We are pleased to announce the birth of our son, Elijah Niklas. He was born on December 2, 2007 at 12:18 am ( 00:18 ). He weighted in at 8 lbs 10 oz ( 3910 g ) and is 20 inches ( 51 cm ) long. Both him and Karin are doing great and currently resting in the hospital. They hope to come home this Saturday. Till then I’ll be making lots of trips to the hospital.. haha

More pictures can be seen here.

Howdy.. I’ve had quite a few people ask me how I brew this magically delicious beer that I drink.  So last night I brewed a beer for a party that is coming up in January and decided to document how I do it.  Here it is.

Wow, what a stunningly beautiful weekend.  The sun shined all weekend and the ground was covered in snow.  On Saturday a friend of mine, Chris, and I went for a 3 hr snowshoe hike in Appenzell.  It was just amazing.  Just a perfect day.  You can see the pics from the hike here.  We actually have more snow now in mid-November than we had all of last year.. odd.

So one week to the due date… starting to get a little nervous…

Have a great week.

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo… We are expecting out first snow fall tonight, Yikes!!!  I so am not ready for this, it’s far too soon.  So I get to look forward to putting the snow tires on the car tomorrow morning.

It’s been a pretty good week here so far.  Last night Karin and I went to celebrate Karin’s mom’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Doris!  We had a nice dinner and got to chat with their neighbors.

It should be a busy weekend this weekend too.  It just suddenly dawned on my that… jumping monkey the baby is coming in a month!  So it’s time to actually start getting thing prepared and ready ( like thats possible ).  I’m also looking forward to finally watching  a Michigan football game.  I really hate the whole comcast vs. big ten network thing.  I also can’t wait to brew the russian imperial stout that I got the recipe for…. mmmm… dark beer…

Ok it’s beer time.. have a great weekend

I had one of those funny moments this morning. The kind that snaps you out of your typical morning blahs and made me remember that I live in a different country and made me smile. So I’m riding down on my bike to the train station ( just as I do every morning ) , when I come across a traffic jam. I’m thinking, this is a little strange. There isn’t exactly a massive amount of traffic in Mogelsberg in the morning, or ever.. This was no normal traffic jam though. There was a farmer and his wife, all dressed up in their fancy traditional swiss clothes, leading their cows down the hill into the valley. There were probably about 50 cows lazily wandering down the road. This is a fall tradition in Switzerland that they move the cows from the mountains into the low lands ( they move them up in the mountains in the spring ). I just had no idea that they did it in Mogelsberg. Woohoo, country living!

So here is where the fun begins. I’m on my bike , heading down hill in the same direction as the cows, and there is a car in front of me. I’m guessing that this guy was in a bit of a rush and wasn’t too happy about having to have this herd of cows add about 20 minutes to his drive. So the guy tries to drive through the cows ( hello, smart guy! ) Well, the farmer lady was not too pleased with someone trying to run over their cows ( and there was no way he was actually going to make it through anyways ). So she runs over, bangs on his hood and says “warten! du arschloch!! (wait you asshole!!)” and then proceeds to call him an asshole for the next 5 minutes. I was just crying laughing.

We decided to have a little fun with the birth and have created a baby pool.  It can be found here.

So please submit your guesses on the date/time of birth and the weight of the baby to me in either a comment, email or by the contact link at the top of the page.  The winner will get a “special” prize.

We just had a visit with the baby doctor last night and everything is going great.  The krill is normal size for it’s development.. woohoo.  Here is the latest scan of it.

Poor Karin is growing like crazy now and it’s really starting to get difficult for her to move around.  Her belly is now up to 107 cm ( 42 inches ).   She has also started to go to her birth preparation classes now.  Oddly enough, she’s in a small class with only 2 others and they are both young single mothers.

woohoo.. the weekend is here.  It should be an interesting weekend seeing if Michigan can finally win a football game.  I’m still a little shocked at how badly they were beaten in their first two games.  I’m almost afraid to watch the game on Saturday.

Karin called me this morning with kind of funny news.  She said she was in the operating room and the krill ( baby ) stuck it’s foot out of her stomach for like 20 seconds.  It’s the first time it has done this.  It is amazing how much it kicks and moves around now, and pretty exciting too.  Only a little over 2 months to go.  We are both soo excited.

Next week I’m heading off to Edinburgh, Scotland for the week for work.  This will be my 3rd trip there.  Cool town and good beer.. mmmmm.

Have a great weekend!

Guten Tag

Ich habe wiedereinmal einen Leserbrief geschrieben und er wurde tatsaechlich gedruckt!

Lest selbst:

Wählen, jetzt erst recht!

Als politisch interessierte und fast-immer Wählerin frustriert mich der momentane Wahlkampf extrem. Da werden verleumderische Webseiten aufgeschaltet, menschenverachtende Plakate und Internetspiele in Umlauf gebracht, Gegner beleidigt und auf unterstem Niveau angegriffen. Es geht nur noch um den grösstmöglichen Effekt, und das Spiel mit den Ängsten der Bevölkerung nimmt immer peinlichere Formen an.

Ich vermisse klare Parteiprogramme, Kandidaten, welche sich gegenseitig respektieren und es nicht nötig haben, bei jedem Angriff in die unterste Schublade zu greifen. Wir als Wähler werden dabei oft für dumm verkauft, wie Schafe, welche ohne eigenen Willen einem Leithammel hinterherlaufen.

Ich habe mir überlegt, wie ich mich gegen eine solche Beleidigung meiner Intelligenz wehren könnte. Zuerst wollte ich die Wahlen boykottieren, dieses ganze Theater nicht mit meiner Stimme unterstützen. Dies ist aber eine denkbar schlechte Idee, da Extremisten immer wählen und ich mit meiner Aktion den grossen Parteien sogar noch helfen würde. Jenen also, welche mir durch ihre Kampagnen die Lust am Wählen gründlich verdorben haben.

Darum meine Schlussfolgerung: Ich gehe wählen, jetzt erst recht. Alle sollten dieses Jahr wählen gehen, und zwar sollten wir die kleinen, leisen Parteien unterstützen, jene welche sich noch die Mühe machen, ein Parteiprogramm mit Lösungen, nicht nur mit Schlagwörtern zu erstellen.

Lassen wir den Grossen ihre Sandkastenpolitik und wählen die, für welche Politik noch Politik und keine Schlammschlacht ist. Für eine gerechte, menschenfreundliche, demokratische Schweiz, ohne Angstmacherei.

Karin

Well after months of complete neglect, I have finally decided to throw away the old swiss monkey site and start over again fresh. So the site is more or less a blog now, weeeeee. Exciting I know.. haha. I hope to actually do normal posts to this now and try to keep it update as things happen in mine and Karin’s life. We will also be posting new pics and videos, when I have them.

I also redid all of my photos. The photos can be found at the link at the top or by going to http://photos.swissmonkey.com

Ok, it’s friday and beer time.. woohoo… cya