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congratulations to Sarah, Steve and Zoe on the birth of Kai Tivis DuMosch who was born Friday September 16th at 9:55 am! He weighed 3.1 kilos at birth (probably already over 4 kilos by now) and 50 cm long. Mum and dad are fine and Zoe is doing great as ‘stor søster’.
more snaps are here.
Steve and Sarah are friends and fellow Seattle-ites living here in DK.
our friend Jeffrey (he of FxCop fame) popped in for a short visit this weekend on his way back from NL to Seattle. As it was a lovely early fall day on Sunday we day-tripped up the road to Hillerød and Frederiksborg Slotshave (castle park). What a beautiful spot!
link to more pictures
Malcolm was a bit sad to see him go (he is a patient and willing playmate for our son) but I will see him again when I’m back in Seattle in October and we’ll probably see him over here again next spring!
it’s a beautiful early fall day here today. We picked some very nice blackberries from the vine that lies against the west-facing brick wall of the house (where it gets lots of sunshine and heat), played soccer in the yard and Malcolm had his first solo rides on his bicycle:
(click on snap for larger version)
between this and toilet training (which he picked up quick, albeit late, once he decided it was important) and his playing habits (more imaginative, more game/role playing, more directed) it is fun to watch him turning into a little boy!
I knew that cars here are <massiveUnderstatement> expensive </massiveUnderstatement> but we decided to get one anyway as it makes some holidays easier with a 3 year-old. I found a 1999 VW Golf that looks something like this:
a car like this isn’t more than, say, $10K in the US. But here in Denmark, where the tax on a car is 180% (not a typo, that’s the value plus nearly double the value) it costs about $30K. And that’s not even the most expensive ones – it is over five years old, after all. As the guy at our bank joked, “In Denmark, you buy one and pay for three.”
The obvious solution is to do without a car, and we did that, for a while. But the truth is that even with great public transportation and bicycles, a car is a very convenient thing, some times. For example, it makes impromptu trips more likely than taking the bus or your bike, and you can carry all the crap (bicycles, toys, beach sand digging thingies) that makes outings with a little’un more fun.
So you feel a bit -used– when buying a car here, and insurance is equally outrageous: In spite of the fact that I haven’t had a single accident in 25 years, the fact that it is a GTI turbo means that they jack my insurance anyway. Sigh.
On the positive side: There are many fewer cars here in Denmark, which means the roads are nicer, quieter, safer for kids and bikes and so on. As opposed to, say, England, where they’re absolutely choking on cars. There are way too many cars there for the space, and for the old roads.
So a positive side-effect of the car tax is a nicer place, and great mass transportation, but it stretches my socialism to pay that kind of tax 
.
‘Skål!’ to the US Men’s Soccer team as they whacked Mexico 2–0 to cinch a trip to the 2006 World Cup in Germany!!
Beating the crap out of Mexico makes it all the sweeter, after quotes like this:
“Mexico (5-1-1) still needs another point in its final three games to make Germany 2006. Its coach, Ricardo Lavolpe, was not impressed by the winners.
"The U.S. is a small team," he said. "They play like my sister, my aunt and my grandmother."
or this: Mexican forward Luis Hernandez told US striker Landon Donovan that he would murder his mother. Nice.
Uh huh. I guess his sister, aunt and grandmother just smacked him up, again ;)...