Alpha Core

Here are some impressions from a swamp called “Hoge Venen” (Hautes Fagnes or High Fens) and a walk we made near Bon-Secours in Belgium (and France).

This picture was taken during our stable fest at the beginning of August 2008. In the course of this the riders, and amongst them Noli and me, sported a short show for the audience.  I’m carrying the German flag, representing the dressage riding, whereas the riders in the background, riding western, are carrying the American flag. The audience was thrilled by our performance and Noli, me and the other riders and horses had a lot of fun as well.

This is Noli – my horse. Or to be more precise with everything: her given name is Magnolia and she is a pony of the kind ‘Deutsches Reitpony‘. Noli was born in the stable were I took riding lessons when I was a child. In this stable every child could choose a horse or a pony to look after it, which basically meant grooming it regularly. I happened to choose a pony mare, named Towy Valley Marguerite, but because this name really is a lot too long, she is called Margie. After a while the owner decided that Margie should have a foal. And that’s where Noli occurs in this story. She was born in 1994 when I was 12 years old. Ever since then I also took care of her and on my 15th birthday my wish came true and Noli was my present. We changed stables then and Noli is now living in an open stable near Hamburg. The picture on the left side is taken in summer, when Noli was standing on a meadow and the picture on the right side shows the two of us going for a hack in winter.

This evening we (Astrid, Doro and me) went to the premiere of Karl May in Bad Segeberg. Every year they give a show there about Winnetou (the Apache indian) and this year they chose ‘Winnetou I’, the first book in the series by Karl May.

I found out that I already understood a lot more about the story being told compared to last year. Either that means my German is actually improving or they decided to simplify the story and just do crazy action scenes instead this year. I’m more willing to accept the second possibility. Anyway, we enjoyed it!

Hey, we’re Tom and Doro. For the very first time (cough) something is finally happening on Alpha Core (and the crowd goes wild). A new WordPress got installed and we can finally start sharing our lives (or at least a tiny part of it) with the rest of the internet. The idea is for Alpha Core to become more of a photoblog than a normal weblog in a sense that there will be little textual content and more pictures that give merely an impression of what it is we do.

Our latest new hobby is geocaching and that one really got a firm grip around us, so you’ll have to endure the first 50 posts about geocaching. After carefully reading probably every review in existence about GPS devices, we already ordered our very own one at Futurumshop: a brand new Magellan eXplorist 210. We’re hoping it arrives soon so we can go on a huge geocaching tour. Some pictures will follow for sure!

Anyway, enjoy your stay here and we’ll try to keep this as interesting as possible here.