kahunaburger

Here we have Miss “I-Do-It” taking the dogs for a walk in an arroyo close to our home. Well, it’s actually in the Monte Sereno subdivision where new home sites are being prepared at the moment.

Miss “I-Do-It”

And she is Miss “I-Do-It”, because that is all we seem to hear from her these days: you dare to switch off the light in her bedroom and you hear a scream “No - I do it!”. And then she climbs up on the chair next to the light switch, switches the light back on, waits a second and then turns it off again. Finally she gives you a “See, told you I would do it!” look …

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Totally freaking cool Flash animation for IKEA’s Dream Kitchens. You don’t have to understand Swedish to get what’s going on. May take a while to load. Via http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2006/01/dromkok_pt2.html

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Crosswinds Weekly is a monthly Santa Fe-based news and entertainment paper. Every year, they feature the “Reader’s Top Restaurant Picks” for the Albuquerque and Santa Fe area. I heard about it on the radio about a week ago. Today I also heard that the paper is being stopped that the January 2006 issue may have been the last one.
I want to make sure the 2006 Restaurant picks are stashed away in a safe place, before their web site goes offline. I captured the cover story as a PDF document and you can access it right here locally from kahunaburger: Crosswinds Readers Restaurant Picks 2006 (pdf: 150KB)

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Last weekend we went over to Taos for some skiing. Candice left early on Saturday morning to go skiing with our friend Tom. I stayed home for a few more hours and then took Pia, Tom’s wife Pam and their daughter Sofia up to Taos. We had all booked rooms at the El Monte Sargrado Hotel and Spa in Taos. At 3:30pm we all met there, moved into our rooms and then hit the bar for some appetizers and beers. In the evening we ordered some room service and had a nice dinner in one of the rooms. Would have been way too difficult to keep the kids under control in El Monte Sagrado’s dining room. Going to the room was certainly a better choice.
The next morning Candice, Pia, Tom, Sofia and I went up to the Taos Ski area which was about 30 minutes from the hotel. Taos had received a foot of snow a few days earlier and because of that it was not completely dead up on the mountain.
I had no idea how difficult it was to get two little kids organized: dressing them up, supplying some hot chocolate, finding the right rental gear, dressing them up again, etc. etc. - how a single parent can do that with more than one child, is just beyond me.

Ready to hit the snow

Getting geared up

The four of them went on the bunny hill and I stayed behind with the photo-/video-camera to capture them from a safe distance. It was a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine and, according to Candice and Tom, about 15 degrees warmer than the day before.

Tom and Sofia on the lift

On the lift

Mama and Pia on the slope

Tom and Sofia on the slope

Like last time the girls had a blast and enjoyed the runs down the mountain. Of course they also enjoyed being on the ski-lift high, high up there. Needless to say that after a few hours everybody was exhausted from the exercise and the fresh air. Just around lunch time we called it a day and reversed the initial setup process.

After skiing

Tom and Sofia at the car

Back at the hotel we packed our stuff and headed back home to Santa Fe. Pia finally fell asleep in the car just before we arrived back home. She had a nice 1-hour nap in the car. Thanks Pam, Tom and Sofia for a nice weekend!

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Today was Pia’s first day up on the mountain. Candice took her this morning to the Santa Fe Ski area after she had rented the tiniest skis and boots yesterday. Our friend Tom and his daughter Sophia were also up there. Candice said that they had a blast and Pia enjoyed it so much for the two runs that they took today. Candice had a harness on her and guided her down the hill. Afterwards they had some hot chocolate.

Where was daddy? Daddy was at home sick after he finally got what Pia and Candice had spread in the house for the last few weeks. I felt like sh*t on Saturday, but I’m happy to report that I seem to be over the hump right now.

Here are some photos Candice took today:

First time skier - Candice and Pia	Tom and Sophia
Sophia and Pia	She looks like she stood on skis all her life

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http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html…
Wonder what Bush’s next excuse is going to be?!

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If you draw a blank when you hear the word podcast you can safely ignore this post.

With the arrival of the iPod shuffle in our household (a christmas present) I was looking for bytes that I can feed the little machine with. Browsing through Apple’s podcast-directory (and other places) I was very happy to find the Ricky Gervais Show on Guardian Unlimited. I loved the original BBC series The Office and I still watch the episodes every once in a while. There is something about Ricky Gervais (and the other characters) that I find pee-in-yer-pants funny.

When I walk the dogs in the morning I usually take the iPod with me and listen to anything that synced to the player. I listened to all five episodes of the Ricky Gervais Show and I find myself giggling like a mad man while I’m walking through the deserted arroyos of the Tesuque neighbourhood.
Ricky, Steve and Karl talk about everything and nothing at the same time. It’s hard to describe what’s going on, but it does involve monkeys, cavemen, midget fighting associations and other hot topics. If you have a few MBs available on your portable player, invite the three of them over … you won’t regret it. Or you’ll regret it within the first minute of listening to them, but then you didn’t waste a lot of time with them.

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Axel Boldt has written up a great piece called A subjective comparison of Germany and the United States. While it is subjective I agree with almost everything in his article. He puts things into words that I sometimes have trouble to express in words.

Especially the section about Nationalism/Patriotism has come up numerous times in my past. Here’s an excerpt from him:

The situation in Germany, of course, is radically different. To love Germany is to love its history, its culture, its political and economical system, the government’s institutions, the whole enchilada. Obviously, Germany’s history cannot be loved, and so it is a pretty safe bet that someone wearing a shirt with a German flag on it is either a soldier or a foreigner or a neonazi. At best, it is considered to be in bad taste to claim that one is proud to be a German.

This reminded me especially of the situation after 9/11. When I went back to work the first day after our offices opened again, every bridge along the highway had an American Flag on it. Even if something terrible as 9/11 would have happened in Germany I’m 100 percent sure that you would not have seen German flags all over the place.

Highly recommended reading material if you are at all interested in the subject. Thanks Alex!

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What you see graphed above is some weather data from a publicly accessible weather station called W5VBQ here in Santa Fe. They are about 5 miles from where we live, so the data recorded there does reflect the weather here in Tesuque as well. You can find more information about the station that collects the data at the Mesowest Station Interface site and the findu.com site.

The graph reflects the month of December 2005. The red line shows the temperature data. Yes, this is for December!!! For the last few weeks we had highs around 50 degrees Fahrenheit consistently. That means: no snow, extreme dryness, stuffy noses. No wonder that nobody was really in Christmas/New-Years mood. Hope this is going to change soon.

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