Our friends gave us a traditional Austrian/German New Year’s Eve activity: Bleigießen.
The kit includes a long-handled spoon and several lead figures. One lights a candle, melts each lead figure in the spoon, then drops the molten lead into a bucket of cold water. The resultant shapes are said to be symbolic of your fortune in [...]

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Happy New Year, everybody!
2006 was simply amazing for us; it wasn’t so good for the world in general. Here’s to increasing the goodness all around.

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Lunch At Obika on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
(tags: halfass rome italy cheese mozarella)

Keep Delta My Delta
(tags: halfass delta atlanta airline)

New Nonstops to Dubai, Seoul, & Vienna! from the ATL
Delta’s resuming nonstop service between ATL-VIE. This is awesome news for us Wiener types, because going through Paris is the WORST, and Austrian only flies JFK, YYZ [...]

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Il Gelato di San Crispino
(tags: gelato italy rome roma italia)

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I think somebody has died in my building. When we unload the stroller, we’ve been smelling an oddly human waste-ish odor—subtle but evident—emanating from the only apartment in the entryway to our building. We’ve seen no activity, and the ads that get stuck in the door haven’t moved. At first I imagined some poor person [...]

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Flaws Are Detected in Microsoft’s Vista – New York Times
““While I know this is a vulnerability that impacts Windows Vista, I still have every confidence that Windows Vista is our most secure platform to date.” High praise, eh?
(tags: halfass microsoft windows insecure crap asusual)

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Here is my list (a la Kottke):
Portland, OR
Boise, ID
Grand Junction, CO
Denver, CO
Baton Rouge, LA
Jennings, LA
Natchez, MS*
New York, NY
Vienna, Austria*
Llubljana, Slovenia
Trieste, Italy
Udine, Italy
Venice, Italy
Bratislava, Slovakia
Sliema, Malta
Toronto, Canada
7 Countries, 2 Continents, 6 US States, 1 Canadian Province. Also of note, this is the longest I’ve ever been outside of my home country: 11 months and counting. And [...]

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Originally uploaded by scottpartee.

I’m fairly certain that my daughter is the first toddler in history whose first utterance upon seeing the Christmas tree was “what a disappointment!” But that’s what she said.
In reality, the disappointment comment was her being silly. She [...]

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Windows Vista: Data Protection
“According to Microsoft studies, a large percentage of a company’s digitized information can reside on computer hard disk drives.” As opposed to…?
(tags: halfass microsoft vista bitlocker encryption)

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Ode to a Sun Maid
by Maple
She is a raisin peddler.
She is a pretty lady.
She is nice to me; she gives me raisins.

*recited to her box of delicious Sun Maid raisins during bedtime snack.

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Backe Backe Kuchen
Maple sings a “silly” version of the hit German children’s song “Backe Backe Kuchen”. This video is actually from late October.

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Vienna Christmas Crappy Camphone Video
A quick little cameraphone video of Vienna during Christmas. One could never assert that Vienna does not do it up for the Fest times—good stuff.

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Gebrauchsanleitung, Wien
User’s manual for Vienna blog
(tags: halfass vienna vie wien blog)

Montessori-Kinderhaus :: Hetzgasse :: Wien :: Österreich
German language montessori kindergarten in the 3rd
(tags: halfass education maple kindergarten montessori)

English speaking schools in Vienna
Options…
(tags: maple school education halfass vienna vie)

The Children’s House :: International Montessori Kindergarten :: Vienna :: Austria
English-speaking montessori school near VIC
(tags: halfass education maple [...]

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Jon Udell: A conversation with Jon Udell about his new job with Microsoft
So true: “The most powerful mashups don’t just mix code and data, they mix cultures.”
(tags: halfass mashups microsoft)

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Sea Lions at Shönbrunn

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