31 posts tagged “natalya”
Here's a picture of the somewhat extended family. From left to right, in the back, there's Dixie, my mom, Stacie, my brother's wife, then Mark, my brother, then Natalya, my wife, then myself, then Bob, my dad; and then in the front row is Maddie (also known as "Madeline"), and Timothy, who just had his birthday on the 18th of January. He is 8 years old now.
It's not that the Klepzig's haven't done anything lately. It's not that I haven't had time to write. It's not that I don't have pictures, or videos. It's not that everything that I have is inappropriate for putting on my blog.
It IS that I've been lazy.
Halloween was great, Freiburg was fun, Rock Band & Guitar Hero: World Tour are fun, movies I've watched have been interesting, books I've read were thought provoking, work has been busy and not-so-busy, Facebook showed old friends popping their heads up, and Natalya has been there the whole way.
So, I'll write some more later.
We finished! I'm so glad to be done moving. Last night I went up to the old neighbors' apartment and climbed through their attic window and took down my satellite dish. That was the last thing at the old apartment. The new place is nearly set up, with pictures on the wall, even! Saturday we're having a party, even!
I said I'd have pictures, and I will...just not yet.
Do you remember your last move? I do, and it was painful. Now I am in the middle of moving once again. This time, we are just moving down the street, so it is going to be easier than ever before and probably, ever again. Does that mean it's easy? Of course not. It's moving. If you think you don't have much stuff, then moving will remind you just how much stuff that you have. If you know you have a lot of stuff (like I do), then moving is a stress that you don't want to endure.
Why are we moving? Well, it's a better place in a better location. It's on the corner. We can see the castle. It has automatic rolladen (electric shutters). It has two huge closets. It has a balcony (although it is a small balcony) and a big bathtub! One other deciding factor was our current upstairs neighbors. They are elephants that rearrange their furniture constantly. It often sounds like someone is bouncing a ball, rolling a bowling ball and doing the Riverdance in the apartment and up and down the stairs. The only good thing was we didn't feel guilty when we had loud parties. We are hoping that we won't hear our new neighbors, at least when we're in our new apartment.
I'll post some pics of our new place once we take some.
I haven't posted in a long time. Here's some nice stuff. It's all in links, except the pic of Natalya jumping but it's good!
Video of cute kids at the Barcelona zoo. They must only do these trips to the zoo once or twice a year since they have to restrain the kids with rope. Watch the video to see what I mean.
Video of Magic Fountain.
Video of Dancing Egg Fountain.
Videos of Street Musicians, one of a Hang Drum & Soprano Sax Duet, and the other of a solo Hang Drum player.
Now for Natalya jumping!
RL is real life. I blame my over-a-month-long hiatus on real life. Like the insurance company says, real life comes at you fast. Oh well, no big deal. What did I do? I was on a U.S. Navy ship for a joint military exercise. Here's a link to a video of what it's like to walk down the halls at night. Here's a picture of the ship leaving the port:
Feel free to check out the rest of the pictures on my Flickr site.
Also, in RL, Natalya & I went to Barcelona for her birthday & the long weekend. It was a great trip, but it wasn't as warm or as dry as we would have liked. I still haven't uploaded any pictures of that trip. Will do so soon.
And this weekend, we had a party to honor Natalya's birthday, since were out of town the previous weekend. I haven't got any pics of that online yet, either. Sorry.
Happy Birthday, Natalya!!!
Those are the highlights. I'm sure other cool stuff happened, too, but my memory is a sieve. Just last night we went and saw the latest Indiana Jones movie. We liked it. I thought it was over-the-top but in keeping with the feel of the series.
Hopefully, this breaks my hesitation to post and I get stuff on here on a regular basis from now on. Have a great day, everyone!
I finally, finally finished the Brothers Karamazov last month. I’d been reading it for about 10 years! I really liked parts of it and it did keep my interest most of the time. It is such a big book that at some point, within the last, say, eighth of the book I put it down and quit reading it for a long time. When I picked it up again, there was a bit of disorientation, but, due to Dostoyevsky’s writing style, I was able to remember what was going on and proceed with the book without any rereading. He writes about what happened previously and characters’ motivations and thoughts about what’s happened so far (again and again, throughout the book), that when I picked it up, it prodded my memory. It’s funny: I was only about 20 pages from a critical part in the book when I put it down. If I had just plodded through those few pages, I probably would have finished the book so long ago.
Would I recommend it? Sure. I would suggest reading it about 20 pages at a time so you don’t get burnt out. If you’re an avid reader, but don’t pick up classics too often, then I would suggest it being your secondary book while you’re reading a thriller, sci-fi, romance, fantasy, or comic book. Make sure you keep making progress on it so you don’t put it down for 10 years or so. There are some really great passages in it that can really provoked me into thinking about my beliefs and actions and how they interrelate. Worth the time and effort.
Happy 7 Month Anniversary, Natalya! I can't wait till you come back!
Ok, stupid title. She doesn't really drive me up the wall. She's great! Anyway, we recently went climbing at an indoor climbing place with our friends Ravi and Katy. It was strenuous but really fun. I think I'll do it more often and Natalya said she'd like to do it again as well.
Natalya & our friends on the dance floor at the local club, Nachtschicht (Night Shift).
I read a very interesting article in the New York Times about sleep and lack of it. I recommend reading it. People who get enough sleep live longer than people who don't. I've been interested in sleep for a long time. What does that have to do with the picture above? Absolutely nothing! I just got this picture and some others not too long ago, so since I didn't have 'sleep' picture to put with this post, I thought I'd put this up there. It was taken on the Heidelberg castle grounds.
