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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. Pi on Wikipedia Die […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
