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So I already wish all of you a Merry Christmas and some quiet days to spend with your loved ones!

Ok this one tops it all. The ultimate X-Mas madness ever: The Lights before Christmas Video. A guy from Ohio put up a complete lightshow on his house. If you drive by with your car, you can tune your radio to the according music. There were actually doubts if this video was a fake, but it is for real. This is so wack, it will drive tears in your eyes, but see for yourself.

• The video clip
• Report on Spiegel online (German)
• Link on the Urband Legend Reference Page

It is done! I lay out my 5th geocache today. It is called "Drei Hasen Cache". This time I decided to make it a Letterbox-Hybrid, since there is no cache of this type in the entire region, yet. Ok till today there wasn’t.
The second reason for this cache is to honor the cache that actually got me hooked to geocaching. It was the first cache I did, but since quite a while it is disabled, because it was stolen. I tried to carry over some of its spirit into this new cache, that it kinda lives on. Ok a little philosophical, I admit.
Anyway, for those of you, who have not heard from Letterbox-Hybrids yet, here is a quick insight:
Letterbox-Hybrids combine the game of Letterboxing with Geocaching. Letterboxing is similar, but there are no coordinates to find the box but only clues and hints. Secondly the box contains a rubber stamp you use to stamp your personal logbook you bring. Then you use your own personal stamp to stamp the Letterbox’s logbook. So it is kind of a mutual stamping fun.
Unfortunately, Letterbox-Hybrids do not have the best reputation amongst many cachers, because most of those caches are simply traditionals with a stamp. That this doesn’t quite do it is somewhat obvious. My cache is a real mix of those two games. You get only start coordinates and they you have to find your way by clues and photos. On the way you got to solve some puzzles as well. Then you find a hint for the final coordinates.
I hope I could make your mouth water and if you are in the area, enjoy the cache!

These days, the mailbox gets stuffed with catalogues and flyers of all kinds of stores that vie for the attention of potential Christmas shoppers. While browsing through some of  ‘em this morning I found two items I really need to share with you.
First is a pack of toilet paper sold by the discounter Plus. So far, so normal, but here it comes: It smells like almond christmas cookies (in German: Spekulatius). I mean hey, is that delicious! Now everytime I eat one of those cookies it reminds me of wiping my butt. Man, that really raises my Christmas spirit

Second is a Playmobil ship. I was a little bit confused about the name of the ship owning company "Conlines". Either they want the children to play with a boat that transports convicted criminals or someone doesn’t know any English here. Obviously the designers never watched the movie Conair. It reminds me a little of the Eastpak backpacks that where sold under the name "Bodybag", which was really hilarous.

Right now, the discouters have some usefull office equipment for sale, that comes in quite handy for geocachers.

1. Tchibo offers a customizable rubber stamp with integrated pad. It comes with a set of rubber characters that you can order on the stamp in 4 lines of text. You can put together a log stamp that you don’t have to write your nichname by hand. Ok I am lazy, I admit Cost: 6.99 €.
2. Also from Tchibo comes a paper trimmer that lets you cut paper with 3 different cutting heads. Ideal for cutting those XXS Micro logs into stripes or making little cards with cache hints, etc. It cost 5.99 €.
3. Aldi has a laminating device for hot and cold lamination. Again good for cachenotes, hints, etc. I think it was about 15 €.

Wow, I still can’t really believe I am going to China.

I thought about going to China for study or work for quite a while now. During my studies it never worked out though. Then I heard about this scholarship program, called Heinz Nixdorf Programm. Heinz Nixdorf, by the way was one of Germany’s greatest pioneers in the computer industry and one of Paderborn’s icons. InWEnt organizes this program that offers graduates and young professionals the chance to live and work in one of 8 Asian countries for 6 months to gain work- and intercultural experience. It sounded quite interesting, because China is one of the countries in the program and the professional focus is on information and communication technology, which I study. So in September I sent in my application and I was really happy to get an invitation for an interview a few days later. From that moment on I really felt that I could do this and I took quite some time to prepare and did some coaching for job interviews and so on. When I was there, I learned that the competition was very tough, lots of highly qualified people there. Anyway I did my best and I felt quite comfortable during the interview but I was not so sure if I got in because as I said, lots of other very qualified candidates. However a few days ago I got a letter and I almost fainted when I read: "We are happy to tell you…". I did it! I got in! As I said I still can’t quite believe it.
So next year is gonna be very exciting. First I will take an intensive course of Chinese in Germany and starting next Summer, I will be in China. First in Jinan for another Chinese class and then I don’t know where yet. It depends on where I can do my internship.
Anyway I am really happy and excited and I will keep you posted.