Author: Crisis

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First Thanksgiving in Our House

We had an excellent first Thanksgiving in our new house. We started with a good long sleep, continued with a late breakfast with the entire family.

Next was a visit to a park in Belmont which Steve Nahn recommended to us. We took the Turtle Pond loop. We made an attempt at using the bicycle, scooter and tricycle, but the paths were all to rough to use them, so we brought all vehicles back to the car and walked.

Kids sitting close to the turtle pond (which is not visible in the picture).
Kids sitting close to the turtle pond (which is not visible in the picture).

Ana was very excited about a long walk…. finally in a real park after some searching.
Ana excited about our new discovery, the park in Belmont.
Ana excited about our new discovery, the park in Belmont.

Ivan and Gisele found sticks to fight, Markus through a lot of stuff into the pitch dark turtle pond. When we came back to the car Markus asked when we would arrive at the Turtle Pond :-).

Ivan and Gisele stick fighting on TG 2009.
Ivan and Gisele stick fighting on TG 2009.

Back at home I smoked my cigar while cleaning the garden from leaves and Ana started to cook: lentils with lamb chops, mmmmmmmhhh the early TG dinner was excellent, all loved it. Right afterwards we watch ‘Monsters versus Aliens’, remember “SUUUUUSAN, …. SUUUSSAAANNNN!”. Later we played a good round of animal bingo….. the kids winning and Papi loosing, as it should be.

After a short late dinner the kids went to bed and Ana and I enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing…..

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Sunday Afternoon Squash

I had a great day today at the courts. I played with Tim and though he developed a broken shoe we completed the best of five game. We had to go the full distance but luckily this time I won. Very much in line with the good game I had with Christopher on Friday. Afterwards we played one more game which I also won and I hit a little by myself after Tim left.

I was ready to go home, when Nadim arrived and we started to play some squash. Surprisingly I did win the first two, I lost the third but almost won the fourth, it must have been fourteen or fifteen. It looks like I have upped my game.

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At Home in Bed with Contractions

Woooowwo, Ana is having quite some contractions. Is it already time for edition 4 to arrive? It would be a Friday night and Saturday/Sunday for the hospital….

If you want my opinion: this is not going to go on today or tomorrow. Let’s see what is happening.

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Winning Squash against Christopher

Today, I played Squash with Christopher Malenfant which I have regularly won a set against but rarely a match and never the first match we played in a session. Today was the first time I was able to win the first match in a tight 3:2 battle. We played one more set afterwards which I lost but who cares :-).

So the question is was there a recipe to success or was it just a random win. I believe there is of course some form of the day argument, but I generally followed the strategy to not play weak high cross courts, in particular returning the serve onto my backhand. Also I rather kept the ball long and reasonably tight. Dropping makes me commit too many mistakes. I have to work on that. Christopher retrieved really well, but generally once in the attacking position I could bring the point home.

Bottom line: this was a great day, I have to work on my strategy with Christopher and consider strategies to win the game with other players.

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Tire Pressure

Today, I have figured out why I am not anymore arriving on time for the MIT Group meetings…. My speed is down from over 25 km/h to less then 23 km/h. The reason is very simple, my tire pressure is going down and therefore the friction is significantly higher. So the bottom line to all bikers: maintain your tier pressure and you are not going to be late for meetings.

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Markus and Pre-School

In the beginning Markus really liked pre-school (fidelity), but after two month he has started to dislike it. It goes as far that he does not want to go at all and Ana has to drag him into school. Once he even hit Ana and was crying for at least 20 minutes until he finally started to go with the program.
Today, Ana told him he would get a present if he would quietly go to pre-school without complaining too much. All went reasonably well until they arrived right at the door and he was going to enter and he decided that he did not like it. He proposed that he would rather go with Papi to the office than entering the pre-school. Luckily enough Ana convinced him with the potential present that it was better to join the pre-school group, which he quietly did. Of course he got a nice toy-truck from Ana afterwards.

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Squash Night with the Squashbusters at MIT

Tonight the MIT 4.5 team played against the Squashbusters team from North Eastern University. It was a great evening at our home courts. Our team was pretty complete with Jan, Frans, Christopher and Najib. This time around, finally all except for Christopher won. It was a great night and lots of fun. I did not play a team game but I enjoyed good squash (1:4) with Mike (not sure what his surname is) and then 2 games (2:0) with Wes (the number 4 player from Squashbusters) and finally 2 nice sets (1:1) with Chris (the number 1 player from the Squashbusters).  I am starting to let the ball longer in the game to wait for the point rather than pushing too hard to make the point with a risky shot…. let’s see whether I can continue in this direction.

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Markus at his Best

It was one of those days in Geneva in 2009, when Markus had just joined the Kindergarten and Ana had just picked them up. Ana stopped to look at the horses and cows, when one of the cows started to peee full blast. Markus takes notice of what is going and remarks tersely: ‘Mami, ya se de donde viene la cerveza.’  which translates to ‘Mum, I know now where beer is coming from.’ There is one more information which puts this into context. Ana had explained the kids before, where the milk is coming from.