So we moved to Germany. This all started when our friends, Brendan and Stina decided to settle down in Magdeburg after traveling around as buskers. Actually, it started a few years ago when Lena and I made a pact that we would someday live abroad for a year. We had tentatively toyed with the idea of Singapore or Taiwan but hadn’t writ anything in stone. Then along came news from our friends that rent is cheap in Magdeburg, life is good and the EU is a travel mecca (as if we didn’t already know the last part). So we thought about it for a minute (in itemized format):

• I work as a telecommuting web developer (so I can work from anywhere in the world that has a decent net connection)
• My wife isn’t tied down with a job (aside from taking care of our daughter, which, although is certainly a form of being tied down, it’s a mobile form)
• Our daughter, Ilya, is only 1.5 years old (or was when we made the decision) so she isn’t in pre-school yet.

So, all the stars being in alignment, we purchased plane tickets.

Yesterday, we flew 10 hours (non-stop) from Seattle to Frankfurt. We found much amusement during our fretting about selling off our belongings and renting out our house when our friends and family would constantly remind us that “once you get on the plane you can just relax.” Of course, none of these people are experienced in the art of flying 10 hours with a toddler. It was, as we expected, more exhausting than the whole lead up to moving.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We spent the last several months selling off nearly everything we own. Every week, I would look around the house and gasp, “I can’t believe we still have so much stuff!”
Even on the last day, as we packed up a stack of things to store at Lena’s mother’s house, I couldn’t believe how much we still had. I remember moving up to Seattle 10 years ago with two boxes and a mattress. Now, with a family and two houses, I’ve acquired enough stuff to crush the life out of me 10 times over.

But we paired down, sold things, drove to Good Will about 25 times, stored a few things at parent’s houses and eventually got it down to:

• 1 Pack ‘n’ Play (Ilya’s portable bed)
• 1 Stroller
• 2 large suitcases (very large)
• 3 backpacks (one for each of us)

Fifteen minutes before driving to Seatac airport, I looked at my wife, she looked at me and we both agreed. We have too much stuff. Maybe we can get rid of one of these large suitcases!

We were ruthless. Nothing was spared critical scrutiny. And we did it. One large suitcase, jammed pack.

Now, this seemed great. We had less baggage, less stuff and more mobility. At least, it seemed that way… until we got to the airport.

As we loaded up the large suitcase on the Lufthansa check-in weigh station, the attendant looked at us with concerned eyes, “Is there any way you can get this down below 32KG?”

It was 38 Kilos.

“Uh, maybe…” (that’s like 13 lbs. to shave off).

He gestured to the other end of the airport. “You could buy another piece of luggage. It’s a $160 charge if you can’t get it down to size.”

So, I ran. I ran to the whole other end of Seatac to a Hudson News, which sold these little travel bags. I bought one and ran back.

We ripped apart the suitcase, finding all the heaviest items that would fit. Score. I think we got it. Now the large suitcase was 28KG!

Back at the check-in desk, a new attendant gave us another sad look. “Any way you can you get it down below 23KG?”

“What? I thought it was 32…”

“Between 23-32KG there is a $160 charge for oversize. You have to get it below 23KG per bag.”

NOOOOOOO!

ok.

I ran back and bought another little bag. Again we ripped apart the suitcase, moving all the heaviest items over to the small bag. And, once again, we got it down.

22.8! w00t. Now our awesome ideal of traveling with 1 large suitcase instead of 2 has become traveling with 1 large suitcase + 2 small travel bags. Sigh.

Now to board the plane…

Tune in later…

…for the next installment: “Ich habe mein Gepäck vergessen! (I forgot my luggage!)”.

Follow Updates

To follow Adam and his family on their exploits, see these wonderful services:

I will be posting at least 1 photo a day here (also automagically posts to twitter):
http://dailybooth.com/antic (for easy RSS subscription, visit my lifestream blog: http://antic.shadowpuppet.net)

Twitter (get’s dailybooth, plus many additional posts):
http://twitter.com/antic

My tweets get posted to my facebook wall, so you can also find me here:
http://facebook.com/atomantic

Ilya’s photos will get posted here, along with my misc. sleep deprived ramblings:
http://sleepdepninja.com

Any great music I discover here, I will post on Blip.fm (also gets posted to twitter):
http://blip.fm/atomantic

The balcony is too high. But I can jump it. I can get to the other side. If only the rain would abstain from taking my feet from the ground as they glide out and up from my landing zone. I know this is what will happen, wet metal, pooling up, no choice. Go now.
…

That’s the fall, long, steady, hard. My shoes hit the metal edge of the building across the alley and, surprisingly, the soles kick out some foamy stabilizer, pushing past the pool of water, adhering to the metallic surface and finally pulling me off the edge, onto the rooftop. My torso jeers forward from the momentum and I nearly taste the floor.

The rain is thick enough to almost mask me up here. The city lights are below this level. Only the moonlight, sparkling off the raindrops reveals my location as I patter across the deck. This building is huge. I don’t know how many stories. Hopefully nobody in the way as I run down the stairs.

The stairway smells like wet paint and bleach. The Janitors have already made their rounds. It appears I’ll be able to safely traverse this passage…

Three and a half flights down, a door swings open, almost laying me out with a thwack as I run into it. There’s this night fellow, swinging a flashlight, looking at me with a discombobulation turning into a sour grimace. This isn’t good. Instinctively, my body reacts. His flashlight flies though the air, bouncing out of his broken hand. I catch it as I run past, down the stairs, hearing the siren of whistles along the way.

This isn’t over. I run faster.

I want music that breathes–not just pumps and jams but takes in the air and exhales in a waltz. Speak to me in french, Portuguese, Russian. Drum in a dead language. They don’t hear you anyway. It’s all just noise to the self obsessed, photographing themselves and tuning out to the tweet noise, awaiting only replies. The news says there’s nothing new but I can hear the “bump, ba dump ba dump” of the accordion, breathing a dance into the air.

The cafe is dark, connected, sulfur smelling under the guise of the peppermint oil that lights the lamp. Someone throws a beer bottle on stage, thumping into the leg of a twelve year old who is reinventing music as a living organism. He doesn’t stop–he doesn’t even look up, entranced in the moment. This kid is God.

“Hey, play Freebird!” This from the peanut gallery minus a beer.

The kid plays on, a pattern of breath inside the beat that just sings.

“Deaf boy!” The man starts again, but by this time I’m right behind him. He hears the sweetest melody of his life in the last seconds before he hits the table, unconscious, breathing. Still breathing. He’s finally in tune.

The music continues. The darkness lightens. The ether turns milky, borealis, a ghostly succubus, luring in wayward coffee drinkers and beer connoisseurs.

We hear the siren’s call. This savant messenger speaks well. He carries the tune and we tune in, leaving our egos by the side.

All I see is a metallic shimmer, blue, green, swipes of sudden chaos into view.

The cruisers are smashing down the mainway, ricocheting off the walls with malice and gusto. Benny doesn’t care if he scratches the paint; it’s new but everything is these days. He can roll another out the maker box in half a breath.

The other cats apparently aren’t so wealthy as Benny. They curse and rant in hi-def subliminal microwave, neon vector raves pulsing from the decks of their cars, flashes of red and black, blipping abuse at the other motorcraves. One in particular, this jocky puck who sports a flyboy mohawk and a thread leather seatback throttles it forward next to Benny, giving him the bird with his telehand. Benny is thrown for a sec by the florescent intrusion. The projection threatens the sky with epileptic seizures. Cars screech and skitter around the blaze of light.

Benny sucks it up; he’s taken the piss before from ingrate halflings who haven’t been on the track longer than the day. This punkbag doesn’t have the verbal skills to make Benny flinch. And with that, a kiss-off glance and a for-real finger in the air, Benny rips the box a new one. There’s something to be said for the finesse of a seasoned motorcrave, but you have to be there to witness it for yourself.

The causeway is clear now; the light is gone. Motorcraves are in a new city by now. I’ve got a headache.

I’ve started writing 10 minutes a day on http://writeforten.com/users/antic

Here’s day 1:

Full of hope and something bittersweet. This is the dream of a new reality. Sometimes I think I see someone sweet; it’s never a known quantity. This feeling will pass. Who needs it anyway. A feeling of broken ambition and it’s all it takes to go down.

Back in the bar she sits sipping sapphire gin, looking up from the glass only to flirt with the bartender. He’s too old for her, or so thinks the boy on the other side of the counter. He’s been a bar-back for 3 days but that’s long enough to know the type that sits alone, drinking like a fish and pining for the older gents. She could do better, he thinks. She could do him.

There’s this place back east. It’s a festival that goes on all year. Sometimes I dream about it, full of people running around all the time, splashing each other with their drinks, joyously, celebrating whatever it is they wish, without fears or regrets. I don’t remember the name, hope it’s the same.

Wet washed and wiped out, drowning in peptides. I can feel this fuzzy fissure in my scalp, running down my neck. It’s like it’s been engineered to tickle my melancholy. I can’t remember the last time I had this emotion. It’s like swimming in the ocean at 10, or maybe I was 8. I stayed up late, ran out to the edge, found a fish that was swimming on sand, gasping for breath. I could tell it was in a bad place. There’s no disgrace in gasping for breath when there isn’t anything to breath. At least he’s trying. At least his heart is in it. Pull through little tyke. Suck it up, there’s water right there. Just a nudge, a flick, a wet kiss.

I’m feeling more alone than ever now.

Stop what you are doing and watch this talk by Dan Buettner right now.

Hans Rosling never fails to impress:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state.html

I’m working on a new sleep schedule. It won’t work this quarter–but maybe in the Autumn. Then again, winter is the best time to explore sleep changes…

Here’s the idea: http://antic.ShadowPuppet.net/28-hour-day

Someone posted a top 10 security concerns for a Joomla developer on a google group I’m in (not that I use Joomla) and I noticed that the issues were not Joomla specific. They were things every web developer should keep in mind after being hacked or in preparing for that scenario.

However, the list didn’t provide any solid useful examples of why the items are important. They also missed some really important issues that affect all web developers.

Here are a few security concerns I keep with me whenever I develop a site:

1. Always filter for malicious data and THEN validate user input, both on the server side. Do not rely on JavaScript or any other client-side technology to prevent hacking attempts or malformed data. Look up XSS (cross-site scripting):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting

2. Build your server side scripts so that they cannot fall victim to cross-site request forgery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery

3. For any user login form/handler, use SSL Get a cert (something like $100)–or generate and sign one yourself (free), which requires you and your users to add a security exception (because it’s self signed):
http://www.yatblog.com/2007/02/27/how-to-create-a-ssl-certificate/
If you fail to make this information go via SSL on your webserver, you are requiring all of your users to send passwords in cleartext through every computer between them and your webserver.

4. Always use SSH/SFTP to connect to your webserver. FTP is insecure. When you connect via FTP, you are sending your credentials in cleartext over the network. Anyone listening in will be able to scrape your access info.

5. Escape any database input before it goes into queries, lest you become victim of SQL injections:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_injection

There are many more concerns but these are the ones that jump to my mind this early in the morning.