Yesterday we set a temperature record of 78°F (26°C) and I decided to work on my composting project. I had two nice piles of compost from last year that I had turned in early summer. One of the piles I had inoculated with mycorrhizal fungus to see if that has any benefit for the compost. And boy, did it ever! You can see in the photo below (click to enlarge), I got perfect chocolate cake from that pile. Awesome!
Rest in Peace, Madiba.
Nelson Mandela visits his old cell on Robben Island in 1994
Image by © Louise Gubb/CORBIS SABA
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)
Last Friday we invited some friends over for our Black Friday Party, and, as usual, good times were had by all. When the whole world goes mad and shoppers storm the malls and discount stores, I like to gather some good friends down by the pond, where 
we light some fires to keep us warm and cook some food. And at sunset we tap a keg of the finest beer know to man.
Friday night was pretty chilly and after sunset temperatures soon dropped to below freezing. We had two burn barrels and a campfire blazing We cooked sweet potatoes Manfred and Nancy had grown and grilled hot dogs and made s’mores. People brought various snacks and someone brought a tasty stew. We had to keep the keg near the fire to keep the beer from getting too cold. Everyone agreed that this was a much better way to spend Black Friday than shopping at the mall.
(Photos by Zack)
Last week, Laura and I returned to Paris for the first time in 20 years. Laura flew out during the previous week for work and I followed her on Saturday for a few days of fun in the City of Light. After exploring the city over the weekend (see here), Monday’s primary focus was the Musée du Louvre – one of the world’s largest museums in one of the world’s most famous buildings.
Among the 35,000 pieces of art and historical objects in the Louvre are some of the world’s most iconic paintings, like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Dürer’s self portrait and Vermeer’s The Lacemaker,
sculptures like the Aphrodite (aka Venus de Milo) and Michelangelo’s Captive, as well as historical artifacts like the famous statue of Rameses II, the Seated Scribe and the Code of Hammurabi (the oldest written legal code known to man).
With just an afternoon to explore this massive treasure trove, we focused on the Dutch Masters and spent quite a bit of time on the Rubens exhibit. Later we explored the Mesopotamian collection, including the Code of Hammurabi, the giant friezes from the Palace of Sargon II, as well as some of the oldest writing samples known to man.
The history of the Louvre Palace itself is also quite interesting: it dates back to the a 12th century fortress of King Philip Augustus, also called the Louvre, which was razed in 1546 by King Francis I in favor of a larger royal residence. The Louvre was the residence of the French Kings until King Louis XIV moved his residence to Versailles in 1678.
After the Louvre, we went to Cafe RUC on Rue Saint-Honoré, just a block from the Louvre, and had a very nice dinner. I had the best liver I ever had! After dinner, we strolled up Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, past the Elysée Palace – the residence of the French President – and all the fancy boutiques.
On our way back, we picked up a nice bottle of champagne and then we climbed up the Arc de Triomphe to enjoy a fantastic night-time view of Paris. After that, we retreated to our hotel to rest our tired feet.
The next day – Tuesday – we did some more shopping, then we headed to Montmartre. 
We had a nice pizza lunch at Restaurant Le Saint-Regis on the Rue D’Orsel. We also visited Sacré-Cœur, in front of which Laura and I got engaged 20 years ago. Then we walked around the Northern part of Montmartre, around Rue Caulaincourt and Rue Coustine. That neighborhood is much less touristy and has lots of little shops and cafes.
We slowly made our way down to the Boulevard Barbès and got on the Metro at Mercadet-Poissoniers to head over to the Champs de Mars to check out the Eiffel Tower again and for another river cruise on the Seine. This time the 
cruise took us past Pont Alexandre III and 16 other bridges on the Seine, past the Île de la Cité, around Île Saint Louis and back to the Eiffel Tower. Due to high water levels, they had to deviate from the usual route a bit.
At 324 metres (1,063 ft), the Eiffel Tower is still the tallest structure in Paris and the s
econd-tallest in France. When it was completed for the 1889 World’s Fair, it was the tallest man-made structure in the world, only to be surpassed in 1930 by the Chrysler Building in New York. Still, today it dominates the center of Paris, especially at night when it is lit up.
Obviously, the view from the tower is just breathtaking, especially on a clear night. We had a pretty good view (photos below) but we were pretty tired and did not stay for a long time.
Afterwards, we walked back to Avenue Wagram and had a very nice, late dinner at L’Etoile 1903. We both had salads (mine had duck gizzards, foie gras and bacon) and a bottle of Chapelle de Venenge Brouilly 2012. Around midnight , we strolled back to the Hotel Ceramic.
Wednesday morning, we took the Air France coach to CDG (through terrible rush hour traffic) and flew Air France to ATL and Delta back to RDU.
Last week, Laura and I returned to Paris for the first time in 20 years. Laura flew out during the previous week for work and I followed her on Saturday for a few days of fun in the City of Light. Saturday evening, we met with several folks from her work for a dinner cruise on the Seine. the Bateaux Parisiens cruises start right below the Eiffel Tower and someone was flying these cool, illuminated balloons that night.
The cruise was fun and the food and drinks were very good. The ambiance of enjoying a nice, three-course meal while the vistas of Paris at night are slowly gliding by the windows is really remarkable. Highly recommended.
Sunday morning, we started out at our little Hotel on the Avenue de Wagram (just 3 blocks from the Arc de Triomphe) and took the metro to Les Halles and walked to the Île de la Cité to visit Notre Dame during the Gregorian Mass at 10 AM. After witnessing the “miracle of the transubstantiation,” we climbed the 387 steps up to top the the Cathedral to enjoy a fantastic view across downtown Paris from the highest point of the oldest part of town.
I also took a bunch of up-close photos of the famous gargoyles that decorate this almost 780 year-old building.
After that climb, we took a break and warmed ourselves at Aux Tours de Notre Dame – a touristy cafe across the street, over some French onion soup, coffee and a glass of Poire Williams.
Refreshed, we continued our exploration of Île de la Cité by visiting the Marché aux Fleurs, Sainte Chapelle and the Conciergerie.
Later that evening, we crossed Pont Neuf again, and made our way to the Centre Pompidou to take a look at the world’s second largest collection of modern and contemporary art at the Musée National d’Art Moderne. We just spent a couple of hours there, before they closed, and we did not even scratch the surface of that collection. Very cool place, but it really requires some time.
After that, we slowly made our way back along Rue de Rivoli, past the Louvre, Place de la Concorde to the Champs-Élysées, where a Christmas market was set up. We had a glass of hot wine and marveled at the super-tacky spectacle along the bustling Avenue.
After that, we headed back to Place Etoile and Avenue Wagram, where we had a nice dinner at a Moroccan restaurant.
More photos below …
On this Day Of The Lord 11/12/13, I present to you, dear reader Bohemian Gravity – an a Capella explanation of string theory to the tune of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody by Tim Blais:
Notice the Einstein sock puppet at 2:39
And yes, I know that to most of the world it is in fact 12.11.13
Sunday morning at 7:30 we loaded the horses and headed out to Quail Roost Farm for Laura’s and Julia’s first hunter pace event, organized by a local fox hunt club, the Red Mountain Hounds. Since the farm is only a 15 Minute drive away, we were there quite early and had plenty of time to get ready. At around 9:00, they headed out with the first few riders.
Wally and Cleo (and Julia) at the Red Mountain Hounds hunter pace
A hunter pace is a riding event where the riders follow a flagged course of 8 – 14 miles (13 – 22 KM) and attempt to complete the course as closely to the “optimal” time as possible. Laura and Julia rode in the Hill Toppers division, and they were supposed to ride at 6MpH (9.6 KMH) with optional jumps. It was gorgeous, sunny fall day and they had a great time and got a nice workout in the process.
While the girls were out on the trails, I hung out with the organizers and helped out a little bit here and there. At one point, one of the riders came galloping back because another rider had fallen pretty badly and needed help. They called an ambulance and headed out on the trail in a truck and I took care of the horse. The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and took the injured rider to the hospital.
Laura and Julia completed their ride safely by 10:30 and looked like hey had had a great time. We let the horses cool down and gave them some water and by 11:30 we headed home. No we’re just curious about the results, which should be posted soon.
More photos of Wally and Cleo below.
I have always loved the classical piano, perhaps because Beethoven’s Piano Concertos and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition were my introduction to classical music. Now that both my kids play strings instruments, chamber music has become more of a focus for our classical music enjoyment. However when I saw a few weeks ago, that Kirill Gerstein was going to be performing Pictures at an Exhibition right here in Durham, I jumped on the opportunity. Not only to finally have an opportunity to experience one of my favorite musical pieces performed live, but by one of the best pianists alive, who also Russian … right here at Baldwin Auditorium!
So last night, Jacob and I headed into town to experience what turned out to be another amazing musical event on Duke’s East Campus. This was the program for that evening:
Haydn: Variations in F Minor
Schumann: Carnaval
Timo Andres: Old Friend
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
He also played a short Rachmaninov piece as an encore, after he got a rather enthusiastic ovation at the end of the concert.
After the concert, we stayed for a bit to wait for Gerstein to come out into the lobby where he signed CDs. I got one, too, and had him sign it. When he heard my German accent, he asked me where I am from and I told him that I am from Freiburg. Turns out he lives in Freiburg! And he teaches at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. We had a brief chat and he seems like a really nice guy.
Another cool thing that happened was this well dressed, older gentleman who walked up with his cane to Gerstein and told him, with his voice even a bit choked up, that “This was the most amazing concert of my life! Thank you!” People around the table all nodded in agreement – yes, this was indeed a great, impressive performance.
Happy Friday :)
CARAVAN PALACE at the Karlstor Bahnhof Heidelberg
Would love to see these guys live one day …
Today I left the house at 6:30 and headed to downtown Durham to for a run, together with 5800 other runners. It was the Bull City Race Fest and I had signed up for the half-marathon – 13.1 miles/21 KM. I knew it was going to be a difficult run for me because last weekend my right knee had started to hurt during a training run. Friday I ran a 3-miler and at the end my knee did hurt a little bit. so was really not sure whether I was going to be able to finish this run. Another problem was the cold temperatures – it was 46 deg. F (7.7 Deg, C) – which is a bit chilly for my bare feet. But I was going to try anyway.
The race was fun and it was an interesting experience to run in a huge crowd like this. The faster runners started in the front and the slower runners in the back. We wound our way through downtown, past Brightleaf, though Trinity Park and Old West Durham to Duke’s East Campus, where the five-miler ended. Then the half marathon continued across East and West Campus and various neighborhoods back to the American Tobacco Complex in downtown. I ran at a really slow pace and so the pain only started about halfway, but then it got bad pretty quickly and I was really considering ending the run. But by mile 10 I had gotten used to the pain and I started to relax a bit, which helped. And so on the last couple of miles I even picked up my pace a bit. Of course my time was terrible, but at least I managed to finish the run. And of course my bare feet got quite a few comments during the run and even by the announcers at the finish line.
I rested a bit, got a snack, and then I drove home and iced my knee thoroughly. I really hope that my knee will heal soon if I give it some rest. All in all I had fun, though. The Bull City Race Fest was a bit of circus, but very well organized, the course was pretty and there was lots of cheering from staff and from spectators.
Last night, we went out to a strings concert by the Mallarme Chamber Players with the fantastic violinist Jennifer Curtis and … Dex Romweber (lead guitarist of the Flat Duo Jets). A bit like the Ciompi Quartett, this was another concert that broke down musical barriers and tied a variety of musical traditions together. Complex classical music with amazing, almost acrobatic virtuoso performances contrasted with gorgeous, down-to-earth folk music and a mind-blowing rockabilly jam session with Dex on his Silvertone 1448 electric guitar and Jennifer with her 1777 Vincenzo Panormo violin.
The venue was the Casbah, a small private club on Main St. that has become a very popular music venue in Durham. We enjoyed this performance in the front row and it was just amazing to experience such a caliber of musical talent so close-up and in such an intimate setting. I mean, I love the Mallarme Players – they are wonderful musicians, and I knew Jennifer Curtis is famous, and I had not even spotted Dex’ name on the program at first! So when Suzanne Rousso and Jennifer started out with a pretty, quite modern and very, very technical piece, I thought “wow – they are starting out with a bang!” Next up was another complex contemporary piece for cello and guitar by Radamés Gnattali. But it wasn’t until Jennifer just – I don’t know – smoked that Paganini Guitar Quartett, when I started to realize that they we were being treated to something truly special that evening.
In the second half, Jennifer changed the mood from Carnegie Hall to Merle Fest, performing a very folksy composition by Mark O’Connor, together with Matthew Slotkin. After that, Dex came on stage, plugged in his famous Silvertone 1448 and started strumming out his earthy rockabilly chords, while Jennifer accompanied him with her near-weightless, soaring violin. As they say around these parts: That was som’thin else. I had never heard a sound quite like that – a single electric guitar, a violin and Dex’ gravelly blues-rock voice. A-ma-zing!
So these guys took us from Gnattali and Paganini to a rockabilly cover of Brazil in a matter of an hour and a half. And Jennifer Curtis did not even seem to break a sweat. And after the show, on our way to the car, we walked past Dex, who was smoking a cigarette outside the club. He looked like he’d had fun that evening as well.
[Update – embedded video below]
First installment of “trivia that blows my mind” … yeah, Groucho Marx and Alice Cooper were buddies. Look at them having breakfast …
Here is what Alice said recently about his friendship with Groucho:
Well Groucho Marx – I grew up on Groucho Marx. The Marx Brothers, every time they were on, I would sit and watch them and laugh like crazy because they were so funny. I never thought I would get a chance to meet Groucho. And so the deal was, he came to one of the shows. And when he came to the show, they asked him “what did you think of Alice Cooper?” and he said “Alice is the last chance for Vaudeville.” And I took that as a real compliment, because what we do is a dark humor, rock n’ roll style of Vaudeville, and he had seen the guillotine and the snake before in Vaudeville. There had been acts that were like that. And then we got to be very good friends. He was sharp as a tack, even when he was 86 years old his mind was as sharp as it ever was. And it was so much fun to hang out with Groucho Marx.
Blows my little mind …
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit!
A month ago, I signed up for a half marathon run at the Durham Race Fest. I started training, mostly by going on long runs Sunday mornings, to see if I can actually cover that distance (21.1 KM). Sunday morning, I ran 21.5 KM (13m) along Guess Road and I really feel like I am getting into the groove of longer-distance running – and barefoot, of course.
Yesterday, the entire family plus my dad went out to a nice, classical concert with Duke’s Ciompi Quartett at the newly renovated Baldwin Auditorium. The featured guests of the evening were the Krüger Brothers, a folk trio from Switzerland, based in North Carolina, that plays bluegrass and roots music.
So the concert started out with a strings quartet by Haydn. Then they went on to play Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 12 in D-flat Major, which was pretty challenging- especially for the kids. For the second half of the concert, the Krüger Bros. were on stage, and wow – that was a change in pace. They played some of their standard pieces and then they Ciompi quartet joined them in the the performance of Jens Krüger’s Appalachian Concerto. So for that, we had two violins, a viola, a cello, a banjo, a guitar and an acoustic bass guitar – all played by true masters of their instruments. The audience was treated to a skillful and gorgeous blend of serious classical form and bubbly, toe-tapping American folk music. The centerpiece on this performance was Jens Krüger’s soaring banjo play. Oddly, it was the banjo, of all things, that held it all together – the technical, structured classical elements and the bubbly cheerfulness of the folk music.
Finally, the venue deserves some appreciation. Baldwin Auditorium is an old performance space, which Duke has renovated to the tune of $15M ! The acoustic are fantastic now, and the seats are much more comfortable, too.
Germany has lost a feisty, thoughtful voice today. Marcel Reich Ranicki was the most respected literature critic in Germany and a fearless and honest voice for the survivors of the Holocaust. His love for literature and poetry inspired generations of readers and he relentlessly challenged German authors to advance their craft and create great works of literature. His strong opinions were loved and feared, but his insight was always welcome. He will be missed.
Ein Deutsches Leben – Spiegel Online
(Nerd Alert!) Over the last couple of weeks I finally built my new machine. I ripped out all the Intel crap from my nice Antec Fusion case (DP39DP and a Core2Duo) and rebuilt it with an AMD A10 6800 APU on an ASUS F2A85M MB with 2 sticks of 4GB G.Skill Ares DDR3 1866 SDRAM. Nothing fancy, but solid hardware at a decent price. However, the pièce-de-resistance is a brand new Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD as the system drive. They just came out last month, and twice I was ready to order at Newegg and when I went to the checkout they were sold out! This is the fanciest, most expensive storage I have ever bought for myself. And it’s totally worth it. The benchmarks on this thing are outlandish, compared to spinning platters. And it’s among the top-performing SSDs, especially on linear read/writes. AnandTech has a detailed review.
So what does this mean? It means I can reboot the system in 22 seconds flat. And a good bit of that is POST (12 sec). Windows 7 does not even get to finish its little Windows Logo animation – poof! There is the login screen. It also means that A complete reinstall of Windows takes – uh … about 5 Minutes. AND the little fucker is cool and silent. Won’t say a peep. And a silent system was definitely a design point for this machine.
Shhhh …
The cooler and fan that ship with the A10 are not bad, but, like most CPU fans, the fan is noisy. So I shelled out another $80 for a cooler and quieter fans. I got the Silverstone NT06 cooler and an Antec 120mm fan and a SilenX fan. I ended up using only the Antec fan, together with an original 120mm Antec case fan and the stock, low-profile 120mm fan for the cooler. BTW – see the huge metal thing next to the blue-LED lit case fan in the picture above? That is the cooler. It’s massive! It doe work really well, though. The first time I fired it up, the CPU fan did not work, and within a Minute the cooler was really hot to the touch. So the four 120 mm fans that cool the system move a good amount of air at fairly low RPM (CPU @ 1200, on idle), which gives me a cool, quiet system.
Is mayonnaise an instrument??
Oh barnacles …
It has been over a week since we last saw our 18-year-old old Maine Coon Sodabe
. He was on his last leg last time we saw him. His kidney s were failing and he could hardly eat any more. Sadly, we think he wandered off to die somewhere in the woods.
He was a good cat, very low maintenance most of his life, and very social. When we picked him out from is litter in 1995 at the animal shelter, he was the one with the pink nose. Our Siamese Deha took him in like one of her own.
Phew … brutal weekend – I am hurting all over! Saturday morning Jacob and I did our usual 2 hours of Karate with Sensei Kevin. That’s usually pretty intense, but Saturday evening we also went bowling for 3 hours with 6 of Julia’s friends, to celebrate Julia’s 16th Birthday last week. Thank god they had decent beer at that place!
Sunday morning, I got up a 7:00 and went running. It was 60 Deg. F (16 Deg C) and fairly low humidity, so conditions were great, and I went for 10 Miles (16KM) on Guess Road. That was my longest barefoot run so far (0.2 miles longer than my last 10 mile run) AND this was the first time I beat 100 Minutes over 10 miles! And yet, the run was actually really pleasant. I paced myself carefully, watched my technique and was really able to enjoy my run. Since the weather was so nice, Laura, of course, wanted to go horseback riding, too. Julia was busy with homework all day, so I went for a 1 1/2 hour ride with Laura at Hill Forest that afternoon. Boy, when I got off Wally, I could barely walk.
So, I am in pain today. But it’s all good – it was a fun weekend. Not much in the way of chores got done, but we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the unusually cool weather (for August in Durham).
