How I Spent Christmas

On Saturday it was boiled pig fat and chicken feet for lunch in the village. Chicken feet are ok once you get past the image of them being attached to their owners. Still not my favorite.

Sunday was a 9 hour drive to my friend's village. Up and down switchbacks,

across foot bridges,

and a raft across the river.

Then we spend Christmas Eve eating pig fat, chicken insides, and blood sausage for 3 ginormous meals. (I have no pictures of these...)

Then Christmas day was spent in the van, driving back up those switchbacks after crossing the river again.

When I finally got back to the city, my American friends had not waited for me. So the food was cold and there were hardly and mashed potatoes left. I had unreasonably gotten my hopes up that they would wait for me.

All in all, a good weekend. Just a little tired.

People gave me Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as a gift. Now I have more than I'll be able to eat in the next 10 months. I'll have to start giving some away.

Stolen

This is the poorly marked handicapped parking space from which our car was stolen. On the wet pavement at night, the blue paint was not clear. The sign was far from the car. After a night of bowling, we assumed the car was towed, but in fact, it was stolen. We're still waiting for news.

Animal House

We made rooster gumbo.

Trying to move the goats into the barn. Chipper didn't want to cross the road. We'll try again another day.

Opossum tracks. It killed two of our ducks.

Jason--World Traveller

Overlooking Heidelberg, Germany.

Bratwurst and mushrooms at a Heidelberg Christmas market.

Lucerne, Switzerland.

Innsbruck, Austria, street of giants.






















Dancing with his British girlfriend in Wien (Vienna), Austria.

Beer Drinkin' Babe

Niki at the Hofbräuhaus in Munich

Too much work

Greenhouse

We went out to a village and built a greenhouse this weekend. Here's a picture of the guys putting up the beams.

We didn't get to finish the work, because of poor planning and miscommunication, but here's a picture from when we changed the plastic on the greenhouse at our test plot last week. On the one we built in the village, we used bamboo instead of wood, so it's arched like the big greenhouse at home...

I've been out to that village several times, but never had this view of the mountains before. I guess the clouds and haze must have hidden them from view. These are the two snow capped mountains between which the Yangtse River rushes through Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Cistern Foundation

Mum and Fred helped us build a foundation for a cistern for an elementary school up in a remote village. Here's a look:

The kids helped mix the cement and gather stones for the foundation.

Actually, the kids did most of the work. It was hard to stop them once they got involved.

After we finished the work, we had a sing off with the students. The teachers kept making us sing songs, and the kids sang songs back. Then we did the hokey pokey and we turned ourselves around...

That's what it's all about.

Glass on glass

This is the final product of the stained glass class I took this semester.

Hu Tiao Xia

Mum at Tiger Leaping Gorge, doing a typical Chinese pose.

Mum and me. A local friend took this picture, so she didn't get the real background in.

It was dark and cold.

and high.

3,900+ meters high

Mum's doing well with the altitude. While we walked back from the gorge, my local friend had to run to keep up with her.

They're both enjoying the food.

hands-free

I think I ended up eating most of this pancake without using my hands.

Muus in the snow

This is Muus's second day checking out snow. I don't think she likes it as much as I do.

Halfway to Neatness

This week I had over one mile of cable installed in my datacenter. I'm another step closer to getting rid of the rats' nest of cables that my predecessor left me with.

Have a fantastic trip, Mom and Fred. Elaine, enjoy the visit! I wish I were going!

Happy thanksgiving

I've joined the blog gang; hope you don't mind.

Wish you all could have been here; maybe next year we can plan to be all together as a "welcome home" to Elaine at Thanksgiving time.

We had a great time today and will be sure to sleep well tonight.

Love to all in the Cournoyer Connection.

Nearly Real-Time Thanksgiving Photos

The Last Days of Messy Datacenters

I'm testing the "e-mail to blog" feature. If it works, you should see a picture of my messy wreck of a datacenter. Don't get used to it, I'm having it rebuilt in the next few weeks.

Chairman Sanders

Everybody wave to Uncle Mao! Then we can walk to KFC for some capitalist fried chicken.

"Everybody is on their knees, except the Russians and the Chinese."
-Elvis Costello

More Cats

The Girl guards Ezra's aphids... while Blue experiments with catnip.

Azzes Attend Wedding--Dance in a Foolish Manner

Niki looks normal, but I'm not sure what I was supposed to be doing.

QiaoQiao

Since we're posting pictures of cats and tortes, here's a couple of photos of QiaoQiao. The first one was take the day after I got her (back in June). You may be able to tell that I was pretty happy to have a kitten. The second one was taken a few weeks ago, just before I had her fixed.

Her name is QiaoQiao, but I generally just call her Kitty.

"Everybody wants to be a swingin' cat."
--Aristocats

Rooster Comb Mountain

Audrey and Ezra hiking in the Adirondacks a few weeks back.

Smelly House Guests!

The Azzes are housing some PA hobos we found out in the street.

Muus amonth or so ago.