Learning too much!

     It is a pleasant Saturday after a hectic but enjoyable week.  This morning (well 11:30...) I went running for an hour, and can honestly say I enjoyed every minute of it.  I like it when that happens.  Anyways, all the important people in my department are in Vietnam this week and next week, developing shoes on site.  Interns aren’t permitted to go, so I’m holding down the fort for my division.  A fair amount to do, but it’s less stressful knowing your boss isn’t going to walk in any second.  The most exciting thing this week though was the progress made on my “Best Practices of Running Shoe Design” project.  I don’t remember how much I’ve talked about that so far.  Basically it is a presentation that a designer, developer, product manager, or anyone else could read with little prior knowledge on running shoes, and then come up with a great biomechanically sound design and eventually shoe.  It should smooth over the disconnect between the folks doing research and the people actually making the new shoes.

     This past week, on Wednesday evening, another intern and myself got to take a drive to Switzerland.  The Rennbahn Clinic located in Basel Switzerland is one of the top clinics in the world attracting both recreational and professional athletes from all over Europe to come for professional advice, gait analysis, etc.  They see a lot of patients, and do a lot of research.  They basically know everything there is to know about running and soccer biomechanics (soccer is Karen’s project, the other intern).

     In summary, we arrived in the evening and got settled in to the expensive hotel that PUMA paid for, took a short tour of the area (self guided tour, pictures coming next week), got a great nights sleep, got up in the morning, checked out, went for breakfast, headed to the clinic, misjudged the time we needed, had an hour to kill outside in the cold (but with a great sunrise), finally met two of the owners of the clinic who are two of the top pioneers in the field, and then asked them questions for about 5 hours (I tested their ideas on my run this morning), before they took us to lunch (which would have been super expensive if we’d had to pay for it!), and sent us on our 5 hour drive back to Herzo. Yes, that was a run-on sentence.  On the way back, driving a manual VolksWagon Golf Variant I hit 200 Km/h (125 mph), drove through 9 or 10 roundabouts (traffic circles), and got good practice with stop and go traffic trying not to stall the car.  When I did stall though, the engine automatically restarted which was nice.  Also, at traffic lights the engine would automatically turn off to save energy.  Eventually we had to get gas (about twice what it costs in the States), but were at a loss at how to open the gas door on the side of the car...  I searched all over for a lever by my seat.  Karen came around with her little flashlight to look some more.  Finally I found a lever, pulled it, thought I heard something pop open, though the gas door was still shut, before Karen discovered that if you just push the door, it pops open!  Side note, the popping open that I thought I heard was actually the hood of the car.  We drove the last 50 miles with it open a few inches.  Oops... kept the engine from overheating I reckon  ;)   - In the end, we arrived back in Herzo just in time to go to the Internationale Studenten Treff where we were baking Christmas cookies.  Delightful!  I’m making some more this weekend with my mom’s recipe to bring to work on Monday.

Christmas Cookie Volcano

     I referenced this a few weeks ago, and here are the pictures finally.  No need for a mixing bowl.  This Thursday we are making Christmas cookies again at the International Student Meeting.  I'm hoping to make my mom's sugar cookies if I can find the time to grab the ingredients.

     I should also mention, I'm about to get my first chance to drive in Germany.  Another intern and I are driving to a laboratory in Basel, Switzerland on Wednesday evening to consult with some folks on a project we're working on.  Her license is in Canada, so I'm driving the 4 hour stretch, with a manual, in Germany, in Kilometers/hour, probably a lot of km/hr (by that I mean fast).  I hope I don't break any rules by accident.  My license is good the first 6 months I'm here, even though I've never learned German road rules.  Supposedly it's pretty simple to get a drivers a German license so I may do that at some point.  For about half of the states, including PA, you just have show your license and pay about 30€ and they give you a German one.  Not exactly fair, since for a German to get a license they pay a few thousand dollars and take a course.  I paid $25 =)

Another day in the office.

We don't know anything about these people

Typical

München - 1st attempt

I spent this weekend in Munich for a conference.  One of the afternoons we got to check out the city.  It looks like a sweet place and I'm looking forward to going back in the spring with the honors program for a week!

 Below is from a market.  In the bottom right are 6 barrels of beer with names of the 6 breweries in Munich that are allowed to sell beer at October fest.  They are all within the city limits.

 Notice something peculiar about the clock?  It runs backwards and the "IV" is written "IIII"

As a regular at one of the most famous pubs in Munich you get your mug stored there behind bars. 

 I think this dragon has something to do with the plague.

"Gift"

So I had a bad cold for a few weeks that involved some cough and whatnot.  My neighbor lady found out and asked me what I was taking so I showed her my Robitusson I had brought from the States.  "'Gift', just as I thought" she replied and told me about some natural remedies she new.  I couldn't remember what gift meant in English, so I looked it up... "poison."  It's amazing that I took poison 4 days in a row and lived to tell the tale.  
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

holidays, shoes, and the like

It's been a bit since I've written.  Life goes on though so here is the scoop.


November 1st - German Holiday - no work! Prayer brunch with SMD.  In addition to prayer it included weißwurst (white sausage) and Bretzeln (soft pretzels) both with sweet mustard.  Weißwurst is super traditional in Bavaria, though the feelings about it are quite mixed.  I enjoyed it though.  There is some debate about the proper way to eat it.  It's rather soft so it is encased like many sausages to hold it together.  The question is whether you poke a whole in the end and suck it out, or slice it open and scoop it out.  I went for the slice and scoop method.  The other didn't seem socially acceptable.


That afternoon I joined a few friends at their apartment complex and we made Christmas cookies.  They don't have thanksgiving here so Christmas is already on everyone's minds.  They are rolling out all the Christmas decorations at the mall right now actually.  I left the christmas cookie pics at home, so apologies there, but we decided against bowls and instead piled the flour on the table and shaped it like a volcano and put the wet ingredients in the top and then mixed it with hands =) with lots of love.  The girls made their cookies with steel... but they still tasted okay.  I finished the day with a trip to a cake shop with a friend.  We ate outside and froze to death.  Most of the cakes had some sort of alcohol in them.  Germans are pretty obsessed =)


Next evening was SMD, which was swell but let's move to Thursday.  I went to the international student group (IST).  We learned some Bavarian words and expressions.  They say "That is sausage" to say "it doesn't matter, it's all the same."


The other main thing that was exciting for me was finally meeting with the head of innovation for PUMA and talking about my project with him.  Turns out he graduated from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh!  Anyways, another intern was already doing a project on soccer cleats and they mentioned that they might give me the same project for a different kind of shoe.  I was so scared they were going to assign me to cricket or handball!  In the end, it's RUNNING!  I was thrilled.  Running biomechanics is even cooler than soccer in my opinion because it's so advanced but so regular so you can study it really well.  Running is primarily done in Boston so they'll be teaming me up with someone there to talk with.  They mentioned maybe sending me there which would be sweet, but then they remembered the Boston guys are coming here in a few weeks so there is now need... schade (what a pity).  We'll see what happens but I may end up training for a marathon depending on how this project turns out.


Check out Octobers PUMA magazine here!  Unfortunately some of the info is only viewable from PUMA locations...  Talks a lot about the new 32 year old CEO of PUMA, Franz Koch.  He has a longboard!  Also Volvo Ocean Race!


K I gotta run enjoy the sun before it sets (at 5pm!)