Saturday, August 19, 2006
Let Her Count The Ways
How early should a kid learn numbers and counting? With no real effort put into teaching her?
This morning Deb held out her hand and asked Sadie to give her five, something she learned at a very young age.
Instead of simply smacking Deb’s hand, Sadie did so repeatedly.
I said “hold it! Did she just do that five times?”
Deb said “yeah, I think so.”
So I held out my hand and told Sadie “give me three.”
Smack. Smack. Smack. Wise-ass amused look.
Shortly after that we tried four, but she got distracted and lost count after two. Well, kind of. She gave her mother two, then smacked my hand, then gave her mother two more.
After that she refused to play that game anymore. However, she did answer the question “Sadie, how old are you?” by saying “two” and looking amused at how she was toying with us.
Go figure. No pun intended.
Also On August 19th…
Today would have been the 100th birthday of my father’s father, unless I’ve had his year of birth wrong for all the years.
It would also have been my brother’s 33rd anniversary with his first wife, who knocked him up just before he turned 18, had they stayed married, but we don’t need to talk about that.
If I recall correctly, my grandfather was 84 when he died. I keep thinking he was 86, but that can’t be because of where I lived at the time. In any event, here are a couple of pictures. In the first one, he’s in the middle, with guys he worked with, probably on a farm. In the second one, he’s in my uncle’s van at an Ellis family reunion at Green Provicial Park in Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Happy Birthday
To former President Bill Clinton.
How appropriate that just last night we were talking about term limits, and how things might have gone down had he been in for a third term.
Happy Birthday
To my cousin Sandy in Texas, who will be visiting us around Christmas this year.
Happy Birthday
To blogger Tink, who is 50 today.
But I Never Left The Stream In A More Permanent Sense
|
You’ve Changed 40% in 10 Years |
 Ah, the past! You may not remember it well - because you’re still living in it. While you’ve changed some, you may want to update your wardrobe, music collection and circle of friends. |
Friday, August 18, 2006
Memorial Surprise
Here’s the town hall, with a large lawn and the obligatory major monument to the war of northern aggression out front:
On that large lawn is an impressive, newer-fangled war memorial, seen walking toward it and then facing into it:
Besides the main memorial at the back, the perimeter is line with granite benches, each for a war or conflict and apparently sponsored by some person or group, interspersed with some black monuments like this one:
That’s the most distinctive, war-specific of the black stones. Mostly they are generically “hooray for the VFW,” “in memory of the disabled,” that sort of thing.
Each of the benches represent a conflict. You expect some, like:
Unlike the Spanish Inquisition, naturally you’d expect World War II and the War of 1812, not to mention many others. Around here it’s no surprise at all to see this:
This was where it was at, after all. In Halifax alone there’s a stone marker on White Island, commemorating the start of King Philip’s War (or whatever it says exactly; it’s been forever since I read it), and there’s a memorial on Thompson Street, route 105, where the Thompson homestead was destroyed. So yeah, King Philip’s War fits.
But this made us do a double-take:
A memorial to the Texas Revolution? In Middleborough, Massachusetts? One of these things is not like the others. Must have been a family connection or something.
Not that it isn’t cool, but what a surprise.
Happy Birthday
To blogger Pascale Soleil.
Almost forgot to check birthdays today!
Well They Tell Me I Was Born There…
As we continue the tour of scenic Star’s Hollow Middleboro, here’s a not very good set of pictures of the boarded up hospital formerly known as St. Lukes, which is where I careened heedlessly into the world on my mother’s 26th birthday, unaware what I was in for.
The first and third pictures are brightened, and the first, just in case, has smudged license plates, which are something that will happen without mention in other pictures as appropriate.
I didn’t go up onto Oak Street to get a good picture of the long side of the building. That’s where it looks most shamefully empty. Every time we go by it we talk about how sad that something isn’t being done with it. Someone was trimming growth as we walked by, so I wondered if that was a good sign.
My first doctor when I was a baby and for my first several years was located in a house-like building near this place. He also delivered the landlord’s wife, I learned when I used the “born in Middleboro” card while trying to ensure that we, not anyone else, would be rented this apartment.
The building looks so little to me now! It seemed so big when I was a kid, when we visited my aunt when she was having her gallbladder removed.
Of Trains And History
We walked a couple miles yesterday, and I remembered to take the camera along. This was not enough for Sadie, so she also played in the sandbox for a while afterward, then went with me and hung out in and around the server room and an attorney’s office while I did some work. She is soooo good, being able to do that. Though the lollipop I snagged her from the reception desk didn’t hurt.
This set is the view from two bridges over the railroad tracks looking roughly north, then from adjacent to another bridge looking roughly south. This is the trainyard area near enough to us to fill the apartment with diesel fumes when certain engines idle there, viewed from opposite directions.
In the first pictures, the more spiffed up looking stretches are the ones used by the MBTA commuter rail, which terminates not far beyond these bridges.
The third picture is retouched, brightened 15% because the camera was acting up. Though not as much as it did later, when it corrupted several pictures and ruined my getting a complete war memorial set. The card has now been reformatted and we’re going to order a new, higher capacity one.
In that last picture, the decrepit building to the left of the tracks is the old C.P. Washburn building. I’d noticed they were no longer open for business, but I had no idea why. This is significant because when I was growing up, when they also had a store near us in Halifax, right beside the same railroad tracks, they were the oldest continuously operated family business in America. Besides being a long separate branch of the same Washburn family my father’s mother was from.
This post made me look into it and I learned what happened:
As the survey progressed, we were, of course, eager to learn which is the oldest existing family business in America. The answer seemed easy: the C.P. Washburn Company (1632) of Middleborough, Massachusetts. Then came the crushing news: on November 1, 1998, The Boston Globe reported the company’s untimely demise. Charles P. Washburn IV, a member of the 11th generation, was apparently unable to pay $120,000 in back taxes and the town closed the company’s doors, bringing an end to a noble family business that got its start as a granary in nearby Duxbury, long before this country became a nation.
In the course of this, I also came across an interesting list of historic sites for Middleboro and other towns in Plymouth County.
Another Washburn building is among those historic sites, as is basically the entire part of town where we live, which includes the post office, which is itself a distinct historic site, which would fit with my taking a picture of it because it looks so cool.
As the above implies, there will be more pictures, including a war memorial curiosity I managed to photograph, even though I didn’t collect the complete set. Stay tuned…
What Good Foods Are Made Of
Speaking of spices, I just counted, and including black pepper but not salt, I have 41 containers of herbs, spices, and standard pre-mixes like chili powder. A couple of them overlap, like two (distinctively) different varieties of Italian seasoning, but mostly they’re different. That also doesn’t count bottles of extracts like vanilla and almond.
I recently added the aforementioned lemon pepper, plus chili powder, cilantro, pumpkin pie spice, mesquite stuff, and cumin. All while I was looking for white pepper, which the Raynham Wal-Mart Supercenter didn’t have, despite its massive selection.
I ended up using the cumin promptly, and making a discovery.
I thawed and shredded a couple hamburgers in a frying pan with some butter, spicing the meat with a little chili powder, a lot of garlic and red pepper, black pepper, this and that, and some cumin. Hey, it was pseudo-Mexican, so good reason to try it. I knew it was strong from the smell. Since I often don’t know what to use in what food, or what goes with what, I open the jars and smell to give me an idea. Which has convinced me there are certain things that aren’t the same dried as fresh, because the dried versions has little or no scent.
The burger went in with a can of refried beans, and on small flour tortillas with shredded jack and cheddar cheese. Yum! In fact, unusually yummy, because of the cumin, which was almost too much and drowned the other spices.
My observation: It tasted like Taco Bell!
I knew Taco Bell had a prominent flavor I’d never identified and replicated, and it’s apparently heavy on the cumin.
I also learned, or re-learned, that cumin is a component of chili powder, curry powder, and garam masala.
I still have spices I am not clear on the use of, or haven’t used ad-hoc based on their scents. Is there anything one uses mint in besides lamb? Does dill have a good use besides pickles and beef stroganoff? Is parsley, speaking of things that lack good scents dried and bottled, good for anything besides maybe parslied potatoes?
What are your favorite spices or flavorings? What are ones you love but only in selected dishes for which they work best?
Salmon: The Results Post
Yay, Benji won! Oh wait, wrong results…
So, what happened with the salmon?
Above is a picture of it as a small portion appeared on Deb’s plate.
I used my cast iron frying pan, which I was thinking to do anyway because covering it on a burner creates an oven-like cooking effect. Heated it a little with some olive oil, put the salmon skin side down, put some lemon pepper - what seemed like a generous amount - and a slight bit of olive oil on the top, and cooked it for a minute or two on the stove.
Then I stuck it in a “425” oven. Ten minutes later, I was amazed at how slowly it was cooking. Though the pilot runs pretty warm and it would have slow-cooked through eventually. Turns out that no gas gets to the burner tube in the oven, and nothing past the pilot will light. Doh. Probably the burner tube thingy has to be replaced, which when it had to be done when I lived in Quincy cost the landlord $150. But gave the stove decades more of life.
So it was that I ended up with the pan on the burner, per my original plan before there was such a chorus of “and then put it in the oven...” from commenters. Cooked it mostly covered on low heat, and in the end turned it over for a minute, then back, to make the top look more traditionally cooked. Contrary to my normal penchant for cooking things to death, I got it only just done as one is supposed to do with fish.
How was it?
Very fishy smelling. I didn’t expect salmon to smell so stridently fishy. Very strong tasting, if not bad. The lemon pepper was good, but mostly buried under the taste of the salmon. When I saw Jen’s pointer to a recipe for cumin encrusted salmon I thought it sounded way to strongly spiced, but this piece of fish could have handled that and would have been good. I could easily have doubled the lemon pepper, or mixed in or replaced that with some other spices. Not like I have to conserve the lemon pepper; it was fifty cents for a good sized container. Heck, I pour on the expensive spices, when I am on familiar ground.
Next we’ll have to try a white variety of fish. It’s good to know that even though the cheapest of cheap price for fish is $5 a pound, 0.6 lbs was at least a serving more than we needed.
Oh, Sadie hated it. She wasn’t very hungry anyway, and instead of letting her sit at the table and think about trying a piece of the salmon, we enthusistically told her it was “like tuna,” which is one of her favorite things, and gave her a bite in the living room. She was all betrayed because she though “like tuna” meant “it is tuna.” Oh well. As we tell her, all we ask is that she try it, and be open to trying it again sometime in the future when her tastes might have changed or it might be a better version of the food. Since she eats almost anything, she’s entitled to a few exceptions.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
It’s Not Envy
Crayons are also good for coloring your sister, captured here with one of her elusive smiles. Elusive to the camera, that is. They aren’t elusive at all, in general. She’s genial and jovial and all that, as I reportedly was at her age. Yet for the camera Valerie can make serious Sadie look jolly.
You Know You Have Kids When…
Snakes on a Plane? Amateurs. Here we have crayons in a speaker:
This ancient set of computer speakers I bought years ago for my Pentium 200, after I bought a SoundBlaster Gold card for it. Since that sound card has traditional speaker jacks and these speakers have the same, the two go together. I use the speaker cables from a stereo I bought at Zayre in or around 1978.
Because the computer has not been hooked up, the speakers have been kicking around near my desk. Both kids loved playing with them.
When I went to hook them up the other day, I found the controls had fallen into the case, barely lining up with the holes. Not useful. So I opened it up to fix it, and the picture is what I saw; crayons everywhere! Apparently Sadie had been pushing crayons into the speaker unobserved. You’ll notice that no crayon is allowed to remain clothed. The wrappers must be torn methodically off each and every one as soon as possible. She’s so funny.
Existentialist
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.
What is Your World View? created with QuizFarm.com |
Via materialistic Rob Sama
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
JetBlue
It’s a pity that the new security rules make the prospect of flying with children so unpalatable that I can’t imagine a scenario that would get me on a plane any time soon, because I have it on good authority that there is, contrary to my previous impression, actually an airline out there that I wouldn’t grieve over having to give my money to. An airline that’s actually, I’m told, figured out that its customers are--wait for it--actual people! Who are seeking a service! And they want to provide it! Freaking revolutionary, I tell you.
All snark aside, my brother asked me to blog about the experience he recently had with JetBlue, because it was so outstandingly good that he figured the world ought to know about it. And y’all know how happy folks have to be before they make a point of publicizing their happiness, so this is no small thing.
What happened is this: he and his wife were planning to vacation in the Bahamas. As they were getting on the plane, though, he collapsed, so rather than flying out he got a trip to the hospital instead. (For those who don’t know, he’s in the middle of cancer treatment, and he’s ok. Turned out to be “just one of those things.") Their flight was on JetBlue and the airline’s response was, in his words, awesome:
They reacted to everything so quickly and well. By the time we left with the paramedics they had gotten our bags which were already loaded and refunded us our fares which is against their stated policy. Then they called us the next morning to make sure I was okay.
Absolutely amazing. Really, really cool. That kind of customer service is incredibly rare.
If I ever get on a plane again, I know which airline I’m using.
Salmon
Last night I bought a 0.6 pound farm raised salmon fillet to experiment with, so that, along with some rice and peas most likely, will be supper tonight.
I’ve never cooked fish that wasn’t frozen, pre-breaded, and usually reconstituted from shreds.
My thought was to cook it in a frying pan with a little lemon pepper*, keeping it very simple and just trying to get the cooking itself right without terribly overcooking it. For meat I’m a firm believer in nothing less than well done, so I tend to cook things to death, which I understand with fish is more of a Bad Thing.
Anyway, I thought I’d toss this out here in case there were other flavoring suggestions, or cooking tips.
* One of yet another bunch of new spices I bought recently, which is another yet-to-be-written post. I was looking for white pepper so I’d have it for egg foo yong when I finally try making that, but Wal-Mart had no white pepper. Weird. Ended up with other things instead.
Planets Galore
We finally have a definition of planet, and it’s an expansive one. Space.com calls it controversial. I don’t really see that.
It’s weird, not thinking of the nine we grew up with, and knowing that there are 12, should be 53 after a while, and may be many more. At the same time, by defining a subcategory of “plutons,” one can distinguish mostly more traditional planets from the rest, almost creating a small set similar to what we’d have had if the definition had gone the other direction and evicted Pluto.
For those who want the definition without reading either article:
“A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.”
Thus our moon is not a “planet,” though it’s often been called that because of its size and its ever so slow drift out of Earth’s gravitational control, because it orbits a planet, not the sun. Thus Ceres is a planet because it has enough gravity and orbits the sun.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Overheard in Our House
Me: “You’re gonna start talking any time now, aren’t you?
Sadie: “You got it.”
Much excitement and teasing of Sadie for holding out on us ensued. Right about the time we finally started to get worried about the lack of talking (even though she understands everything and can follow complex instructions and be very helpful), she started busting out with more. Sometimes funny, like when she fell and said “doh!” plain as day. Which is what the above three word sentence was; absolutely perfect, unmistakable English. Just before that she had said “I don’t” for the second (if not as clear) time today.
Biz/Econ Rankings
Brian Gongol created an interesting comparison between the traffic of a number of business and economics blogs and the top 200 newspapers.
While we’re only obliquely a business and economics blog, or partly, to use a simpler word, we’re reflected on the lists. In page views we correspond to Courier & Press (Evansville, IN ), and in visits we correspond to Greenville News (Greenville, SC ). Fascinating.
Hell’s Kitchen” The Big Finale, Take One
Still collecting my thoughts and mentally composing a post, which is likely not to be written until tonight or otherwise later.
A couple quick thoughts, though. First, I expected a 2 hour finale that would do more than make it so you didn’t have to see the entire prior season before watching about an hour and five minutes of actual finale… and fluffy at that.
The challenge was cool though. I’d forgotten that one, and I seem to recall last year it wasn’t close like this year.
Finally, until they opened the doors, it was absolutely unclear who the choice of winner would be. Neither would have been a surprise. Either would have been deserving. We’re pleased with ourselves for having pegged the winner in like the second episode of the season, having only seen her weaknesses, some evident right up through the “three months later scene,” later. To the extent I had any expectation which one had won, it was the one who lost and will now get pretty much the job of her choice somewhere.
Argh. I am tempted to just expand this and write it in full now, but I’ll ponder further and expand on this later. My mental composition included a point by point comparison of things like restaurant design, menu, food, staff issues, etc.
Stay tuned… I may simply edit this post rather than creating a second one that covers part of the same ground.
Happy Birthday
To blogger Phillip Coons.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Rambling Thunder
Thor and Elisabeth Shue would be proud.
I can’t help mentally adding “shape of a blog!” after “‘ThunderJournal’ *lightning strike*” but maybe that’s just me.
Pictures!
There are mass quantities of pictures of the family, including Sadie, Valerie, and most of their 16 first cousins and my three grandnieces, over on my brother’s front page currently, specifically in this post, this post, and this post. They are significant as these were two “must bring camera” events for which I idiotically forgot it entirely.
I’d hesitated to point them out earlier, as the original two posts had “straight of the camera” files sizes of give or take a megabyte for each picture, so it was noticably slow even with FiOS. They and all the new ones have been shrunk to more standard web page file sizes, so page load shouldn’t even be that horrible with dialup.
Go see!
Happy Birthday
To anticipatorily well-rested blogger Dax Montana, who doubles as an intrepid photographer of wildlife.
Happy Birthday
To my friend of more than 33 years, and worthy co-uncle, Adam, pictured below with his son on July 22nd of this year.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Always Been A Bit Batty
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause.
Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com |
Via Maximus
Happy Birthday
To my cousin Andy’s daughter Casey, who is a year old today.
Unhappy Birthday
To Fidel Castro. Die already, you tyrannical bastard.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Taiwan: Insect Encrusted Paradise?
Back when I worked in receiving at The Renovator’s Supply, we’d get containers full of boxes of parts from Taiwan, and all you could smell was pesticides. It was as if the cardboard had been soaked in it, then had a chance to dry during shipping.
By the time we were done unloading, we’d smell of it too. Ugh.
It was never as bad with any other international shipments, though granted, none were as large at a time.
So it was that I knew the place of manufacture of the two new UPS units I unpacked today at the office, for temporary use setting up new servers, then coming home to protect these machines. The smell was unmistakable, and more concentrated than I remember it ever being before.
The second one actually had white pesticide residue crusted on the power cord. Ick.
Soooo glad they’ll have an extensive opportunity to air out there before coming home. Especially at the rate I am getting these servers deployed, but that’s another story. Somehow I got the idea it was fairly easy to upgrade NT4 to Windows 2003 Server. Ha! I might actually have to buy another computer to use as a bridge unit, and while I could use a new one, now’s not the best of times. But I digress.
Are insect escapees really that much of a problem coming from Taiwan as opposed to other places?