Rosinenbomber oder Candy Bomber

Wow, was I impressed while listening to an interview with Gail Halverson talk about his life and his role as the Candy Bomber or wiggly wings during the Berlin Airlift this week. He is 90 years old ans still relatively fit. He told the story behind his motivation to drop candy using homemade parachutes to the children in Berlin just prior to landing during the Berlin Airlift after world war II (1948-49).
Quite inspiring!

Interview Link

Gail Halverson hat mich in einem Interview über sein Leben und seine Rolle als der Schokoladenflieger, Onkel Wackelflügel oder der Rosinenbomber während der Berliner Luftbrücke nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg (1948-49) wirklich beeindruckt. Er ist mittlerweile 90 Jahre alt aber trotzdem ziemlich Fit. Er erzählt in dem Interview woher er die Motivation bekam, vor der Landung in Berlin Schokolade-Päckchen an kleinen Fallschirmen zu binden und aus dem Flugzeug zu werfen.
Sehr beeindruckend!

Listen Directly:

Gail Halverson today (from the mormon channel):

Gail Halverson during the Berlin Airlift (from Wikipedia):

Thanks to the Mormon Channel

Why I Believe program for the great interview.
Also available on iTunes.

Mormon oder Amisch - Lufthansa Pilot

Wie schon in einem früheren Post beschrieben, will ich ein paar Fragen zu dem Unterschied zwischen Mitglieder der Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage (landläufig als „Mormonen“ bekannt) und den Amisch People (the Amish) beantworten.

Heute stelle ich einen ehemaligen Lufthansa Pilot vor. Amishe oder Mormone?

Eine amische Mutter und ihr Kind arbeiten auf einem Pferdewagen:

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ehemalige Lufthansa Pilot und derzeitige Apostel und Ratgeber in der ersten Präsidentschaft der Kirche Jesu Christi.

Dad I can't talk - can't you see I'm on a conference call

Anyone, who can recognize what this is a picture of or who has ever used one of these (a telephone with rotary dialing):

courtesy of iStock Photo

Would have also probably been at least mildly surprised by their daughter's statement I referred to the title: Dad, sorry I can't talk right now - I'm on a conference call. I seriously came into my teenage daughter's room to find four or five people on a skype video conference call.

That was when I decided to create this post. I didn't get to it until a today and I'd say that is lucky, because of what happened tonight. I walked into her room to see an odd scene. The mini-DVD player and the netbook screen (which contains a web camera on the top) were facing each other. I thought - that is odd - it makes it hard for her to see the movie screen with the netbook screen in front of it.

Then it dawned on me. That allowed people on the other end of the video conference to also see the the DVD screen and hear the sound from the film.

So much for being in touch with the modern generation!?!?  I joked with a friend (my age also with high tech children) at a party this evening - we used to think we were cool when we could use two tin cans and some string as a long distance communication device.

courtesy of Visual Photos

Mormon oder Amisch - Geschäftsführer (CEO) von Dell

Ich werde sehr oft gefragt, nachdem ich jemandem erzähle, dass ich ein Mitglied der Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage bin (landläufig als „Mormonen“ bekannt), ob das nicht die Amisch People sei.

Der Vergleich zwischen Mormonen und Amische wundert mich immer wieder. Verstehe mich nicht falsch - ich schätze die Amische sehr, weil sie so standhaft und treu ihren Glauben leben. 

Da es aber ein so starker Unterschied zwischen den Amischen und allen anderen Glaubensgemeinschaften gibt, bin ich immer wieder etwas baff, wenn Leute die zwei Glaubensgemeinschaften in Verbindung mit einander bringen.

Der große Unterschied wird auf Wikipedia so beschrieben: "Amische führen ein stark im Agrarbereich verwurzeltes Leben und sind bekannt dafür, dass sie viele Seiten des technischen Fortschritts ablehnen und Neuerungen nur nach sorgfältiger Überlegung akzeptieren"

Die Frage in diesem Eintrag - ist ein ehemaliger CEO von Dell Mormone oder Amische?

Amische in einer Kutsche auf einer modernen Straßen von Ad Meskens:

Mitglied der Kirche Jesu Christi Kevin B. Rollins, der als Geschäftsführer (CEO) von Dell gearbeitet hat:

Spencer's first Campout

So, we dropped Spencer off at his first official campout with the young men. The young men's president seemed excited when we dropped off Spencer and said - the weather report looked great. But no sooner than 30 minutes after we left as we drove to an alpine slide in the area with the rest of the family it was raining cats and dogs. Things dried up pretty quickly and we were able to slide a few times before it started raining again.  As we drove towards home it once again started to rain cats and dogs, including a little hail.

Tonight another storm blew threw this area (about 1.5 hours north of where Spencer is camping). There were heavy rains, thunder and lightning, which is not typical for this part of Germany (it's more like Seattle - a constant light drizzle).

Boy I am sure praying for him tonight. I never realized how anguishing such moments can be for a parent.

Spencer's Friends and his Ordination

We had a great day with Spencer at church yesterday. He received the Aaronic Priesthood and was ordained to the office of a deacon.

Spencer has made quite a few friends in Germany and we have discovered that his friends' parents are quite nice as well. They have been very supportive and helpful in many situations. For that reason, we invited the families to attend the worship service and Spencer's ordination. All the friends were able to come, even on short notice.

It was a great feeling to see how willing people were to attend. Spencer has truly found some good friends.

Hannah's English (from Tamara)

This is a conversation between Tamara and Hannah that Tamara told me about a few weeks ago:

Just got Hannah's Report Card. She got a 1 (which is an A) in English. The teacher wrote, that Hannah can understand words and Sentences as well as Speak words and Sentences. It made me laugh. I said out loud, "I sure hope so". Then I asked Hannah if her English Teacher knows she is American. Hannah did not think so. That made me laugh even more.

Hannah's response is....she knows English well enough she could BE the teacher. :)

Tamara informed me later that the teacher is certainly aware of Hannah's ability and naturally proposed that Hannah not worry about such comparisons between her and the teacher.

I Feel Alive

Just sitting here sweating tonight at almost 11:00 pm (23.00 hours) and realized I love this type of heat. Hot, muggy, lots of sun. It makes me feel alive.

It's probably because I grew up in this type of heat each summer in Missouri, but it is a wonderful feeling to have some of this type of weather in the normally rainy, cool, lower Rhine valley in Germany (think Seattle).

Me aber not!

Tonight as we were attempting to gather the everyone to family prayers, Ian was making noise with a necklace by banging it against something plastic. Tamara took the necklace away and said something to the effect of "Ian that noise is really making mommy's head hurt! We have to stop now for prayers." Ian responded with "Me aber not!" Which naturally means - "It isn't bothering me though." The German word aber means although or but and is apparently easier for Ian to say.

We all laughed for at least 10 seconds and family prayers went much smoother thereafter.

Watching the children grow up with the two languages is certainly entertaining.

Oh Schade, Ah Schucks

"Oh Schade" is one of Ian's favorite phrases. Although the Sch sound is usually left off we all know what he trying to say. He switches between this phrase and "Man, eh", which also in essence means too bad. It makes life entertaining.

Ian says this when he doesn't get his way. Or, when he feels like saying something. It is a nice reaction to not getting his way. It usually goes something like this:
Mom: It's time for dinner
Ian: But I'm still playing
Mom: I know Ian, but we need to get up to the table! We can play again after dinner.
Ian: Oh Schade!

He kind of sings the phrase and runs up to the table. It is very cute.

Sand man

We have the problem here in Düsseldorf in our back yard that it gets very soggy after it rains. I recently told a friend about this and he said I should spread a thin layer of sand on the grass. This will create a layer to absorb or filter water to lower layers of earth and the grass will simply grow taller in order to accommodate the new layer. It makes sense given all of the water we get around here and what I know about filtration under the earth.

So, I tried it today. My neighbor saw me and asked what I was spreading on the grass. I told him it was sand. He said - yes you need to do that from time to time.

Amazing - I had never heard of such a thing in the US. And, here it is a normal solution to the problem of water drainage in lawns (or the lack of drainage). Another tip for life overseas or life in an unfamiliar environment - ask a friend or a neighbor if you are baffled by local conditions.

To think - I could have asked three years ago.

Kegeln & Fruit Salad

Well, Friday night was a milestone night for me. After having lived in Germany for more than 5.5 years total I finally went Kegeln for the first time. What a great time.

We went for Hannah's birthday and had a really enjoyable time. Kegeln is basically bowling with nine pins, smaller lighter balls, and narrower lanes. The other difference, which I really enjoyed was the way the lanes were designed. The small Greek restaurant in our neighborhood has two lanes. So, we had a lane all to ourselves inside of one room. In another room there was another lane. The The technical aspects were also cool. The pins were on strings, which are used to pull the pins up and set them in the correct position. The ball delivery system was done with a lot of help from gravity. This was technically interesting and very quiet. This meant relaxing for me.

In Kegeln, you pay by the hour and by the glass of sprite or juice. The hourly charge is very reasonable (6 €). The drinks on the other hand were standard restaurant prices. That was a bit of a bummer, since we forgot to tell the kids to drink slowly. Buying drinks is pretty much a standard part of kegeln.

Since the price was hourly, the kids could throw the ball as often as we had time in the 1.5 hours we stayed. In the first 2 rounds we played - knock down as many pins as possible.

In the 3rd round Spencer taught us a game he learned at a similar birthday party a few months ago - "hohe Hausnummer", or build a big number with 3 chances. We were building numbers with three digits. So, if you roll a 2 on your 1st try, that should be the last digit. Then you hope that you roll a 6 later to use as the first digit. This was also a fun game. The two lowest scores were 034 or 064. They both wished we had played "niedrige Hausnummer", or build a small number. The two highest scores were 653 & 642.

The remaining stories are unrelated to Kegeln, but I mention them as part of Hannah's Birthday party. After returning home and eating we rounded out the evening with a fun game of Obstsalat (fruit salad) or Fruit Basket as it is called in America. This was a fun time. The boy at the party got a bit bored with the game and instead of switching chairs only when his designated fruit was called, he moved basically every time. I called him a Birne-Apfel-Erdbeer-Banana. Ian and Emma stayed up and got to enjoy the game. Emma didn't like being in the middle though and so we would just call Obstsalat every time it happened, and she could then quickly find a chair.

The same boy who liked the game so much he created his own "plug-in" for the game, happened to be the only boy at the party (other than Spencer). He is a nice kid and I mention him here because of what he told his mother after the party. He and his mother were just leaving our house, when he told his her - if I had known what the group gift (gemeinsames Geschenk) for Hannah was (a Polly Pocket playhouse), I wouldn't have joined in. His mother then realized that she had forgotten to give us the money for the group gift and returned to our house. At that point she related the story about her son's impressions of the party with all girls - priceless.

Ian experiementing with languages

Well Ian is at it again. He is speaking again. Adding a few words to his vocabulary and trying them out. He is much later in speaking than our other children, which seems to come partially from the dual language upbringing - German in pre-school and English at home.

In order to understand his latest language leap you have to understand both languages, but I'll explain both. Here is the phrase Ian commonly says.
If a family member says something they don't like, such as, "I don't like hot dogs", Ian responds with this statement: "Me aber". Which translated directly into English is "me but", and directly into German is "mir aber" oder "mich aber". The phrase is incorrect in either language and the phrase ends up being a very intricate mixture of the two languages.

The German phrase should be "ich aber". The English phrase should be "but I do". And, Ian ends up somewhere in the middle of the two phrases.

Part of the challenge for Ian, I believe, is that German speakers generally correctly use the word I (ich) when the individual speaking is the subject of the sentence. But in the German phrase he incorrectly uses the possessive "me" because Americans, including our family, often use the word me when I should be used. Think of the exclamation of approval "me too". This is commonly used instead the full phrase "I also enjoy/prefer/ _____". Another typical example is "me and my friend went to the store" instead of "my friend and I went to the store".

What it comes down to is - we have two pieces of good news. Ian is speaking, and it's very entertaining.

Shantal Learning about English and Love

Shantal saw the post about Spencer learning English today and said. Hey, why didn't you write about my English test? I said I didn't write about it because you just got it back this week, silly!

She did well on her test, but the children still made fun of her for getting a B+. One translation was as follows:
Ich habe einen Hund.
I have got a dog.

I told her she could leave the "got" out of the sentence. She said, no I can't. The teacher said I must use got. She then said - it sounds a little funny to me, but that's what I have to do. I'm guessing it's British, but I don't no much about that version of English.

Oh, and Shantal told me she got a note from a boy today. It turned out to be her first love letter. A boy gave her a note with the words "I heart you" on it. She seemed impressed, but not like she wanted to return the affection. I was glad about that.

Ian's speaking Dutch!

While Tamara was away I discovered why we can't understand Ian. He's speaking Dutch. Which actually makes sense. Ian hears English at home, German all around him and has mixed the two into his own language, which just happens to be Dutch. I made this conclusion when Ian recently said the Awpplebaum. This is a half English (apple tree) and half German (apfelbaum) word, which sounds very similar to the Dutch word for apple tree: appel boom.

Actually Ian is putting more and more words together and the fact that he put these two words together in a sort of Dutch way sounds like a move in the right direction. It will be interesting to watch him grow through this stage.

Now the disclaimer since I don't want an entire country mad at me. Yes the Dutch language has many commonalities with English and German and if you know both English and German you can understand some very simple Dutch conversations and read some Dutch signs on the highway. But of course Ian couldn't make up a language as complex as Dutch on his own! :-)

Bill Cosby - Still Funny

The kids discovered two unused MP3 players yesterday and have now inherited them. We still need one more, but that should not be too problematic. This gave me the opportunity to introduce my two oldest (11 girl, and 10 boy) to Bill Cosby's sketch about Noah today. On my old MP3 player I had some of Cosby's sketches. The kids were laughing hysterically throughout the entire sketch and quoting it thereafter. I listened to it too and realized I still truly enjoy it.

Listening to the sketch today reminded me of something else. Hearing this sketch as a child was one of the earliest times someone brought the scriptures to life for me, or better stated, opened my eyes to the possibility of bringing the scriptures to life.

Bill Cosby paints beautifully a person's reaction to someone following the path of God - "Hey, your ark is blocking my drive way! I have to go to work!" He also eloquently captures the frustration one encounters when trying to fulfill God's commandments. When God tells Noah he has two male hippos (the last two animals to get on the ark), Noah responds: "I'm not bringing in a female! You change one of them!"

Speaking of Noah, and the Scriptures coming to life. For scripture study last week, we measured the length, width, and height of the Ark - if the ark were placed on our street. We realized that the Ark would have been quite a bit longer than our street. It would have been taller than the tallest house on our street (if you count the TV antenna on top of that house) and it would have been wider than the street (house door to house door roughly) - "what's a cubit?"

I found the following information about the ark online: The Ark's dimensions were at least 135 meters long (300 cubits), 22.5 meters wide (50 cubits), and 13.5 meters high (30 cubits). That's 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high!

An amazing discovery - Phrasal Verbs

On Monday Spencer received a D+ on an English quiz. He was heartbroken. I felt sorry for him and thought it's a good thing I don't have those problems. Little did I know.

On Wednesday I found I have some English problems of my own. I spoke to a colleague on the phone in English this week and asked him to do something. I asked: "Would you free up that document for me?" The colleague, a native German speaker basically said, what the heck are you talking about? I had to translate my shortened sentence into a full English sentence. Something like: "Would you close the document so I may open it for editing." As you probably know, even on a network only one person can edit a document at a time. He had the document open and I needed to open it and edit it.

I was a bit frustrated. Why can't the people here understand me? I thought.

I turned to the colleague sitting next to me and said, my English is often too complicated and people struggle to understand me. Why is that, I asked. He had overheard my phone conversation and said, matter of factly, "You're using phrasal verbs. That makes it difficult for a non-native speaker to understand the context of what you are saying."

I was astonished, partially because he knew instantly what the problem was, and partially because I had never even heard of phrasal verbs. I asked "what is a phrasal verb?" He explained it to me briefly and then I began scouring the internet for information about phrasal verbs. From English Page I found this definition: 1. A phrasal verb is a verb plus a preposition or adverb which creates a meaning different from the original verb.

That didn't help me to much because I couldn't remember what a preposition was. The examples I found helped considerably.

Phrasal Verb ==> actual meaning in real English
Fall behind ==> Make less progress than anticipated or planned

Discovering this has opened doors to better English and German. I found several websites which contain translations - phrasal verb into real English and then into German.

I realized that I was constantly using phrasal verbs and I was constantly thinking of them while trying to speak German. Whenever such a phrase comes to mind I would naturally try and translate my English sentences into German. But I would always struggle because "fall behind" is not truly what I want to say: make less progress than anticipated is what I want to say. I then realized it is much easier to translate the 2nd sentence.

It was truly quite a discovery for me.

Ian Misses Mom

Tamara was gone last night and so I put Ian to bed. He was not too happy about the whole affair and cried for a bit. I double checked on him and offered him some new books. He declined, and left again, thinking he would console himself.

After realizing that he would not console himself, I went back up. I recall our conversation going like this.
Me: Ian, would you like me to read you a book?
Ian: No.
Me: Ian, did you want me to leave you a book to read?
Ian: No.
Me (flabbergasted): Ian, what do you want bud?
Ian (still in tears): Mom!
Me: Mom will be back in a few days bud! Shall we go downstairs and read a book?
Ian: yea.

After a few books and playing with Hannah (his 8 year old sister) for a couple of minutes he was ready for bed.

Spencer's English Quiz

Poor Spencer took his first English quiz in his new secondary school on Monday and got 4 out of 10 wrong.

One word that he didn't know was Primary School (British English) = Grade School (in American English) = Grundschule (in German). Guessed Pre-School (in American English) and correctly translated that to Kindergarten (in German).

It can happen to the best of us. Hopefully he will take the lesson and use it to his advantage. He did say the other American (mother is American) also scored poorly on the quiz.

Ian's Works a Miracle

We're not sure what Ian's asks for in his prayers. We're just beginning to understand the Amen at the end. The rhythm changes slightly at the end of his prayers and then we know that the Amen will follow. Sometimes the prayers are short. Sometimes they are a bit longer. I guess it depends on what Ian has to say. I'm not sure if his prayers are answered, since I don't know the content of his prayers.

What I do know is that one of our prayers has been answered through Ian. The other children enjoy praying again. The routine of family prayers in our home has been changed entirely since Ian started to pray. The other children volunteer to pray after Ian is done with his prayer. We usually say a 2nd prayer to make sure some essentials are covered. Ian doesn't mind, and it is amazing to the see the children so happy to pray. They also pray with a bit more feeling behind their words, and a bit less routine.