The House (Well a model anyway)

This is the model home that is somewhat similar to the one we're planing to build.

This is the front of the house

This is the side where we'll do a prowl rather than the flat wall, with more galss for better scenic viewing

Here's a view from the interior loft

Another view from the loft. These are false beams with cyprus covers. We're going with cyprus beams.

From 1st floor to the loft. Here we're planning to go with the open stair rail and wood panel, rather than the dry wall.

The Kitchen, but without the extended loft as a ceiling over it. And again the open wood rail rather than closed in dry wall.

The contract is in place and we'll be building in the next couple of years.

It's getting exciting now!

Blogger Issues

Sorry all I'm trying to post about the latest road trip that I'm on, but Blogger isn't cooperating with me!

I'll get them posted as soon as I can get photos uploaded, hopefully soon.

Another Road Trip (Weeding and Fence)

I had tried to send this out yesterday, but I wasn't able to get a connection.

Here I am on another road trip, this time to beat back the jungle and treat the fence on our property. My Mom and Dad came out to meet up with me and have joined me on this adventure. Lightnin wasn't able to make it this trip because she's heading back to Missouri to meet her sisters and take care of things there. A little bit of divide and conquer strategy this time!

We headed out of Cincy yesterday morning around 6AM and hit the hotel here in Florida just before 8PM. Traffic was pretty light which helped, and we only had one directional mishap which was a minor distraction. This morning we rose early, ate a light breakfast and headed out to take a look at the property. Just as I had figured, the weeds were tall and thick (you can see in the photos below). Today's task was to size up the job and set a game plan for weed removal and treatment of the fence.

Here's a shot including the SUVan to show some scale

Here's the front gate

Here's the weed's, taller than my Dad! We've got our work cut out for us.

Tomorrow (today) we go visit the home builders and get a look at one of the model homes, similar to our design!

Fun in R&D (The "Gator Room")

This one is for all you Gator fans out there!





You have to understand that R&D is not always work and that we actually do have fun at our jobs (sometimes). Well over the past couple of weeks there was a contest to decorate the small 4-person capacity "huddle" rooms to help break up some of the monotony. As it so happens we have several engineers from Gainesville and they took the liberty of creating "The Gator Room"





I hope you enjoy the following photos I took:






This is the dry erase board (east wall)















The west wall












The south wall
















The north wall










It was a pity, but they didn't win the contest. I just figured you should see some of the not so boring, and non-confidential, world of corporate R&D

Veteran's Day, The Castle, and Other Stuff!

This post was originally written yesterday, but Blogger wasn't cooperating with me.
I hope you enjoy!


Veteran's Day 2007

We're proudly flying our flag today, and will again tomorrow! We were able to talk to SPC. "Dude" AKA "G-Nerve" yesterday. He's doing good and it was good to have him back home a couple of weeks ago, even if it was for just a few days! I just want to say thanks to all of the veterans of past and present wars, conflicts, police actions, etc.; and thank God you all answered the call to duty. Thank you for preserving the freedom that we enjoy as US citizens

I'm especially reminded this year because I am about to suspend some of that freedom for the next year as I have accepted a position at one of our sites in Beijing, China. It will be a one year assignment, and the opportunity/experience of a lifetime. I'll take my camera so that I can try to bring the rest of you along for the ride


The Castle (Chateau Le Roche)
Last night we visited a castle right here in Ohio! It was to throw a wake for one of the knights of the castle who had passed away a couple of weeks ago. The celebration needed to wait because at the time of Sir "Bear's" passing the castle was set up for Halloween. There was a brief eulogy, and then a small jar of his ashes were scattered from the top of the castle a spoon full at a time by those that knew him well.



The Castle utilized three main styles of castle architecture: The ground level is German, the second level is French, and the top level is English. It's an absolutely beautiful structure.











Here the always lovely Lightnin giving a bit of scale for one of the towers of the English Battle Deck

















Sir Thomas (one of the knights of the castle, and good friend of ours) and I






















Lightnin with a new friend
















Sir Thomas and I think an English suit of armor (I'll have to check the facts with Sir Thomas)
















Me next to a suit of German leather armor




















Myself again with the handsome Young Thomas and his lovely and humorous sister Chrystal












It was a special and fun evening and I know this won't be my last visit because there's much more info I'll need to collect and share about this place than I'm able to do in this post!

As we descended the spiral steps we toasted at each of the levels: Cheers, Sante, and finally Pros't.

A Tribute to Orville A. Hinck (A.K.A.: GGL, "Big-O", O-Hinck)

Orville was born in April of 1929 in Ernestville, MO, although when I met him he and his 2 brothers shared ownership of the family farm just outside of Concordia, MO. It was a place that I got to know well over the past 20+ years. This is because we used to meet him there on a weekend around his birthday to go morel mushroom hunting in the woods, and cat fishing on the pond. The first time we went out there he actually got a bit frustrated with me because I was finding more mushrooms than he was and I was walking right behind him. He got the last laugh though because the first year we moved to Ohio he sent us pictures of the 5 gallon bucket full of mushrooms he had found, and several of them were the size of a twelve once beer can which he placed next to them for scale!

Being a "city boy" he and his daughter (Lightnin of course) delighted in quizzing me on farming type stuff that I of course knew nothing about. As it turns out the joke was on them because I actually paid attention and learned much more than they thought I would. I'll miss his laughter as he would tease me though, some times to the point where he couldn't get the punchline out without stopping to laugh himself!

He had no choice but to have a good sense of humor though, you see he came from a family of three brothers and fate dealt him a hand of three daughters! After meeting and getting to know all three of these women over the years, I think he must have earned his wings early on! All three of them have taken bits of Orville's humor and when you get them together in one spot look out.

Here's a bit of an interesting twist though, all three of the daughter's names start with a "T", and they all three married David's! That's right, when we get together I'm not alone in my battle of the wits with the three "T's", I have my fellow Dave's to lend a hand. I was lucky enough to marry the middle sister of the three. I'm going to say lucky because the other two were already taken at the time that we met, so I was lucky to get the third (well ok technically the 2nd) before she was taken too. (whew, that was a close one!) Interestingly enough Orville was the middle brother. I can honestly say that I never saw any favoritism by Orville towards any of the three girls, but I do think that Lightnin and GGL had a special bond that only middle children would understand. (not that I would have a clue, I had one brother and that was it).


I think I should stop here and apologize for the few photos that I have of the man, and the fact that all of them that I do have are of him with our grandson. You see I didn't enter the digital camera age until a couple of years ago and we live about 600 miles east of Missouri, so my choices of photos are somewhat limited. Although I think this one definitely shows the little boy that was hidden within the grown man's body, something that I definitely identified with.



I think one of my most fond memories with him was when we took a trip to Washington, D.C. to see the dedication of the Korean war monument. You see Orville was a veteran of that conflict and we actually were able to meet a few folks from his unit. The dedication ceremony was definitely a moving experience and I was glad to have been able to witness the event, even though we had record high heat that week.

We ended up traveling with him on another occasion. We took him down to Florida with us on a trip where we house sat for some friends of ours in Pompano Beach one Christmas when they headed back to their families in Michigan (I'll never really understand that 'cause I'd take Florida over Michigan any day, but hey it worked for us!). We took him to the beach for the first time at Ft. Lauderdale, then we hung Christmas lights while dressed in shorts and t-shirts, and spent Christmas day on Key West (I'm sure that was an eye opening experience for Orville). It was a fun trip, and I'll never forget it!



Once again you can see the smile on his face as he clowns around with the little guy. No doubt teasing him while this photo was being taken. I'm pretty sure Easton didn't mind a bit though.








We didn't get to see him as much as we had wanted to this past year. He was planning to come out to visit us during the Donauschwaben Oktoberfest, he usually came out to see us on Schwaben Tag (Schwaben Day), but his gall bladder had acted up on him and he decided to stay home to let it settle down. On the night of Wednesday October 20th, following his gall bladder surgery, he finally succumbed to the dark angle of death and ended his time in this purgatory we call Earth. We really shouldn't feel sad for Orville because as I stated earlier he had already earned his wings, although it is very difficult not to morn his loss while the rest of us put in our time here without him.

We'll always have our memories of him, and that will just have to do until we're called upon to make our final journey!

God speed Big-O, and hey save some of those morels for the rest of us!

Speedy Recovery to GGL

Dear fellow Bloggers and Quiet Readers,

I just dropped Lightnin off at the airport. She's headed home to see her Father (GGL in comments to my blogs), by way of Atlanta!
Side note: I don't understand why you have to go from the Cincinnati Delta Hub to the Atlanta Delta Hub to get to Kansas City (Check out the map). Someone once said: "You can't even get to hell without stopping in Atlanta first!"
Anyway, the good thing is that she'll meet up with her sister in ATL and they'll be flying to KC together.

GGL had his surgery today and things did not go as well as we had hoped. When he was coming out his heart rate went out of control and they weren't able to get him stabilized at that hospital, so they Life Flighted him to one that had more capability.

When I got home from dropping her off at the airport she gave me a call that they had stabilized him during flight. That's good news, but obviously he's not completely out of the woods yet. So please keep him in your thoughts and prayers for a full recovery!

Typical Ohio Fall, Air Conditioning in the Morning Furnace at Night

If you read one of my posts during the past week or so you'll know that we've been breaking records for high temperatures ever since July. This past Monday (October 8th) we broke a record of 91F that stood since 1860, when they first started recording Ohio weather!

Well that all came to an abrupt halt today. In true, typical Cincinnati fashion We went from 90F to 60F for the high in 24 hours, and we're supposed to get down to a high of 48F tomorrow!

Yep, once again it's air conditioning one day and furnace the next! I could sure use some firewood right about now.

Donauschwaben Oktoberfest 2007

We've been members of the Donauschwaben Verein for about 14 years now, and haven't missed an Oktoberfest since!

The colors of Oktoberfest are Blue and White, and the sky cooperated fully this weekend.

It's the celebration of the coming of fall, complete with Music, Beer, Dancing, Beer, Food, Beer, Friends, Fun, and of course Beer.

The Fire pit!

We end up roasting over 500 chickens and nearly 20 pigs during the three day celebration.

Herr Klein serves up a Dunkle for a thirsty customer.

The pouring of a Festbier, an art form all it's own!

How many men does it take to pour a beer?

Apparently 4, 1 to do the pouring, and 3 to admire the work!

It's a family affair! The Klein's have been good close friends of ours, and are fellow Schwabians! We can always count on them for keeping our thirst in check!

It's been unseasonably hot this year, up in the 90's (F), but the heat hasn't affected the attendance. Lederhosen (leather shorts) are amazingly comfortable, even in this heat.

We'll be back out there again today doing our part to keep the tradition alive!

Ein Prosit Der Gemutlichkeit!

2 years

I just realized it's been two years today since I started blogging. My good friend FC talked me into trying this, and it's really been fun! (I know that he gets a bit disappointed that I don't blog consistently, but hey I do what I can). It's actually been more than just fun, it's been sort of like therapy for me. It's given me the ability to express my thoughts and my view of the world around me, sometimes as an observer and other times as a participant.

I've had the good fortune of traveling to Europe several times for work, and I've enjoyed sharing those experiences with all of you. I know that some of people that I've met during my travels read my posts, even if they don't comment on-line.

It's also given me the pleasure of being able to live vicariously through the posts of all of you other blogger's out there who are willing to share your lives with the rest of us.

I intend to keep going, posting things that seem significant to me at the time and are hopefully at least somewhat entertaining for those of you who read them.

Thanks for stopping by and reading!

Remembering September 2001

On Friday we found out that the traveling September 11th National Memorial and Museum was in town, so we decided to go down town yesterday morning to witness the Dedication Ceremony. We were joined by our friend's son "Young Thomas", who is one of SPC Dude's friends from school.

By the way Lightnin's shirt states: "My Son is Away Protecting Our Freedom and I'm Very Proud of Him". Mine has a photo of a WWII soldier drinking from his mess cup and states: "How About a Nice Cup of Shut The Hell Up and Let Us Do Our Job We're Freeing a Nation".

It was a somber and yet relaxing atmosphere. Several local dignitaries spoke along with several from New York.

One man from Connecticut, Tom Roger, spoke about losing his daughter. She was a standby flight attendant who was flying on American Airlines Flt#11.

The grey background for the speakers was actually two steel beams that will become part of the structure of the Museum. Everyone that was present was asked to sign one of the beams.

We gladly added ours to the several thousand names already inscribed.

We also met a women who's son was lost in one of the Twin Towers that day. She's holding a shadow box that contains the charred remains of his driver's License.

She saw our shirts and came over to us and thanked us for what our son, and those like him, are doing as a result of events of that day. Unfortunately we didn't catch her name.

These three young men raised money to help support the memorial by walking from Rossford, OH to Washington DC, a 65o mile hike.

I'm glad that we went down there to be a part of remembering this tragedy. Getting to meet folks that lost their loved one's in this terrible act of terrorism helped to rationalize why our son is in the desert for his second tour, and our Nephew has also completed two tours. They both signed up as a direct result of that day.

We need to remember this day above all others, even Pearl Harbor. After all this was an attack against innocent civilians, not a military facility. On that day nearly 3,000 people were senselessly murdered, and over 400 rescue workers lost their lives trying to help those in need. If we don't remember then we are likely to let our guard down and allow a similar or worse attack against freedom to occur!

Once we returned home we further honored the day by exercising our right to brew beer! Hey several of our founding father's were avid home brewers, and when we brew beer we truly do honor their memory!

Record Breaking Heat

No photos, just a short bit of information:

As of today we've had 52 days over 90F here in Cincinnati. Yesterday we broke the record that was set back in 1953, and it looks like we'll continue to build on the new record the rest of this week.

I don't feel too bad though because I was able to talk to our son yesterday and it has finally cooled down to just over 100F in Kuwait! It's been up over 120F, actual temperature, most of the summer!

The Dog Days of Summer?

I guess these must be the Kitty days of fall then!

Sorry, I took a couple of weeks off blogging. Work has been extremely busy, and so has our home life. There's been so many nights that I said to Lightnin' that I really need to blog, but the bed called out to me louder than my inner voice.

If you look down to the post just prior to this one you can sort of catch up with the more interesting things that have happened.

Also please wish GGL a speedy recovery! For those of you who don't know GGL stands for: Great Grandpa Lightnin' (Lightnin's Father). He went into the hospital this past Saturday and is getting ready for surgery. We should know more later this week!

24 Years, and We're Still Together!

Hard to believe that 24 years ago, yesterday, Lightnin' and I got hitched! I know there's several of you out there that thought that there was no way this relationship was going to last. Well it not only lasted, it's flourishing! So there! ;-)

So what do you do to celebrate 24 years? Let's see, 25 is silver and 50 is gold, I guess 24 is beer! Yep, we had a few friends over and brewed a double batch (10gal) of an Irish Red Ale. It was the first beer that I ever brewed, and this was the first time I've brewed since my surgery this past fall.

I've got a few pics to share from the brewing, and then I'll try to catch you up on everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks, we've been busy!

Here's the basic procedure:

The grains have already Mashed to convert the starch of the malted barley to sugars. This part of the operation is called the Sparge, where I'm rinsing the sugars off of the spent grain.

For the double batch I decided to go 1/2 grain and 1/2 extract, so here we are adding the dried malt extract.

Followed by the malt extract syrup.

Then come the hops, added in 3 stages: at Boiling (for bitterness), with about 15min remaining in the boil (for flavor), and after the boil (for aroma).

After that you cool the wort down (wort is the term for the sugary liquid).

Pitch the yeast, and in about 2 weeks you've got beer!

Here's what it looks like today, in full fermentation.

Looking back a couple of weeks what all has happened....... let's see........Oh I remember:

My friend Sir Thomas and I fried up 65lbs of chicken for his Daughter's friend's wedding rehearsal. It was hot, rainy, messy, and danged if we didn't forget to bring the camera! Bummer! The chicken came out great though, and we satisfied the hungry crowd.

Then there was Paella Night (pronounced: Pie-A-ah)! Lightnin' out did herself here, and we have photos:

Here's the Risotto (rice) just being added, and you can see the rest of the ingredients in the background (Chicken, Chorizo, scallops, Saffron, Smokey Paprika, Chicken stock, etc.)

Here's the finished product, and it went very well with the "Dancing Bull" Cabernet Sauvignon.

So did the chocolate cake for dessert.

Here's to the next 24 Sweetie!

End of Summer Part 2: One More Road Trip

It's not unusual at all to have groups of motorcycles buzzing by out where we live, especially when the weather is nice, and this past Saturday it was perfect! So I met up with a few friends who were looking for any excuse to get out on the road one last day of summer, much like I was myself. Unfortunately Lightnin was at home with a summertime cold, which she was happy to share with me (I returned to work with it this morning).

Here's the road crew

Here's their transportation of choice, I of course had the little four wheeled two-seater

We headed down south about 45 minutes from here to a little town along the Ohio River named Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. There was a festival going on with misic (live bluegrass of course) and a historic vehicle show.

These guy's were good!

Just follow the steps down the hill to the river and catch the ferry across to Rising Sun, Indiana.

This was an old grist mill, powered by this hit-n-miss engine. You can see the old hollowed out tree that was once used for grain storage.

Just in case you're wondering, this is probably how beer got it's start. Just think about what would have happened to the grain if a bit of rain water got into the bin during this time of year, a bit of a fermentation gone wild!

And this was the character that was selling the corn meal, of course he sold a bag of it to me!

With the road behind us, we stopped to wet our whistles before heading on home.








Summer might be over, but Autumn usually provides some good rag top weather too!

End of Summer Part 1: Back to School

This past week our oldest son Matthew stopped by to visit on his way to the Big Apple. He's been accepted into the Master's program at Christie's (yep the famous auction house) where he'll be studying Modern Art, "Connoisseurship" and the history of the art market. He was one of only 30 some students admitted into the program this year.

He was moving to New York and was just passing through in the U-Haul (which I neglected to get a photo of!). We took him out for dinner where we met up with a few of his friends for a small celebration before he headed out on the road and back to school the following day.