since my flight left too early for me to get to using the Tube, and the last train to the Airport left at 22:55. I spent a not too sleep-filled night on the floor at the Stansted Airport with at least hundreds of other people. I was quite amazed at how many people were there so late. But it did put me in mind of the article on NPR last year on young people staying overnight at London’s airports because the cheap flights went out early in the morning. Now why does that sound familiar? I got back with no snags, and was way too tired to make it into work like I had been planning. So I spent all of yesterday catching up on my blog reading and on everything that was going on while I was in Happyland.

To summarise my first England experience: AMAZING. And I am trying to figure out the way to get back the fastest and I am thinking of switching to banking or law, since there are not too many engineering firms in the city…. Well, I can dream, at least.
* This is the closest I could find to the rhyme as I know it. In the version I am familiar with the last lines read: 'Here comes a copper to put you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop of your head'. Here and here are a good history and alternate versions, but, again, not quite the same words as I know.

Sport

BBC Five is amazing. They do live sport commentary for the Swimming World Championships—on the radio. It is not the entire meet, but they come in for the finals of some of the more well known swimmers; i.e. Michael Phelps’ 400m IM race (which he won, while I am writing this post, his seventh gold medal—he was trying for eight, but his 4x100m FR was DQ’ed in prelims due to a false start by Ian Crocker—and broke yet another world record; his fourth individual and fifth over all for the Championships). The only down point that I have found is that they do not stream the EPL matches, due to stupid broadcasting contracts. In other swimming news, Ian Thorpe has denied all allegations of doping after a sample that he gave before he retired last year was found to contain high levels of testosterone (a similar situation and possibly the same sort of test, it seems, as the Floyd Landis debacle at last year’s Tour de France). From the reports and the news conferences, Mr. Thorpe is very angry about the leaking of the test results to the press before the inquiries were finish. Understandable I think, because Ian Thorpe has always been an advocate for clean racing, and it is truly unimaginable that Mr. Thorpe would have cheated.


In other sport news: Today it Opening Day! The Twin’s season opener, however, is on Tuesday, when they play the Baltimore Orioles. We (or you, since I will not see it) will see Carlos Santana, Boof ‘because I like Boof better than John’ Bonser, and Ramon Ortiz. That leaves the rockiest part of the rotation: Sidney Ponson, our amazing Aruban tank, and Carlos Silva. I will not say anything about Silva, but if you really want to know feel free to read all about the general feelings on him here—scroll down to the posts from Thursday and Friday (29 and 30 March). Despite our shaky pitching rotation, the field starters are looking decent. The squad is strong at catcher and first base, of course, with hometown, AL Batting Champion Joe Mauer and his pal and roommate, AL MVP Justin Morneau. The rest of the infield is filled out by Luis Castillo at second, Nick ‘Piranha’ Punto at third, and Jason Bartlett at short—let’s hope that the beginning of this season goes better for Jason than the beginning of last years. The outfield is not horribly spectacular but it is solid: Rondell White in left, Torii Hunter in centre, and Michael Cuddyer in right. To fill out the twenty five man roster are Jason Kubel and Jeff Cirillo as DH options, Mike Redmond and Chris Heintz backing up catcher (third string catcher to keep Joe rested with that stress reaction in his leg), Luis Rodriguez for infield backup, filling out the Jason-trifecta is Jason Tyner backing up the outfield. The bull pen is more than solid, per usual, and is as follows: Joe Nathan, Jaun Rincon, Jesse Crain, Dennys Reyes, sidewinder Pat Neshek, and Matt Guerrier (you can choose how to pronounce that one—I prefer the French version).

In my own analysis of the roster, I have found that the Twins’ Opening Day twenty five includes ten men with a first name starting with J. This number becomes eleven if we count that Boof was born John. My own personal hopes are that Silva continues his crap from Spring Training, and that the Twins’ management quickly sees this and brings up Matt Garza, who’s only reason for not making the starting rotation, is that he pitched better this spring than three of the starting five, and Gardy wants to wait and see which will be the worst. Let’s hope for a speedy conclusion to the pitching rotation woes.

In other news, I am debating on whether or not to get MLB Radio, so I can listen to the games—most likely archived, since most of the time they will be playing while I am sleeping. I think that I might get it when I get back from holiday, since they have a five day trial period and there is no point being on that trial when I cannot listen anyway.

I am also disappointed that Florida won last night. Hence, Ohio State better do better in the basketball championship against Florida than they did in the football championship. It would be completely unbearable if Florida 1) managed the first repeat since Duke in 1991 and 2) they were champions in both football and basketball in the same season. In women’s Final Four action, an excellent match up for my family: North Carolina versus Tennessee.

I will be leaving for a week in London tomorrow afternoon. I will not be posting while I am there, and I do not know if I will write any posts to post when I return, but I will definitely be taking a ton of pictures (which is why my computer is probably coming—thought I have not decided on that front yet) which I will upload on my return next week. Until then, happy Holy Week and Easter.

PS: I could not pass up adding this image of Michael Phelps in an underwear commercial for some sort of Speedo-made underwear. My first thought on seeing this picture was: 'Speedo makes underwear?'

PPS: Have I mentioned that I had a long conversation with Michael Phelps and Klete Keller when Purdue hosted the US Open Swimming Championships last year and that we ended up going out to one of the local bars after the meet? Yeah, went out with some of the best swimmers in the world. We hung out until the wee hours of the morning. I do not know if I will ever be able to best that experience. My co-lifeguard Aprile Kasperles can corroborate this account, as she was with me when the guys asked, however, since she is not twenty-one, she was unable to accompany us.