Met Thierry Lincou today and shook his hand 🙂 …. For the ones who do not know: He was World Number #1 in Squash (Jan 2004) and is presently ranked number 7. Pretty cool. There were just 15-20 players in the club.
On Early Girlfriends
Recently Max (our neighbour’s son, 2nd grade) was watching TV with Ivan. Ana was overhearing the following short conversation between the young studs. Note the terse style of exchange.
Max: ‘Ivan, do you have a girlfriend?’
Ivan: ‘Oh no, that’s gross!’
Max: ‘Not for me either.’
On the other hand when Emma, one of the two girls who have a crush on Markus came by to sweetly ask Ana: “Could I have a playdate with Markus?” Ivan was all upset that girls never come to ask to have a playdate with him. Ana just needed to remind him about the fact that Grace was regularly writing him notes (recent one I have seen was: “Ivan you rock!”) and he was content again. So you can’t go with them but not live without them either.
At home
I am sitting on my coach and enjoying myself after 10 days at CERN.
10 days CERN, 10 days at home.
Snowstorm on the East Coast: 18 Inches in Arlington
Snow began to fall sometimes Tuesday evening on January 11, and it kept snowing… Schools in Arlignton were closed the next day, and as it turned out even the day afterwards. I was at the time in Geneva and could only listen to the reports from Ana and the internet. I also could not help with all the shovelling and Ana just did everything by herself. She told me about the long shovel exercise to cleanup the driveway while more snow was falling. Of course the kids loved it staying home the entire day, I am guessing in their PJs.
A day after the driveway was certainly cleaned but the snow was still very much present and quite high. Ana mentioned it was well over her knees. Ana went down in the morning when suddenly she heart screaming for help in the Garden: “Help! I am stuck…..”. Wondering what was going on she went out into the garden finding Markus in his PJs with his boots on stuck over hip deep in the heavy snow in the front yard. Of course he knew he was not supposed to be au there but the snow must have tempted our adventurer a little bit too much. Of course he got his sermon on ‘Do not go out without asking mum or pup’ but he will certainly not be able to remember that for too long.
First impressions
First impression from the sub-group conveners meeting…. Marat quite pixely….The Hgg convener.
Web cam continues
At CERN in the new cafeteria.
MIT faculty
Faculty web cam continued. Steve just came in, enjoying ice cream time. A bit tiered it seems.
Office mate
My office mate at CERN. Smiling for the camera.
Update on Blake
After another break I find my blog again to report on the recent events in the PausHaus. With my new ‘job’ at CERN, I have started again to travel like mad. I am predicting that I will this year get the 100k miles card for the first time in my life. During my last trip (Dec 1-10, Geneva) our youngest started to make his first steps. When Ana told me on the phone I was a little upset that the sucker did not do it while I was at home but really had do do his first steps while I was on my trip.
I think it was the Saturday (Dec 4) that he put his best two feet forward and ‘wobbled’ his first two steps through the kitchen. Ana was amazed how the little guy with these short and column like legs could make any steps, but he did. It was not really much of a surprise as he was already able to stand up without any help and stand in the room reigning the plane. Steps of course were only possible coasting along objects of the appropriate height or at the hand of his parents of siblings. He was visible proud of his accomplishments.
Meanwhile Ana also got a new camera (for our Dec 3 anniversary, which we celebrated separated by the Atlantic Ocean as last year; not so good for my credit score). I hope later tonight I will be able to upload some pictures of our proud walker.
Projects
Hello after a long break! Finally, I find the time to write something in the blog again. The reason is that today we finally have a bathroom on the upper floor with a non-carpet floor. I have just completed the new floor which is a good solution until we will completely redo the upper bathroom.
We choose a floating floor from allure ‘resilient floor tiles’.
The main problem was of course to properly fit the tiles around the toilet itself. I was not willing to take it out and risk a leak on the upper floors and had to cut around the not really straight sections. I succeeded and after adding some silicon it should not even leak but I think with more experience I could have done better 🙂 Unfortunately our camera is broken and I could not take pictures. Maybe for the next project I will add some if we get a new camera on time.
To all future visitors: now we have an acceptable bathroom upstairs, and I also change the shower head which make the shower upstairs quite pleasant. I would even go as far as saying better then in our master bathroom.
More projects are already planned and the material at hand: the insulation in the upper floor will be fixed and we are going to have an extended wardrobe in our mud room.