Wannsee in Flammen

Every year around this time a local lake named the Wannsee on the west side of Berlin celebrates the fall by having a special flotilla of tourist and private boats culminating in an awe-inspiring display of fireworks. It is named Wannsee in Flammen and means Wannsee (the name of the lake) in flames.

This year a few people from the company for which I work were invited to be guests of Berlin's largest tourist and charter boat companies, Stern und Kreisschiffahrt. They were unable to go, so Beatrix and I took their place.

The nicest ship in their fleet is the Ms. La Paloma, and tonight we were on it! The celebration is a two night thing, and Saturday night is usually the BIG night, so this company invites a group of clients (somewhere around 700 people for this ship) and uses the opportunity to push themselves a little on the first night.

N. doesn't really like fireworks, so I invited my Mother-in-Law. She's a really cool lady that I enjoy spending time with, so it was just a natural! Beatrix brought a friend of hers, and the four of us shared a table. Personally I enjoyed the evening although I was left in the dust for understanding about 50% of the conversation. It is really hard for me to understand German when the people are speaking quickly, music is playing, and there is more ambient noise. But they seemed to get along very well, and the evening was for me delightful.

The buffet was quite nice, the wine lovely, and even the cappuccino was agreeable although I usually find German cappuccino unpalatable... not sweet enough for this American... it always needs two spoons of sugar. The wait staff was quick, efficient, and friendly. The company representatives on the ship were cordial and welcoming.

There were about 25 fully lit vessels traveling in a circle around the Wannsee. All night long we were trailed by Moby Dick which oddly enough resembled a whale, while we trailed the Havel Queen, a throwback to the Mississippi riverboat. As we floated along we were treated to running alongside brightly-lit party ships, some of them were even neon-colored. There were lots of smaller ships and sailboats moored along the side of the lake, many of them with people on deck or visible below deck... like I said, it is a pretty big event and lots of people braved the crappy weather to come out and enjoy it.

Our weather eventually turned out to be pretty decent. Not even one and a half hours before cast off we had a HUGE downpour which didn't bode well for the evening. But as we were enjoying dinner in the comfort of the cabin Beatrix and I looked out at the water and saw the reflection of the moon! The clouds were parting and things were looking better!

About 10.00, as we were exploring the top deck of the ship, the fireworks started... talk about good timing!! The La Paloma had just completed her turn at the far end of the lake and was headed directly back toward the little island which was set up in the middle for the shooting of the fireworks. During the entire display we were moving either to port or to starboard to afford everyone the best view.



Eventually we came up right alongside where the fireworks were being shot off... this was the most spectacular view, unfortunately they were partially obscured by lingering smoke, but they were directly above us.

I guess that about 60% of what I enjoy most about fireworks is the big, deep booms... and there were plenty of them. Eardrum rattling, feel it in your chest kind of booms simply excite me, and I was not let down with this display at all. As we moved ever closer the noise seemed to surge across the water with an ever deepening sound... ah... what a great night!

Ms. La Paloma

No Gays in Iran

You gotta give Ahmadinejad some credit, he seems pretty personable, obviously on some kind of power trip wanting people to believe that he is more than essentially a vice president... and then up comes the issue of gays in his Muslim country. While speaking in front of an audience at Columbia University, President Ahmadinejad was asked about Iran's record of human rights towards women and homosexuals. He gave a blabbering speech about criminals and drug problems, then was called back to the original question again and had to answer it. At this time he rather obviously smiled through a pissed look and said that, "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country." (meaning the USA)"In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I do not know who has told you that we have it."
Check out the video.


For the first time in his appearance, the audience actually reacted. They sat still and quiet while he spouted his Allah references, while he said that his country has no intention to use nuclear weapons, while he droned on and on about science and its importance. But saying that Iran has no gay people got a laugh and some jeers from this group.

Maybe some of those people in the audience realized the obvious truth... Gays are not allowed to live in Iran. I'm sure there are some homosexuals who are quiet, who remain in whatever passes for a closet in their country. But can you imagine what would happen to an Iranian man who openly proclaims his homosexuality in the streets of Tehran? I give him 2 hours of life. Yes, if you kill the homosexuals... then hey, no more homosexuals!

So what did he accomplish?
Personally I now just call him the "Denier".
He denies that Iran wants to have nuclear weapons, he denies that the Holocaust happened, and now he denies that Iran has homosexuals.

After a little more research I finally found an interesting piece by Jeanne Moos on CNN. (I just love Jeanne's voice... so distinct). They had video of his UN conversation about homosexuals, as well as a little bit on what I was saying before... that there aren't any gays in Iran that they know about, because they are taken care of pretty quickly.

Online Etch A Sketch

Wow, I always loved this thing!

In my lifetime I've gone through 3 of these magical creatures. When I was very small, maybe four or five I remember thinking how it's magical properties... all you have to do is turn it over and your work disappears. That was all well and good until you accidentally wiped what you've been meticulously working on for the last four hours... my first experience with the agony of delete!

As I got older I ended up with another one, this one was mine, not a hand-me-down from numerous brothers and sisters, and saw the toy with new eyes. I was around ten or so and had developed an intense desire to understand all things mechanical. Typewriters, record players, radios, nothing was safe from me... they would be in pieces as soon as they were declared "unfixable" by my mechanical genius and engineer Dad.

This untamed desire to tear things apart included my new Etch A Sketch. I wanted to see the inner workings, to understand how many little metal shavings it took to make this possible and how the magnet was propelled from one side of the screen to the other so easily. The silly designers actually put screws on the back of the thing. But when I tried to pry it apart ever so carefully... well, you might imagine the mess made by the ensuing explosion of the entire contents of an Etch A Sketch. To this day I imagine that I am carrying at least two good whiffs worth of "magic powder" in my lungs.

I found myself in my thirties bopping around the toy area of the local super-gigantic-we-have-everything store and saw the next generation of my childhood toy. It was much lighter, and the knobs would creak even more than I remembered from my youth, but I had a good time with it for a while.

Eventually it became too frustrating... WHY OH WHY MUST EVERY LINE BE STRAIGHT!?! Anyone that knows me will tell you that I can't even think straight! AND don't even TRY to "think outside the box" with one of these. An incredibly annoying aspect is that you can't stop the line and start again somewhere else. I often thought that the makers could add a simple lever which would remove contact of the magnet from the glass and allow you to move the magnet without making marks. Then eventually you could put it back on the glass again. In my humble opinion this minor modification would make for a much better instrument.

This online thing is cool as well... the lines are almost as hard to match up though, darn-it!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

United States, Germany Reach Women's World Cup Semifinals

United States' Abby Wambach, right, scores past England's goal keeper Rachel Brown during their quarter-final match of the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup soccer tournament at Tianjin, China

Top ranked United States and defending champion Germany have advanced to the semifinals of the Women's World Cup football (soccer) tournament in China. Both of them faced down their opponents and came out kicking. The US ladies whooped England bad, 3-0... and should be worrying the other finalists by now. The German defending champions won a very similar victory against Korea, also ending 3-0.

Now I don't know who to support! In the men's games it was quite easy... the U.S. men's soccer team just suck! But the ladies kick some serious ball! If it comes down to a U.S. /German match for the cup... our house may become a bit disturbed. N. has a thing about the German captain Birgit Prinz... I'm afraid that if I support a team that ends up beating Birgit... um, I may have to look for other living arrangements. We'll know more on September 30th I suppose.

San Diego Mayor Sanders Supports Gay Marriage

I am so proud of this man who is going against his party line to support equality and justice to the historically "less important" gays and lesbians. I defy anyone to watch this man and not understand the profound emotions that he is wrestling with.

It is so sickening to me watching the American Vice President, Dick Cheney follow the Republican line and repeatedly speak out against gay marriage knowing full well that his daughter is a lesbian, and that he supports her relationship... yet feels that the rest of American gays and lesbians should continue to be treated as second class citizens.

Here's to you, Mayor Sanders! This may be the kiss of death for Mayor Sanders' political career of course, but in the face of that knowledge he shows incredible courage to go against his party line. If it matters to you at all, a lesbian forced to leave America to marry her true love cried this morning while watching your emotionally charged speech.

Animator vs. Animation

I really have the deepest respect for people with this kind of talent.
Check out the animation here
Alan Becker spent three months putting this together!

Thanks to Dr. J @ AlienTed

The New Vespa

Well we did it ! We picked up our new Vespa and finally had some time to ride it. Got it Thursday night and immediately needed some handling exercise. N. hopped on and used her legs to walk it, and I pushed it back behind the Roller-Scholz building to the Lidl parking lot.

I was the first to try it out, and what a jump that was! I donned my new flower helmet and N’s Father’s old motorcycle jacket started ‘er up and took off in a whoosh! It is quite new so the engine needs to be run-in, which makes it kinda stink. Also the idling wasn’t quite adjusted yet, so it kept stalling out. That’s ok, lots of chances to enjoy that electronic start! It also has a kick start, but I haven’t been that brave yet.

N. drove it home and just about froze in the process. We’d had the forethought of the thick jacket, but not enough for gloves… her hands were like ice. When we got closer to home it was my turn to try it out again so we headed toward another Lidl… what would we do without Lidl? I got my first chance to take it above 25KPH and enjoyed it a LOT. It made sense to practice the stopping and starting, so I did a lot of that as the sun completely disappeared and my hands became more and more frozen.

Soon we decided it was time to call it a day and called N’s parents who were waiting outside of our building when we arrived. They congratulated us and I could see a little jealousy in N’s Mom’s eyes… I think she would really enjoy something like this. N’s Dad had also been getting into the spirit of buying a bike and told me all about his latest test drive on a monster motorcycle. Sorry, don’t know the make/model or I would include it here. By the way, he ended up buying thatmotorcycle this past weekend… next weekend we will go pick it up in Wittenberg.

We really look at each other every once in a while and wonder how we could come to this decision so quickly… we take longer to decide on a shirt. But it seemed so quick from the time we first talked about it to the time we were driving it. Along the way we had to buy helmets and gloves and a jacket for me. All in all it has come close to the cost of a decent used small car… but I must say that it is MUCH COOLER!!!

The History of Blogging

I ran onto this on Essays & Effluvia and absolutely loved it, as I do most of what I find there!

Get Your Motor Runnin'...

I am SO pumped!
Today we will go pick up our NEW VESPA!! It was really a quick decision when you consider how much money we are talking about (well over €2,000), but it is going to be really cool!

Pictures to come... BUT, a minor problem... my really cool camera finally succumbed to the dust and crap from me carrying it in my pocket.

N. has been warning me for months, but over this weekend while traveling for business the lens met resistance while trying to pop out in readiness for a new pic... UGH. Too bad, because the place was beautiful.

But it is good that I still have the last version of my camera, and can revert to it... but it is HUGE in comparison, and I'm afraid that it will be a pain to carry everywhere like the other one. Media Markt... do you have anything cool for me?

Optical Illusion

Stare

Wolziger See for Sailing

Please forgive the way this post looks... I tried Blogger's editing and found it lacking, but now I want to go to bed and don't want to spend the time it will take to code it right.

Today I went sailing with N.'s family to a lovely lake southeast of Berlin named the Wolziger See

We've done this a few times, both N. and her father are qualified to sail, and it really is a lot of fun!

On this lake there is a wonderful water sports and more company named Blossin.

They have many different kinds of boats and wind surfing equipment for rent as well as arranging retreats with many kinds of sports and games including volleyball and climbing. You can camp right on the grounds, or stay in the hostels, but we just drive over for the day, have some wurst, and head home.



On our way we decided not to take the highway and saw some really pretty German countryside... well, the other people in the car did... I kinda took about a 10 minute nap.

When the car stopped suddenly I realized that we were outside of Der Turm in Funkerberg,
not too far from Waltersdorf for all of you IKEA lovers. They had a really cool little restaurant on the first floor up where we had coffee and cake. For one Euro each we got to go up to the top and take a look at the German countryside. The whole place was decorated very nicely with many different "cutsie" things, but the overall effect was very nice.

A very lovely day!

A Possible Addition to the Family

Well, we're really considering it very hard... yep, getting a baby blue Vespa. Right now we're going over the whole "well, it is kind of a luxury item", and deciding if it is really something we will use. BUT IT IS SOOOO COOL! Very stylish and modernized while still looking and feeling like the originals. I can imagine myself tooling around the streets of this wonderful city looking SO cool!

They are quite common here in Berlin, and Europe in general. After spending 15 minutes driving around looking for a parking space I always feel jealous when I watch a scooter driver pop up on the sidewalk and park with no stress. The rules for parking are pretty much "where ever you want to"... I'm all for that!

We've been talking about it for some time. Officially we share a car with N.'s parents, and this works out very well. This one would really be mine, N. and I will ride it together when we want to visit one of those locations that parking is almost impossible. It will also help with N.'s pursuit of insurance. Since she's never insured a car, the first car's insurance will be outrageous. This way she can get a history of insurance without paying the outlandish fees.

It is just 50cc which means that we need no special license to drive it, although I will feel a bit safer on the strange Berlin streets with some serious driving brush-up and some explanations of signage... "exactly when do I yield to someone coming from the right"? Then of course we must consider the fact that 50cc may not be enough power to carry my... ahem... voluptuous frame... ahem complete with N.'s much slimmer, but certainly longer physique.

I'll keep you updated on the pursuit... tomorrow we borrow helmets and take a test drive... weather permitting.

Fires in Greece

I have no idea what to say. It is so sad to read every day about the fires in Greece. While we were on Corfu, you could see that the sky was not so clear, and that the visibility was strained because of these horrible fires that have killed so many people and animals and taken the homes of so many others.

The economic hardship is just beginning in this land that relies so heavily on thousands of hundred year old olive trees. When the winter and spring rains begin there will be nothing to hold the dirt on the ancient hills and we will again read about tragedy in Greece as the mudslides begin.

Soon there will be elections in Greece. This disaster has only added fuel to the fire (please excuse me) for the finger pointing about corruption which is actually a normal beast in the Greek political realm. The fact that many of these fires are suspicious and obviously arson is going to have some effect as well.

So sad.

P!nk in Berlin for IFA

Pink was in Berlin, and I got to see her!!

Maybe I'm just a freak or something, but I really like this woman's music and attitude. She stormed into Berlin for a 70 minute concert which helped open the IFA, a fantastic consumer electronics/toy/gadget gottahaveit fair. The show was staged in the Sommergarten which is an open-air amphitheater in the middle of the super huge, award-winning ICC Berlin.

We bought tickets early on, but soon in the mail came an invitation from Capital Catering who were celebrating the opening of a new VIP Lounge located at the base of the Funkturm. Our original tickets went to E-Bay and quickly disappeared.

Best not to talk much about our experience at the VIP event before the show...let's just say that they were nice to offer the invitation, and that they did have some nice wine. One of the disappointments of the evening was that there would be no VIP seating for the concert... not even a VIP section where we could stand. Sad. The next disappointment was that it had rained on and off for the hours leading up to the event, and of course with an open-air concert, it could have been better circumstances.

I've never seen Pink on stage, and really did enjoy the show. 70 minutes didn't seem very long, she did most of my favorites, and of course did her rendition of "What's Goin' On" to get the audience participation level up. I really enjoy most of the music, let's face it... it is mostly pop drivel, BUT I can enjoy pop drivel if it has a decent beat and good lyrics, which this does. She hit into "Dear Mr. President" which enjoyed a lot of popularity here in Berlin over the summer, and the audience sang it with a sad tone.

As the music from the last encore fizzled out and the stage went dark, the speakers started again playing a P!nk song. We looked at each other confusedly when we heard a large bang from behind us and an obvious glow in the sky. We turned around to see the Funkturm (Radio Tower) glowing green with fireworks. How cool! They had a montage of Pink songs as the backdrop to what turned out to be a short but very nice display. We knew there would be fireworks, but who knew they would be ON the tower!

Unfortunately the SommerGarten is circled by huge Cypress trees, so it was a bit hard to really see the fireworks show. N. commented that we could probably have had a better view from the highway. I caught a few pictures and one video which I'll include below. Sorry they're so crappy... and of course the aforementioned trees are in the way.