Honeymoon - Part 1 Barcelona

so after a year of planning we finally started our honeymoon a bit over 36h ago. Needless to say we both are kinda unhappy to leave Davis right now, since we don't want to be without our little puppies and being in the final stages of buying our first home.

 But what can you do? close to 20h of jumping from airplane to airplane and paying for overpriced and terrible airport food we arrived in Barcelona and explored the city for a bit. Well at least till we found a little Tapas bar.

A bunch of food later, we headed back home to the hotel and took a 'short' nap. Sorry no pics, since I forgot the camera...

...needless to say we slept for over 12 hours and woke up at 4am in the morning, complaining about a stiff back and being terrible hungry. But nothing is open, so we wait a terrible 3 hours till the little hotel restaurant opens.

So it's 7am and there are literally about two dozen people in line of the restaurant and I just didn't feel like waiting around and running for the buffet. Somehow I believe eating should be an enjoyful and relaxing experience.

Which means we moved out and found a tiny little hole in the wall kind restaurant. That had amazing coffee, great sandwiches and fresh pressed orange juice. So I was happy, but I still have no camera with me...

About 3 hours later we start walking around and exploring Barcelona a bit. Basically we really wanted to see the Picasso museum (Robin) and try the food (Me). I even brought a camera this time.

Needless to say, we got hungry again and stopped at a little tapas bar for sangria and tapas.

   

 Which was rather tasty and gave us the opportunity to try new foods and relax a bit. After all we are americans and don't know anymore how to walk...  

 One of the first things we noticed here, was that there are literally more scooters and motorcycles than cars and they are parked everywhere. And I think Robin got slightly annoyed about me pointing out Ducatie's and Aprillias. But hey they are so gorgeous...

 

Now one of the things we really like about Barcelona is all these little side streets and tiny shops everywhere. It's just so different from the overrun and huge malls in america.

   

 And last, but not least a picture of my gorgeous and rather happy looking wife.

 

I do apologize for the pictures, which are slightly out of focus. I guess my camera starts to show it's age and that it has taken over 100k pictures by now and somehow back focusses quite a bit. Also I took on the challenge to only bring one lens on this trip and decided on a 35mm F/2. Which is rather limiting and I wish I had a 21mm lens instead...

Finally got a Roomba

After our last coding and more contact got paid in full and Robin was complaining about how much the dog shed by now and that we are constantly vacuuming and washing the floors to keep up with them. I decided to surprise her and get a little Roomba to help with the vacuuming.

Especially since our new place also has tiles, which means it should work rather well.

Now after taking delivery of the roomba a couple of days ago. I have to say I'm really impressed by it and it just works as it's supposed to. You define a schedule and leave it alone. Everything is getting taken care of by itself. Also the noise level is not that bad, but it is a touch slow.

It takes ca 30-60 minutes to vacuum the whole place, but since we don't have to do it? who cares!

And in action,

Being married since 363 Days

For our one year anniversaery we decided to go for a short 3 day trip in the mountains and relaxed a bit,without phones, iPads and computers. Just Robin, Rosie, Basil and me.

Yip we decided to take the little monsters with us...

sometimes they are a bit vicious and tell each other 'no'

After a couple of miles, hiking with the puppies, which could be also called a stop-motion hike. We finally made it to the top.

 Why do I call it stop motion? Well let's put it this way, every couple of meters a different person saw our puppies and had to pet them and asks about there 'live story'. But at least the pups are nice and don't bite people and we are slowly getting the jumping under control.

yip they are getting rather large...

We are also at the point, were we can't really carry the puppies anymore. Since they are just getting to big and awkward to carry. Needless to say that they are over 30lbs and don't stop moving doesn't help either.

housing

So this blog has been a bit quite over the last couple of months, since stuff got more and more busy

• founding a business, which seems to be rather successful at this point in time and taking up a lot of my free time
• raising two adorable puppies, which take up more time than we expected
• since these puppies are growing faster than we expected, we need a bigger place. So it looks like we have to find a new place to live

So we started looking at properties, which we can afford and can finance on my income alone. After a couple of weeks searching, we finally got an offer accepted on a little house, with a rather big backyard.

It only needs some minor work and we should be able to move in august 1st, depending if the inspection and appraisal go ahead without any issues.

stupid humans...

why do they have to bath us? We were quite happy playing in the dirt and puddles... And how dare they to use the garden hose, don't they know that we should be brought to the doggie spa, where we get some treats and increase our never ending bill?

why us?

basil...

Rosemary...

and some more Basil...

trouble in paradise...

now in the last couple of days some unfortunate events occurred, which are causing our future plans to get slightly to massively tangled up.

The first issue was that we discovered termites in our condo and so had to contact our landlord regarding this. Now termites seem to be rather common in california and are basically everywhere. You just need to take care of them and discourage them to move into your house or they will eat it... Now running some numbers, it would take roughly 5800 years until they would be finished with our condo. So we have some time...

Well once we contacted our landlord and requested a 'pet friendly' approach to our termite solution. We immediate received an email regarding 'our no pet clause' in the lease. Which were news to us, since the same landlord praised the place as 'dog friendly' and perfect with the backyard and the tiles to raise a dog.

Needless to say, we were rather surprised and now keep exchanging emails since days, to have a 'pet' inspection by our landlord, which fits everyones schedule.

we mean no harm...

is it possible that our little two puppies, will have us evicted from our home soonish? We really did not plan on buying a house this year and really wanted to wait till next summer.

Needless to say, we both decided to start looking at houses to buy now and not rent yet another place. Since it makes no sense.

A growing family...

people who followed me on twitter or facebook or had to spend time with me in the office. Knows by now that our little family of 3 (robin aka wifey, gert aka hubby, mojito aka stinky aka guinea pig aka mo) numbers 5 now.

What changed? Well we got us two absolutely adorable 8 weeks old black labrador puppies (basil and rosemary), which are happily tearing up the place. And do not listen at all...

rosi sleeping, while basil is awake for once

the most peaceful moments are when they are sleeping, which gladly is a lot right now

currently working more form home, since they can't be left alone...

where ever we are, they are. They do not like to be left alone at all.

Now as far as we can tell so far, it's not gonna be easy to train them. Since they are in separately. Where one is, is the other and they basically follow us anywhere.

The biggest issue so far, how do you teach a puppy a name, if there is always another one close by. And how to get them to the point that they say something, when they have to pee.

turning 30 -

well recently we discovered that my birthday is coming up this translates into me starting to be a grown up. And what better is there todo to celebrate a little bit with my amazing wife, who was in charge to provide me with an unforgettable birthday?

So first we only had a little dinner at a Restaurant down south, where there serve traditional  japanese cooked food and prepare it at your table. Needless to say it was great and tasty, but so much food.

Because of the current circumstances we decided to keep it all small and move my actual celebration by a couple of days.

When we came back home from the LA area, I was presented with a little table of gifts for me, including several whiskey glases, cologne , a book and a bottle of 18 years old scotch.

And yesterday the day has come were we celebrated my birthday with the way she intended too.

First I got a call and are supposed to be home by 3-pm for a so called 'outing', while driving to this outing Robin is calling a person called 'Candy' and I start wondering about the nature of this outing. As most people know, people with the name 'Candy' in the states are assumed to be strippers.

So it turns out that Candy is the Salesmanager at the local Porsche dealership and robin lined me up to testdrive a potential future car for me. A 987 Porsche Boxster S

since she knows I'm really into sport-scars and a 1-2 year old Boxster is actually financially possible in the next 2 years. I'm not saying responsible...
So we are getting the keys and driving it off the lot, just to get a call a couple of minutes later to please return the vehicle 'now'.
So we do and it turns out that they did not like the way I drove it. They didn't tell us what was wrong or what my mistake was or even asked us if we liked the car. They were just plain rude and borderline offensive.

Needless to say, we won't do any form of car shopping at there dealership in the future.

How did I drive?

- blibbing the throttle once or twice and looking for the point where the clutch engages
- carefully leave the lot in 2nd gear, at like 5-10mp, since I don't want to bottom out
- accelerate to about 5000rpm, roughly 55 miles an hour

- get called back, just as I see the first curve

So far everybody I told this does not understand the dealerships problem with it and can't figure out what there deal was. Our only idea is that they assume that we only wanted to take it for a joyride, but then why didn't they suggest to take the drive with me? We were both surprised that they offered us an unattended test drive.

Did I like the car?

I'd love to own this car with warranty (2011-2012 model), since its really comfortable and just makes me smile. Definitely the most fun car I ever had and reminds me a lot to the R6 I used to own. A touch pricey, but depending how the next year go's it should be not the big problem to provide a 50% downpayment. And finance the rest.


Continuing with the birthday plans

After leaving the dealership robin told me to get home and dress up a bit. And off we go to a nearby steakhouse were my closest friends here were waiting for me and took us out for a tasty dinner.

I even got lots and lots of gifts, mostly in form of a bottle to start a whiskey collection and to grow it over the next couple of years.

At the end of it, I can only say thank you to my wife and feel happy that she dries to make all my dreams come true, even in this difficult time.

Conclusions:

She definitely succeeded in making me remember this Birthday for ever. For example how often can you say that you got kicked out of a Porsche Dealership on your Birthday...

Car...

Last night we returned from our San Diego trip and I finally wanted to take the chance to finish working on my car and have it again. Only to notice that some contractor who were trimming the trees completely ruined the paint job on my car...

A huge scratch over the hood, down to the primer...





Several scratches over the side down to the metal.

Now we are really considering filing a claim with our insurance, but most likely the cost to repaint the car will be more than the car is worth these days..

Anyway, I did manage to finish the car repairs and it seems to be running fine now...

Estimated cost dealer: 1500-2000$ for diagnostics and replacement of parts

My cost:

155$ for water pump, timing belt, accessory belts, thermostat
15$ for coolant hose
5$ for hose clamps
5$ for razor blades
100$ for battery
100$ for whiskey as a thank you for my father in law to help me with some parts
10$ for band aid to remove unwanted skin...

Next job are the oxygen sensors and the valve covers sometime down the road....


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Veranda Terrace,Davis,United States

First post in 2012

Well first of all it's been a long time since there were any posts and so it's time to change this.

Basically the last 2 months were just incredible busy here and we were just running forth and back.

Now that some normality returned, we can relax and plan the future. We are finally close to paying the wedding off and now in the stage of planning our honeymoon in combination with a business trip to Spain.

Also we got informed that our current condo will be up for sale in 2013 and we are actually considering buying it or some other property in this timeframe. It would just make no sense not todo this at 3-4% interest. That this is most likely delay my car plans by 6-12 months is just unfortunate.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Monte Vista St,Rancho Cucamonga,United States

turkey -

so a while back I decided to buy a post thanksgiving turkey, since they are dirt cheap and I never made a turkey in my life before. So it was time to give it a shot...

So originally I wanted to smoke the turkey, since I consider this to be a delicious meal. But it turns out that there are size restriction. Basically it's considered unsafe to smoke a turkey over 15 lbs. Ours was 25 lbs, so plan b) was put into action and we roasted it.

before it went in the oven...

5 hours later, slightly overcooked, since the 'turkey popper' got stuck to the bag and so didn't go off...

dinner time, with stuffing and cranberry sauce

after several hours of sniffing and waiting a slightly overcooked turkey came out of the oven. For some reason the turkey popper got stuck to our cooking bag and so didn't go off in time. Lesson learned I guess...

saint Nicholas and preparing for Christmas...

so the festive time of the year has begun and I'm slowly training robin in the Christmas and pre-Christmas rules and traditions. Like always obey your hubby and give him all your chocolate..

So first of all we are proud to announce that we have our first Christmas tree together and my first 'Christmas tree in my house' ever.

yip it's a tree

Now as you can see in this picture that this is not a normal tree. No everything and I mean everything in our house has currently little pink labels on it, to ease Robin into the German language.

Now who knows me, knows that my favorite colors are red and blue. More tending towards red for some reason and so I was pleasantry surprised that the most Christmas ornaments were red too. It's always amazes me how similar Robin and I are.

Another important custom Robin had to learn, was the custom of Saint Nicolas. A brief overview, who are not familiar with this custom:

In Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. Sometimes a disguised Nikolaus also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on the basis of their behavior. This has become more lenient in recent decades.

So we both found something little under the tree in the early morning.

And as you can see in the pictures, I managed to get my camera working again. Turned out both of my rechargeable batteries were dead and it worked with normal once just fine. Happily I got a battery on sale at amazon and so we will be able to take more pictures again.

robins birthday party,

since she was getting rather nervous the last couple of month's, after she is turning 24+n and supposed to behave like a grownup, I decided to take her out to a nice grownup dinner where there are no crayons to draw on the table with.

So I went ahead and booked a table for 2, at the sacramento firehouse for my 'little' girl. And told her to order what ever she wants from the menu.

highland park 12 for me and a lemon drop

After the standard wait period was over we started ordering our food. Like a grownup we did this ala carte.

Appetizer:

• oysters on the half shelf (R)

• served with champagne mignonette

• smoked tenderloin carpaccio(G)

• herbed chèvre croquette and baguette crostini, capers, onions, Parmigiano-Reggiano and white truffle oil

Second Course:

• Hearts of Roamine Caesar Salad(R)

• whole leaves of crisp lettuce, house-made dressing, anchovies and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano

• Heirloom Squash-Lentil Soup(G)

• warm spice-roasted winter squash, caramelized shallots and leeks, roasted root vegetables and stewed lentils

Third Course:

• Fruiti di Mare(R)

• pan-roasted Nigerian salt water prawn and a 6-oz Maine lobster tail, pan-seared sea scallop and butternut squash risotto 

• Cherry Chocolate Duck(G)

• house-made confit of Sonoma Saveur artisan duck leg, pan seared with a dark cherry glaze and almond milk foam, polenta cake and chili-chocolate “mole” paint

Desert:

classic vanilla bean crème brûlée, cinnamon apple confiture and almond lace tuile

We paired this with a nice fruity Cabernet and several glasses of champagne for robin.

I do have to say, we looked rather handsome.

2012 camaro ss2 - 6.2L 426-hp V8 engine

while we were in Vegas it happened to be that Robins dad joined us and rented a car for the drive from sacramento to vegas and back. After all it's roughly 1200 miles round trip and you would expect that you take a car like our trusty little 2007 corolla.

Not so by Robin's dad, he rented a 2011 camaro SS2 convertible with just a touch over 426hp and 6.2L engine. Yes it did not do as well gas wise as our corolla, but it was way more fun to drive and definately put a grin or two on our face, till you hit a curve and noticed at once that all these  3860   lbs (1750kg) are trying to keep going straight.

Needless to say I was like always the responsible grownup I am and promptly tested if it can really hit 0-60mph in 4.6 seconds. Or how much it takes to make it spin out (I did not succeed...) Or how much fun it actually is.

My statements

1. it is fast, but doesn't feel fast, a 2011 WRX is way more fun
2. it's so fat, it doesn't like to turn and does not feel nimble in any way
3. convertible's are fun and I loved the feeling of the wind
4. 40k for this car are way to much, the interior is so incredible cheap. Hard-plastic is everywhere
5. it takes forever to unfold the roof and you have to keep the button pressed all the time
6. parking is impossible, the doors are so high. I was literally not able to see the curbs
7. the tip-tronic is an abomination and shifts incredible rough. It's fine but not great in automatic mode. But the manual mode is pointless and I gave up and stuck to the automatic mode
8. the heads-up display is cool, but the limited angles render it kind pointless
9. sound system is blah

Now the wife'y statements

yip she looks good in it.

• convertibles are fun
• I want a mustang
• it feels really heavy
• I want a mustang
• parking is terrible
• I'm scared of the tip-tronic and leave it in manual
• I want a mustang
• I don't know if I can wait 5 years till I can buy a mustang convertible (we have an agreement that we each are allowed to buy a nice car between 30 and 31)

it's getting christmassy? here...


well today I was running around to find a nice little advents crown (Adventskranz) and to my shock I could not find one anywhere. But since I watched my mum for years building these by her own, I decided. Hey I can do this too and so off I go to different stores and buy all the required ordainment's, green pointy tree branches, candles and smelly stuff of different kind and went to work.

and put and tied this all together. Not to bad for my first homemade advents crown ever.

Since this can't stand alone I also needed to get some basic first advents ingredients like 'Gluehwein' (mulled wine), domino stones, marzipan stollen and round cookies covered in chocolate. Not to forget, you also need the standard little snowman's, from Lindt. To give us the illusion of having snow here.

shopping and other stuff


so after Robin and I have been complaining since month's first about my ikea foam bed from 2006, how uncomfortable it is and how cramped it, we started to complain for a couple of month's about her all american springbox bed.


So we finally caved in and ordered a new bed, obviosuly in california king size to avoid the: 'you are taking up all the space' or 'stop elbowing me in the face' or 'every morning I trip over your feet, which hangout of the bed' issues.


So we really hope that:


72in × 84in
1.83 m × 2.13 m

is large enough for us and we can finally find some peace. This also meant that our old bed could move to the guest room, which is now not as empty anymore.


Let just hope that the upgrade from queen to california king was really worth it.


On an unrelated fact, I got a call from nissan that my car is due for a service recall and has to be dropped off at the dealer. So that they can check it for rusty suspension (front struts) mounts and...

• redo the anti corrosion sealant
• reinforce it with steel bars
• replace the vehicle in case the damage is to progressed

They will also tell me that...

• my oxygen sensor is broken
• the valve covers are leaking
• the knock sensor is going out

and that they offer me to fix it for 2-3k$...

which is all on my todo list to fix, once I have a weekend time and need to get the car smogged, otherwise It won't harm anything to leave it as it is. I mean I have done this all on the passat and the parts are like 200$, just a lot of labor.

applehill -

so after our halloween party last night and a total of 4h of sleep (no idea why I couldn't sleep, maybe the matress?) We decided todo something fun today. Robin has been kinda unhappy recently with the lack of entertainment and the amount of time we spend at home. So off to apple hill we went to enjoy some apple pie and candied apples after a fun breakfast at cafe italia.

an apple missed during the harvest...

these were not missed during the harvest...

yes we do have fall colors here, (car is a 1925 Ford Model T)

Missies Pumpkin Head...

Mister Pumpkin Head...

The only thing, which didn't worked out was that we did not manage to get a single piece of apple pie. Nobody accepted a debit card there, guess it's time to bake my own apple pie now...

halloween -

well it's the time of the year again, that everybody goes a touch crazy around halloween and since it's Robin's favorite Holliday. Well I had to follow suit.

Now since Robin just got married to a german and we got the greencard recently, we thought we should switch roles and both go as iconic figures of our partners country of origin.

For me it was easy and classically I chose one of the most known american figures ever, good old uncle sam.

uncle sam - I worked 2 month's on this beard...

Now for Robin this left her with 2 major choices, being the german chancellor or a southern bavarian beer girl.

Luckily she went for the second choice.

wifey

Sadly the third member of our family was not to thrilled about the whole halloween thing and promptly tried to run away. Such a party pooper...

cowboy mojito

Obviously pictures by our self are kinda silly, so there is a pictures of us together

I really need a remote for the camera...

And last but not least a picture of robin and the little one again

mojito happy again without a costume...