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.
Blaki from above.
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.
After very positive results from moving lots of bushes and other plants in the garden I was confident enough that I could move our last tree in the front yard to a the property line behind our shed to create a bit more privacy for our sun room. Ana was of course all excited about this idea.
I started maybe half an hour before the Laker vs. Celtics game which started at 20:00 (this was game two, the Celtics down by 1:0 in the NBA finals). First I stitch out one spade (a special long and narrow one for digging tranches) deep around the tree cutting all the roots in a maybe 0.5-0.75m radius around the about 2.50m high tree. The roots I cut were not particularly big. That went pretty well, but of course the tree did not move a bit when I tried to take it out. Then I dug a 2 spade deep trench around the tree lining up with my previous stitches. By now I was able to get a bit under the tree’s roots and when I finished all around the tree started to move slightly. I thought there must be still some big roots keeping it down below and I asked Guillelmo (who arrived yesterday for a 12 days visit) to help me bend the tree together with its roots in all direction and cut off everything below. I was at that point completely wet from the digging.
We were able to bend the tree over to each side and I found no more roots connecting the tree and we realized that it must be the weight of the dirt sticking to the roots, which made it so difficult to move the tree. We were barely able to get the tree out of the whole after I shook off as much dirt from the roots without destroying more roots. After some major force was applied we were finally able to load the tree onto the wheelbarrow and pushed it with a lot of effort up the slope behind our shed were it fit perfectly into the hole I prepared. Meanwhile, it had gotten dark and I was glad to sit on the sofa after a massive shower. I had gotten so dirty the big hole will be closed tomorrow. Photos will follow soon, stay tuned. Dirty and exhausted, but successful and happy.
This entry should have been made on May 10, 2010 but I did not get to it on time. So here it is and in fact you might find it under May 10, after I have figured out how to change the date on a post. So…. on May 9th there was an event organized by one of the seniors in the physics department which was supposed to show that physicists are also cool people, and very adequately it was dubbed ‘physics rocks’.
I was not very interested in this event, when I received e-mails asking for participation but at least I was reading them. A little later I saw Peter fisher signing up to be the MC of the event which I incorrectly interpreted as putting up records. He asked me whether I was interested in ’emceeing’ with him and clarified that it mean Master of Ceremony which means to announce the acts during the event. After some hesitations I agreed and did not do much. Peter decided we were going to use the Man in Black as a theme: ‘The Professors in Black’, him being ‘K’ me being ‘J’. The evening arrived and I just put on my black suite, the white shirt and the new black tie, which Ana bought for me the day before. I checked my self in the mirror and I have to admit, proper clothes do make a difference. Of course I also shaved and shampooed my hair for the occasion. I took Ana’s shades to have some weird glasses and our sleek black camera to be used as a neuralizer later in the evening. On arrival (we were maybe 40mins early) I caught up with Peter and we started to prepare our jokes, which were straight forward. The event started and the rest is history. We had a blast and enjoyed the improvised happening. It was impressive to see another side of some of our colleagues and students. The Tech had a big article in its edition 26 (May 10). Title page on The Tech N 26 The remaing article followed up the front page.
After the event Pup and Ana were speaking for a long time of a memorable Tango Performance from Professor Vuletic, while I rode home with Richard Milner who gave a solid guitar performance during the concert, culminating in a cover of ‘Free Bird’ from Lynyrd Skynyrd.
By the way, in case you have enough time to download and watch, this is almost the complete event recorded with a pretty decent video camera.
Even as the posts have not been very regular from the Paus Haus, life has gone on. Blake is still doing great, growing quickly and developing his skills. By now he can hold on to something given to him, he stands when given two supporting hand he can grab on to and he is smiling like a little ‘Futzemann’. When Ana talks to him he starts to make noises trying to formulate a response. His bothers and his sister simply adore him. There seem to be very little jealousy issue with neither Gisele not Markus. At the moment Blake is sleeping between Ana and myself because we decided the old crib was not really good enough any more. We will by a crib/bed for him very soon.
Meanwhile our main work in the garden is really finished. The terrace is dug including the building of the retaining wall and putting in some rugged grass seeds. There were a whole bunch of spots which needed some more grass. The first patch in front of the house has by now a whole bunch of little grass plants starting to peak out. The kids have pretty strictly stuck to my ‘orders’ not to walk over the freshly seeded spots. It is interesting to see that they really listen. Our little vegetable garden though has not the smallest plant yet. I am interested to see how long it will take.
Today we went with the kids to the Wilson Farms which is mostly one big store, where one can buy fresh fruit, vegetable and other ‘organic’ products. It also has a small gardening part where we saw some nice blueberry, raspberry and blackberry bushes. They are not ccheap but also not too expensive. We will plant some 4-5 blueberry bushes on the property line which is right in front of the sun room. Ana likes to create a little more privacy on that end. At the upper end of our property, where the forest starts we will plant some raspberries and blackberries to contain the leaves and make the view on the upper end even nicer. The plants should gow up there and we just have to worry that they do not spread out of the forest line 🙂
Spring has started, last week we had three days with 28-32 C which was like an explosion for the plants. Meanwhile the temperatures have gone back done but we had today a beautiful day at up to 18 C. I am in fact right now enjoying the sun room with open windows, a cigar and a good calvados. Leonard Cohen is singing his greatest hits which always reminds me of a trip to the black forest with Christoph Klemp, who lead the older folks of the catholic youth in the St. Evergislus parish.
I remember there were Georg Voelzgen, Martin Wolf, Ralph Wingendorf, myself and our fearless leader Christoph. We drove in his old VW beattle with Leonard Cohen and excellent conversation. The backpacks were loaded on top of the car. We got excellent Spaetzle with cheese and tomato sauce from his aunt in Freiburg, if I remember correctly, and went to have some great hiking. The interruptions at the Kneipp stations I will never forget. They were even in the summer very very cold and Ralph and I had a contest who could stay inside longer, watching our feed and lower legs turn red and blue, but the walking got so pleasant afterwards. We found and ate a whole bunch of wild blueberries. Poor Martin Wolf did not take them well and the blueberry incident on the stairs has become history, when they all came back and fell down the stairs…. This long hike was also the first time I remember that I was completely destroyed a few kilometers before we arrived at our destination. Luckily we had some wine gums, the ones with sugar, and they saved me. That was probably the first time I experienced a recovery from too low blood sugar. I was fine and full of energy again after a 15 minutes break.
Now that we have decided to stay in the US — I had gotten an excellent offer from the ETH in Zuerich to become the successor of Felicitas Pauss — Ana and I are thinking about all the things we would like to get done in our house and garden. There is a long laundry list but we have time and we will start soon to knock off the most important things. I think the new table for our dining room will come first, followed maybe by our master bed room layout. In the summer I would like to build a deck in front of the sun room to make use of our rather large garden. We are really blessed with a wonderful property which we can improve over the years to give the kids a great place to grow up. They often do not even want to leave the house because they are so comfortable here. Gisele trying a steep climb: our chimney wall in the sun room. Our youngsters in a sunny sun room. They love the house and in particular the sun room. Our kids have adjusted well to the American Food: corn dogs it is today. No Easter without a solid hunt for Easter Eggs and all that. We are ready to go!!!!
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.
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.
Yesterday i was offered the position in Zuerich. We are all excited and will carefully evaluate the consequences of a move. When number 4 is born we will make plans and we will travel to Zuerich. This is an important new step in our life and we will make sure to make the best informed decision.
As Phillip Schieferdecker put it, ‘Im Fussball nennt man das ein Luxusproblem’.
After my initial test blog, finally I found the time to install this new blog. It is not supposed to be read by anybody just family and the few other people I will tell the link explicitly.
The intention is to use it as something like a diary, probably excluding any professional things. For the kids, Ana and myself to remember. Short stories like the one below should make up a good fraction of the blog.
One of Gisele's famous firsts 'yos'. She was not yet able to speak too many words but her understanding was quite good already. So when for example asked, who wants some chocolate, she would quickly raise her hand and scream 'YO'.
