The beginning

The 20m x 5mm (inner dimension) works great

so does the 20m x 4mm.

However the 3mm (inner dimension, 0.5mm wall) will kink too easy (same goes for the 2mm x 0.5mm and 1.5mm x 0.3mm wall).

Upon making our (shout out to Sylwia) first braid ... first observation (when using the 4mm inner x 6mm outter) is that the spacing on our prototype loom is too small (currently 14 mm, needs to be bigger ... perhaps around 18mm). Also ... each peg height is 5.5cm ... if it were longer (approx 8cm) the tubes would stay on easier

Final Facts:

5mm inner (@20m) took 40 seconds to empty

4mm inner (@20m) took 55 seconds to empty and 20 seconds to fill

Liquid Jacket

First blog in 6 years ... Liquid Jacket Edition.

Ive been working on this idea for a while. Naumann sent me this video

Its taken a couple months but Ive acquired all the materials and am ready to build.

During acquisition, it seems as quite a few others have jumped on the bandwagon like Robyn's Indestructible

I have a job !-!-!

I found a job !-!-! I found a job !-!-! Its been over three years since I last worked at Motorola. I went to Europe hoping to get some international exposure and get a job. We'll ... I got both, but ironically the job set me back to the US !

I work for a company called zanox ... they are in the online marketing business. Its rather high tech, surprisingly interesting and hard to explain : )

I was in the US for about two weeks by the time I had my first guest … Sarah from Valencia, Spain. I had been so busy with my new job that I hadn’t had any time to explore the city or my neighborhood … it was nice to have a chance to finally step away and show Sarah around. A few days later zanox packed up the things in the Chicago office to attend a convention in NYC. I volunteered to drive a rented SUV there to carry booth etc. I left a couple days early so I could visit the parents in Boston and pick up some things I dropped off at their house a few years back.

The convention was good but tiring. On the second day, coincidently, Ingrid had an overnight layover in NYC … on her way from Denmark to Colombia. She came in late at night, we ate some sushi in Manhattan and early the following morning she made her way to Colombia as I drove to Chicago.

Here is the month of February in pictures.

• Super Bowl with CEO Heiko and co-worker Helen.
• Baby Pooh at zanox, 21 floors high, with a window washer hanging by a string outside
• Me in a bluelight
• A German, Peruvian, Spaniard and American in an Irish bar in NYC speaking German
• zanox booth at adTech NYC
• Ingrid and all her suitcases in NYC with an overnight layover
• AskJeeves in carbonite
• Cousin-in-law Christina, Sarah from Spain and Brian from Motorola
• Erica and Nick at Old Town Tavern

Skiing the Alps in Innsbruck, Austria

I hadn’t even unpacked from my London trip when several of my friends and my friends friends were leaving for Innsbruck, Austria to go skiing. They rented this massive bus and wanted to make it a booze cruise all the way from Berlin to Central Austria.

The road trip got off the a comical start about an hour into the 20 hour drive, once the effects of a couple beers kicked in. To everyone’s horror the toilet on the bus was busted !-!-! To accommodate this we needed to make frequent stops adding to the road trip.



The city of Innsbruck was quite and quaint … but to be honest, I didn’t see much of it, I spent more time on the slopes. The highlight had to be a late night sled run down the mountain. Valerie (French, who I spent most of my time in Innsbruck with and have become closer to in the recent weeks), Annelise (Belgium/British, who I hit it off ever since we first met) and I were the last three down the hill. We only had two sleds for the three of us. We raced each other down the mountain resulting into countless crashes and wipe-outs SO MUCH FUN !-!-!

The next day we went skiing. Every once and a while the fog (which added mystique but detracted from the view) broke, revealing scenery that was unparalleled and breath taking. The slopes seems to go on endlessly. The lodges had fun restaurants with waitresses in ‘Heidi’ outfits serving delicious food.

London ... for the first time again.

I’m having a nice problem these days. Life is moving faster than I can type. I like when life moves so fast I have to sprint to catch up. At the same time I enjoy writing the details in a life that when I look back I am wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety. Obviously the former explains my 3-month hiatus of this blog.

I spent Christmas and New Years with Ingrid traveling Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Copenhagen). I come back to Berlin, my home away from home, to find out I don’t have that either. Luckily I have good friends. Gabriele has been my Italian brother ever since I arrived to Berlin. We both get care packages from our parents. Mine usually includes peeps, candy corn or whatever the candy of the holiday is plus some other hard to find goodies like Cheese Whiz, dill pickles and what not. Meanwhile Gabriele gets huge vats of the newest olive oil or other such Sicilian produce. Anyway, I digress.

I was just looking for a place to sleep when Gabriele comes to give me that and a whole lot more. The couple weeks I stayed with him showed me just how great our bond was. He gave me so much clarity on my life … and I totally new perspective on live. I can’t thank him enough for all his support.

While staying with Gabriele I did some traveling. I had the perfect opportunity to meet Ingrid in London !-!-! Naturally when you mix 1 part Ingrid, 1 part Chris and a dash of adventure WATCH OUT !-!-! Even before we met Ingrid had an amazing story about her visa … but we’ll leave that for another day.

Ingrid arrived a couple hours before me. We met at our overpriced undersized room by the Thames. I got goose bumps every time I looked at the London map because of my ‘Mr. X’ flashbacks (just wanna give quick shout out to my peep’s Marcelo and Kerstin !).


I’ve been in / through London countless times, but hadn’t done the tourist circuit in a long while. Ingrid, Baby Pooh and I had such a good time! Despite seeing London before, its always so beautiful to see it through the eyes of Ingrid. She has such a unique and intriguing why of looking at things. New firsts included a visit to a flea market and various places seen in the movie ‘Notting Hill’

Our Scandinavian trip!!!

On the December 23rd: Chris arrived to Copenhagen, we stayed at Lucas’s house, made our little Christmas tree and put all our presents around it.

Xmas was just GREAT; Ingrid made an amazing Dinner (Chris helped too!) Then we opened presents and it was very cool that we both like our presents (nothing to change or give back…)

On the 25th we took an overnight cruise to OSLO where we stayed in a very nice hotel that we found on the Internet for less than a hostel. Norway is a very expensive country; we paid about 25 EUR ($30) for two basic Burger King ‘value meals’.

On the 27th we took a two hour OUTDOOR boat cruise along the breath-taking fjords in -5 C (20 F) weather. Afterwards we arrived to Bergen (amazing city) where we ate the famously stinky yet traditional lutefisk and the perplexing red meat of a whale! Views from atop Bergen’s funicular were spectacular.

The next day we traveled to Ålesund, which is the only Art Nouveau style city in Norway, the landscape on the way there was incredibly beautiful. However the city, despite being very unique from the rest of Norway was interesting, but nothing special. We decided to leave slightly ahead of schedule to make some time for Hellesylt, which was a great idea! We arrived to a very small town, surrounded by mountains and frozen waterfalls.

We caught an overnight bus to Oslo, and finally a plane back to Copenhagen on the 31st. We had to run to catch the Christmas cabaret in Tivoli Park followed by a nice dinner. New Years Eve was brought in at Copenhagen’s beautiful City Hall Square, but had flashbacks of a war when the fireworks started to get out of control.

On New Years day we took it easy and went to the movies.
The next day, we made a two-day trip all the way to Goteborg, Sweden Going over Europe’s longest and very new tunnel Bridge Oresund, which connects Copenhagen to Malmö.

We really had a great time!!!If you want to see some GREAT pics click HERE

Christmas in Scandinavia

As sad as it may be that I’m NOT going to spend Christmas time with my family, I aint exactly complaining about the consolation prize. This year I am doing something different for a change and spending Christmas in Europe. In a few hours, I leave Berlin to meet up with Ingrid in Copenhagen … and then the fun begins! We are going to spend the next two weeks exploring Denmark, Norway and Sweden by land, sea and air. I am SSSSssssoooo looking forward to it. Our rough itinerary is as follows:

23Dec - Fly from Berlin, Germany to Copenhagen, Denmark
25Dec - Overnight cruise from Copenhagen to Oslo, Norway
27Dec - Scenic tour from Norway in a Nutshell to Bergen, Norway
29Dec - Speed boat along fjords to Ålesund, Norway including Geiranger Fjord
31Dec - Bus to Olso, Fly to Copenhagen and attend Tivoli’s Christmas Special
03Jan - Bus to Goteborg, Sweden and spend the night
04Jan - A half day in Malmö, Sweden
05Jan - Fly back to Berlin into Tempelhof Airport!

A Surprise at my Doorstep

Ingrid managed to give me the second biggest surprise of my life (read about the first one here). I got a frantic phone call late one night from her telling me that a friend of hers would be at my house in a few minutes to drop a few things off to give to me to give Marcelo to give her mom (you know how that goes). On my descent down the stairs, I came across something I NEVER expected … BABY POOH ! But when Ingrid jumped out from behind the corner I was completely speechless. What a great surprise ! She had the weekend off an

We spent the weekend doing nothing special and had an amazing time doing so (the sign of a truly special relationship.) We had an elegant dinner using our coupons, went to a REALLY cool East Anatolian restaurant with Marcelo and Kerstin (thanks for the suggestion Stephan), rented a 50-cent movie and played Star Craft.

B is for Brats, Beers and Bureaucracy

Everyone knows that German love their Brats and their Beer ... but the B they love the most is Bureaucracy. They LOVE their rules ... they love makin'em, they love followin'em. I had a glimps at some of Germany's finest bureaucracy trying to get a German residence and work permit (whats that? ... you CAN pat your head and rub your belly while hopping on one foot through a hoop? Well then, you might be qualified for the paperwork you need to fill out in order to get the documents needed before we begin your application). The other day I had the fortunate experience to see Berlin's finest adhering to every letter of the law.
Cousin Chad and friends getting frisked by the German Police
I was biking to work some lazy Tuesday morning. I was riding one of those nice bike lanes they have everywhere in this city. Out of the corner of my eye I see a car tailgating me. A few seconds later I seems as though the passenger was trying to hit me with something !!! Ends up being a couple cops in a paddy wagon waving a stop sign! Eventually I 'pull over'. The police we yelling at me for running a red light on my bike. They were right, I DID run a red, but it was on this dinky little street and not a car in sight. I thought 'These guys have to be joking !' I instantly forgot my German, making communcation difficult, I ended up getting off with a 'warning'.

I talked to the people at work and they said that running a red light in German, regardless by bike or auto is the same offense ... I could loose my driver license for 3 months !!! The same goes for biking without proper lights at night !!! In general, I agree to rules for the betterment of society ... but sometimes you have to ask 'how do they apply here'

Skype ... friend or fiend

I've heard the hype for a couple years, but finally I decided to jump on the Skype bandwagon. Skype is this handy little FREE program that allows users to make FREE computer to computer calls or cheap international calls from your computer to a cell phone or land line (2 cents across the whole of the US and Western Europe).
The problems this would help me with:
1. My apartment changed from T-Com to Alice. Which means the end of those dirt cheap prefixes HOWEVER free calls across the WHOLE of Europe. Not the best deal if your relatives live in the US, so Skype offers a cheaper alternative
2. Trying to call Ingrid late at night, when the rest of the house is sleeping. Now her computer will quietly ring versus the chorus of phones that would wake up the whole house.
3. Living in the quasi commune style community that I do means all the phone lines could be tied up. Skype provides me with an alternative.
4. By getting my European friends on Skype provides us a cheap and easy means of communication in the event I move to the US.
5. It gives you a 'second' phone line ... nice if you dont have call waiting for frequently get put on hold

Those were my hopes and theories. In practise, the quality is not nearly that of a landline ... more on the order of a cell phone with a moderate/flucuating signal. Passible at times, unacceptable at others ... perhaps again to the effect my community roommates/neighbors have on my internet connection. Its a fun toy for now, but time will tell if its a viable option for my friends and I.

The pilgrims landed in Scotland

... well ... at least this year they did. Being a busy boy these days, I couldn't find the time (or money) to make it to Minnesota to join the rest of the fam on the farm so I headed off to Aberdeen, Scotland to visit my favorite cousin Trisha and husband John ... who ... contrary to popular belief I think is a great guy, fun to hang out with and NO I did NOT sabotage his computer because he took my favorite pen.


John and Trish picked me up at the airport, after a short quest for the perfect bottle of Scotch we made it home and started playing poker. Not surprising anyone, Trisha won (ooh yeah ... John ... you still owe me the 10 bucks for letting her win) and then we talked the night away. Unfortunately John had to go off-shore and thus missing our belated Thanksgiving feast. Along with helicopters getting struck my lightning and such the dinner party for 8 dwindled down to just Trisha and I. She and I cooked and ate all day Friday followed by a weekend of talking ... trying to catch up on each others lives. We toured the town, checked out the sites, threw a few pints back in a renovated church turned pub (sacrilege or libations … you be the judge). All in all it was such a great weekend. Thank you Trish and John for all
your hospitality !

There and back again AGAIN ... the story of Ingrid

Somethings are meant to be, then again some are not. Ingrid, along with all 160 kg of her stuff made it to Copenhagen only to not have her expectations be met, only to have another opportunity fall on her lap. I swear, that girls twists in fate has more lives than a cat. (Funny seeing she really is a duck; friendly but bites while I'm a frog jumping from lily pad to lily pad. Check out the test to see what animal you are). She came back to Berlin for a few weeks, before starting her new job in Copenhagen, and hung out with the Sonnenallee Gang for some better-than-soap-opera expereinces. Not let least including: buying groceries only to have roommates eat them, roommates buying groceries only to eat her groceries, hairy showers, open washing machines and roommates so bored/lonely that any noise she would make would be cause enough for a knock on the door to start up a conversation. Other highlights of her stay include: Berlin Festival of Lights, Pirate Baby Pooh and his first Halloween, Dinner with a view in the TV Tower of the ICC, Autumn adventure in MuegelSee, as well as your everyday Berliner misadventures.

No matter how fond (if not fun/funny) the experiences were, all good things must come to an end.


Thus Ingrid has returned to Denmark, and has begun making her new life in Copenhagen. My love and best wishes go with her.

The parents and me visit NYC

Ramping up for potential life change (ie move toChicago) I attended the Ad-Tech convention to seewhats new, hot and sexy in the industry. Overall itwas a great experience, but the highlight wasDEFINATELY meeting the parents !!! Living overseashas its perks and although technology continueallymakes it a smaller world with cell phones, email, chatprograms and webcams NOTHING beats seeing your parentsface to face. Especially if you're able to coax themout of their clam shell lifestyle and meet them in the Big Apple ! Highlights include going to the Top ofthe Rock during their opening week, Mom ordering asandwiche bigger than her stomach ... her whole uppertorso for that matter, and Pappy grabbing the WallStreet Bull by the balls.

Your dreams ... just an email away

I came across this website during my daily rummaging around on the internet. Its an email time capsule sponcered by Forbes and Yahoo! We all know about the old version of a time capsule where we fill a box full of stuff and put it somewhere in hopes of finding it years later to walk down memory lane.

One of my influential high school teachers had us write a letter to ourselves and promised to mail it to us a couple years later. In the letter we were suppose to write some of our short and long term goals. Upon receiving it years later I reflected how many of the short term goals I have already accomplished and how close I was to obtaining my long term ones (more the fact of the matter was, how much my long term goals have changed and how different a person I am now).

My original thoughts for this blog was to encourage all 2 of my faithful readers to send an encapsulated email to that special someone so they get a sweet message a few years from now. But half way through this blog I realized SCREW THAT !!! Send that special someone a really deep and heart filled email TODAY. All to often people go through life not realizing the impact they have on others.

Since writing yourself a love letter may be a bit vain, I think it would be a fun idea to write down the dreams and goals of today and email them to your future self. Write down that what is special in your life: like your favorite song, shirt or restaurant … anything sentimental … mail it to yourself a few years from now for a good laugh of ‘life back in the day’. For example, what really lights up my life in the here and now: Berlin, Ingrid BabyPooh and Marcelo, 50 cent movie rentals, Doom the Board Game and Hallo Pizzas newest creation

In short …
save this time capsuled emailer for yourself
write those who are important to you NOW and let them know how richly they have touch your life

Ingrid's Going Away Week

We have a very special blogging addition today. Four for the price of one. As always I’m WAY behind on taking notes about my life. Here is what happened recently.

I am both saddened and excited to say that Ingrid found a job in Denmark. She left last Thursday.


As part of a weeklong celebration/going away party we did all sorts of things. One of my favorites was a visit to MauerPark. Despite knowing Berlin rather well, I’ve never been to this rather important place. Not only did we have all sorts of fun (swinging, doing stunts on our bikes, racing down hills, having strangers want to be in our pictures then insisting to delete them cause they’re not a tourist attraction) but we found a new feature on our camera … the 2-in-1
Another highlight of Ingrid’s going away week was seeing a cabaret at the historic Friedrichstadtpalast. Last year my parents took us all out to the ‘Lion King’ when we visited them in Boston and man was that an amazing show. It really sent the bar high on other such plays/theater pieces but Casanova definitely cleared it no problem. I went through a great discount agent located near Zoo Station called Hek Ticket. We got FIRST ROW SEATS at 50% off ! The show was hilarious and stage was amazing.

Last but not least my good friend Marcelo turned 26 on the 26th of last monthes. He and Kerstin have been using Ingrid's DVD player for the past couple month. Problem is, Ingrid needs it back because she is moving to Denmark. There is no better present that to give something you were going to take away ... so Baris, Genevieve, Ingrid and myself gave him a new DVD player.

To see more pictures about the past weekend, click on any of the pictures in this post, or here.

My new apartment in Neukolln.

I think this is the 7th place I’ve lived since I’ve moved to Berlin but until all the other places, this one is mine. Before I was always staying in some guys room who would be coming back in a few months. Finally, I found a place of my own, with interesting roommates and an apartment with a whole lotta character. Lemme break it down for you. I like my new WG because:
1. The kitchen is way cool. Still no microwave (few German kitchens have) but the wall is 1/2 brick, 1/2 stucco
2. Despite wanting to live in East Berlin, I managed only to find a place 5 minutes from the wall. As a nice consolation, we have this way cool ‘History of the Soviet Empire’ mural on our living room wall.
3. Kids write in chalk in our courtyard almost every day
4. I have a cool (albeit small, room) with lofted bed and closet built into the floor.

For more pictures of my apartment, either click here or on the picture to the right.

Happy Birthday to ME

One quick note: you'll see on the frame to the right that I'm going to New York City to the ad:tech convention! Yippy !!! Actually, that’s not a sure thing yet … but its in the works, more on that later. Anyway, back to LAST WEEK. I had a birthday. Hurry for me ! It was a good one too. Since Ingrid and I just got back from our little tour around Tuscany, we decided to have an Italian themed dinner. Ingrid did it ALL … from antipasti, to salad and two types of pasta (gorgonzola and tomato pesto) and for dessert tiramisu and those almond cookies you dip into Vino Santo wine.

Afterwards I was hoping we all (my tried and true friends Marcelo, Kerstin and Anna) were going to play some board games … however once again Ingrid had something up her sleeve and we went to this WAY COOL board game bar called ‘Mystery Island’ where we hung out and place Mr. X (Scotland Yard … my favorite game as of now) and Monopoly Star Wars version (Ingrid joined the dark side and won). We closed the bar down around 2am and called it a night. Its friends like these that really make birthdays so special. I cant thank each of you enough for all that you've done.

BDAY 2004 ... Best Birthday Ever

Speaking of birthday parties … there will NEVER be a day goes by where I think about my birthday, that I don’t recall my Birthday 2004 celebration. From the moment I woke up to the wee hours the next morning the day just kept getting better and better. I woke up to Ingrid throwing a mini celebration complete with presents and breakfast in bed. When I got to my language school, everyone sang “Happy Birthday” (in numerous languages) as well as wrote it on the board in about 10 different ways. Afterwards we celebrated it in my favorite café Garcon where we ate Popcorn cake ‘just like mommy use to make’.
Ingrid and I sorted out my birthday plans. I decided to go to some random restaurant with Marcelo, Kerstin and Anna. Unfortunately Ingrid had to babysit but could hang out before and after dinner. To make it up to me, she wanted to give me a surprise before she began babysitting. We went up to this really cool building called Panorama. For some reason I always thought it was a Chinese restaurant, but low and behold it was a building that gave amazing view of Potsdamer Platz and Berlin. After watching the sunset there, it was time to go. Ingrid was going to drop me off at the restaurant when we had a slight fender bender.
Ingrid bursted into tears and confessed that she did NOT have to babysit and we were NOT going to the restaurant of my choice, rather she has prepared this great huge surprise birthday party and ALL my friends are waiting for me. Unfortunately she had to wait behind and take care of matters while I rushed ahead to restaurant ‘Yo Soy’ where they serve something I’ve always wanted to try … paella. There I found over 20 of my friends there … from old friends to roommates to classmates; Ingrid invited them all. Shortly thereafter Ingrid arrived along with my birthday cake. I don’t think I have ever been so surprised and so caught off guard as that day. It was a day I will never forget. As if a guy could be any luckier, I was off to Munich the next day with Ingrid to meet up with my old college roommate Brian to kick off Oktoberfest ! For more pix of the BDAY 2004 click on the picture above or check them out in the "My Photos"

Tuscany, Italy

After three years I have finally started to develop a routine J I am way behind on blogging, but as part of my brand spanking new routine I plan on updating my pictures one day, then blogging about them the next. I should be caught up in less than week.

Last weekend Ingrid and I had some misadventures in Tuscany, Italy. Ingrid found some cheap tickets from Berlin to Pisa, Italy AND for only 15 euro more we can bring our bikes along! Our idea was to fly to Pisa across the Tuscany countryside to Florence. For a much more detailed description you can check out her blog, but … the short n’ sweet way I see things are as follows:

LOWLIGHTS

• EasyJet lost our bikes L This took the heart out of our plan. But we had to make due without and decided add another city to the end of our trip.
• The added city to our itinerary ended up being Siena. We arrived late at night, ends up they had the concert of the year and the city was totally booked out. Walked up and down the streets begging hotels to put us up, called all the hotels in our guide book, called all the places in another couples guide book, we luck out and found the number to an old olive oil villa on the cities outskirts in a picture I took some hours before. Despite not having any other option, Ingrid managed to take the lady from 145 to 115 to 100 euros.

HIGHLIGHTS

• We all have heard of Pisa’s famous tower, but nothing beats weebling and wobbling your way up to the top.
• Siena is my new favorite Italian city. Pisa was quaint but small. Florence is beautiful but touristy. Siena however, is timeless! A beautiful medieval city with winding streets and a LOT of charm.
• Tuscany countryside. Although Ingrid says I missed some of the best parts (and has video footage of me sleeping, mouth open and drooling, to prove it) the parts I did see were breath-taking.

Big Bang ... the story of my life

In the beginning there was but a speck of ‘life’ and from it, with a thunderous explosion, came forth all other things. That little speck is a gringo hanging out in Berlin and that thunderous explosion is the here and now.

Life is happening so fast, I’m having a hard time keeping up with myself and I am loving every minute. I still haven’t recoped from my three weeks gallivanting around the Middle and Far East. Despite that, I still had to find a new apartment (which I owe Ingrid a fair share of gratitude for helping me find). Without even being completely moved in, over the weekend I celebrated Vincent’s birthday (an old roommate of mine) in his lake cabin located about 150 km from Berlin. Go here to see some of the pictures. While you're there, look for the one where Ingrid and I are carrying a mattress on our heads through the streets of Berlin.



The next day (which was yesterday, Monday) I had a job interview that went swimmingly well. There is a VERY good chance after 3 months of training in Berlin, I will be assigned a position in CHICAGO, USA!!! But I am putting the cart before the horse and need a few more days for things to develop before I really know what I’m talking about.

Even after juggling all that, there is an old plan in the works that Ingrid and I would like to follow through on. We found some cheap tickets to Italy, and for only 15 euro more we could bring bikes!!! So … with a little luck, tomorrow Ingrid and I fly to Pisa, Italy! After checking out their famous leaning tower, we hope to bike around half the width of Italy, to Florence (that’s only about 100km or so).

I’d like to write more … but I have to figure out how to take the pedals off the bike, try and introduce order into my room, and prepare for my first day on the job (tomorrow) … just another average day in the life for me.