Hi guys,
How is it going? Any special plans for the not too distant future?
Life in Frörup/Oeversee is OK so far. Still have a screwed up right eye from the brain tumor operation and have to take artificial tears every two hours and sleep with a watchglass bandage at night. Doc says that might be over in a year while my speech therapist is of the opinion that it might stay for good. Right ear is deaf for good and the sense of balance, too. Still, after the operation they told me that 2/3 of people never walk again.
Here at home we have renovated the basement, where Aurora's room and my study are located. We even got some furniture now, so that we can eat at a proper table and so on. Except for the usual Jacobsen-chaos it looks almost normal here now. The new company is a different story. The software I am renting is so complex that I am completely at a loss. I've had to hire programmers twice already and the user manual is about 6000 pages and worked on by a team continuously. Because of competition at eBay we can't set the prices we would like so that the profit margin is minimal. We don't have the same problem at Amazon, but there the financial barriers of entry were quite a bit steeper and the commissions are a lot higher, too. Dunno how all that will play our in the long run. Also, I haven't quite decided whether I prefer to scrape barnacles of my boat every two weeks or mow the lawn. <grin>
Gloria is teaching Mandarin Chinese at a local school and her book will be published this summer with major to do, press conference and all. The publisher is one of the biggest in Taiwan and most of Gloria's favorite authors are published there, too. The book will be a large format hard-cover with hundreds of photographs in it. Should work out pretty well although we don't hold our breath as to the advance and royalties.
Aurora is now the best in her class in almost every subject. In August she will go to high-school and fortunately she got accepted in the one of our choice. There she'll be able to learn Spanish as her "official" second foreign language the year after and also she'll be in the violin workgroup, although violin is not her instrument of first choice. Shortly before or after the summer vacation she will be invited to go to Berlin to a TV studio, where they will record a session in "Klein gegen Groß", where kids have to compete against adults in a previously agreed field. This wasn't our idea at all, but that of the director who had seen her in a video made by camerawoman Christine Schmitthenner in order to apply for a job. At first I seriously thought this was only an April Fools' joke.
Our two purebred cats continue to give us lots of joy. Schnurri is a "blue" British Shorthair tom who will turn one year old in June. Puschel is a two year old Maine Coon, which is nothing short of amazing. Had I known what these Coonies are like, I would have had one a lot earlier. She follows me absolutely everywhere trying to show her affection. These big cats can walk on snow without sinking in because of the fur between their toes, were used as hunting cats in North America, love to swim and can survive in up to -22°F. Usually both of these breeds carry a steep price, but it was not so in our case. We only paid a nominal fee, because Schnurri was desperately shy and people didn't want that. So the breeder couldn't sell him. Puschel was originally used for breeding, but as the only remaining tom was her father and the breeder didn't want another one, she decided to sell her. But almost everybody only wants a cute little kitten. Their loss was our luck. Recently Puschel gave us a lot of excitement with a false pregnancy. It was really hard to believe how many people wanted one of the kittens.
As you can see, even on land boredom is not one of our problems. We even got used to the cold and the climate in general in no time.
So, now your are again reasonably up to date on us. : – )
Cheers!
Aurora, Liping & Holger
Bingos-Tonstudio.de - Holger Jacobsen - Quellenweg 2, 24988 Oeversee, Germany