The site has been transferred to http://blog.haller.me

[“Today, I’ve seen Mr. Hergott”
(German actually “Herrgott”, meaning literally “Mister-god” standing as a vocative when addressing God, as english “Lord”. It was primarily used at the beginings of cantatae, as in “Herr Gott, Dich loben wir“. It became then often used as a exclamation of surprise and anger. Comparable to “Christ!” or “Jesus!”.)]

As it can be found on the web, and as Mr. Hergott told me, the name was origninally spelled with two “R”, but eventually an R was dropped, either for an easier spelling or inorder to hide the German origins in the first part of the twentieth century.

On a short ride on my bike to the West, I was finally on a gravel road, and in the yard of a farm, there was a farmer just unloading his combine-harvester (ger. Mähdrescher) into his truck. I went to exchange a few words: He just finished in this very moment the harvest of soybeans (which are very commonly grown around here in Canada). In total he got 1800 acres ≈ 7.5 km^2. I’m astonished. And even he is the very Mr. Hergott, as it says “Hergott Farms, Waterloo, Ltd.” on his truck.

He actually originated from Heidelberg, Germany. There would be a Swiss guy named Thomas Lang around here somewhere having a farm, he seems to be a friend of him.

And before going to the woods and the fram I was visiting a house that was for sale and was advertised for as “open house” at the nearby street. – The way of living here is really strange. Houses are very close to each other, but there are no townhouses (deu: Reihenhäuser oder Häuserreihen in Städten) as there where in La ville de Québec and in Montréal. The miss who is selling the place enjoys talking for a minute, till I leave. Unfortunately and as opposed to my expectations there was no food nor drinks offered. 😉

I’m back from Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” in Stratford. First I proposed to Alex to go there, and finally we were for prople who went there. We were very lucky, since the Ellinghams (the family were Krigi and me have been during our stay in Waterloo on our Canada trip this August) went there to see the same play at the same day – what a coincidence! – so they offered me a ride, as I first asked Taylor (their son of about the same age as me) if he’d like to join me. I could even bring up to four friends along.
Getting tha ticket was a story for itself, since I ordered it online: First I was supposed to pay the normal rate of 68$ per ticket, and finally after different attempts of buying it with my room mates (a Canadian’s) credit card, I bought them with my own card, but paid only 25$+tax per ticket. – A perfect deal!

The play was really nice, and I was astonished by how much I actually understood. I remember the play I’ve seen in Lausanne earlier this year, “Sous l’œil d’Oedipe”, où il y avait peu d’action sur scène (not much happening on scene) but a lot of talking. As in my opinion, Shakespeare was really easy to understand. 😉

In the first half (up to the intermission) the whole play, the people and everything was more in a traditional roman time-like feeling (stage props (Ger.:Requisiten), and costumes), where as in the second part all was playing in 20th century: Helicopters, guns an rifles could be seen, as well as military uniforms of today.

A nice thing, which made me wonder first: There were black and white people playing either role: Slaves and praetors. – Time changed, and so did the real life roles.

Backhome, there where of course, as already on Friday in School a lot of scarry looking people walking around, since it’s Halloween today.

Some more midterms now, I already had three this and last week.
THis now, was very particular, since I decided to take this course just this Monday (today: Friday) and as I got another midterm on Wednesday (where I have joined the class just in the fourth week) it got some what heavy. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the textbook (the Prof. lent me his book) a lot, the I just finished reading yesteday late.
But as there has been a party at our place starting at 10 o’clock, it was pretty loud in the end, so I switched to solving exercises after almost finishing the reading. Finally I went for short to the party (the house was full of people, maybe 30 and music at the top level. Happy feeling, peaceful.) and went then to bed at half past midnight. Well, I tried to, but finally as the music speaker was exactl located one floor under my bed, I abandoned this idea after 5 minutes. And so I had to withdraw from my room. – My helpful african friend Alex lent me his bed right away and so I still got a reasonable amount of 6.5 hours of sleep. =)

The exam though was really nice, I new the answers very well, and this exam was just as I wish them to be: According to the text book and not trying to fool anybody with extra material profided during lectures or review sessions.

One thing still to mention: Just before the exam I met the other ECON101 teacher of the class I used to assist up to last week, Larry Smith. As he told us last week, companies economy would not be able to rise for a very long time, what he thinks about the globally rising economy, he then told me that David Suzuki would be wrong and The Limits to Growth of the “Club of Rome” would be wrong. Unfortunately he did not have time for further explanations and discussion.

I almost get to a first hypothesis of rodent performance (“On cloudy days squirrels are more shy then on sunny days.”) When all of a sudden a squirrel approaches me. (This made me reject my first hypothesis and replace it by an other one: “Squirrels are more venturous and fear less to try new things on sunny days.”) I recognize him at the first sight, since he already improved his skills at my rod the other day (they look all pretty similar though).

If I’d have the required time in a vacation, I’d like to write an Article about an “analysis of the performance of rodents in different circumstances” (latitudes, times of year and day, environment …). 😀

At «Sobey’s» I get to see a funny thing, as there is a promotion of towels.
Then, an employees tells me, it would be forbiden to take pictures inside the store.
But I wonder how they were able to writethe ö anyway. 😉

Nöel ?

Sound track to this post (open in new tab = press Control)

Once more, I went to the Laurel creek conservation area, where I’ve been several times already. just ten minutes away – to take some pictures. As I arrive there, the place where there used to be a lake is empty. But there are some people observing the birds. Peter knows a lot about the birds here and has been able to identify 12 different species of ducks (plus the most abundant, the geese) today.

Geese and Ducks

Stump

Observing guys

Bird through telescope

The sun is hiding

He tells me about his life (he’s got two degrees from UW, but does bird watching as a hobby) and the birds and why they empty the reservoir in fall. – If they wouldn’t do so, the whole waterbody gets frozen in the winter (it’s just maybe 3 meters deep at most) and then in sprin, when the melt water arrives, it wouldn’t work in the funtion of a retention basin, since the ice would not be melted yet.

The birds usually gather here, since they find here a open space space, save from predators as opposed to the woods and fields, where they find food.

Flying squirrel?

Ever since I have heard of it, I wanted to try it: Squirrel fishing!

Now during the past few days I had the chance to try

it. People are stopping on their way to have a look, what those squirrels are doing at the end of my fishing rod. Some are laughing and start asking me questions or just standing and looking fascinated at the happening.

Actually this activityis not originally known to UW, but I found it on the internet and liked the idea and concept.

The squirrels are first very shy, and flee as I approach them, but once they see and smell the peanut, they lose all their fear. After they have catched a few nuts, they are even searching me and approaching me from themselves. It is funny how you can lift them in the air, and they just really want to get the nut. – What a commitment!

The course ME459  “Energy conversion” started like several of the courses I attended this term with a short introduction to climate change. Actually we were shown the not infamous Al Gorte film “An inconvenient truth” (which I happened to see the presentation in natura last year at EPFL). The special thing was only, that just after the film (the week after) we were shown another film “The Global Warming Swindle”. After having shown us that film, he asked, who believes in man made climate change – no one rised the hand, no one!

I went then googling the issue and found quite a bit of debate, where the film is shown not to have shown the truth.

Although Itold the teacher about the fact, he argued, that there would be again a response and so forth. However I personally believe and observed this not to be true.

Yesterday, when preparing fo  to prepare for the midterm ME459, where in the sample questions, there was a problem such as “give the most important argument in favor of and in contradiciton to man made Global Climate Change”. Well then I tried to figure out a serious argument “in contradiction of”, but I wasn’t able to get on.
So wait a second : the prof thinks there is some uncertainty in Man-made Global Climate Change! – Unbelievable for me.

Finally I saw the film, where somone does a simple economical analysis of cost and benefit for different scenarios – it’s amazing!

After the class on Thursday, when of course I had already handed in the assignments due tomorrow, I went straight home. And did the finall check of my material, until Rémi arrived with the car. We went upstairs to my room and talked for a minute, went downstairs to eat something and as we wanted to leave, we got a parking ticket for 15$.

Talkative as we are, we went to the UW Police Station, and got the stuff settled, so that we didn’t have to pay.

Then it took as a long way north-east on the highway. Unfortunately we weren’t able to see anything, since it was already dark outside. Finally we found the cheapest fuel ever. – In Québec next to the US border. 83.5 ¢/liter!

Cheapest fuel ever!

Our hosts in Ottawa!

Finally we arrived just before 2 ‘clock at our host’s Martin house in” Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard”. We did not want to wake Marti up. So we just set up my tent in the freezing  -5°C just next to the lake (and a now uninhabited summer house). The wmount of stars that we were able to see at this time was incredible. – Due o the cold, ther was no humidity in the air to obscur the view.

In the following days we meet my friends Sébastien and Bianca, wom I met on the trip to Val-David with Christiane in October. We go to see the Mont Tremblant National Park. And then finally sleep from Saturday to Sunday in a “collocation” (there is no such word in English as the French Canadian “collocataires” tell us). This “collacation” is full of nice people, all are real left wing people, anarchists maybe, and they have Peace and Palestina flags hanging around. Some of they are studying International Development at University of Ottawa. We joined them for a short moment smoking Marihuana. – I guess it would even have been nicer, if Rémi would have been able to get some more sleep tonight. – Il a vraiment le someil peu profond! – And as we didn’t have bed’s for each of us, as last night, but shared a matress, his pain to get some sleep is even more understandable. Nevertheless and astonishingly he was again very much in form the next day … !

Ottawa was a nice place to see, then we went to hike in the “Parc de la Gattineau Park” – this was marvellous.

Then we returned home to KW at midnight.