It seems that I’m quite old: I played basketball last night, and, when I was finished, every single part of my body hurt. It just doesn’t make sense; though I do have a theory. My ankle hurt because I twisted it four weeks ago. My left leg hurt because it had to work too hard (to compensate for the ankle). My back hurt because my legs weren’t completely synchronized. Everything else hurt because my back affects all. Not much of a theory, but it’s all I’ve got.

Today is Tuesday. This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to most of you, so I don’t really know why I mentioned it (I do, in fact, know exactly why I mentioned it, but it’s a secret). Anyway, that’s really all I have for today. The end.

Health update: not for the faint of heart. Seriously.

I’ve had a cyst in the middle of my forehead for a few years now. Sometimes (read: every day), it bothers me. Sometimes, I try to surgically remove it. Recently, I attempted one such procedure. The immediate result was a swollen head. Picture an egg jammed under someone’s forehead. That was a month ago, and, after the initial swelling went down, the cyst has been acting differently. Sometimes, it grows overnight. Other times, it shrinks. Once, I squeezed it as hard as I could and the…again, if you’re squeamish, skip to the bottom…sac around the cyst (and under my skin) tore off and popped out the hole I’d made in my head. That was fun, and I thought I’d won. As it turns out, I was wrong: it kept growing and shrinking and bugging the snot out of me. On Friday evening, it was bothering me, so I poked it (to drain). It didn’t really do much, so I applied some pressure, and to my surprise (and utter glee), a ball of tissue came out. I win.

P.S. Could someone tell Sarah’s insurance company that they owe me 500 dollars (the money I saved by not going to a doctor)? Thanks.

We did indeed watch a movie and watch TV. The whole weekend was such a whirlwind, I’m not sure if I can remember half of what we did. Friday, I remember there was some walking and watching of some sort. Saturday, I remember two things: 1) Sarah got up a lot earlier than I did (and went to Goodwill), 2) We watched “The Island”. It was very well put together. Its PG-13 rating pushed it a little (there was one scene where they showed a hand get nailed to a door by a nail gun—very graphic), but if you don’t mind horrific depictions of violence, implied sex (and a very-easy-to-construe implication, if you get my meaning…), and scientific-type horror, then it would be a movie well worth watching. Sunday, we had nightmares, went to church, went out to eat with some people from church, vegged at home, walked, and had a Bible Study with more people from church. Most importantly, I got to watch 1 quarter of a Pistons game (they are only shown out here when they play the Lakers or Clippers, which is 3 or 4 times a year).

Sarah is feeling healthy again. And that’s great, because the complaining was really starting to hurt my ears. Just kidding honey…(I’m not kidding)…I love you. My twisted ankle in finally getting back into shape as well. Now it just hurts every time I jump or take a big step. Complainer. Sarah and I have a big weekend planned: tonight, we plan on staying home and watching TV or a movie. Tomorrow, we plan on staying home and watching TV or a movie. Sunday, we plan on going to church and to lunch, and then coming home and watching TV or a movie. What can I say, we’re thrill seekers.

As it turns out, we got pasted 53-22. Oddly, I had the most fun coaching that I’ve had all year. We were losing by about 16 at the half, so midway through the third (when we hadn’t made a dent in the lead), I put in the bench. It was great to see the effort put in by those guys, and to see how much they’ve learned over the course of the season. Overall, as I said, we got pasted, but I was really impressed by the effort put forth by every single player on the court. I’ve been drilling them all year about hustle, and I’ve never seen a team play with more. Ever. Even though we lost by 30, we out rebounded the other team 2 to 1, at least. We broke their press with ease, and played hard for 24 minutes (6 minute quarters). Oh, and a small caveat, our starting center missed the game because he had to take an exam. The other team had 40 points from lay ups (literally), and that easily would have been cut in half had our center been dominating the paint as usual. Evidence: he came for 4th quarter; I played him 2 minutes; he had 10 rebounds (literally). In 2 minutes.

I can’t believe State lost to UM. What a rip. I suppose that’s what happens when your point guard is your leading rebounder, with 4. What a rip.

Despite being a bit under the weather, Sarah has been enjoying her conference in Pasadena. Hopefully she’ll feel better today. I haven’t been doing much; though, I did book our tickets back to Michigan in February. We get to take a red-eye. Aren’t we lucky? Aren’t we?

Basketball game number five is on tap for tomorrow. The team we’re playing runs a full-court press, so I hope our point guard has a really, really good day. If he doesn’t, it should be a long, long day for everyone else. In any event it should be relatively interesting. I might provide an update later (no promises after the last time…).

Okay, you convinced me.

Ingredients:

Olive Oil
Roma tomatoes (specifically Roma, regular tomatoes are too watery and have a different taste)
Onion
Ground meat (I used turkey)
Tomato sauce
Garlic (4 or 5 cloves)
Parsley
Oregano
Basil
Brown sugar (small amount)
Flour

If I recall correctly: put the olive oil in a pan on med-high heat. Add sliced Roma tomatoes, ground meat, and chopped onion. Cook until meat is brown. Stir in tomato sauce, crushed garlic, parsley, oregano, basil, and brown sugar. Bring sauce to a boil (let boil for a few minutes; not too long). Remove from heat. Stir in small amount of flour, if necessary (for thickening). Bring to a boil and then remove from heat. For best taste, let stand and refrigerate for several hours.

I ate a can of corn for breakfast. Something tells me that I need to go to the grocery store (in case you missed it, the “something” was the fact that I ate a can of corn for breakfast). It’s almost time for lunch, so I’m going to go get some ice cream. Good day.

I’ve never been a huge fan of spaghetti, until yesterday. You see, yesterday, I decided to make my own sauce (we didn’t have any, and Sarah likes it), and it turned out quite well: Sarah and I both thought that it was the best we’d ever had. If I don’t say so myself.

Someone pointed out that I didn't include her pictures on the blog. Someone should remember not to tell me what to do. (Sorry Peter, her belligerence places you in a slightly unsightly light as well: I believe "collateral damage" is the technical term. Next time, do try and sit somewhere else.)

For the record, I view this last picture as my Treaty of Versailles (me being Germany, you-guessed-it being France, and Peter being Poland); you history teachers out there will undoubtedly infer my meaning. For the rest of you, just know that Versailles was Germany's way of apologizing for the trouble of World War One, while, all the time, they were actually preparing for a little thing that I like to call World War Two. This means you, Rebekah: don't test me. Yeah, and I realize that Germany lost WWII: analogies aren't perfect; just know that France got tagged both times... As I said, don't test me: next time, there might not be a semi-flattering apology picture.

Let’s just pretend that I posted this comment on Friday instead of Monday (there’s a long story/excuse about a pep assembly and a lot of walking and lunch with my pastor and more walking and blah blah, but I’m not going to tell that story). We lost the game by 12. Several fans complained about the officials. I tried to converse with one official; he became very defensive and yelled at me. At one point, within earshot of my player, one official said to the other, “I hate that kid”. Very professional. I’m not blaming the officials for the loss: my team is full of great athletes who can’t seem to put the ball in the hole (at this point, they have less basketball experience than could be desired). All in all, the team played hard; I was proud of them. What we need is a Kobe Bryant who will score 81 points a game for us (see espn.com, it was incredible).

Okay, I haven’t updated since Thursday. Whoops. Let’s just pretend I was busy. And maybe I was, what do you know? Okay, you caught me; I give. In any event, Sarah and I did have a fairly relaxing weekend: she didn’t go shopping (for once), electing instead to stay home and get an earache (more of an ear plug, actually). Hopefully she’ll feel better soon: she has an ‘exciting’ week ahead. On Tuesday, she goes to the opera (no amount of ear plug could lessen that torture, but I digress). Wednesday and Thursday, she goes up to Pasadena with some of her colleagues for a teacher’s conference. And Friday is always exciting because it’s the last day she has to see kids until the hated, following Monday.

Well, Sarah is ready to retire (not that I blame her), and I am still retired, so it looks as if we’ll be needing a substantial loan. Either that, or we’ll be needing a box. A big box in which we can live. Perhaps two boxes, in case we want to have company over. In either case, it should be fine: I hear the weather in California is exceptional.

The team had another great practice yesterday (if only my starters would stop twisting their ankles). Interestingly, I heard through the grapevine that the coach of the good team we’re playing today “isn’t really worried about (us).” May I be the first to say, “That is exceptional.”. I, of course, told my players about the opposing coach’s comments, and they, in turn, were totally fired up. Maybe we’ll give them a run for their money…or, maybe we’ll get squashed. I’ll give an update tomorrow.

Yesterday, the basketball team looked sharp: I'll bet they would have been competitive with our freshman team. Anywho, if things line up correctly, we'll probably have a down day tomorrow, when we play the best team in the league. If not, things might be interesting...

Dad said, "We have had normal rain, freezing rain, and 4 inches of snow TODAY...sunny skies tomorrow. "

Sometimes, I miss Michigan. Sometimes, I remember a little thing that I like to call weather. The two states of mind do not usually coincide. On the other hand, California's main selling point is its good weather. Tell a Californian you're visiting from any other state, get an enthusiastic, "how about this weather!" response. Tell a Californian you just moved here, get an enthusiastic, "how about this weather!" response. Tell a Californian it's Tuesday, get an enthusiastic, "how about this weather!" response. Remind a Californian there's a Northern California, get questioning, blank stare. Ahhh, the lessons we learn.

This isn’t really limited to airport bathrooms, and you ladies out there won’t completely understand what I’m talking about, but whose bright idea was it to make “urinal cakes”? First of all, they’re not really cake (you don’t want to learn that lesson the hard way, believe me). Second of all, did they really think that the smell of cheap perfume (what the cakes contain) would be IMPROVED when hundreds of men peed on it? Let’s be serious.

Alright, the picture parade is officially over, and real life begins anew. And when I say real life, I mean that Sarah has to go back to work, and I have to go back to not really doing anything. For the record, Sarah worked three days last week, so real life actually began last Wednesday, but I was so busy trying to finish my Christmas chocolate that I hardly noticed.

There was a frost advisory this morning in Orange County: it took the top spot on today’s news, superseding yesterday’s top story, wind. So little goes on here with the weather: the slightest threat to homeostasis is completely surprising. “What?!?!?!? You’re saying that WATER can FALL from the SKY!!!!????!!!??”

More pictures today:

Below: World's Largest Breadzels (otherwise known as Pretzels), traditionally eaten on New Year's Day.

Above: Sarah opens Christmas present as ax-murderer looks on.
Below: One of the roads leading out of Kandern; again, note the building built ON the sidewalk.

Above: some traditional Bavarian architecture in Kandern; it, as you may have guessed, is made entirely of some type of material.

Below: Sarah's high school; it, as you may have guessed, is a building.

Seriously, who’s the guy who goes into the public restroom and uses exactly 2500 cubic yards of toilet paper? I realize that the stuff is only one-ply, but let’s be realistic: do you really need to use that much? You know what I’m talking about: there’s always one stall where the toilet bowl is COMPLETELY filled with toilet paper. Nearly all of the water has been soaked up, the paper looks as if it’s been there for three or four months, and someone has used the facilities despite the obvious clog. Actually, who is THAT guy: he goes into a stall, finds it completely unusable, and uses it anyway. You know who you are. I’ve made an executive decision, there need to be two kinds of public restrooms: those for the two types of people outlined above, and those for me.

Today I will post some more pictures from Europe. Once again, please feel free to make up your own stories (you know, because a picture is worth 1000 words, I've already written 5000, so I'm tired...).


Above: Compared with its American cousin, the European pizza is very thin and has stronger cheese, resulting in a completely different taste (one that I like). In addition, the European pizza isn’t nearly as filling: I easily ate the one on the bottom by myself.

Below is Basel, Switzerland. I posted a similar picture yesterday, but some peoples’ heads were in the way.


Above is another cathedral in Dijon. This one, as you might have guessed, was actually made completely from mustard and its derivatives (much like its American counterpart, South Dakota’s “Corn Palace"). Below is a closer view of some of the cathedral’s exterior. Incidentally, the gargoyles are eating ketchup.

Below is a street in Kandern; note how close the buildings are to the street (building codes are quite different in Europe than in the US.

Episode 1, part 2: The Automatic Flush

Amidst our travels, I found myself in a stall at Washington Dulles Airport. The thing itself was rather unremarkable, but the man who occupied it before me had made me nervous (something about his funny grin as he let himself out and walked past; it was a sort-of, “wait till you see what I did” look), so I naturally decided to use a seat cover; I pulled one of the sheets of paper from the holder on the wall and found myself hoping that such a thin (and, might I add, obviously permeable) barrier could stand between me and the evils below. Irrational or not, I applied the cover and turned to unbutton my pants. Woooshhhh, went the, apparently, hyper-sensitive, automatic flush of the toilet. I acted quickly, holding the paper barrier in place, lest it be sucked down, forcing me to reapply (I did have to use the bathroom, if you’ll recall; it’s not as if I just went in looking for comedic fodder…).

With the flush cycle over and disaster averted, I went back to the business at hand (unbuttoning my pants, you’ll remember): whoooshhh. I made a wild stab at the cover but missed. Crap. (Be wise to realize, “crap” was my verbal expression, not my action: I have better bowel control than that. See what I did there.) Anywho, I replaced the seat cover with a fresh one and turned my attention toward my zipper: whooooshhh. I fleetingly considered the silly thought that I might be an unwitting participant of “Candid Camera”, my movements tracked by an unseen assailant, grinning and brandishing a remote control. I quickly dismissed the thought and reached for another seat cover, hoping that privacy laws and decency standards still held. Either way, my pants were now completely undone and hovering perilously, making my task more difficult than I’d hoped, but, waddling and twisting, I put a third cover in place, turned quickly and began my descent to the seat. Wooooooosshhhhh. “Nooooooooo!” Already too low to stand back up, I thudded onto the now-bare toilet as the middle of the flush cycle churned toilet water unto my bare bottom. I distinctly heard the sensor murmur, “Check, and… mate”.

As I finished my business and considered the fine for destruction of airport property, I ultimately decided that, all things considered, too many flushes was far superior to too few (as in none: I’m sure you’ve seen the aftermath of zero flushes of a public commode…). Satisfied that I needn’t take revenge on the inanimate object, I stood up and waited for the whoosh: none came. I turned to leave…still nothing. Exiting the stall, the whoosh curiously absent, I wondered if I’d soon see myself on TV. Ahhh, technology.

Join us tomorrow for “The Airport Bathroom 3: The Mystery of the Clogged Toilets”.

Today marks the first installment of “What the heck is with the airport?”, a here-to-for recurring, occasionally updated, series of aviation-related observations.

Episode 1, part 1: The Airport Bathroom

So, I was in a bathroom stall at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, and I knew something was up because there were directions on the wall. The fact that a toilet needs an instruction manual undoubtedly indicates that something is amiss: either someone is insinuating you’re stupid, or that particular commode has been unnecessarily complicated (“sit and go” really hasn’t changed much, no matter the technological innovation). In either case, the wall said that if I waved my hand in front of the small sensor, the toilet would move a new sheet of plastic around the seat, and I could sit down on a ‘clean’ surface.

I’m sure you’ve seen these: there’s a box on the back of the toilet; it whirrs and rotates the sheath around the seat, and all is hunky dory. Not today. Naturally distrusting the sign (again, the bathroom is not meant to be complicated), I thought I’d examine things a little more closely. Upon inspection, I immediately noticed the box on the back of the seat had no outlet, no tube leading to the trash, and no auxiliary storage. Big deal, you say? Think again. Because there was no place for the USED plastic to be disposed, I’m quite sure it just came whirring back out again when the next poor sucker waved his hand in front of the sensor. In other words, not only do you have to sit where everyone has already trodden (or, more appropriately, sodden), but you also have to wave your hand like an idiot in front of an sensor that’s probably programmed to work for 1 out of every 100 frantic waves. You know what I’m talking about: wave: nothing; wave, wave: nothing; wave, jump, wave, wave, punch: nothing; walk away: whirrrrrr. Join us tomorrow for: The Airport Bathroom 2: Curse of the Automatic Flush.

Last night, Sarah and I arrived safely in Newport Beach. We were quite tired, having traveled nearly 24 hours straight, and went to sleep almost as soon as we got home. I have plenty of adventures to post about, but I won’t be doing that today because 1) There are many, many other things here at the house that need avoiding, and 2) I don’t want to. What I will do is post some pictures (you can make up your own story) and say “Thanks!” to everyone who pitched in to get me the awesome new camera.


Above: Kandern (Sarah's home) from atop an adjacent hill. Below: a cathedral in Dijon, France (the spire, as you might have guessed, was filled with mustard).


Below: Sarah and I are standing on a bridge in Basel, Switzerland; the Rhine river flows in the background.



Above and below: Crikey! (Australian accent to be inferred) I was lucky enough to spot this on two separte occasions, and twice photographed it in its natural habitat.

Returning to home base in T minus 48 hours...

Most likely, this will be my last post before returning to California. Sarah and I have continued to have a good time: we just got back from a great pizza place (where we try and frequent at least once a visit) in the next town over. Yesterday, we spent most of the day in Basel, Switzerland, doing my favorite thing in the entire world, shopping. Yeah, if it was opposite day. Remember opposite day? I don't, but I digress. I'm sure I have lots to say (such as how I don't like mustard, no matter where it's made, and how we saw a GIANT wild boar forraging on the side of the road), but I don't remember the majority of it. More from Orange County...

I twisted my ankle. I know you all want to know my ailments (why else would you come to this site?). I was, that's correct, you guessed it, playing basketball when it happened. I won't say someone played dirtily and pushed me while I was in the air, but someone played dirtily and pushed me while I was in the air. I came down on another player's foot, and that was the end of my walking for a while. I was on crutches for a few days, but things are okay now: my limb is still very weak, but I can walk (with minimal pain), so that's been a blessing.

Sarah has been taking in the sights, sounds, and foods (especially the foods) of her home. We leave in less than a week, and she's been doing a good job not to be down about it. Yesterday, we visited Dijon, France. (You know, like the mustard: in fact, so like the mustard, it is where that particular condiment was invented). We walked around town, ate mustard, looked at old churches, ate mustard, ate mustard, and came back home. Seems rousing, I know (you're probably tired just reading about it), but our excursion was limited due to time constraints: Dijon is three hours from where Jan and Randy live, and we stopped at a castle on the way, which took about 2 hours (but it was worth it: they had monkeys, Japanese Snow Monkeys, in fact).

Anywho, I must go (the foreign keyboard: it's slowly killing me). I may write once or twice more before we return to California and my regular routine of posting 82 times a day. The end.

Everything is in French. The site keeps asking me if I want to modifier le code HTML. As it turns out, I don't; though, I might want to moderer les commentaires. In any case, the French keyboard doesn't really make things any easier: it's fine, so long as I don't look at it, but one glance down, and I'm done: a becomes q, m becomes some strange mark of punctuation. I'm not entirely sure how the French communicate with one another. I know I'd be confused if I were them...