On Super Bowls and Semmel Rolls

Super Bowls

So, as it turns out, Germany is 6 hours ahead of the East Coast of the United States. This usually just means that it's a bit difficult to catch up to folks on weekdays (especially those that work 9-5), but otherwise no big deal. Then, my Steelers found themselves in the Super Bowl.

Which *starts* at midnight. On Sunday night. Covered by the BBC on my hotel television.

So, it was a very, very late night of watching football, and watching the British "announcer team" grimace as they had to call it "Football", despite hating American Football with every fiber of their being. Luckily, they threw Rod Woodson in there for some American perspective or it would have been unbearable. You see, they don't show the U.S. commercials on the BBC, so they just talk through the commercial breaks. They talk about anything and everything- from Posh Spice to Old Spice, from Auzzie-rules to the latest in World Cup Handball. It was interesting and novel this time, but I think I'll miss the Clydesdales after a few years.

The game was fantastic, but had the potential to be a real heartbreaker for Steelers fans. It was a sloppy game, and really not well officiated. If I were a Cardinal fan, I would probably be moaning about some of the calls (Really? No review of the final fumble? Roughing the HOLDER?) until I died in the palm-tree imported desert wasteland called Arizona. That said, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the fourth quarter. Quite a feat for being 4:00 AM.

Semmel Rolls




(more appropriately called Brötchen here in Rhineland.)

These things. Are. Awesome. Now, I knew this coming in, but I'm affirming it anew every day. I rip them apart (which takes Herculean fortitude at 7 AM, particularly after watching Soccer, er, Football, er, whatever until 5 AM) and slather them with:



Which is even more awesome and makes me want to:








Seriously, folks. They sell this stuff in the USA - right near the peanut butter - and you are doing yourself and your future generations and your ancestry and your dependents a disservice if you don't at least buy one jar and put it on some bread and consume it. It's hazelnut butter with cocoa mixed in God's personal pantry.

More later...

Wilkommen aus Deutchland! (Welcome to Germany)

That's right! You probably thought that we had disappeared from the Blogosphere forever, but now we are back and better than ever. Hope you are well, and that all your days and nights are rosy and smooth.

As you can deduce from the title, we've moved. To Germany. Yep, that Germany. Nope, the other one. The one in Germany. That's it! You got it.

A little bit of catch-up if you are just now tuning in. In October, Traci and I found out about an opportunity to apply for positions providing therapy services to US soldiers with traumatic brain injuries acquired in Iraq and Afghanistan. Uniquely, these jobs would allow us to work together at the same hospital in southern Germany. We jumped at the chance, applied, were accepted, and now that's what we do!


Some FAQ:

Where are you?

We are in Landstuhl, Germany. It is in the southwest corner of Germany, near the borders of France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. The closest major cities are Mannheim, Saarbrucken, and Frankfurt. This area is often called the "Rhineland", because of the Rhine river and is famous for it's many castles. We arrived on January 22nd and will be staying for likely a few years or so.

We have just (as of this week) found a delightful apartment right in the heart of the oldest section of Landstuhl with a magnificent view of Burg Nanstein - the local castle. Here is a picture of our side of the castle at night, and it's pretty close to being our view, just from a bit farther away and down the hill:



Pretty friggin' sweet, eh?


What have you been up to?

Thanks for asking! Since arriving, we have been very busy with the tedium of wading through red tape. As our supervisor said - we are in a "flaming hoop-a-thon". We've been walking and walking all over the area to have forms stamped, checkboxes approved, shots verified, training completed, etc. Unfortunately, we can't get our car until we have completed the hoop-a-thon and everything required to complete it is scattered all over the region. Oh, and in other languages and only open 4 hours a day. Whee. The good news, everyone here has been really great and we've already made some good friends. The job looks to be challenging, but fantastic. We're truly going to get an opportunity to help our soldiers when they most need it - arriving from combat. The hospital here - Landstuhl Regional Medical Center - is a giant beehive of activity. The bus- and ambulance-loads of soldiers arrive frequently and are shipped out just as often.

We have been staying at a fantastic little hotel called the "Air Hotel Royal". The owners, Christina and her son Michel, are always friendly and helpful - suggesting restaurants, taking us around town if we need it, and most importantly providing a king's breakfast. Seriously, you should see this thing. There's fruits of all kinds, meats, cheeses, special hot entrees daily, breads, yogurts, cereals, tubed meat that I can't even pronounce, Nutella(Yay!), and little heated coffee cups brought right to your white-linened table. It would seriously be a $25 breakfast in a lot of hotels. We'll be staying here for 30 days until our apartment is ready.

Our first weekend here was free of work-related stuff so we decided to figure out just what and where everything was. We spent Saturday walking the town, taking a really nice (and brisk- brrrrr) hike up the hill to the castle. We came down a different way than we went up and found a toboggan run, which was very exciting for when it snows - which it hasn't yet. We tried to get a feel for the city so that we could make better decisions when looking at classified ads and rental lists while apartment-hunting. Sunday was spent looking at some apartments with Michel and another local man (who had rented to the other speech therapist that is here with us). Most of these evenings were spent in quaint little restaurants eating schnitzel and drinking beer. When in Rome...

We have also hosted our first guests, only a week into our stay! Tim's good friend Jim Ginn from Indianapolis was on a work-related trip to Strasbourg, France and was able to stop by the hotel along with his friend Dave for a great steak-and-beer dinner in downtown Landstuhl. Thanks, Jim - it was great!






What's Next?

We are really committing ourselves to updating this blog much more regularly (like we could be less regular...) and keeping the world in the loop. Also, we're going to be taking a good many weekend excursions and vacations to all the wonderful places closeby (Paris? 3 hours. Switzerland? 2-3 hours. Vienna? 5 hours. Prague? 4-5 hours. Copenhagen? 5 hours.). Not to mention all of the great Rhine-related tours and kickin' castles in the area.

Post at you soon!

Alive n' Thrivin'

Hey there friends, family, visitors and countrymen! This is just a quick note to let you know that an update is coming soon. Tim's list of games to the right is about the only thing up-to-date about this website, and that is about to change. Thanks for stopping by!

Ob la Di, Ob la Da

Things have been a bit slow here at Dr. T. and the Geek, eh? Well, that's largely because there is not much going on around here. Here's a few little tidbits of recent happenings in our lives:

- Tim guest-lectured on Language Structure and Development for Traci's Psychology class at the College of Charleston a few weeks ago. According to the student feedback, it was a big success. Tim is hoping to start teaching his own course at Trident Technical College in the near future (next Spring, maybe?)

- Tim was named "Speech Pathologist of the Year" for 2006 at his work, and he is very proud of his achievment.

- Nala loves it when the weather starts to get brisk at night, and Traci and Nala have been taking long walks every night.

- Traci has decided to take on another class for the Spring Semester at College of Charleston. She will be teaching Child Psychology as well as her typical Introductory course. This will mean a bigger time committment, and with her private practice starting to build she will likely have to scale back at her full time job. These are all good things!

- Tim and his friends Greg and Ben (both up in Chapel Hill, NC) have been meeting online every so often to enjoy a game of World of Warcraft. They are able to talk to each other over the internet (via a free service called Skype), and have been enjoying their time "geekin' out".

- The LowCountry Strategy Gamers (Tim's local game group) have been continuing to meet weekly, and have added a few new members. They have a game-day scheduled for November 4th.

- Traci celebrated her XX (censored) birthday this Sunday (Oct 22), and we went out to Poogan's Porch for a lovely meal on a beautiful Charleston fall evening. It's really awesome around here at this time of year.

- Traci will be travelling to Ohio in 2 weeks to visit her family, then we will both be heading to Philadelphia for Tim's cousin's (Lauren Fields) wedding.

Hmm... guess there is more going on than we thought... Thanks for visiting!

Oh, and there are few new features here at the Blog:
- If you are interested in receiving more information about the LowCountry Strategy Gamers, see the link at the bottom of the page.
- The list of "recently played games" on the right is fully linked to the applicable game page at BoardGameGeek.com. Click around, explore, and have fun!

A Very Special Lady

Judy Patchel
July 6, 1940 - September 17, 2006

Our good friend Judy Patchel passed away last Sunday, and Tim was able to travel to San Diego to attend her memorial service and assist her family (including her son, Tim's good friend John) in beginning to take care of her affairs. She was a fantastic lady who always carried a "can-do" attitude and brightened the lives of everyone she met. She will be missed.

How To Fold A Shirt

Have you ever been frustrated by a pile of T-Shirts which topple over as they get beyond 5-6 shirts because of uneven folding? Nope, me neither. But that doesn't matter, because here is an amazing new technique for folding shirts! Check this out...




Yes, the woman is speaking in Japanese, but you get the gist. Good luck with this. I've tried this about 25 times, watching the video frame-by-frame, and I still can't even come close. It's like Origami, and Tim does not do Origami. I can barely fold a poker hand.

Hope this brought enlightenment to your day. Namaste.

HeroScape Tournament

Yesterday, some of the LowCountry Strategy Gamers (Tim's local boardgaming group) met at our house for a HeroScape Tournament. Heroscape is an excellent miniatures game published by Hasbro which has made quite an impression in the boardgaming community because of its acccessibility and fun for everyone from children and teens up to the "serious" boardgaming/wargaming/eurogaming crowd. We had 6 members in attendance, and one Junior member (that's Dylan in the front row) and we played 5 rounds over 3 map setups with everyone getting a chance to play everyone else. Lots of fun and laughter all day, and an excellent time was had by everyone!

Smoky Mountain Getaway

We're back from our wonderful vacation to Gatlinburg, TN - nestled in the heart of the lovely Smoky Mountains. We had a relaxing and invigorating trip, and managed to both "take it easy" and see the sights during our week in the hills. As you can see from the picture on the left, the views were quite breathtaking at times! This picture was taken as we rode a ski lift up to the top of a mountain which overlooks the town of Gatlinburg and a western view of the Smokies.

Our basic plan for the week was to "wing it", as we wanted to make sure to get plenty of time to just hang out at the pool or kick back with a glass of wine and a good game. On our way to Gatlinburg, we stopped at Tim's parents' house in Greenville, SC and had a nice visit before dropping off the pooch (poor, sad Nala :-) ). We got to see all of the pictures from their recent cruise to Nova Scotia and also got to babysit our niece Emma for an evening while her mom and dad were off for dinner and a show.

We headed to Gatlinburg on Monday morning, and enjoyed a very nice ride through the foothills and the surrounding areas of Asheville, NC. And then...BOOM. The right rear tire on the old Corolla decided that it had had enough of the winding mountain roads and quit. So, we pulled off and put on the donut and went on our merry way. The donut did a nice job (especially since you really can't go faster than 40 mph on the mountain roads anyway) until we got the tire replaced on Tuesday.

We got into the town on Monday afternoon and spent much of the day walking around and getting the lay of the land. Our first (and lasting) impression of Gatlinburg was that it reminded us of Interlaken, Switzerland which we visited on our honeymoon and last summer with Traci's parents. It's quite a bit more commercial and "hillbilly", but the city sits in a valley between mountains and on a river and the streets are narrow and quaint with plenty of little family-owned shops and eateries. After a dinner at Bennett's BBQ (where we coincidentally got a seat under the SC flag), we began our epic mini-golf tournament with the front 18 holes at Ripley's Davy Crockett Golf. Traci won by 3 strokes, more on that later.

Tuesday was "town-day", when we rode the ski-lift and spent more time downtown. Our views on the way down from the ski-lift were dampened when a sudden thunderstorm rolled in and forced us to get down the mountain. In fact, we were the last customers on the ski-lift before they closed it due to thunder/lightning. Kind of scary to think about, really! So, we got soaked and spent a while drying off under an overhang waiting for the rain to stop. Then it was off to the Old-Timey Picture studio (we had our choice of probably 50 different locations, no joke) where we got gussied up as the Cowboy and the Saloon Girl (ooh lala). The pictures turned out great and we bought a few. Here's one of them (below) for your viewing enjoyment. No wisecracks, or we'll have to throw ya' in the slammer. We finished the day with an excellent meal at the Alamo restaurant and a few games back in the resort.


Wednesday began with a drive out to the Little Pigeon river for a 2-hour Whitewater Rafting Trip. The water was really good due to recent rain and the guides were all raving about what a good rafting day it was. We got selected for a raft with Anthony, the "leader" of the guides and the most experienced rafter. He was also the loudest person in the Smoky Mountains, but a very funny and personable river companion. He made our trip very enjoyable. We rafted through some class II - class IV rapids, but the trip was really pretty smooth and easy compared to some of the recent kayak trips we've taken. The family from Michigan who shared our raft was a lot of fun (thanks Pete, Michelle, Paige, and Tanner) and we all got soaked. After rafting we headed to Pigeon Forge, TN (about 5 miles down the road) for a dinner show called "Fiddler's Feast", which featured bluegrass and hillbilly folk music with silly skits and a decent meal. Our mini-golf tournament continued with Davy Crockett Back-18 (Fort Crockett), which ended up with a tie score. (Traci leads by 3 strokes).


Thursday was time to chill out. We got some coffee at the Coffee Loft (a cute little cabin near the resort) which backed onto a creek. We took our coffee out to the creek and saw our first muskrat. He was swimming downstream and didn't pay us one bit of attention. Very cool! We spent the afternoon between the pools, the sauna, and the room playing games (for those who care, we played Blue Moon, Odin's Ravens, and Ticket To Ride: Markin) . Dinner was out on the balcony at Crawdaddy's Restaurant, followed by the final round of our golf tournament at Hillbilly Golf. It was a unique course, in that you rode up the mountain on a lift to get to the first hole and then played down the mountain. This one looked like a blowout at first (Tim had a bit to drink at dinner, but refused a handicap...), but the score ended up close with Traci winning by 3 strokes. This made Traci the overall vacation Mini-Golf champion, with a total stroke victory of 6. We finished the evening with a return to town for ice cream cones.

We already had a plan for Friday since the weather was looking to be good, and we headed over to Dollywood's Splash Mountain, a waterslide park associated with Dollywood. (and for those of you not from the SouthEast, that's Dolly Parton's theme park. Yes, Dolly Parton. Yes, Theme Park. Yes, "mountains". Insert Joke Here.) The park was really excellent, with a variety of waterslides and rafting rides, a wave pool, a lazy river, and a giant bucket that dumped a bazillion gallons of water onto those standing below every few minutes. Whee! We got a bit of sun and were pretty waterlogged by closing, but it was a delightful day. Dinner was at the Apple Barn in Pigeon Forge, followed by ice cream for Tim (Traci opted out) at the Creamery of the Apple Barn, and then the drive back to Greenville, SC.

That's a good summary of our wonderful vacation. Thanks for reading this far, and please post a comment if you want to!

Night of the Moth

Traci had just returned home from an evening walk with Nala when she noticed this Moth on the front window. Really something, isn't it? It was about the size of an adult hand. We tried searching for this moth on various websites, but couldn't come up with a name. Goliath moth, maybe? If you know, drop us a line.

An Auspicious Beginning

Hello family, friends, and inter-tron wanderers! Welcome to "Dr. T and the Geek", a semi-weekly (a copout way of saying "updated whenever") blog about the life and times of Dr. Traci and her frabjous husband Tim "The Game Geek" Fiscus. We hope your stay here will be enjoyable and that you'll find something interesting along the way.

If you've come for gamnig information and stories, you're in the right place.
If you've come for tales of knitting and psychology, you're in the right place.
If you've come for information about stock portfolios... well, you're not.

We'd love to hear from you as our Blog grows in size and depth (well, maybe size). Sign in and drop us a line!

Traci and Tim