Giving the Arm

I know zip, pretty much, about robotics, and even less about mechanical engineering. But this robotic arm, made to be the literal equivilent of a human arm (with all of the parts of a human arm) is, I think, quite cool.

From the Festo site, home of some very talented people.

One Liners

I had a wonderful conversation with my wife at breakfast. This is not unusual -- we frequently have conversations that remind me of what an interesting person she is -- but it just happened, and since I'm here, I wanted to mention it.

One of the things she told me, after we were through talking about the band meeting yesterday, was that the band people want the 'one liners'. It turns out that those are the phrases that will go into the yearbook -- 'Love and Kisses to Our Wonderful Daughter from Mom and The Wierd Guy She Lives With' -- but I told her that when I hear that phrase, I think of one liners: -you know, 'She's so fat, when she sits around the house, she sits around the house' -- that kind of thing. So, I said, I'd pay serious money for these one-liners --

After that band boosters meeting, if you think I'm ever volunteering for anything to do with this, think again, bozo!

Love and Kisses to our Daughter, and also that cutie in the third row of the marching band, who can make a quick twenty bucks by calling this number....

...but she told me we couldn't do that. Even when I said that the twenty bucks was to mow the lawn. No..um.. really !

Bickering

Tonight I went to a pot-luck dinner held by the Band Boosters association, in support of both the band and the color guard. As part of that, a meeting was held to review and approve bylaw changes for the assocation. The meeting almost immediately dissolved into bickering, the thrust of which was a) 'I didn't hear about these changes until tonight', b) 'You reference Robert's Rules of Order in some places, but not in others, so this whole thing is invalid', and c) 'I don't agree with some/all of these changes'. After extensive back and forth, they agreed to table the motion, and to vote the next time. Along the way, several heated remarks were made. Some were justifiable, and some were not.

I despise confrontation, I despise bullies, and I despise rigorous adherents to procedures.

Mown Down

This morning, I dropped my daughter and her friend off at color guard practice. Their enthusiasm is beginning to wane, a bit. Good thing there's only three more days.

When I dropped them, I said that I'd be out mowing this morning, so that if she wanted to get me, she should call my cell phone, which I would have with me. So, of course, she called the house phone, leaving a message that she '..needed my stupid kstmm so bring it right away'. I listened to it twice before figuring out that the garbled word was 'costume', ie, her CG outfit that she'd just gotten yesterday. I recalled seeing it, and hearing her mother say that she'd hang it in her closet, so I dove into there, hunting for ten minutes before calling her mother and asking where the HELL it was....of course. Its in the plastic bag lying in a nondescript heap on the floor at the end of her bed, half-slid off the big pillow and partially covered by a pair of jeans.

So I whipped over there and discovered that it is freaking impossible to pick out one girl in a mass of color guard people, especially when they're marching back and forth in front of the band, who's also practicing their routines that integrate with the CG. I sat there for thirty minutes, occasionally walking back and forth, looking at the piles of bags that the girls had left for my daughter's stuff. All I could recall was that she has a blue and white water jug.

Want to guess what the most popular color of water jug is?

So I called her mother again, who said that she usually had a bright yellow bag, which I then hunted for, and didn't find. You'd think that the two women orchestrating the exercises would be curious about who this guy was, hunting through the bags, but guess not. So I sat some more, figuring that they'd be taking a break soon -- which they did, finally, the whole band trailing off, leaving just the Guard. None of whom seemed to be my daughter. What?

I decided to go back to the school, and as I'm driving slowly away, I stopped at a bright yellow bag. Hmm...that lunch bag looks like hers. So I got out and looked -- and yep, its got our name on it. No water jug anywhere in sight. I stuffed her costume into the yellow bag, and figured 'Better tell her its here'. Went over to the school, wandered the halls for a while, didn't find them. The hell with this. Came back out to the car through a second door, walked past the band members, saw some CG girls sitting on the curb, turned and looked at a second set -- and out of the corner of my eye, saw one casually waving from the first set. Not even bothering to get up. Can't be seen with Dad, I guess.

I told her, and left.

One other thing. Seeing some of those girls move -- both in the band and in the color guard -- I wished that I had my camera, just to capture their grace as they went through those movements. But if you saw a guy standing alone to the side of a group of teenage girls, snapping photos of them with a little digital camera, what would you think he was up to?

Yeah, me too. So, I think not!

Weird Thoughts

No, not the ones about the kangaroo, the mayonnaise, and the popsicle sticks. I don't tell anyone about those.

One is, I'm starting to wonder if I really want to go back to Australia in five years, when my daughter's out of high school. More accurately, do I really want to pay for the flight, at business class rates. For that same amount, we could all go to Europe, see multiple countries, stay in nice hotels or apartments.... Or, if we did really want to go (and, no lie, I really do want to go, I just want it...closer), would I be willing to risk terminal rigor or deep vein thrombosis by flying in steerage class for thirteen hours at a shot. Right now, the Europe option is ahead.

Another is, those ads you see on occasion for the high-wall bathtubs with a door in the side. We occasionally think of having one put in for my mother who lives with us, but today we found that they're pretty expensive -- we don't know how much, but one maker is offering a thousand dollars off. How much these things cost if they can offer that much off staggers the imagination. So, since my imagination was being staggered, I found myself wondering if there might be a more elegant solution -- say, a very small swimming pool with an under-water seat and a walk-in ramp. I'm guessing it would take about three feet for the 'tub' part, and about ten feet for the ramp. I wonder: is that even feasible? Its intriguing -- and I like the idea of a tub I could use. I'm not immensely large, but I am usually not comfortable in a standard tub. I can sit with my back up, or my knees up. No total submergence. Something like that might just do the trick. Probably not cost effective, though.

The raisin bread turned out well enough for people at my wife's office to ask for seconds. That's goodness. Now I'm looking for a different bread to make. I'm enjoying this, got to admit.

Everything Old...

It seems that my former employer -- the one I worked for for over twenty years -- has a need for people who happen to know some old computer skills. These are ones that I learned when I started there, before all of this interweb nonsense. And they want to know if I'd be interested.

On the one hand, why, sure -- chance to earn some money, doing stuff I know how to do, no travel, either work from home or commute with my wife (probably) -- whats not to like?

One the other hand, gee, I don't know -- I'm getting to like being at home, not being part of the corporate grind, plus this would screw up going to that baking course, not to mention interfering with some medical things I have planned...

I do so love indecision. At least, I think I do.

Interfaces

I've thought for quite some time that computer interfaces need a lot of work. When I was employed as a mainframe performance tech (and I realize that saying 'mainframe' not only dates me but puts serious doubt about the level of my technical skills), I used a product called Omegamon, from the Candle Corporation (since acquired by IBM). Its primary interace was a text-based display whose sole nod to current interface possibilities was multi-colored text, flashing text, and crude text-based graphics. When the product went through two levels of upgrade, to the Omegamon II and Omegamon Command Center levels, the basic interface didn't change much -- the graphics were still fairly crude, though better than they had been, and the underlying engine was still the original Omegamon. Candle/IBM has come out with a new, improved version of the product, called Omegamon XE, which is client/server based. That gave me hope that they'd finally hired some smart, creative folks to built a better interface, but that didn't really happen. Its pretty kludgy, and, of course, not nearly as powerful, intuitive, or effective in the monitoring and control of system operation as the marketing literature would lead one to believe.

By contrast, this article , titled Doom as a Tool for System Administration, outlines a delightfully innovative and damn creative method of performing that function. In it, the author describes a project he executed to configure and use the Doom game as a metaphor for the operation of his system. His intent was to create a simple, intuitively obvious interface to a cluttered, powerful system, so that the user didn't have to know the system internals; they simply (and I know that this wasn't simple) had to know what they wanted to do with the system -- what actions they wanted to take. If you understood how Doom was intended to be used, you could control this fellows system, because the metaphors were virtually (no pun intended) the same. The author went on to make several interesting points about problems and considerations. I'm fascinated by this, and wish that this level of programming insight were more common.

Additionally, this article, which is from the BBC news service, describes a series of events in the popular World of Warcraft game, wherein a plague struck the simulated community. The participants reacted as they would have in the solid world, aiding other players, or running away from possible infection, or even deliberately infecting other players. The article includes comments and observations by a researcher from Tufts University, which hopes to use further 'real simulations' to evaluate disease propagation and response models. This is not so much interfaces as the other article, but it is still the use of artificial worlds to perform real world functions and analysis. As such, it is fascinating work, and I'm delighted to see it.

rain dancer

The other night, while it was raining quite heavily, I went down and opened the garage door, the idea being that when my daughter was dropped off, she could come quickly into the garage, rather than having to fiddle her gear in through the house's front door. It'd save about a minute, if that, but when you're getting rained on...

I stood there for a while, just watching it rain, and after a bit I grabbed a folding chair we keep in the garage and sat, watching the rain -- seeing the sheets of water sluicing down the driveway, hearing the splashing on the steps, the gurgling in the downspouts. It was pretty peaceful, actually, and I enjoyed it. After a while, I started thinking about the whole process of getting out of a car while its raining, and how people sometimes put up carports in front of the garage, to ease unloading during inclement weather. I wondered if we'd ever be able to have something like a force shield that you could energize when a car arrives that'd form a clear barrier against the rain, giving a dry path into the house from the driveway. You wouldn't keep the shield up all the time, because those things would take a lot of power -- unless you had a home nuclear power unit, which is a different technological fantasy -- but for periods like that, it'd be useful.

Course, then I wouldn't get to sit in the darkened garage and just watch the rain.

'Murrican Medical

This is part of a story on the SusieJ site (which is well worth reading anyway). The story's about a relative of hers who was in a serious automobile accident, and the superlative medical care that he received:

He was life-flighted to a larger hospital. When he was conscious, and the surgeons were still busy working on him, his mother leaned over and said, “Were you just praying to God the whole time?”

His response? “Yeah. I was praying, God, please don’t let me die a virgin.”

The surgeons had to back away from the table because they were laughing so hard. A few days later when my cousin was feeling better, the surgeons came in with a hat, with some money inside. The said, “We felt sorry for you. So, we took a collection, and now we just have to find a nurse who’s willing."

Thoughts on a Damp Evening

I watched bits and pieces of I,Robot again today. Thats one of those films that I've never seen all the way through... but the more I see it, the more I like it. Part of it is that I've always had a thing for Susan Calvin, the roboticist in the novels. What can I say, I like smart women. I think that the woman who plays her in the movie does a pretty good job with the role. I'd have liked to see her as a stronger character, less of a foil (a smart foil, but still a foil - she doesn't drive any of the action). But even so, I just like the movie. I think they did a pretty good job on the concept, and the plot. And the special effects.

I was also amazed when Will Smith got his obligatory shirt-off scene. Good lord.

Other things: I made the Cinnamon Swirl bread, and I'm moderately pleased with it. The recipe said that this would be a wet dough, but this stuff was really wet -- so gloppy that when I was done mixing, it took three tries to get it out of the mixer bowl -- pull this side, the other side adheres; pull the other side, and the first side adheres. Also, there were some glitches in the recipe -- like, saying to use a 9 inch pan but also saying to roll out the dough to 11 inches. Say What? I'm glad I made it, and I'd make it again -- but I think I'd give it more flour, and a lot more cinnamon sugar. It tasted bland, to me. I know, if I go to the CIA's baking course, it'll come out great -- in their kitchen, with their tools. Ahem.

The sourdough starter is doing nicely -- starting to froth up, making bubbles, all of that. Got that yeasty aroma. I'm thinking maybe Friday to make that bread.

I just pitched an article I'd saved for some time on making pizza, because it didn't tell me anything new -- well, not much; the guy did have an idea for how to get the pizza into the oven without a pizza peel, but I didn't think much of it. It was a good article, but it didn't give me any useful insights, like the one did about using the broiler to heat the toppings, or setting the two sides of the barbecue at different temps -- one to cook, one to add the toppings. But in a weird way it did somewhat confirm a feeling I'm getting, which is that when I want opinions on how to do something with baking, its best to look at the amateur sites. The ones who Really Know, the Baking Gurus, get to be very dogmatic, and sometimes they contradict each other on key points -- like, is it best to make sourdough starter in a warm environment or a cool one? Most say warm, but one Bread Guru whose book I'd bought says its got to be cool. If I knew more, perhaps I'd understand that these people aren't really contradicting each other, but at my level of knowledge, they sure are. And they treat this like its a religion. Come on, folks; its just bread. Good tasting bread, I agree, but its just bread!

Still reading The Agony and the Ecstasy, and I'm still enjoying it. I like historical fiction.

I'm not a vegan -- more of a Martian, if anything -- but this site,Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, is pretty good -- especially their marvelous July 16th Chocolate Chunk Scone recipe.... and the comments sprinkled throughout it.

Go Steve!

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Steve Wozniak Receives $700 Ticket For 105mph In A Prius

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Life Goals

I've never known quite what I wanted to do in life. My attitude has usually been one of 'well, I guess I could do that...'. And I'm not much a believer in people who say that they can tell you how to figure out what it is you really want to do. (I still like the joke that the woman comic told about watch Oprah and chocolate, in that regard.) This, from the Dumb Little Man site, isn't as much fun as that. But you know, its not bad!

Ugh Words

I was just reading an edition of Language Log, which is interested in words and their uses. It's a pretty interesting site.

This one was a bit unusual. They polled people for the words they just can't stand to hear. Some of them were surprising -- hardscrabble, for one; pugilist; luggage;hubbub. One fellow said that his wife is okay with 'moisturizer', but not 'moist' (which he says affects his ability to watch cooking shows). And a woman cites 'panties', which she says always has a 'creepy pedophilia connection'. I don't know about that, but I know the word itself has always struck me as odd. My 80+ year old mother used the word once with me, and it creeped me right out.

From that blog's writeup:

Among the 1,694 responses:

Elizabeth Barrett: moist and panties. Either separately or in conjunction. Blech.
Em T.: My mother hated gut. Would not let us say it, as if it were the worst word in English.
Maizie B.: goosepimple
kismet: Oh, I hate panties too! Everybody I know has to refer to them as underthings.
VanPear: I guess it's two words, but mother's milk squicks me terribly.
susan b.: I hate "chunk" and "chunky". I also hate "wedge". "Cut into wedges". "serve with a wedge of cheese". Ick. I also hate "moist". And I dislike "meal".
Eustacia: Baffle. Squab. Cornucopia.
Reggae Junkie: Big toe. Navel. Armpit. Lunch meat. insert. bra strap
Harri P. Boob. Panties. Swimsuit.
kismet: Giggle. Hate hate HATE giggle. With the concentrated hatred of a thousand hate filled suns.
BlueBirthday: I hate the word "moist" so much I can hardly type it.
sohcahtoa: I hate "gig", "motif", and "whimsy". No rational reason, just hate them.
Diana Barry: "Navel" and "furtive." Ugh.
Cathy Georges: Also clabber and squall. And plumbago.

Wonder what other Ugh words exist?

Hot Day?

This'll cool you off....

404 411

I don't know if this is legitimate. But if it is, it's kind of cool. Up to and including the hard-coded 'transfer interrupted' message.

PayPal's No Pal

Last night, my wife asked me to search for something that she wanted to buy. I did, and found it at a site that say they accepted payment via PayPal. I've always had a good impression of PP, thinking it a nice, friendly operation.

For some reason, I couldn't get my ID to work, though -- it said, rather sternly, that the id was 'Permanently Locked'. Turns out it was because, as their responder to my querulous note said:

When PayPal updates the live site, we ask every customer read and accept the new policy updates to our User Agreement. At this time your account is locked for not accepting the new User Agreement. To review the User Agreement please follow the link on the bottom of any PayPal page named legal agreements. After reading the User Agreement and you wish to accept the User agreement please e-mail our Account Review team at resolution@paypal.com. In the e-mail simply state "I accept the new User Agreement.". Once we receive the e-mail your will have full access to your account.

Well, I thought, no big deal, I'll do that. Probably six or seven paragraphs that Aunt Bea penned on the kitchen table to handle those pesky folks who try to scam the PP system every so often. So I went and looked.

Their user agreement is twenty seven pages long!

My mortgage wasn't that long!

CnR

It's a cold, raining day. We got a virtual downpour last night that tapered off -- if you can call it that -- into a steady rain that went, so far as I know, all night, and was still raining when we woke up. Right now, I'm in the living room with the window open. I can hear the birds complaining in the big tree just outside, the sound of tires on wet pavement, and the splashing of the rain. A chilly breeze is coming in. I like cold, and I like rain. Okay, walking in a cold rain's no fun, but sitting inside, just listening -- this is goodness.

My daughter was in a pretty chipper mood last night when she got home from color guard, which didn't surprise me --she tends to like band camp -- but it did please me, because we'd had a bit of a rocky start when I brought her over at one. Today, she doesn't have to be there till noon, so she's advised me to 'let her sleep till eleven or so'. She wasn't kidding, although I know that given her track record, she'll be up by nine thirty, and probably earlier. The girl we've been picking up for the trip over says she does sleep in till eleven when she can, which amazes me.

The sourdough, take two, is looking good -- getting that sour aroma, with a yeasty body. Looks promising. I have to keep myself from going over every half hour or so just to check it out. The plan had been to make Cinnamon Raisin bread this week, too, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.

Oddity

I know there's a lot of weird stuff in the world, and that perfectly normal people do things that I'd think are strange. I do know that.

But when I StumbledUpon a blog today written by a woman who's a sexually submissive person (ie, she's the Submissive in a Dominant/Submissive relationship), I was startled. I just couldn't understand why a person would want to do routinely do that, let someone else push them around. I gather she does it because she likes it, and she could stop at any time, but man...

Guess I'm not as open minded as I thought.

Planning

The Plan was, I'd drop the daughter off at color guard, run two errands, and get back home. The Actuality was I'd have a mild argument with the daughter, hustle her out the door (noting silently that she hadn't taken the trash down as requested multiple times), pick up her friend (listening to the friend say, relative to a comment the daughter had made, 'Screw that', and thinking "As things go, its pretty mild, and she's not your daughter....but keep alert for your own flesh-and-blood bringing it up in casual conversation (knowing that if she does, odds are good its just to get my goat)), drop them off (Park on this side of the parking lot, Dad, that other side is where we'll be practicing later, nobody likes it when people drive through the practice area (its a parking lot!!!)), run five errands, come home, note that the grass really ought to be mowed, grab a sammich, mention that I'm going out to-- wait, is that rain? Is that thunder? Is that water streaming down the gutters?

So much for planning....

Sour Bill

Well, just a little. The sourdough recipe I was using totally did not work. I note that it said to use an 'organic potato', which I did not, so I wonder if that mattered -- particularly as the recipe I'd found in Joy Of Baking talked about using 'potato water', which I think is the water left over from cooking potatoes (which we hardly ever do).

But...I found this site, talking about sourdough (one of the many hundreds!), and it says not only that you can just start with water and dough, but also, if you're willing not to be a purist, you can throw some yeast in there to get the process started. So, thats what I'm doing. We'll see!

Medical: I asked the nurse practitioner, this morning, about getting a colonoscopy, which she was surprised by, saying you should have your first between 50 and 60 (turns out what I had was a sigmoidoscopy, not a colonoscopy...the difference being that one is a mild tranquilized invasion and the other a full-bore, no pun intended, exploration that they knock you out for). As I'm 80% of the way through that age range, her surprise surprised me --- but now I have 'my gastroenterologist', who I get to call to set it up. Which I will. I like that I'll be knocked out for it. Not too thrilled about having 'my gastroenterologist'. Makes me feel old.

One Is, One Isn't

This is a joke --


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And this isn't.
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Ten Best...

I don't have the bandwidth of, say, Bill Gates when it comes to absorbing knowledge. My bandwidth is more along the lines of, oh, Elmo. Or possibly Big Bird. When I see lists of the one hundred best ways to ...whatever, I yawn, because I don't want that. I want the people who write the list to elicit the top five or ten, max, and then tell me what they are.

So you might expect that I didn't read this whole list, and you'd be right. But its an interesting list, nonetheless.

Hey Ya

I'm not sure what kind of music Hey Ya is...but this, I like.

The Few...The Proud...The Furry?

Okay, I know thats (partially) a Marines slogan, but somehow it seems to fit ...


Found here.

Starblecks

According to this article, if you go to Starbucks, you might want to wear a Kevlar suit.

Eww!

I heard a woman doing a comedy routine ask why it was that when you take something out of the refrigerator, and it smells odd, your impulse is to say 'Ewww, this smells awful -- here, smell this!" This morning, we took some sausage out, started cooking it, and after a while we looked at each other and said 'Gah, whats that smell?' So we looked at the package, and it had expired a week ago -- but the thing is, if it smelled bad, but the expiration was in the future, would we have eaten it anyway? I sure hope not.

Today I will make the initial starter for the sourdough bread that I want to bake this week; this afternoon I make the Cincinatti Chili, and this afternoon, we make the vanilla gelato -- the mixture's been in the refrigerator since yesterday -- and then on Monday, I'll make the cinnamon raisin bread. One of the side effects of me making dinners routinely is that we have a lot more leftovers than normal, so we just had some of them for dinner last night, and we'll have the remainder today. That'll take care of the 'real food' leftovers, though we still have a) a frozen apple pie from a fund raiser, b) a frozen Tiramisu that I picked up on a whim two weeks ago, and c) three quarters of a quart of chocolate ice cream, which we'd gotten about two months ago. We've not been too big on desserts, this summer!

I'm looking forward to making that bread.

Fire!

Fireplaces are, in general, just devices to take whatever heat you have in your home and send it right up the chimney, not to mention, get the occasional shower of soot back down. But I like them, like a lot of people, and if we ever build a house, I'll have one put in -- most like a zero-clearance one (which I always think of as a 'zero-tolerance' one, for some reason). It'll be a traditional looking one, even so, because I don't like excessively modern ones. They don't appeal to me.

Though, seeing this one from Cathy Azria, maybe some do:

CIA

The Bourne saga notwithstanding, I think that I'm going to give the CIA a try. I got the materials for application today, though it turns out that its for their degreed programs, which I'm not interested in. (Actually, I am, but there's no way I'm going to take a three year course there.) I'm going to take their one week Baking Boot Camp, and possibly (though probably not) their one week Pasty Boot Camp at another time.

I am also going to do more baking, in a somewhat structured manner. I picked up the local library's copy of Baking At Home with the Culinary Institute of America; I'm going to make a series of breads and cakes from their collection. It won't be anywhere like what they give you at the course, but it'll give me the chance to play around a bit. I just have to make sure that there are people willing to actually eat this stuff afterward. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to make -- I have my eye on the Raisin Cinnamon Bread, and the Sourdough, and I know that I want to make a couple of sweet breads, but past that, I don't know yet. I'm sure that the holidays will provide me with the opportunity and the motivation to do baking, too -- perhaps I should say Baking, as in pies, tortes, challah, etc, as distinct from baking, which to my mind is cookies and such. I'm also getting an interlibrary loan of Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft, just to see what thats like. Its the book they use in that course.

Should be fun.

Cats and Stereos

Here's a combination I didn't expect to see today.

DOH

Remember the Dukes of Hazzard? Remember that car? Ever wonder what the General Lee looked like before it was a General?

Wonder no more.

Menus

I think I mentioned once, quite some time ago, that for ease of planning we came up with a set of menu items that we'd use for most of our main meals. One side of the set was the quick items -- the things we could do in about an hour, no more. The other side was the long items -- things that took more time than we normally had during the week, and were therefore reserved for days off.

Now that I'm doing more of the cooking, I am getting interested in what we can make. More accurately, what I can make. I'm not a competent chef, but I can make some things, and what I'd like to be able to do is to make multiple things. They'll all be plain, nothing that a good chef would be able to do -- no sauce reductions here-- but they'll be enough so that for any given week, we'll be able to have things we like, without having them too often. And, as I said, my goal is to continue to have something new each week. It hasn't always worked out that way, but thats the goal. If I had to pick a number, I'd say that I'd like to have about thirty things that we routinely can have for dinner. I certainly have that many recipes, but in terms of what I'm actually able to cook, its considerably less.

As a way of keeping track, I jotted down what we'd had for the last three weeks. (It doesn't add up to three weeks, due to eating out, leftovers, and such.) Here's the list --

Pizza from the freezer (ie, DiGiorno)
Burritos
Fried Ravioli
Beef Stir Fry (didn't work too well)
Hamburger Stroganoff
Corn Topped Beef Pie
Spaghetti
Pizza - home made & grilled
Bean Bake
Skillet Macaroni
Not So Sloppy Joes
Chicken Nuggets
Cincinatti Chili
Grilled Honey Mustard Chicken

and here's the plan for the coming week (we try to make it on Thursday so that I can pick up needed stuff when I hit the store on Friday morning) -
mon Hamburgers
tue Taco Casserole
wed Tomato Soup w/Garlic Bread
thu Band picnic (eat out)
fri Leftovers
sat Spaghetti w/Apple Meat Balls
sun Stromboli

Nothing too strenuous, but some variation. I'd love to make the grilled pizza again, but I'll wait a little while for that. One thing I find is that once I find a decent recipe, I don't have the need to get multiple variations. One, maybe two kinds of pizza dough. Some variations for Sloppy Joes, but nothing outrageous. Even for Chocolate Chip Cookies, I only use three different recipes -- one simple and fairly rich; one with oatmeal; and one that makes more of a chocolate chunk cookie. I just don't see the need for tons of recipes, and though I undersand why people have multiple recipe books (I have four books on bread baking, though I do want to pare that by one or two), I don't see the need to do it myself.

And of course, we can't forget cookies, and breads, and rolls. I want to make some 'sweet breads', just for the experience.

But as for main meals, thats the plan. Will I ever even dare to open our tattered copy of Joy of Cooking? Hmmm....not yet. Not yet.

...A Pepperoni on the Barbie?

Last night we made grilled pizza. Turned out pretty well.

I had made some honey dough for pizza last week, and didn't use all of it up, so the plan was to make the rest last night. My wife suggested splitting the dough into two pieces so that we could handle it more easily -- last week, putting it on the baking stone, we had a lot of trouble because the dough was still a little sticky. I took her advice, making two rounds (more or less) about 8 inches across (more or less). I was a little surprised that they went that wide, but I was specifically trying for a thin crust, and thats what I got. In retrospect, I could have made it a little less thin, but it wasn't a big deal.

I fired up the grill, turning on both burners. To my surprise, it got up to about 700 degrees pretty quickly, so when my wife came home, we slid the first one on and it immediately puffed up and began to cook. (We had liberally floured a cookie sheet to use as a delivery system, and it worked well.) We thought we'd have to cook it about three minutes on the first side, but turned out to be more like one and a half. We pulled it off -- oh, look, authentic charring marks! -- flipped it over, applied the toppings, and put it back on for just over a minute. And pulled out a bottle of sangria we've been working on for the last six months.

The result? Very thin crust, very nice favor. Next time, we might nuke the pepperoni a bit to do some pre-cooking, and make the dough a little thicker -- but overall, not bad, not bad at all.

<<==Communicating==>>

I realized the other day that lately, my daughter will tell me, with great excitement, about whats happening at band camp...but when my wife asks (with obvious interest), she just gives the bare facts, if that. I feel badly about that, and I make sure that I tell her what my daughter tells me. I think its a phase, and I know that the chances are the reverse will happen at some point...but still, I feel badly about it.

Conundrum

Well, here's the deal.

There's a baking course I'd like to take. Its given by the King Arthur Flour people, up in Vermont. Here's it's description:

Bread: Principles & Practice - Oct. 1 Monday-Thursday, Oct 1-4, 1 to 5 p.m.
This comprehensive class explores every aspect of bread baking for the home baker. Topics include the following:

The function of ingredients, pre-ferments, and how to facilitate maximum rise; Extensive hands-on work in yeast breads, from basic bread through whole grains, sweetened breads, sourdough and starter-based breads (including French baguettes).; Techniques for baking powder breads, and learning how to work with chemical leavens through the production of quick breads and scones..

I figure it would teach me things that would be good to know, and that I'd enjoy knowing. It would help me be a better baker. And, if I did take the week-long Culinary Institute's Baking Boot Camp, I wouldn't feel as if I was coming in at a really basic level.

The course cost is $350. A hotel for four days would be, I'd guess, about $600. So, its around a thousand dollars, all told. My wife says that I should go for it. I'm not all that thrilled to realize that its just four half days of instruction....and the cost of the hotel would be twice the cost of the reason for going there in the first place. I could buy an awful lot of flour and mess around an awful lot for that...

I dunno.
==============
Later that very same evening: Nah, I'm not going to do it. A thousand dollars for two full days of class time is too much. The CIA course is $1600, plus about 750 for hotel, or $2350, and their classes are 7AM to 6PM (their site says 9PM, but I kind of doubt that). Cost wise, they're a better deal (~$42/instructional hour versus about $59), and I suspect the skill level of the instructors is higher, too. So, no dice.

But if I'm ever in Vermont when they're giving that class, I'll go.

LudDud

I saw The Bourne Ultimation the other day, and liked it, so when I was at the libe today, I picked up another Ludlum novel. About thirty pages into it, I came across a fellow described as brilliant, striking, wealthy beyond belief, and director of a massive foundation doing fabulous acts of good throughout the world. The Gates Foundation, on steroids. To use the old phrase, what God would have done if He'd had the money.

Immediately, knowing Ludlum, I knew who the bad guy would turn out to be. And so it was. Not to say that the writing wasn't excellent. Not to say there weren't surprises. But the identity of TBG wasn't, alas, one of them.

One of these days, it really will be the butler who did the dirty deed.

Kids

One of the nice things about being an adult is that every so often you can do something that to you is trivial, but to a kid is nothing short of amazing. I got to do that today.

I have a habit that when I see kids selling lemonade during the summer, I always stop if at all possible and buy something. Usually, the lemonade is fairly poor stuff, but thats not the point. I want the kid to get positive feedback, not to mention money, for their efforts. One kid, I recall, was a real salesman; after his sister had sold me the ade, he stepped up and said 'And the cookies are good, too!' So I bought one of them to go. Wasn't bad.

Today I was driving through the small town near which I live, and I saw a girl sitting at table next to a somewhat busy street. There was the classic hand-lettered LEMONADE sign, so I stopped. "Lemonade, huh?" I said as I walked up. "Yep", she said. "Made it myself." "Well, I'll take one", I told her, and as she was pouring I saw that there was an empty TIPS jar. She gave me the cup. "How much?" I asked, holding out a dollar. "Twenty-five cents", she replied, with a doubtful look at the dollar bill. This kid doesn't have any change, I thought. I might be the very first sale. "Tell you what", I said to her. "You take this... and keep the rest as a tip."

She lit RIGHT up. "Thanks!" she exclaimed.

Its a nice feeling.

Avast!

Last night, I installed the Avast! antivirus package on my mother's PC. It installed quickly, requiring a single reboot, and it had none of the stuff that drives me crazy about Norton. Plus, the home version download is free. The interface is a little clunky, but nothing outrageous. Not bad at all....

So Real

I think a certain amount of surreality is good for you...



|

Mo' Dental

One other thing that that dental tech did that I really liked. She asked if I flossed, and I said no (grumpily). Rather than giving me grief immediately, she asked if there was any special reason that I didn't. I told her that I had been going to a periodontist's office twice a year to get my teeth cleaned, thinking that they'd be keeping track of my teeth's condition (because I knew I wouldn't). One day, they said 'You know, those teeth in back are in really bad shape!' And I thought WHAT? You guys have been seeing me every six months and this just suddenly popped up? (Well, okay, I knew that it didn't just pop up.) I said that this ticked me off, I just stopped going for recurring cleanings, period. Which I realize wasn't a mature response, but I was just ticked.

And she said "I would have been ticked off, too."

OMG.

Audubonic Plague

I just found a reason to dislike the Audubon Society.

I've always had a pretty good image of them -- nature, birds, all of that. There's a wetlands area near where I live that they take care of, and I like that. The wetlands is part of a housing development that went in about ten years ago. The original plan had been to put houses where the wetlands are , and there was a lot of argument about that. The wetlands designation, and some swales, was the result. Therein lies the problem.

There are trees that overhang the sidewalks in the swale area, so that every so often you have to duck down, or step out into the street, to get around them. Its not a big deal, but its a bother. The Society had been taking care of 'their area', but not so much the swales. So twice -- once, about six months ago, and today -- I went over there with loppers and I cut down the overhang, tossing the cutoffs into the underbrush.

Today I learned from a somewhat disturbed fellow that the homeowners association had just taken that responsibility over, and they were in the process of hiring someone to cut the grass, trim the overhangs, and all of that. They did not want someone like me just coming along and doing what I had done If the Society found out that I was doing that, he said, I'd be in Big Trouble.

My feeling? You see a problem that nobody's fixing, that you can fix? You fix it. And as for the Society? Well, if they really would have that attitude -- "We're not going to take care of that area, but we'll take Action on you if you do", then --

The hell with them.

Geekin'

I am not a capital G geek. I'm barely a lower case g geek. And since I'm not working, or playing with software, I'm barely a geek at all, these days. I'm a baker, a chauffeur, a cleaner.

Plus, I totally don't know Linux, Unix, or any of that. Not a clue.

So why does this delight me?

Dental Magic

Today I went to have my (remaining) teeth cleaned. I did not want to do this -- I figured I would get major grief for my various dental sins.

I did not get the dental tech that my wife and daughter get, and this person got my name wrong. I thought 'Oh, crap'...and other pejoratives.

She did it quickly and efficiently, told me some useful things, and did not chide me at all.

Plus, the dentist said that since I'm having no problems with the transitional dental appliance, they may be able to forego the really expensive implant appliance and go for one that is less expensive.

How about that. Almost makes it worth going.

Almost.

Yup

Americans can always be grabbed by the heartstrings, as this International Herald Tribute article shows.

Things I've Never Understood

#37: Hammertime. What exactly is that? Is it a drinking reference, or a macho thing, or what?


#4: Lacy Womens Underwear. I'm talking about what shows up in the mainstream catalogues like Victoria's Secret. Unless it has the tensile strength of steel, it all looks like it'd break first time you weren't really gentle with it. Do people actually and routinely wear this stuff?

#17: Speed Control Signs. These are the signs you occasionally see on the highway that say things like 'Intensive Speed Monitoring in Effect'. As distinct from what -- Casually Glancing Over Once In A While?

HDP

I never wanted to be a 'hospital discharge planner', but my brief stay in the hospital last year made me at least aware of them, and this article makes me think it'd be a challenging job - one of those that never gets enough recognition.

Week Plan

This will be an interesting, and somewhat scary week, as my daughter is going to have the first of two weeks of 'band camp', wherein the color guard practices along with the band. Four of the days will be twelve hours long; six will be half days. She's going to be one tired kid, I think -- but it will, at least, keep her from her normal pre-school-start jitters. She's looking forward to the start of school, which pleases me. I don't think I ever feared the start of it -- by August, I was getting pretty bored -- but she actively looks for it, and I like that a lot. As always, I hope she has a good experience this year.

Hmm..

I'm not that big a fan of porn. But this ...well, it's different.

Teutonic Humor

This May Actually Be Why

I was reading an article about how to be valued by companies. It included things like '(M)ake yourself the favored one in the eyes of management', '(S)ee yourself as an integral driver of profit', 'Give your best to the company'.

I think I understand where they're coming from with these, but, frankly, I think they're creepy. They bring to mind the images of Big Business from the 1920s -- fat guys with thick stogies and top hats leering down at the working stiffs. This is who I want to work for and impress, this is the image I want to project? I don't think so.

It could explain my lack of meteoric rise.

Don't Be Afraid, You Can Call Me

I get baffled quickly when it comes to cell phones, which is why I thought the following, from this article, was interesting:

Stymied by U.S. wireless carriers, Nokia has begun selling "unlocked" phones, which are devices that can work on any wireless network, directly to consumers. All users need to do is remove the SIM card from their old phone, insert it into a new one, and -- voila -- start dialing.They either pay their existing carrier for service or sign up with a different carrier and pay month-to-month. The point is, consumers are no longer limited in their choice of phones to those offered by carriers. But American consumers aren't used to buying their phones this way and Nokia hasn't yet been able to get the message across that they can.

You can? I totally did not know that.

Eat up!

This post is from Farmgirl Fare, which is both a good blog and is describing a good book. Whats not to like about that combo?

Sandy

This photograph damn near made me cry.

Wheeling

Okay, I was wrong. After dinner, we went out for a bike ride, en famille. And other than when my daughter did a controlled fall due to bumping her foot on the ground, it was pretty nice -- about 75 degrees, light breeze. Would that we could have this all the time. Thats one of the criteria for a place to build a new home....

I had to take a MESS of insulin tonight, I think because of those strawberries I had with dinner. I do so hate when that happens. I find that if I monitor routinely, it (usually) stays low; and if I don't, I can just about guarantee a nasty surprise. That zuks. I'd swear that I don't eat differently when I do and when I don't, but it's hard to argue with results.

Speaking of results, I've heard some nice things about a freeware antivirus product called Avast, so I think I'm going to give it a try. I know that I can't have it running at the same time as Norton, but I don't know if I have to completely uninstall Norton before I can try it. Knowing Norton, probably so.

Saturday

A quiet day. I haven't been out of the house yet, and as things go, I likely won't be.

Instead, I'm sitting here, leafing through things to read, and thinking about emails. I have a fair number of things to read -- I want to look through Baking Boot Camp again (I finished it this morning), for one; I've also got Eternity Road to read, and a Tony Hillerman collection, and the Michaelanglo biography. There's a David Brin science fiction novel, too, and a couple of other books. Also, theres a couple of articles about financial planning, in general, and 401(k)s, in particular, that I've saved; one of the latter is about a month old, and every time I see it, I think 'I really should read that'. Its not particularly lengthy -- it's just a little intimidating.

I dropped notes to the Culinary Institute and to King Arthur Flour, the other day, both relative to the idea of attending a baking course. I'm sure that I could handle a class at KAF, not so sure about CIA, even though, in response to a note, they did say that any skill level is accepted. From the BBC book, it sounds as if that might technically be true, but the people who actually do go are either professionals or might-as-well-be -- the kind that routinely whip out cakes, breads, and pastries from a kitchen with more gadgets per square inch than the real CIA. In other words, out of my league. So I wondered: what's the real ability level that you need to survive there? To that end, I dropped the woman who wrote BBC a line to ask her opinion. I'd like to be able to bake better -- which is to say, I'd like to be able to bake with a high confidence that what I bake will come out well. I don't need to be able to make or bake elegant pastries or stunning cakes -- I simply want to be able to bake well. If they come out elegant or stunning, thats fine, too, but not my goal.

I'm also thinking about the dental cleaning I have on Monday, and the bone graft surgery in about a month. I'll be glad when thats done, even though it will usher in a month to two months of biting very carefully. Lot of soups, things like that, I expect. But if it takes, then the next step is actually doing the implant installations (two sets), and that will be goodness.

So with all of that to do, what am I doing? A little web surfing, and a fair amount of sitting here with my eyes closed, listening to a quiet tape.

Norton Smart Guy

Really.

Flying

This might actually be fun!

The image was found on Dark Roasted Blend, here.

Well, That Was Interesting

One of the people with whom I used to work told me that he and a few others would be playing at a local coffee house. I'm not a big fan of coffee house music, but I like him, and so my wife and I toodled over there this evening. He was playing from seven thirty till nine; we got there a little before eight.

I forgot he was a serious Christian. All of his group were, apparently. And I didn't know how serious a Christian he was. Some of his offhand comments about how often he 'worships at home' clued me in on that. Apparently, quite a lot.

The music was pleasant, but it was all Christian-oriented. Every bit of it. I'm not a fan of religious music because its all so lugubrious -- the organist at our church likes to play what I call Death of God music-- but this was new to me. I've never before heard songs which a) were about 90% the same line repeated, and repeated, and repeated, and b) had lyrics like 'his blood drips down upon me; I bathe in his blood'. I catch the reference, but even twice is a little spooky, and multiple times is more than a little scary. This is metaphor, right, guys? Guys?

I still like him, and his family (some of whom were there). He's a nice guy. But I doubt strongly we'll go back.

Does make me wonder what atheists sing at their get-togethers, though.

Quoth The Daughter

.
.

It's here! It's here! It's HERE!
..
.
.

C'mon, phone, charge up so I can call someone!

.

Best?

I was reading an article on the Money web site about a fellow who'd retired, more or less willingly, and gone to live in a small town in Montana. After two years, bored, he asked himself what he did best -- and thereby found himself a new career. The article's here, and its pretty good.

One of the things that I've never been able to do is answer that question. I can list some things that I can do well, and a couple of personality traits that contribute to success in the things that I do, but I've never considered myself all that GOOD at something, and as for being better than anyone else around at something, good enough so that people would pay me to do it, and particularly something that most people can't do, or at least can't do well -- nope. Not a clue. This isn't humbleness -- I honestly don't know. I'd like to think there is though...somewhere.

Strange, huh?

Diversity Perversity

We tend to accept that cultural diversity is a good thing, to the point that arguing against it, or even presenting evidence that it might not be that good a thing, is widely considered to be politically incorrect. This Boston.Com article, describing research done by the fellow who published Bowling Alone a few years ago, says that despite those feelings, diversity is not the unalloyed benefit that we tend to think it is. Not a bad thing; just not necessarily a good thing.

Going

I rarely have the opportunity to use a porta-john... and having seen this, I may now use them even less.


-

West Nile Wiles

There is absolutely no reason to point out this article except for the fact that I used to live near there.

JHC

There is a phrase that I will occasionally use when I am mightily peeved, the center word of which is Horatio. I am feeling it now, because this has been a most disappointing afternoon. Which is remarkable, because the day started so well.

We drove down to Maryland, pretending that it was just a casual drive, nothing more, but which we both knew was so that we could try a restaurant in Frederick of which we'd heard good things: a simple place with great hamburgers. But Frederick's about an hour and fifteen minutes away, which is way too far to go for a hamburger. But if we just happened to come across it while out for a casual drive.... And after coming within a half block of missing it, we did come across it. And the burgers were good. Not great, though -- I know of two local places that do better, easily. When we were leaving the restaurant, it started to rain, heavily, so that we were both fairly sodden by the time we got back to the car. But still, the drive back was pretty nice, even if we did appear to be escorting the storm back to Pennsylvania.

When we got back to the house, we checked email to see if the offspring's summer camp had been moved indoors, which they do when the weather is poor. They had. My wife went to get her, and I elected to stay home. They needed to buy some more gear for the color guard, including two ball caps (guard just needed one, but the daughter saw another that she really liked). When they came home, I gave the daughter a small notecard holder that I'd had for some years, because my wife said that she needed one; seeing her reaction, I gave her both that I'd had, and she seemed pleased.

Later, we went out to a commercial laundry place so that we could wash two large things: the electric blanket for our bed, and the tarp we'd used while painting. No, I don't know why we needed to have a clean, paint-spattered tarp, either. But we did. Just prior to going out, my wife mentioned that she'd come across the daughters old library card, and asked if she should give her grief about it, since it had apparently been in her old backpack for two years. No, I said, just toss it, don't even mention it. (It was at that point that I should have felt the pricking of danger.) When we were leaving, my daughter said that, OBTW, there was an optional color guard practice that she wanted to go to. Even with the rain? I asked, and she nodded, saying that in that case, they'd just do it indoors. But as we were leaving, she expressed surprise at the rain, wondering if they would, in fact, have it. More prickling.

We got to the school, and nope, no one else there, so I dropped my wife off and brought the daughter back home where, as she was getting out of the car, she mentioned that she liked that note card holder -- and, oh yeah, she'd given the other one to my mother. Why? She looked at my expression and muttered that she thought my mother could use it. I said some fairly stern things, mad not so much for what she did with it -- it was, after all, logically hers at that point -- but just because it felt as if she'd given away something of mine. Which I knew, even then, was unreasonable. Tell my mother you're back, I said, as she was closing the car door. I then went out to collect my wife and the now clean materials.

When I got back, my daughter handed me the other notecard holder. I thought you said my mother wanted it, I asked, querulously, and she said I thought you wanted it back. So we talked, and I told her why I had been irritated, and that she could do whatever she wanted with it. And, OBTW, you remember your old library card that we could never find? She jumped right up and said Wow, I still want it! Don't bet on it, I told her; I told your mother to just trash it. Only, as it turns out, she hadn't just trashed it; she'd shredded it -- and then trashed the shreddings. Which are now in a bag out by the curb, getting rained on. And my wife came in, quite steamed, saying that if I'd said to not even mention it, why did I tell the daughter -- who now thinks her mother is unfeeling for shredding her old library card?

And now I'm sitting here, wondering if I should go out and pull those trash bags back in out of the rain and look through the garbage for the shredded blue remnants of a library card.

JHC.

BatBike?

I'm not exactly sure what this is -- I found it here -- but it looks like something that Batman'd use to trek the tundra...

Chippin'

I made these the other day. Though I don't think they're 'the best', as the site says, they're pretty good, and they do stay soft, which to me is a plus.

Tech

I do like technology, as a rule. But I have my doubts about Woomba.

Writing

Up till today, the only general I knew named Bostwick was Barry, and that just because he's an actor who played George Washington. Now, I know two - almost.

While I was at the hotel earlier this week, I saw a number of military people. I stopped one of them and asked what was going on -- it's doubtful that a coup d'etat would be started at the Arlington Ritz-Carlton, especially as the putative combatants seemed to be armed with Blackberries and cell phones, but hey, this is a digital age, so you never know. Turned out that they were US Army recruiters, selected from the pool of Army recruiters across the nation, and they were there to attend a 'Recruiting and Retention' conference. Now, that's got to be a tough job in just about any circumstance, but as the woman I was talking with told me, it's particularly difficult now, as the 'dwell time', or length of time away from combat operations, is shrinking, so that soldiers are finding themselves sent back to combat more quickly than anyone might expect.

I was impressed by the courtesy and professionalism of the person I was talking to, as well as the other military people there. I had eight years in the military, and I know that they come in all shapes and sizes. I also know that recruiting is an image-driven occupation, so you want only your best-looking and best-sounding people there. Nevertheless, I liked what I saw. Since I was still thinking kindly of the Army from our encounter with the woman in the elevator, the prior night, I thought I'd tell someone. So, when I got home, I found the name of the commander of her organization, and I dropped him a line. Turns out it's a general named Bostick, not Bostwick, and he replied with a brief note of his own.

So now I know two. Kind of.

I Wonder What Bill Thinks?

I like Hillary, and I hope she gets elected. That doesn't stop me from thinking that this is funny.

Glug

I came across this photograph today. It's a striking image .... but I wonder what she's thinking?

Making Dough

The honey wheat dough for the pizza is made and is sitting on the counter, spritzed with some Pam to keep it moist, and under a overturned bowl. I had actually rolled it out and left on on a cookie sheet (my 'baking peel') on the oven when I went out, which turned out to be not a great idea when the oven is ON, set to 500 to heat the pizza stone. Gee, do you think the cookie sheet might pick up some of that heat? And start to transfer it to the dough? So, that dough got rolled up into a ball, and the other chunk of dough, which I'd popped into the freezer, is now sitting out in a ball. We'll roll it out and top it about ten minutes before we're ready to bake. But it turned out to be a good thing to have to get that other dough, because while the freezer door was open, I saw a chunk of cookie dough I'd made last week, so now that's in the refrigerator to start thawing. I like to bake!
=========
Update: Turned out pretty well. I baked it a bit too long -- I wanted to be sure that the pepperoni cooked through -- and we did have some difficulty getting it onto the baking stone. I tried using a floured cookie sheet to get it on but that didn't work too well. I think sometimes about getting a pizza peel -- I've seen one with a wooden handle that detached from the metal blade for storage; that sounds nice -- but I can't really justify spending thirty bucks for one of those things. I don't make pizza often enough for that. But, all in all, not bad. Glad I made it.

Excellent Use for PowerPoint

I don't want this -- but I think it's pretty funny.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow's the day my daughter gets a cellphone.

The least expensive, least-capable, most cost-limiting one around. No camera. No web browser. Text capable.

We're buying the phone. She knows its a Major Gift, and it'll impact the size of any other gifts this year.

She's paying for the minutes. She needs more, she pays for more. She runs out, she runs out. She knows that.

She's delighted.

Back Home

We're back home. Some observations:

When a tour guide pamphlet states that the closest Metro stop to a given attraction is a certain one, that does not mean that its close. Unless you consider two miles away, close.

The International Spy Museum is kind of fun, and kind of sobering.

As a surprise, my wife and daughter gave me a copy of Casino Royale (the Craig one).

We stayed in the Pentagon City Ritz Carlton. Our suite had two plasma TVs, frigid AC, a bed with a zillion pillows, marble walls in the bath, along with an apothecary store's worth of lotions and cremes (most of which were glommed onto by my daughter), and twenty four hour room service. Oh, and a nice view of the Pentagon in one direction, and the Washington Monument in another. Elegant hotels are quite nice. My daughter approved, hugely. My credit card's in Intensive Care.

Its an odd experience to see people in camo uniforms in the halls of said hotel, using cell phones, laptops, and Blackberries. Not their usual venue. I spoke to one of them, who told me that she was with the US Army Recruiting Command, and they were having a group meeting of the best recruiters across the country, trying to create a 'best practices' model. I learned what 'dwell time' means to a recruiter. I told her that I wished her well, and I do. Its a tough job.

When they say that it's hot in DC, believe them. Believe them intensely. I was never so close to fainting, I think, as when I was walking through the grounds of Arlington National Cemetary. It was, oh, about 95 degrees out, and about 85-90 percent humidity, with long hilly paths, and damn few benches.

The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington is simple and elegant. Its a moving experience.

The memorials for the Challenger and Columbia astronauts is also at Arlington, as is the grave of Oliver Wendell Holmes. We lingered at the Kennedy memorial - it's quite large - but we did not get to the Holmes grave site, which I regret, as I do admire him.

And it's not just Americans who have memorials there.














When we got back from Arlington, still sodden from the heat and the humidity, we met a woman in the elevator carrying drinks and chips. We joked that we didn't know the party was in her room, and she said that it was actually for her kids, who had just come back from Arlington after seeing their father buried. I was stunned. I looked for her, later, and by good luck found her, to ask if we could do anything for her or her family. She thanked me, and said that they were fine.

Davenport

I'd like to point out this site, which is owned by Tom Davenport. He's a bright and interesting fellow who talks, writes, and lectures on the business of operating companies and motivating employees. Unlike a lot of people who do the same thing, he manages to do it with wit, humour, and intelligence. He is not at all bombastic, and he's not full of himself, either. He's just very good. If you're interested in those areas, he's worth checking out.

TBU

Just went to see The Bourne Ultimatum. It's a great guy flick. Not too heavy on plots, not too light on shots. Don't bring the kids.

Stacked

Does anyone else think its funny to see at the local bookstore a towering stack of Harry Potter's latest, barely a week since the must have it/gotta read it orgy reported so breathlessly in all the media?

RUR?

I read a fascinating article in last week's Sunday Times Magazine on the subject of robotics, and, in particular, 'sociable robots' -- not just the heavy-duty ones that we're more or less familiar with, doing the repetitive painting and welding on assembly lines and the like, but robots that respond to you; they 'look' at you, 'smile' when you come near, 'droop' when you walk away, and in general exhibit a range of behaviors and characteristics that would lead you to believe that they're alive and responsive - to the point that one group of student researchers, working on one of them, remarked that from one side, they knew that a given robot was a machine, because you could see and manipulate the wires and cables that brought it to 'life', but when you walked around the other side, and saw the big brown eyes and the chest moving as if it were breathing -- well, sometimes it wasn't so obvious.

I've been interested in artificial intelligence for quite some time, as a sidelines observer; I'm not smart enough or experienced enough to understand a lot of it, let alone the intricacies of the sophisticated methods. Even the casual references to AI in this article stumped me, a bit; what the heck is a 'theory of mind', and what point are they trying to make when they talk about it? Are they saying that if they could get a satisfactory one, then these robot truly would 'learn' -- or just that this robot would be able to satisfactorily fake it? But that wasn't a key point, and though I chewed on it for a bit, it really wasn't necessary to be able to understand or appreciate whats being done by some very bright people, both in the direct field of robotics, the indirect one of artificial intelligence, or the allied fields of behavioral psychology and man/machine interaction.

Fascinating stuff. And from a different source, this, which I find simultaneously terrific and creepy:

Technology and Yearnings

This morning, my daughter asked to borrow the laptop, and I agreed. So while I read the Sunday papers, she was sprawled on the floor, playing the Bloxorz game, which she finds as addictive as I do, and then, later, based on the sounds, some other games. After a while, I asked her to migrate into her bedroom because the mechanical hooting and braying of the game was clashing with the soft piano CD that I was playing. Delighted with the idea, she did. A little bit later, she and her mother left for church while I took a nap. The laptop sat on the kitchen counter until they got back, and I woke up, almost simultaneously. I wanted to write a little bit -- about houses, and about a mysterious animal in my dream; it had the striping and fur of a tiger, but was the size of a squirrel and moved with crab-like motion -- but I couldn't: the laptop was dead. Well, not quite. It had enough power to boot far enough to say that I should change to alternate power immed -- and then it died. Frustrated, I plugged it in to suck up gojuice while I read, occasionally fuming that I could not just yank out the battery and slam in a new one -- because, even though we could certainly buy an additional auxiliary battery, I knew of no way to charge that battery without having it inside the plugged-in laptop. Is it possible? Oh, yes, I'm sure that it is. I just have no idea how to accomplish it -- not to say that I would if I could -- I'd cringe at the cost, I'm sure; I didn't even like spending thirty dollars for the special USB cable so that I could plug the laptop into the USB hub for the desktop PC (though it's delightful to have, because now I can transfer files much more quickly than through the wireless connection); I certainly wouldn't spend that same amount, or more, just so I could have a spare, charged battery. I wanted it; I didn't want to pay for it.

Which is, curiously, exactly the lesson that my daughter is learning now, as her liquid cash approaches the magic hundred dollar mark; she will see a book that she wants, or an ice cream, and you can literally hear her doing the math: if I spend two dollars on an ice cream, I'll have two dollars less, and I'm only seven dollars and thirty cents away now, so I'll be...umm.. nah, I don't want the ice cream. Unless (big smile) you want to pay for it, Dad!

Kissing

I've seen this photo....and I don't know whether to believe the explanation.

Saturday

My wife and I just took a bit of a bike ride around the neighborhood. She's on call from this morning to tomorrow morning, and this is her way of purging pre-oncall stress. In fact, she's still out there -- I came back in to talk to the daughteroid, who had informed her mother that she wants to drop out of color guard. She pointed out that during weeks when the guard is performing, she'll have guard-related events three or four nights, which might impact her ability at school. I appreciated that, and if I thought it was likely, I'd just pull her out (whether or not she was enjoying it), but I don't think thats the reason for the angst. We think its partially because it really is a stressful environment, and partially because school will be starting in about three weeks, and she always freaks out when that happens.

Not too much planned for this weekend, but on Monday we go down to DC for the day to celebrate my birthday, staying overnight in a hotel near the Pentagon and Arlington, doing a little tourism, and then back on Tuesday.

Amazing!

Well, this has been an amazing evening.

First, my daughter found her retainer. And not just 'found', but found it by casually strolling into her bedroom, bending down, and saying 'Found it!' Okay, it wasn't anyplace I would have guessed, but still... and then, to cap it, she also found a set of wall hooks that I've been looking for, which I had just about convinced myself I had inadvertently thrown out. After that, I asked her if she could find my lost youth, and my wife asked her to find that hundred dollars she'd misplaced.

Second, we made the stir fry. It was..um...memorable, for a couple of reasons. First, it was the very first time I've ever cut up a piece of meat. I was more than a little skittish, but my wife walked me through it, so it turned out okay. Second, we found that if a recipe calls for red pepper flakes (which we didn't have, using red pepper instead), do NOT stand next to the stove top's vent fan. Both of us started coughing and gasping as if we'd been maced. And third -- well, the recipe didn't turn out very well. My wife said she's had excellent Chinese food, and mediocre Chinese food, and this was the latter -- she thinks that we let the meat cook too long, in an effort to make it well done (as I like it). So if we do something like this again, we'll just about fully cook it before moving on to the next stage. But hey -- I wanted to Make A Dinner, and I did it!

And third, my daughter's in an extremely good mood, because a) I did all of her accumulated laundry (I've certainly done laundry in the past, but its been years, and it felt just a little strange to be doing it for her stuff...ours, sure, but my daughters? But I did it), and b) they're going out to buy some stuff that she wanted to get. So she's quite chipper, or at least was when they left.

Finally, I'm reading the Baking Boot Camp book, and its quite good -- a lot of cooking theory (so that's why they call it 'shortening'!), some war stories, and the occasional recipe. I think I'd like to go to this boot camp. Will I? Well...probably not. Its intense, even if not nearly as intense as their Cooking boot camp, or their regular courses. But it does sound pretty interesting, so maybe....

Quite the evening.

Tomorrow, we're going to see the Simpson's movie (she, me, and a friend of hers) or the Bourne movie (me and my wife). Which will be cool, too.

CV

I'm not a big fan of knowing about cancer. Like, I suspect, most people, I don't like even thinking about it, lest it attract the cancer fairies in my direction. But in two weeks, I'm going to voluntarily tell my doc that its been several years since I had a colonoscopy, so should I have another? Hoping, of course, that she'll say no. So, with that morbid thought in mind -- this site has an extract of a graphic novel called Cancer Vixen. It's quite good.

Sign In, Please

I was just at the mamamusings web site where she had a couple of interesting posts (she usually does; this is the classic bright, energetic woman). I wanted to respond to one of them, and learned that in order to do it, I'd need a TypeKey account. Nah, I don't want yet another ID. I did get a JournalSpace ID, just so it would stop flagging my responses there as 'this person is not a journal space user' -- and now I can't for the life of me remember what that id is. Worse are the sites that use Wordpress, where you not only need a WP id, but it's apparently logically separate by account, so that if you create the id for one WP site, its not usable for other WP sites. Why isn't there One Big Registry? Okay, I know why -- but this is like having to get a separate drivers license for every state. I'm sure Microsoft would be willing to sell such a service, hmm?

Today I continue the hunt for the daughter's missing retainer (good luck!), I do some residual cleanup (still buckets of stuff all around, and I haven't vacuumed in quite some time), and tonight, I make a new dish -- Beef Stir Fry. It'll probably be horrible -- I'm not an experimental guy -- but I wanted to try it anyway. One new dish a week, right?

Retained

Well, just as things began to calm down from the Great Room Painting, a new crisis has arisen.

My daughter had a followup checkup with her orthodontist today, and he asked her if she was wearing her retainer routinely. She admitted that she was not, and, in fact, was not sure where it was, what with the room being completely disassembled. He was not thrilled, telling her that if she didn't find it, she'd need to get a new one.

A new one is $75.00. She has about $90 in cash right now.

I should not feel guilty about making her pay for it. But I do.

Data! Data!

There are times when I will read a really interesting article, but a third of the way through it, I start skipping through it. I realized after having this happen multiple times == .But I like this stuff! Why am I ignoring part of it? .== that the reason was that I wanted a feeling for what was coming. I wanted a ten thousand foot view so that I could see if it would be worth spending my time on the article. And, to be fair, I wanted to cherry-pick the good stuff, and then, if it was worth it, go back to the supporting material.

Theres no way (that I know of) to get that 'zoom up to ten thousand, back down to fifty, up to five hundred, back to the first part, zip around' ability short of printing the article on paper and leafing through it (which I sometimes do) but the desire for that ability, as well as a yearning for self-organizing data (something that would make trends and key points in data obvious to even me, without having to think about it) is something that I've had for quite a while. I keep hoping, and when I see articles on data visualization, I always read them, even when, as is frequently the case, I don't actually understand them, let alone the techniques that make them work.

Its therefore ironic that my most recent awareness of my desire for zoom/cherrypick/zoom came when I was reading this article on the very concept- data visualization techniques - that might make it possible. I have to say, the article doesn't give me that magic quick view bullet -- but I also have to say, it's an interesting read, even down at ground level.

Orca!

One of the blogs I like is Not Martha (you can easily guess which Martha), because the author has a casually charming style (to be fair, the real Martha does, too, but then again, she has staff). Sometimes, NM outdoes herself, as when she describes her stay 'glamping' at not-your-average-wedding-reception....

Painting and Nailing and Screwing -- Oh, My!

The bookcase is back in place, and the wall shelving is up, too -- though the bookcase really is intended for books, whereas the wall shelves are intended for the great and ever expanding stuffed animal collection. I came into the room once just as she was telling a friend how many stuffed animals she had, and I winced. I know, part of childhood, being a girl, all that -- but she could open a small store here. I doubt she's ever seen a stuffed animal that she didn't like.

I just brought her over to color guard practice. She was in a bit of a funk because she just found out that they're changing the schedule for the band camp she has to attend (they perform with the band as well as on their own). Instead of two weeks of eight hour days, some of them will be only four hours, while others will be twelve hours. I was aghast. You could see my daughter rethinking this whole colorguard thing. Truth to tell, I'd try to persuade her out of it, but this is the first thing she's ever signed up for that she is interested in sticking with, and thats an attitude we like to encourage. She did take the opportunity, on the drive over, to remind me that it would be a good thing if she had a cell phone -- an attitude reinforced by my wife's childhood friend (who also recommended roughly tripling my daughter's weekly allowance) and by a woman I worked with, with whom we had dinner the other night. Her daughter has a cute little phone that they say was free -- an upgrade from an existing phone. New, it is priced at four hundred dollars. Even given that this couldn't be the real price, I was stunned.

My daughter also took the opportunity to spray disinfectant on some of the gear in one of her guinea pig's cages, as the animal has been sneezing, which she informs me means that she's ill. I considered reminding her that we aren't going to get a replacement animal until after both guinea pigs are deceased (and buying a cell phone bumps that out, too!), but I withheld the comment, for the moment.

Two Things

First, I'm going to try not to make political observations here any more. I'm not sure if thats why I'm getting so few hits, but it could be. I don't write to get them, though they're appreciated, but when what I'm writing is driving them away, I need to take steps. So, I'll be moving those comments in the future to a different blog, or just not making them at all.

Second, this is an interesting site.

DeTaping

It's time to take the tape off. Peel it back from the ceiling/wall intersection, the wall/baseboard intersection, off the switches, the sockets, the jacks. Not to mention, the carpet, where it's gotten mashed into a sticky mess.

The good news is, my daughter's attempt to do a little designing worked out fairly well. The white ceiling now has a white border that drops down two inches to meet the blue wall. Its kind of striking, and I like it.

The bad news is, she was somewhat aggressive in painting the walls, so that she now how occasional light dabs of blue up on the white ceiling. It can be touched up, though.

Today we do all the detaping, and start putting things back. My guess is, two days till the bed is back in there and the bureaus are in place; a week and a half until the room is substantially back together, and a month until its normal again. By that time, she ought to be used to the color, I think.