Category: Fun

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Mouse Droppings




Creepy Chuck E.

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

I meant to blog about this about a week ago, when Will’s Chuck E. Cheese party actually happened, but, well, it’s been kind of a strange week with the strike and everything. So a lot of this is kind of fuzzy memory.

I do recall saying to Annette when we went into Chuck E. Cheese before Will’s birthday, “Isn’t it unfortunate that a place that serves food has a rat for a mascot?”

“Chuck E. is a mouse,” said Annette.

“Whatever.”

In any event, Will and his friends had a good time, as I think is apparent in this set of photos from the event. Still, I think this is the last time Will will want this sort of birthday party. Most of the other kids who were having parties when he was there for this event were closer to 5 or so.

Will’s getting to be a big boy, doncha know.

I had fun too, though I have to say that my experience was spoiled/tainted by some of Annette’s past students. I can’t remember how this all came about, but she apparently was talking with some students and asked who it was who got selected to be in the actual Chuck E. Cheese suit. Without missing a beat, these students said “the newbie.” And, apparently, the actual Chuck E. Cheese suit, which is unbearably hot and uncomfortable, smells like the sweat of all of those who have worn the suit previously.

That thought makes this little silent video of Chuck E. dancing all the more creepy.

Anyway, happy birthday (belated) Will, and please don’t make me go back here.

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Teaching little girls to pick up poo

Barbie, Tanner, PooThings have been kind of slow here lately, mainly because I’ve been completely obsessing about the faculty strike going on at EMU. Stop over at my official blog space to see what it’s all about; the short version is there’s quite the shitstorm going down on campus right now. I’m really hopeful that this will be resolved before Monday or so, but I’m not counting on it right now.

Anyway, I had to post about this because I saw a commercial advertising this thing on one of Will’s cartoon shows this morning, and, as much as I am obsessing about the strike, I cannot get this weird-ass toy out of my head. And I kid you not, this is apparently real.

Meet Barbie with Tanner the dog. Pretty harmless looking so far, right? “But wait,” perhaps you are thinking, “What are those brown spots kind of to the right of Barbie’s shoes? And what the hell is she holding, anyway? Ew, is that what I think?”

It is, it is.

From the doll’s description:

Barbie doll has a dog named Tanner who is just like a real dog! Tanner is soft and fuzzy and her mouth, ears, head and tail really move! You can open Tanner dog’s mouth and feed her the dog biscuits. Comes with a dog bone and chew toys that Tanner can hold in her mouth, too. When Tanner has to go to the bathroom, Barbie doll cleans up with her special magnetic scooper and trash can.

I almost kind of want one of these things.

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Bed Jumping Web site

I don’t know if this is supposed to be some kind of fetish or just a goofy fun thing or what: Hotel Bed Jumping HQ. Will and I have been known to jump on a hotel bed or two, but we don’t generally try to capture it forever. Anyway, via Boing-boing.

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More Europe Photos (and Two Movies, too)

Just for some of my millions of curious readers out there: I uploaded some more photos and updated my “Europe 2007” set on Flickr– click here to see the set, or here to go directly to the slide show. Basically, now I include stuff from Germany and Austria.

I also have uploaded a couple of short movies that I took with my camera. There’s this one from Florence, where we’re driving across the river and then come up on the Ponte Vecchio (about 6.3 MB). Then there’s this one from Mittenwald, when a herd of goats came through this touristy lake area. About 4.8 MB. Be sure to note the shepard walking through with his goats.

When I get some time and inclination, I’ll put more of this stuff together into a more complete movie, kind of like thie thing I did for our Museum of Science and Industry trip.

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The Beer Watcher: A New and Local Option?




U-Brew Coming Soon!

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

I went to pick up some videos for “family movie night” tonight (a pretty much weekly event in the Krause-Wannamaker house during the school year– tonight it’s going to be part 2, possibly also part 3, of the Back to the Future series, per Will’s request), and right next to the video store that I usually go, I noticed this: a “home” beer and wine brewing/making store.

It’s a work in progress (right now, there is some kind of campaign headquarters for Debbie Stabenow and Jennifer Granholm in the back), but it looks promising. Best of all and not obvious from this picture: it looks like this is a place where you can actually do the brewing there. From my peeking in the window, it looks like there is some sink and cooking space being constructed. Since the biggest problem with home brewing is the equipment and the potential for mess, this is very promising indeed.

Stay tuned my friends, stay tuned….

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“This is Jim Rockford– I’ll get back to you…”

Via Johndan’s blog comes this link to transcripts of the messages left on Jim Rockford’s answering machine. Ah, memories. The Rockford Files is one of those shows that, like Johndan I think, I used to watch all the time when I was a kid. I loved that show; Johndan said he learned everything he knows about firearms and driving from the show. Me, I learned everything about living in a trailer and the beach in LA from the show.

Makes me want to do some searches for The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

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Back home, and I have no idea what time it is….

Home! Here at my computer, drinking my coffee, listening to my radio, in my house! Home! It’s always fun to go on a trip like we went on (and we did have a lot of fun), but it also always nice to be home after a trip like the one we went on.

I’m in that fuzzy space of time right now; it’s 6:30-7:00 am here, but it’s about midnight in Munich, and my body is somewhere lost in that space. So for now, while I download pictures from my iPod, I thought I’d post a few miscellaneous thoughts on our last couple of days:

  • Sunday we went to Munich as a sort of “staging area” for our flight home on Monday/yesterday. We stayed at a hotel in a suburb of Munich near the airport. Our first activity of the day was going to the airport to check things out, which turned out to be a pretty good idea– the airport was a bit of a maze, at least to us.
  • Back at the hotel we were staying, there was some kind of wine/beer festival out in the courtyard. It was kind of rainy and such, not exactly festival weather, but it was kind of fun nonetheless. We had some wine and beer, some sort of Bavarian cheese spread (which I found kind of yucky), and trout roasted on a stick (which was good). The entertainment featured what struck me as a bizarre sort of German lounge act. These three guys in lederhosen had all this computer stuff backing up their singing, and they sang a combination of old American pop music and German songs. They did a terrible job with the American songs, so I can only imagine what they did with the German ones.
  • While at the Munich airport, I managed to spend most of our Euros, though I had to make two trips. There was some rig-a-ma-roll doing all this; even though I was spending cash, I had to give them my passport and country of origin and such. So when I came back to the counter for a second time to buy a soda, the woman waiting on me said to the other woman behind the counter (in German, of course) something like “Can you believe this guy is back? Jeez, why didn’t he just buy everything at once?” The other woman behind the counter said “Idiot!” (in German, of course– which, btw, is “Idiot!” but pronounced with a German accent). Hearing this I gave them a stare, I said in my bad German “Ich spreche ein bischen Deutsch, und ich verstehe Idiot.” Which means “I speak a little German, and I understand ‘idiot.'” I should have added something like “you dumbasses,” but I was pretty tired.
  • The flight stuff was largely uneventful, and the heightened security wasn’t that bad to deal with, really. We did have to go through a fair amount of security stuff in Atlanta, though: first through customs, then to get our luggage, and then back through customs, and then we had to recheck the bags, and then go back through security for a domestic flight. It seems to me like they could have streamlined those last two steps. Oh, and the only flight on this whole trip that was late was the last one. Figures.
  • Our house/dog sitter Molly picked us up from the airport, and btw, a big shout-out to Molly. She did a just awesome job, watering the plants, taking great care of Sophie (who she just loves even more now), keeping everything clean, etc., etc. Hell, she even baked some cookies!
  • Sophie had a gloriously happy reunion with everyone– particularly Will.
  • I started up my cell phone and there was a message from Steve B. informing me that we had a computer stolen out of my office. Jesus F. Christ, welcome back to work, eh? So I get to go in there this morning and deal with some of that, I guess….
  • I downloaded 662 photos from the trip to my computer. I think a lot of those are duplicates, but I did indeed take a lot of pictures. It’ll be fun going through the “keepers” on those. Stay tuned for a bunch of stuff being uploaded to my Flickr account, for sure.
  • And now back to life. Annette and I both want to make an effort to purge ourselves of the pork/wine/beer fest that was Europe. A nice salad. And maybe a cheeseburger.
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Innsbruck/Getting Ready to Fly Home/Misc.

Annette, Will, and I took a daytrip to Innsbruck yesterday. That’s the kind of thing you can do when you are in Europe: take a day-trip via train to another country entirely. Well, I guess you can take a day-trip to Canada too, but try that with a train and see how it goes. Anyway, Innsbruck was nice and surprisingly (to me, at least) touristy. We went to a very neat folk art museum, which is a nice relief from all of the Virgin Mary w/baby art we had been looking at in various churches and museums lately. Speaking of chruches: we went into this one in Innsbruck (I can’t remember the name now) that had about 15 or 20 of these giant bronze statues of kings in armor and queens and such all around a tomb. Very freaky. The waitress we had in the cafe we ate at spoke English with a New Zealand accent, and when we asked about that, she told us she had lived down there for 8 months working on a horse farm. And learning English, I guess.

And today is our last day in Mittenwald. Annette and I did a little more shopping while Will and his grandparents are out hiking. Mittenwald has been a lovely place to visit and stay, but I think when we come back (and I am sure we will as long as Annette’s parents keep coming here), we will probably make it for 3 or so days instead of a week. Tomorrow we leave for Munich to get to a sort of “staging area” for our flight, which leaves Monday morning.

Jeez, our timing on flying to Europe seems grand, doesn’t it? Actually, we have been able to keep up on the news here, and I don’t think it will be too big of a deal. As I discuss in the “miscellaneous” part of this message, the TV access we have had has been both good and bad. In any event, the big problem appears to be in the UK. According to this site for Delta (which is the airline we are taking back), the only concern is no liquids on-board. That’s fine; just as long as they let us pack our schnapps.

And now, to the miscellaneous part of things: I have about 14 minutes of Internet time left, so I thought I would post a few last thoughts about our trip in no particular order:

  • TV in Europe is strangely similar and strangely different from that in the U.S. For example, you know that guy who has these infomercials with this weird running machine? They were on like six different channels at the same time one day in Italy. There is some kind of puzzle game show on constantly here in Germany where I am pretty sure the host is just kind of yelling at the viewing audience. Speaking of TV….
  • We have watched a great deal of MTV in the room because it is pretty much the only thing in English. What is weird about MTV here is you have American bands in rotation, but you also have these European knock-offs of American acts, and I can tell you there are few things more strange than German or Italian rap acts.
  • One of the most memorable things for me on this trip was seeing the David. It was very surreal seeing this most famous sculpture in the world, something I have of course seen in images and copies a zillion times, up close and personal for real. It was too real, if that makes sense. Two other observations about that: right next to the David, just to add to the surrealness, is a computer simulation of the statue. You can use it to rotate it and see it with different light and shadows and such. Second, and this is really for my father, David does not appear to me to be circumcised.
  • The food in Italy was better than it is in Germany, but I have to say that a) it wasn’t as good there as I thought it would be, b) we live in an age where you can pretty much buy the same things in the US, and c), between these two countries, I do not need to eat any pork products for a while.
  • Italy is super-duper expensive, while Germany is bizarrely cheap. So if you are on a budget, you gotta go German.

I’m about out of time, so that will be it for now. More photos and more info after I get back to the US…..

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Stupid Americans/Language Skills….

I found this funny little bit of video from a Canadian TV Show— it’s on YouTube, but you can find a link to it and more examples here on boing-boing. It is one of those things that is certainly on my mind while I am here being a stupid American– or trying not to be too stupid of an American.

In Italy– specifically, the very American-heavy tourist center of Florence– just about everyone spoke English well enough to communicate and they were perfectly comfortable doing so, too. I did feel like I wish I would have known a little more Italian, that I would have actually listened to the CDs that I bought and/or taken a class or something. A little would have been better than nothing.

Now, compare that experience with Germany. Where we are at is popular with the German tourists, and some Italians too, but not so much with English speakers. But that’s okay since Annette speaks very solid Germany, her mom is actually German (though she has been in the US for so long that some of the natives here confuse her with an American who just speaks perfect German), and I have some rudimentary German skills. So here’s the thing: here in Germany, we are trying harder to speak German, and we kind of have to try harder since the locals don’t have that great of English skills.

It has been interesting. My most common German phrase is “My Deutsch ist sehr schlecht” (which means “my German is very bad”). However, I have learned that:

  • They like it when you try. Often, Germans will say (back to me in German, usually) something like “oh, your German isn’t bad at all.”
  • A combination of German and English pretty much will get me by.
  • I feel like all those failed years of college German are coming back to me rather quickly, and I bet if I were here for another two or so weeks, I’d be in pretty good shape, Deutsch-wise.
  • The Germans sometimes like practicing their English on the stupid Americans. We had a nice chat with a guy in the train station (who worked for the train station) about the automatic ticket machine. Several of the choices on this machine we used to buy train tickets to Innsbruck tomorrow were irrelevant. As I read the instructions (which were in English), I said “oh, that doesn’t matter” out loud. It took this guy a while, but he had a lightbulb moment (“ah– auf Deutsch, sag man ‘machts nichts'”). So I spread a little love, I guess.

I would upload some pictures, but I’m running out of time. I might have one more post before we come home on Monday. The short version: yesterday, we were in Munich, which was okay– too many tourists (again), and just a lot of walking, though we did see some cool churches and a fun market area. Today, back in Mittenwald. Will went hiking with the grandparents while Annette and I shopped a little. I bought a very cool Mittenwald Brauerei hat, and a snowglobe (of course). I suspect there will be some more gifty shopping for friends and family on Saturday, in part because we didn’t get much of a chance to do that in Florence and in part because stuff is dramatically cheaper here. Tomorrow we’re going to Innsbruck; Sunday back to Munich to get ready to get on the plane on Monday.

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Neurschawnstein, sort of (and more…)




Newschawnstein, sort of

Originally uploaded by steven_d_krause.

It’s funny, but I do think that my wife, who is over at the next computer in this Internet cafe/bar, actually enjoys checking her email and such while here in Germany more than I do. Go figure. Anyway, we are back in the cafe today because Grandma and Grandpa Wannamaker have taken Will off to go hiking and then swimming and then out to dinner. But I’ll get to that later….

Yesterday, we went to Neuschwanstein, and yesterday was pretty miserable. The weather here (up until today, at least) was just freakin’ miserable, I mean like mid-40s and raining, and we had packed thinking that it would be in the 70s pretty much the whole time here. So for a couple of days at least, I was getting by with borrowed sweaters from Annette’s father.

But back to the trip.

So, the deal is they take you out th Neuschwanstein, which is easily the biggest tourist attraction in Germany, or at least this part of Germany. The whole Cinderella castle thing. The deal was, at least as we understood it, they take you out there and then get you tickets to get in. Well, we get out there and the bus driver comes back and says, basically, sorry, no tickets today, they are sold out. Now, since I was a guest and, quite frankly, this wasn’t my dime, I didn’t make a stink. But what was very surprising to me was that no one on the bus made a fuss about this, which I found odd. I mean, had this happened in the US, the people on the bus would have killed the guy. Literally.

In any event, this meant that the closest I got to our destination for the day, and as you can see, the weather was just fabulous. We went to tour the castle next door (this is actually part of a pretty large complex), and when we got done with that tour, it was not just pouring rain, it was hailing. Here’s Annette, enjoying the moment.
fun yet?

Oh yeah, and the place was full of construction, like this:

construction

And also crazy full of tourists. I think this is the “high season” for things like Neurschwanstein, while it was the “low season” for Florence. I tell ya, if the crowds were this bad in Florence, we would have had a much different trip to Italy, that’s for sure.

But hey, it all works out. Today, which is actually a holiday in Bavaria (the Ascention of Mary), is absolutely beautiful, which is why Will went hiking with the grandparents. Annette and I did a little light shopping (lots of the stores are closed), and we could not resist the allure of the “umpa music” coming from this Gastaus:

lunch

Beer, brats, and polka, and all of a sudden, rainy days are but a memory…..