LED Snowboarder

Usually I don't just post random video, but this is sweet.  Snowboarding at night in an LED suit!

Easter Weirdness

Easter is coming.  The mall here always has fascinating decorations.  There are a lot of these scenes with bunnies now around the mall, some playing instruments, some in real rabbit cages, and then these ones painting easter eggs.  With their heads at such awkward angles I find they look quite creepy.  Real grass though makes the whole thing nice.  It’s hard to imagine how the resurrection of Jesus Christ inspired a scene like this.

Shopping Spree!

Saturday, I headed up a trip for IST (Internationale Studenten Treff) where we all went to PUMA and did some shopping using my discount (Karen shared hers too thankfully).  Even though we all live in Erlangen, just 6 miles from Herzo, most of the students had never been there so it was a fun trip.  I just took a few pictures as we were arriving.  It is funny to see in the one picture, a punch being given, and then the reaction in the next  =)

Run FAAS

So almost a week ago now it was race time.  I had been injured for about a month before I could finally start logging kilometers again (logging miles is a thing of the past). A 3km, 2km, 5km, and 7km run got me up to speed for race day.  Two friends from work, Karen and Jordan, ran along with me as team PUMA.  There were a good 433 runners in the race and Karen and I got stuck starting near the back.  We spent the first 4km just trying to find gaps in the crowd to squeeze forwards.  It was okay though since our main goal was to finish without pulling any muscles.  Jordan started at the front and stayed there finishing in 2nd place with a time of 33:41 (a 5:23 mile pace), over a minute behind first place but more than a minute ahead of third place.  My first 6km were pain free so I took off and cut a minute off of my pace for each kilometer after that and came in a respectable 48:31 (originally paced for 52:00).  Rank? 146.  Better luck next time.  On a side note, both 2nd and 3rd place (as well as place 146 and 210) were all rocking really awesome PUMA FAAS Running shoes.  I think it is safe to say the shoes cut a full minute from our times.  Not really fair for the competition.  Anyway, lots of fun, a beautiful day, and looking forward to my next race, a half marathon in May.

"Wow that number is wrinkly!" you say?  A friend of mine from RIT, Zach, taught me to wrinkle up my number so it isn't so stiff and uncomfortable.  Did make it rather difficult for them to scan my barcode at the finish though... oops!

Formal Friday

So this was fun.  At PUMA it is casual Friday everyday, so 2 other interns and myself decided to mix things up and promote suit up formal Friday.  This was the first week, and we had an impressive turnout of about 15 or so people in with more promised for next week.  It was fun to see reactions.

Things I Do Not Understand

So let's look at a very German restaurant, well known across the world - Hofbrauhaus.  It is full of Bavarians being Bavarian, wearing lederhosen, drinking beer, and singing songs.  Let's look at a nearby store.  It is also quite German as far as I can tell.  It is a supermarket known as LIDL.  At the first location one can purchase a full liter of beer for about 7€, which is often repeated every hour.  At the latter, one can purchase a full liter of ice cream for about 1.49€.  Now to me it seems obvious where to spend one's money.  Getting almost 5 liters of ice cream for the price of 1 liter of beer sounds like quite a deal.  That's why the Hofbrauhaus is going out of business and Germans have stopped drinking beer entirely....


Wait... but they have't?  Actually Hofbrauhaus is still doing great business and Germans are still drinking lots of beer.  How can that be, given the circumstances?  Well I haven't given you the whole picture.  It turns out that the supermarket, LIDL, that sells the ice cream that should put Hofbrauhaus out of business is only open until 8:00pm like every store in Germany.  As a restaurant, the Hofbrauhaus stays open until about midnight, leaving Germans with no choice but to drink beer during those sad hours.


This my friends is the root cause for Germany being known for beer, I think.

Munich Cont'd

We visited Weihenstephan Brewery, the oldest in the world.  The guide was a doctorate student at the Technical University of Munich doing some beer related studies.  He was very Bavarian, and earned 5 liters of beer a day for his studies.  There is some crazy partnership between the university and the brewery.

 I don't know what these buildings are but I'd like to spend more time with them.