Danny's Formula race car...

Danny is the student president of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) at Marquette University. One of the competitions involves racing of formula cars designed and built by the students. The competition is this weekend in Detroit and there will be cars from 130 colleges and universities from all over the U.S. and other countries (including Brazil, Austria, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Venezuela and Australia). Danny heads up the team from Marquette.




From the SAE web site:

What is FSAE?
The Formula SAE® competition is for SAE student members to conceive, design, fabricate, and compete with small formula-style racing cars. The restrictions on the car frame and engine are limited so that the knowledge, creativity, and imagination of the students are challenged. The cars are built with a team effort over a period of about one year and are taken to the annual competition for judging and comparison with approximately 120 other vehicles from colleges and universities throughout the world. The end result is a great experience for young engineers in a meaningful engineering project as well as the opportunity of working in a dedicated team effort.



We don't have any pictures of his finished car, but will post some, and the results of the competition, when we get them from Danny.

A Danish Copper Wedding Anniversary Party...

On Saturday evening Kathy and I were invited to a Danish couple's house to celebrate their 12 1/2 year anniversary. This is a traditional Danish thing - one explanation is that most couples don't make it to 25 years, so 12 1/2 is the new 25. Called a copper wedding, traditionally friends and family build the couple half an arch made from spruce (you get the other half when you reach your 25th). The arch is decorated with flowers and lights and positioned at the door of the home. In this case the half arch was cardboard, not spruce.

There were about 20 guests and the Christensens hired an Italian chef - Roberto - to do the cooking. It was really an amazing evening. Of the 20+ people, the only other American besides me and Kathy was the chef's wife, Sandra, and she is part native American. The guests were from Japan, South Africa, Malaysia, France and, of course, Denmark. There were probably others as well. The atmosphere was very reminicient to me of the old Tischler wedding receptions. It was very loud as we got deeper into the evening, and the wine flowed freely. The courses were served leisurely, with plenty of time for socializing (and more wine drinking) in between. After we found out how Mette and Jakob met we ended up going around the room and every couple told the story of how they met and how they got engaged. It was hilarious. Kathy and I agreed that it was the most fun we have had since moving to Prague. The hosts, the other guests, the food, the wine, the conversation...all was exquisite.



Here is Roberto with a few of his creations, including veal, pasta and beef.
















Here is Kathy with Mette Christensen.




This is the happy couple, Jakob and Mette Christensen. Jakob gave a very moving toast to his wife that proclaimed his eternal love.





Here is Kathy with Marlinda and Mirgoul.





This is Jean Marie, from France (on the left) and Derek, from South Africa (on the right). Derek works for Pilsner Urquell brewery - how cool is that - and also worked in Moscow for a Russian brewery.

Happy Mother's Day...

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh




Happy Mother's Day to all of the special women in my life.

My wife, Kathy, for 10 great years of marriage and for giving me Noah, my big, little guy.

My mom, Joy, for giving me and my sisters life. I know this will be a very difficult Mother's Day you, but always know that we love and support you.

My mother-in-law, Gert, for giving me Kathy and for being the exact opposite of the stereotypical mother-in-law.

My other mother-in-law, Donna, for giving me Debbie. It has been a long time since we lost Debbie, but I will never forget my time with her. Thank you and Gerry for being the special grandparents for Noah.

My sisters, for all the nieces and nephews - as Father Romauld would say, they are all 'saints, scholars, ladies and gentlemen".

More sites of Berlin...

I'll try to finish up with the Berlin trip today (no promises, though) by posting some pictures of other things we saw there.



This is the Victory Column about a mile west of the Brandenburg Gate through the Tiergarten. Wikipedia says "Surrounded by a street circle with heavy car traffic, pedestrians can reach the column through four tunnels, built in 1941 to plans by Albert Speer. Via a steep spiral staircase of 285 steps, the physically fit may climb up almost to the top of the pillar, to right underneath the statue, for a small fee and a spectacular view over the Tiergarten. Even many Berliners do not know that originally the column was erected with a height of merely 50.66 meters opposite the Reichstag building. In preparation of executing the monumental plans to redesign Berlin into Welthauptstadt Germania, in 1939, the Nazis relocated the pillar to its present location at the Großer Stern (Great Star), a large intersection on the visual city axis that leads from the former Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace) through the Brandenburg Gate to the western parts of Berlin. At the same time, the pillar was augmented by another 7.5 meters, giving it its present height of 66.89 meters. The monument survived World War II without much damage. The relocation of the monument probably saved it from destruction, as its old site in front of the Reichstag was destroyed in the war."





The Brandenburg Gate is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Berlin. Again, Wikipedia - "it is the only remaining gate of a series through which one formerly entered Berlin. One block to its north lies the Reichstag. It constitutes the monumental termination of Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of Lime trees which led directly to the royal residence. It was commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm II as a sign of peace and built by Carl Gotthard Langhans from 1788 to 1791.
While the main design of the Brandenburg Gate has remained the same since it was completed, the gate has played varying roles in Germany's history. First, Napoleon took the Quadriga to Paris in 1806 after conquering Berlin. When it returned to Berlin in 1814, the statue exchanged her olive wreath for the Iron Cross and became the goddess of victory.

When the Nazis rose to power, they used the gate to symbolize their power. The only structure left standing in the ruins of Pariser Platz in 1945, apart from the ruined Academy of Fine Arts, the gate was restored by the East Berlin and West Berlin governments. However, in 1961, the gate was closed when the Berlin Wall was built.

In 1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate. The Soviets hung large banners across it so he could not see the East Berlin side. On June 12, 1987 U.S. President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech ("Tear down this wall") to the people of West Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate, yet it was also audible on the East Berlin side of the Wall."




Checkpoint Charlie - it's just the little wooden building with sandbags and flower memorials. Wikipedia points out "the checkpoint was curiously asymmetrical. During its 27-year active life, the infrastructure on the Eastern side was expanded to include not only the wall, watchtower and zig-zag barriers, but a multi-lane shed where cars and their occupants were checked. However the American authorities, perhaps not wanting to concede that the division of Germany might be anything other than a temporary aberration, never erected any permanent buildings, and made do with the iconic wooden shed."






Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (in background) - [Wikipedia] "During World War II, the church was destroyed during a British RAF bombing raid in 1943. The only remainder of the old building is the ruin of the belfry, which are also referred to as "der Hohle Zahn" ("the hollow tooth").
After the war, from 1951 to 1961, a new church was built right next to the site of the old one according to the plans of Egon Eiermann. It features a cross made of nails from the old Coventry Cathedral, destroyed by German Luftwaffe bomb attacks in Britain, in what was called the Coventry Blitz. It was consecrated on May 25, 1962, the same day as the new Coventry Cathedral, which like the Gedächtniskirche, was built alongside the ruins of the old building, which were kept as reminders of the horrors of war."

The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin...

I mentioned it in an earlier post, but here are a couple of pictures of Noah from our visit to Berlin's Holocaust Memorial (formally known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe). We tried to give him an idea of how the Jews were targeted by Hitler and told him how many were killed, but I think it's just too big a number for him to comprehend. I'm satified with him understanding that "Hitler was bad". We'll try for more teaching moments as he gets older.

Wikipedia says that it was "designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineers Buro Happold. It consists of a 19,000 square meter (4.7 acre) site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are 2.38m (7.8') long, 0.95m (3' 1.5") wide and vary in height from 0.2m to 4.8m (8" to 15'9"). According to Eisenman's project text, the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. A 2005 copy of the Foundation for the Memorial's official English tourist pamphlet, however, states that the design represents a radical approach to the traditional concept of a memorial, partly because Eisenman did not use any symbolism. An attached underground "Place of Information" (German: Ort der Information) holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims, obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem."

We did not go to the "Place of Information" (why not just call it a museum?) but will next time. We really enjoyed Berlin and plan to go back.

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

With everything that is wrong with the world we live in, the visit to Berlin has made me reflect on some of the big and wonderful things that have happened in the not too distant past. Nazism was crushed in 1945 only to be replaced by Communism as the primary threat to mankind.
It was 20 years ago - June 12, 1987, to be exact - that President Ronald Reagan in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, challenged Soviet General Secretery Gorbachev to "tear down this wall". I went to YouTube and pulled up that part of Reagan's speech just to remember what a geat moment it was. Here it is.



Within two and half years, in October of 1989, the Berlin Wall was effectively down. Here is a part of a report from the late Peter Jennings of ABC News covering those events.



Despite all of our current problems there have been some huge successes against tyranny. I hope that 20 years from now we can say the same thing.

The Humble Currywurst...

The most prevalent food item for sale from the numerous street vendors in Berlin is something called currywurst. It is considered "fast food" and as its name implies, it is a sausage with curry added. It is served on a plate, cut into sections and covered with a ketchup which has also been flavored with curry.

Wikipedia has this to say about currywurst: "Currywurst seems to have been invented in the post-World War II years, although the exact time and place of the event remain subject to controversy. According to the Berlin legend, currywurst sauce was invented by one Herta Heuwer (b. 30 June 1913, Königsberg, d. 3 July 1999 in Berlin) when, while waiting for customers at her sausage stall in Berlin's Charlottenburg district on the rainy day of 4 September 1949, she started to experiment with the ingredients out of sheer boredom. According to the Ruhr area legend, the sauce was accidentally invented by a sausage stall owner in Essen, who dropped a can with curry powder into some ketchup. In his 1993 novella entitled Die Entdeckung der Currywurst ("The Discovery of the Currywurst"), the renowned author Uwe Timm dates it to 1947 and attributes it to a fictional character called Lena Brücker, who ran a stall in Hamburg. Early in his career, Herbert Grönemeyer, raised in Bochum and arguably the most successful German pop singer, devoted a song to currywurst with lyrics in the typical sociolect of the Ruhr Area."

Currywurst was our first meal in Berlin when we left the hotel to explore the surrounding area and ended up in a little street stand near the Brandenburg Gate. Kathy had told me about this supposed delicacy, and I was actually keen to try it, since I love spicy food, and Indian food, and spicy Indian food. However, the combining of hot dogs and curry doesn't create some new superfood. It tastes like a hot dog with curry on it. And the curry flavored ketchup is just overkill.

There is a currywurst museum in Berlin that we, alas, did not visit.

Going to the match - Hertha BSC

When we visited Geneva in February, Noah and I went to the local professional soccer team – AC Seville. AC Seville plays in a very nice, new stadium that seats about 35,000, but the day we were there the announced crowd was about 2,900. Just by chance I noticed that the Berlin team in the Bundesliga – Hertha BSC – played on the Sunday that we were here in Berlin. So I decided that we would go and continue the new tradition. It was quite a different experience from Geneva. Hertha BSC plays in Olympic Stadium – the same stadium where Jesse Owens humiliated Adolph Hitler in the 1936 Games. We stopped by the stadium on Sunday afternoon just to make sure we could find it, and as long as we were there we decided to try the ticket office. They were open and there were only a few seats left, so we bought a couple (I don’t force Kathy to attend these games, and Noah doesn’t encourage her to attend anyway). There must have been 80,000 fans at this game, and we were in the absolute last row of the upper deck. Unfortunately, Hertha lost a man to a red card in the 36th minute, so they played most of the game shorthanded. They fell behind 3-0 and were able to salvage a single goal, before going down to a 4-1 defeat. It was a great time, and it was certainly cool to be in a stadium with such history (compared to, say, the Metrodome).

We're safely back in Prague...

No significant events. We did stop in Dresden on the way back to do a little shopping and we missed the exit for mall we wanted to visit. After getting lost trying to make our way back I decided to see if the Garmin had the mall in its "Shopping" database. It had it - Elbe Park - so I pushed the button and off we went. It showed a 30 minute drive time, which I thought was a bit long since we hadn't gotten THAT lost, but it hadn't let us down yet. When we got there we realized that there were two entries in the database - Elbe Center and Elbe Park - and we had used the wrong one. The one we wanted - Elbe Park - was back near where we had started and it took another 30 muinutes to get back. Oh, well, at least the scenery was pretty. And I bought a push mower - not gas or electric, but the one with the twirling blades when you push it. Only 46 Euros. Also got a few other things that we can't get in Prague - Diet Sprite and vinegar.
Even though we are back I will add more posts over the next few from our trip to Berlin. We loved Berlin and have decided to go back at some point before we move back to the States.

The Reichstag...

The Reichstag is where the pre-Nazi parliament met. It was built in the 1890s, but became important on February 27, 1933 when it was destroyed by fire. Adolph Hitler blamed the communists for the fire and used it as a pretense for sweeping new dictatorial powers. It was then destroyed by Allied bombing during WWII. It was remade in the late 1990s after the fall of the Wall and is now a fascinating mix of the old and the new. Where the original dome of the Reichstag had been is now a glass dome with an interior ramp that you can walk up to get a splendid view of Berlin.





There is a part of me that is very sad to be in Berlin. My dad loved reading about the Nazis, and Hitler and the war in Europe. This is a little ironic, since he did not fight in WWII but was in the army and spent time in Japan after the war ended so I’m not sure what was the genesis of his interest in Hitler and the Nazis. Kathy and I had planned on taking my parents on a trip to Germany in late September of 2001, but 9/11 forced the cancellation of that trip. We rescheduled for the following fall, but my dad had gotten sick and refused to go to the doctor and ended up with pneumonia and congestive heart failure so we had to cancel again. Finally, we were planning on my parents coming over this fall but my dad…well, that didn’t work either. So as we were touring the Reichstag and visiting the Holocaust memorial and seeing the other sites of Berlin, I know that my dad would have loved to be here with us seeing the sites. And maybe he was.

Blogging from Berlin...

Well, the Fjord Hotel has wi-fi so I'm takin the opportunity to post a little of what we are doing here.

We got to the hotel just fine (I hate to obsess on the Garmin, but it really does make all the difference). The Fjord Hotel is just what we were looking for – clean, cheap and near the underground and at least some attractions. We got an internet special when booking the room so it ended up at about $110 per night for a “family” room. That just means a king size bed along with a sofabed. Parking is also included in the rate, which saves about 10-15 Euros per day as most other hotels charge for parking. They don’t have a restaurant but they do have a room and terrace on the top floor where they serve a buffet breakfast,t which costs 10 Euro per person. We did that on Sunday morning because the weather was gorgeous and it was great to relax and have breakfast with a view.




The Sony Center and all of Potsdamer Platz were impressive. It’s only a 10 minute walk from the hotel and there is lots to do there (Imax theatre, mall, restaurants, etc.). Another 5 minute walk takes you to the Holocaust memorial. It, too, was very impressive. Just a bit further up is the Brandenburg Gate and then the Reichstag. I hope to post on the Reichstag tomorrow, but here are Kathy and Noah at Sony Center at Potsdamer Plaz.

We're off to Berlin...

We will be heading to Berlin tomorrow (Saturday) since next Tuesday, May 8th, is a holiday throughut Europe as VE (Victory in Europe) Day, celebrating the end of WWII in Europe (VJ Day - for Victory in Japan - is August 14th). I will be taking off work on Monday (and Noah won't be going to school) so we be in Berlin through Tuesday. I am relying on the old Garmin to get me there efficiently and I'm confident it can, since the maps of Germany are more detailed then the maps of the Czech Republic. I've already plugged the hotel address into the Garmin and it shows it as a 3:50 drive. It may take longer depending on how long we have to spend at the border. We are very excited about this trip since we hear from everyone what a beautiful city Berlin is. I'm not sure what the local mood will be in the city where Hitler committed suicide on the day celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany, but we shall see.

We are staying at a medium priced hotel about 1 kilomter from Potsdamer Platz, which is described at the berlin.de (Senate Department for Urban Renewal) web site as "One of the busiest places in the world during the 20's and later the sad motif of a divided city, Potsdamer Platz became the symbol of Berlin's renewal after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Once completed, Potsdamer Platz presented itself as a city within the city, as a location where the most varied urban planning principles of the outgoing 20th and incoming 21st century were jointly realised."

Other than general exploring, we do plan on seeing a Berlin soccer match on Sunday evening. We had gone to see the local pro soccer team in Geneva when we were there and Noah loved it. I am especially interested since the match is at Berlin's Olympic Stadium where Jesse Owens humiliated Adolph Hitler by winning four gold medals in the 1936 Games.

We also plan on some heavy duty shopping because there are many things that either aren't available in Prague or are horrendously expensive. One thing we hope to buy is a gas grill.

I don't think I will be blogging while we are there, so it may be Tuesday before I can provide an update.

Making movies in Prague...

I am a big movie fan so it is interesting to me that there are a lot of Hollywood movies that are made in the Czech Republic. Casino Royale was partially filmed here, as was one of the Mission: Impossible movies and The Chronicles of Narnia series. Starting this week Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman will be in Prague to film the upcoming spy/assassin movie, Wanted. [Again with the spys in Prague. I don't get it]. Filming here will take about six weeks. Part of Angelina's contract calls for her hubby, Brad Pitt, to get lessons in flying a helicopter while she is busy working.

The Bone Church...

With today being a holiday, the three of us took a trip to Kutna Hora, a city about an hour southeast of Prague. Thanks to the old Garmin GPS we got there and back without serious delay (it has been the best investment since we got here - along with the new digital camera). There are many interesting things to see in Kutna Hora, but by far the most unusual is the Kostnice, or "Ossuary". It is a church-like building in the middle of a cemetery that uses the bones from 40,000 people in, shall we say, artistic ways. The explanation is below, but first look at some pictures. There are other pictures by using the link.


This is looking back at the entrance from inside the Ossuary.














A small stack of skulls and bones. Part of a very big stack, and there are several large stacks within the Ossuary.
















Here is a coat of arms made exclusively from human bones. This is one of the large stack of bones mentioned earlier.




















Here is a closeup from the coat of arms showing a bird (made of bones) picking at the eyes of a skull.














Here is one of several candleabras. In the background you will notice a bone chandelier.


Explanation: Here is what Fodor's says about the Ossuary. "The origins...go back to the Middle Ages when war and plague filled the adjoining cemetery to bursting point and extra space had to be found to house the surplus skeletons. A blind monk is said to have arranged the bones in simple patterns in the 16th century, but the present facinating displays date from the late 19th century." However, the information at the Ossuary itself said that soil from Jerusalem was brought back and sprinkled on the grounds of the cemetery and this caused a lot more people to want to be buried there. Which explanation is right? Both? Neither?


The Ossuary is creepy, and the pictures are reminiscent of Pol Pot's Cambodia. However, these people (by and large) were not murdered and there are no sinister feelings about it. To tell you the truth, I would feel better if my bones ended up in a place like this than just in a hole in the ground.

May Day Prague flowers...

Since it is May Day (or Socialist Workers Day) and a holiday throughout Europe, here are a couple of pictures of some fields around Horomerice. The fields contain some kind of crop with amazing yellow flowers. I did a bit of research (ah, Google, is there anything you don't know?) and it seems that the plants are canola or rapeseed (are those two the same thing?). Anyway, it is a sight, indeed, to see acres and acres of these bright yellow flowers.