Good times

It was very nice to spend time with my mom on my recent business trip to Europe and she really enjoys hanging out with me too. So it is win, win for all.

Another visit in Pfullingen

Last time I visited Matze, Jutta and Oscar it was winter and we all went sledding in cold temps. This time the weather was quite a bit nicer and many less layers were needed and it was great to see them all again.

They just came back from a ride when I arrived



There is so much fun to be had in the sand box



That plum pie was delicious



After checking out a woodpecker



That looks so good too



And it is gone



Enough with eating for now



Time to say Auf Wiedersehen

ARTpARTy Augustus 2010

So we had another ARTpARTy at our house and we had a great time indeed. We had quite a few first time ARTpARTy attendees and that makes it always quite interesting. Quite a few friends couldn't make it because of schedule conflicts, but their will be another one in January. Below are some of the artists with their work.

Amy had taken this photos during a snow storm with long exposures and mounted them on black.



I initially planned to add red flower petals to this image but decided to keep it as is.



Ken Otterbourg could go into business with his popular gourd fish art



A great architectural rendering of a building in High Point by Craig Dishner



Bess and Dave Wildman had not yet been to one of our ARTpARTies and Bess pulled of this nice water painting hours before the party started.



The Kuckoo Time art of Mitch Termotto was very popular



Mike and Shannon Chang created candles in bottom wine bottles halfs



These great planters by Luke and Liz Burnett are now in our possession



Laura and Jared Gallaher each brought a nice work of art.



A look at West End details by Leighanne Dorton, as Tim Roan gives his approval



Tim Roan displays the kid's wrapping art of Vicki Latimer Roan's art work



Water buffalo art by Jenn Cannon who just recently moved here



Max was also a first time attendee at the ARTpARTy and it did not show



Nancy Tuohy had a great image that had everyone guessing where it was taken.



Related image galleries:
- ARTpARTy Clover Street January 2010
- August 2009 Clover Street ARTpARTy
- Piedmont Leaf Lofts ARTpARTy
- 2007 Chattanooga ARTpARTy
- Late 2006 ARTpARTy in Chattanooga
- Early 2006 ARTpARTy in Chattanooga

Project Runway Casanova

When Amy and I watch Project Runway this season, I can't help thinking that contestant Casanova (yes, that is seemingly his name) looks remarkably like Brother Salvatore from the movie The Name of the Rose. Put a monk's robe on Casanova and he could step right onto the set if it were filmed today. :-)

Kaba

Kaba is the chocolate milk powder that I grew up with in Germany. In fact as a child I used to Kaba as the term for any chocolate milk or hot chocolate, kind of like Kleenex instead of tissues.

Nice note

Came across this note on the facebook page of a friend of mine. Someone apparently left it in the stairway of an apartment building after a "little" incident on the third floor. This situation would have meant police action in the USA, but in this case in Germany it was "resolved" with an embarrassing note.

Baseball night

This weekend Amy and I went to a baseball game here in Winston-Salem and it is such an easy walk for us to get there. But boy was it hot that night. Plus the game was endless with the pitchers not doing so well that night. We left around 11pm with the game tied 11-11 after the ninth inning and eventually the Dash team won 13-12.

The baseball park here is quite nice



Amy got us a great huge lemon ice



Glad there is no close pic of my sweaty shirt. :-)

No nibbling please

While at Whole Foods the other day I noticed the "no nibbling please" sign at the food bar. It is actually quite sad that people have to be told not to snack on these items. People, not everything in the store is a tasting sample.

The swim changes

Until recently I only swam straight sets in the pool and I don't mean multiple sets. More like get in the pool and swim anywhere from 1000m to about 1500m without stopping, and when I trained for Ironman I just increased the distance. Now I actually do different sets, warm up, do kick sessions, various drills and focus on different speed set sessions ranging from short (25m) to long (400m) and totally ranging from 2000m to 3000m. Plus I now got Posidrive fins, hand paddles and finger paddles.

Separated at birth?

Is it possible that Dutch soccer star Dirk Kuyt and Alfred E Newman of Mad Magazine were somehow accidentally separated at birth? Imagine a slightly blonder mullet on Alfred E Newman and we almost got a perfect match.

Happy 4th of July

Amy and I got engaged 3 years ago on 4th of July and we are celebrating our anniversary of that event in Vail, Colorado where we are attending the wedding of my friend Kevin Burnette.

Vail is stunning and we are having a great time here. Happy 4th of July everybody.

The line

This line in front of the Friendly Center Greensboro Apple store was maybe the longest line I stood in for a while. All in all about 1:45 from the time I arrived there until I finally walked out the door with the new iPhone4 in hand.

The cutiepies

Yup, the title says it all. This blogpost is about the 2 cutiepies in our house.

Pete in the kitchen after a walk



Sylvie in her room (Amy's office)

You have been warned

We noticed this warning sign a couple years ago when we were in Panama City Beach, Florida for the Ironman triathlon event there. Not surprisingly, we did not see any unattended kids running around in the coffee shop where this sign was posted.

XTERRA Tsali 2010

Decided this week to race XTERRA Tsali and went to Bryson City, NC for the weekend. Amy had to work and could not join me. I wasn't sure what to expect but mostly wanted it for training motivation anyway. The Santa Cruz Blur Carbon worked fantastic and I ended up with a very solid race.

The second transition of XTERRA Tsali was set up right near the MTB trail head of the Tsali Recreation Area.



Took this image for fun the day before the race and missed out to step on it the next day. Not because of performance though, but because I washed myself in the lake at the time.



This is where we swam.



The view from the Ridge Top Motel in Bryson City wasn't shabby.



The bike set up in T2 in the morning. Note the fine transition towel



Quite muddy after the race



Tim and his wife drove up from Chattanooga

New neighbors

Recently a new family moved into our neighborhood, or to be more specific, they actually moved into the birdhouse on our front porch. So far we have not seen a rent check or any other form of payment and we are holding our expectations very low along those lines.
They are very cute though.

Man and his friend

Last weekend we went to the beach in Litchfield by the Sea and Amy snapped this very nice image of Pete and I strutting on the beach. Pete though is not crazy about the water and long walks are not going to happen either. But he is so adorable and sweet.