2009-Dec-29 Koupili jsme Jarce piano.
2009-Oct-31 And another sunburn! Our friends back home are lucky if they see the sun few days per week;-]
2009-Oct-22 Takhle jsme dopadli s kolegou dneska rano cestou do prace. Vjeli jsme ve tme do hluboke vody a kdyz to chtel otocit zpatky, zjistili jsme, ze ta cara co se dala matne tusit ve tme ve vode nebyla jenom cara, ale vysoky obrubnik co delil v prostredku tu ulici. Tak jsme se tam pohupovali ve vlnach od ostatnich aut napichnuti prostredkem auta (s nizkym sportovnim podvozkem) nez nas za $80 nalozil nejaky potah a odvezl z te zaplavy ven (100 metru za roh).
2009-Oct-16 I do not think I ever got sunburn mid-October.
2009-Oct-6 I just made an interesting experience with tax offices. When you buy a car from a private party, you need to do the title transfer and the (re)registration and pay the sales tax. It is all done in one trip to a tax office. Aron told me there is one at Chimney Rock, so I went there yesterday. The place was junk. Somebody vomited in the restrooms floor – I almost did too. Queues filling up the hall, glass separating the clerks from the customers with only a small hole through, where you either need to stick your ear or mouth to hear/speak with her. Very noisy place. She checked my papers and told me I have to go to Fort Bend county tax office ;-[[
So here I am – just behind the SLB Sugar Land campus. The place is clean, they have chairs, at the door you pick up number – no queues. I was done in 5 minutes. Very good experience.
2009-Sep-10 Po 3 tydnech chozeni do skolky Filip dela zpetne pokroky v cestine. Rekl nam ze "Dneska ve skolce bylo prset." Nekecam. Zuzana je naopak zcela netknuta. Zda se, ze cela jeji trida zacina mluvit cesky.
2009-Aug-25 What looked as an innocent physical (required by the pre-school that we started yesterday - oops!) turned into 2 hrs detailed examination including hearing and vision checks followed by 4 vaccinations for Filip and 2 for Zuzana. Torture!
2009-Aug-24 House hunting completed - here is our new address. If everything goes through as expected, we are moving in September 3rd.
2009-Aug-24 Full time in pre-school. This is the first time ever for Zuzana. Filip commented his first day that all the kids speak only English.
2009-Aug-21 The summary is that by now we have got credit cards (usually impossible to get without credit history), debit cards, first visit to the hospital (Filip's got some rash), Jarka has got a cell phone number (pre-paid), but I cannot get my work cell phone number (post-paid), because I do not have the social security number.
The catch is that one must not apply for the social security number within the first 2 weeks of staying in the country. What is even worse is that then it takes 2 weeks to get the plastic card with the SSN, that is vital for getting the Texas driving license. In other words: Jarka cannot even start her driving lessons for the full first month! I am going to be the taxi driver for much longer then we all hoped!! Also for me this is a problem, because I am allowed to drive with the foreign driving license for only 30 days. But I cannot apply for the Texas drivers license during the first month. Catch 22.
2009-Aug-12 At 23:00 somebody tries to get into our flat (ground floor). It looks pretty scary. I was asleep already, so was quite disoriented when Jarka woke me up.
Then somebody seams to go around all our windows with flash light. Then we hear voices outside. We switched on the lights to scare them off. Did not help - knocking on the door. I gather all the courage and open balcony door to have a peek at what's going on. It is the police. Well that is relieving! I talk to him, he wants to see my ID. Strange. Also he asks me if I am dressed. Was not. Anyway. I showed him my ID, he looked at the Czech driver's license and said lady from upstairs called 911 because she saw/heard somebody climbing up from our balcony to theirs.
Now, what is remarkable about this story is that (according to Jarka, who was awake the whole time and heard the first noises and the lady upstairs shouting at somebody) the resopnse time between the accident and the police arrival was within two (2!) minutes. And we are living in an appartment complex that has code gate and fairly difficult way to navigate to the right building inside, unless you know exactly where to go. If all this only took them 2 minutes, I am really glad we have chosen the city of Sugar Land for our residence.
2009-Aug-11 Bezprostredne po pristani v Houstonu (po namahavych 15 hodinach cestovani) byl Filipek zklamany, ze to v te Americe vypada stejne jako v Praze!
2009-Jun-23 Packing and loading ... bottle openner is at the bottom of one of the boxes. Heeeeepl!
2009-Jun-17 Items for sale
2009-Jun-5 Dnes jsme dostali pobytova viza do statu, tak uz nas od stehovani asi nic nezachrani;-] Baleni a stehovani mame naplanovano na 23-24 cervna. Pak budeme tyden na dovolene, pak budeme v Praze a Minsku a po zbytek cervence budeme v Praze s pripadnym odskocenim do Houstonu. Finalni stehovani nastane nekdy v prvni pulce srpna. Tak drzte palec!
2009-Apr-13 Hozi hozi, hasici jedou, tada tada, cikaky vezo
2009-Mar-22 Podle skoly hledej nove bydliste.
2009-Mar-7 Filip learns skiing.
2009-Feb-22 It snows even on Wienerberg!.
2009-Feb-15 Oslavili jsme Filipovy narozeniny. Nejlepsi darek byla asi navsteva tety a strejdy. On se tady v tetach a strejdach (to zvlaste) moc nevyzna, ale kdykoliv jdeme nekomu naproti, tak rika ze to je teta a strejda.
2008-Apr Filip me zasedl hrudnik a mucil mi oblicej. Tradicni hra. Pak se mi zadival na celo a rika "Tato, vlacek!". Chtel jsem vysvetleni, ale porad jenom "vlacek vlacek" a ukazoval mi na celo. Az za hodnou chvili na to vysvetleni doslo. "Tato, koleje!".
2008-Apr Ucim takhle Filipa barvy a ptam se ho "which color is this...". Odpoved mela znit "yellow". Filip na mne zkousi "blue...?" ale rychle mi odecte z obliceje ze ne a hned to radsi sam konstatuje "blue no!". Tak mu napovidam "ye.." a on se rozzari a sebevedome rekne "jelená". Pro pochopeni pointy jsem mel predem zduraznit, ze Filip neumi "z".
2008-Feb-17 Filip celebrated his 3rd birthday.
2008-Feb-1 Filip goes to kindergarten. Zuzana is now really enjoying herself spending the morning with her mom and going to the activity groups.
2007-Dec-21Chystame se na dnesni prejezd statnich hranic bez dokladu! V Praze a okoli budeme od dnesniho vecera do zacatku ledna. Tak jestli si na nas najdete cas, tak vas radi uvidime.
2007-Oct-11 Nanekolikrat jsme oslavili Zuzciny narozeniny. Aspon dostala vic dortu;-) Z toho sem mel nejvetsi radost.
2007-Jul-11 Tak jsme naplanovali dalsi cesty do Prahy na 19-21 cervence a 10-12/13 srpna. Mimo to jsme 16-21 srpna ve Francii na svatbe a 31-2 zari v jiznich cechach. Mimo tyto terminy jste vitani ve Vidni na nasem kanapi.
2007-Jul-4 Our camera is finally repaired. It took Nikon 3 months (!) to decide there is nothing wrong with it. They upgraded the firmware and cleaned. And surprise: the inability to focus with the tele-lens is gone. What can you do with software!
2007-Jul-8 The camera is fixed, but there is something funny with the metering when used with the polarizing filter. I have to manually override it (a lot) to underexpose the picture. See example of it: this shot had to be underxposed by -2 pts.
2006-Dec-16 Slovník cesko-fíkovský k nalezení zde.
2006-Nov-04 We have a Liverpool fun at home .
2006-Nov-02 Zuzana is not even 1 months, but already weighting 5kg.
2006-Nov-01 November hitcount to the web site was 410. Our usual is 120 hits per month.
2006-Oct-12 If you are catching up late, you can download all the pictures we took so far in one zip file. It contains few pictures in full resulution.
2006-Oct-11 23:25 Prave nam prisel sty (slovy 100) email s gratulaci. Dekujeme. // We have just received 100th email from y'll. Thank you!
2006-Oct-6 Still waiting ... so went to the mountains to get some fresh air.
2006-Oct-1 Still waiting for Agatha. Meanwhile, there are 8 new short videos available.
2006-May-22 Agatha decided to become a babygirl!
2006-May-14 Pokousal zubni pastu
2006-May-05 Rekl "táta".
Read older news2006-Jan-20 Our washing machine was making severely strange sounds. Before we called for help, we found Jarka's keys in the washing machine. She is blaming it on Filip.
2006-Jan-22 Maybe she was right. We were looking for half day for the remote control. Found it in the washing machine. Luckily this time it was idle.
2006-Jan-27 First step without falling.
2006-Jan-30 Placed the rabish bin on the fridge. Dear Filip thought it was the fun place for storing his toys.
2006-Jan-31 Set the alarm clock to turn on the radio at midnight. Thanks very much.
2006-Mar-05 We started walking!
2006-Mar-04 Tak sme koupili letenky do Prahy na 13-22 dubna.
2006-Apr-07 Stav Fickova slovniku - to abyste mu pri jeho treti navsteve v Praze dobre rozumeli: Ha-ha = pes; Pe-pe-pe = ptak, couvajici nakladak, mikrovlnka; Ba = banan; Mamamama = ta hezka pani co mne 3krat denne krmi; Ga = husa; Pu = pupik