Soldiers calling home

What I am still enjoying over here are the little differences in daily life you wouldn't notice when you're over here for a while. Things Europeans would find strange or amusing and most of my American friends wouldn't spend a second thought about... like this envelope I found together with my Amazon order, for donating your old cell (ehem... mobile) phone to soldiers. Their mission is to help 'the troops call home'.

I still think it is funny to donate my old crappy phone to any soldier of the world strongest army to give him or her the opportunity to call home. Don't they have stealth bombers, satellites and even more we don't know? Does my mobile phone really help anybody? Especially taking in consideration that American mobile phones are not working in most parts of the world... so what is left to do for my old mobile phone? Ending up as a piece of modern art on a generals desk? I like this idea though... :-)

The Beginning...

Only in Colorado you can have a Blizzard on Tuesday with lots of snow and temperatures around 0 C (32 F) and on Friday 25 C (77 F) and sunshine, all in one week. A perfect opportunity to start officially the BBQ season. Not only with one BBQ on Friday but also with a party on Saturday and leftovers BBQ on Sunday!

After so much red meat at the weekend I'll need a seafood diet or something like that I guess ;-)

The beginning of a fantastic BBQ season!

The End...

...of an amazing ski season. Well, my very first one to be more precise. A season with valleys and hilltops, like those I was skiing :-) Valleys like the utterly destruction of my brand new pols after the first run with them, falling on my wallet a dozen times leaving a big bruise (I think I should carry more paper then plastic money) or breaking one of my falls very skillfully with my chin leaving it glowing red for an entire week.


But there were some bright sides too... first of course mastering the green (lowest difficult level) marked slopes of Eldora and finally... finishing my first blue run WITHOUT crash at the end of my last skiing day of the season! I still can't believe it... it is amazing how pain is helping you learn things much quicker. I wish I would have had this knowledge back at university... doing advanced maths while sliding down a mountain. Oh well... there is always another season I guess :-)

Dental piercing

Oh man... what a fun week I had: A busy conference week at work, a blizzard pulling in on Thursday morning and to top it all off I got a tooth implant on Friday! Some of my friends were already predicting that I am in terrible pain for the next few days (I don't want to say any names and point fingers here :-) but... knock on wood... I am fine so far. It is even a bit disturbing... they drilled a screw in my jaw and it doesn't hurt???

Now I am not sure if I should feel like the Terminator with screws all over me or really trendy with my brand new metal mouth piercing! ;-)

Going mad in Boulder

You might be interested to hear that I got my singing carrier finally started. Some of you might say now that the world was missing that like global warming, but I did it anyway. I was doing my fist little steps in a small bar downtown Boulder at a Karaoke night. Believe it or not, I never did it before so it was quite exciting for me... and even more for the audience ;-)




As you can see I had some help of a friend of mine who was doing the female version of Mike Jagger. And what better song to sing then 'Satisfaction'?





And the crowd (here my friends from Ireland) went totally wild listening to this great song. Then mad... and finally... angry ;-) Just kidding... they had a great time, at least that was what they told me!

What can I say, a new star is born! Watch out for my first CD coming out soon :-P

The Lobster Vending machine

Last night we were out in Golden for some drinks and I saw one of the strangest things ever... so far: A lobster vending machine! Well... not exactly a vending machine more like a gambling machine you would know from fun fairs and carnivals. But instead of having teddy bears and other stuffed animals there were real living lobster sitting in a tank. So while people had their drinks they were trying to grab one with this robot arm thingys which always seem to conveniently loose your catch half way through. And having a living and fighting lobster as cargo didn't help either, so I never saw even one lobster leaving the tank all night long.

And if you thought of saving your catch of the day from this harsh environment of drunken people starring at you... unlucky... these lobsters would have been boiled for you in this machine too. But the idea of a freshed cooked lobster in a place like that seemed to me even more disturbing ;-)

Bon appétit.

Springtime in the Garden of Gods

It is nearly a year ago that I went down south to Colorado Springs and to its amazing stone formation called Garden of Gods. Looking through the pictures it is hard to believe that in the morning just before left we had quite heavy snow fall over in Denver. But 60 miles down the road we had bright sunshine. That's Colorado weather for you...



Once again I was with Birthe on the road. As you can see on this picture she tried really hard to preserve the natural beauty of this monument. Well at least up to the moment they were puring concrete underneath the rock :-)




Knowing to have done the good thing for the day we finished our journey through this strange looking red stones.

Next time I am back it will be around 100 F (38 C) and I am sure there will be no snowflake whats so ever ;-)

Engagement

Wow... things are moving fast over here! A few month back my flatemate met his girlfriend at this BBQ. I still claim that I had to drag him to that by the way. And what happened at that weekend? He fell to his knees and was passing on the ring. Well... that's how it goes I guess. If everything is moving as planned we might have even a wedding this summer over here. Would be great to be on an American wedding after seeing three of my Irish friends getting married ;-)

So best of luck from the good old Ekkster! I am really looking forward to the party!!!

And I am sorry if I have to disappoint anybody hoping that I am getting married by just reading the headline. Better luck next time ;-)