- posted by H @ 3/29/2007 10:04:00 PM

 
Hello, all.
Chinese New Year is just around the corner (it's Sunday), and it seems to me that more attention is being paid to it, for some reason. There are people in traditional Chinese outfits handing out flyers for the Chinese New Year show in Radio City Music Hall. I'm going to try to get down to Chinatown on Sunday - it helps that Monday is a holiday, so I don't have to get up for work.

Goodbye Year of the Dog - Hello Year of the Pig.
I've done a little research, and here are all of our Chinese horoscopes (including element!), starting from youngest to oldest:

H: Gold Monkey (a.k.a. Metal Monkey)
JP: Fire Snake
C: Water Ox
Mom: Wood Monkey
Dad: Fire Rat

Dad: the good news about being the Rat is that the Rat is the first animal (and the Ox is the second!). Also, I learned from my friend Andrew Jackson that 2000 was a very good year to have a child - it was Gold Dragon, and it was a nice, round number. Apparently many Chinese people (like his wife) made sure to have a child that year...

Interestingly, although S was born in 1977, it was in January, so she isn't a Fire Snake; she's a Fire Dragon.

Fun stuff. My "Chinese name" when I was in Hong Kong was Vast Ox - I picked the Ox part of the name, but the character for Vast was an older, less-used character - it was simply the character for water three times. Which makes sense, since I'm a Water Ox.

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 2/16/2007 02:57:00 PM

 
Hello family,

JP, I didn't know your script was called Ilya, the Valet! Beaver Avenue as a 'valet' themed song (you can hear it on their myspace) and I bet they would allow Brian to use it if he wanted. Let him know about it - I think he might like the song. It's heavy.

Okay, regarding birthday plans. Thank you, C, for offering the hotel idea. I can see where you are coming from with the crowdedness. As long as it isn't a bother or too expensive, I am happy with it! The only thing is that I have a bio exam that Saturday morning, so couldn't come to NYC until immediately after. So I was thinking that maybe Dad could go to the city on Friday and I could follow Saturday after my exam. That way he would have more leisure time and could make a real weekend out of it. I hate to be a party pooper, but that's just my schedule.

Chem exam tonight! Feeling good about it. Yes, C, let's talk after the exam. Sorry I hadn't gotten back to you - it's just because I am studying so much. We are doing thermodynamics and how it relates to chemistry. It's cool but the hardest thing we have done in chemistry so far. You really have to know your rules and parameters of the problem and watch your units like crazy. Fun!

All from me. Am excited about Dad's bday and such. COLD HERE!!

love to all,
H
- posted by H @ 2/06/2007 09:34:00 AM

 
H: I'll call you Tuesday night, after your test. I don't want to interrupt the studying!
Just wanted to let you know that S and I want to put you and Dad up in the Hotel Pennsylvania when you come in March. Having both you and Dad stay at our place would be too crowded. We'll try to get you guys a suite, so you have separate rooms.
Plus, it's literally across the street from Penn Station, so it will be a very short walk to the hotel; no need to get on the subway or the like.
Plus! You'll be in Mid-town, right in the swing of things. You can get around to the 'cool' parts of Manhattan more quickly...
Plus!!! You can go down to Joe O's to eat. Dad would appreciate that, I think. He's an early riser, and he could go down to the restaurant and sit and drink coffee and read...
I told Dad the idea, and he seems to like it.
What days do you plan on coming up? I was assuming you guys would stay Friday and Saturday nights - March 23rd and 24th.

Lemme know!
C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 2/05/2007 04:15:00 PM

 
Dear All

Yikes, I haven't blogged in forever. BUSY. C, great to hear the pounds keep comin off. Eye of the tiger!

Am in the library doing chemistry, getting ready for our first exam of the year in the subject this coming Tuesday. I actually feel pretty good, and know that if I just study consistently until Tuesday I should have no problems getting an excellent grade. However, bio is also coming up and it's a lot of memorization, as usual. We are doing 'formation of earth,' 'early life on earth,' that kind of stuff. It's cool, but tough to remember all the crazy names for those little single and multi-cellular creatures. We are also doing evolution. My fellow classmate Dave and I were contemplating the lack of representation of 'intelligent design' curriculum in our class, but decided not to raise the issue. ha. Our teacher is still bad, but makes me laugh with random references to Chairman Mao and how chinese people are good at math. i have all the same teachers this semester as last one, which is bad regarding bio but fortuitous regarding chemistry. As I have mentioned before, my chem professor is phenomenal.

Am currently shopping around for part time/full time summer jobs in labs and part time fall positions. Need money and experience. Coursework will not suffer if I work 10-15 hours a week. I got an email back from a neurosurgeon regarding work. He does neuronal death, regeneration, etc after surgery and traumatic brain injury. Cool stuff.

anyway, back to studying for me. Oh, yeah, Dad and I can take the train from Philly, or the bus. They just started a roundtrip bus service from 30th st station to penn station for $25!

love to all,
H
- posted by H @ 2/01/2007 02:53:00 PM

 
Hello, everyone.

You know that you've lost weight when you see someone you haven't seen since before you started the diet, and they say, "You're melting away!" That's what a guy told me when I saw him at a Continuing Legal Education lunch today. We had last met up in mid-November, right before I started the diet. Nice encouragement, and he didn't even know I was on a diet...

Also, I lost two more pounds! Which is nice - I've moved past the plateau, and I hope the weight keeps coming off. This makes the total 22 pounds. My goal is to weigh 249 or under; I'm still not sure if I started at 309, or at 299; by either scale, though, I've lost the 22 lbs.

JP - I couldn't come up with anything negative about that website - and I don't think a one-time flat fee of $100 is too much, so I'd go for it!

H - I read through the lawyer's letter and it looks good. I'm happy with the way he set up the relationship.

Dad - I think coming in on the train would be a good plan. Driving in NYC is a stressful experience...

I'll try to call everyone this week; Dad - I'll call you tonight...

Love,
C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 1/30/2007 05:01:00 PM

 
Quick weight update:
Another 2 pounds!
So my grand total is now 20 pounds - something I'm proud of!

I'd still like to lose at least another 30 pounds, so I'm now entering Phase 2 - adding much more exercise to my day. I had continued to exercise as before, but it consisted mostly of 30 minutes of cardio 3x per week, plus weights maybe once a week.

Phase 3 will be running, on top of everything else. The lighter I am when I start Phase 3, the better - saves wear and tear on the ol' knees...

Onward and upward! (Or downward, as far as weight is concerned.)

C

P.S. Ohio State didn't show up. They deserved to lose. In my mind, Boise State is the 2006 college football champion...
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 1/09/2007 03:51:00 PM

 
Happy New Year, everyone.

For the 07/07/07 wedding, we should book hotel rooms. As far as I know, most hotel reservations can be cancelled 24 hours before you are due to show up, so we should reserve, and then cancel if necessary.
Regarding transportation - that's something we should have some time to figure out. I've been using Zipcars (which is like Philly Car Share), and I know I will be able to reserve a car for that weekend.
So, Dad, can you post the hotel info on the blog? Or at least the web address where we can look that up? I have the card from Paul somewhere - if I find it, I'll post the info.

JP - Yeah, Dan Brown is annoying like that. You have to see his books as fiction first, and not even historical fiction. He just makes stuff up when he needs it, or if it sounds cool.

Thanks for the encouragement re: weight. I lost one more pound in the last week, for a grand total of 18 pounds. I broke the diet a few times (pizza party on work on Friday, New Years Eve dinner Sunday), so I'm not surprised at the lower loss.
Some more good news - it seems the scale at my gym may be about 10 pounds off. I thought I was 291, coming down from a starting weight of 309. But I weighed myself on my home scale, which maxes out at 286, and it said my weight is 281. So maybe I started at 299, and am down to 281. I'll have to try out more scales...
But, I'm strictly back on the diet, so I hope to have more progress!

Good talking to you guys!

C
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 1/03/2007 12:40:00 PM

 







Here are some pictures that were taken over Thankgiving - finally took them off the memory card!

love to all, H
- posted by H @ 12/08/2006 09:10:00 PM

 
Dear all,

Christmas is indeed looming. On my end, as I had discussed with Dad, I have no plans as of right now. As Gavin's family is Jewish, they don't celebrate Xmas, and I am not sure when Hanukkah falls this year. I have heard nothing about it. His family members aren't so much the 'gathering' type anyway.

So what do we do? I have no idea. I am in the middle of studying for finals, hence have a one-track mind.

Let me know your thoughts!

love,
H
- posted by H @ 12/07/2006 09:11:00 AM

 
H: Sounds good! Your ideas, I mean. Mmmm - flasks!

Dad: Poison stream???
I looked up your bacteria on Wikipedia: tough bastards!
Here's a quote: The Pseudomonads are metabolically diverse, can consequently colonise a wide range of niches, and are generally perceived to be agents of spoilage and degradation. ...
Pseudomonas have the ability to metabolise a variety of diverse nutrients. Combined with the ability to form biofilms, they are thus able to able to survive in a variety of unexpected places.

I'm glad we're posting again, and we'll have a good time at Thanksgiving!
C

- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 11/15/2006 12:01:00 PM

 
lull in bloggings for sure. There has been very little activity on here in recent months - not even anything about the recent elections!!

I am at the library right now and needed a break from Quantum calculations, so am on the internet. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving, not only because of the family gathering, but also because my 3rd chem exam will be done. Had my 2nd bio exam yesterday and think I did well. Will let you all know. I think I told Dad this, but not everyone: I got an 85 on my second chem exam - a good score! Am hoping to continue the trend up and beyond that. I am doing well in my chem quizes, so can expect a good grade as long as I can get a handle on this quantum stuff. So far I have been doing well with it.

Would anyone want to go to see some classical music on Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving? The big classical music venue in philly, the Kimmel Center, which is downtown, has cheap tickets for some Mahler, and other things - link here.
We could get cheap seats at $10 a pop, and sneak flasks in and annoy people. If this sounds interesting, I can get tickets online asap.

Otherwise, I am looking into fun stuff to do: there's the philadelphia art museum, which I really enjoy, and the penn museum of archeology and anthropology, which I have NOT been to, and would like to check out. I am pretty sure most of us have been to the medical oddities museum in philly, the mutter museum, but if anyone hasn't, it's cool and worth a trip. And indian food, a cool arboretum, and hiking for those who are willing. We can also go back to that inn in the park that we had drinks at last year, do you guys remember? With that, we could do something similar to last year - kids go hiking, Dad 'holds down the fort' at the bar. Also, I will find out if Borat is still playing at the theatre near my house, and we can see Borat together.

We could also play board games and just hang out. It's up to you guys.

It would be nice if the weather stays reasonably warm through Thanksgiving. I went hiking in short sleeves yesterday, it was so warm!

Anyway, back to studying for me.

love to all,
H
- posted by H @ 11/12/2006 06:10:00 PM

 
Well, we have a lull in blog postings!
Here's some sad news from Germany; this happened on the Protestant Reformation holiday:

Pfarrer verbrennt sich aus Angst vor dem Islam

In einem Erfurter Kloster hat sich ein evangelischer Geistlicher selbst verbrannt. In Abschiedsbriefen an seine Frau gibt er als Motiv Sorge vor der Ausbreitung des Islam an. Vorgesetzte, Kollegen und Bekannte sind entsetzt.
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 11/03/2006 02:20:00 PM

 
hello all,

things are rolling along here. I just wanted to re-start discussion of Thanksgiving festivities. We only have about a month until turkey (tofurkey) day, and if JP is coming out to the East Coast, or if any flying at all will be happening, we should be booking things.

I would be more than happy to host here in Philly again, but am up for any other suggestions. Gavin may or may not be home, he might already be gone for work.

Let me know!
love to all,
H
- posted by H @ 10/18/2006 07:53:00 PM