Germany

Those of you who've been following my sporadic social media postings will know that the BadgerFam moved to Germany last summer.

I'm doing some work for some people that involves a lot of yaml, stiggin', bare metal -> openshift, fips, fapolicyd, selinux and much more fun. I'll let you draw your conclusions on the specifics.

Why Germany? Well, Mrs Badger and I have been talking about an extended EU trip for quite a few years now. We had initially planned on renting a flat for ~3 mo one summer, working remote, and exploring Europe. Germany is a pretty central place to be able to quickly reach other countries, plus I like trains.

(sadly, the train system is currently a mess - lots of strikes, disruptions in service, delayed trains all the time)

But no, really, why Germany? Well, an interesting opportunity presented itself in Stuttgart, and the company I'm working with was pretty generous with resources - allowing us to move over here, live, send our kids to school and more. I'm pretty happy with this project, it's challenging - but I've been lucky to have some very good experiences in my past that set me up well to help solve the problems they're facing.

The spawn have settled into school, spawn0 is heavily involved with Drill & Ceremony teams - learning to spin rifles and do precision movements.
Spawn1 is involved in a local group play (Schoolhouse Rock!) and is enjoying that experience. (mostly - its a lot of practice)

What have we been doing outside of work and school?

Exploring!

Castles!

We've seen a number of really cool castles, and taken very few photos of them. Been really bad at taking photos along the way.

Being able to see the evolution of building styles across regions and centuries is quite fascinating. Many of the castles are well maintained to this day, and are cheap or free to enter.

Kirches!

Check out this photosphere of a very well preserved Kirche in Mainz, Germany

Theme parks?

We went to the Deutchland Legoland and dominated the Firefighting competition. If you haven't had the joy of this competition, it is a group based challenge where you pile into a "fire engine" that is pump/piston powered. You have to move it about 100' to the other side of the play area, where there is a pump powered water cannon and "fire" in the windows of a fake building. Once a sufficient amount of water has been pumped through the window, the "fire" drops out of view signalling it is time to pile back in and book it back across the play area. I'm proud to say, we made it back to the start line before the next group even finished putting out their fire. The kids were less impressed than Mrs Badger and I, for some strange reason...

We also were able to make it down to Disneyland Paris, which was a really cool experience. It felt just like Disneyland "back home". The rides were all significantly more intense than California or Florida. I'm a fan!

Whats next?

We are here through ~June of 2024, and will be heading back to the 208 at that time. We're enjoying the experience here, but we miss our friends, family, camping, tacos, motorcycles and especially Mac - the worlds greatest dog.

There are so many things we still want to see while we're over here, I'll do my best to write a little more about them.

Cheers!

-Badger