Post 81: Bürgerfest

Today I woke up rather late.  I arrived at work dressed in a white shirt and black pants in preparation for the Burgerfest that evening.  I sat down with Tim and went through my report as it stands and proceeded to tear it apart bit by bit.  Eventually I went to run a test on the Rheometer.  Lunch was lasagna, but not very good lasagna.  Since Bianka and Mirko were both gone today, it was just Flo and myself.  After lunch I went and sat in the Rheometer room while the next test was going.  Suddenly, the machine started to hum, so we had to stop the test to figure out what was going on.  Hopefully it isn't too serious.  Given this, and the fact that it was a Friday, I decided to make my Feierabend just after 3:30. 
After work, I headed over to the Burgerfest and started helping to sell wine with the Men's chorus.  It started with sitting down and tasting the wine for a while so I knew what I was selling, it was really good wine.  After this, I helped to sell the wine.  Which meant that I was running between tables taking orders, delivering glasses of wine, or bottles of wine or water, and what not.  Three times I was asked for a "Chardonney and a song".  So I had to come up with a song to sing which proved difficult to do (coming up with a song for the occasion that is).  Apparently word has gotten around that I am the youngest singer in the Men's Choir, and also quite fleissig (many talented, capable). 
Heiner approached me later and asked me if I would be willing to stop by his house at some point for an interview and dinner.  He is thinking of writing a newspaper article about me, and wanted to have some background information.  It aught to be interesting.  By the time we were done with selling wine, it was about 1 in the morning, and we had boxes and boxes of empty bottles.  It was a nice evening.

Post 80: Organ Practice

Today was Thursday.  It was the first Thursday without Men's choir rehearsal, but still fun.  After work, I went to St. Wolfgang and practiced Organ for a while.  It was nice and relaxing. 

Post 79: Dinner with the Church choir

Today was Wednesday.  Work was a fairly normal affair.  We got four bonsai trees in the Diplomanten Room because they weren't getting enough sun in their other location.  Then we got 8 other trees that were placed just outside our windows so now we live in a veritable forrest.
After work, we had our last church choir practice.  It was also the celebration dinner for Anton and Simone Bier after their wedding.  So we had plenty of leberkaes, bread, pretzles, and bier.  During the course of the meal, Erika stood up and made some announcements regarding the early schedule after the summer break.  Then she said that she had prepared something for her best singers.  She had tallied up how many times people were present, and how many times people were absent so the top 4 or 5 got bowls made by Erika with the words "Fleissigste Singer/in" depending on man or women.  Then she said that she had one more as a memento from the choir, so she had prepared a plate for me with the words "Zur Errinnerung - Kirchenchor Meitingen" (To Memories - Church choir Meitingen).  Then everybody signed the plate.  After this, they wanted to hear some of the recordings that I'd made of the choir, so I played one of them.  Then they asked me to play trombone for them, then piano.  It was an interesting night.  I'd never performed after having two drinks before, but they enjoyed it, so that is good. 

Post 78: Reaction between Novolak and Hexa

Today was a very normal day at work.  I had to go back to Haferfeldstrasse to pick up my bike before going to work.  Then I managed to find an explanation of the reaction between the Novolak and hexa, so I spent a fair amount of time reading through the explanation.  We went to the Thai restaurant today because from everything that I've heard is SGL Tortelini not that great for lunch.  I went and practiced trombone and organ after work. 

Post 77: Farewell to Herbert, Dinner with Theo

Today was Monday.  I ran some tests, and eventually talked with Tim for a while about the theory behind the Pre-Preg assignment.  We discussed whether the representative equation should be composed of one, two, or three exponential functions.  So now I get to think through the whole thing and find out if it is one two or three exponential functions.   The reaction means one, side reactions mean another, and there is probably something else that I haven't thought of yet.  So, I get to figure all that out.  I had promised Herber Klemisch that I would meet him at 5 for a "bierchen".  So I went over to the Alte Post and had a bier with him while he was packing up the trailer for their fishing trip in Norway.  It was a nice farewell.  After this, I went home, had something small to eat, then went to Theo's house in Haferfeldstrasse for a dinner get together.  It was really nice, we had a pasta salad, meat from South Africa (because Theo's brother who lives in S. Africa and is in Meitingen for now), and we had very fresh baguettes.  After this we had pork on rice for the main course.  It was a very nice evening.  We had a schnapps called Willi from the bayrische Wald.  It was very good.  Because it was raining, Heiner offered to drive me home.  So that meant I have to come back tomorrow morning to pick up my bike. 

Post 76: cutting music

I spent most of the day cutting the music from the hochzeit.  I also played trombone in the church for a while. 

Post 75: Anton und Simone Bier Hochzeit

Today was Saturday.  This was the day of the wedding.  So I went early to practice the Organ a little bit and set up the Microphone.  So I now have a recording of the wedding.  The biggest issue was the creaking floorboard just in front of the microphone.  The solo went well, but during the second verse, a baby started crying really loudly.  But everybody did very well.  Now I have about 3 hours worth of cutting to do.  In the afternoon, it started to rain quite a bit.  I then went to Augsburg and checked e-mail and internet and what not. 
All in all it was a nice day. 

Post 74: Short day at work

Today, I decided that I would go home a little early because I wasn't able to work with the Rheometer, so I worked primarily on my report. After that, I went home.

Post 73: Trying to fix the Rheometer

Today, I got a call from Frau Klein wishing me a happy birthday.  Then we tried to remove the broken screw from the Rheometer part.  In the attempt to do this, we broke off the tip of two different screw removers and the tip of another metal piece.  Just as they were raising the hammer to try to put a hole into the screw so we could use the screw removers, my boss told them that this piece cost 5000 Euro. 

Once we were done trying to fix it, we had then 3 different parts stuck in the screw hole.

After work, I went to the Men's chorus rehearsal.  Once we wanted to start up, Herbert stood up for a "Bekanntmachung!" and he told everybody that yesterday was my birthday, so they then sang for me.  At the end of the rehearsal, they said an official good bye to me and gave me a glass plated picture from the Mass that we did in the forest and they all signed it on the back. 

Post 72: My Birthday

Today was my Birthday.  I arrived at SGL at the normal time.  Flo, Mirko, and Bianka wished me "Alles Gutes zum Geburtstag!"  Tim called me and asked me to bring the part from the Rheometer up to his desk.  So I took it up and he wished me "Alles Gutes zum Geburtstag".  Then he gave me a Business Card container made of Stainless Steel with an inlaid carbon fiber weave.  It is quite nice.  I got an e-mail from Frau Gierl as well (the person from the PR department) wishing me a happy birthday as well.  This was also the day that the new Pre-Preg production machine was handed over to the company and so we went and saw it in action, which was pretty cool. 

Once I came back down, I found out that Mirko and Bianka had bought 4 muffins for us all. It was good. 

After that we went to lunch.  We came back and I went on to work on the Rheometer.  I decided that I was done around 4:30. 

After that I went to St. Wolfgang, and played the Organ for a while.  It was a lot of fun.  At 7:45 the choir started to arrive.  Fortunately, I had my microphone there so I recorded the choir rehearsal.  At the beginning, they sang a birthday song for me "Schön dass Du geboren bist".  It was really, really cool.  After that, we went and practiced the music for the Wedding.  Following the rehearsal, I helped Erika out by recording her solo, and then went to the Neue Post for a drink with Herbert. 

Post 71: More Rheometer trouble

Today was a nice day at work.  Except for the fact that one of the screws that holds the aluminum plates i the rheometer broke in the hole, so now I only have one screw in the Rheometer and part of a screw in the other hole.  It was not great.

Post 70: Relaxing Day

Today, I managed to get 5 different tests done at work.  I also worked on my final report for Tim.  After work, I went home and relaxed. 

Post 69: Visit to München

Today I started a little later than I'd hoped.  I'd hoped to be able to make it to München with time to spare before meeting Gunter (from BMW) at 12 on Marienplatz.  Unfortunately, I missed the train I'd needed by about 5 minutes which meant that I had to wait for the next train in an hour.  After arriving in München, I went to Marienplatz and found that there was a great number of people there, so I called Gunter and told him to meet me on the North side of the plaza under the tower.  After waiting for a while, I saw him walking up.  He told me that I was on the wrong side of Marienplatz, that North was in "that" direction (pointing East).  I pointed out that Ludwigstraße goes in "this" direction.    Then he said "Ohhhh, you're right." and we went off to wander around a bit.  He has developed his professional photography hobby  a bit more, and now has his own studio and takes pictures of just about everything.  It was a fun time.  Turns out that he picked up piano 4 months ago and has progressed pretty far. 

After we parted, I went on a reconaissance mission to scope out our hotel for the Max Kade trip next Spring Break so that we know how it looks and if it will suit our needs.  It looks like a nice hotel. 

Post 68: The Sänngerausflug to Königsee

Today was the Sängerausflug to Königsee.  We started the day bright and early at 6am boarding the bus.  We left and got stuck in traffic, but eventually made it to our breakfast destination.  For breakfast, I had Weißwurst, Weißbier, and a pretzel.  It was a good breakfast with a gorgeous view of the valley.  There was a castle off in the distance, a small town with a tall church spire and tall alps in the background.  They had a name, and it ended in "wand", but I can't recall exactly what it was.  On the way to the Gasthof, we had to drive down a road where there was about 2-3cm space between either mirror on the bus and the trees on either side of the road.  And of course, we had to take this same road back out of the Gasthof.  it was quite impressive.  While on the bus, Michael Mayr told us a joke in German.  It was about a vampire who had just attacked two bikers (auf deutsch "Radler".  "Radler" can also refer to a mixture of bier and sprite).  The vampire got pulled over by a police officer for suspected drunk driving.  The officer asked "What have you had to drink?" and the Vampire responded "Zwei Radler".  It is funnier in German.  

Along the way we drove past Chiemsee which was quite nice.  We arrived just in time to catch our boat across the lake to St. Bartholomä.  It took about 20 minutes to get there, and along the way, we had stopped so that the boat driver could play his flugelhorn across the lake at the mountains so we could hear the echo.  It was quite nice.  Then Helga Ortner tried yodeling across the lake, but we couldn't hear an echo. 

After arriving at the church, we went inside and sang a little bit.  We started with "Heilige Berge", went on to a part of the Bavarian Mass, and then ended with the "Dona Nobis Pacem" round by somebody.  The last two were from memory, so that was interesting.   All in all, it was quite a nice church and it sounded really good. 

After the church, we went to the lake.  A few people had brought swim suits and went swimming in Königsee.  I took off my shoes and rolled up my shorts so I could step in.  It felt wonderful.  The water was still quite light thanks to the rain, and wasn't too cold thanks to the several days of very warm weather.  It was quite a beautiful lake.  After the lake we went on to the Biergarten.  While we were there, a butterfly flew in and landed on my watch.  It then stayed there for about 5 minutes before flying off, around and landing on my thumb.  It then stayed there for the next 15 minutes, despite everything that we tried to convince it to go away.  After the Biergarten we went on to wandering around a bit.  We walked up to the Eisenbach (Ice stream).  It was a nice area and there was even a small chapel there.  We then hurried back because we were pushing our time limit to catch the boat back.  We made it on there and made it back to the bus.  We took a slightly different route back home through the Alps which were quite nice.  We arrived at the Gasthof Wagner near Thierhaupten near Meitingen where we had dinner.  It was a very nice Gasthof.  I had schweinebraten and it was very good.  We then hurried home because the bus driver had to be back before 9pm so that he didn't get into trouble with the police.  For the rest of the evening, I relaxed a little.  It was a fun trip.  I'll try to get some pictures up.

Post 67: A Third short post

Today was a fairly normal day at work.  Ran some tests, worked on my final report for SGL, and went back home to practice trombone for a bit. 

Post 66: Another short post

Today was again a normal day at work.  I ran some tests, and spent a lot of the day working on the outline of my final report for SGL

Post 65: Short Post

Today was Wednesday and rather relaxed at work.  After work, we had choir rehearsal which went well. 

Post 64: Snooze Button

Today, I went to work a little later than I'd hoped because I kept hitting the "Schnooz" button on my cell phone alarm clock.  I still managed to get in a fair amount of testing. After work, I came home and practiced Trombone for a bit.  

Post 63: Running (this time in the Forest)

Today I ran the third batch of 9 tests.  It was 5:30 and the option was there to run the 10th test or not so I chose not and saved it for tuesday.  It was still a very long day and a very hot day.  Much too warm for my tastes.  In the evening, I went for a bike ride to Langweid Lech and went for a short run in the forest there.  It was nice, though the trails there aren't as good as they appeared at first.  They don't connect together so there was a lot of turning around and running back in the direction I'd started in.

Post 62: Dinner with the Kaziks

Today was Sunday, so we started with Mass at St. Wolfgang.  After Mass somebody from the Männerchor invited me over to his house for a Grillabend at 3.  So he showed me where he lived and then drove me back to the Bergmeirs.  Frau Bergmeir invited me out to the porch for a while, so we talked for a bit.  After that, due to the heat, I went back to my room to cool off for a bit before heading out at 3.  I arrived and found out that I was the first person there.  So I talked for a bit with Inga about anything and everything.  She made a Colaweizen for us both.  Half cola, half white bier. 
Eventually other people showed up.  In the end there was an Ulrich, Inga, myself, Wolfgang, Maria, Herbert, Albert, and two people whom I don't know.  We had grilled fish to start, then we had steak and Wurst.  The son of the host came by toward the end of the night, and offered to exchange cell numbers to do something in Augsburg sometime.  At the end we watched the Final in the World Cup, Spain v. Netherlands.  It was an OK game.  0-0 into over time.  At that point I didn't feel like watching much more knowing that I would be up early the next day for a long day at work.

Post 61: Last game of Germany's WM

Today I went to Augsburg to take care of stuff on the internet.  Otherwise, it was too warm to do much of anything else outside.  I did watch the German v. Uruguay game, which was an interesting game, even though there were a few new faces out on the field.  For example, Phillip Lahm was not out there, Mirko Klose was not there, and Bastian Schweinsteiger was the acting Captain.  It was a good game, even though it wasn't for the World Cup.

Post 60: A member of the family

Today was a rather long day at work.  Total of 10 hours.  In those 10 hours, I ran another 9 tests out of the 28 that I have to do, so hopefully, I'll be able to get the next 10 done on Monday.  Should be doable.  They finally had the AC working in the T&I building (where I have my desk) but it was warm as ever in the building where my Rheometer is.  (not to mention the 5 or 6 ovens that they have there).  This evening we had our Halbjahres Abschlussfeier (celebrating the first half of the year).  It was a lot of fun.  The person who owns the gasthof where we rehearse brought food and drink for us to the Sängerheim.  It is a small plot of land just north of Meitingen where 20 years ago, the choir built a pavillion over the cement circle that covered the old waste water treatment plant.  This pavillion then has benches, tables and a walkway into the house that is there left over from the treatment plant.  It is owned by the männerchor, but they rent it out to people for their own festivities, such as weddings, and what not.  It is a really nice location.  At one point during the evening we congratulated Heiner and Helga on their 44th wedding anniversary.  They also had a music director made out of a birch tree with a wooden music stand (made by Helmut Ortner.  Very nice person, had me over for dinner on Jun 26  (updated blog entry for 26. Jun  I thought I'd written about it, but apparently not.)  We then got up to sing the song about the watchful rooster again.  So I got to demonstrate an American Rooster again.  Heiner started to ask about what name we should give the new wooden director.  The choices were Joachim, Franz, or Clemens.  Joachim and Clemens had very similar votes, so we decided to name him Joachle.  They took the hat off his head and poured a quarter liter Bier over his head to chrisen him "Joachle".  After this, Theo started to speak and menetioned that "We have a guest singing with us today, the third, american, Rooster in this song as demonstrated by our guest.  Ryan, who is a work-student at SGL this summer and stumbled upon the Männerchor and has sung with us for the last 8 weeks.  A very friendly open person, and a great singer, we will be sorry to see him go in a short while.  So we want to give him our honorary membership pin on behalf of all of us."  So I now have the honorary membership pin of the Liederkranz Meitingen.  After thanking a few other people (the people who catered for us, the person who made the wooden director), Theo ended.  Afterward, I had a lot of people shaking my hand.  Eduard (who at one point was the fußball trainer for our director Josef) told me that "Nie zuvor hat jemand so schnell unsre Herzen erobert.  Du bist so offen und freundlich.  Es ist schön Dich in unsre familie zu haben."  "Never before has somebody won our hearts so quickly.  You are so open and friendlich.  It is great to have you in our family."  In talking with other people he recalled the first time we met.  He had leaned over to me, asked me if I knew this piece of music.  I said no, but I will in a minute or so.  He was quite impressed that I can "vom Blatt singen" (sight-sing).  Since that time, he enjoyed sitting next to me at rehearsals (such as when we were singing through the bavarian mass and trying to decifer how to pronounce the various words that were there).  In talking then with more people, they told me that whenever I am around in the area, I should look them up and come back whenever I can.  "Bring your family over when you have one.  When you visit the area, remember us."  They also said that when I am back in February, if I need lodging for the night, that can be easily arranged.  In talking with Theo's wife, she asked if I was already 22, or if my birthday was yet to come.  I said that it was yet to come, on the 21st.  She said that she would then have to see if she could get something arranged with some people for a little celebration for me.  Now I just have to find a good way to thank them. 

Post 59: "Die Fledermaus" with the Männerchor

Today, I started a run of 28 tests on the mixtures that I made a month ago on the Rheometer.  We needed to see at which temperature they foam which means that the reaction was going on and releasing gases to cause bubbles to appear.  I got through 9 of them today.  After this, I went to the men's choir rehearsal.  We sang the "Brüderlein und Schwesterlein" from Johann Strauß "Die Fledermaus".  It was a lot of fun.  We then sang a few other folk songs, and two american spirituals;  "Go Down Moses" and "Deep River".  I'd never rightly heard either of them, but it was a lot of fun to sing them.  Then I got to explain to somebody what the term "chillin' " means. 

Post 58: Dinner with the Kirchenchor at the Neue Post

Today Tim came to me and said that my values for the density and what not for the plates were all off from the ones that he had.  He had made a plate out of the same stuff that I have been, but it wound up being completely different from the one that I had.  The reason being that the pre-preg that I've been using was produced at a slightly higher temperature than his, which meant that the reaction had already set in during the production process giving it different characteristics.  So I took a sample of both pre-pregs, and scratched the matrix off from the carbon fiber fabric that it was on, and ran a test on the rheometer on both of them (now that the rheometer is back and declared "healthy").  These tests showed that there was indeed a difference between the two samples, namely the viscosity of mine is much higher than Tims due to having already begun the reaction.  So we'll see where we go from here. 
We had dinner with the choir tonight, courtesy of one of the members who had declared that she was quitting the choir.  It was really good.  We went to the Neue Post and had dinner there, I had their schweizer wurstsalat (swiss wurst salat).  It was a thinly sliced lean wurst layered in two concentric circles, covered with onions, a pickle, and cucumbers and served in a sauce of vinegar, salt, pepper, and oil.  It was very good.  And it was especially good because it is a cold dish and it was warm outside.  We watched the game between germany and spain up until intermission at which point I went home to watch the rest there.  There were two boys who were sitting in front of us who each had vuvuzelas and a tendancy to get up to their feet whenever something good (or bad) was happening, which meant that we couldn't see during the most important parts of the game.  But, I learned a bayrisch expression "Sehi nit" (Sehe ich nichts = I can't see, or "Down in front").  Unfortunately, we lost today, but it was a very good game to watch. 

Post 57: Density of Prepreg Plates

Today at work, I was occupied mostly with measuring the density of the plates of pre-preg that I've made thus far.  The density is a good way to see if the plates are properly impregnated.  During lunch, there was a bank at the cafeteria trying to get people to sign up for an account with them.  They were giving away lays in the german colors.  I thought it was interesting. 

Post 56: Trip to Langweid am Lech

Today was a rather nice day at work.  Not a whole lot special going on, but nice all the same.  Once I got home, I tood a bike ride to Langweid am Lech.  It was a nice ride.  Along the way, just south of Herbertshofen, there is a steel manufacturing plant, and a forest with a variety of trails there.  Eventually, I'll have to go back and wander around for a while. 

Post 55: 4th July and Germany vs. Argentina

Today was another rather laid back day.  I went to Mass in the morning, then went for a walk along the Lech in the afternoon but made sure that I was back in time for the fußball game against Argentina.  It was a good game, though at the end I felt bad for the Argentinians.  Losing 4-0 in the quarter finals.  It is definitely interesting being in Germany during the Weltmeisterschaft.  After every win that we've had, there have been people celebrating in the streets for hours after the end of the game.  They drive around Meitingen honking their horns, waving flags, and "playing" their vuvuzelas.  It is quite impressive even if it does get a little annoying after a while.  Definitely not something that you see back home. 

Post 54: Tabellenbuch Chemietechnik - 3. Juli

Today was a rather laid back day.  I went to Augsburg and walked around for a bit.  I found the tourist info offic and picked up a brochure for what there is to do in Augsburg and about  the various tours offered in the hopes of finding something that Dad would like to do while I am at work on the last day.  After this I went and wandered a bit more.  I found a bookstore and found a fairly cool book.  It is called the Tabellenbuch Chemietechnik, (the Book of Tables of Technical Chemistry, or something like that).  It coveres everything from general engineering tables, to detailed information on all of the elements, the most common radioactive isotopes and their half lives,  and the most common solutions.  (even a list separated into things like separating agents, drying agents).  It has sections covering Fluid Mechanics, physical chemistry, and a whole section on the "Fordern von Stoffen" (the movement of stuff) with diagrams of various pipe diagrams, pump diagrams, and various connectors.  Heat transfer, separations process, reaction engineering, tables of construction materials and what they are good for, corrosion, the most common DIN (Deutsche Industrie Normen = german industrial norms) for piping and instrumentation diagrams, as well as industrial measuring techniques and process control.  And of course, a large section on safety at the back.  Basically, anything and everything a chemical engineer could need, in one book.  And it is all in German.  it is quite an impressive book. 
After this purchase, I went home for the rest of the day.

Post 53: Reservations at Neue Post

Friday was a pretty normal day.  For one reason or another I was unusually tired the whole day, so I went home a little early to relax, and do a bit of reading.  I managed to make reservations with the Gasthof Neue Post for myself and my Dad in August.  We will be staying in the new building part of the complex in Room 21.  (Nice room with Shower and Toilet).

Now I just have to get the reservation down for Ruhpolding....

Post 52: "It wasn't me!"... Finally

Hard to believe that it is already July.  I cannot say that it feels like "yesterday" that I first arrived here, but it doesn't feel like a month and a half ago.  Anyway, today was much more of the same.  Only today, for one reason or another, Flo couldn't get the Press to work properly.  He said he tried three times turning it on and off again to get the press to close while it heated to the desired temperatur.  Unfortunately, for him it wouldn't budge.  So he came back and told me about it.  I went over there, and tried it and got it to work first time.  After he went back there to put his plate in, he still couldn't get it to work.  So I went back there and got it to work.  So Mirko took to calling me the "Press Whisperer" implying that only I could get it to work properly today.  Today, I found two online resources that the University of Michigan offers.  Through the library system, we have access to two very useful sites:  Knovel, and SpringerLink.  Both of them have PDF versions of a variety of technical books, resources, magazines, newspapers, etc.  So I managed to find several books on interesting topics and browsed through them for a while today.
Tonight I went to the men's chorus rehearsal a little early and practiced "Varsity" and "The Victors" on the piano.  As people came in, they recognized the melodies, but they couldn't say where from.  At one point in the past, somebody mentioned that "The Victors" was originally a drinking song out of Germany, which is why I was wanting them to comment on the songs, to see if this is true. 

Post 51: Choir Rehearsal on Election Day

Today was a rather normal day at work.  I did a lot with my prepreg assignment because the rheometer is out of commission for the next two weeks.  For the Choir Rehearsal, we determined that "when" Germany wins the game on Saturday, we will need to push the rehearsal for next week back a little bit.  After rehearsal on my bike ride home, I was passing the Neue Post and heard somebody calling my name, so I did a quick turn around and went for a drink with Heiner, Herbert, and the Deputy Mayor of Meitingen (whose name I should know, but can't recall at the moment).  It was a nice discussion.  The new German president had been elected earlier today, so they talked about that for a while.  Then we discussed my return trip to Meitingen in February during the Max Kade Trip to München. 

Post 50: Augenkrebs und Kohlefasern

Today the repair man came back.  This time, it was he who caused the Rheometer to pop.  So he decided to take it back to the factory so he didn't need to keep coming to SGL every week.  Bianca was making graphs today and was trying to make them display as much information as possible, such that there were a lot of colors, columns, and dots all over the graph.  She stopped, looked at it and said "Wer diese Grafik anschaut wird Augenkrebs davon kriegen." (Whoever looks at this graph will get eye-cancer from it."  Looking at it, it was neat and orderly, but crowded and very colorful.  We also started to speculate about carbon fibers.  We'd already proven (twice) that carbon fibers will completely destroy electrical circuits just by touching them (we blew the electrical circuits for our work room twice), and that it is possible that they can destroy instruments as well (such as my Rheometer).  Our thoughts then went to "What would happen if a carbon fiber found its way into the human brain?"  Needless to say, we were all pretty bored today. 

Post 49: Another visit from the Rheometer Repair man

Today was the day that the repair person for the Rheometer was supposed to come and repair it.  He did, it worked for a while, then as I tried to heat it up, it popped again, and so he will have to come back tomorrow to try and fix it.  Otherwise, Monday was a rather normal day. 

Post 48: Gottesdienst und Liederkranz

Well, today was an all in all interesting day.  To start, I woke up quite early knowing that I would be needing to be at the Alte Post circa 7:45.  The Männerchor was to be singing at a mass outside.  Once per year, (generally near the summer solstice, which is also the Johannisfeier in Germany).   It was in a chapel way far out of Meitingen that a family had built some years ago.  We went and sang a mass in Bavarian (not German).  It was quite interesting, but fun nonetheless.  Afterward, we had Brotzeit with the other mass goers.  It was Leberkäs, Bretzen, Senf, and Bier.  It was also really good.  I had the chance to chat with a lot of people:  people that I knew before, and people that I didn't.  I got the comment a lot that when people planned to come to this mass, they didn't think they'd be in discussion with an "Ami".   Helmut Ortner brought me an old jacket from the men's chorus, including their official patch, that says "Liederkranz Meitingen".  He also brought me the old official tie of the group.  Theo, the group leader also told me that I could keep the music from the Mass and bring it back to Michigan if I wanted to.  Once I came back, I went and practiced  piano for a while.  It was fun. 
After that, I came home to watch the Germany England game.  It was quite exciting to see how well the Germans played.  Then, for about 3 hours after the end of the game, there were people driving and walking through Meitingen honking their horns and playing Vuvuzelas.  Kind of annoying, but it was interesting all the same.  After catching some dinner, I went for a bike ride northward and westward. 

Post. 47: Walking to Ellgau

Today, after arriving back in Meitingen from my trip to Augsburg to update my blog, I went for a walk along the Lech toward Ellgau.  It is  nice 3 hour walk.  A nice way to relax and let your mind wander as much as your feet.