Like many people last weekend, I was happy to hear that the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl. Not because I like football, of course, but because I like Pittsburgh.
I used to go to Pittsburgh at least once or twice a year to visit my friend Josh, who lived there for quite a few years. I know Josh from our Rotary International Youth Exchange year in which we both lived in the bustling metropolis of Neustadt am R�benberge, outside of Hannover, Germany. Those were formidable years, and it�s hard to believe that those good times happened 10 years ago!
In any case, with the attention on Pittsburgh for at least half of an afternoon, I was reminiscing a bit about the various trips I�d taken to Pittsburgh to visit Josh, so I just thought I�d name drop him and say hi. He�s obviously the guy in the space suit in the picture above, and that�s also him in the other picture. Both were taken at a costume shop in Philadelphia in 2005, and that was the last time we got to hang out. In fact, I included this second picture for a good reason.
See, most of my friends who know Josh�well, if you just say �Josh,� they know who you�re talking about. But my wife Angela hasn�t ever met Josh. She also hadn�t met most of my friends until we went to Colorado for Christmas. Still, I had shown her a ton of pictures from the U.S. before we first went there, and in one of the folders we came across the picture of Josh with the prosthetic joke breasts. That made quite an impression on Angela, and to this day, whenever I mention �Josh,� her face still gets a blank stare. But if I add, �You know, my friend with the fake boobs,� then she says, �Oh yeah! Josh!�
So, Yoschi,* if you�re out there and you happen to read this, then drop a line. Or better yet, come on down and visit. You�re bound to be remembered as �The Fake Boob Guy� until you do!
*A note about the �Yoschi�: In the Biology class that Josh and I sort of �attended� while we were in high school in Germany, we had a teacher named Doc Troue. As the students in his class ran around, chatted with one another, and even once got into a fight over a fake fur coat, old Doc Troue would always be at the front of the room plugging away at some equation on the board, with his back turned to the class. Occasionally, though, he�d quickly turn around and ask Josh or me a question, since I think we were the only ones who were even remotely paying attention. We never knew the answer, though, and most of the time we probably couldn�t even have told you which branch of Biology we were studying in class, since we were busy drawing pictures or writing notes about Axl Rose doing a duet with Tina Turner.
In any case, Doc Troue apparently couldn�t say �Josh,� so he always called him �Yoschi,� which made Josh seem about 50% more Japanese. As a matter of fact, Troue called ME �Yoschi� sometimes, too, since Germans had a bit of a tough time with �Ryan� as well�either that, or he may not have even been able to determine that there were two of us.
Apart from a hail shower during our cake break, our large group enjoyed good weather for a very pleasant walk along the Nantes-Brest canal and through the forest to the Rigole d'Hilvern, an equally tranquil water channel. Considering recent weather we were incredibly lucky, and it was good for the morale to get outside in beautiful surroundings. Thanks to everyone who came along, old (in the sense of long-established ;-)) and new friends for Brittany Walks.
Meigs Point Nature Area, Hammonasset State Park, February 2009
This is our new house, from way in the back. I actually took this picture from the neighbor's property, which currently is empty. This is the tree that was blocking our view of the Gulf of Nicoya anyhow, so when it blew over, we didn't shed too many tears. Plus, it landed exactly on the property line, which is perfect. Before the tree fell, all sorts of dogs and hicks were coming through our property, and now the branches have helped seal it off a bit more.
Here is another big pine tree that fell down on the side of our lot. It fell onto Angela's sister's lot and almost crushed an outhouse (the little silver thing on the left), so we were really lucky that no coffee pickers were using the facilities at the time. We're currently taking applications for someone to remove the tree. The only requirements are a lot of gumption and stick-to-it-iveness...and a big chainsaw.
Finally, these last two pictures are of the house that "blew over." It turns out that reports of the house's demise were slightly exaggerated (as are most reports of any type in Berl�n). Nevertheless, the wind still tore the house a new skylight. The picture above was taken while going up the hill between our house and Angela's folks' house, and from here the house looks like it may be a slight bit drafty.
When viewed from above, though, you can see that the garage and part of the house were knocked over or blown away, but a lot of the house's actual structure remained. As I said in the previous post, it was really lucky that no one was living there at the time.
Like many people last weekend, I was happy to hear that the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl. Not because I like football, of course, but because I like Pittsburgh.
