Siberian…

is the German word for Siberia. Very topical given that at noon today the thermometer was registering –5 degrees Celsius (B said it showed –11 in Heidelberg). The diesel engine in the Family Truckster had other things on its mind than starting when B went to fire it up around 11:30. Luckily we have a strong battery (apparently rated for use in the Arctic), so after roughly 20 attempts, it roared to life. B was headed to the world-renowned Bolz Butcher Shop (Metzgerei) in Kirchheim to fetch the eats for her birthday party tomorrow. A friend had offered her house for the festivities but had to travel on short notice so we’ll celebrate B’s 34th year on this planet here at the compound with just a few friends. By the way, the food at Bolz is exceptional, but priced like Caviar (continuing with the Russian theme of this post).Luckily, the van incident reminded me that we had 3 cases of Coke sitting on our back porch, within minutes (it seemed) of freezing and exploding. Some truly useful trivia for you: Coke Zero has a different freezing point than Diet Coke with no caffeine. My acute powers of observation astound even me some times. Note to self: put booze on back porch, especially vodka.The kids don’t seem to mind the cold as it brought snow last night; just enough for them to play in. I personally couldn’t  be less motivated to leave the house. I’ve got a lot of pictures and video in the pipeline so I guess I’ll do some blogging. Some of the stuff will have to wait as my desktop computer got a wicked bug and is inaccessible (for now). Fixing computer problems is my second favorite past time. My first?  Slowly driving red hot nails through my big toes. With a passion only understood by software professionals, I can unambiguously declare that I HATE COMPUTERS!!!