Pete's Log

Tübingen + France for the weekend

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:50:00 EST

Diana has finished up with her studies in Tübingen and is moving out today. So I rented a car and drove to Tübingen to pick up her stuff so she wouldn't have to try and manage it all on the train.

Since I needed to get Piet's laptop back to him and since Diana hadn't visited Piet and family yet during her year in Europe, we decided to do a quick trip into France.

I picked up the rental car Saturday morning and got a free upgrade to a BMW 320i convertible. I briefly considered that this might not be the most practical car for my purposes, but decided it would be too much fun to turn down.

I wasn't 50 km outside Munich before a warning light came on. So I pulled over at a rest area and discovered that the oil level was below the minimum safe level. So I called the rental company and they said to just add oil and keep the receipt. Beyond that, the drive to Tübingen was uneventful. Sadly it rained the whole way, so the roof had to stay on.

In Tübingen I picked up Diana and we continued on to Illfurth in France. We arrived at Isabella's place about 15:00. Uncle Piet, and our cousins Dominic and Nathalie were there as well. We hung out there a while, got to see most of the animals, and had dinner. Diana and I then drove with Piet to his place Altkirch where we spent the night. Here I also set up Piet's laptop that I had fixed for him.

The next morning, Isabella, Dominic and Nathalie came over for breakfast before we left. We got out of Altkirch by about 10:00 and the weather was nice enough to put the roof down. We drove with the roof down until we got to the German border, but then put it up since it was a bit chilly. We made it to Tübingen by 15:30.

We then loaded the car with much of Diana's stuff and I stayed a while to offer moral support for her cleaning efforts. I left Tübingen by about 18:00 and was back in Munich by 21:30.

bike bike bike bike

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:28:00 EST

I have now biked to work fifteen working days in a row. Coincidentally, I have also lost a couple kg during that same time.

Also, on my ride home today, I saw a car with an Arabic license plate. That was a first in Munich.

Pete vs the Blue Screen o' Death (STOP 0x0000007E edition)

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:04:00 EST

When I visited my Uncle Piet back in May, he had me take a look at his laptop that was BSoDing at boot. It would BSoD even in safe mode, and he didn't have a Windows CD anymore, so there wasn't much I could do. I fiddled with the BIOS settings a bit, but that was about it.

Since his computer wasn't working anyway, he decided to just send it with me to try to fix when I have a chance. Well, the past few months have been a bit busy and since I didn't have a Windows rescue disk of my own, I kept putting it off. But now I've finally gotten around to it. I created a BartPE CD and got the laptop booted with that. First thing I did was copy all his documents to a USB drive so he could at least get those back.

The first problem to address was that the laptop was automatically rebooting itself as soon as it encountered the BSoD, so I had no chance to read the full error message. To disable the automatic restart, the registry key AutoReboot under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CrashControl needs to be set to 0. I was able to manipulate the registry on the hard disk while booted from my BartPE CD. Instructions on how to do so can be found here.

Now I was able to see the error code:

STOP: 0x0000007E (0x80000003,0x80532952,0xF88A01C0,0xF889FEBC)

I googled this error and found a bunch of different causes for it, but none of the symptoms seemed to match mine. So I tried a few things. I ran chkdsk, but it found no errors.

I tried (temporarily) removing recent driver files by moving them out of c:\windows\system32\drivers, but that also had no effect.

So I tried to enable boot logging by adding /bootlog to boot.ini. But no boot log was being created after restarting and getting the BSoD again. So for fun I tried safe mode again. This was the first time I tried safe mode after disabling the automatic restart, and this is the first time I realized that the error displayed in the Blue Screen was different here. I now get a PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA and the code

STOP: 0x00000050 (0xAC1AB5CB,0x00000001,0x80532950,0x00000000)

Googling the combination of the two error codes (7E and 50) leads me after a while to this page, which suggests that the windows patch KB977165 is at fault.

So I check, and sure enough I find a $NtUninstallKB977165$ directory. Even more interesting is that the date of this directory is February 11, and February 11 is the last date any files on the hard disk where touched (except for ones I modified today). Fascinating.

So I run the commands in $NtUninstallKB977165$\spuninst\spuninst.txt to uninstall the patch, and sure enough, the laptop now boots again.

Pete 1 - BSOD 0

chair skanking

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:18:00 EST

There are far too few relevant google results for "chair skanking."

That is what I am currently doing, and it is excellent.

because google needs to know

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:44:00 EST

Mongolian hat cookie!

My first tweet

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:53:00 EST

I now have a twitter account. I don't intend to post to it much, though that might change. I just decided to follow a few people and to do that one needs an account. Anyway, here is my first ever tweet:

I really just wanted to make sure the username prijks doesn't get taken.

who I write like

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:00:00 EST

Miriam posted a link to I Write Like on facebook, so I decided to play with it. I had it analyze all the log entries I wrote that I have rated a 5. The results are as follows:

Entry	Writer
134	James Joyce
136	Ursula K. Le Guin
176	Arthur C. Clarke
361	Stephen King
696	P. G. Wodehouse
918	Lewis Carroll
1014	Dan Brown
1037	William Gibson
1126	H.P. Lovecraft
1134	David Foster Wallace
1161	James Joyce
1218	Dan Brown
1220	James Joyce
1250	James Joyce
1293	David Foster Wallace
1410	David Foster Wallace
1453	David Foster Wallace
1506	Charles Dickens

I find it interesting that there is so much variation early on, while James Joyce and David Foster Wallace are "responsible" for 7 of the 9 most recent entries. If I'm bored sometime, I could write a script to have all entries analyzed.

Also, entry 918, supposedly written like Lewis Carrol, consists solely of the text alias cwdcmd "alias precmd 'cd - ; unalias precmd'".

In this entry I apparently write like Dan Brown.

just another weekend in Munich

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:09:00 EST

Miles organized a bike trip to Kloster Andechs on Saturday morning. Eight of us, including Tony and Cobus biked the 50 km there. We got off to a slow start since nobody knew the best way to get there and so four people were using map apps on their phone, which meant there were four different ideas on which way to go. But we made it. It took about three and a half hours.

At Andechs we had lunch and a few beers. We then biked down the few km to Herrsching where we jumped into the Ammersee to cool off. We came up with the brilliant idea of bringing beers into the lake with us. Then we took the S-Bahn home.

Sunday I was happy to wake up not sore. I guess riding 20km to work every day last week helped. After a lazy morning, Tony and I biked to the English Garden to hang out with some people before playing Frisbee. Frisbee was great, despite the heat. Then to cool down, we floated down the Eisbach a few times. Even in 30C+ weather, the Eisbach still lives up to its name.

The weekend was finished up at the Hirschau beergarden, watching the world cup final.

I love Munich in the summer.

my bike commute

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:26:00 EST

I biked to work four times this week. That means 72 km (45 miles) of biking this week. The only drawback is that I've read very little of this week's Economist as a result.

But in addition to the extra calories burned, I get the benefit of a scenic trip. Heading to work, I go West on Prinzregentenstraße, passing by Prinzregentenplatz and the Friedensengel before crossing the Isar.

I then continue to follow Prinzregentenstraße, past the Bavarian National Museaum and over the Eisbach, where I can catch a glimpse of the surfers. Then on past Haus der Kunst to where Prinzregentenstraße turns into Von-der-Tann-Straße. Here I pass the American Consulate General. Not much further I run into Ludwigstraße.

Here I turn left, bike the short distance to Odeonsplatz, and turn right onto Brienner Straße. Along Brienner Straße I pass the Platz der Opfer des Nationalsozialismus and Karolinenplatz before getting to Königsplatz. Here I also bike past Bree.

At Stieglmaierplatz, Briener Straße turns into Nymphenburger Straße. I follow Nymphenburger Straße a few blocks and turn left onto Pappenheimstraße. Here I bike past the Spaten/Franziskaner brewery and then cross the main rail tracks into Munich via the Hackerbrücke.

I then turn onto Landsberger Straße, where I bike past the Augustiner Brewery. Then underneath Donnersbergerbrücke and it's a straight shot until Elsenheimerstraße and my goal.

I could have linked to even more Wikipedia articles if I'd linked to German ones instead of English ones. But all in all, it's not a bad commute. I want to try to mount my camera to my handle bars and get a time lapse video. We'll see how that goes...

Lazy man's S'mores

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:06:00 EST

I met some friends at the Isar on Saturday for some riverside grilling. Before biking over I stopped by a store for supplies. At the store I found marschmallows! Which obviously meant s'mores had to happen. Except that one generally can't find graham crackers in Germany. So I was going to pick up some cookies of an appropriate shape, plus chocolate, and just make do with that.

Instead, I found the following:

And thus the lazy German s'more was born.

World Cup 2010!

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:33:00 EST

Teams I am cheering for: USA, Germany, South Africa (since I feel the hosts should at least make it out of the first round)

Team I am cheering against: France

B.S. + 10

Fri, 28 May 2010 13:33:00 EST

I just got an email from Notre Dame reminding me about the 10 year reunion this summer. Which in turn reminded me that I have now actually passed (by about a week) the 10 year mark since my graduation. So wow and all that. Of course, it's only been a bit over seven years since I actually left South Bend, so it doesn't feel like quite as long.

Or maybe it does. I'm not quite sure.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning for who knows what reason and looked out the window to see blue skies and sunshine. So I decided to ride my bike to work. This was the second time I biked to work this week and the sixth since my first attempt.

lol wut?

Tue, 25 May 2010 13:21:00 EST

Today we had English-speaking visitors at the office. I didn't have anything to do with them, except that I offered them coffee and water while they waited for the person they were actually there to see. After I brought them coffee and water, they thanked me, and I nearly responded with "Please."

You see, in German, the word "Bitte" means both "Please" and "You're welcome." I at least managed to stop myself before saying please. But it then took me a few seconds to remember that the phrase I was looking for was "you're welcome." Heh.

Also, I initially spelled English in the first sentence above as Englisch (which is the German spelling). Help!

Mamie left for Japan today. We had an entertaining month. I will hopefully post our adventures soon.

reading

Tue, 04 May 2010 18:08:00 EST

Tyler Cowen has some interesting observations on reading.

I've long been the sort to feel a commitment to books, feeling compelled to finish them. The downside of this is that when I come across one that doesn't hold my interest, I end up not reading any books at all for a while, since I don't want to start a new one before finishing the current one. Based on what Tyler has to say, I will be more ruthless in discarding unappealing books.

I considered taking this approach recently with The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which I had picked up as a single volume edition. A few dozen pages into the book I was already finding it hard to keep up with all the characters and plots and such. But instead of giving up on the book, I simply decided instead that I was not going to try to understand it. So I just powered through. Without the constraint of needing to understand what I was reading, I actually enjoyed the book. I'm not entirely sure if that's a positive review or not.

Before Illuminatus, I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which I finished in under a day. Definitely recommended, though not exactly a happy book.

Before that I read the first two books of the Millennium Trilogy, which I found entertaining enough, if a bit implausible.

Currently I'm rereading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as well as reading a book on the Oracle cost-based optimizer that is actually somewhat entertaining.

Anyway, from the completely useless statistics department, here's an overview of how much I've bought from amazon:

My first amazon order was I Will Fear No Evil by Robert Heinlein on May 28, 1997.

gbtb

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:28:00 EST

Life is pretty good.

At the end of March I took Diana skiing at Hochzillertal. We went on a day trip, taking a bus that included the ski pass in the bus ticket. Diana then stayed at our place again through Easter, before heading to Greece for a week. She is now back in Tübingen.

Since then, Ultimate Frisbee season has taken off. I'm slowly getting back into frisbee shape. The past two Sundays we've had enough people to play two games at once.

And today is the second Wednesday in a row that I biked to work. The trip took me 30 minutes today, which is actually faster than public transportation. I also didn't feel nearly as tired after the trip today as I did after the first time. I'm expecting this to be a good summer.

Mamie is in Munich! She arrived Monday. Yesterday I took her to Hüttnwirt, so now Antje has met all of my sisters. Mamie says the Jägerschnitzel at Hüttnwirt is better than the one she had in Tokyo.

Israel

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:45:00 EST

So I've now been to Israel.

One of our partner companies is based in Jerusalem, and they invited a few of us to their office for a training. So with two of my colleagues, I flew to Tel Aviv on March 7th. When flying from Munich to Israel, you check in at terminal 1, module F (the Munich airport website calls them modules, so I too shall call them modules). Even if you're flying Lufthansa, which always flies from Terminal 2.

Module F is not even on the map of terminal 1 on the Munich airport webpage:

Module F is where they have checkins for security-sensitive flights. It is actually closer to terminal 2, and to get there, you walk past module A:

The security measures we went through were not nearly as strict as I expected. You got a little bit extra attention, but not much. The flight was uneventful, and it was too cloudy for most of the way to see much. I used my American passport to get into Israel, since my Belgian one has Saudi stamps and I figured it would be easier this way. At passport control I was asked a few questions about the purpose of my trip. My passport was stamped and I got a little receipt. Past passport control there was another checkpoint where they were collecting these receipts. When I handed over mine, the woman also took my passport and handed it to some other woman. She had me sit down off to the side. The same thing happened to one of my colleagues. After a few minutes, yet another woman came and interviewed me, while a fourth woman interviewed my colleague. They asked the same questions about the purpose of our visit. As soon as they realized we were travelling together, they gave us our passports and let us go. Luckily, I do not have to understand the purpose of these security measures.

ATM, grab Sheqels (5 to the euro), and hop in a Taxi. An hour or so later we're checking in at the hotel. We all get rooms on the 18th floor of the Crowne Plaza hotel. Here's my view:

That first night we got advice at the front desk of which way to wander. We made our way into a market area and found a restaurant in a side street that served us up a wide variety of food, including the staple hummus, falafel, and so on. Good start to the week.

The next four days were working days. The hospitality of our partner company was great, they took us out to lunch and dinner at a bunch of great places, and the training was good too. There wasn't much time for sightseeing, but in terms of food tourism we did great. Lots more hummus, falafel, kebab, and so on. I also wound up trying some calf brain. Check that one off the list, I guess.

Thursday we went to a Jewish wedding. One of the employees of our partner company was getting married, and invited us along, since most of the company was going to be there anyway. The only part of the ceremony I understood was "Mazel Tov!" The party afterwards wasn't very traditional I was informed. The music was (with some exceptions) the same you might hear at an American wedding. But it was neat to be invited and to experience.

Friday morning we finally made it to the old city. We managed to see the Western (Wailing) Wall, most of the Via Doloraso, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and, from a distance, the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque. The place certainly is teeming with history. In comparison to West Jerusalem, where we had stayed so far, the old city was full of security forces. There seemed to be police at just about every street corner. Since we were white westerners, though, they basically ignored us.

After our tour of the old city, we caught a cab back to Tel Aviv. The cab driver nearly drove my poor German colleague insane. The two of us in the back seat lucked out, I guess. In Tel Aviv we checked into our hotel there, then made our way to the beach. We explored Northward along the beach, managing to find dinner and some cocktails along the way.

Saturday we headed South from the hotel, again along the beach, and made our way to Jaffa. There we explored the old city before heading back to the beach near our hotel. Here we found a place on the beach that offered Hookah's in addition to cocktails:

Finally on Sunday we made our way to the Tel Aviv airport and back home. If anything, security was stricter on the way out than on the way in. In the end, the primary purpose of the trip was business, and the training we got was good. And it was also good to put faces to the names of a number of people I communicate with regularly. But I appreciated the chance to see Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and to have time to see some of the sights.

As usual, I partook in some beer tourism:

Goldstar on the left (I managed to bring a couple bottles back) and Malka on the right. Both were decent beers. I also enjoyed the opportunity to have some Sam Adams, Duvel, Leffe Bruin, and various other beers I know and love but can't find in Bavaria.

this will end badly

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:10:00 EST

I can't even remember when I learned the gang sign for the Bloods. I just know I've amused myself for years by flashing the sign at people in the sorts of environments where a silly white boy can get away with such things. The sign involves forming the letters "blo" with your right hand and "od" with your left hand and putting it all together. I've been doing it for so long that I can put it together in under a second from muscle memory.

Since moving to Munich, I have taught the sign to Miles, an Englishman of my acquaintance. He's gotten pretty good at it himself.

I'm not sure how the topic came up, but over beers after frisbee on Sunday, I was showing Irish Pete how to make this sign. The three German girls at the table with us also wanted to learn, so we had a quick bloods session.

Later, when Miles came to our end of the table, I told the girls to show him what I had taught them. It took a couple seconds, but all three of them flashed the bloods sign at him. Perhaps one of the greatest moments of my life.

Biking and the View from my Office part 2

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:18:00 EST

Today I finally got my bike roadworthy again. I bought two new tires and two new inner tubes, put those on, then gave the bike a good wash and lubed up the chain and attempted to tune the brakes.

I've been considering riding my bike to work every once in a while (particularly on frisbee Wednesdays), but decided I should try it on a weekend first, to figure out how long it actually takes. So that's what I did. It wound up taking 40 minutes there and 35 minutes back. In neither direction did I take the most optimal route. I will need to work on that. But in any event, this is definitely doable, since it takes me about 30-45 minutes to get to work with public transit anyway.

The bike ride has the added bonus that it is very scenic, as I get to ride through the old city. Anyway, while I was briefly at the office today, I took a couple pictures of what the view from my office actually looks like, since a few people requested it. Here it is from the window:

The thing that the "wind turbine" arrow is pointing at is not actually the wind turbine. It wasn't clear enough to see it today. The wind turbine is in that direction, though. And here's how it looks from my desk:

Oh, and because why not, here is Gandhi sitting in my window at home:

The View from my Office

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:02:00 EST

Today is an incredibly clear day. And since our office is on the top floor of the building, I have a pretty nice view. I can see the BMW Tower and the Highlight Towers, as well as a wind turbine near the Allianz Arena. This turbine is nearly 12 km away.

I played around in google maps a bit. Here is what I see: mappy

hoodies

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:43:00 EST

I might not be five popped collars cool, but I'm thinking five stacked hoodies is going to be the next big thing:

Dropkick Murphy's!

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:58:00 EST

Wednesday Night I saw the Dropkick Murphy's play at Zenith with Tony and Robin. Opening acts were The Mahones and Sick Of It All. It was an excellent show. However: I am too old for moshpits. Two days later and I'm still sore.

It's been nearly two years since I last saw them, which was also at the Zenith.

So now, after Gogol Bordello, I think this is the second band -- other than local/college bands -- that I've seen live twice. And the first band -- other than local/college bands -- that I've seen live twice at the same venue.

I fed my hoodie addiction with the purchase of a Sick Of It All hoodie, since I already have a DKM hoodie.

Hintertux!

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:42:00 EST

Last weekend, to celebrate the birthday of our friend Cobus, 14 of us went on a weekend ski trip to Hintertux. We stayed at the same hut as last year, the Spannagelhaus at 2531 m elevation.

The weather was great, and like last year, I sported a mohawk for aerodynamic purposes. It was an excellent weekend.

My only regret is that Saturday night I took out my contacts before thinking to look at the stars. It was a really clear night, and at the elevation we were at, the stars were probably great, especially since there would have been minimal light pollution. Oh well. Next time.

Servus

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:30:00 EST

I called my boss the other day, and when he answered the phone I greeted him with "Servus." My colleague at the next desk over starts to laugh. After my call, I asked him what he was laughing about. He finds it funny to have an American sitting next to him whom one would think is German if one didn't know any better.

To be noted if you're an aspiring American spy in Bavaria.

On January 11, I was a bit sad to realize that would be the last binary-looking date of the year. Then I remembered October and November.

DHL woes

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:05:00 EST

Mamie spent Christmas alone in Japan this year (well, not alone, just without family). For this reason, I decided to make an effort to get her presents to her on time. I picked up Diana's presents for Mamie when I visited her in Tübingen, picked up some from me and Gandhi, boxed it all up, and took it to the Deutsche Post. Deutsche Post owns DHL, and so all packages are sent via DHL. I picked the Post because they far more locations in Munich than any of their competitors. So it was more convenient.

So on December 8th, I dropped the package off. I was given the choice of normal or expedited service. The normal service would take about 10 days. The expedited service would take 5-7 days, and cost 44 euro more.

Since my package included an advent calendar and ornaments for Mamie's Christmas Stick, I picked the expedited option, so she could make some use of those before Christmas.

I sent Mamie the tracking number for the box. Here's what the tracking page had to say on December 9th:

Date/Time	Status	Description
08.12.09 08:54	The shipment was processed at the outbound hub	The shipment was handed in at local post office by customer
08.12.09 16:57	Parcel centre of dispatch	Shipment to abroad was processed at the outbound hub
09.12.09 05:43	International Parcel Station	Shipment to abroad was processed at the International Parcel Station (IPS)

And then nothing happened. On Dec 18th I finally called them to see what was going on. They told me that things were a bit busy because of Christmas, but that it had been rather a while since the last update on my pacakge, and they could initiate a search for it. I asked them to please initiate a search. I was given a number for the search and they would contact me as soon as they found out anything.

By Dec 21, there were still no updates on the tracking page, so I called them again. The lady I talked to this time was sympathetic to my concerns about the package getting to Mamie by Christmas, but she told me that their international package facility was completely swamped and that there just weren't enough flights leaving the country to handle all the packages.

My question to them is: did Christmas take you by surprise this year? Doesn't it happen on the same date every year?

But then, on Dec 23: hope!

Date/Time	Status	Description
23.12.09 06:49	Departure from outward Office of Exchange in Country of Origin	Departure from outward Office of Exchange in Country of Origin

Maybe, Mamie and I thought, if it left Germany on the 23rd, it would arrive in Japan on the 24th. And then perhaps the Japanese end of things would run a bit better and she might have it on the 25th.

To avoid the problem of the package being delivered while she's not at home, I'd had it sent to her work address. But now we were facing the problem that her work was going to be closed from Dec 26th through January 3rd. Alas, this turned out not to be a problem either. Because again the tracking page went another week without updating.

I did, however get a nice letter from DHL, apologizing for the delay and informing me that under international postal regulations they had 8 weeks to look for the package, and basically that I should leave them alone. Great. Thanks.

Finally, on Dec 31, the package arrived in Japan. From there things went relatively quickly, given the New Year holiday:

Date/Time	Status	Description
31.12.09 10:19	Arrival at inward Office of Exchange in the Country of Destination	Arrival at inward Office of Exchange in the Country of Destination
31.12.09 10:20	Handed over to Customs in Country of Destination	Handed over to Customs in Country of Destination
05.01.10 12:46	Departure from inward Office of Exchange in the Country of Destination	Departure from inward Office of Exchange in the Country of Destination
06.01.10 10:15	Arrival at local delivery office in the Country of Destination	Arrival at local delivery office in the Country of Destination
06.01.10 11:38	Arrival at local delivery office in the Country of Destination	Arrival at local delivery office in the Country of Destination
06.01.10 13:28	Final delivery: The parcel was successfully delivered	Final delivery: The parcel was successfully delivered

Needless to say, I am not impressed. I mean sure, I'm glad it at least got there. But what did I pay the 44 euro extra for? In the end, it took them 29 days to get it there. Even if I'm generous and count only business days, it took 20 days.

So my plan now is to write them a polite letter informing them that I am displeased and that I would like a refund of 44 euro, since their expedited service took longer than the regular service should have.

I'll let you know how that goes.

Mamie's put her opinion on youtube.

Christmas Break

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:55:00 EST

Diana spent her Christmas break in Munich. She trained over here from Tübingen on the 18th and returned yesterday. So she was here almost three weeks. I think that is the most time I've spent with her in probably 10 years or more.

Having run out of vacation days (2009 was the first year I managed to use my full six weeks of vacation), I had to work during that time, but because of the holidays, they were short weeks.

Since it was her first Christmas away from home (to my knowledge), I tried to be a good host. Tony was also in town for the holidays, and we'd bought a little tree. Diana took over decorating duties and the apartment turned pretty festive.

We did manage to get to a few Christmas markets, but for the most part we just hung out at home or at Hüttnwirt. We rang in the New Year on one of the pedestrian bridges across the Isar. In typical German style, we had brought our own fireworks, and launched them along with the hundreds of others around us who were doing the same.

For the sake of my mother, I will not go into greater detail on our fireworks antics.

Diana also celebrated her 21st birthday in Munich. To celebrate we went and saw Avatar in 3D. We found one theater in Munich that was showing it in both 3D and English. Luckily, we reserved in advance, since it sold out.

I was impressed by the film. Definitely worth seeing in 3D. The plot was pretty obvious and the characters not terribly interesting. But that didn't matter, because it was so visually stunning. It sort of reminds me of when I first saw the Final Fantasy movie. I remember being unimpressed by the plot, but that not mattering because it was so visually appealing. But with the Final Fantasy movie I remember constantly thinking about the effects. With Avatar, the world they created was so visually appealing that I didn't find myself even thinking about the effects used to create it. That I find impressive.

After the movie, we visited Hüttnwirt, where Antje gave Diana a drink in celebration of her birthday.

Next week will be my first full five day work week since Dec 14-18. I guess I better get used to things returning to normal again...