New Years

Well, it's almost 4:00 am on New Years Day. We've had a wonderful party, with 7 guests all told. It was a little lopsided, 6 of them were women, and the one male guest we had, left early (he had more than one invite). Curiously, most of the guests were ex- East German, so there was quite a bit of discussion of German society east and west and what things have been gained and lost since the wall fell. If you want a taste of what it was like in East Germany, watch the film "The Lives of Others" (Wikipedia).

We had rice with a chickpea sauce, fondue, and various cakes, snacks, plus various teas and various juices. One of our guests brought a bottle of wine and shared it with some of the other guests (note: Baha'i do not drink alcohol). I played some guitar and the Loreena McKennit CDs were played. Generally I think a good time was had by all. :-)

Geese a Laying

Well, it's only 20 past midnight, and I'm going to bed. I've been working the past two days, though from home instead of my (in house) office. I suppose I should explain, that my house has a separate apartment - that separate apartment is my office. Instead of using that, I've been using my laptop with WiFi.

Not a lot really going on - I've been drinking coffee, one cup in the morning, and my Rosacea seems to be getting worse, so I should cut that out. I've been spending a lot of time at AllBeliefs trying to convince the atheists that science and religion are not contradictory. *sigh*.

B. came over for 19-Day Feast this evening. As usual she drank coffee, even though it was late at night. She brought along 2 cheesecakes. I don't really understand why, though - there was no one else at feast. Even my daughter didn't come - she went to bed early - she's still re-adjusting to daytime schedule.

Calling Birds

The birds that are calling, are telling me it is morning, and past time for me to be in bed. I just finished watching "Thank You for Smoking", which I think was a pretty decent film.

I started the day off by reading in bed: a Chinese course and JPod. JPod is mildly funny and good if you're into pop-trivia. I'll probably finish reading it, just because I started it.

I spent a bit of time with my wife preparing for a Ruhi Course we'll be giving here, starting in January. We had previously intended to do a course via the internet, but I ran into some technical difficulties with making a nice atmosphere, and K. dropped out of participation at AllBeliefs.com where we had intended to hold it in a chatroom (shameless plug: AllBeliefs.com is a really nice place.

Just in case there are some reading who don't know: Boxing Day (the title of my post about that day) is the day after Christmas. It is tradition in England to put money and stuff in boxes and give it to the poor on Boxing Day.

I'm going to keep it short today, and try to get some sleep. :-)

Three French Hens

Well, my streak is unbroken - I was up all night and slept all day again. I got up just in time to go visit our friend B. B. invited us over for coffee and cake, and incidentally asked me to fix her toilet while we were there, which I did (*bleh*). B. turned 65 this past Fall, and broke her hip this past Spring. Apparently the job was somewhat botched - the screw used to repair it was too long and is causing her pain. At least, that's what B. says.

All of that practice in sudoku seems to be paying off: I'm back to getting 100% with minutes to spare in "Mind Games".

Tomorrow (actually today, since it's after midnight) is Sunday, my day to call family. I usually call my sister and my parents, and often call my brother. Occasionally I'll even call one of my cousins. This often lasts several hours - I'm very glad that we've got flat rate to America - much better than the 6 DM per minute it used to cost when I first came to Germany. :-)

Boxing Day

Well, my spate of sleeping all day and staying up all night continues unabated. I stayed up until the early morning hours practicing Sudoku, because (a) I'm failing at it in the timed facebook game "Mind Games" and (b) the "easy" puzzles at the website I went to, strictlysudoku.com, are so hard, they take me half an hour each (they claim averages of 10 min. each - my honor is at stake! :p ).

Anyway I got up just in time to shower before going to visit A. & A. who invited us for this evening. A. is mother to two adorable little girls, M. and L., who we like to visit or be visited by - most recently while A. and A. picked up her mother, M., from the airport. These initials could get confusing. :p Whatever: Little M. showed me her new presents, including a small guitar that she proudly played without using her left hand... she did not want me to touch it, and, in particular, not to tune it. :p After a nice dinner, we settled down to a game of mah-jongg with big M., while A. put the kids to bed, and A. went out to take care of something.

So, after a nice visit, I'm back home and now here, in front of the computer, doing my surfing etc. I better stop before it starts getting too self-referential and breaking down the fourth wall. :p

Christmas Day

I woke up late - we had a 'date' to go and visit J. and her sons at 2:00 in the afternoon, but didn't get there until 2:30, mostly because I didn't get up until 1:45 in the afternoon. I really need to go to bed earlier. Whatever, we stayed for over six hours, until 9:00, and had lots of fun. I taught her son, M., the basics of guitar and left my guitar book with him for practice. We'll be going back on the 6th of Jan. She's a teacher, and she's suggested that I could easily become a teacher if I want to, because they are really looking for Physics teachers, and I have the background for it. Perhaps if my current job goes under... I've always wanted to be a teacher, but my company is still pretty dependent on me. We had what J. called a 'meat pizza' for dinner - basically meat loaf with pizza toppings. It mostly just tastes like meatloaf, despite the toppings. Which is okay - I like meatloaf.

Christmas Eve

I need more practice writing, so I'm going to write a blog post. Beware, it's going to be a little stream of consciousness and possibly not so interesting. It is 1:00 am Christmas Day, 2008. I should really be in bed, and probably will be soon. I've been spending time online as usual: forums at AllBeliefs and playing games at facebook. I should probably play fewer games - they mostly get frustrating after a short while anyway: things get way tougher, and of course, you can make things easier by spending money, real money, not game money, in order to help things along. *grumble*. I really like TED (www.ted.com), but I think I've seen all the good stuff - I'm waiting for new good stuff. We went and visited a friend this afternoon/evening, went to church with her first and then had dinner with her. We (my wife KA and daughter KE - hmmm. Just noticed that can be confusing: my wife's name begins Ke, initials are KA. My daughter the reverse: begins Ka, initials KE) have know our friend W. for a long, long time. She was good friends with H., who died some years back, but who we also knew since KE was a little girl and went to him for "music hour".

My Chinese studies have been progressing slowly. Ever more slowly, since the chapters are getting less and less consistent, more words are missing from the vocabulary lists, etc. I'm also making slow progress with Farsi, but there the problem is I'm just not studying enough - I need to have another lesson with our friend V.

And of course I want to spend time working on my own pet projects, I need to clean out my office, I have a pile of books I want to read. *sigh*. Sleep is more important at the moment.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Well, I've finally gotten around to creating my own blog. I have no idea if I'll be posting much. I've created it specifically so I can tell Possummomma how happy I am that she's back. :-)

I suppose I should say a little something about myself: my name is Bill. I've been married for 25 years. I have a 20 year old daughter. I'm a programmer. I'm a Baha'i. Although I'm an American, I live in Germany, and have for the past 24 years. I'm very active at AllBeliefs.com, where I am user wh44. wh44 was the userid I was assigned in college, about 30 years ago.