May I Recommend Fasting and Meditation

I follow the Mormon practice of a once-monthly 24-hour period of abstaining from food and drink. I fast on the first Sunday of every month.

This practice is accompanied by a charitable contribution equal at least to the value of the forgone food but often more when my circumstances permit. I also meditate (pray) on particularly vexing life decisions or problems during this time.

To the devout, agnostic, and atheist I commend this practice with full confidence in positive results. The fast steels the will and purifies the body. The meditation, especially with a mind freed from sugary influence, brings clarity and direction. The charity provides a sustaining connection to community.

I am so thankful to my church for introducing me to this practice and for providing regular encouragement to continue.

German Risk Tolerance and The Enduring Power of Frozen

I will never accept German insistence on my going inside to pay for gas as other than backwards. Then, there are many cultural practices that are neither better nor worse, just eternally "other." For example, I will never get used to nudity in public parks. On the other hand, many German norms are unambiguously superior.

Helicopter parenting has not yet arrived in Germany. Children as young as age six ride their bikes all about town with no parent in sight. Free range parenting. In general, German risk tolerance regarding their children is very high. Playgrounds have climbing apparatus but no safety nets or even padding on which to fall. If you fall, you get hurt, which quickly teaches one not to fall.

We went to an amusement park yesterday. Very few park employees. When the first child in line gets in the seat, she fastens her belt and then signals that she is ready. Then the next child in line pushes the button to send the seat flying into the air. The kids handle the logistics themselves, and, get this, it totally works. I love this aspect of German culture.

Separately, the boys were fighting on and on after the park trying to select a movie to watch. I grew weary of their whining and just turned on Frozen without telling them or even asking their opinion. After a minute, they realized what it was, complained much about how they were so tired of it and how "Frozen is so old" and "is for girls." Then they watched the entire movie, grinning, giggling, and singing along to the whole thing.

I thought so.

USA Summer

Katie and the kids had a great (if unplanned) summer in the U.S. Photo overload below:

Caleb declared James his coolest uncle. Not that it's a competition.

Where the Harts of Boston began

The Least Busy You'll Ever Be

I attended a leadership conference while an undergraduate student at BYU. Henry B. Eyring was the speaker. He spent a lot of time speaking humorously about how busy he and his wife had been when they were students. He went on and on about the impossible demands on a student's time; the financial hardships of student living. There was no way one could do it all. He was clearly building to a crescendo of offering some kind of relief about how it would all be worth it, or it will be over soon; it gets better.

I will never forget his outrageous conclusion. I won't use quotes, since I don't recall if this is a quote, or just the way I remember it all these years later. He concluded, in effect, with: Well, it's just going to get worse, so you'd better get used to it now. This is the least busy you'll ever be and the financial concerns grow as fast as your income.

Well, he knew what he was talking about.

I have a work mate with one child, 2 years old, and I enjoy when he complains about how expensive it is having a kid. How quaint. I have one word for him: braces. Toddlers are a bargain. Toddlers can be entertained with cat toys.

The Adventures of Solo Lobo

I am quite accustomed to being alone on the road. I am not used to being alone at home. It is not remotely similar. On the road I have daily housekeeping, lounge access, laundry service, free buffet breakfast, and so on.

Well, you already read how the laundry service is going here. And the adventure continued this morning. I ran out of detergent. Two store options: A) Penny is a five minute walk with fewer options, B) Rewe is a 10 minute walk with all imaginable options. I just just need one item and I'm planning a busy day, so I go to Penny.

None of the detergent options ring a bell. Dang it. Well, I'll just buy anything. Only, I recall that our washer requires detergents with a little energy saver logo on the packaging. Can't find any such logo. Off to the Rewe. What? None of these detergents have the logo either. Back home to inspect the old package. It doesn't have the logo either, and was available at Penny. What is happening? Then, another recollection: you only need the logo if you're buying American brand detergent. Ugh.

Otherwise, I am very much enjoying that when I clean the house, it stays clean. Take that upgrade whenever it's offered. Super handy.

Also, the three week fixing of the roof and replacing of the windows is now in its eighth week. Remember that movie The Money Pit. Yeah.

Overlooked Reasons USA is the Best

America! I love her. Why? I'm glad you asked.

Toilet seats. The toilet seat in the restroom down the hall from my office in Islamabad was found broken in half about once a month and had to be replaced. First of all, that bathroom was the most disgusting non-out-house bathroom I've used. But, whatever. What can one be doing with a toilet seat that causes it to break monthly?

But then I encountered frequently breaking toilet seats in Cairo. And then broken toilet seats at our AirBNB apartments in Rome and Paris and our hotel room in Austria. One place I've never once encountered a broken toilet seat: USA. America, where we give a crap about toilet seats!

Washer/dryer capacity. Doing laundry is just not that great. Don't get me wrong, it beats wash boards, but it's laundry. So you stuff in all your whites. One hour later you switch those to the dryer and stuff in all your colors. One hour later you switch those to the dryer and maybe you have a specialty load left over. The whole thing is done in three or four hours perhaps twice a week depending upon size of family.

Now imagine that each load takes 2.5 hours and that you have to do three loads of whites and three loads of colors because the washer has a capacity of roughly 2 cups, which makes it handy for measuring flour but kind of sad for doing laundry. Ugh. I really don't understand how the natives do it, especially since they absolutely love sweating. It is seriously their favorite thing. 80 degrees outside? Perfect, wear a sweater. It's like they're all trying to make weight for a wrestling meet.

Often they don't even have dryers. Just clothes lines. Okay, way better for the environment. I'm cool with that. I respect that. It's just, as a logistical matter, I don't understand. We would need 874 yards of clothes lines. Maybe they just buy one shirt and one pair of pants at a time and go naked for the 5 hours it is being washed, which would explain why Germans love being nude in public.

Katie usually does the laundry, so this problem was on my radar, but not a lived experience. Well, Katie is gone. So I spent the entire day for the last two days doing laundry, and that's with no one around dirtying more items as I go. I have new found respect for Katie's ability to ever achieve anything other than laundry. Also, America! Where you don't have to spend your entire life, sweating and naked, squatting over a broken toilet seat while you wait for the laundry.

Bum-adook is Seven

First, a bit of context: I generally dislike horror movies. However, I really like watching the trailers to movies. So I know the general plots of most horror movie released in the last four years. One in particular, The Babadook, caught my attention for its originality and positive reviews from respected reviewers. Mind you, I haven't seen it, and probably won't, but the title, the name of a the movie's boogie-man, is catchy, right?

So catchy, in fact, that when Katie and I decided to scare the kids one night, we pretended to be the Babadook. The scaring was too effective, Maddie and Caleb were terrified, and I felt bad. Alas, I am not that mature, so I recently felt the itch again to do some scaring, so I turned into the Babadook for Henry (he had been already asleep when we previously terrorized M and C).

Henry the Intrepid found an effective response, however, and quickly fought off the Babadook by inventing his own monster, which he called the Bum-adook. The Bum-adook, I quickly discovered, scares away would-be Babadooks by showing its naked bum.

Anyway, Bum-adook turned 7 on Saturday. Photographic evidence is included below (along with a few other family highlights and updates).

Party at the Haligali (basically the German Chuck E. Cheese)

And then the at-home version of the party, later that day

Before

After

Last day of school

More Swift Than Anticipated

She's growing up. Shown here on her trip, with Katie, to Cologne for a Taylor Swift concert.

If You Go To Berlin

Tip 1. Don't drive from Frankfurt on the first day of a holiday that is only a holiday in Frankfurt and not in Berlin and on the weekend of the European Champions League championship game in Berlin. If you drive from Frankfurt on this day, the 4.5 hour drive will take 7 hours. All the Frankfurters are leaving town because they have holiday, but their friends and family in Berlin, or Hamburg, or Cologne, don't. So all the traffic is outbound. Then, when you get to Berlin, all the traffic is inbound on account of the big soccer game. Also, while there is technically no speed limit most of the time on the autobahn, there is always construction, so you go slow anyway. Myth busted.

14 hours of our 4-day weekend.

Tip 2. Swim in the Wannsee. Did you know Berlin has an awesome lake? I did not. Now you know. Just note that Germans are very comfortable with nudity.

Gorillas in the Wannsee mist

Tip 3. While not ideal for grown ups wanting to really get the history, when traveling with kids, a family can see the compulsory sites in one day. Just note that if you are an average American like me, you probably know way less of the history than you think you do. Why did I learn only three days ago that the Berlin Wall didn't just divide Berlin but completely surrounded West Berlin. It's obvious when you think about it, which I guess just shows that I had never thought about it.

Walking the Berlin Wall at East Side Gallery

Test driving the Trabant, the only car available in East Germany

An East Berlin living room. Maddie described the couch as "scratchy."

Lady Liberty

Random. Couldn't resist.

Holocaust Memorial

Brandenburg Gate

Annual Totally Awesome Brand Post (That Apparently People Like Even Though I Never Think They Will)

From the recently published Top 100 Brands 2015, here are those with which we (I, Katie, the kids, the family) have deliberate, frequent, and/or repeated interaction. I was once asked in a job interview to name a movie that described my career. In honor of that super useless interview question, I will attempt to describe our relationship with each brand using a movie or TV show.

So it goes: rank. Brand; movie and commentary

1. Apple; The Jetsons. To me, Apple represents the future. When I think of Apple, I think of the future. I've totally fallen for the branding. In Tim's mind, Apple = an exciting new day.
2. Google; Terminator, because, you know, Skynet. Seriously, why did Google purchase a military robotics company? Don't be evil. Yeah, right. And yet here I am using their platform for my blog. Gmail. Google Drive. Chrome. Search. I can't escape.
3. Microsoft; A Beautiful Mind. Because you feel like you're trying to solve a conspiracy theory that doesn't even exist when you try to set up their super-crap products. Also the barf scene in Stand by Me because: Barf!
5. Visa; Married With Children. It's really not that funny, or even noteworthy in any way, and yet it's everywhere. And that family was surely swimming in consumer debt.
8. Coca Cola; It's A Wonderful Life. Because America.
9. McDonalds; Around the World in 80 Days. I really don't love the food, but Micky D's has become an important part of our world travels. Reliable and ubiquitous. I've started taking pictures so at Henry's wedding we can have a slide show of McDonalds around the world.
12. Facebook; Hiding Out. It's a way to pretend we're in high school again.
14. Amazon; Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Madeline asked for a Kindle Fire. I was incredulous. You can get a real product, like an iPad Mini, I explained. But all her friends have the Fire and it has fun games, she said. I'm still trying to process the nonsense of that response. Why does Amazon believe it can steal my child? On the other hand, Amazon Prime is pure gold for overseas shipping.
19. Disney; Fantasia. Magic.
23. Vodaphone; I don't even know. It's not even worth coming up with anything. We stumbled upon them as our cellular provider overseas. Next.
28. Nike; The Departed. Don't get me wrong, I love all my Nike gear, but if they paid bribes to FIFA as alleged, I don't think I can remain loyal. Nike isn't the Patriots, after all. My loyalty has limits (except when it comes to the Patriots).
30. Toyota; Casablanca. It never gets old.
52. Gillette; Mad Max. Forget Fury Road. The original. It's a man thing. Also, do you remember that weird 80's helicopter show Airwolf? That scene where he flips out with rage and pumps a million rounds of ammo into every part of existence. All the while he had a freshly shaved face. If I'm going to go nuts with a super high-tech helicopter, I'm definitely pulling out my Gillette Fusion first. (Ernest Borgnine in a jumpsuit. What a crazy show.)
57. Colgate; Groundhog Day on account of the repetition.
85. LinkedIn; Birdman. Smart people like it, but I've seen it, and I have no idea what to make of it.
89. Chase; Pitch Perfect. Really just that one brief part where the background characters remind us they've been there the whole time and we realize, oh yeah, I totally forgot about them.
92. Twitter; Koyaanisqatsi. Yes, I stumped you with that one. I had to spend several hours of my undergraduate life trying to comprehend this bit of experimental filming. I'm trying to be a good student of Twitter. I'm experimenting with it. It really does seem like there could be something worthwhile there. But often it's just noise.
95. Bank of America; The Abyss. That's my nickname for their customer service. A necessary evil tolerated only because switching costs are very high.

And Caleb's Greek Photos

This is at the international fair and I added it just because Caleb looks cool

Henry had to dress up like something...Oliver Twist? I don't even remember

And here's the toga

Feeling good after his performance and delivering a gift to Nana