Today was Julia’s High School graduation. She was valedictorian of her class of 70 graduates from Middle College High School, so she got to do a speech at graduation. Her class got almost 1.5 million in scholarship money for college! We’re super proud of her!! In August, she will start studying at American University in Washington, DC.
[UPDATE: video below]
[UPDATE 2: added text of her speech]
Last Saturday, we had dinner with our neighbors and then we lit a bonfire and had some more drinks. For dinner Laura had made a nice, Togo-inspired stew out of two of their roosters. The roosters had become a bit of problem in their chicken coop; the Rhode Island Red was very tasty while the Bantam was good, too, but no as tender of flavorful. These are some of the photos I took that night. F-stop is 3.5 and exposure is between 2 sec and 30 sec.
Letzen Samstag hatten wir ein gemeinsames Abendessen mit unseren Nachbarn und danach ein Feuer und noch ein paar Bier mehr. Am Nachittag hatten ich zwei Hähne des Nachbarn geschlachtet und Laura kochte ein leckeres, afrikanisches Stew – eine Art Eintopf – mit dem frischen Fleisch. Die Hähne waren etwa ein Jahr alt und waren ein Problem im Hühnerstall geworden. Hier sind ein paar Fotos die ich in der Nacht mit Langzeitbelichtung gemacht habe. Blende ist 3.5 und Belichtung zwischen 2 und 30 Sekunden.
Happy Birthday, Madison Saint! A couple of days ago was Madison’s 7th birthday.
Hard to believe Wally and Cleo have lived with us for 5 years this summer! Laura clipped all three horses a couple of weeks ago, so right now they look really slick. Check it out …
Cleo turns 14 in June
And Wally? Who knows … +20 years, we think.
Yeah. That’s funny. That’s BMW’s idea of an April Fools joke (in 2011). An M3 pickup “Ute” style with a 420Hp V8. In 2013, Top Gear sent their Aussie correspondent to Bavaria to test drive this joke. He had a good laugh! And a bit of a scare, too.
This is Blackjack, our black miniature Holland Lop. He’s not really the Easter Bunny, but over Easter weekend, he did enjoy his first outdoor run of the year. I built a small fence around his rabbit hutch and when we’re on the deck or in the back yard, the little guy gets to stretch his legs a little bit. Not that his hutch isn’t plenty big, but running around on the ground is more fun. Someone does have to keep an eye on him, though, or the neighborhood hawk will get him.
DEUTSCH: Das ist unser Zwergwidder Kaninchen Blackjack. Er ist zwar nicht der Osterhase, aber üb
er das Osterwochenende durfte er zum ersten Mal in seinem neuen Bodengehege herumrennen. Ich installierte einen kleinen Zaun um seinen Stall herum und da darf er jetzt hin und wieder sich etwas autoben. Wegen der Raubvögel muß aber immmer jemand dabei sein. Ein Habicht hat dem Nachbarn schon mehrere Hühner geklaut!
This Sunday morning was chilly at 25F (-4C). We really hope this was the last frost for the season! With temperatures now regularly reaching the 60s and 70s, it does feel like spring around here. But last night, we put the blankets on the horses one more time and filled the bucket with warm water. Once again, the emu stood at the frozen water bucket, pecking at the ice, trying to drink. It’s still very confusing to them!
DEUTSCH
Heute hatten wir noch einmal eien richtig kalten Sonntagmorgen, mit minus 4 Grad. Letzte Woche hatten wir schon Temperaturen bis 25C und der Frühling hat richtig begonnen. Aber gestern Abend mußten wir noch mal die Pferdedecken rausholen und dann den Wassertrog nch Mal mit warmen Wasser auffüllen. Am Morgen stand dann der Emu wieder am Wassertrog und konnten nicht verstehen warum das Wasser schon wieder “kaputt” ist und er nichts in den Schnabel kriegt!
Fascinating video footage of our sun. On July 19, 2012, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s AIA instrument captured these images of an eruption on the sun’s surface over the course of 22 hours.
Faszinierende Aufnahmen einer Sonneneruption vom 19. July 2012. Über 22 Stunden hat NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s AIA instrument diese Aufnahmen im Ultravioletbereich des Lichtspektrums gemacht.
What a pretty spring day! The daffodils are blooming and it’s 82°F/28°C and sunny. Only 10 days after we had a 20°F/-7°C morning and less than 3 weeks after the 2015 Snowpocalypse, it’s finally springtime! I’ll take it!
Und auf einmal war Frühling! die Narzissen blühen und es ist 28°C warm und sonnig. Noch vor 10 Tagen war es am Morgen minus 7°C kalt, und weniger als 3 Wochen sind seit der Schneepokalypse 2015 verstrichen. Ich beklag mich bestimmt nicht!
Today is Pi-day here in the US: with the month/day/year format today’s date looks like this: 3/14/15
Heute is Pi-Tag in the USA, denn mit dem komischem Datumsformat hier – Monat/Tag/Jahr – sieht das Datum heute aus wie die Kreiszahl Pi: 3/14/15
Interesting discussion of the history of Pi on Reddit.
Die Kreiszahl Pi auf Wikipedia
More Pi below
Thursday morning we woke up to 6 inches (15cm) of snow. Around here, that pretty much shuts down everything. Power went out at around 4AM and water stopped shortly after. No school or work, of course. We were stuck at home all day, keeping the house warm with a fire in the fire place and melting snow on the gas grill so we had some water. In the evening our neighbors came over for dinner and we sat around the fireplace all evening. We kept the fireplace so hot that the iron grate melted, but we kept the living room at over 60°F. Friday morning at 5:00 the power came back on, and Friday at noon I went in to work for a few hours.
The wet snow stuck to the trees and broke many branches and even knocked down some trees.
The horses were not real happy about the snow. Neither were the emus.
With all the crazy weather last week, I almost forgot that Wednesday night, the Mercedes passed 310,686 miles, which is equal to 500,000 KM. Nice milestone for this 24-yar-old car.
Whoah! This weather is crazy! Look at the graph below (from Wunderground) and you can see how temperatures here went from a low of 5°F on Friday morning at 7AM to a high of 57°F on Sunday 1PM. That’s a 52 degree temperature change in 54 hours!
DEUTSCH: So ein verrücktes Wetter! And dem Diagramm oben kann man sehen wie the Temperaturen hier vom Tiefststand von minus 15°C am Freitag Morgen um 7Uhr auf plus 15°C am Sonntag Mittag um 13Uhr angestiegen sind. Das sin 30 Grad Unterschied in 54 Stunden!
Our weather station showed an outside temperature of 5.6°F /14.7°C this morning right before I went outside to feed the animals.
Snow, snow, snow … we have had several snow/ice storms over the last couple of days. School has been out for 2 days and the weather forecast is predicting an arctic chill down to 0F for the next couple of days. That does not seem to bother Sassy and Snoopy, though. This is their first snow and they seem to think it’s cool!
DEUTSCH: So viel Schnee! In den letzten Tagen hatten wir mehrmals Schnee und Eis. Die Kinder haben schon seit zwei Tagen Schnee-frei von der Schule. Und für die nächsten zwei Tage is richtig arktische Kälte in der Vorhersage – bis zu minus 18°C! Unsere Ziegen Sassy und Snoopy scheint das Wetter nicht zu beeindrucken. Das ist das erste Mal daß sie Schnee erleben und das schein ihnen Spaß zu machen!
Snoopy looking majestic!
More photos below …
Timelapse of the sun / Zeitrafferaufname der Sonne
Over the last few months, my 1991 300D ran pretty badly. At first, I was able to get the engine’s power back to acceptable levels by fixing various leaks in the vacuum system, especially in the lines that control the turbo waste-gate. Without 
the turbo, I could start at the bottom of a small hill going 60 and I’d be down to 45 at the top of the hill.
Then, one morning mid January, the car would not start at all. I had it towed to A Better Wrench in Chapel Hill (US Rider is a great road-side assistance service). They replaced the glow plugs and the car started great, again. However, right after that repair, the engine power was really bad, again. I tinkered with the car for a few days, but I could not find any more obvious vacuum leaks. So I took her back to the shop. Max, the owner, fixed all the vacuum leaks and now you can really feel a turbo kick in again! AND he figured out why the transmission shifts so early into higher gears, which was also not helping the performance of the car. He also showed me how to check whether the wast gate actuator works, and how to adjust the transmission linkage to change the how early the transmission shifts up.
So, after two trips to the shop, and $560 in repairs, the old Mercedes starts and runs very nicely again. Thanks Max! Great job.
During the month of January, I took some time of from my beloved beer and explored a variety of flavors of tea. The best place for buying tea around here is A Southern Season – a swanky gourmet food store in Chapel Hill. They sell 2oz and 4oz bags of their loose-leaf tea blends and you can’t beat that for freshness and flavor. Here are some of the flavors I explored:
Paris Tea: A delicate, vanilla flavored black tea with a touch of bergamot and blackcurrant
Green Dragon Tea – green tea with lemon peel, marigold petals, golden chrysanthemums, passion fruit and lemon flavors
Ginger Lemongrass Tisane – lemongrass, licorice, ginger root, peppermint, lemon peels, black pepper
Evening Chai – Cinnamon chips, cloves, black and red pepper, lemongrass, green cardamon, ashwagantha, ginger root, cinnamon and clove flavors
Organic Orange Ginger Tulsi – Tulsi herbs (Holy Basil), candied pineapple, candied papaya, apple bits, carrot bits, rose hip petals, sallow thorn berries, orange peels, flavoring, multivitamins
I also really enjoy the Republic of Tea flavors Jasmine Jazz and Moroccan Mint Green Tea.
The various green tea flavors are really my favorite – lightly sweetened with agave sirup I can drink them all day long. The Paris Tea has pretty much replaced my third cup of coffee in the morning. In the evening, the lemongrass tisane or the tulsi tea really wrap up a day quite nicely.
This afternoon we went to see the famous viol player Jordi Savall play his 300-year-old, 7-string bass viol at Durham’s Baldwin Auditorium.
Savall is the world’s most accomplished viol player of our age. Before him, these instruments and their music had been all but forgotten. Since 1965, when Savall discovered the viola da gamba, he has been at he center of the revival of the viol family of instruments.
These instruments were popular in the Renaissance and Baroque eras and they are all played upright, like a cello or a bass. They are quite different from the more popular violin family of instruments: they are fretted with movable frets and they have 6 or 7 strings; their backs are flat, not curved and their shoulders sloped, not square and they have c-holes, not f-holes like the violin.
Most 
importantly, the viol is usually tuned like a Baroque lute. However, during the English and Celtic second half of the concert, Savall actually re-tuned his instrument to the lyra-viol tuning and to the bagpipe tuning appropriate to that style of music.
See below a video of Savall playing the bass viol (solo and with his ensemble)and discussing music and musicianship (in French).
I am happy to report that for the fifth year running, I successfully completed the Great Beer Quest and acquired my allotment of the Special Release bottles of Sexual Chocolate Stout. Once again, we froze our butts off in 20-degree temperatures camping out on the sidewalk in front of Foothills brewery in Winston Salem, NC.
Around 10:30 I picked up Dan and Derek and we drove to W/S. We arrived at the brewery around 11:30 to join the tail end of the release party (and 10-year anniversary party) and had our first glass of this year’s Sexual Chocolate Stout. And our second. And our third …
At 2:00, we set up camp outside and settled in for the short, chilly night, huddled around the little propane heater I borrowed from my neighbor. I was tired and actually slept for several hours. I woke up around 5:00 and those three hours until they opened the bar were long and cold. Once we got in, we got a breakfast beer and a sausage biscuit (that’s a southern thing) but this year they charged $2 for the sausage biscuit! (last year they were on the house). At 10:00 AM we each got our 6 bombers and then we pretty much just left and drove home.
Interesting publication by the Population Reference Bureau. According to their estimates 6.5 percent of all humans who lived in the last 50,000 years were alive in 2011!
Wie viele Menschen haben jemals gelebt? Die Wissenschaftler des Population Reference Bureau schätzen daß in den letzten 50 Tausend Jahren 108 Milliarden Menschen gelebt haben. Das bedeutet daß im Jahr 2011 ungefähr 6.5 Prozent aller Menschen jemals am Leben waren. Unglaublich!
How Many People Have Ever Lived On Earth? 108 Billion
Year Population Births
per
1,000Births Between
Benchmarks50,000 B.C. 2 – – 8000 B.C. 5,000,000 80 1,137,789,769 1 A.D. 300,000,000 80 46,025,332,354 1200 450,000,000 60 26,591,343,000 1650 500,000,000 60 12,782,002,453 1750 795,000,000 50 3,171,931,513 1850 1,265,000,000 40 4,046,240,009 1900 1,656,000,000 40 2,900,237,856 1950 2,516,000,000 31-38 3,390,198,215 1995 5,760,000,000 31 5,427,305,000 2011 6,987,000,000 23 2,130,327,622
NUMBER WHO HAVE EVER BEEN BORN 107,602,707,791 World population in mid-2011 6,987,000,000 Percent of those ever born who are living in 2011 6.5 Source: Population Reference Bureau estimates.
