chad foster's blog

Derby Car

2009-09-01T16:28:00.012-11:00

In June my parents and siblings built a derby car with charitable donations going to the Gillette Boys and Girls Club. Here's the story and pictures that appeared in the local newspaper.

link to the Gillette News Record article

Jim Foster holds a bundle of wires while working where the dash once was in his Cadillac demolition derby car. Foster spent many hours in May converting the car into a derby car for charity. - News Record photos by Photo Editor Nathan Payne

News Record story by Sports Editor KATHY BROWN, sports@gillettenewsrecord.com

The first sign of trouble was the tow truck getting a little too close for comfort.

Or maybe it was the front bumper hanging out of my back window as the tow gave me a none-too-gentle nudge back to the pits.

I wobble in on three wheels, spewing smoke and steam. The engine that has purred soundly most of my life is silent. Dead quiet.

I feel like I’ve been shot. Punctures everywhere.

I’m bleeding. Life is fading fast.

But death doesn’t come quickly, as I hoped.

This is a brutal wrenching and screeching, metal banging on metal, gut-twisting agony of dust, oil and heat.

So, this is what it’s like to turn 30.

Mid way through the stripping process Jim Foster’s demolition derby car sits in his driveway missing a hood and glass. - News Record photos by Photo Editor Nathan Payne

I came to life in a South Gate, Calif., plant in 1979, one of 121,890 Coupe DeVilles made there. Powered by a 425-cubic inch V-8, I’m a sweet ride.

My factory price is $11,139. But the extras pushed my price to more than $12,500 when Thomas Olds-Cadillac-GMC in Rapid City sold me.

Let’s talk style. Swanky power leather seats, air conditioning, pulse wipers and opera lamps. There’s cruise control, tilt steering, and an AM/FM radio and 8-track tape player with digital display.

I don’t just drive, I glide.

I’m wearing a new, slick paint job called “medium saddle firemist” with accent stripes. The chrome adds a lot of bling.

I’m sharp. You can’t afford me. But you wish you could.

Steve Earle, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Chris LeDoux and the Stray Cats all have sung my praises.

My shipping weight is 4,143 pounds, a bit smaller than your average Caddy.

I’m a sleek, brown beauty.

But by the time that teen-ager in Belle Fourche, S.D., sold me in April, I’d seen better days.

So much for firemist.

Jim Foster talks to his son Jeremy while the two chain their demolition derby car to a trailer after children at the Boys and Girls Club signed their names on the hands that dot the car. - News Record photos by Photo Editor Nathan Payne

He spray painted me black to hide the rust after his grandfather gave me to him. The kid throws in two extra cans of “fat black” spray paint for the $250 Jim Foster spent on me.

But the road trip into Gillette felt good — a 75-mph cruise on I-90.

“This one has good brakes,” Jim tells people. “The shocks are worn out. When we hits a bump, my head hit the roof.”

Don’t let him fool you. He brags me up. He practically floated home, even if he got some odd looks from folks along the way.

My trip meter rang up 147 miles that day. That’s nothing on top of the 161,682 miles I’ve racked up on the speedometer.

But Jim had plans for me.

“I’ve always wanted a Cadillac,” I hear Foster, 62 explain to an onlooker.

He wants to use me to help raise money for the Gillette Boys and Girls Club.

Conner Bates writes his name on the roof of his grandfather’s demolition derby car in front of the Boys and Girls Club before it was demolished during the 2009 Razor City Rumble. - News Record photos by Photo Editor Nathan Payne

He looks at me and sees a demolition derby car for the 2009 Razor City Rumble. His son, Jeremy Foster, will drive.

The grandfather and his sons, including Jordan Foster, call it a “bonding” experience.

Are you kidding? I’m the one who needs bonding.

“I thought I’d spend a day on it and be ready,” Jim says.

He had help from two longtime Gillette demolition drivers. One of them, Carl Pankowski, works with Jim at Rio Tinto’s Cordero mine. He has the know-how. Jim has the desire.

“I’ve been to derbies, I just didn’t realize how much work goes in on them,” Jim says after spending three days yanking on my innards. Three weeks later, they still were stripping parts. He stood in my engine compartment, cutting what he says are miles and miles of wiring.

“Everything you pull off is stubborn,” he laughs.

When they stripped off my chrome, you could see my original paint job.

As they welded the metal around my wheels, I felt like I was being torched alive.

The drill they used to remove my drive shaft sounded like something a dentist uses to seal a cavity. But this is metal pounding metal.

Still, I came away much lighter, leaner and meaner.

They removed 1,000 pounds of extras.

I have a hacking cough. Cruise control is history. The air conditioning is drained. The parking brake is useless.

My battery’s been given away. Now I get power from a bigger one parked in a box behind my front seat. It tickles.

“It’s a big, ugly, yucky looking car,” Carl says.

They left the tilt steering, though.

“These (Cadillacs) are not as tough, but you can do a lot of stuff. You can get them tough,” Carl tells Jim. “Every derby interprets the rules differently. You can take it to the limit. It’s not cheating, unless you get caught.”

He suggested painting me blue and pink, with handprints.

“I have to talk to the boss,” Jim says. “I don’t know if my driver will drive a car with pink on it.”

“This car, this is it’s last hurrah. And if you get one last hurrah for it, you might as well have some fun with it,” Carl says, as he bangs my midriff with a sledge hammer.

Somehow, that filled me with trepidation.

“I’ve been doing this since I was 14,” he adds. “I’m 40 now. ... I don’t do it for winning, just to put somebody on their roof.”

I wished I was somewhere else, anywhere else.

Jeremy painted more than 300 handprints on my exterior.

Ninety kids of all sizes have crawled over my hood, trunk, even my roof, to sign their names.

I’m No. 7, with painted pink handprints indicating the numeral.

Jim’s wife, Donna, suggested the 7.

“Seven has always meant heaven to her,” Jim explains.

I like the sentiment, anyway. But pink?

“I haven’t ever crashed intentionally,” Jeremy says. “I’m 70 percent excited and 30 percent scared. I’m not nervous about getting hit. I just don’t want it to die or get put out right away. I want to make a good show.”

This isn’t the first derby for most of these cars. But it is for me.

“We’re in a fight,” Jim says.

And that’s how I found myself in the dirt arena at Morningside Park on a cool spring evening.

Jim and Jeremy watched the first heat. I can see them through my rear-view mirror.

As they walk, Jim pats Jeremy on the back, looking worried. Before they reach me, he gives Jeremy’s shoulders a sideways hug.

Hey, what about me, bud?

After working on the pink and blue Cadillac for 30 minutes, Jeremy Foster slides back through the windshield into the driver’s seat for the consolation round of the 2009 Razor City Rumble. - News Record photos by

“He’s walking on water,” Jim says as Jeremy slides on a borrowed 1970s-era gray helmet.

“You should have a silver outfit with it,” someone says.

“That’s truly a brain bucket,” another quips.

Jeremy gives a nervous salute before he slips behind my wheel.

“He’s got a tough heat,” Jim says. “This is harder for me than him, I think. I’m more nervous. I’m really a family man.”

I think it’s harder for me than both of them.

I chug to the arena, but I’m in a haze, not quite ready for the start.

I get in a few quick wacks, though. We hit the other Caddy, a black No. 82, with my back end. We barely nudge another car with a glancing blow.

But it’s not going well.

Here comes No. 22. He pounds my passenger side door with a vengeance. He backs up, hits it again and then repeats the maneuver over and over. Apparently that wasn’t enough. So he slams into me two more times.

I feel the earth slide.

What am I doing? My side has caved in. I limp ahead.

Another hit. Whoops, there goes my front bumper.

What’s that? A thunderous whack from No. 50. I can’t move. I can’t think. My engine’s revving. But I can only make a few inches.

I’m stuck. But Carl comes roaring to the rescue. He knocks me loose from that metal coffin and zips away. Oh no, two more cars square up on me.

My right front tire blows. The crowd cheers. My radiator drains. Smoke drifts into my eyes. I cough.

They’ve finished me off. ... I’m shaken.

Water splashes from the transmission cooler in the pink and blue Cadillac after being hit hard by a competitor during the 2009 Razor City Rumble. Soon after the hit the car was incapacitated when its distributor cap was dislodged. - News Record photos by Photo Editor Nathan Payne

It’s a good thing I can’t see the damage. But I can sure feel it. Now there’s more black than blue. And firemist? It’s long gone.

“He did good until the bumper came off,” Jim says. “He did kind of good for a novice.”

“I saw that bumper and I didn’t realize it was mine,” Jeremy says. “Whew. ... After that first hit, the nervousness was gone.”

A “crew” of five is prying open my welded hood. I don’t know if I can take much more. They’re replacing my radiator, filling it with soothing water. Oooo, my throttle’s unstuck.

They’re changing my tire. What going on up there? They’re re-attaching my bumper, still sizzling from a red-hot torch. All I can see is mud, puddles of Anti-freeze and a few sparks flying by. It’s all happening so fast.

Thirty minutes whizzes by.

Jeremy climbs back in and starts me up, shifting into reverse. There’s nothing. I can’t move. There’s panic.

“We’ve got a bad radiator and no reverse,” Jim says. “I would have given anything that the transmission would hold up. ... When we bought it, it had a brand new muffler. When we dropped the oil pan, there wasn’t a drop of dirt in it. Honestly, whoever had it, they took care of it.”

But I’m the only car parked facing forward in the arena. This can’t be good.

The consolation heat starts and I clip a stick with a flag on it, winning these guys an 18-pack of beer. I take a swipe at a larger metal target swinging out of my way and just miss.

Great, there’s No. 67. He’s hammering my front end. I’m stuck momentarily in a deep dirt berm, but Jeremy drives me up the side and back into action. It’s a slick move.

Whoa. I just slammed off of No. 21. Ow, No. 13’s having another go at me. That’s the last jolt. My distributor cap shakes off.

I’m done.

“I was thinking I’m the only one facing forward. Everyone else is going backward. I’m going to be a sandwich soon,” Jeremy says.

What a mess. My black paint is sheared away. Below that, I’m wrinkled and wrecked metal.

“The car didn’t do so well,” Jim says.

You think they’ll share that beer?

Jim Foster answers a call after his pink and blue Cadillac lost power and was eliminated from the 2009 Razor City Rumble. - News Record photos by Photo Editor Nathan Payne

Wedding Ring

2008-10-22T17:08:00.005-11:00

In 2003 I was getting ready to head home. To my horror, when I reached for the steering wheel my wedding ring came off, hit the dash, and went down a vent. I shined a flashlight down the vent, but no ring.

Fast forward 5 years.

My wife started to strongly encourage me to get the ring back. I started doing some research on the Internet. It felt good to confirm I wasn't the first to lose a ring down a vent. There was advice about lowering a magnet down the hole (which doesn't make sense for mine, the ring is gold and silver which aren't magnetic). There was also advice about using a grabbing-snake like tool that you can buy from Sears, taking the blower off the motor and reaching through the venting from the backside, and finally taking off the entire dash.

It appears the only suggestion people had success with was taking off the dash. I knew however this would be the most work so I went ahead and tried the other suggestions first (including taking the blower off the motor). When I didn't have any success, I decided to bite the bullet and get working on the dashboard (and center console, thanks to how BMW designed the interior).

After a couple of hours I got the dash off - however I was dismayed to see the main vent tank was still difficult to get into (it was better than before however). Laura and I shined a flash light in the tank, desperately hoping all of the prior effort would pay off. Fortunately Laura caught a glimpse of gold in the light! We then spent about 20 minutes fishing in the tank using the Sears snake-grabby thing, after a couple of close calls we managed to pull the ring up!

So, the story ends on a happy note, after 5 years the wedding ring is back on my finger. Err... maybe that's not such a happy note?

Don't let the bed bugs bite

2008-04-07T01:57:00.006-11:00

I just got back from India. Flight was great, it's the first time I've flown business class - the seats can lay almost flat so sleeping was not a problem. I also got to relax in the "special invite only" lounge where they had free beer, wine, soda, juices, etc, plus snacks to eat.

I arrived in Hyderabad, India at 2am in their new airport - it has only been open for a week. Their previous airport was in the middle of the city, and supposedly was very dirty and rundown.

The hotel I stayed at, Novotel, was very clean and nice - it was built about a year ago. Unfortunately some previous visitor left behind bed bugs. The critters nibbled on me that first night, after that I slept with the light on for discouragement.

The Microsoft buildings are located in Hitech City (a suburb of Hyderabad). This city hosts the IT big boys of India, like Infosys, Wipro, etc. We took a break during work to play a friendly game of Cricket, which reminded me somewhat of baseball.

I also took a couple of touristy jaunts to check out some of the historical buildings, including Golkonda fort. This ruined city was once the location where diamonds were mined, cut and sold, including famous stones like the Hope Diamond.

Some pictures I took at the top of Charminar. You can see the yellow cabs below, India is very populated and motorcycles with 3-4 people holding on were not uncommon. It was also normal to see cows, goats, chickens, freely roaming the streets same as the vehicles.

What struck me most about the landscape, besides the abundance of poor people, were the giant rocks everywhere. People would often paint advertising signs on them, a natural billboard.

McDonald's Walk-Up Window

2007-04-12T09:27:00.000-11:00

Copenhagen has a nice walking street running through its center. Laura and I find it pretty funny that McDonald's has a "walk-up window" to purchase your food instead of the normal "drive-up window".

bush hid the facts

2007-04-04T08:58:00.000-11:00

An interesting email about notepad is making it's way around cyberspace lately. Try this out:

1 - open notepad
2 - type in "bush hid the facts" (all lower case, no quotes)
3 - save the file to whatever name and location you want
4 - close notepad
5 - now open the file you saved in step 3 (you can double click the file or use notepad's file->open menu item)

The result? A bunch of squares like the following - is it a software easter egg or simply a bug?

Corina's Shiner

2007-04-02T08:16:00.000-11:00

Corina is the proud owner of her first shiner - she climbed into a card board box and was playing around, when she attempted to get out it fell over and her face hit the corner of a chair. It quickly turned black and blue. In this picture it's somewhat hard to tell how big of an area that was brusied, that's where converting it into a negative image can somewhat help (a negative image is a tonal inversion of a positive image, in which light areas appear dark and vice versa). You can see a splotch on the cheek of the negative which is the bruised area.

Genetic hearing loss?

2007-03-30T03:43:00.000-11:00

It looks more and more likely that our family suffers from genetic hearing loss. Doctor's have closely monitored Sabrina's hearing for some time after it was discovered that she suffered hearing loss just like her dad and grandma (foster). At her most recent visit it was determined that the loss was great enough that it warranted a hearing aid, so they took a mold of her ear and we pick it up on April 12th.

Overall, that's bad news. The good news however was that it was caught early and the Danish government pays for the hearing aid. It was also kind of neat that Sabrina got to choose from a lot of different colors, she chose a silver hearing aid (shell that goes behind the ear) and the ear piece itself is red with silver flecks.

Latest updates

2007-03-22T10:31:00.000-11:00

We're heading back to Redmond, I've accepted a Test Architect position in the marketing group at Microsoft. To kill the time until the big move we've been doing some fun things like:

Last weekend for St. Patrick's day Laura and I participated in a 3-legged race across Copenhagen. Along the way we had to visit six designated bars and drink 1/2 pint of beer at each one of them. We were team 115!

Sabrina enjoyed bopping to tunes from the 50s and 60s with her Girl Scouts troop!

We visited a Guiness World Records museum, here is Sabrina standing next to a life-size statue of the world's tallest man.

The kids partied for the Fastelavn holiday.

And Corina relaxed by propping her feet up and downing a cold one (milk of course!)

And last but not least, we bribed the trash man. They're only supposed to take trash that goes up to the printed line on the the bag, however rumor had it that if you left two beers on top of the overflowing trash they would take it. Don't leave beer and they'll pull out the excess trash and leave it by the dumpster (and yes this did happen to us previously). So, how did our little bribe work? Did the hard working trash man accept our smooth tasting beverage? Yes! (BTW, tak means thanks in Danish).

How not to give a toast

2007-02-14T00:15:00.000-11:00

One of the developers in our organization is moving to another team, as part of the farewell celebration people were asked to tell (real-life) funny stories about the person. There were many good ones, here is my favorite:

Thomas was getting married for the x'th time, and new wife x hated wife x-1. Thomas's best man started his speech by referring to wife x by wife x-1's name. There was a big commotion, crying, etc., but finally the bride was comforted and the best man continued his speech, a bit shaky in the beginning, but he got confident again, and made a quite good speech, ending in proposing a toast for Thomas... and wife x-1...

Robbed in Spain!

2007-01-11T10:24:00.000-11:00

We had a fun trip to Barcelona, Spain. As we killed some time walking around before heading to the airport, I decided - hey, why not take some pictures! The girls sat on a bench while I removed the camera from my backpack and then set the bag right next to them on the bench. I then proceeded to take these pictures, the first is the restaurant we ate at and the second is the train station. Taking both of these pictures took about 30 seconds.

I then decided to take a picture of the girls.

At this time none of us knew yet that we had been robbed. I then walked over to the girls and looked for my bag to put the camera away and was dismayed to find that it was gone. Someone had the balls to steal the bag within 40 seconds and when it was sitting right next to the owners!

We walked around looking in all the trash cans in case he threw the bag away, after a while Laura found my wallet in a trash can a long ways away, sitting right next to a metro station (different station than the one in the picture). All the credit cards and identification had been removed, still no sign of the backpack. While I called and canceled the credit cards Laura went into the metro station and snooped around. She found her blue pen sitting on a bench; obviously the robber ditched the pen and then hopped on the metro train when it arrived.

We filed a police report, it was a frustrating and yet comical experience because we don’t speak Spanish and the officer didn’t know English.

Chad takes a walk in space

2007-01-11T10:05:00.000-11:00

Our next stop was Amsterdam, Netherlands. This is the famous place of tolerated soft drugs and legal red-light districts.

I bought some space cakes, space muffins, space brownies, space cookies and a joint. In case you don't know what a "space" cake is, it's a pastry baked with hashish (basically a solid form of Marijuana that's ready to bake). Laura tried both the space sweets and the joint.

I also tried some magic mushrooms, a psychedelic drug that put me in a very happy place. This was by far my favorite, although I didn't enjoy eating the mushrooms themselves all that much.

While we were there we also visited the famous Anne Frank house and then saw how wooden clogs are made. The kids found one that almost fits!

Athens, Greece

2007-01-11T09:35:00.000-11:00

We took a trip to Athens, Greece. The trip ended as a success, however it got started off a bit rocky. We traveled a long distance to a hotel where our room was reserved only to find out that we had the right hotel by name, but wrong location. After we took a taxi to the right one we got a room - that had just been used by someone else and hadn't been clean yet! :-) ... You can imagine our surprise when we went in, we saw what was in the ashtray then we looked at the bed and said "Ewwwww... how about we go get a room with some clean sheets?"

What we liked most was seeing all the ancient buildings we've heard about and seen in school text books.

Christmas Trees

2007-01-11T09:31:00.000-11:00

We had a great Christmas, Corina is now old enough to enjoy ripping up paper as she digs into the gift. Kibbles (our cat) loved hopping into the empty boxes. It's pretty normal here for them to wrap up the branches of the Christmas tree to make it easier for carrying home, I know I was thankful considering I had to haul it onto the train and bus!

Things to do

2006-11-25T05:03:00.000-11:00

Copenhagen seems to always have something fun to do on the weekends. Today we went and listened to Danish Christmas Carols while last week we joined in a Christmas beer tasting party. Corina especially loved the singing; she waved her hands around like the conductor and even did some singing of her own.

Some pictures from the beer tasting... our favorite was called "Frosty".

Ketchup diversity

2006-11-19T01:55:00.000-11:00

They have some interesting varieties of ketchup here, things like Mexican Ketchup, Pasta Ketchup, Jalapeño Pepper Ketchup, plus many more. I’m sure somewhere in the U.S. they have these available as well, however I personally haven’t seen them.

Our favorite is the Mexican Ketchup; it has a nice spicy kick to it!

Elephant food

2006-11-19T01:40:00.000-11:00

We went to a local mall to watch the movie Borat, while in the food section we saw the “American Restaurant”. We can only conclude the owners are Republicans due to their menu choices.

President Nixon is a “Classic Burger”, while President Carter is a “Chicken Burger”

Danish Gas Chamber

2006-11-17T09:04:00.000-11:00

The toilet stalls in Denmark are different than what you find in the U.S., they're more private. You don't have the openings at the bottom or top where you can view your neighbor's shoes and color of pants.

At first I thought, hmm... how nice! Unfortunately I soon discovered the dark side to Danish toilets. Now imagine that BillyBob has just eaten a large greasy deep fat fried meal and it's not being kind to his stomach. In fact BillyBob’s body is urging him to get that fat out of his system before it does some permanent damage to his heart. So he strolls into this private, closed in stall and does his duty.

Now Chad, having drunk too much diet cola decides that he either needs to use the restroom or suffer an exploding bladder. The first stall is occupied and so he has to make a drastic choice:

a) does he pee in public on some bush or wall outside

or

b) hold his breath, it’s a race to finish peeing before he passes out

or

c) breathe normally while peeing and suffer incurable brain damage

or

d) let his bladder rupture causing harm to his internal organs from the shrapnel

As you can see, no matter how you slice it you end up a loser. God bless the USA and their open air stalls.

Yodl - Ay - EEE - Ooooo

2006-10-25T08:29:00.000-11:00

We took a trip to Zürich, Switzerland where my wallet was thoroughly molested by the high prices – I ended up having to pan handle in order to get enough change for the trip home.

After we checked out the city sites we took a road trip to a tiny country called Liechtenstein with a population of only 33,307!!!! The capital has a castle on a mountain overlooking the main street, it is almost kind of creepy because you keep glancing up at it and imagine the royal family peering down on you like Big Brother. Here is a picture of it from a different angle as you’re going up the road to it.

Our favorite part of the trip was the Swiss Alps, specifically Mt. Pilatus. We took a train to the top, a 40 minute trip each way. Once we were there we walked some trails and enjoyed the view.

Sweet, but stupid children

2006-09-19T08:17:00.000-11:00

Laura and I occasionally find some funny articles in the Danish newspapers. The media likes to use scare tactics to get the public in better shape, for example they warn that too many Danish folks are eating fast food and will turn into fat Americans.

Yeah, they have a legitimate concern about fast food - but the way they go about trying to convince the public is hilarious!!!! Here is an example, read how sweets are going to cause a lower class of short stupid people.

Mambo Italiano

2006-08-29T09:24:00.000-11:00

We had a lot of fun in good ol' Rome, the city founded by Romulus (seen here with his brother Remus).

One of our first stops was the mighty Coliseum where we got to stab a few gladiators and run away from the lions.

We then visited Vatican City, here's a picture taken from the top of the Basilica. We didn't get to share a drink with the pope; he was off visiting another city. So instead of leading the mass live he was broadcasted to the Vatican center, we watched it although of course we couldn't understand what he was saying.

Tradition says it's good luck to rub St. Peter's foot, you can see how it has worn down over the years (I guess the "good luck" only flows one way).

We stopped by the famous Pantheon, built in 125 - originally built as a temple of all gods. One of the reasons why it's famous is that despite being 1881 years old it has held up remarkably well.

gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today

2006-08-21T06:27:00.000-11:00

Remember Wimpy, that moocher in the cartoon Popeye who constantly said "gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"? It would have been interesting for him to visit Denmark, where people here frequently chow on raw hamburgers. Our cafeteria loves serving these red raw patties, according to my co-workers people often enjoy combining it with a raw egg on top before digging in.

I took a couple of pictures with my phone (which is why they're a bit blurry).

The Danes did not lose any time grabbing the patties as fast as they were served, it was a stampede!

Danish Vikings

2006-08-02T12:15:00.000-11:00

Yesterday we visited the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark.

Inside we saw authentic Viking ships that had been recovered from the bottom of the fjord.

Here's what the ship looked like in its prime. They had a life size Viking ship replica that you could sail in, unfortunately the tickets were sold out.

Corina still got to do some boating in a kids area outside...

... while Sabrina polished up on her archery skills.

2006-07-26T13:11:00.000-11:00

[NOTE: I corrected the spelling of Wien after Claus (pesky Germans!) pointed it out :-) ]

Our trip to Vienna, Austria was fun. One of our stops was Schönbrunn Palace.

The palace had a lot going for it and we spent most of the day there. One of the activities was to get lost in the backyard maze.

Laura enjoyed peeking under the statue's clothing...

... and while Laura's attention was diverted, Sabrina took advantage by breaking the palace rules.

This palace has a long history. One interesting tidbit is that this is where 6-year old W.A. Mozart played his first royal concert in the presence of Empress Maria Theresia. Since Vienna is famouse for classical music we decided to celebrate by attending a concert, featuring popular compositions of Mozart and Johann Strauss.

On one of the days we found some water spouts, the girls went crazy with joy - Vienna was hot!

The official language of Austria is German, they spell Vienna as "Wien". You've probably heard of one of its famous dishes, the Wiener Schnitzel! Although Laura and I have heard the words "Wiener Schnitzel" neither of us knew what the heck it really was. So we ordered it - it reminds me of a thin country friend steak (made out of pork) that is deep fat fried.

Although we went and saw a lot on our 6-day vacation the coolest thing was seeing the Rinas bonding.

Got a light?

2006-07-15T14:32:00.000-11:00

During the summer it never really gets dark. This is what it looks like at 3am

Chili Beer

2006-07-11T08:24:00.000-11:00

Laura found a fun beer at the supermarket today - chili beer!

I don't normally eat or drink hot stuff, but I like this. I can only drink it in small quantities however; I then need something a bit softer on the palate. I think the funniest part is the warning label, only in the United States do they need to warn people not to choke on the pepper.

Kan du tale dansk?

2006-07-05T09:19:00.002-11:00

The title asks if you know how to speak Danish, which is not an easy feat. When the Danes encounter something new, instead of coming up with a new word they instead just overload an existing word or slam two existing words together. To give you an example, here is a real Danish sentence and then the English translation:

Real Danish Sentence:

Får får får? Nej, får får ikke får, får får lam.

Try reading that outloud and guess what you think it means. Give up?

English translation:

Sheep have sheep? No, sheep don't have sheep, sheep have lambs.

Golly Green Laura

2006-06-30T09:27:00.000-11:00

Summer is here and I've found myself doing a bad job on keeping this up to date. What's nice about the area is there are a ton of things to do in the summer, so on the weekend we have a list to choose from. At one of the festivals Laura was excited at what she found, for once in her life she was going to be tall!

One of the ways we're keeping ourselves entertained is by visiting Bakken, the oldest amusement park in the world (around 400 years old to be more precise). Naturally the amusements themselves have changed over the years and it now closely resembles what you'd see at Six Flags in the U.S.

We're getting to do some traveling, I spent a week in Paris for training but what I'm really looking forward to is the trip to Vienna, Austria at the end of July and the trip to Rome, Italy at the beginning of August.

Oh, by the way, in case you were curious how Laura liked being tall, I'm sad to say she still doesn't know.

mmmmm, Corina meatloaf

2006-05-28T08:36:00.000-11:00

We went to a falconer center in Fredensborg, Denmark where we got to see some cool birds of prey. The show started inside where we learned about the birds and even got to pet one. As the host was talking the bird flew from the hand to this stand near the ceiling:

However the bird didn't always do as it was told, mainly because it found something it liked - juicy, plump baby fat. It landed near Corina and thought long and hard about taking a bite. Corina naturally thought this was a bad idea and tried to convince the bird that Sabrina was the more juicier of the two.

Outside they swooped over our heads, clearance was probably only about 5 inches. We got to see the birds hunt, while she walked around showing us the bird she kept it under control by feeding it.

What? You say you can't see what it's eating? Well, let's zoom in a bit:

Arg matie!

2006-05-27T09:35:00.000-11:00

Sabrina was the star of her school play, a misguided pirate who kidnaps the kindergarten teacher so that she can excel at school "Arg, me am learning plenty-plenty".

Naturally she was brilliant, delivering her lines with skill and grace (hey, what do you expect a proud parent to say????)

Soldier's Using MS Software

2006-05-17T11:44:00.000-11:00

Here's a fun email that went out on a distribution list within Microsoft. Posted with Eric's permission:

_____________________________________________
From: Eric Engstrom
Sent: 17. maj 2006 00:21
Subject: Soldier's Using MS Software...

I know this thread died last week, but I didn’t get a chance to write in. I’ve been planning to send this e-mail to the PPT and Visio teams, but just haven’t gotten around to it, so I thought I’d take this opportunity…

My brother is currently serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. On his first tour of duty he was in on the Saddam capture. He was even featured in a story that ran on the front page of the Wall Street Journal! (copy of the article can be seen here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1042711/posts).

One of the tools they used to catch Saddam, was this HUGE org-chart with hundreds of names on it. They called it Mongo Link. It had Saddam in the middle, and then everyone who had any contact to him was placed on the chart. The more contact, the closer to the center of the chart.

When he was telling the story to our family, he was joking that MS Software helped catch Saddam. My sister and I are both MS employees, and were of course very proud. He went on to say how great it was to have, what he called “Org-Chart” software. He talked about how easy it was to create squares and circles and put text in them and to connect them with lines and dotted lines, etc. Basically he was describing Visio.

My sister and I both said how great it was that Visio had helped him, and that MS was helping with the war on terror. He got this blank look on his face and said, “What’s Visio?” We said, “That’s the name of the program that you were using.” And he said, “No we were using PowerPoint!” The look on my face when he said that was a mix of humor, horror, amusement, and disbelief. Basically, he was raving about the “Draw” features that are pretty much standard in ANY MS Office application!

Needless to say for his birthday we got him a copy of Visio and showed him how EASY it is to create charts with all the ready made graphics, drag and drop connectors, etc. etc. He naturally loved it, and was amazed at all it could do. He said he was going to convince the unit to buy the software, and get trained on it.

3 weeks before Christmas 2005 his unit was redeployed. He’s now back in Iraq and his full-time job is finding Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Their unit has once again created a huge org chart and dubbed it Mongo Link II. I asked him by e-mail if it was easier now using Visio and if the unit liked it better. His reply:

“Well… (hem-haw) the unit didn’t switch to Visio, we’re still using PowerPoint.”

To be, or not to be: that is the question

2006-05-14T08:37:00.000-11:00

We visited Kronborg Castle, made famous by Shakespeare's Hamlet. Before having a starring role in Shakespeare's play it was used as a tollbooth that collected from passing ships (failure to pay usually resulted in a trip underwater).

We were in the Queen's bedroom chambers, Sabrina spotted and was a bit disturbed by this picture. Wow, how would you like to go to bed at night staring at this lovely theme? Pleasant dreams are sure to come.

Now that spring is here I get the pleasure of yard work. Unfortunately our dear landlord hasn't been introduced to this really cool invention call the grass bag catcher, the result is that I become a human grass catcher.

Luck of the Irish

2006-04-21T09:11:00.000-11:00

We took a leap to Ireland; most of the time was spent in Dublin however we couldn't leave without seeing the legendary Blarney Stone which bestows skill in flattery on those who kiss it. The stone is believed to be half of the Stone of Scone which originally belonged to Scotland. Scottish Kings were crowned over the stone because it was believed to have special powers.

The stone was given to Cormac McCarthy by Robert the Bruce in 1314 in return for his support in the Battle of Bannockburn. To get to the stone you walk up Blarney Castle's long narrow spiral staircase, then lie on your back and bend both backward and downward holding iron bars for support. From what I've heard the locals think it's a hoot that tourists have visited and kissed it for 500 years, some even joke about taking a leak on it - now that's a sobering thought as you give it a smooch. Here's a picture of Laura locking lips with it, as well as a picture of the stone from outside of the castle on the ground. In the older days people who kissed the Blarney Stone were hung by their heels over the edge of the parapet - surprise surprise, eventually someone broke from the grasp of his friends and went hurtling downward to his death.

We also took a drive to Northern Ireland and visited a natural attraction called the Giant's Causeway (this geological freak is caused by volcanic activity). Legend however tells a different story. The Giant's Causeway was formed when the famed giant Finn MacCool, leader of the warrior clan Fianna, found himself, as warrior giants are wont to be, in a row with his hulking Scottish counterparts, Benandonner. Excited at the prospect of a showdown, the cavalier Finn constructed an ornate walkway for his opponent to cross from his home on Staffa Island off Scotland.

Upon hearing rumors of Benandonner's colossal stature and strength, the deflated Finn did what any good leader of a warrior clan of giants would do: he asked his wife, Oonagh, to hide him. Oonagh did what any fine lady giant would do: she dressed her husband up as a baby and placed him in a huge cradle in plain sight.

When the hunkering Scot crossed the bridge and saw the oversized baby, he imagined the size of the father and quickly turned and fled back to Scotland in terror, ripping up the Causeway to ensure that Papa Finn would not pursue. The rock known as the Giant's Boot was Benandonner's cast-off, left in the haste of his cowardly retreat.

In Dublin we visited a couple of cathedrals, and most important of all - the old Jameson distillery, where they make some of the finest whiskey in Ireland. On the tour he asked for volunteers, all the guys raised their hands and he chose two, one of them being me! My prize was getting to taste test 5 different whiskeys, 3 of them made in Ireland (Jameson, Paddy, Powers), 1 from Scotland (Johnny Walker), and 1 from the U.S. (Jack Daniels). I liked the Irish whiskey hands down - out of the three I liked Powers the best. Here I am standing next to one of the whiskey vats.

We are connected

2006-04-10T09:48:00.000-11:00

We moved into our new housing, we found a place near Sabrina's school in a town called Kokkedal. Unfortunately we didn't have internet access for a month and so I've been a bit behind on updating this blog (yeah, I could've updated it at work - but I guess I was too lazy to cart the pictures).

OK - time to get caught up. The day before we moved from Frederiksberg we went ice skating:

Corina hung out in the Burley trailer.

We also celebrated a Danish holiday called Fastelavn. One of the games on "Fastelavn" is called "knocking the cat out of the barrel" and it is done every year in Danish schools and homes. All the children - in disguise of course - line up and in turn hit a barrel with a wooden club. The barrel is hanging from the ceiling or a tree and it usually has a drawing of a black cat on its side. The child who "knocks the cat out of the barrel" (makes the last bit of the barrel fall to the ground) is made "king" - this could both be a girl or a boy. The "king" then chooses a "queen". They are given golden (paper) crowns and they rule for the day.

We found this newspaper ad to be rather amusing:

Not all the statues around here are beautiful, some look like they should only be brought out for Halloween:

Sabrina learns to Ski

2006-02-25T08:11:00.000-11:00

Laura heard about a neat Indoor Ski place so we took Sabrina for her first lesson.

It was fairly inexpensive and she learned more than had the lesson been on a real slope. The indoor surface is a slippery material that rolls in an uphill direction, providing an opposing force as you slide downhill (the videos on the website show it all).

Each time she fell, the instructor could stop the slope, help her up and then continue on. I don't think she's quite ready to tackle the Alps just yet, however it was a terrific introduction and she's hungry for more. Poor Corina, she wanted to join in the fun - only being one is a tough row to hoe. I'm sure she's going to write about her frustrations in her favorite journal, the walls.

2006-02-18T10:40:00.000-11:00

We went on one of the "walking" tours called out in our tourist guide. We didn't finish because Corina got too cold, however we were impressed with what we saw. We arrived there via our new transportation, the train:

Sex is more relaxed and casual here. Here's a cell phone advertisement at the train station, it's a European twist to our Energizer bunny:

You also see plenty of nude statues around Copenhagen:

The highlight of the tour for Sabrina was seeing the Little Mermaid statue, one of Copenhagen's biggest tourist attractions (and according to the guide book, one of the biggest disappointments due to the hype):

We liked this church's stonework:

A new, improved Picasso

2006-02-10T09:04:00.000-11:00

Corina managed to find a pencil and immediately created a masterpiece. Afterwards she grabbed mom and showed it off; mom was... uh... pleased.

Before I returned the rental car I passed this sign every day.

I've been sampling the cheapest beer I can find, the champion so far is the one on the left - a mere sixteen cents. The one on the right cost about a buck fifty and is their more famous and popular brand, Carlsberg.

Vrooooooommmm!

2006-02-07T05:46:00.000-11:00

Our org had an offsite, it wasn't all work however - we did some cool things like curling (umm... no, this has nothing to do with hair), go-karting and of course eating food while slurping beer.

Go-karting was done Le Mans style, our team took 2nd place. Unlike the place I visited in Redmond, they didn't encourage but also didn't mind some bumping; especially when passing in the corner.

There was also a magician/comedian; I was sitting in the front and this ran my mind was "Oh, oh... I will soon look like an ass". Well, sure enough the guy helped me look stupid within 2 minutes of the show, fortunately I had plenty of company before the event was over.

Sweden

2006-01-31T10:02:00.000-11:00

We took a day trip to Sweden, driving across the Øresund bridge between Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmø, Sweden. The first section (4km) is under water tunnel and you then plop above water for the rest of the journey (8km).

We found some grape jelly there! Well, kind of... they had something called "Port Wine" with pictures of grapes on the front, the cool thing is it really does taste like wine - YUMMY!!! Now if I can only find Vodka, Whiskey and Rum jelly I'll be eating PBJs every day. We found it amusing that the strawberry jelly came in unusual packaging.

Christiansborg Palace

2006-01-31T09:12:00.000-11:00

Last weekend we took a tour of the Queen's work palace (she lives in a grander palace, must be tough). They forbid us to take pictures of the inside but I accidently snapped a couple anyway >:-). My favorite part was viewing and hearing about Denmark's most famous picture, Lauritz Tuxen's painting of King Christian IX and family. The history of the family is impressive, Christian IX is known as the Father-in-law of Europe because his six children became kings and queens of various Europeon countries (like Greece and Russia) - I bet conversation around the dinner table was vivid.

Denmark has some cool buildings, I like the spire of this one:

A stroll in the park

2006-01-22T00:08:00.000-11:00

Before the big snow storm yesterday we took a stroll in Frederiksberg Garden, a large park many people use for jogging, ice skating, viewing a castle and last but not least celebrating a huge milestone in a toddler's life.

Danish mothers approach a special tree in the park and have a little ceremony, the hanging of a pacifier on the tree's branches. Some have personal inscriptions like RIP 2.5 years, or pictures of the toddler laminated next to the retired binky. We saw one such mother and toddler hitting this milestone, it looked like it worked - the kid was excited about "graduating" instead of the frustration and hair pulling I've seen relatives go through.

The park has ponds, strangely the ducks don't migrate somewhere for the winter (well, at least here). The water surface is 90% frozen however there is always a tiny portion open. Perhaps the park crew breaks open a section and hands out food - the ducks have a good deal here, why leave?

First week

2006-01-12T19:02:00.000-11:00

Wow, I can finally take a nice hot shower. The drain in our shower was clogged and until they fixed it last night we've been rather smelly (well, my family has - I took showers at work).

Interesting enough there is a major problem with the water here, it is full of calcium. This means you need to wipe down the shower hardware every morning otherwise it quickly corrodes and you get charged for not maintaining the house. You also need to put special chemicals in the washers otherwise your dishes discolor and your clothes start getting stiff.

Breakfast and lunch are provided at work, no charge except the 350DKK they monthly take out of the paycheck. You're not able to opt out of the program, but then again you wouldn't want to. Each meal is a wonderful buffet of many different and delicious foods, quite a bargain for $56 a month. I was easily spending $100+ month for unhealthy and not so tasty food in Redmond.

Sabrina is disappointed in the jelly selection. She loves grape and yet oddly they don't have it, worse than that - they've never heard of it and stare at you like a freak. You do have your standard strawberry, etc as well as some rather strange creations like carrot jelly. Mmmm.... yummy.... or not.

We made it!

2006-01-09T06:46:00.000-11:00

The airlines gave us a bit of grief over Kibbles (our cat) but we pushed through and got to Copenhagen in one piece. Sabrina started school today (Hørsholm International School) and I started work. Everyone is pretty helpful here, they know how tough it is to get going in a foreign country. We got a couple of dinner invitations which should help get our social life off on the right foot. Will post more later... time to head home!

Graebals of fire

2005-12-28T21:01:00.000-11:00

Graebal arrived today to pack the house and are truly professionals at their craft. I'm sure they find it annoying but it's interesting to watch them pack, they clean out the cabinets lickity split and yet each glass and plate are individually (and carefully) wrapped against damage.

Strange enough they were willing to ship the motorcycle even though their documentation clearly states "we will NOT ship vehicles, including cars, SUVs, boats, motorcycles, yada yada yada". We thought long and hard about it but decided against shipping, it's that import tax thing again.

Laura and I are getting ready for the big drive to Wyoming. My personal preparation is burning a bunch of comedy CDs, the miles fly when I'm listening to some poor sucker get heckled on the phone by Roy D. Mercer.

Speaking of humor, if you haven't checked out a year in review of MSNBCs most Peculiar Postings, treat yourself: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562270/

Car lust

2005-12-23T15:15:00.000-11:00

My former boss recieved his Z06, he took me around the block - what a sweet ride. $70k is a lot of money for a car, but good luck finding many others (if any) that can do 0-60 in 3.4 seconds for that price.

Don't most men go through a mid-life crisis? I'm thinking of having mine early and buying one of these bad boys. Naturally my wife asks where I would ever use that type of speed... let's see... Montana, South Dakota, entering the interstate ramp, groceries, where there is a will there is a way.

Official work visa

2005-12-20T19:47:00.000-11:00

I got my official work visa, I’m now free to enter Denmark and earn a paycheck. It was pretty much a done deal a week ago except for a small typo on the acceptance letter; they had me working for “IBM Microsoft”. As my new boss says, it’s almost like I got dual citizenship.

Tomorrow is my last day in the Automotive Business Unit; I’m then taking a couple of days off to be with the in-laws. It’s pretty cool that all of Laura’s family is going to be here, our first Christmas at our house (like most young couples we normally fly to one of the parents for the fat man day).

Good-bye to the book club

2005-12-19T11:39:00.000-11:00

I found myself in a rut; too often I was either reading a technical book for work or a Fantasy / Sci-Fi novel. To broaden my horizons a bit I decided to join a book club, doing a bit of research I chose a group of folks who regularly meet in Seattle.

Overall the book club experiment was a success; it got me reading books I normally would never choose. Not all of them were a pleasure, for example "Snow" had me pulling my (remaining) hair in boredom. The biggest attraction was discussing a book with other folks, what a delight to share your thoughts and hear other interpretations on characters and plots. The club members were also just fun to be around, we sometimes played games and often BS'd about non-book related topics.

This last Friday we had a Christmas party + good-bye to Chad party, part of festivities included making gingerbread houses. I always knew I had little (ok no) artistic talent, however this night had magic in the air... surely Chad would be able to create a master piece and realize he really did have skills. Right... my clumsy hands kept breaking the crackers so I desperately applied frosting bandages trying to keep the pieces together. The end result was a sick looking building that Hansel and Gretel would never enter. No cooking and eating children for me :-(

My Danish Z06

2005-12-17T17:18:00.000-11:00

Cars are incredibly expensive to import, the formula goes something like this:

.35 x Invoice_price = y

Note: it does not matter how old the car is, invoice_price means exactly that INVOICE PRICE, as if it was brand new and sitting on the dealership floor.

.65 x Market_value = z

Note: OK, here is where the Danish take into account depreciation. Thank you for the small favors.

Final Import Price = y + z

So, using my 2001 BMW 3-series as an example, I paid roughly $32k for it... kelly blue book (kbb.com) claims that the market value is currently $19.7k. Plugging these two values into the formula we have an import tax of:

(.35 x 32000) + (.65 x 19700) = $24005 ... wowsers!

Why is it so high? Simple... the Danish hate vehicles... I'm not talking dislike or disdain, it's full blown hate. Buy a car there! That's the solution, right? WRONG. They charge 180% tax, so a 10k car will cost you 28k after they tack on the hefty tax. What I don't understand is why don't they cut a break for environmental friendly vehicles like the European Smart Car?

The Danish believe in bicycles and public transportation, so for a couple of years so are we. We're driving the vehicles down to Wyoming for storage and have purchased a couple of 'cycles.

Laura decided to pedal to a different drummer and chose a recumbent. It'll be interesting to see what the Danish think of it, I didn't see any when I was there interviewing. She chose the EZ-Tadpole.

I went with a Joe Breezer creation (he of Mountain bike creation fame) - he's now making a name for himself designing commuter bikes.

We have two little rug rats to tow around, for this task we chose a Burley d'Lite with the optional Walk 'n Roller kit so that we can detach and use it as a stroller.

Copenhagen bound

2005-12-17T12:10:00.000-11:00

I'm moving to Copenhagen, Denmark! The move is because I accepted a Test Manager position in the Microsoft Business Solutions division. Our family takes the pond leap on Jan 4th, in the mean time my wife and I are busy getting all of the loose ends tied up, for example finding renters for the house.