Quick Index
Meet the Niesens
Our Wedding
School, Employment, & Resume
Hobbies & Interests
Ballroom Dance
Cars
Cell Phone
Computers
Dining
Dragon Boat
Entertainment Sys
Hiking
Knitting
Sailing
Weekly Picture Archive
Recipes
Aldi
Product Reviews
Links
Mail to
Claus
Melissa
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Our Hobbies
Click on the hobby to find way more out about us and that particular hobby than you ever wanted to know.
Ballroom Dance Competition
We used to compete in the (International) Standard at the bronze level.
Just before we stopped we were changing from bronze to the silver level and adding
the Viennese waltz to our dances (slow waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, and
tango). This was definitely our main hobby and it did consume quite a bit
of money. But who cares how much it costs when you really enjoy it a
lot. Competition dancing compared to social dancing is nicer because
you as the dancer are much more challenged. It's not just the steps
that have to be mastered but the position as well. If you do it correctly
the feeling of dancing is effortless as if you are a bird gliding through
the sky with out having to do any work at all. That's also how the
audience will perceive it. Of course this does not come without any work.
Winning and the drive to win at a competition is also a great encouragement
to continue your hard work and to improve your dancing.
Bicycling
Like a lot of people we bicycle occasionally in our free time. Nothing we
really go crazy about except for a few occasions. In 2001 we participated
at the RAGBRAI. We also did a few overnight trips on our own where we took tent
and food along on our bikes and camped at a state park.
Cars
Everybody has them, some love them other hate them. Here we introduce some of our gas (and
diesel) guzzlers.
Cell Phone
All about the Nokia 6568 CDMA cell phone from US Cellular.
Computers
Computers do play a large role in our life. Probably way to big of a role. Here are
some interesting tidbits that we have found useful and wanted to document somewhere.
Dining
A list of local Ames, Iowa restaurants that offer weekly children specials (free kids meals).
Dragon Boat Race
Claus and Melissa participated in a dragon boat race at the at the
1999 Greater Des Moines Dragonboat Festival in Iowa. Participating
in the race was great experience. Since then, we have also paddled in the 2000
and 2001 Greater Des Moines Dragonboat Festivals.
Entertainment System
All about TV, stereos and the like. Currently this section only features tips on setting up
a TiVo with a digital converter box.
Hiking
Story about various hiking trips and ideas of where to hike.
Knitting
Melissa is learning how to knit. Check out how she is doing.
Sailing
Everybody in our neighborhood has at least a boat, big camper, a Harley
Davidson or a combination thereof. To fit a little bit more into our
neighborhood we bought a sailboat. Even before we had that sailboat,
we enjoyed sailing with rented sailboat from Iowa State University.
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