Horatio

Herding cats... Today I spent doing a job that was almost as exciting and tiring as herding cats would be. I was trying to blow leaves from the lawn, into the garden, while the wind was trying to decide which direction it wanted to blow the leaves. It was really crazy. Oak leaves are phenomenal mulch for your garden. There are a number of plants that love the acidity of oak leaves and they will flower like crazy. Better than any fertilizer, better than any product off the shelf, oak leaves decompose rather rapidly and leave your garden with this great dark black soil. Anyway, I was trying to tame those leaves and blow them into the garden and must have looked like such as sight. First the wind would blow one direction, so I would get on the other side and try to blow with the wind; then it would switch one hundred and eighty degrees and blow the other direction. Pure craziness. I finally got the leaves into the garden, so hopefully the strong winds are over and the leaves will stay put. Cross your paws. Next spring, I will post pictures of my beautiful garden.

If you want to look up something very interesting, search on Twitter for Latte Artists in Japan. There are some very creative artists who make phenomenal art on a cup of coffee. I will post some pictures later.

This year I feel pretty lucky!!! I received two birthday cakes. One from the hotel in Mumbai... And one when I returned back home...

The hotel in Mumbai, India had a fun time with Halloween. The restaurant personnel really had fun. Here are some pictures of the Halloween fun. These are the Jack O'Lantern creations from the chefs... Some of the desserts... The waiter...

Oh my goodness... the difference in personalities are incredible! Of all the hamsters that I have loved and had in my life, there have never been two that are alike. It is so interesting to see just how they are individuals with certain likes, dislikes and preferences. Horst would get in the ball and circle the sofa, around and around and around. Hiero is a follower. She will follow you around if you do not walk too fast, to allow her to keep up in the ball. Such good memories of all the little personalities. Miss Penelope will develop into her personality and it will be fun to hear who she becomes.

This evening we attended a Halloween Party, here is my costume...

Who reads those sale signs when you can disrupt a sales associate from the middle of whatever they are busy doing, to sidetrack them into devoting personal time to you the customer? Besides... the Christmas season is approaching so there will be lots more of us maniac customers out there harassing hard working sales associates. Isn't this what you get paid for? The other stuff, like organizing the shelves, and returning things back to the appropriate department that we left halfway across the store from where we picked it up, just make your job that much more interesting. Right? Seriously, I could not do your job as I would be fired. Penelope Puddles, or whatever you decide to call her, is a great name. A little black bear hamster. Nice. The mother taught her babies well. Blocking the tube keeps out the rift-raft who might wander in and steal your food or destroy your home. She sounds wonderful! We will expect pictures! Did Miss Penelope get into the ball? Hiero and Hedwig turned three this past summer. My how time flies. I remember when they were just little babies. These two are such different personalities. Hiero has learnt how to manipulate humans and Hedwig cannot be bothered coming out unless you are feeding him breakfast in bed. He is the stealth hamster. Once you do catch him, he wants to be in the ball, climb all over you, more specifically go up your sleeve and peer out. It all must be on his terms. Well, they are starting the descent into Memphis, so, I have to conclude this post. Thank you for the update!

Now for the update... I am on my way home from Mumbai. So far, I have spent the last nineteen hours out of twenty-four in airplanes. Now on to Atlanta and then to Memphis. After landing in Newark, New Jersey I heard the sad news about the Los Angeles Airport shootings. My prayers go out to the families of those who were killed. As I am on the airplane, I will have to post a couple pictures later. I did not take too many, only a couple, and some phone videos. If the videos are small, I will try to attach them. At dinner, I did get a couple pictures of what the chefs had created. One of the wait staff was having way too much fun. Glad to be heading home. More later.

Thank you so very, very much for the additional photographs. The mine is incredibly huge and with the photographs that you have given us, we get some idea of just how immense the equipment really is. What I find interesting is how without something to show proportion, you really cannot judge the size. But with the F60, the photographs have things in them that seem like microdots to the immense size of the machinery. What a great idea to transform that brick commando post into a shelter for hikers. I just love the German way of thinking! You all utilize structures and turn sites into nature preserves. I just love the creative thinking. WOW!!! What great fortune you chose to ride your bike. It would have been frustrating to have to have suffered a total loss to your car. Good news that no one was hurt.

The pictures are phenomenal. A view most of us may never see. The F60 does not look big until you focus on the trees and realize this machine is immense! This is similar to airplanes. You see a small commuter type airplane and it seems small, until you see a Cessna 152 near it. Then you realize it is not that small. Now place this airplane next to a B-727 and it seems small and the B-727 seems large, and this continues until you get up to the B-777 or A-380. These airplanes are so proportional, that when you look at them without a reference, they seem big, but you really have no idea just how big until you take a Cessna 152, a commuter jet or B-727 and then you realize they are huge. The F60 is unbelievably huge. I had no idea! What is so very interesting is how there were two excavators on the sides moving dirt with the coal being mined in the center. It would have been really amazing to see this in action. From the top platform, the view is great. The solar panels look so small, but they are not. The coal briquet factory pictures were terrific. If you do not think about the technology of the past and you get to see things like this, it really is extremely interesting. Steam powered along with electric powered, how great you were able to take a tour. What I really enjoyed was the picture of the "snowplough"! A MIG 17 fighter engine used as a snow blower! What a great way to use a jet engine. I like the German ingenuity. Saxony Switzerland... beautiful! What a wonderful place to go hiking. The River Elbe did quite a bit of destruction when it overflowed it's banks, the first time and again the second time. Amazing how Mother Nature can look so peaceful and calm one day and raging the next. In Miami, Florida, after Hurricane Andrew, all the trees with branches above about twenty feet were broken off or completely gone. It was so strange to see the tops of trees gone. Today more than twenty years later, most of the trees have recovered, but some not totally. Very interesting. I loved the picture of the fortress built in the Middle Ages. It is wonderful that Germany has created a nature reserve on this land. Nature sure has a way of reclaiming land, although it takes such a long time. I love beavers. Glad to know that the beaver and wolf populations are returning. Sad that some of the buildings are deteriorating, but it costs so much to keep up buildings that are not in use. Best to stay on the trails. I do not know anything about ammunitions and how long one can stay "live", but I certainly would not want to find out. The last photograph is wonderful... Indian Summer, complete with beautiful scenery. WOW!!! What a nice way to end your trip, with beautiful scenery. We really appreciate you taking the time to add photographs along with a description. Thank you so very, very much! As for me, I am in Mumbai and will be here for a few days. No time for photographs as of yet, but hopefully I will have some time to take a couple. Talk later.

This is Horatio, asking that everyone please take a minute to pray for the people of Japan. There was another earthquake 200 miles off of Tokyo, followed by a tsunami. As everyone knows, I have friends there and I am really worried about them. Thank you everyone.

And why not??? Are you hooked??? PocketFrogs is my addiction!

We will wait until you are home and have time to look through your pictures until you find the ones for us.

Greetings from Los Angeles!!! I came down to visit my friend and see her play. The reading of her play was a true success. I was thrilled to be able to be part of the reading!!!

Pictures... please post some pictures.

Packing, so I will have to respond later. Sounds like you are having a fantastic holiday. Be back for a post later.

Nothing new on the Tennessee front... but in Los Angeles, my best friend is getting ready for her play, that she wrote, to hit the stage. I am going to a "reading", which is where the actors are reading from the scripts, but they have already rehearsed for quite a long time.

Quite ok. I have to be patient. I just finished producing all my lines. 8x10 in total plus some extra ones. Now I have to propagate them and see whether they are doing what we expect them to do. So far I have some promising hints, but the outcome is absolutely unclear yet. My boss also came up with a new idea and I'll have to produce 2x10 more lines... I'm not so sure whether it's a good idea, because I'll most likely won't get the chance to characterize them during my project. It takes too long until they are ready and my time is limited. So I'll have to spend some time producing them, but don't get any benefit out of it. It would be fine for me if I knew that somebody else would continue to work on those lines after I finish, but it isn't clear whether there will be funding. So in the end I might produce them and then they are discarded because there's nobody taking care of them and you can't just store them. Anyway, he's the boss... At least it will be useful in another way. There will be a bachelor student doing her thesis in our lab, so at least its useful for her because she will learn the method. By the way, she will be my first bachelor student. I already did some teaching in the courses (next one for the first semester medical students is coming soon, too), but supervising a student during a thesis project is an absolutely new thing to me. Lets see whether I'm a good supervisor. I'll try my best because I was a student myself only a few years ago and I remember very well how much I disliked bad teaching and people thinking that students are stupid and teaching is just a cumbersome duty. So I'll try to do a better job. You are going to be a fantastic teacher!!! I have one million percent faith in you and your abilities. You have taught us on numerous occasions and we know nothing about your projects. So, we are good examples of "students". You did a fantastic job of explaining everything while doing so with a very nice manner. I have learnt so very much from you. I know that your students will really like you and appreciate your hard work in the preparation you do to teach them. You will do great!!! It must be so frustrating to start something and not be able to finish it. If you have the other 2x10 lines, and you have not completed the experiment, can you take them home and continue it there? Are there special conditions that must be met? I would hate to see someone just throw them into the garbage after you have worked so hard. Does it take a considerable amount of money to finish your experiment with these extra lines? Perhaps it would be something your Bachelor Student could continue. So sad that the funding my go away. What will you do after your funding dries up? Work for BASF on research? Have you given your next step any consideration as to where you would like to be? I hope you can come to the USA for your next opportunity. It would be wonderful to have you here working on some sort of research project!!!! How long does it take for your thesis to be written? This will be so exciting to know that you have achieved such greatness!!! Here in America we have urban sprawl. It is awful. There is no urban planning, no green spaces, just developer creep. The developers just clear cut the lots of old growth trees, because they are too lazy to work around the beautiful trees. Then they plant these awful Crepe Myrtles. These Crepe Myrtles are invasive and one of the worst plants, second to Brazilian Peppers. Developers love them because they are cheap. You can never dig deep enough to get all the roots and if there is only one little piece of root, it will spring up with a million little plants. I do not like to use chemicals to eradicate them, but I am getting close to my frustration point. I have dug and dug and dug, and when I thought I was successful in eliminating it, then up pops another crop of the same plant. I guess I am going to have to buy some chemicals end them once and for all. Not much new here... just got hit with the common cold. And oh my, was it a bad one! I got knocked off my feet for about four days. Today is the fifth day and I still do not feel like doing anything more than getting out of bed, getting a cup of tea, then getting back in bed. We had to put off the move until next Thursday. Hopefully I will be up to it then. The good news is that the new roof is finished and we fixed the siding on the wall of my neighbor's condo. So no more leaks along that wall. That makes me very, very happy.

Update on life... things from my cage are looking good. We are still working on the renovation. The roof has been replaced, and the roofer is going to replace the neighbor's siding. They are getting rid of the old cedar siding and put in thie stuff called hardy plank boards. The hardy planks are made out of cement. The new board is supposed to provide a better level of insulation. We will see. The old cedar was rotted, so absolutely no insulation there. Anything would be an improvement. Friday is move out day and I have not finished packing. This is getting really frustrating. I have so very much to move and have not packed almost anything. Back to work... for now.

Oh... I really love it! Seriously!!!! I think the fact that you are just playing around is really fantastic. Nice job on the artwork. I really like your use of colours.

LOL... I started laughing thinking of me trying to run along side my bike to get it going and then jump on. Sort of a comic-like thought. I have many memories of jumpstarting my VW bug with people pushing me, or the times I would park on a hill, so I could jumpstart it going coasting down the hill. WOW!!! I need to put Quedlinburg on my list of places to visit! I hope you took pictures. In America, we can only think of tearing something down and rebuilding; while we travel to Europe to see the history. Hmmmmm, perhaps if we had preserved some of our history and wonderful towns, we would still have some great places, although nothing near as old as Quedlinburg, here to visit. There was a weak moment when I decided to go back to my home town, where I lived as a kid. I was knocked off my feet... there was a person who had purchased a considerable amount of downtown and was the key force in preserving it as it was many years ago. This was really thrilling! The downtown had buildings no taller than two stories. Only the insides were renovated as no one is permitted to alter the outside. How great is this? They have restored the buildings instead of demolishing them and the town looks fantastic! I really loved being back there. As for some towns, like the one where I live in Florida, they bulldozed all the turn-of the-century buildings for ugly, ugly, UGLY high-rises with massive parking garages. Let me understand this... we are a town of 12,000.. why would people want to rush to this little town to live in a condo with not much to offer. The ten or so condo buildings are mostly empty. Yet that does not keep them from stopping to build!?!?!?!?!?! Crazy! We moved there because the town had a law, nothing over sixty five feet. This law meant that they would be getting money from the state of Florida to remain an historic town. Well, the greedy mayor and he pals, changed the law one night when everyone was sleeping. This resulted in the mayor building three condos. Revolting. We of course, lost the state funding. The mayor left office at the end of her term, and moved to New York City. That was only after she worked another underhanded deal and changed the zoning and approved demolition of three turn of the century buildings that were in great shape. The worst looking parking garage/condo is on the property. YUCK! Leguan, I have digressed into a rant. My apologies. I love when people maintain some of the history and character of the past and just hate these ugly concrete block buildings that rise into the stratosphere. The "death zone"... scary. The more I learn about how human beings treat each other, the more I am saddened that we cannot be better as a species. Which brings to me to other topics that I would probably start another rant. So, I will quit while I am ahead. The good news is that they have taken the track for the border patrol and turned it into a hiking track. Some good has come out of something awful. What is so interesting is the lengths to which people when to create the "death zone". That was not an easy task and took quite a bit of creativity, engineering and planning, before the execution of the plan. Phew. On other news, how is work coming? How are your experiments? Are things turning out like you had hoped? We are all hoping for your success! Not much else is happening, so life is good.

Ohhhhh, I am so, so sorry to hear the news. Losing a pet, which is to me a family member, is always hard. It is even harder when it is unexpected. Please let Kris's family know that they are in our thoughts, heart and prayers with the loss of Ruby. Thank you for the wonderful picture. R.I.P. RUBY!

Exciting day for us... the roofing materials were delivered and are sitting in our driveway. Our motorcycles got new batteries installed and then our kitchen cabinets were delivered and are occupying one side of the garage with the bubble wrap. Picture will follow tomorrow.

That is an excellent way to spend the day!

Leguan... so nice to see you again. I admire you for giving blood. It would be wonderful if I could give blood, but I cry when I have to have a blood test, and that is worse than any experience in the world. When the nurse approaches with that little rubber band type thing that they tie around your arm, it is all over. I want to run for the hills. Hopefully I will never need surgery or some form of doctor's care where I will be needing needles and blood drawn... I will be in a world of panic if they approach me with a needle. The renovation is making me crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!! We were going to start on the roof on Monday, and here it is Wednesday and the shingles are supposed to be delivered today. We will see. Hmmmm.