slovakia

so now that we’ve been here for a week, I guess we can tell you a bit about what it’s like here and what’s different from home…

we’ll start with the drivers. the drivers here are CRAZY, it’s like nobody looks out for anybody or anything when they get behind the wheel of a car, or anywhere with a lot of people for that matter, we were in the mall today, and were standing in front of the elevator with a stroller, and people would just walk in front of us to get on the elevator until it was so full that we had to wait for the next one. the drivers are the same way, I’ve seen three almost accidents already from people being stupid and not looking when backing up, or pulling into traffic, or turning, or whatever…   people are just very aggressive when it comes to getting where they are going.

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stress

i don’t think it’s possible to overestimate the amount of stress that moving to the other side of the planet can cause. to start off with, we weren’t ready to move. we hadn’t packed all of our stuff in time to move. luckily our friends and family helped us out tremendously there. we had WAY too many bags to be traveling on a plane with, both checked and carry on. when we finally got to our final destination of Vienna after two slightly horrible flights, and a lay over that totally drained me, we had to pack all of our stuff into a single car, and Chels sat on my lap for the hour drive to our apartment.

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so we made it… barely.

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(this is just our carry on stuff, and I’m carting some too!)

We were still moving and cleaning the house on the morning we were supposed to leave. In this haste, I thought I packed stuff I needed only to find out once I got here that I didn’t. Benjam and Co. were still making trips to the storage about 2 hours before we needed to leave to the airport and at the end, anything was being tossed into any box just to get rid of it. We never would have made it out without the help of our families and friends over the last few weeks, and are forever in gratitude.

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El Fede

Amber stayed over the night she got the call. She had been getting reports all day about what was going on with Fede and the accident. The chilling, high-pitched cry that woke me up will haunt me for years to come, I have no doubt. The room was barely lit and when I heard her crying his name, it felt like I could see the mountain top through the darkness. The room was cold and empty and his lingering presence in this world was fading. The room felt extremely heavy and time stopped.   Ever since that night, I have been afraid of the dark and her shriek that lies within.

I am saddened that the world will go on without him and the fact that he will no longer be a part of our lives. But the biggest tragedy is watching and feeling Amber go through her loss. What she must be feeling without her other half,  her best friend. What lost future she is mourning. Every little detail of her daily life that will remind her of him and bring the ache flooding back. Wondering how she will survive without him.

It is all so horribly sad and tragic.

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Fede touched many people’s lives, and will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

Federico Campanini

March 26th, 1977 — January 8th, 2009

condiments

it seems to me that condiments at restaurants should be free. or, if not free, at least included with the price of the meal.

fry sauce is a condiment.

and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

thanksgiving ’08

Usually most holidays are all the same, a good time, but nothing to write about. For some reason this year’s Thanksgiving was really nice. At my family’s holiday parties, it seems like someone is usually in a rotten mood and it will spoil the whole day. This year, everyone was in a great mood, no one was in a rush to run off and my mom was a little ambitious planning something extra that, while we all waited for her, we just hung out and enjoyed each others company with no gang-up-on-someone-and-make-fun-of-them sessions. For whatever reason we hadn’t celebrated Nate, Jami and Benjam’s birthdays this year. So my mom decorated each of the basement bedrooms in a party theme unique for each person, with gifts, decorations and desserts to boot. Instead of everyone poking fun at mom, we all just went with it, sarcasm and all, and had a really fun time.

(Pics after the break)

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leap second added at end of 2008

for everybody who will be celebrating the coming new year, make sure you don’t start (or end) your new year’s countdown early.

the international earth rotation and reference systems service (IERS) has announced that a leap second will be added at the end of 2008, making 2008 one second longer than it should be.

so either start your countdown at 11, or end your countdown at -1, either way…

enjoy the extra long year!  (it has both a leap day, and a leap second)

thoughts on proprietary file formats

so we got a new camcorder for christmas (mrs. claus was nice enough to bring one by for us), and I broke it out, started using it, got it home, and tried to hook it up to the computer…  well, that failed with a cryptic error message, but no big deal, the memory card is easily removed, and the camcorder conveniently came with a USB card reader. so i plugged that in, attached it to the comp, and tried to open the files with my favorite in-a-hurry audio/video player, VLC…

nope. try again.

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teeth

well everybody, we can stop using our “O” key when describing Skye’s current state of toothiness. she now, and for the rest of her life, has teeth. it’s official, there are two teeth in there, and it’s about time…   I think this one has been trying to break through for the past month or so. and she’s been letting us know the whole time.

anywho…

now for the top ones…   we’ll see how bad those ones are.