www.BigSofty.de

Christmas Songs

2009-12-27T22:17:00.009+01:00

Season's greetings from all in Glonn!

I hope everyone had a very nice Christmas and that 2010 will be a great year.

Here's a nice German version of Silent Night sung by Glonn's Children's Choir featuring Francis Ruane and another song called Maria Durch Ein' Dornwald Ging from the same concert.

Another Hairy Post

2008-03-23T16:48:00.002+01:00

I could probably do a series of "hair" posts over the next while as Oliver and Simon have taken to experimenting with their hair or letting others experiment with their hair. Here's Oliver's current haircut which is quite a change from the last one.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-12T15:48:00.000+01:00

I hope you all have a great 2008.
Simon's year is off to a pretty good start: he's managed to appear in the newspapers again. Last year someone from the Münchner Merkur called him up. They had come across his blog and wanted an interview. So they came and did their interview and took some some photos and we examined the newspapers every day for a while but nothing appeared. Bummer!, we thought.

Then on the 7th of January, which is Simon's birthday, a friend called Claudia to say that Simon was in the papers as large as life.
Headline: Unfiltrated Absurdity of an eighteen-year-old.

Life is full of surprises isn't it?

2007-07-06T21:37:00.000+02:00

Life is full of surprises isn't it?
Things are happening all the time that are worth a blog entry.
Like leaving the project at HP after seven years.
I'm now working on a project on the other side of Munich so I spend an hour more "on the road" every day. But it's interesting and a pleasant change though the first few weeks were a bit hairy.
The second public showing of Simon's film was a great success and got him into the newspapers again.
There's more but I just don't want to spend all my free time writing blog entries.
Every now and then there's something that has to be published.
In this case a picture is worth a thousand words.

Oliver actually wanted a mohican haircut so he went around looking for someone to do it for him. Claudia wouldn't do it and neither would anyone else except for his good friend Niko.

Obviously he preferred it like this and decided to stop halfway through.

I suppose it's a question of taste really and it's probably not that much more shocking than the Ziggy Stardust haircut we used to run around with at that age.

His teachers probably love it as much as they love the T-shirt.

Winter in Glonn

2007-02-03T00:19:00.000+01:00

After a long wait Winter finally arrived in Glonn last week for a few days. It's a bit late though. Too late for a white Christmas, too late for New Year's Eve where the kids like to put bangers in the piles of snow and above all too late for the Ruanes of Cork who came here to go skiing, build an igloo and do all the stuff you can't do in Ireland because there's never any snow.

In Germany there's always snow in January, or so we thought.

Schaf - Das neueste Testament

2006-10-30T15:48:00.000+01:00

After 2 years of hard work Simon's latest film was premiered in Glonn's town hall on Friday 27th October. The evening was a resounding success. With about 350 people there wasn't even standing room left. The audience went wild, they clapped and cheered all through the credits and especially when Simon and the rest of the group went up to take a bow. It was just electric.
A reporter and photographer from the local edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of the largest and most highly regarded German newspapers were there and were as enthralled as everyone else.
The review in Monday's paper was excellent though it does give away more of the story than Simon would have liked.

Simon is working on a "special" DVD, featuring the film + the premiere night + lots of extras, which will be available to anyone who wants it.

2006-06-30T16:08:00.000+02:00

Oliver was confirmed yesterday wearing an elegant denim suit. Olaf, his godfather, was his sponsor.
I remember when I was confirmed: I wore a suit with short pants (brand: Kilmain) that made my thighs and neck red because the material was a little rough.
It was a pleasant day. I took loads of photos which will show up over time in the random section.

In the meantime I have scanned in over 5000 old photos.
I'm up to November 1993 so I still have a way to go.

2006-02-20T21:56:00.000+01:00

For the first time in quite a few years it's been a decent winter. There was enough snow since the beginning of January to ski and snowboard in Glonn, it's been cold enough to play ice hockey on the local lakes, and there was enough snow in the garden to build an igloo.

A Happy and Peaceful Christmas?

2005-12-26T14:57:00.000+01:00

Well it was a Happy Christmas anyway and it was as Peaceful as a house with a drum kit and three boys with their own set of drumsticks can be.

Claudia, the Queen of Finger Wrestling

2005-12-15T11:32:00.000+01:00

This is a photo of Claudia's outstanding performance at the Escador christmas party. She pulled sixty six kilos which is more than her own weight. She out-pulled all of the other women and a lot of the men. At least I managed to pull even.

Some random photos from the archive

2005-11-03T14:12:00.000+01:00

I have added a gallery featuring some random photos from the archive. This is a selection of photos which I generate and publish from time to time (about once a week) so if I ever took a photo of you it's likely to appear here sometime. I do screen the selection before publishing so there should be nothing embarrassing for anyone, not that I have much in that line. I have also started the daunting task of scanning in most of my old slides and photos so this gallery should become more interesting as time goes on. If you see any photos you want a full size copy of just let me know.

Frankie's first day at school

2005-11-03T14:02:00.000+01:00

Frankie started school this year which was, as usual a very emotional event for all concerned. Here's a photo gallery with the best photos. One of the good things about having all three kids at school is that I appear to be getting off to work much earlier which means I can finish earlier too and have more time to do stuff in the evening.

Schaf - The Newest Testament

2005-10-01T14:12:00.000+02:00

Here's something else that's long overdue.
Simon is working on a new film called "Schaf - Das Neueste Testament" (Sheep - The Newest Testament). It's about God's latest attempt to save mankind (in this case the youth of today) from their decadence. He sends an new messiah, the Sheep of God, to lead those he meets onto the right path.
Here is the first version (incomplete).
Enjoy!
Schaf - The Newest Testament (20MB!!)
Of course it's in German and Google can't translate videos yet.
If your media player cannot play this format, get VideoLAN Client (VLC Media Player) .

The new look

2005-09-27T12:40:00.000+02:00

The new homepage is online!
In an effort to keep this page up-to-date more easily I'm doing it as a Blog.
The old Homepage is still available in the Links section but there will be no updates to it.
I've duplicated some of the old news items here and I might just scrap the old stuff at some stage after I've linked the photos and videos to the new site.

Another short story by Simon

2005-09-25T12:53:00.000+02:00

This post is long overdue.
Simon did well again in this years literature competition at his school.
His story, 'Die Erwin K. Biographie ... oder so ...', captured fourth place and had everyone laughing their heads off and screaming for more.
Here's the Google Translation for those who don't understand German.

This short story by Simon

2004-03-14T14:04:00.000+01:00

This short story by Simon was picked as one of ten prize winners in a competition at his school. He's particularly chuffed about the fact that the two A students in his class, who also submitted stories, were less successful.
The story is in German of course but here's the Google translation for what it's worth. It's as useless as computer translations usually are but it's funny and you might get the gist of the original story.

www.BigSofty.de is online!

2003-10-10T13:59:00.000+02:00