David Loring: Halloween expert.

So, a couple of days ago, at a Pfadfindern (kinda like boy scouts but with girls and continuing membership after 18... I've been meaning to write something about them.) I was asked by one of the guys if I wanted to do an interview for radio about Halloween in America. I said "yes, why not" in the reflexive manner I have developed here, and so last Wednesday I asked my host mother to drive me to the "Haus der Jungend" and made a live interview for Radio 1ahr. here it is:



Now the disclaimers: Radio 1ahr is not a radio-waves radio station, but a little internet-radio site, really more of a show. They do a two-hour show every two weeks on wednesday, with music, news, a couple of dj-types who talk nervously, and sometimes special topics. It starts at 18:00 local time, I believe, if you wanted to listen. This is just my interview, but I have the whole thing, and if people want to listen to it, just comment. In fact, comment even if you don't want to hear two hours of low-bitrate music and talking, because I like getting comments and they keep me posting new stuff to this blog and that's good for everyone, right?

A test of an new way of displaying images using some pictures I took.

Edit: I removed the widget because it starts automatically, and the idea of a page full of slideshows, all loading automatically and lagging everything within sight is just too horrible to contemplate. Anyone know a good system for embedded slideshows that doesn't load automatically like that? Or a way to get blogger to hide stuff on the main blog page?

Here is the flickr album, for those interested.

German Customs Law and Peanut Butter Balls.

So, some weeks ago, my parents sent me a package of various things. Top of my list was reeds for my oboe, which are ridiculously expensive in Gemany, and my reed-working kit, which I don't really know how to use, but would in theory allow me to make them better. My mother added to these some random things, like gloves and my nice Rotary sweatshirt, which I had forgotten, and yet more pins for exchanging. I now have over two hundred pins for a district of maybe 75 exchange students. I'm making friends, but not that quickly!

The best thing by far promised in this packet, though, was the peanut butter balls. Peanut butter balls are a strange snack made of peanut butter, oatmeal, and honey mixed together into a sort of dough, than rolled in coconut flakes. Very simple, and absolutely delicious. Strangely, though, I hadn't had any in years. They were a common feature of my preschool days, but had been somehow forgotten about as the years went on. Now that I'm in Germany, my mother seems to be remembering all sorts of cool stuff.

This is all great, but instead of a package arriving punctually last week, we received an envelope telling us that the package was in Koblenz, and would be returned to sender if we did not visit it within the week and pay a tariff of 19% on it's stated value of $150. What was up? Are peanut butter balls a restricted substance in Germany?

A phone call (made, thankfully, by my host mother) cleared things up. My package was supposed to be considered a gift, but due to the high labeled worth, the customs people had a look inside. Inside, they saw the pins. "Hmm..." they thought to themselves "who gives 100 identical pins as a gift? This David Loring fellow must want to sell these California pins without having to pay import tariff, and undercut good German california-pin businesses!" and so they held on to it.

All was not lost, however. My host mother was able to explain the concept of a rotary blazer, and pin exchanges, to the customs man on the phone, and he agreed that it sounded like a real gift, and would look inside with us when we got there and re-estimate the value, probably under the 45 euro tax-free threshold. And today, I drove with my host-Grandparents to the office in Koblenz, and retrieved my booty.

Rheinishces Freilichtmuseum

Yeah, that's a mouthful. Basically, this was a bunch of typical traditional houses from the Rhine regions of germany organized into "villages" by area and spread out on top of a forested hill. It was a lot more interesting than it sounds.



The houses were all this "fachwerk" construction, some whitewashed, some not.








The interiors were really dark, and really small. I wasn't able to take many good pictures of them, but the were what you's expect: unfinished, irregular, and, above all, tiny. Winter must have been a pain.







This is a house form further north on the Rhine, where it gets flatter and wetter and the wind always comes form the same direction. I admire the way these houses were transplanted. They even planted the traditional tree windbreak (left, out of the picture) for this house.

Some of the other intrepid adventurers, presented in tryptich.

Here, from right to left we have Vedashree, who just kinda jumped into the pretty window picture I was photographing and made it even prettier; Johanna and the french girl who stayed with us for two weeks, and whose name I can't remember, together with Vedashree; and signe, uh... scratching her nose. With her middle finger. She doesn't like getting photographed.

More pictures for your enjoyment

P.S: There are more things I have photographed in the past month. I have vacation these next two weeks, so you'll be seeing more of this.

Pictures From Grafschaft

I recently discovered Germany is really pretty. At least where I am. I just went out one evening on a borrowed bicycle with my camera. By sunset I had a flat tire and many megabytes worth of photos, some of which are good.

There are a lot of horses here.

Also, lots of power poles, which is not a problem because I think they make interesting subjects.

It was a good sunset.

Here are the rest of my photos.