first LHF Meeting Germany 2007

[saeman]

Guten Morgen to all in JBL Land. I am home now from my trip to Germany, with luggage full of Swiss Chocolate, German wine and bier mugs and memories of a great trip. Let it be known first that the U.S. is not the only place where hard core insane JBL-ers reside. We drove 3100 km over the course of a week and found JBL insanity from Metzingen in the south, up to Berlin and back down to Bad Homburg.

The last leg of our trip was the First Ever LHS Meeting in Deutschland hosted by Hanspeter and Angelica in Bad Homburg, in their home and in HP's Blues Garage. I will do my best to describe to all, the fun that we all had over the course of a long afternoon, evening and into the early hours of the following day. It will likely take many posts to record this event and to post all of the pics that I and others took during the day. Please be patient and I will eventually get all the big jpeg files photo-shopped down to proper size.

Stay Tuned - Rick

[mech986]

Can't wait!

Regards,

Bart

[paragon]

Hello Rick,

Nice to see, you and your son are well (?) back at home. Hope you liked the "Asbach-Cola" . Meeting was great !! Can`t upload Pics !? Pics later, sorry.

Eckhard

[Fangio]

Glad to hear you had a safe flight home, Rick.

OK, I've had the pleasure to accompany Rick, his son and his host down to the Frankfurt area, and I would like to thank HP and his wife Angelika a lot also, for their hospitality and a very special evening.

HP's home, an affectionately restored old farmhouse near Bad Homburg, was the perfect frame for a highly enjoyable meeting. It was really interesting to get to know some of the faces behind the monikers from my country in these forums. Since it was our special guest Rick that took the most photos, of course he should have the fun to go more into reporting the details as first - I've enjoyed particularly the looong, long night in HP's 'blues garage'...

Might come up with some additional pics later too.

[Hofmannhp]

Hi Guys,

I have to say that I am happy that you enjoyed the meeting. For Angelica and me I can say...we had a lot of fun.
(but my neighbours are happy that it's over )
We all had a nice time with new (old) friends from all over the country.
On sunday I was hanging around like a wet towel...... but now all is working again.

now waiting patiently for Ricks pictures

Rick: pls don't forget to tell the story with Nathan and my couch

HP

[paragon]

Hallo HP,

Ihr beiden habt großartiges geleistet und alles richtig gemacht !
Besser gings nicht ! Ich denke, alle haben die Zeit genossen.
Kann dies leider nicht in Englisch. Meine Güte, Tom L..

Gruß, Eckhard

[saeman]

I've been trying to sift through the week's pictures - some 600 in all. Looks like I have a lot of work to do to just get them filed.

For all of those interested, here's a run down on the historic events of Jan 20th 2007.

The events started out at about 3:30pm upon our arrival in Bad Homburg, at the home of Hanspeter. There were seven forum members in attendance as follows - me, my good friend and host for the week Claus Dolderer (aka Schloerch), our host for the evening Hanspeter (aka Hofmannhp), Guido Behringer (aka Guido), Juergen Imlau (aka rs237), Florian Jansen (aka fangio) and Eckhard Heidbrink (aka paragon). Listening in and bored with all the JBL talk was my son Nathan.

We started out at the large dining table in Hanspeter's home with traditional cake and coffee, a lot of introductions, JBL talk and then a tour into the high altitudes of HP's loft office where he keeps his home brew 4433A's. Soon after the coffee cups were empty wine and bottles of beer filled the table. We continued until about 8:30 pm drinking and talking more JBL. Keep in mind that the party has not started yet.

Below are a few pics of the start of the evening. Rick

[saeman]

We reached a point in our talks where it was decided that we had better go for dinner. A short one block down the street from HP's home is a great local pub/restaurant. A table was waiting for the group and we sat down to more talk and more beer.

The place was quite full when we arrived and they all probably wondered what in the hell we were all talking about. Dinner was absolutely fantastic and the steak that I had was one of the best ever - loaded with onions and mushrooms. At times the talk was loud and jovial and then there seemed to be serious one on one conversations between a few of those present. HP sat kind of in the middle of the crowd, like a good moderator, but things remained calm and there was no need for him to exercise his talents.

When the beer glasses were empty and dinner was over, we all shared a round of schnapps and a toast to the group who gathered and to the "First Ever LHS Meeting in Germany". Pics posted are as follows:

First - the group from left to right CW around the table - Eckhard, Florian, Guido, Jurgen, Claus, Me and Hanspeter.

2nd - Claus making a point

3rd - Eckhard and Florian

4th - Guido and Juergen

5th - Hanspeter

Please keep in mind that it's now around 10 pm, maybe a bit later, and the party has not started yet.

[saeman]

Here's a few misc pics thrown in. When we first arrived in Frankfurt my good friend Claus picked us up at the airport and we traveled to Metzingen to his home. Upon our arrival I was face to face with a beautiful looking pair of 4350B's - imagine my surpise!! There's also a pic of Florian and Claus in Berlin with Florian's 4343 1/2's in Florian's living room. The last is a pic of Hanspeter with one of his DIY 4333A's.

Please keep in mind that the party has not started yet !!!!!

[saeman]

Hi Guys,

Rick: pls don't forget to tell the story with Nathan and my couch

HP

The story goes like this - Hanspeter arranged for Nathan and I, a room at a local hotel. Between our meeting in HP's home and our dinner out, we ran down to the room to clean up and get a change of clothes. When we left for dinner Nathan had the room key - no problem right? After dinner Nathan went out on the town with HP's daughter (same age) and some of her friends. Out on the town turned out to be a trip into Frankfurt to a big dance club - no problem right? Wrong - Problem is that when I was ready to drop from the night's activities, he was nowhere to be found and neither was the room key. My wonderful bed in the wonderful room that HP arranged for me (70 EUR) ended up being the couch in HP's family room. After maybe 3-4 hours of interminent sleep I went to the room to find a note on the door that said "Dad - Knock Hard" Turns out that he did not return until 7am. Something tells me that he needs to pay me back for the cost of the room.

[Titanium Dome]

Mein Gott, welche stattliche Männer.

Es sieht wie eine wundervolle Zeit aus.

[Rolf]

Greetings to all of you lucky ones who attended to this session. I wish I could have been there with you.

Maybe some other time ...?

From the description and the pictures I can see you had a lot of fun.

Cheers!

[Zilch]

From the description and the pictures I can see you had a lot of fun.

Hell, the party hasn't even STARTED yet!!

[saeman]

After our evening meal we walked the short distance back to HP's home. Instead of going back into the house we continued across the drive to HP's Blues Garage. There had been some talk about this place earlier but I paid little attention. Sitting in front of a garage with three single doors were two beemers. Between them on the wall was a sign that said "BMW Parking Only". There was also a sign pointing to the left - Harley Davidson Repair.

Maybe this garage had oil and grease over the floor; typical of many repair garages. Nobody really knew what to expect. We were all quite blown away. The pics tell the story. This was a part time BMW garage and a part time party shack. HP's garage was full of appropriate decorations - JBL banners, beer signs, overhead dance floor lights and JBL SPEAKERS. The brick floors were spotless and there wasn't a hint of oil odor in the air.

It's now around 10 pm and the party has started. HP opens a beer for himself and welcomes everyone to HP's Blues Garage.

[saeman]

There was no shortage of booze or music. I recall drinking Irish Whiskey with Guido, a Tequila Sunrise with HP, and putting a serious dent in HP's bottle of Asbach Brandy. We also shared a round of HP's special party drink - first empty the contents of this sparkling flavored candy into your mouth and then a shot of wodka - mix well and swallow.

HP had a wall of CD's and we listened to everything from CCR, to Pink Floyd, to Billy Idol. Plenty of Blues too since this was the theme of the party.