Archive for the 'Celebrate!' Category
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Twenty years after the border between East Germany and West Germany was breached, we now know that in that fateful press conference Schabowski simply read the wrong memo. But after Schabowski, a member of the Central Commitee of the SED, had announced that all travel restrictions had been lifted for all East Germans – effective [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Germany | No Comments »
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
Congratulations to Ghana’s U20 football team!
At the U20 Worldcup final in Cairo on Friday Ghana beat 4-time champion Brazil despite being one player down due to a red card in the 37th Minute. Neither team scored during regulation time and overtime, and so penalty kicks decided this game. This is the first time Ghana won [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Palmwine | No Comments »
Saturday, January 24th, 2009
Geoeye published a great satelite photo (half-meter resolution) of the inauguration ceremony for Barack Obama. The image above links to a high resolution version. Geoeye provides the original high resolution image (3.5MB) that shows the entire National Mall.
Posted in Celebrate!, Election 2008, geeks | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Presidential Oaths of Office
Inaugural Address below the fold …
Posted in Celebrate!, Election 2008, History | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
An inch of snow on the ground and, as usual, most of Durham shuts down. And since no one here owns a set of snow tires, I think it’s a pretty reasonable decision to stay at home. So we made some waffles and coffee and settled in to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama as [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, North Carolina | No Comments »
Sunday, December 21st, 2008
Once again, the longest night of the year is upon us.
Winter Solstice: A time to let the longest night of the year seduce you into stillness. Time to silence inner voices, listen to the beating of your own heart. Time to breathe slowly, become the breath. Linger here. The night is long.
Too bad that this [...]
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Thursday, November 6th, 2008
This map shows the US states sized proportional to their populations. Blue states voted for Obama, red states for McCain.
In some of the blue states Obama only got a few thousand votes more than McCain (like in NC) but all the electoral votes of those states go towards the candidate who carries the state.
UPDATE 11/10: [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Election 2008 | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
This is sweet! Today I am especially proud to be a Tar Heel! North Carolina turned blue for Obama. It looks like the Democrat won by a few thousand votes in NC. This is the first time since President Carter that a Democrat won this state. The map above shows results county by county and [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Election 2008, North Carolina | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
Posted in Celebrate!, Election 2008 | Comments Off
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
As of yesterday, days will be getting longer again on this side of the globe. Of course here, in the Old North State that’s not that big a deal, anyway. But I did start paying more attention to sunrise/sunset this fall. When I bike to work and back home, I prefer to avoid the bad [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Go figure, Mother Earth, biking, useless info | No Comments »
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
What a game! The German Women’s Football Team beat Brasil and defended the World Championship in a tough and fast game. Special Kudos to Nadine Angerer our fantastic goalie with a head like a brick and nerves of steel! She did not concede a single goal in the Worldcup!! Let me repeat this: SHE DID [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Deutsch, Germany | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
Women’s Football WorldCup, that is … The German women beat Norway 3:0 and will play against the winner of tomorrow’s game Brazil-USA on Sunday. Sadly, I was not able to see the game, as it started at 8:00 in the Morning here, and I have to be at work, and I have no cable TV [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Germany | No Comments »
Friday, August 31st, 2007
Today, Governor Mike Easley signed bill S1272 into law. That bill exempts homebrew biodiesel from the NC road tax. The 30-cents-a-gallon cost reduction is certainly welcome. But, as Lyle recently commented, the bigger picture is really huge, because it allows the homebrewers and SVO-ers to get out of the “closet” as the State DOR does [...]
Posted in Biodiesel, Celebrate! | No Comments »
Friday, August 10th, 2007
On this day in 1893 Rudolf Diesel’s engine ran for the first time, and it ran on peanut oil. So today we celebrate “Internationals Biodiesel Day” and raise our glasses to the genius of using fuel that grows back!
Praise the Lard!
Posted in Biodiesel, Celebrate! | 1 Comment »
Saturday, August 4th, 2007
The North Carolina General Assembly has adjourned for this session, and last Thursday the legislators passed S1272: Motor Fuels Tax Exemption for Biodiesel, which removes the requirement to pay road tax on homebrew biodiesel. That’s awesome – a great incentive for homebrewers. Also, legislators changed the tax law to remove the $2000 bond for [...]
Posted in Biodiesel, Celebrate!, North Carolina | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 4th, 2007
We did it! Two weeks ago we closed on our new house, moved our stuff to the new house and then spent about a week cleaning and fixing up our old place to get it ready to sell it. Today we fiished up, and our agent will list it tomorrow.
The new place is just 10 [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Deutsch, Our gang | No Comments »
Friday, April 27th, 2007
Ablodé to our Togolese friends! Even though this is still more a rallying cry than a victory chant. Forty eight years ago Togo became an independent nation, relived from the yoke of French colonialism, only to become, after a few years, the playground of one of Africa’s original dictators, Etienne Gnassingé Eyadema.
Ablodé – freedom – [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Palmwine | No Comments »
Sunday, February 4th, 2007
Congratulations to the German Team Handball Men’s Team! Today they defeated Poland in the final 29:24 (17:13) and won the Worldcup for Germany in Germany!
This is rather amazing – expectations were not very high before the tournament, but the German team really came together and played some amazing handball. And after the football Worldcup last [...]
Posted in Celebrate!, Germany | No Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2007
Last year had a couple of surprises for us, although most of these have yet to be completely realized: we found a new house, but we have yet to move there; we began planning our trip to Togo (and Ghana) for the upcoming July; and the Democrats won back the U.S. Congress.
One of the biggest [...]
Posted in Biodiesel, Celebrate!, Freedom, Our gang, Palmwine, Warm/Fuzzy, photographs, worldcup2006 | No Comments »
Sunday, December 24th, 2006
Frohe Weihnachten and happy Winter Solstice. This is is the best part about Christmas: it’s the afternoon of December 24 and the stores close. Finally! The insanity of the annual shopping season is over. There is one good step toward peace on earth: the malls and shopping centers close for a day-and-a-half.
In a good part [...]
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