Skywarn, Tandoor and Smart Dogs

Goodness, I'm going to have to get used to yet another laptop keyboard for this post. There's no telling what typos I'm going to have to fix in the morning. FIFO, my dog, has also decided to be helpful, by trying to lick my fingers and now my nose.

I actually wimped out on my faithful readers for the first time last night. I went to a meeting of the Durham FM Association and didn't get home until I was about ready to go to sleep. They meet at Fuddruckers on the second Tuesday of every month. Unlike my dad, I rarely go to the meetings, but last night, Jeff Orrock, from the local National Weather Service office, was the speaker and he was rumored to be particularly good. In fact, he was excellent and much more informative than the Skywarn training class that I took a couple of years ago. It sounds as if he will offer another such class at the Red Cross in the near future, so I will be looking forward to that. For anyone who doesn't know, Skywarn is an organization of amateur radio operators who report severe weather to the National Weather Service. Among other things, he explained why spotters are needed and that is because radar does not provide information about the conditions close to the ground.

Today I went to Tandoor Indian Restaurant, in Durham. This was the first time I'd ever been there for lunch, but I'd been there several times for dinner, although not in a long time. The News and Observer did not give them a very good recommendation, but I have enjoyed my meals there. For dinner, I particularly like the vegetarian sampler platter. They offer a buffet at lunch, with a nice selection and excellent kheer, of course.

I was in a three year long meeting at work this afternoon, so I'm rather exhausted. Ok, it was only three hours. Two and a half.

As I've mentioned earlier, I've been contemplating what it would be like to be a vegetarian and I've been eating very little meat in the process. This evening, I tried Smart Dogs. I could barely get one down, even after applying large amounts of mustard and ketchup. This was disappointing. I actually think "garden burgers" are an improvement over the real thing, but I've never really liked hamburgers. Maybe there are better veggie hotdogs out there somewhere. Yves Veggie Cuisine makes excellent fake "ground beef" that is great for spaghetti. More experimentation is needed.