Our refrigerator here is built into the cabinets so you can’t use magnets to post things up on it. So the closest replacement we have is our website. So here is Alex’s latest drawing (he does at least one drawing a day in Kindergarten here). This one is of the Easter Bunny which is suppose to be coming by the kindergarten soon. I think he’s really excited about the chocolate that the Easter Bunny brings because the chocolate here is really (and I mean really) good.

Its funny, but he hasn’t really put together the association of the Easter Bunny and Easter. He still looks to Easter as the time when Jesus Christ rose from the dead and in doing so, made it so that we can be friends with God again. I’m not one to change my child’s mind about that.

There are some movies that you walk out of and just think, “Why did they end it that way?” Well, now there is a website making the difference and redoing the endings. For me, one of the movies was Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest. So go check out the new ending as it really should have been here

Andres Taylor at Andre’s Thoughts has put together a good “Top Ten” list of things he has learned as a developer that resounded in my chest when I read them. They are so true. Here is the abbreviated list (with my comments):

1. Object orientation is much harder than you think - I remember learning programming in college only for them to tell me that the programming world was switching to OO, but they didn’t know what it was to be able to teach us.
2. The difficult part of software development is communication - Software development is a team adventure. Its not just the programmer manipulating 1’s and 0’s.
3. Learn to say no - True, so true. As with any job where you are the one that “makes it happen”. You have to be able to say “no”.
4. If everything is equally important, then nothing is important - I am always saying to project managers, bosses, customers - “What do you want done first?” If they say “Everything”, then my response is usally something like “I’m going to get some food since everything is of equal importance but food seems to have greater importance for me”
5. Don’t over-think a problem - I have spent two days working on an issue only to have my son (who is now 6 yrs old) say something really simple that shows me the solution.
6. Dive really deep into something, but don’t get hung up - I know a little of a lot but not a lot of a little.
7. Learn about the other parts of the software development machine - For me, I have always thought I was blessed to have first been in the business anaylst/project manager area before being a developer as it doest give me a different perspective when looking at the “Big Picture”
8. Your colleagues are your best teachers - One of the hardest times I had was when I was the only developer at a particular location. That’s when online forums became by best friends.
9. It all comes down to working software - Enough said!!
10. Some people are &$%# - While I’m not one to say this outloud, it’s true.

To read Andres Taylor’s comments with this Top Ten, see his blog here

- We made our first outing to the German church this morning. We understood a bit. It was on a familiar passage (the Woman at the Well) so that helped a lot. When we came out Alex said “Are we going to go back here next week?” I said, “What do you think?” He said “That’d be good”.

It was about an hour and a half service. (We were told that it usually lasts 2 hours) The music was hymns done with guitar and piano. We had hymnals to sing out of. The pastor preached, with PowerPoint, on John 4. From what we could tell he gave a very clear explanation of the gospel and was quite animated in his preaching.

Alex had a separate program beginning with all ages singing together then breaking up for individual classes. He told us they played some games and then did a craft using a cut out of Psalm 119. There was an American little girl in there who took him under her wing.

So all in all, a successful foray. There is a more “contemporary” church in another town a little further away, that we will eventually try as well.

- In Germany when you are walking down the street or enter a store you must greet people.

Here’s a funny thing we say here:

Everyone above 60 says Gruss Gott- “God’s greeting”
Everyone above 40 says Gut Morgan or Gutten Tag - “Good Morning” or “Good Day”
Everyone abov 30 says Morgan or Tag - “Morning” or “Day”
Everyone under 30 says “allo” - “Hello”

When you introduce yourself you say, “Ich heisse Roes” - My name (is) Roes… So I’m known as Frau Roes. Only good friends may call me Krista. Nobody goes by “Miss Krista”.

One of our favorite lines from the live action film “Curious George” is when the man with the yellow hat is pursuing those that have taken George and sees that they are getting away on a ship. He is in his car and says, “I’ve watched a lot of action films so I know exactly what to do”. Afterwhich he barrels down the hill in his car attempting to jump (unsuccessfully) onto the moving ship.

Being from North Carolina since before my teenage years began, I know exactly what to do when we see snow starting to fall from the sky: Go to the grocery store and buy bread and milk (which I never really understood as almost all the snow in North Carolina is melted within a day except for the mountains) and wonder when they will be announcing the closing of schools and businesses. But here is not North Carolina. They tend to do things differently. When it snows, it means people wake up a little bit earlier so that they can shovel not only their driveway but also the sidewalk (so that it is cleared for those that need to walk by your house). Then life goes on as usual. Being the only male in our apartment building, I decided I would go out and do the shoveling. I’m still feeling it in my muscles and back now. Why did we decide to live in a place that’s on the corner (hence two sides have sidewalks) and that owns an extra lot beside us (so that one side has a really long sidewalk)? Oh well, I needed the excercise.

Now that we are on day 4 of these beautiful snowflakes drifting down from heaven, its getting old. The irony is that if we go one town south or two towns west, it looks like its barely snowed there. The hills in our area have seemed to just trap the snow clouds so that they are hovering over our town and those towns deep in the Black Forest. We’ve enjoyed the snow (and snowball fights that have erupted when you have a 6 yr old boy).

I put up a few photos from our place in the Photo Album