Today was another day I did not get younger. But as the case may be, I got some cool toys today, too. My daughter got me a nice beer glass that is the shape of an upside-down beer bottle. I also got a pair of FPV goggles for my quadcopter. Plus a mini camera and […]
Happy Leap Day! And congratulations to Ennio Morricone for finally winning his first competitive Academy Award for his score for Quentin Tarantino’s film The Hateful Eight (2015). Morricone’s almost 60-year career in music included over 500 film scores, 5 previous Oscar nominations: Days of Heaven (1979), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Bugsy (1991) and Malèna […]
Boston Dynamics is at it again. I am sure we’ll get used to this, but right now it’s a bit creepy. At the end, after it gets up, I fully expected it to go after the guy. Faszinierende Technik, aber emotional schon etwas gewöhnungsbedürftig. Ich dachte an Ende, nachdem sie aufsteht, dass die Maschine auf […]
The last few days have been pretty chilly around here. Sunday morning it was a brisk 15 Deg. F (-10 °C) and the waterfall at the little fishpond was almost frozen. Kühl war es hier die letzten Tage – minus 10 °C am Sonntag morgen. Sunday night it snowed and Monday we had freezing rain. […]
Jan 23 NC was hit by a “blizzard” and we had 2-3 inches (10 cm ) of icy snow. Here are some shots from my quadcopter the day after.
The solar system appears to have a new ninth planet. Today, two scientists announced evidence that a body nearly the size of Neptune—but as yet unseen—orbits the sun every 15,000 years. During the solar system’s infancy 4.5 billion years ago, they say, the giant planet was knocked out of the planet-forming region near the sun. […]
Most of 2015 went really quite well, but the last few months of this year did pack a bit of a wallop for us. The highlight of the year was in May, when Julia graduated from Middle College High School as valedictorian of her class. She got to speak at her graduation ceremony and she […]
My Christmas present this year was a little Syma X5C RC quadcopter with a camera from Amazon. This is a fun little quad, as long as it’s no too windy outside. With a little practice I managed to get some pretty nice aerial shots of our little farm without crashing the quad into the trees. […]
Meet Adjo, our newest and youngest family member. Adjo is a Lynx-point (Tabby-point) Siamese we got from the local animal shelter in August. She is about 10 months old at this point, so she is still very young and playful, which is (partly) why it took me so long to post a picture of her. […]
Our hearts go out to the victims of last week’s horrific attacks in Beirut and in Paris. We are told both attacks were perpetrated by extremists associated with Daesh (aka IS, ISIS or ISIL), apparently with the intent of creating chaos, and inciting hatred among Muslims in Lebanon, and hatred against Muslims in Europe. Spreading […]
As the leaves are turning and the nights are getting chilly, this October had some real challenges for us. One of those challenges sent me on a short-notice trip back to Germany. While the German fall weather was mostly chilly and overcast, I had one day of nice weather. On that day I was driving […]
In Germany, on certain holidays, public dancing is banned. The State of Baden-Württemberg has one of the strictest anti-dancing laws: no dancing on Sunday from 3 -11 AM plus a long list of public, religious holidays. Now the State government has decided to loosen the rules and allow public dancing on Sundays, New Year’s day, […]
After a 15-year civil war, Mozambique was one of the world’s most heavily mined countries. Twenty-two years after the war ended, the country was declared officially mine-free this month. Key to this success have been trained de-mining rats used by the Norwgian-supported organization APOPO. The rats sniff out the mines and their handlers destroy the […]
This summer was the summer of independence for Jacob and Julia. First, the two of them went on an adventure, then Julia moved out. Let’s start at the end: last week was Julia’s 18th birthday. In the morning, Laura took her to the DMV to get her permanent driver’s license. In the afternoon we took […]
This is the newest photo of Pluto’s little buddy Charon, shot by New Horizon and published today by NASA. Remarkable new details of Pluto’s largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken late on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 289,000 miles (466,000 kilometers). […]
Amazing!! Pluto nearly fills the frame in this image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, taken on July 13, 2015 when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface. This is the last and most detailed image sent to Earth before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto […]
Yesterday afternoon, we took the kids to the airport and sent them on a 3-week vacation in New Hampshire. They are staying with Laura’s brother and they are helping him to fix up the house on Squam Lake where he intends to retire soon. So for the first time in 17 yeas, Laura and I […]
Monday morning, two trucks from Enterprise Rental crashed into the canopener. The first one at 7AM and the second one around 10:30 AM. In the second incident, the passenger was injured when his head hit the windshield, presumably because he did not wear his seat belt. So the fire department and EMS showed up and […]
Yesterday morning, we had to take Henry to the vet to have him euthanized. His health had seriously deteriorated over the last few days. So when he could no longer get up or drink, it was time. He was 15 years old. Earlier this year, his health had started to decline after he had had […]
Today was Pi Day for my 1991 300D. This morning the car’s mileage rolled over 314159 miles and the number pi is 3.14159.
