Valley Bike Ride

Feeling Fat
We had a dinner party invitation that evening to eat Raclette at our German teacher's house. Raclette is lots of cheese, and I was feeling the guilt-trip my doctor was going to give me when I got back to the States. The shadow of "Lipitor" looms over me.

So I had to get out and get some exercise. I hopped on the bike and tried to see just how much endurance I have built up since I started biking to work almost daily.

In the coming week, Easter Sunday, to be exact, I have to serve the flying club as "Barakenchef", which means "Barracks Chief" -- This means I get to cook the bread for the sandwiches, make the sandwiches, clean up the crumbs, and generally be available around the club-house while everybody else flies. Back in my flying club in Virginia, I would find myself giving flight instruction. But here, I am but a student. In order for me to know what to do as Barakenchef, I decided to go to the airport and hang out for a while, to see how this week's Barakenchef handles the stress of the job.

Out on the Road
As I headed out on bike, I struck out onto a path that I had wanted to take many times. A look at the map from my house in Rüfenacht to the airport shows a pretty short distance, even though I can not see the airport from my house, as it is blocked by a hill to the south of here. On the way to Belp, I took the direct route across the river. There is a pedestrian bridge crossing the Aare, directly across from Belp. The bridge is a wooden covered bridge, and is quite picturesque, (wish I brought a camera).

The river appears to be tame (today), with nicely managed embankments, allowing you to walk right up to the river and dip your feet in. This will be a great place when the summer comes. The water is mostly clear, and you can see nearly to the bottom of the river where it's not too deep.

I set out to Belp, and hung out in the barracks for a while, finding out where the croissants are kept, where the sandwiches hide, etc. After about an hour of telling people that I was not going to fly, I set back out on my bike. This time heading home. Stacy needed me to get home in time to take Jake out shopping for a new computer.

I got back to the bridge, saw that there was this great gravel path that went upriver, and thought, "where does this go?" I set out on a wonderful journey of this flat, well-maintained bike path that had no interruptions, no traffic lights, no stops, no hills, no valleys, but a few puddles here and there. The path followed the river, with a place to build a lovely picnic every 100 meters or so, right on the river.

I rode along this seemingly endless gravel path, along the riverbank. I stopped once to admire the view of the river and call home. "Jake keeps asking if you have gotten hurt! You're taking so long to get back. Get back soon, the Media Markt closes soon." My original purpose of the call was to get Stacy to drag the kids out here to see the cool place to have a picnic. Oh well. I had gone so far down the river, that it might have been easier to just continue south and get to the place where Viehweidstrasse crosses the river.

While I was so far south, I took a shortcut into Viehweid to pick up a few new upper rotor blades for my Blade CX2. There is a store that specializes in just radio-controlled helicopters, named Helikopter Baumann. I crash my Blade CX2 a lot, and they make big money out of me coming to buy replacement blades on a monthly basis. I often fly the helicopter outdoors (flying indoors has gotten boring); and just the slightest breeze keeps the helicopter from being able to get upwind. Oftentimes the helicopter ends up getting pushed backwards as it tries to fight into the wind. This is usually followed by a crash into the trees behind my patio.

About 30% of the time, my flying ends with a fatal injury to the helicopter, usually in the form of busted blades. I have a large supply of replacement blades, and have become quite adept at replacing them (more into that later).

A short visit, and 15 CHF later, I back on the bike ride home. I made it into Rübigen, and expected the family to start getting impatient with my delayed return. I pass the train station and wonder if there is a convenient train departing soon. Sure enough, the next train leaves at 1259, just a few minutes from when I arrived at the station. I pull my bike into the train, and get back to Gümligen, the next station, within a few minutes.

Here is a map of the day on my bike. Total distance: 5.07 miles to the airport (blue), 7.64 miles to Rübigen (magenta). Not bad for a flabby guy like me! The soreness on the next day was not that bad.


View Larger Map

Blade CX2 Upgrades
I followed the link to the company that makes my RC Helicopter (I have the red one on the upper-left in the picture to the right), and they sell all sorts of upgrades for this model. New fuselage (replaced twice due to landing damage. OK, I'll be honest, it was crash damage). Replacement landing gear that is purported to be "indestructible" (I have already replaced the landing gear only once). Indestructible rotor blades (we'll see about that), better batteries, stronger motors, replacement tail boom (lighter), new battery box. Of course, once I found this, I immediately had to buy them all. I am considering this an investment -- the constant replacement of rotor blades, fuselage, landing gear, batteries is starting to get expensive! I am sure Helikopter-Baumann will miss me.

What is really funny is people say, "well at least R/C helicopters isn't as expensive as soaring" I laugh. I am not so sure about that uneducated statement, that is quite close to being wrong.

The flying experience usually goes like this:

• Go outside with helicopter
• Fly for a bit
• Come back inside because:

1. batteries ran dry; (I have three); 20%
   
2. motor got too hot; 10%
   
3. Crash-Damage (30%)
4. Winds too strong, precautionary retreat to avoid #3 above (40%)

Atlas of Strange Maps

I love maps. You may have noticed that I always seem to find a way to include a Google Maps page showing the recent locations of my adventures. This has pretty much been a love of mine since I was a kid and enjoyed opening up the National Geographic maps and exploring all the geography of each new issue.

Last night, I ran across this wonderful site that sings to my original calling -- that love of maps, named "Strange Maps" This Blog keeps track of strange maps that the author has found. I love old maps. As you may know, my original training at George Mason was as a Geography major, focusing on cartography. Since there is no money in map making, and many better career opportunities with "teh Internets", my career ended up at VeriSign, and not drawing maps. One of these days, I'm going to have to get my mom to get me a tour of the dusty old map room at the Library of Congress.

My favorite of the maps was a book cover showing the "Röstigraben", the "isogloss" border in Switzerland, where French is spoken to the west, German to the east. I traverse this border daily, and clearly notice the difference; most notably in the names of the street signs. Rösti is also one of the few Swiss foods that the children, especially Jake and Cecilia, really love. Stacy makes this dish at least twice a week.

Papiliorama Adventure

On a sunny Saturday in February, we decided to do something with our day. We did not really know what we were going to do, but among a few choices, decided to go to the Papiliorama to the north of here. We took the Intercity to Lyss, and then switched to a privately-run train to the Papiliorama stop, which is right in front of the park. With a modest admission fee of $44 for the family, we entered.

Butterfly Garden
The first stop was the Swiss Butterfly Garden. This is a geodesic structure that acts as a very effective greenhouse. It was a pretty warm Saturday in Switzerland, a recent heat-wave making everything seem like spring. Inside this butterfly garden, it was very warm and moist. The kids complained constantly. But they are at home complaining. The only time they are not complaining is when they are unconscious.

When we first got in, we noticed the room is full of plants, flowers... and after a few seconds, you notice there are zillions of little butterflies flitting around. The entrance to the room has four rules, (not in English), but at least they have enough pictures for the kids and non-German, non-Francophones to comprehend. No catching them, no stepping on the butterflies, no touching them, and no food.



I took about 75 pictures with the camera's macro-mode. It is really hard to get these photos right -- the butterfly is flitting about, the focal distance is only about a centimeter, and the lighting has to be right. Out of all of the pictures I took, only a few were suitable for publishing on the website (see the slide show above).

Also wonderful to behold was a huge pool, with some sort of monster fish, which fascinated the kids. He kept bumping on the window, with his big monster fish lips, and I kept telling the kids "I am a monster fish. I eat children!" The kids just laughed, and didn't run away screaming.


We found a butterfly that landed on a picture of a butterfly. I guess he found it to be a convincing rendition of a fellow insect. Cute.

There were a few hummingbirds zipping around the butterfly garden. One particular hummingbird was very upset about any butterflies that approached. As he sat on the branch, he would leap into the air and chase away a butterfly, then return to his perch, to pose for us. He would not let me get very close, so it took many attempts for me to get this photo above.

The Nocturama
There is a second room, about the same size as the Swiss Butterfly Garden; this room painted with a blue roof, to reduce the ambient light to about 1/1000th of the light of daytime. In this room, all sorts of nocturnal animals rummaged about doing their nocturnal deeds.

Sorry, no pictures; they expressly prohibited flash photography, and all the low light shots I took did not come out very well (very grainy). The Nocturama page boasts about "[three-toed] sloth[s], tree porcupines, night monkeys, kinkajous, ocelots, giant anacondas and many others. "

It is probably a good thing they did not go into detail about "many others." When you first get into the Nocturama, it is the same terror you get as you walk into a dark room scattered with legos on the floor. You can't see anything, so you walk very slowly. It takes about 10 minutes to start to adjust to the dark, and after 15, you are pretty much fully adjusted.

For the first ten minutes, you are admiring the cute ocelot, and trying to find the kinkajou, or marveling at the size of the monster anaconda.

Occasionally, there is this whiff of air by your head. You don't really notice. Part of the tour takes you through a very dark stone cave-like part of the path. I now have walked around this part of the park long enough to be fully-adjusted, and I know why they did not go into more detail about "and many more. "

There be bats in here! The bats are awesome creatures. It is quite clear to me that they are truly acrobats of the night. I have gained just enough dark sensitivity to realize that those whiffs by my head were bats zinging by. A different part of the path looked down on the other visitors who were in the first five minutes of the 'adjusting to the dark' phase. It is quite the experience to watch the people WHO HAVE NO CLUE.

Out of the bat cave, zing these bats at a pace that would seem to be a blur in normal light. The unknown latent sufferers of chiroptophobia completely unaware of the gravity of their position. The bats flit out of the cave at unbelievable speeds, zip by the family of four looking at the ocelots; zing by the newlyweds looking at the kinkajous, all while completely unaware that there is more to see.

Once I excitedly remarked "Wow! Bats!" Stacy decided to (quickly) return to safety -- outside of the Nocturama. Jake and I stayed in long enough to do more anthropology lessons -- people watching (one of my favorite past-times); and admire the speed and agility of the bats.

Flashbacks of Bats
I am sure my mom, reading this somewhere in Virginia, will start recalling one of her most memorable moments of my childhood. On Easter break, I was wandering around four mile run, in Arlington; where I grew up, with my friend Ward. I suppose we were about 9 or 10 years old at the time.

While enjoying a quiet afternoon of throwing rocks into the creek, or finding interesting pieces of trash in the creek-bed, busting bottles on the rocks, we decided to find entertainment in making as much noise as possible. There were huge metal flood doors that slam shut to keep a flooding four mile run from backing up into the streets of Arlington. The hinge outwards to allow street run-off to enter the creek/river. As kids, we neither cared nor knew what function these doors had. All we knew was the sound of them slamming shut was awesome.

They were big heavy doors that once lifted with every ounce of might from my developing arms, would whoosh down and meet the bottom with the most terrific klang. The pipe that the door protected was easily big enough for us to walk into, although hunched over. Once or twice, our ears not ringing yet, the crashing noise of the klang was immediately followed by this wheezy shriek. Curiosity overcame our desire to make racket, to discover a poor bat with a broken wing, lying on the floor of the monster pipe. Each time the door klanged, he was probably screaming in pain from the noise.

Without touching him, we managed to coax him into a cardboard box that we had acquired from the nearby Giant Food grocery store. Ward managed to draw the bat out with the moisture of a stick (guess the little guy was thirsty!) This was also during the time that there was a rabies scare in our area. I don't know if it was an actual scare, or if it was just one of the bogeyman stories that adults tell children to keep them in line, but the fear of rabid animals was a phobia that gripped my imagination most vividly. (I do not know where that rabies fear was during this adventure, though).

We proudly brought the prize of what we had found at the creek back home. I called my mom, who was at work, "Hey mom! Guess what! We found a bat!" After a pause of what I can now imagine my mother's imagination running wild, probably with the same images of rabid animals that I had beem filled with. "Well don't touch it!" was my mother's first response.

We called the animal shelter of Arlington, which sent a representative to come pick up the poor creature. I presume it was nursed back to health, but now as an adult, I suppose that the poor creature had slim prospects to survive.

On the subject of creepy creatures
... and back to the previous subject of the Papiliorama; they had another room called the "Arthopodarium" -- they had a few insects, a few arachnids; some quite adorable tarantulas, seen in the slide show above. Stacy did not spend much time in this room, either. One of the youngest stick-bugs managed to escape his glass display case, discovered by Joshie, and got to sit on my finger for a while.

There was a really great park and a petting zoo that the kids really enjoyed. Among the things that "the pongo plaza" boasted were swings unlike any we have seen in the US, shaped kind of like a basket, which allowed me to swing the children to obscene heights.

A pair of Swiss German girls, about 9 or 10 years old, climbed on to the swing, while Josh and Cecilia watched on in terrified horror. In German, I offered to swing them, "I won't swing you so high" I said. One of the girls responded, "Doch, GANZ HOCH!" (no way, really high please!) Not only did I swing them as high as I could, the girl started standing up on the swing to get more sway out of it. Now that is bravery.

Once they were done, Joshie and Cecilia got on-board. I swung them about half as high as the two Swiss-German girls swung. The kids never even got to the zero-G point of the swing. The two screamed like there was an axe murderer. Josh kept screaming, "Not so high!"

It's Springtime! (or not)

We have been surprised that the little pond outside our house is home to about 35 frogs. We previously thought that only koi were the main inhabitants of this small pond, and now that it has gotten warmer recently, the frogs are out in force. The last two weeks in February were quite warm, by Swiss standards.

This site maintained by the Swiss weather service MeteoSwiss shows the actual temperature versus the average. You can see that last two weeks of February is well above average. I don't think the frogs in our pond knew that they were going to be in for two more snowy days, and they emerged ready to procreate. Our pond had frogs everywhere. On top of each other. Some parts were writhing orgies of frog-pile. They emerged from the pond long enough to lay about a zillion tadpole eggs. Walking around our patio in the evening had to be done carefully, for fear of stepping on one.

One evening, a frog wandered all the way to our front door, and looked as if he was trying to get inside through the kitty door. Stacy made me get him out of the way. Of course, I had to pick him up and look closely. It was rather a chilly night, and his cold-blooded disposition really enjoyed the few minutes of sitting in my warm hands. I took the frog inside to show to Joey, who was terrified. He hid his head under the pillow, "I don't want to look at the frog!" His mood turned as I was about to return the frog to the pond. I think Joey only got a short glimpse of our amphibian friend from outside, and he changed his whole demeanor. "I like the little frogs." Joey said. It soon became a struggle to return my new friend outside, as Joey wanted to keep him; at least long enough to look at him.

It snowed twice in the first week of March, and we haven't seen the frogs since then. I hope they didn't get frozen to death (the frogs and the tadpoles). I suspect they are fine.




To be honest we don't really know if these are frogs or toads, so I am presuming they are frogs for the meantime. I have also recently learned that the difference between frogs and toads has no taxonomic basis, so maybe I should just refer to them as "Anura", the name of the biological order for "frogs and toads."

Butterzöpfe

Recently, we decided to try to replicate our favorite types of bread that we enjoy here in Switzerland. There is this type of soft fluffy bread in braids, locally called "Butterzöpfe" in the Swiss German part.

Stacy got a bag of flour, and followed the recipe in a book, and the results, while more expensive than what we would buy in the store, turned out to be almost as delicious. We are now experimenting with the temperature of the oven, our last few results have turned out to be too-brown, yet too mooshy inside.

What Do You Do ALl Day?

My wife forwarded this email to me. So... what are you trying to say, Stacy?

What Do You Do All Day?

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in
their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.

The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by
the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.

He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys
strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

Ashe rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"

She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?"

"Yes," was his incredulous reply.

She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."

What Do You Do All Day?

My wife forwarded this email to me. So... what are you trying to say, Stacy?

What Do You Do All Day?

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in
their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.

The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by
the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.

He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys
strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

Ashe rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"

She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?"

"Yes," was his incredulous reply.

She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."

Stuff White People Like

A friend forwarded me a link to this site, and I found it to be hilarious.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Actually, after reading through it, I started to feel like a non-white anthropologist had been spying on me, and made the list to report the findings.

Let's go down the list and see how I measure up. Let's give it a score, +1 for HIT, +0 for Miss or N/A or No Comment.

• #81 Graduate School
• Being too much of a slacker in college, skating my way through, I never got a high enough GPA to qualify for Graduate school. I applied for George Washington University's graduate program in Loudoun county for a Systems Engineering Masters program, but wasn't allowed to join because of my "too much beer and chasing women" habits I had in college.
  
• #80 The Idea of Soccer
• Nope. Not me. I can't understand or stand soccer. "Playing Soccer is Un-American" as my father said. "Soccer is what those 'Messican' kids play", another said. I couldn't agree more. I might be interested in Soccer if the goalies were prohibited. How could anybody possibly be interested in a game where the final score is 1-0?
  
• #79 Modern Furniture
• Hit. Our house in Switzerland here is full of Ikea furniture.
  
• #78 Multilingual Children
• Hit! The kids are all in a Swiss school all learning German. Cecilia has a genuine talent, although her German has a Swiss accent (Especially when she says 'Danke'). Jake, not so much. The kids sometimes argue in German.
  
• #77 Musical Comedy
• They show a picture of "Flight of Conchords", which have been featured on this blog. So a "hit" for this one.
  
• #76 Bottles of Water
• Can't stand them. Stop being so pretentious and drink some tap water. The bottled water tastes awful anyway.
  
• #75 Threatening to Move to Canada
• Not only have I threatened to move to Canada, I moved to Switzerland. If you read the article, they say the Canadians threaten to move to Europe.
  
• #74 Oscar Parties
• I hate celebrity worship, so not a hit for me.
  
• #73 Gentrification
• Nope. Wish that all buildings that look old would get imploded and replaced with a modern building.
  
• #72 Study Abroad
• Did it; went to Ireland in 1988 to be a foreign exchange student.
  
• #71 Being the only white person around
• Kind of hard to do in Switzerland, but was a common event in my high school, where white people were not the majority.
  
• #70 Difficult Breakups
• Uh, just about every one of them, except for one or two.
  
• #69 Mos Def
• Not so much
  
• #68 Michel Gondry
• Not so much
  
• #67 Standing Still at Concerts
• Guilty, as my co-worker says (who used to work as an usher at the Patriot Center in Fairfax), "The most white people do is bite their lower lip and move their head a little bit, unless it's a heavy metal concert."
  
• #66 Divorce
• Parents did it, so I guess I understand this one. Thankfully, I haven't gone through one of my own.
  
• #65 Co-Ed Sports
• So much fun!
  
• #64 Recycling
• We have three trash cans here in Switzerland, AND our own compost heap! But we recycled before we came here, and felt good about it. Call this a hit.
  
• #63 Expensive Sandwiches
• Guilty. Back in Virginia, we would buy expensive sandwiches all the time. The "Atlanta Bread Company" was a common location for the expensive sandwiches. There is a point when I won't buy the sandwiches, as we did not often go to "The Corner Bakery", after I once called it the "overpriced mediocre sandwiches" I didn't mind so much when the company had a meeting, and the Corner Bakery was the caterer. So let's call it a hit.
  
• #62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People
• Guilty. They should get jobs.
  
• #61 Bicycles
• This was painfully guilty. I have been riding the bike to the train station for the past 4 weeks (I have a separate post pending for this activity). In fact, just this very morning I noticed a woman got on the train with her bike, and instead of looking at anything else, I started to look over all the wares on her bike. "Ooh she's got a better gear arrangement than mine! She could probably bike up that steep hill next to my house. Wow, those gears have a much better ratio for straight-aways too. She has a break light on it!" Hit.
  
• #60 Toyota Prius
• I have been coveting my mom's Prius for years. A coworker has one with all the electronic gadgets, and I want that one too. This one is definitely a "Hit"
  
• #59 Natural Medicine
• I think it is for the gullible; probably also the same sort of people who believe in UFOs, creationism, holocaust denial and that 9/11 was faked. The people who believe in this crap need to read Michael Shermer's book, "Why People Believe Weird Things" Miss.
  
• #58 Japan
• 100%; I love Tokyo. Hit.
  
• #57 Juno
• Never saw the movie. Didn't know the movie existed until I saw this post.
  
• #56 Lawyers
• Hate them, and their movies, and how the fear of liability has ruined America. See #75.
  
• #55 Apologies
• I'm sorry. I haven't though much about this one. (Hit)
  
• #54 Kitchen Gadgets
• Guilty. Just on Saturday, we made home-made "Butterzöpf" with our new electric Mixer.
  
• #53 Dogs
• They are fun. But we have rabbits. (Miss)
  
• #52 Sarah Silverman
• I think she is both cute and hilarious. I thought she was awesome on the one-season show "Greg the Bunny". I also thought she did a good job in "School of Rock" (Hit)
  
• #51 Living by the Water
• Yes, often a dream; an ideal location. But maybe Hurricane Katrina scaled back the idea of how wonderful that would be.
  
• #50 Irony
• "It's like rain on your wedding day" -- It actually rained on mine. (Hit?)
  
• #49 Vintage
• Not me. (Miss)
  
• #48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops
• Yep. We love the stuff. (Hit)
  
• #47 Arts Degrees
• Not so much (Miss)
  
• #46 The Sunday New York Times
• Very enjoyable, but being in Switzerland makes it hard to come by, except for the on-line version. (sorta-hit)
  
• #45 Asian Fusion Food
• Very nice. (Hit)
  
• #44 Public Radio
• Love it. And I miss it. They can make even the most boring stuff interesting in a traffic jam. (Hit)
  
• #43 Plays
• Not so much. (Miss)
  
• #42 Sushi
• Love it, but have to be careful to not have the stuff with my food allergies. Can eat tuna sushi all day long, or Inari sushi. Love Love Love the edamame. See #58. (Hit)
  
• #41 Indie Music
• Unknown (Miss)
  
• #40 Apple Products
• Prefer Linux. (Miss)
  
• #39 Netflix
• Have considered it, there being not a wide selection of movies to choose from here in Switzerland. We have resorted to downloading movies from iTunes instead. (Only a few hours' wait, instead of several days for the DVD to show up in the mail) (Miss) (iTunes is an Apple product, so does this make #40 a hit?)
  
• #38 Arrested Development
• Never seen it. (Miss)
  
• #37 Renovations
• Helped my sister with her house in Arlington, so I think this qualifies. (Hit)
  
• #36 Breakfast Places
• Yes, the Sunday Brunch at Westfield Conference Center comes to mind. (Hit)
  
• #35 The Daily Show/Colbert Report
• I don't get to watch very often on TV, but I found them on ComedyCentral.com a while ago, and added the RSS feeds to my Google Reader. I try not to watch it at work. (Hit)
  
• #34 Architecture
• There's lots of it here. (Hit)
  
• #33 Marijuana
• No comment. (Miss)
  
• #32 Vegan/Vegetarianism
• If my wife wasn't such a carnivore, I might even be one. Thanksgiving would be perfectly acceptable without the bird. (Hit)
  
• #31 Snowboarding
• Too afraid of getting injured -- I have a lot of walking to do to get to work, and an ACL injury would make my commute horrible. (Miss)
  
• #30 Wrigley Field
• I'm more of an Astrodome guy. (Miss)
  
• #29 80s Night
• Hahaha. Love the 80's music they play here on the radio like it's new. (Hit)
  
• #28 Not having a TV
• Have often wanted to live this lifestyle -- especially when I worked for Media General Cable back in 1993 -- when I was the poor bastard who had to field the phone calls when the cable service went out AGAIN. Now, I watch so little TV that I might as well take the jump. But the kids might get angry about it. (Hit)
  
• #27 Marathons
• Back in August and September of last year, I was jogging every day. However, I jog so slowly that it might take me 9 or 10 hours to finish a marathon. (But I'll still call it a Hit)
  
• #26 Manhattan (now Brooklyn too!)
• A wonderful place. I really enjoyed my trip there last year. (Hit)
  
• #25 David Sedaris
• Never heard of him. (Miss)
  
• #24 Wine
• I fail to understand the big deal about wine. Having a wife who doesn't drink doesn't help this at all. I do however, cook with the stuff. (Miss)
  
• #23 Microbreweries
• Yes, our favorite being a microbrewery in Ashburn called "Old Dominion Brewery" (Hit)
  
• #22 Having Two Last Names
• That is very funny, but I am not guilty of this. (Miss)
  
• #21 Writers Workshops
• Not me. (Miss)
  
• #20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
• I am more a victim of this rather than a perpetrator of this. The exchange student trip in 1988 was a direct result of my grandfather's fascination with Irish culture. So this is a hit.
  
• #19 Traveling
• I have been to all continents except for Africa, so this is a hit.
  
• #18 Awareness
• I am a very aware individual, so this is a hit.
  
• #17 Hating their Parents
• Not so much. (Miss)
  
• #16 Gifted Children
• Hit
  
• #15 Yoga
• Miss. I lucky to be able to bend over far enough to tie my shoes.
  
• #14 Having Black Friends
• Hit. I have both token and actual.
  
• #13 Tea
• Hit, but not so much as in recent years, vastly overtaken by #1 (below)
  
• #12 Non-Profit Organizations
• Hit, belong to at least three.
  
• #11 Asian Girls
• Had a Vietnamese girlfriend once, so I guess this is a Hit. Used to really like them, but have utterly lost interest since moving to Switzerland.
  
• #10 Wes Anderson Movies
• Miss (Haven't even seen any of the movies listed there)
  
• #9 Making you feel bad about not going outside
• Definitely a hit.
  
• #8 Barack Obama
• Hit.
  
• #7 Diversity
• Hit.
  
• #6 Organic Food
• I think it is in the same realm as #59, Natural Medicine. Hormones and antibiotics I am against for food, but GM crops I'm ok with. (Miss)
  
• #5 Farmer’s Markets
• Hit
  
• #4 Assists
• HAHAHA. All I could do when I played hockey was assist. (Hit)
  
• #3 Film Festivals
• Hit. I love the move Sunshine, and Little Miss Sunshine
  
• #2 Religions their parents don’t belong to
• Yes, that would be 100% true if you consider complete apostasy as a religion. (Hit?)
  
• #1 Coffee
• 100% true. My day at work can not be started without coffee. I used to have a boss who thought it necessary to list out his demands upon my first arrival to work. This of course was usually met with a stern response of "Do not talk to me until I have had my coffee."

My score: 54 out of a possible 81, giving me a percentage of 64.28%. So I guess it isn't that close to home.