Category: 05 – Getting Settled

Blackout? Prepare for Wild Camping – You’ll be fine

Posted on by Karin Brenig with Leave a comment

The current energy crisis – if that is even a thing yet – has people worried about potential wide-spread, long-lasting black-outs. While I agree that the potential for these is real in Germany, especially as the winter comes up on us, I consider myself well prepared to survive at least two weeks without electricity.

Just think about what “no electricity” at home really means: it’s simply wild camping without the tent.

Unlike in the US or Canada, wild camping is generally prohibited everywhere in Germany – unless you do it on private ground with the owner’s permission. So, when your power goes out, enjoy your unexpected legal wild camping trip. Just make sure you have your supplies ready.

My list is sorted by priorities – the most important thing first:

  • bottled water, 3 litres per day per person
  • flashlights and batteries for those
  • portable toilet with baggies, gelling powder, and wet wipes
  • non-perishable food that doesn’t need refrigeration
  • essential medication (if you need to take any)
  • camping cooker or grill
  • disposable dishes and silver ware
  • sanitizer
  • cash
  • keep your car fuelled/charged
  • solar (or gasoline) powered inverter generator
  • charge your cell phone, if you can (but don’t expect to have a network available)
  • plenty of large, sealable plastic trash bags
  • if you have pets, consider their needs too

Some things are nice to have, like a way to heat your house with wood, or a filled rain barrel in the back yard. If you have to leave your house, make sure the pipes won’t freeze.
Also, don’t forget you’re not alone. There may be neighbours, or relatives, who are not as prepared as yourself. Help them!

Posted in 05 - Getting Settled

Modernizing our Heating and Hot Water System

Posted on by Karin Brenig with 2 Comments

old boiler and new boiler, side by side comparison

Our 1963 house was equipped with an oil-burning boiler/furnace built in 1997. While the system worked fine, it was clearly not the most efficient. So, with the price of fuel rising, we wanted to modernize our heating and warm water production, preferably without a “paradigm switch”.
Currently the best technology available for our requirements comes in the form of an exhaust-energy recapturing, condensing burner, a 1,000 liter hot water buffer tank, and an indirect water heater.
The project started on a Monday morning at 7:00 a.m. Half a dozen men worked fulltime to remove the old boiler, drain all water out of our over 20 radiators, reroute water pipes, install a new exhaust and air-intake line into the old chimney, put in the new boiler, add the buffer tank and fresh-water indirect heater.

They had to shut down the water in our house multiple times, sometimes for hours, and we had to take cold showers for four days.
Finally, Friday afternoon around 2:00 p.m., everything was in place. We received a thorough explanation of the technology, how to do regular maintenance, how to program the system, and a lot of information about the benefits and improvements we will experience over time.

The one question, that I am most interested to finding the answer for, is: how will it affect our oil consumption? In the past two years we used about 4,000 liters of heating oil annually. I’ll keep an eye on that.

Posted in 05 - Getting Settled

Old Dog doesn’t need New Tricks

Posted on by Karin Brenig

Karin working in IT in the 80s

When I started working in IT, back in 1978, nobody really knew, how this “EDP” thing was supposed to work. Anybody without fear of breaking stuff was more than welcome to try their hand at it. We were explorers.

I punched little holes in cards, I fed those cards into the cardreader, I threaded magnetic tape into vacuum channels, I started programs on the master terminal console, I put tractor paper in the printer, I carried heavy disk drives around, I debugged code on a mainframe… all that without ever really receiving any formal training. We were hunters and gatherers.

Over the years the field evolved. People actually got trained, had job titles, passed tests and had to show certificates, or diplomas, to prove their worth for employers. I was really glad, that I didn’t have to go through this, because I was already “in”. We were mainstream.

As technology trickled down from the scientific top level, through big corporations, into family businesses, and finally everybody’s homes, new skills were needed faster; more people had to learn, and re-learn, how to do anything related to IT. Mainframes, client/server, PC’s – it became increasingly hard to stay abreast of all the new ideas, tools, and objects in our jobs – and lives. We were clutter.

When you realize, that you can’t know it “all” – because there’s just too much of it – you focus on the one area that looks most promising for the future. So many interesting topics, so many newly emerging technologies, shiny objects all around me – but will I pick the right one? Client/server, maybe? What if companies don’t use this, or that, or the other, anymore five years from now? The circumstances picked a niche for me, and many others. We were specialists.

The bigger the company you work for, the more complex their processes are, the harder it becomes to innovate. Especially big, old IT systems are increasingly hard to replace. Stuff that runs at the core of your organization – built over decades – can’t be replaced every time a new, better, faster, cheaper way of doing things emerges. It’s like trying to change a flat tire while the car is in motion. That’s where we are now with mainframe IT. Systems that we developed since the early 1980’s are still being used daily by big companies. The specialists, who developed those systems are at (or beyond) retirement age. We are undertakers.

Twenty years ago I worried about my skillset becoming “outdated” – and myself becoming “unemployable” – if I didn’t keep up with the ever changing world of IT. Today I’m baffled and flattered by the amount of serious job offers I (old dog with old tricks up her sleeve) get. My “antique” skillset is apparently highly sought after. We will be the last resort.

Posted in 05 - Getting Settled

The first Night in our new House

Posted on by Karin Brenig

view down my stairsIt took longer than we had planned. There were obstacles that we hadn’t anticipated. The Covid-19 pandemic, for one, and all the restrictions that came with it, made it next to impossible to go house-shopping. Persistence paid off, though.

This was only the second house we had looked at since moving to Germany in September last year. It offered everything that we wanted: plenty of space, close enough to where my parents live, not too close to the big city, but still within reach of it.

The owners, a young couple with two small children, were planning a third child – and wanted a house which would better meet their needs. I understand the reasoning – our house has plenty of space, divided into large open areas, with only three bedrooms. The master bedroom is reasonably sized, but the two children’s rooms (now our guest room and office) are just 97 and 130 square feet, respectively.

Now, I thought there would have been ways to modify the setup to accomodate a third child, but of course I didn’t share my ideas. Especially after I realized that the wife was reluctant to sell. She must have loved the place and grown attached to it over the roughly six years that the family lived there.

Today was the first night we spent in our own house. There is a lot of empty space to fill between the partially finished basement and the third floor. We have no furniture, no refrigerator, no washer or dryer. We slept in our bedroom right under the roof, on air mattresses. Breakfast the next morning – champagne and smoked salmon – came out of our electric camping cooler.

Life is good!

Posted in 05 - Getting Settled

Four Decades to go around full Circle

Posted on by Karin Brenig

The “new normal”, that we are all enjoying right now, makes me reflect more on where I’ve come from, where I am, and where I’m headed with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The past nine months felt a little bit like being reborn, and a very familiar feeling for that matter – I’ve been reborn at least once before, in 2006.

I had to leave my home, my job, many of my friends, things that I’d grown attached to, and habits that I’d formed once again – all that just to go back to live in the same house that I left over fourty years ago, hoping to become an even better person, hoping to build an even better life, and helping others along the way.

As I laid in my bed one night, just before falling asleep, this image of my younger self popped into my mind: my head had been in the exact same place – just my feet were pointing South back then, while they are pointing East now.

So, you tell me, has anything even changed while I was busy changing myself and the circumstances?

Karin 1979 and 2019Life is good

Our liberties will hopefully return some day

Happiness is the one thing we personally control

Posted in 05 - Getting Settled