The Red Ox: Boiled beef with a side order of shame...

One of the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) things about living right in the Heidelberg "Altstadt" is the plethora of fantastic restaurants. Pretty much any kind of food you like, you can find it in the Altstadt. Over the past couple years we've tried quite a few of them and have seldom been disappointed. Believe it or not, the ones we usually avoid are the German restaurants. I do like German food occasionally but it's so unhealthy that I usually avoid it. Germany is a meat and potatoes country for sure; unfortunately, the preferred meat is usually pork or sausage and the preferred potatoes are usually french fries (pommes). Seriously, it seems like every German restaurant serves pommes as a side dish.

Yesterday we were taking our afternoon walk, looking for a place for lunch. I decided to try someplace new but nothing was seeming all that appealing so we just kept walking and eventually were up near the castle where I spied the "Roten Ochsen" (Red Ox). The Red Ox is a Heidelberg institution, very historic and famous. Several celebrities have eaten there over the years such as Ernest Hemingway and John Wayne. I'd heard all about it but several people have told me that it's gotten so touristy over the years that it's lost its luster. I've looked over the menu a few times and found the usual German fare, so all of these things together have prevented me from ever stepping foot inside...until yesterday that is.

I looked at the menu yesterday and saw a few things that looked appealing so I told the wife we might as well try it once before we leave, if only to say that we've been there. The moment we walked in, I fell in love with the place. As I sat down and took in the ambiance, I immediately felt great shame that I have been living here over two years and had never tried it before. It is about as old-time as any place I've ever eaten, the walls are covered with memorabilia and old photographs. There are ox horns hanging from the ceiling and old style beer steins everywhere. Believe it or not, the place goes back to the year 1703. And the menu! Sure there were the usual suspects - bratwurst and saurkraut, schnitzel, etc. - but there was a good selection of other stuff such as deer steak and sauerbraten. I could not decide between the boiled beef with horseradish sauce and pumpkin or the grilled turkey steak with mushroom gravy so I got the beef, the wife got the turkey and we shared. The bolied beef dish was so amazingly delicious that I started thinking that maybe I didn't want to share after all! But, since sacrifice and compromise are paramount to any marriage, I held true to my word and switched plates with the wife halfway through. And damn if the turkey steak with the mushroom gravy wasn't every bit as tasty as the beef dish. I was just floored at how good the food was, I cannot remember enjoying a meal so much in a long time.

With only a few weeks left here, I am ruing the fact that I have only just now discovered the Red Ox. We'll definitely eat there again at least a couple times before we leave. Here's their website: Roten Ochsen if you'd like to check it out.

And here's a few photos from our lunch yesterday, click on the pic to enlarge...

I love being a Red Sox fan.

I wake up this morning at 0445 and turn on the TV hoping to find my beloved Red Sox ahead in game 5. To my dismay, they were losing 7-0 in the bottom of the 7th inning. I was so disgusted that I changed the channel. A few minutes later I thought to myself "Well, it's the last time I'll get to watch them this year so I might as well torture myself" and put the game back on. Shortly after, the Red Sox scored a run and I thought to myself "Well, at least they didn't get shut out". I got up to go make my morning espresso as Big Papi strolled to the plate with two men on base. I put the mokka on the stove and went back into the living room just in time to hear the announcer saying "and just like that, it's a 3 run game!". I was unimpressed as I figured it was too little, too late. But at least they had made it close. I continued to watch.

One inning later they tied the game on a JD Drew home run and a Coco Crisp single. I was excited.

One inning after that, in the bottom of the 9th, they won the game on a JD Drew single. They were down 7-0 with a mere 7 outs left in their season and somehow, someway, they pulled it out. They now go to Tampa Bay for game 6 and if they win that, they will play game 7. If they win that, they will go to the World Series. Yesterday at this time, they were down 3 games to 1, looking horrible, and my boss (who is from Tampa) was relentlessly rubbing it in. They still have to win two more games on the road against a very good team but at least there is a "Ray" of hope (pun intended)...

I love being a Red Sox fan. And I have developed a severe man-crush on JD Drew.

"Nightmare on Elm Street der Hauptstrasse"

So I met Freddie Krueger at the Herbstfest a few weeks ago...

Some good news for a change...

Just introduced the landlord to a guy who really wants to move in here after we move out and after some extensive grilling, a urinalysis test, and a body cavity search, they finally agreed to allow him in. They wanted him to put down his first born as collateral but as he is 54 years old and single, they were forced to settle on his right pinky finger. He is very excited and I am very relieved as the first hurdle has been successfully navigated. I have to wait until we get the work visas before I know exactly what day we'll be moving out but my guess is somewhere around the first or second week of November. At least that's what I'm shooting for.

In the meantime, I'll try to post some pics of our place in the next day or so...

Update on the Italy move

OK, here's the deal. My tentative start date in Italy is November 9th. It's tentative because it is dependent on us getting the proper documents first and that is no small task. When you work in Italy as a civilian, there are a lot of document/visa issues you have to wade through before you even step foot in the country. I'm not sure if we're going to make the November 9th date or not but it's looking pretty good at this point. The only other trained, experienced guy at work took another job as well and left a couple days ago so my workload just doubled, right at the time that I am trying to start all my outprocessing, making things even more difficult. I have several issues here to deal with before we leave which are making things hard and on top of everything, my drivers license got suspended for two months due to a speeding ticket back in April which is making things nigh impossible to manage. I'm trying to take things one day at a time so I don't get too stressed out. Don't want that aneurysm coming back, lol...

The main thing right now is that I had to agree to a 3 month termination notice when we moved in here. At the time it was the only thing standing between us and the palace we currently live in so it seemed like a small concession to make. Now however, it is extremely problematic because of the Draconian laws in this country. I gave notice yesterday but it doesn't take affect until the end of the month. That means that I am technically on the hook for the rent until the end of January. My LQA (living quarters allowance) will be stopped once we clear the house, which could be by the end of October. If that happens, that means I pay three months rent and utilities out of my own pocket - to the tune of about $3,000 a month. OUCH. The only way the landlord will let me out of the lease early is if I am able to find someone to move in before we leave. I'm hoping this shouldn't be too difficult because anyone who has seen this place knows how amazing it is - it sells itself. Sure enough, I have showed it to one guy so far and within 2 minutes of walking in, he declared that he wants it bad. But, in keeping with my "things are never easy" theme, the landlord has to personally approve of the person(s) first. So I've been coaching the guy on how to talk and act when he meets Herr Klinge.

Anyway, that's pretty much where we are. I'm actually starting to get really sad at the thought of leaving this place, Heidelberg has been very good to us. I can't imagine a better place to live - the only bad thing about it is that, well, it's not Italy!

Steve-O and the X Man at the Herbstfest

The X Man's kung fu is stronger than yours.

The X Man's new favorite movie is Kung Fu Panda and it has inspired him to become a Kung Fu Master. Here, he shows off some of his moves...I think this is Shaolin Style...

Luca and the X Man

I'm back baby...

Well, I am back from my 1 week in the States at Scott AFB, right outside of St. Louis and I gotta tell you - while I still think the US is the best country in the world, I am not missing living in the US at all. It's kind of ironic that just about the time that Michelle Obama is finally proud of her country, I am starting lose my pride in it.

Rude, overweight, ignorant, self-important people seem to be the norm now. It saddens me. What happened to the country I grew up in?

Have I just been in Europe too long?

We interupt this regularly scheduled blog...

I'm leaving in about 3 hours for the airport, flying to beautiful, sunny...St. Louis. I'll be there for one week for work, returning next weekend. With our impending move back to paradise Italy, this stupid conference comes at a bad time as I should be spending my time getting things ready for the move but I'll just have to bite my lower lip and get through it.

See everyone next week...

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? SI!

Some of my hardcore readers may recall how I was unbelievably screwed out of my old job in Italy over two years ago. You may recall how devastated I was and how I have spent the past two and a half years here trying desperately to get back down there somehow, someway, with no luck.

Well it has finally happened. We are going home.

They had posted my old job way back in June, I applied and was notified that I made the referral list in mid July but have been on pins and needles since then waiting to hear if I would get selected or get screwed again. This was my last chance. If I had not gotten selected this time, the dream would be over and I would accept the fact that we would never return to the land that we love so much. In the past few weeks I had heard whispers that I had a good chance of getting selected but I would not allow myself to get my hopes up because I could not take the heartbreak of getting passed over yet again. So imagine my excitement and pure, unadulterated joy when I got the phone call this morning informing me that I have been selected for the position! The impossible dream has come true! I have a ton of paperwork and documents to do before we go back but if all goes well we should be back in paradise sometime in November.

You cannot possibly imagine how excited I am. You think you can imagine but trust me, you can't. In the coming days and weeks I'll be posting more updates on Italy but for now I am celebrating with a silky smooth Barbera d'Alba and some Grana Padano. The wife and the X Man are excited as well as the X Man will be starting in the Italian school when we get there. Giampietro has already told us that he plans on taking the X Man to school each day.

Life is good...and about to get so much better!

Some pics from Luca's first trip to Italy

Luca meets Giampietro, Agnese, Monica, Luca and another Luca...

We're back from Italy.

Yay.

Guess where we're going tomorrow...

We're taking off right after work, staying in the Austrian Alps tomorrow night and should arrive in paradise (aka Italia) sometime Saturday morning. As usual I plan on doing some fly fishing on the Brenta River in Bassano dal Grappa, eating plenty of pizza, pasta and panini, drinking plenty of vino buono, visiting all of nostra amici (our good friends), spending a day in Venezia visiting with our Venetian friends Denise, Theresa and Michelangelo, and of course watching a lot of calcio (soccer). We'll be staying with Giampietro and Agnese's house and you cannot imagine how anxious and excited they are to meet little Luca.

I'm so excited to get there that I'm already dreading having to return to Germany.

Luca is Baptised.

This past Friday we did Luca's baptism at the base chapel. In a strange coincidence, the Chaplain who did the X Man's baptism 4 years ago happens to be stationed here now so we had him do Luca's as well. Virginia's best friend from back home, Bhing, and her husband Toni are Luca's godparents - Toni is a German from the city of Darmstadt which is only about 30 minutes away and they were here with their 2 kids visiting his family so we took advantage of the opportunity to do the ceremony while they were here. Of course, the real party was afterwards, we had a huge reception at our house. Virginia had been really wanting to do a big party with tons of food and man did we ever. Bhing came over the day before and they cooked all day, then they cooked all the next day and were joined by another Filipina friend of Virginia's named Fely and later on by two more Filipina friends of Fely. When we got back from the church, there were two more Filipinas in the kitchen that I didn't even know. I've never seen so much food in one place but it's just as well as we had probably around 50 people over plus a dozen or so kids. Since I knew there would be plenty of kids, I bought a pinata and hung it up on our terrace and it was a huge hit. Overall, it was a fantastic night, one of the best we've had since we came to Germany. Here are some pics (the last picture is Bhing and Toni)...

Sarah Palin

Seriously, I don't care what anybody says...this woman is HAWT.

Couple new pics

I am one in a milliion 108.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 108 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

If they included Canada, this number would probably increase tenfold. And when I use "Rik" instead of my full name (Richard), it says I am the only one in the US!

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: Sports

I could actually dedicate a month's worth of posts dedicated to sports in the 80's. I grew up an avowed sports junkie and about the only sport I never got into in the 80's was of course car racing. Boston was a great place to be for sports fans in the 80's. It started with the Miracle on Ice in 1980 which had a heavy Boston tilt to it. My mother, for some inexplicable reason, became a huge Celtics fan in the early 80's and I really got spoiled growing up watching the Big 2 (Bird, McHale, Parish) and all the great Celtics teams of the 80's. We got a flicker of success in the mid 80's with the Patriots before it all came crashing down. I cried in 1986 when the ball went through Buckner's legs. Thankfully, the hated Yankees didn't win a World Series title in the 80's either. But I think what I miss most is watching the Bruins teams they had in the 80's. They never won the Stanley Cup but they had some great characters, guys like Rick Middleton, Brad Park, Gord Kluzak, Mike Milbury.

As far as playing, we played everything in the 80's. I played little league baseball, youth league basketball and soccer and spent the winters playing pick up hockey on the frozen ponds around our town, usually with our neighbors the Roys who were from Canada (and yes, the youngest son was named Patrick).

One memory that sticks out in my mind was somewhere around 1981, my father had taken us to Boston for the day and we were having lunch in the North End, which is the Italian section of Boston and has some amazing pizza. So we're in the pizzeria and I look over and in one of the booths is a guy who looks just like Larry Bird. I tell my father and of course, he's not a sports fan so he says "Go over and ask him". At first I was shy but I was such a huge fan that eventually I did go over and ask "Excuse me...are you Larry Bird?" The guy gave me a nervous laugh and said "No, sorry, I'm not". So I was disappointed but when I got home that night I looked in the paper and they did have a home game that day...and the guy was with a woman and young girl and Larry did have a wife and young daughter...so I've always preferred to think that he really was Larry Legend and that he just didn't want to be recognized.

Anyway, I could on forever about being a sports fan in Boston in the 80's but luckily for me, WBZ-TV did it for me. I remember seeing this on TV at the close of the decade and was lucky enough to find it online a while back...



Every clip in that video is a memory...

STEVE-O COMETH!

Steve-O needs no introduction on my blog, but if you need a reminder, read this old post. As I've written before, the thing I look forward to most every year is Steve-O's annual visit. But life is about to get a lot better: Steve-O recently got a job in Karlsruhe, which is only about about 30 minutes away from Heidelberg. He arrives this weekend to begin his new life in Germany and I cannot tell you how excited I am about it. I foresee many road trips, movie and TV quotes, pints of Guinness and an endless supply of quips, stories and laughs in my future...

I could not stop laughing at this...

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: Forgotten Songs

We all know that the 80's had some great music. The past few years, 80's music has been making a comeback - everybody knows all the well known songs but there were a lot of great songs that a lot of people have forgotten and that's a shame. With that in mind, I thought I'd try to list some of the songs that I loved in the 80's despite them not being very popular, not getting a lot of airplay, or not having reached very high on the charts. Some of them are one-hit wonders, some of them are follow-ups to smash hits, and some actually were hits but don't get played much anymore. Some of them I liked mostly because the song's video was cool or maybe because they make me remember a particular memory. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them and feel free to recommend any I might have missed...

Queen Of Hearts ~ Juice Newton
I Love You ~ Climax Blues Band (One of my two favorite songs of all time)
I’ve Done Everything For You ~Rick Springfield (I had this 45)
Don’t Talk To Strangers ~ Rick Springfield
Pop Goes the World ~ Men Without Hats
One in a Million ~ The Romantics (Great 80's video)
When You Close Your Eyes ~ Night Ranger
You Got Lucky ~ Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
In a Big Country ~ Big Country
Space Age Love Song ~ Flock of Seagulls
I Do ~ J. Geils Band
I Don’t Wanna Dance ~ Eddie Grant
Don’t Answer Me ~ Alan Parsons Project
Leather and Lace ~ Stevie Nicks and Don Henley
Stop Dragging My Heart Around ~ Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty
You Should Hear How She Talks About You ~ Melissa Manchester (Great Youtube clip of her singing this on Solid Gold)
Somebody’s Baby ~ Jackson Brown
Leader of the Band ~ Dan Fogelberg
Vacation ~ The Go-Go's
Break it to me gently ~ Juice Newton
One Hundred Ways ~ James Ingram
Southern Cross ~ Crosby, Stills and Nash
Only Time Will Tell ~ Asia
Love me tomorrow ~ Chicago
Bobbie Sue ~ Oak Ridge Boys
Do You Wanna Touch Me ~ Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
Fantasy ~ Aldo Nova
Rumors ~ Aldo Nova
Nobody Said It Was Easy ~ Le Roux
Words ~ Missing Persons
Solitaire ~ Gloria Branigan
They Don’t Know ~ Tracey Ullman
Personally ~ Karla Banoff
Desert Moon ~ Dennis DeYoung
Major Tom ~ Peter Schilling
Rock Me Tonight ~ Billy Squier
Give it Up ~ KC
So Bad ~ Paul McCartney
Run Runaway ~ Slade
My Oh My ~ Slade
No Way Out ~ Starship
The Curly Shuffle ~ Jump 'n the Saddle
Catch me I’m falling ~ Real Life (If you want to see what the 80's looked like, watch this video)
All I Need ~ Jack Wagner (He of General Hospital fame...)
Lovergirl ~ Teena Marie (Takes me back to fishing in Brickyard Brook for some reason)
Obsession ~ Animotion
The Search Is Over ~ Survivor
Heart and Soul ~ T'Pau
Sleeping Bag ~ ZZ Top
Party All the Time ~ Eddie Murphy
Think She Likes Me ~ Treat Her Right
Burning Flame ~ Vitamin Z
Secret Separation ~ The Fixx (Saw these guys in concert with the Moody Blues in '86)
She Sells Sanctuary ~ The Cult
Calling on You ~ Stryper (Saw these guys in concert too...twice!)
Electric Blue ~ Icehouse
King Of Rock ~ Run DMC
Lovin Every Minute of it ~ Loverboy
Cry ~ Godley and Creme
Kayleigh ~ Marillion
Tender Years ~ John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band (Eddie and the Cruisers, 80's classic)
I Wonder If I Take You Home ~ Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
Someday ~ Glass Tiger (Only in an 80's video would a dude wear a pink shirt and a maroon beret)
If You Leave ~ OMD
Tuff Enuff ~ The Fabulous Thunderbirds
Beat’s So Lonely ~ Charlie Sexton
The Captain of her Heart ~ Double
I Might Lie ~ Andy Taylor (Duran Duran pretty boy turns into hard rocker)
At This Moment ~ Billy Vera and the Beaters (Every time I hear this song, it reminds me of the Family Ties episode where Ellen breaks up with Alex)
You Got It All ~ The Jets
Take It Easy ~ Andy Taylor (Another great 80's movie - American Anthem)
Meet Me Halfway ~ Kenny Loggins (Great 80's song from a great 80's movie - Over the Top)
Since You’ve Been Gone ~ The Outfield (Very underrated 80's band, their first album was one of my favorites)
Naughty Girls Need Love ~ Samantha Fox
I Want To Be Your Man ~ Roger
I Want Her ~ Keith Sweat
Oak Tree ~ Morris Day and the Time (Remember the Oak Tree dance that went along with it?)
Girl I’m Gonna Miss You ~ Milli Vanilli (I don't care what anybody says, I liked their music)

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: Boston Bands

One thing I remember about the 80's was a couple local bands: Jon Butcher Axis and The Stompers. As far as I know, neither of them hit it big outside Boston and pretty much made a living playing clubs in and around the Boston area. I listened mostly to rock stations back then and their shows were always being advertised. Occasionally they would have a hit that would get a lot of airplay on the radio. JBA in particular I really liked as he was a his songs had a lot of energy and blazing guitars. My favorite song of his was called "Don't Say Goodnight" and I recently found it on Youtube, although it's actually just a homemade video that someone posted but the song sounds as good as ever:



The Stompers were also a local institution in Boston. They had a little more commercial success than JBA did but were still pretty much resigned to local clubs and venues. One thing I remember about the Stompers is that they had a couple videos that got a lot of airplay on Boston's local video channel called V66 (People who grew up around Boston in the 80's will remember V66!) Their biggest hit was called "Never Tell an Angel" and it's extremely catchy. They have a live version of it on Youtube but you can hear the actual version on, of places, their Myspace page:

The Stompers Myspace

I remember 'em like it was yesterday...

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: BLASPHEMY!

One American Olympic athlete that I will NOT be rooting for at the Beijing games is wrestler Ben Askrin. Mr. Askrin has seen fit to denigrate one of the greatest 80's movies of all time: Vision Quest. But he didn't stop there - he also took a veiled shot at the 80's in general. Here's what he said:

"'Vision Quest' is a terrible, terrible movie," Askren says during a deep-thoughts session from his room in the Olympic Village. "It's just so stereotypical and '80s."

Let me tell you something Ben Askrin. You may be competing at the Olympics...but you, my friend, are no Louden Swain.

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: Random 80's memory

It was spring of 1986, I was a freshman at Alvirne High School. I had a class called Communications that was supposed to teach us how to communicate in various venues such as speech giving, debating, interviews, etc. My teacher was a strict, old, school-marm type woman named Mrs. Pryor who dressed like it was 1886 and used to say stuff like "why are you tardy?" when you would come in late.

On this particular day, our assignment was to split up into groups and give an informational speech on a major current event - the US bombing of Libya. We broke up into our groups with our newspapers - since we were supposed to cite sources - and prepared our speeches. We had a nerdy little guy in our group named Jason Weatherbee and he and I were talking about the bombing as we wrote our notes and he was telling me some of the stuff he had heard in the news and such and one of the things he told me was that he'd heard that, although France had refused to allow the Americans to fly over their country on their way to Libya, they were actually secretly in favor of the bombing action.

So one by one we got up and gave our news speeches and eventually it came to be my turn. I got up and started droning on and on about stuff I'd read, but I was having trouble trying to fill my alloted time. So I figured I'd impress the class and Mrs. Pryor (and get a higher grade) by giving them some "inside information". Here's how it went:

Me: The news is reporting that a lot of countries in Europe were against the bombing but I've just learned that even though France said they were against it and would not let the US jets fly over their country, they were secretly in favor of it and supported the action...

Mrs. Pryor: That is quite an astonishing assertion. Would you please provide us with a source for your information?

Me: Jason Weatherbee told me.

Needless to say, Mrs. Pryor was not impressed. But hey, I was 14, how was I supposed to know that Jason Weatherbee was not an acceptable source?! I think I ended up with a C...and a severe tongue lashing from Mrs. Pryor.

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: 1984

Speaking of 80's movies...

Almost forgot about this post

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: Reliving the teen movies

Thought it might be appropriate to a couple of my older posts, given the topic...

My favorite 80's Teen Movie

The Wonder of the 80's Teen Movies

Have at it!

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: Classic videos

Let's see...

Mullets? Check.
Members Only jackets? Check.
Parachute pants? Check.
Heather Locklear lookalike model? Check.

Survivor is definitely in the pantheon of 80's bands. It's a real shame that people only remember them for the Rocky themes, they had so many other great songs. The "Risky Business" tribute near the end of this video is an especially nice touch...

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: The (probably incomplete) list of my favorite 80's TV shows

I'm sure I will miss some but here goes, in no particular order:

Cosby Show
Family Ties
The A Team
Diff'rent Strokes
Silver Spoons
Cheers
Greatest American Hero
The Young Ones
Spencer: For Hire
Hunter
Moonlighting
Night Court
Three's Company
Growing Pains
Gimme a Break
Bosom Buddies
ALF
Facts of Life
My Two Dads
Who's the Boss
Happy Days
The Hogan Family
Just the 10 of Us
Real People
Too Close for Comfort
Webster
It's Your Move

And as an added bonus, check out this wicked awesome 80's TV show trivia

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: Random 80's photo of me

This is me sometime in 1987, complete with mullet. And if you're wondering why my hair looks sort of orange, it's because one day during the summer my brother came home with this revolutionary new product called "Sun-in". You wet your hair, spray in a bunch of Sun-in and then go lay out in the sun and it's supposed to turn your hair blond...or so we thought. It didn't seem to work the first time so we tried again. And again. And again. Eventually my hair turned a sort of tan/orange color. That's the kind of thing we did in the 80's.

Rik's Blog, 80's Edition: Forever Young

Let's start things off right - this is the song that ignited my 80's nostalgia kick. A few weeks ago I watched a movie called "The Lather Effect". I was keen to watch it as it is about a bunch of people who graduated high school in 1988 (I was class of 1989) and takes place present day, they are having sort of a reunion weekend, so I anticipated a lot of 80's memories. I was disappointed in the movie but there's a moment near the end when the lead female character is on her bed looking at her old photos and memories from high school and as she does so, the song "Forever Young" by the obscure band Alphaville is quietly playing in the background. Well, I gotta tell you, I have not heard that song in forever and as I heard it I was instantly whisked back to the 80's. I quickly found the video on Youtube and have watched it constantly for the past week or two (much to the wife's chagrin). It has been quite a while since a song struck such an 80's chord with me but I've listened to this song about 500 times in the past few weeks and each time old memories of high school come rushing back.

Rik's Blog: The 80's Edition

For some strange reason, I have been on a tremendous nostalgic kick lately for all things 80's. For this reason, I've decided that until further notice, all posts on the blog will be 80's related. I have no idea how it'll be structured so I'm just going to write about 80's stuff as it pops into my head - I may even make several posts in the same day, who knows. As always, suggestions are welcomed but no guarantee that they will be heeded. Before we start, a quick introduction:

I am an unabashed child of the 80's. I was born in the early 70's which meant all of my formative years were spent in the years 1980-1990. It's where it all happened for me. We had it all - the best music, the fashion, the best movies, the best tv shows, the best of everything. So sit back and reminisce with me as I relive some of the happiest days of my life...

Luca is 3 months old

I have been tagged by Grace.

Despite being in the blogosphere for almost 4 years now, I have actually never been "tagged", at least not that I can remember. Being tagged is kind of a neat thing that bloggers do. It basically consists of a bunch of random questions about yourself that you answer and then pass the questions on to someone else that you know, a practice known as "tagging". Grace and her husband Mikie are really good friends of ours who live in Rotterdam. Mike is Dutch and Grace a Filipina. People who are ardent followers of this blog might remember them from My last Italy post. We really miss Mike and Grace and wish we could spend more time with them as they are really special people. But for now, here's the tag...

WHAT WAS I DOING 10 YEARS AGO?

10 years ago I had just arrived in Europe and was starting my life over at age 27. I could probably write a book about the experience...in fact I did!

WHAT ARE THE FIVE THINGS ON MY TO-DO LIST TODAY?

1. Check Red Sox score.
2. Check Olympic results.
3. Take shower.
4. Go video fishing with X Man.
5. Make Luca laugh.

SNACKS I ENJOY:

1. Grana Padano
2. Green olives
3. Fruit
4. Nuts
5. Didi

PLACES WHERE I LIVED:

1. Nashua, NH
2. Litchfield, NH
3. Rindge, NH
4. Hampton Beach, NH
5. Dover, NH
6. Hudson, NH
7. Kitzingen, Germany
8. Caldogno, Italy
9. Heidelberg, Germany

THINGS I’D DO IF I WERE A BILLIONAIRE:

1. Buy a football (soccer) team
2. Season tickets to the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, Bruins and AC Milan
3. Buy houses in Montana, Alaska, Hong Kong, Philippines, and Italy
4. Get back at those who have wronged me (you know who you are)
5. Hire a posse
6. Buy the Pittsburgh Pirates and make them relevant again
7. Hire a world class chef Giada DiLaurentis and Rachel Ray to go with me everywhere and make whatever kind of food I am craving
8. Become BFF's with Tom Brady
9. Buy a Mercy ship and make my brother Eric the captain
10. Buy my own sports bar, make Gino the manager and host our own radio show to rival PTI

Italians.

A humorous look at gli Italiani!

(Warning: contains a few bad words)

10 Things You (Probably) Don't Know About the X Man...

1. His favorite show is Spongebob Squarepants. He's addicted to cartoons of any kind but Spongebob is on another level with him. He once told me "Spongebob is my lovah".

2. He is Italian through and through. Despite having no Italian blood in him, he was born and spent the first 3 years of his life there and it shows; pasta and pizza are his favorite foods. When we go back to Italy, the first thing he asks for is "pasta Angie" (pasta prepared by our neighbor Agnese). He also has to have olive oil and balsamic vinegar on pretty much everything he eats.

3. AC Milan is his favorite "calcio" (soccer) team. I bought him an AC Milan jersey with "Pato" on the back and it is by far his favorite piece of clothing. Everyday when he gets dressed he asks if he can wear his Milan shirt. If he could, he would wear it every single day. He wears it so much that the Italians at the local gelateria have started calling him Pato.

4. He's scared of...well, pretty much everything. Seriously, this kids is the biggest wuss I've ever seen in my life. He's scared of flies and flips out when one comes near him. He's terrified of bees. He won't sleep with his nightlight, he has to have his bedroom light on. He's scared of dogs. He's scared of the elevator. Seems like everyday we discover something new that he's afraid of.

5. He has no style. He recently had his haircut and I was telling him how cool he looks. Then I told him that next we should shave all of his hair off. The wife said that he should get a mohawk. His reply was "Daddy, I want a mullet".

6. He loves to draw. He obviously gets this from the wife. One of his favorite activities is drawing, coloring and painting. And he's actually got some talent for a 4 year old.

7. He's also in love with The Transformers. He's got a few Transformer toys and carries them with him everywhere. He constantly sings the theme song of the old cartoon (More than meets the eye...robots in disguise!). Of course, he won't watch them by himself because he's too scared of Megatron.

8. He loves board games. Last year I bought him the game Trouble and all he wanted to do was play it. I bought him Operation, same thing. A few months ago he developed an obsession with checkers and chess; he doesn't know how to play but no matter, he makes up his own rules. Lately he's been dragging out Life, setting it up on the living room floor and making up his own rules to that. He's also been bugging me to play Monopoly. I'm trying to take advantage by looking for educational games.

9. He is fussy eater. This is a constant source of frustration for the wife and I. He will not drink milk so we try to make him eat a lot of cheese and yogurt for calcium and protein. He will only drink water or certain kinds of juice. Anytime we eat, we constantly yell at him to eat or else he will just sit and play or talk. He usually is still at the table an hour after we're finished. And his favorite ploy is to whine and complain that his tummy hurts so won't have to eat anymore after a few bites. The wife is always worried because he's so skinny but I tell her I'm not worried because he has an endless supply of energy. And besides, at least he's not obese like many American kids are these days.

10. He currently has a Kung Fu Panda obsession. I took him to see it in the theater a few weeks ago and he laughed all the way through it. He sometimes mimics the Kung Fu Panda's karate moves in the pub and asks me every day when the DVD is coming out so we can buy it.

And a bonus one...

11. He's very musical. He loves music of all kinds and remembers the words to a lot of the songs he hears - his current favorite is "Rock Star" by Nickelback. He likes to sing to his little brother sometimes. The people at the pub sometimes play songs that he knows just to hear him sing and watch him play his air guitar. He also loves hip hop; I know this because the other day he asked me "Daddy, is the black one the coolest one because he makes cool music?" I was a bit confused so I asked what he meant and he replied "You know, the black one, the one that says 'yo'...is he the best cause he makes cool music?". So yeah, he likes hip hop.

Random picture.

Eating bulgogi at the local Korean restaurant sometime last year. The name of the restaurant is "Mr. Whang". Seriously.

10 Things I miss about living in the US

1. The Boston Globe sports section

2. Barnes and Noble

3. Watching a movie when it first comes out in the theater

4. Fenway Park

5. Customer service

6. Commercials

7. Pizza delivery

8. Buying something - anything - at 3 AM

9. 157 Channels

10. Batting cages

I shoulda punched him...

If you read this blog regularly then you know that our favorite hangout is our local pub, The Dubliner. I don't have German TV so I usually go down there anytime I want to watch a soccer or rugby match. Pub culture in Europe is much different in Europe than it is in the States. In the US, a pub is little more than a place for adults to go and drink. In Europe, a pub is more of a social gathering place and it's common during the day to see entire families in there enjoying themselves. For us, nearly all of our local friends were met at the Dub. We are such good customers that the owner and staff have taken to us and they have practically adopted the X Man. He absolutely loves going to the pub; it's almost like a playground for him as he plays checkers and other games they have there and there are a few regulars who take him out to play soccer in the street or build little houses with the coasters while I watch the matches. One of the waitresses has a son about his age and occasionally he comes in and the two play together. Another thing that often happens is, because he is such a ham and so comfortable at the Dub, people in the pub will end up playing with him. It happens a lot, strangers fall in love with him and tell us on the way out how adorable he is, etc. It also works well to give the wife a break since she's always exhausted from caring for the baby AND the X Man.

So...

Saturday afternoon there was a match I really wanted to see so we went down to the Dub. As soon as we walked in, the X Man ran up to the bar, climbed up on the stool and asked for the dice game that they had as I settled in to my table. There were three American guys sitting at the bar next to him. They were obviously tourists as they were dressed like tourists and were a little too "hefty" to be military. The one next to him started playing the dice game with him which I didn't think much of, as it happens often. They seemed to take to him and spent about an hour playing with him and laughing at his antics. My friend Rainer had joined me as the match had started and after about an hour, the three guys got up to leave. As they did, they came over to my table and the one on the end who was playing with the X Man said "Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt..." and of course my first thought was that he was about to tell me how cute the X Man was, yada yada. Instead, he says this:

"Well, first of all, whose little boy is that?"

"He's mine"

"I'm going to tell you something - your poor son is STARVING for attention..."

Now I'm thinking to myself "What is he, some kind of child psychologist, where is he going with this?"

"And the fact that you're taking him to the pub and letting him play with a complete stranger at a bar tells me that you are not giving him the attention he needs...I've got kids at home and I-..."

"OK, thank you, good bye now. Thank you, GOODBYE""

"And see, now you're just being a complete prick."

Such anger welled up inside of me but the X Man was sitting right next to me so I kept my cool, shot him a look, and just calmly responded again, "OK, thank you...goodbye" everytime he tried to say something else. He got the hint that his comments were not welcome and they all left, leaving a few rude comments on the way out.

I sat there stunned that someone could come to such asinine conclusions about my family life after spending an hour playing with my kid. I was so angry, I wanted to follow him out to the street and deck him but Rainer calmed me down and told me I did the right thing. I guess so...

But I really wish I woulda punched him.

A day in the life of Rik and Gino

GINO: The talk about corona makes me remember a time I was with my detachment in Honduras. We drank Cerveza Nacional that looked exactly like the corona bottle. (they are now out of business). Anyway, it was returnable bottles of course and the local distributors would take back the bottles, sterilize them and refill. So one day at lunch I'm drinking my beer and there's a huge black spider floating inside the bottle. He must be 1/2 inch in diameter and he's completely intact and just sort of hovering right behind the Nacional logo. I'm debating whether to finish it or not and my commo sergeant goes "Jefe, we've got to bottle plastic spiders inside of the beer and import it...college kids would buy those like crazy" I told him he was nuts, dumped out the beer and grabbed another one...two years later everybody in the effing world is sticking lime slices in cheap ass mexican Corona beer. I think I missed making my million dollars on that one.

ME: Yeah, because plastic spiders are the same as limes...

GINO: Jerk.

All Hail...

We made pizza

Another of our favorite little family activities is to make pizza. Our supplies are limited so we buy a couple of boboli pizza crust things, some sauce, a few toppings, and we make our pizza. The X Man likes to put the toppings on but he hasn't quite figured out how to spread the toppings evenly so we usually have to help him we'll end up with one giant clump of tomato sauce and one giant clump of cheese. I've often lamented that it is impossible to get a good pizza here in Germany, even in the Italian restaurants. The funniest thing is that the pizza we make at home is the closest we've come to Italia...

The X Man goes fishing

They have a little pond owned by the Army up in Baumholder (30 minutes north of Ramstein) that they stock with trout for people to fish in so I decided to take the X Man for his first ever fishing trip. It was a rousing success. He caught one nice rainbow trout and several little carp (or as he calls them, "carpenters"). He had a blast and I enjoyed the experience of taking my son fishing for the first time immensely. We will go back for sure. I landed a monster rainbow as well so we took both trout home and the wife cooked them up and served them with a nice side salad and a lovely chardonnay. The X Man, fussy eater that he is, would not eat the fish so he had mac and cheese instead.

Here are some pictures from our excursion. Click on them to embiggen...







You can't buy worms for bait in Germany as the Germans consider it cruelty to animals so we used corn instead. One guy there had powerbait and caught his limit in about 20 minutes so I might just have to order some of that stuff for next time...

The Mullett is alive and well in Germany

Got behind this guy in line at the local beerfest a couple weeks ago...

Semantics.

More Renaissance humor...

"Michelangelo's famous statue, David, returns to Italy this week after a very successful 12-week, 20-city tour in the United States .

Sponsored by McDonalds."





(h/t to Steve-O Lester)

A little Renaissance humor...

LOS MORMONES!

My brother Eric used to live and work in Puerto Rico. While there, he dated a local girl and the stories he tells of her sometimes leave us shaking our heads in laughter, such as the time she was trying to remember the word "alligator" and said "How do you say...big lizard...a-gu-lator!"

Where we live is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe and we live right on the Hauptstrasse (main street) which is a pedestrian only street that goes right through the heart of the historic Altstadt (old town) of Heidelberg. The Hauptstrasse is always extremely crowded with tourists, locals, street performers and all manner of freaks you can imagine. There are a lot of religious groups as well such as Jehovah Witnesses, Hare Krishnas and the ubiquitous Mormons. You can spot the Mormons a mile away, they are young men with dark slacks, white shirts and dark ties with name tags over their left pocket.

Last time Eric visited he saw the Mormons and told a funny story of one time when he and his girlfriend in Puerto Rico were walking somewhere and as they passed by a couple of Mormons she got a scared look on her face and in a terrified voice exclaimed to him "Los Mormones!" as if she had seen El Diablo himself. I still laugh at that story and now every time Virginia and I are on the Hauptstrasse and we see the Mormons I get a pseudo-terrified look on my face and exclaim "Los Mormones!".

So yesterday we enjoyed a day around town which ended with us sitting outside the Dubliner with some friends enjoying the sun and a few glasses of vino. Eventually we left and headed down the crowded Hauptstrasse for home, ...and wouldn't you know it, halfway home there was a bunch of Mormons who had set up a makeshift choir right on the Hauptstrasse. About 20 if them were singing in the choir for people who were stopped to watch and listen while a couple others were passing out flyers or literature to passers-by. The vino had put me in a fun, frisky mood so as we passed by the choir, my face adopted a slight look of fear and I loudly exclaimed "Los Mormones!" which drew a smattering of chuckles from the people watching. No sooner had I said it when one of them appeared in front of me trying to hand me some literature. Without missing a beat my face adopted a full on look of fear as I repeated the cry..."Los Mormones!" And then, as if something out of a horror movie, a second Mormon jumped in front of me pushing some kind of literature in front of my face, which by this time had taken on a look of full-fledged terror; I pointed to his name tag and loudly shrieked "LOS MORMONES!!!!!" Half the people there were now laughing out loud while the other half was trying to figure out what was going on. I can only hope that some unknowing tourist recorded it and it will someday end up on Youtube. Never a dull moment on the Hauptstrasse...

BEWARE LOS MORMONES!

Soup's on!

Who's hungry?

"Get it off me!"

My first date...

...was with a girl named Meredith Durkee. I was 15 (I was a late bloomer) which meant that her mom had to drop her off at the movie theater and pick her up afterwards. We had dinner at the Chinese restaurant next to the theater called The Haluwa. Afterwards we saw "Soul Man" starring 80's icon Thomas C. Howell.

It was a pretty uneventful evening, nothing exciting happened and I didn't even get a goodnight kiss. About the only detail I can actually remember from the night was the fortune that I got in my fortune cookie:

"Go after what you want...there's no better time than the present."

Strange, the things you remember.

Kitchen Nightmares Dreams

It's been several years since there was a show on TV that I actually went out of my way to watch. In fact, I can't think of a single one in the past 10 years that I actually got excited each week about watching.

Until now.

For some reason I have become addicted to cooking shows lately. It started when I was in the US last autumn and the hotel cable system got the Food Network. I found myself spending most of my hotel room time with the dial alternating between the History Channel, the Discovery Channel and the Food Network. When I got back home I realized that AFN carried a few of the more popular shows from the Food Network and I started half-heartedly watching them. One such program was called Hells Kitchen and although AFN advertised it non-stop with teaser trailers, I just had no interest in checking it out. Boy I wished I had as it features an unforgiving world class chef named Gordon Ramsey.

I first became interested in some cooking show with Chef Bobby Flay and another called "$40 a Day" with Rachel Ray. I was hooked instantly. It got to the point where, when I woke up on the weekends, I would check the TV schedule to see if there were any kind of cooking shows coming on soon.

Well anyway, long story short, about a month ago AFN started showing a program called "Kitchen Nightmares" and in the past few weeks it has become my weekly addiction. Chef Gordon Ramsey is a world class chef, perhaps the best in the world. He has opened million dollar restaurants and has the magic touch like no other chef in the world has...in short, he is not just a world class chef but he is also a brilliant restauranteur, someone who knows how to make a restaurant successful. "Kitchen Nightmares" plays on all of his strengths and each episode has him spending a week at some generic restaurant that is underachieving and on the verge of bankruptcy. After a week he turns the restaurant around but never without plenty of drama, conflict and push-back from the restaurant's owner and staff.

Apparently the show is an Americanized version of the original British "Kitchen Nightmares". I know this because, as is my custom, I went to Youtube to search for clips and most of what I found were clips of the original British version. But no matter...Chef Gordon Ramsey is freaking awesome to watch, his passion for food cooked and served perfectly is just astounding and the root of plenty of entertaining clips featuring no shortage of vulgarities and demeaning diatribes against those would-be chefs that he deems not worthy of being in his kitchen.

The wife and I were talking earlier tonight and I told her that maybe she should start spending more time with the two boys in the kitchen; if, by some miracle, they don't end up being professional soccer players, maybe they could have a future as TV culinary stars...

Denmark is the happiest country in the world.

It's official: The Danes are the happiest people in the world.

Hard to believe the Italians weren't higher, seeing as how they live in paradise and all...