I noted that my spelling really sucks when I write blogs. And after that I also noted that usually my e-mails contain some spelling mistakes as well as more serious mistakes: through passes the spell checker but if it is supposed to be throw? not to mention the thens and thans what to do? I guess I have to be more careful.
Slow Saturday: Our Favorite Frogs
Today we were wiped out: Ana and myself of course, the kids were bouncy as usual. Unfortunately it was another pretty cold day with -6 C around noon and we stayed inside quite a bit. We watched ‘Aliens in the Attic’ which was okay but not really great either. Afterwards we had a yummy lentil lunch which took me out for a while — dosing off on the sofa — but afterwards the beautiful sunshine tricked me and I bundled up the 3 kids and went with them for a ‘parque and muffin’ trip. The Brackett school playground was of course deserted but we got out and played ‘Bodenmonster’ and ran up the hill once and down again. The Bodenmonster game consists mainly of me growling and trying to catch the kids while they are on the playground installation and I am not supposed to mount. This kept us busy for quite a while until I noted that Gisele’s hand were freezing. So we packed up and went to Jam’n Java where everybody got a muffin and a hot chocolate. It was obvious that the kids still had not had enough active playtime because they were all over the place in the coffee shop. Gisele and Ivan did not really finish their muffins (Ivan really had a chocolate chips scone, which was not as good as he had thought) but Markus went all the way. When we were driving back home Markus asked where we were going and mentioned that he would love to go to Chipotle. I asked him ‘Are you really still hungry?’ and he replied ‘YES’ ecstaticly.
When we got home I sat down at the computer and again stared at the frogs in my desktop. A while ago Markus and I were browsing the web for cool frog pictures. We stored Markus’ favorite pictures and finally today, as it is very cold outside we sat down and posted them in our blog. The top favorit is of course orange and black, Markus favorit colors. It is a poison dart frog.
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Of course I also looked through the Web and found together with Ivan his favorit frogs. They are not all that different, meaning they are exotic frogs, but the colors do differ and reflect more of what Ivan considers cool colors.
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Playing at Home against BSC Allston
Today I had my first club match playing the second position. I lost clearly 3:0 against Shane, a friendly guy from New Zealand. BSC Allston is the second best club in the league, so there is not too much shame in loosing.
I could have done a number of things better, though. First it is important to remember that if something does not work, do not insist and make the same mistake over and over again.
Shane had a good hard serve onto my backhand which I tried to cut off and put in as a nice drop, generally speaking probably the right idea. Unfortunately my drops went mostly into the tin, which cost me well over five points — maybe even ten. This can not happen when one plays against someone who is as good as oneself or maybe even better.
The other thing I am still doing is that I do tend to bring back the ball long, even if I am upfront and could drop effectively. I will have to work on that shot. Dropping is still one of my weak points.
Less obvious for an outside observer also that I did not employ my patience to set up the rally for the point. I was too hasty trying to make the point while it would have been better to keep the ball in the game and wait for a clearer situation.
Well, as long as I see what I do wrong I can still improve: next time it will be better!
New Location, New WordPress Version
All right friends. I have now moved my blog to its hopefully final location. I created a nicer name and updated the latest and hottest version of wordpress 2.9.1…. the blog was permanently reminding that my version was pretty old. The interface might have improved, I am not sure yet.
News on Cigars
Recently I have been getting back to my old vice somewhat more seriously…. yes I love cigars. Smoked together with a whiskey, a bourbon, a decent Rum or maybe a Cognac, there is few greater pleasures.
Due to the Cuba embargo, which is still active since the October 1960, there are no Cuban cigars around in this country. At least they are not sold over the counter to a normal person like me. Making the best of it I am studying the locally available cigars again. After spending 8 years in Chicago you can imagine that I am not a novice to non-Cuban smokes, but after three years in Geneva I had to brush up on my inventory.
I still like the Padrons which are really a great deal, as well as the CAO Brazil cigars which are a bit more flavorful. But there are also some new ones which had not tried. Right now for example I am sucking on a wonderful cigar from Alec Bradley (Vice Press). This is really as good as it gets, flavorful, a big gauge, which I do like when I have the time. Together with it I am sipping slowly on my Laphroaig a wonderful tart whiskey — Andreas recommended it and I have thankfully accepted as one of my preferred drinks — straight up and please, not too cold.
Watching Blake
While Ana is cooking lunch I am supposed to watch Blake. He is sitting here in front of me on his little chair and I am watching the little man. He is not happy when his hat gets over his eyes o I decided to take off the head.
I am sitting here in t-shirt on my favorite seat, legs up on the ottoman, it cannot be too cold for Blake. It could maybe be a little too loud as Van Morison is playing for me a wonderful set of songs… ‘Best of Van Morison’ or something like it. Anyway it is awesome. Ana also made me a lemon-green tea which is surprisingly good, too. Blake dosed of for a few minutes but is now searching, probably reminded by some feeling of emptiness in his stomach. Luckily our lunch is just cooking and Ana has come by to make Blake happy.
Now will have to convince my older children to come with me and cleanup the play room …. one of my ‘honey do’ duties as I just being instructed.
Looking at the pictures I find this one from yesterday night, me and Blake, and noticed that my hair is really getting long. Hmmm, but winter ain’t over yet.
Moving up…. In the Squash Squad
Wednesday we played the University Club team. It is a really an interesting club. Many people from the city, and you can see they mean and do business. I was very surprised when I met Joe Cortes at the club. Thinking about it I have to admit it is not surprising at all as his ex-wife Sarah actually was the one who introduced me to the club a while ago. It is the first time I am back since then.
Anyway, this club is the top club in the league and of course we got our butts whooped. My match was not so obvious: I won the first game to 7, but then lost my focus and could not win another game. I lost the match 1:3, but that was the second best result in the team. Christopher pulled off a 2:3 and Frans and Jan got a disappointing 0:3.
As usual, once you have a squash permit for the evening, we played some more matches and my final match was against Christopher. He had a tough match with Jan before and had lifted some weights but anyway we played, and by the way I was not the freshest either. Long story short I beat him quite convincingly 3:1. This was the second time I had beat him in the first match we played on an occasion. He made more mistakes than usual and I think that might have been due to the lifting. We agreed we would have a real challenge match on Friday.
Friday came and we met at 1pm at the courts, both in good spirits, joking around as usual we warmed up comfortably and finally started our match. I won the first set but it was quite some action, some long and pretty nice exchanges, and I could win most of the long ones which made me confident and happy. The second set Christopher go his game together and fought back successfully. I was prepared for everything in the third and it did not start that well but I was able to keep it together and win the third. That did it and Christopher lost his composer in the fourth and last, because I won the game and match 3:1. This catapults me to the second slot in the team, leap frogging Frans.
So what is next? I will of course challenge Jan 🙂 our number one player.
Blake is now Four Weeks Old (Time Flies)
Blake today passes the four weeks and he is doing very well. He has almost lot all his yellowish skin color and his eyes are almost white as well. He is also already following what is going on to some extend. He can look at something and stay focused.
When he is sitting on his little rocking chair he seems to be watching the least interesting part of the chair, not the flashing lights or the wonderful little goldfish inside the turquoise fluid…., he looks at the blank metal structure (as he is becoming an MIT educated engineer, it is the most obvious thing to watch of course). He loves to take a bath with me and he also enjoys bonding with his Papi.
His brothers and his sister love him very much and always want to take him, just for a minute 🙂 Ana and I are very happy that this part works out so well this far.
Just as a little update on everybody else, here are the most remarkable things to remember: Markus is still not excited about his pre-school experience, but he does now go there without a big scene in front of the Fidelity Building. Once in the past it was so bad that a policemen at the scene helped struggling Ana. He took Markus in his arms and carried him into the building. It left an impression, Markus got all quiet and watched the policeman attentively, just a little scared. Good he did not hit him 🙂 as you remember Markus hands sit pretty loose.
Markus is going to the bathroom by himself, but he is having some issues. Wiping can turn into disaster and he does not call for help, at times he does not get his pants down quickly enough and a distinctive smell of urine clouds him as he does not tell anybody about his little mishaps. Sometimes he tries to fix them himself (you will find the damp clothes in a corner of the wardrobe) other times he leaves his clothes on saying it is not so bad: ‘Das ist nur ein bisschen, das ist nicht schlimm Papi’. But don’t get me wrong here, he is an adorable little happy fellow speeding around on his race track through the entire first floor (kitchen-living room-sun room-living room-entry-dining room-kitchen and so on).
Gisele on the other hand is a sweet girl, completely different from the boys. She loves to drink tea with her mum or even with Papi, but at times she throws a fit and that with all her forces. She has definitively a dark side: her voice becomes very dark and full and she screams with every fiber of her body, getting all stiff, clenching her fists and throwing herself on the floor. It can go on for a while. My best way to get her out of it is to let her be for a while and then giving her to opportunity to snap out of it by offering her the favorite pillow…. often it works, sometimes not.
Ivan is doing great all together. He is the oldest and most reliable. He does not need help with pretty much anything. He likes to go to school and the teachers in Kindergarten love him, pretty much as they did in Geneva. The homework though does not excite him too much — _boring_. Also it seems that he has a slightly week stomach. He has been having some troubles at times and vomits at nights (well correlated with excessive eating).
Just another Friday night
Another of those nights: kids in bed, Ana exhausted and me with some good cuban rum and my Brazil cigar in front of the computer solving an interesting analysis problem. Friday nights can be awesome. Soon the last Conan show to be watched….. Let’s see how he goes out with a bang 😉
Squash is pickung up further
After Blake’s birth I have slowly started up with squash again, and surprise, surprise it worked quite well. I finally had a chance to play some challenge matches. I played one with Christopher, which I lost and I played one with Najib which I won with a whopping 3:1. Well, of course this is dependent on the day but well I won this time. I had also already won the last two matches with (Apra)Tim.
The most prominent consequence of my victory over Najib is of course the fact that I am now the number 4 player on the 4.5 team from the MIT club.
In my so far two matches (played when there was one injured/travelling person) I lost 0:3 and more recently 1:3. Yesterday finally we had another away mach in Natich, MA (cross courts). We (Chistopher and I) drove with Frans’ wonderful Lexus 4×4 and had a good squash heavy conversation between the three of us. When we arrived at the club we changed quickly and I started as the first one to play number 4 match with John. At the same time Christopher got his match started. I was in good spirits and had my head relatively straight, which was not the case in my last league match.
In the first set we were feeling out where everybody was and I was glad to get a bit ahead and keep it that way. In the second set I changed nothing played long and hard and won in a somewhat tighter battle but I felt rather confident. The third set in the end I just kept the game at a fast pace and John lost his composure and I brought it home without much problems. This was a great feeling and we had a beer together. I played some more sets with various people and enjoyed my first league victory. Hopefully more to come. The same evening Christopher (3) lost his match 1:3, Frans (2) lost against a 17 year old very well playing kid 0:3 and finally Jan (1) brought a whopping 3:0 victory to the table. So MIT won this battle, which has pushed us up a little but it will not be enough to get to the playoffs. Frans dropped me off at home which was awesome because Ana did not even have to get up to pickme up.
Tomorrow I have a challenge match with Najib…. I need to start challenging the likes of Christopher and Frans 🙂