We took the kids to San Antonio this summer to see Sea World, but one the way home, I requested a slight detour. Destination? Shiner, Texas. As you likely already know if you look in my fridge, Shiner brews my favorite beers, so we went to visit, take the tour, buy pint glasses in the gift shop, and to sample some free cold ones! Shiner Bock, Shiner Blonde, Shiner Hefeweizen, and Shiner Bohemian Black Lager in little 4oz paper cups but fresh fresh fresh!

My family tree traces back to a group of Tiedes who arrived in New York City, USA, on May 24th, 1879 to be processed at Castle Garden.  They crossed the Atlantic ocean in the boat pictured here, the North German Lloyd S.S. Neckar. (This is a painting by Antonio Jacobsen dated 1879, btw, so it would be a good likeness. Notice the one tiny smokestack in case the wind was no help!)

My Great-Great Grandfather Daniel was a boy of 15 at the time, traveling with his family, including my Great-Great-Great Grandfather Gottlieb.

Here is a link to the New York times article mentioning the arrival (but not mentioning any specific passengers).

PS: The Neckar on which the Tiedes came was the first with that name, built in 1874 and scrapped in 1896, as the North German Lloyd company replaced it with a new boat of the same name that was three times the size.

No, I didn’t win this lamp! But for doing what I would likely have done anyway, I was selected as a first prize winner on a Play-N-Win Sweepstakes on Xbox Live!  I didn’t have to know the name of Tonto’s cousin’s horse or anything. I just happened to race in online multiplayer with Project Gotham 4 on the contest weekend back in November.

This week, a letter showed up from some company I had never heard of and as usual with that kind of mail, I just ignored it.  Meridith decided to open it before throwing it away and brought it in to show me.  Turns out, it was from the company that coordinates promotions for Xbox live and they included $200 of Microsoft Points to use on for content on Xbox Live. Now I can afford all of those Rock Band downloads every week!

It has been a long time since I updated here — Sorry! My xbox got fixed and mailed back after three weeks of waiting…

Since then, I got the wireless steering wheel (which created an xbox support nightmare of its own after they had a product recall involving me being without it from October through January!). The wheel totally rocks with Forza Motorsport 2, but for more arcade-like racing sometimes I still prefer the hand controller (with games like Dirt) .

Finally, even better than the Racing games are the Rock games! You know, Guitar Hero II, III and best of all, Rock Band! I know I’ll never be able to play a real guitar, but I can live vicariously though video games to play one on tv! And Rock Band’s drum kit is my favorite way to play. Whenever friends or family are over, Rock Band gets setup and we go to town with it!

My XBox 360 has been mailed off to the service center after refusing to boot up. I was the last person I know to have their system fail, so to me, that’s a 100% failure rate. It was good news a couple weeks ago, though, when Microsoft fessed up to the problems and decided to extend the warantee period out to THREE years. Tommy and I are a bit stir crazy without it though and counting off the days until we are back in business…

Okay – most of the bands that seemed cool with their first release didn’t do so hot on their second album. The Killers vol 2 was awful. Bloc Party vol 2 was not so good. Kaiser Chiefs vol 2 was ok. But Editors on the other hand have improved on their first album that I liked so much. I can’t help but hear echoes of Edge-like guitar anthems ringing through wide open spaces… So if you are down on this new generation of bands, check out this new Editors album for yourself.

Go Mavs! Beat the Heat!