icefog.org

Alaska is beginning to recover after being engulfed in the coldest temperatures recorded since 2000. In these extremely cold temperatures (starting around -40°F/C), “icefog” begins to develop. Ed has a nice post explaining icefog, what it is, how it develops, etc. It is good having friends in the weather service (that are fascinated by cold weather). Thanks Ed!

For my birthday, my co-workers took me bowling yesterday afternoon. I rode my bike there with Paul, Emil, and Finn. The sun was out and I was able to wear the sunglasses I had bought back in October for the first time! The sun was short lived as it actually began to snow while we were bowling. The snow was just as short lived as it had quit and had completely melted before we finished. It was nice to see the sun again. It seems like it had been a while.

The bowling was fun. It had been a long time since I was last bowling. I don’t think any of the others had ever been bowling. Somethings were pretty amusing. Moritz was able to get the ball down the lane faster than all others. Despite its speed, the ball had an amazing ability to find the gutter fairly consistently and rapidly. He did improve throughout the afternoon. After getting either a strike or a spare, Maren would hold up her arms and do Nixon-like ‘I am not a crook’ signals (complete with the Peace sign using both hands). Torsten had this great ability to knock down 7-9 pins on the first throw – usually a throw that was straight and in the center – and then miss the remaining pins. He just became more and more frustrated with time. At the end of the day, he finally got a spare and you could see the relief. The balls that Emil and Finn bowled always just made it to the pins before the gate would come down. I don’t know how that happened, but it did. My claim to bowling fame?? I made Sina’s baby cry immediately after I started holding it.

Here is a video (about 7 MB) showing Emil bowl. Most of the times, he would throw, roll, or drop the ball, look at it for a few seconds then put his hands on his head, turn around, run back and jump the couch (or me), unable to watch the result. This happened time after time. Pretty funny. In the adjacent lane, you see Moritz bowling. Notice the speed of the ball and the time it takes (or distance down the lane) to find the gutter.

Last night I went to the English Theatre Berlin to see ‘The Prison Sex Show.’ With a title like that, how could I go wrong??? The English Theatre Berlin (formally known as the ‘Friends of Italian Opera’) is a cool little theatre that seems to be randomly placed off some random street in Kreutzberg (a district of Berlin). I had been there once before and I will certainly go back again.

From the ETB web-site, the Prison Sex Show was described as ‘… a musical that will stretch the genre of zero-budget science fiction to its limits – and beyond.’ This is an appropriate description of what I experienced. Full of bad double entendre, laughter, and crowd moaning. Worth the 8 Euros I paid, but I am not sure I would have been happy if I had paid 20 Euros.

Here are a couple of examples of the typical humor of this play is shown below. I found these videos on the My English Class web page (my english class is the group that put on the play). Apparently, this is from a previous show (this is NOT from the Prison Sex Show) they did at ETB. These are called ‘Stuart Dee tells two jokes‘ and ‘Jacuinta explains one-night stand ediquette to a German boy.’

A couple weeks ago, Konstanze (friend/co-worker at AWI) brought me a new plant for my Wohnung (apartment). I have been talking about getting one for a while now, but I have resisted as I have never been so good with keeping these things alive. Anyway, I am happy to report that not only is the plant (probably not the only green thing growing in my Wohnung) alive, it is growing! I am very proud of myself. So proud, I may even go out and get another one.

A new leaf appears. 19 January.

A 2nd leaf beginning to make an appearance. 23 January.

In addition to the leaves appearing, the sun is also beginning to return. The sun is now up when I go to work. It is still pretty dark when I leave work, but having the sun up in the morning is very nice.

I was going to make an attempt to keep this a fairly non-political space. However, as I am pretty fascinated by politics and as this blog is called ‘the world according to bob’, I figure what the hell. Today marks the first day of the last year of the Bush administration in office! The next president will be inaugurated on 20 Jan 2009! Mark your calendar! There is hope. It is only a year away.

A couple of the reasons I am over here in Germany is to gain another perspective on the world and to see how other people view the US. As the token American on Svalbard this past summer, I was frequently asked (if not this exact question, something very similar to this), “How can you (meaning America) be so stupid? Twice?” It is a hard question which does not have a good answer. However, I found a quote from Steve Running (University of Montana ecologist and part of the IPCC that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore) after his speech was canceled at a high school last Thursday that may be the best answer to this question: “I think there’s a faction of society that is willfully ignorant, that they just don’t want to know the facts about this..” While the quote was referring to climate change, I think can be applied broadly to a number of topics.

I have also been asked by a number of people about who do I think is going to win or what do I think of so-and-so. It is clear that everyone is watching and has a vested interest in who we choose to be our next president.

While I follow politics closely, I am usually able to laugh at its absurdity – a defense mechanism that keeps me fairly sane. However, on Friday, something happened that changed the comedy into anger and frustration. I am not sure what it was, maybe just a cumulation of the constant stream of crap that just keeps flowing by. Following are some of the thoughts that kept me awake for many hours Friday night — The Iraq war: the DoD has now confirmed 3939 coalition casualties in Iraq, the World Health Organization estimates between 104,000 – 223,000 violent Iraqi deaths since the beginning of the Iraq war, and UN estimates that 2.3 million Iraqis have been displaced inside their country while another 2.4 million have fled Iraq. That’s a lot of people, families, relatives, and friends whose lives have been turned upside down. Last week Canada (although they are now back peddling undoubtedly due to US political pressure) listed the US as a site of torture (along side Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Mexico and Syria). The US also ranks alongside Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, China and Malaysia as the worst countries in terms of civil liberties. Suspended Habeas Corpus. Trite Geneva Conventions. Guantanamo Bay. Babbling about Iran. Russia is pissed and threatening the use of nuclear weapons. And then there is the complete hypocrisy that is Sen. Larry Craig and his attempts to change his plea of disorderly conduct (for attempting to solicit sex) in the Minneapolis Airport. I could go on and on and on, but that is not the point I am trying to make. These are just some of the things I’ve thought about. All I know is that our actions are speaking louder than our words.

Only one more year.

Today the weather FINALLY broke a bit with much warmer temperatures and sunshine. A very welcome relief. Today was also my first sighting of canadian geese returning. I also went to ultimate frisbee training (which is also good in itself) and a few team mates went to a pretty cool pub afterward. Germany instituted a smoking ban on 1 Jan. My first smoke free German pub complete with a good German beer and a pretty decent hamburger. All in all, it was a pretty good day.

Especially when compared to my last night… After work last night, I was completely starving with no relief to be found in my apartment. I walked to the local store and picked up a few quick and easy things – namely a frozen pizza, a large bag of peanut M & Ms, and some chips and salsa. Not exactly healthy I know. No need to remind me of that. As I am walking home, it begins to rain pretty hard. But did that stop me from consuming the entire bag of M & Ms before reaching my apartment???? NOOOO! I still had a large hole in my stomach, so I throw the pizza in the oven and proceed to open up the chips and salsa. Did knowing that I would be having pizza in some 10-15 minutes stop me from consuming the entire bag of chips and jar of salsa before the pizza finished cooking???? NOOOOOOO! Still with hunger, I then proceeded to eat the pizza. The end result? Well, I managed to spend most of my evening on my couch, doubled up in pain, with a severe stomach pain/cramp. It has been a very very long time since I have done that to myself. I imagine (and hope) it will be a very very long time before I do that to myself again.

UPDATE: I was later asked if the story about my eating binge was at all embellished. I am afraid to say the answer is no. Everything bought was consumed in rapid succession. This was indeed rapidly followed with stomach pain/cramping.

I recently read the book Zorro by Isabel Allende. An amazing and fun book. Below is the talk she gave at the 2007 TED conference on the topic of passion.  Her talk speaks for itself – well worth viewing.

So I am VERY cold. It has been cold here since New Year’s Day when it started raining snow. Since that time, the temperatures have dropped and the wind has picked up. A very damp, windy, cut through your clothes sort of cold here. While the temperature was only -4°C, with the wind chill it was somewhere around -10-ish°C. I think it is a good night for one of those hot toddie things.

The last time I felt this cold was in Fairbanks (January 2006). I ran out of heating oil and it was about -40°C. It literally took me about 2.5 days to figure out how to get my heater turned back on! I completely froze our entire cabin, food, refrigerator, everything! Not such a smart thing to have happen in the middle of winter. Such fond memories…