It's easy being with green.

I forgot to mention that on Thursday of last week (if you consider Sunday at the end of the week and many people don't) I went to the annual Duke basketball banquet. It consists of a meal, which our tickets didn't include, and an awards ceremony. The ceremony consists of lots of long speaches given by the coaches and graduating seniors. The seniors tend to get overly emotional. There are also filn clips set to music chosen by either Mrs. Krzyzewski (past years) or one of the Krzyzewski daughters. When I first started going to these, back in1986, all the players hung around for autographs afterwards, which was loads of fun. Most of them made a quick escape this year. I did manager to accost Shavlik Randolph and David McClure. As the success of the team has grown over the years, it's been harder and harder to get tickets to the banquet, so I hadn't been in a long time. I was able to get another autograph from Coach K and was able to tell him that I first got his autograph 19 years ago. Somewhere we have a badly detiorated VHS tape of my getting that autograph, because the local ABC affiliate, WTVD, put it on the news. I didn't see any television cameras this year, because I guess the novelty of a successful season in Duke basketball as worn off a bit since then.

I was going to mention something else from that week that I'd forgotten. I need to start jotting down what I want to mention in my Treo 650. I can't believe that I haven't thought of that before.

Did I do anything this week? I went to Eastern Lights for dinner on Wednesday and afterwards worked on my mom's birthday present. I made an ornament type thing to hang in the window using beads and gold-filled wire. I thought it turned out pretty well. Hopefully it will look nice hanging up.

Thursday was her birthday, so we went to Kemp's for dinner. I was able to eat oysters. I'd gone to Rudino's for lunch that day and eaten another entire Spinach Sophia grinder. Those things are just fantastic. In any case, I wasn't overly hungry at dinner time. After that, my dad suggested that we pick up some pastries at the Coffee Cafe around the corner from my house and continue to celebrate at my house. I was really stuffed after that. They had a chocolate "croissant", which was wonderful. It's not like any croissant that I've ever had, but it's very good. I think the dough is more like you'd expect with a danish or something.

On Friday evening, I met my parents at the Duke Pre-Majors Advising annual picnic. The weather was very pleasant and they had good fried chicken. Again, I'd had a big lunch of Shrimp Pad Thai at Champa, so I wasn't terribly hungry. A meal consisting of chicken wings and brownies was pretty nice, though.

We went to Nantucket Cafe & Grill last night and I tried their pork ribs. They are very good. The meat comes off the bone very easily and they are generous with their sauce. Not bad. I have leftovers in the fridge, which I'm looking forward to having for lunch this week.

Yesterday, after going to the OCRA Ham Radio breakfast, I spent almost the entire day making jewelry. I made myself three bracelets and five pairs of earrings. The earrings were mostly very small, so they were quick and easy. It was fun and it will be nice to have more jewelry, since I so desperately need it. Right.

It is so very nice and green around here again. I really love spring. Lots of things are blooming in my yard now. The "stratosphere" daffofils are still blooming along my walk. The dianthus is blooming along the concrete pad in front of my house. The bright green oak leaves are just fantastic, though. You can just barely see the neighboring houses now. The good thing is that I was pleasantly surprised at how it looked without leaves. Several people have said that it almost looks as if I live in the mountains, because this is a fairly high spot compared to the rest of the area. It's definitely nice to be able to appreciate all of the seasons.

Cornbread and Robots

Last night, GM, AE, JH and I went to see Robots at the Exploris IMAX theatre, in Raleigh. First we went to the Cracker Barrel. I'd never been there before, but JH recommended the clam chowder highly. They have very good cornbread. It's not yankee cornbread, so it's excellent. It's not sweet.

I drove everybody to the theatre and we were just a little late, partially due to my passing the parking building. I was worried that they wouldn't let us in. Robots was fairly entertaining, although certainly not the best I've ever seen. They really weren't trying for realism or surrealism, which is ok, but that definitely made it seem more like an old fashioned cartoon.

Hold the ketchup

I don't know if anyone has coined the term "slogger" as a slacker blogger before, but it certainly seems to apply to me. I haven't blogged in ages. I haven't described more appreciation for my Treo 650. I have been busy. Of course, this means that I have had tons to write about. Instead of writing about everything in excrutiating details and describing every single condiment, I will attempt to describe everything as quickly as possible.

I went to a Durham FM Association meeting the week before last and the program was about storm chasing. It was very cool seeing real footage of some of the hurricanes last season. It was pretty dramatic and educational. That week I also went to see the Duke Symphony Orchestra, which had an excellent concert. You can find out more about the soloist for the evening, on his website, rahulmania.com. For the many of you who are searching, you can also find a picture of J.J. Redick there.

Last Saturday I went to the Orange County Radio Amateurs ham radio breakfast. For dinner, I went with JJ and EB to Outback. I had coconut shrimp and their chopped blue cheese salad, which was wonderful. On Sunday, I went to the RARs hamfest and got to show off my house afterwards. That night I went over to GM's and had pizza with him, AE and JH. We watched Chicken Run afterwards, which was still entertaining, even though I'd seen it a couple of times when it came out.

This weekend, KS came to visit. Last night we went to Kanki to celebrate BJK's birthday. That was fun and Japanese steakhouses are usually entertaining. I got to meet BJ's sister and see her parents again. Afterwards, KS and I went to the Coffee Cafe around the corner to get ice cream and a brownie. This morning, my parents came over and I took forever making French toast, but it was good. If nothing else, I'm slow when I'm talking and doing anything else, especially cooking.

Picnic Chant

This weekend I went to a picnic, got a haircut, went to a concert and did my taxes.

The picnic was for the Duke Computer Science Department. It was held at the West Point on the Eno, as it is every year. The weather was just perfect and the food was from Whole Foods, so I enjoyed it. I got to talk to a couple of professors and watched some ultimate frisbee. I was actually hit on the wrist by a frisbee in an unrelated game of "catch"in which I was not participating. Game projectiles are attracted to me. I'm suprised it didn't hit me in the forehead like they usually do.

On Sunday, my dad and I met AE at Duke Chapel for a concert by Trio Medieval, a Norwegian (actually 1/3 Swedish) female acapella group. The entire concert was music somewhat similar to Gregorian chant, although it was from the 13th century, where some of the dissonance starts to creep in. This is one of those cases where I know I used to know much more about this in college, at least briefly.

Doing my taxes was a lot easier this year than last, since I didn't have to struggle with Wild Tangent. I ended up going over to my parents' house last night, to finish them up. They have a very cool HP printer/copier/fax now. I need to try putting in a different cartridge into my printer, in my studio. I have a black and white one, which should be good enough for black and white, I think. I try not to leap to conclusions too often.

Bobby McFerrin

Last night, my parents and I went to see Bobby McFerrin at Duke's Page Auditorium. He is just an incredibly talented performer and vocalist. He is a master of commanding audience participation and I recommend that you go see him performance if you ever have the opportunity. I actually saw him at the same location (Artist's Series) five or six years ago. This time he was joined for part of the performance by the Durham Children's Choir, which I thought was pretty impressive given that the kids had only been performing together for a year and appeared to be quite young. Some of McFerrin's routines had to be exhausting, so I would imagine that performing with the kids would provide a needed break. He invited people to join him on stage several times, to do improv dancing and sing. He is capable of singing the notes of Bach's Preludes as well as a Cliffs notes performance of the Wizard of Oz. In addition to sheer musical talent, and the ability to sound like a entire band, it's obvious that he has an excellent sense of humor, too.

Here you can see the large number of daffodils blooming in my front yard. I want more. (taken with Canon s300)

Here's one of the prettiest photos I've taken with my Treo 650, shortly after I got the camera, two weeks ago. This is a clivia that my mom gave me. I ended up taking tons of pictures of it, with my Treo, my Canon s300 and my mom's Canon s500. 

Syncing with Lotus Notes and Other Mental Anguish

One of the many things I've been investigating now that I have my Treo 650 is syncing with my Lotus Notes calendar at work. I read on one of the forums that I happened upon that EasySync wouldn't work with the 650. EasySync is what I used briefly with my Palm V and while the version I had was somewhat annoying, it did the job. I also read about MNotes, which had favorable reviews. That, however, costs money and I'm not too inclined to spend even more money just yet. Also, now that the majority of my meetings are in a single building or are conference calls, it's not that hard to look up a meeting location or time at my desk. Either I can wait for EasySync update or wait for $75 to seem like an insignificant amount of money again. It could take a while.

Speaking of money, it's time for me to think about working on my taxes again. There. I thought.

Ouch.

Treo 650 Excitement

Wow! I was quoted on the PalmAddicts blog! That's more exciting than when I was in college and I was quoted in the Raleigh News & Observer as saying that the regional ACM Programming Contest was more exciting than basketball. I'd wondered why there had been a dramatic increase in hits and that's why.

Now that I've had the Treo 650 for a couple of weeks, I have to say that I still love it more than ever. I love being able to look at the doppler radar on it without worrying about being fried while I'm plugged in. I got the 1.08 update for the firmware, which probably improved the sound quality. I've also noticed that it helps to put one's ear in the vicinity of the ear piece (ear bump). I got the free 128 MB memory card from PalmOne so now I can play mp3s on it. The speaker is really pretty good and the music sounds great. It's great having the tradional Palm functions again, too. I had pretty much abandoned using my Palm V (despite carrying it around with me everywhere), because I put all my phone numbers in my Motorola Timeport. Now I've consolidated all my numbers and contact information into my Treo, which makes so much more sense. I can even use my Treo to check my gmail account and send mail. It's not pretty, but it works.

Today I went to Maggiano's for lunch, because the department wanted to take my manager out to lunch, since he's moving to a different assignment. It took three hours, but it was worth it. I tried several new things, such as their chicken parmesan and some kind of herbed chicken, which was extremely tender. The four cheese ravioli is still the best, though

Parmesan in my Phone

I went to Vinny's with my mom this evening and I got a little carried away with the parmesan. I always unscrew the tops of the little glass dispensers and evidently I got a little carried away. Parmesan ended up in my phone case, all over my skirt and in my shoes.

This past weekend my dad and I volunteered as ham radio operators for the annual Hillsborough Crop Walk. We were stationed at water station #2. Our responsibility was to let the net control know when the first runner went by, when the main pack of walkers went by and when what we thought were the last walkers passed us. Unfortunately, we saw more coming as we drove off. Oops. Even people serving the water had packed up a few minutes before. Fortunately, it was a very nice day, although extremely windy, so those last people probably weren't that thirsty. Before the "race" started, my dad and I drove around the course looking for the best place to be stationed. Driving the several mile long course around Hillsborough was probably the most entertaining part of the experience.

The weather has been beautiful and my daffodils are gorgeous.

I watched the Incredibles again Saturday night and I enjoyed it more the second time. I think it looks more impressive on a smaller screen. Either that or I just appreciated more the subtleties this time. My brother sent my parents a DVD, but it's really supposed to be his and my mom is supposed to mail it to him.

I'm doing my taxes now. I suppose I should get back to them. They might feel as if I'm ignoring them otherwise.

Random Activities When I Haven't Been Working

The most exciting thing this past weekend was my making French Toast for the first time. It worked out rather nicely. I used thinly sliced pieces of French bread, which seeemed to be a good choice. It's a lot easier than making pancakes, since the bread already has structural integrity.

I spent a lot of time over the past few weeks watching basketball. I've had a lot more free time ever since Duke lost.

I went to the Orange County Radio Amateurs Saturday morning breakfasts at BoJangles for the last couple of weeks. It's been entertaining, educational and filling.

I've been having fun with my Treo. Last night I put on the 1.08 firmware update. I think there was a slight improvement in the audio volume and it did free up some memory. I also added the free 128 MB expansion card , which palmOne offered.

Otherwise it's been work, work and more work. Today I even decided to leave work at 4:15pm and work from home the rest of the day from my deck. That was very nice, indeed. The weather has been beautiful. The cardinals, who were originally far more timid than the titmice and nuthatches, were finally brave enough to take a few seeds while I was sitting there. This time one of the squirrels barked at me for a while, but they stayed away for the most part.

I met JJ at Fowler's for lunch yesterday. They've expanded their lunch menu, which was quite exciting. I had a bagel with smoked salmon, tomatoes, onions and capers, with a side of fresh fruit. I also tried yet another brand of root beer, Abita. It was good, but still not as spicy as I prefer.

Treo!

I don't really remember what I did last week, which is always disturbing to me. That week must not have actually happened.

Last weekend, however, I went to the Sprint Store at Brier Creek shopping center and purchased a Palm Treo 650. I believe last year one of my new year's resolutions was to resist getting the 600 model. That turned out to be a good move. It's a wonderful little toy. I have/had a Palm V, which I'll be passing on to my mom. It's nice to see how PalmOs has improved in the last five or six years.

The Treo 650 has a nice .3 megapixel camera. A camera was not one of the chief reasons why I wanted a phone, but it really take decent pictures, particuarly for a phone. It's handy having the camera conveniently available when I'm in the car, so I can just roll down my window and snap away. My daffodils along my driveway are blooming, so they've been a good target.

More later..

Only the Greatest Hits

I'm not sure what I was looking at on Nedstat last night. I actually had quite a few hits yesterday. My apologies for the confusion. Of course, 13 hits wouldn't be considered a lot by most standards, but that's pretty good for this blog.

House Invaders

Thursday night, I hosted a faculty recruiting reception for the Duke Computer Science department at my house. Basically, each of the recruits that have been invited to interview and present their research are invited to a party at the house of one of the faculty members. Ordinarily, my parents would host it at their house, but my house is much more suited for parties, with the large great room. Plus, FIFO's social skills aren't ready for prime time. I took the day off, so I could spend the day cleaning. Things have been hectic at work, so it was nice to have a break even though preparing for the reception was work in itself.

My mom bought all kinds of great food from several different stores. She even found some wonderful frozen spanakopita from Sam's Club that were even good when I microwaved them at work to heat them a second time. We had cheeses and nuts, food from Neomonde, chips, fruit, mints, and shrimp. My fridge is full of leftovers.

It was a lot of fun having a hoard of faculty, grad students and, of course, the recruit invade. I really enjoyed talking to some of the people I hadn't seen in quite as well as well as people I hadn't met before. So many people got to see my house that had been eager to see it. People really seemed to like my paintings, too, which was cool.

Believe it or not, no wine (red or white) was spilled on my carpet. In fact, no beverages have spilled on it since I moved in. They've finally come out with a scotch guard that alters the laws of gravity.

Today I started washing the dishes, although I've barely made a dent in them. Part of the reason for this is because it was the Semifinals of the ACC basketball tournament. I managed to catch the last 11 seconds of Georgia Tech's beating UNC. My parents came over and we watched Duke win against NC State. I guess I know what I'll be doing tomorrow.

Oishii

It's been quite a while since I posted. I hadn't quite realized until tonight just how long it's been. Perhaps noticing that it's almost 10:30 and there haven't been any hits yet today has something to do with it. My mom isn't even checking anymore!

Part of the reason I haven't posted is because I've been working quite late most nights. I often don't feel like writing if I'm just having dinner and getting to bed. There's not a tremendous amount to write about in that case, either.

I did have a good weekend last week, however. On Saturday, my parents and I went to a "new" Japanese restaurant, Oishii, at Timberlyne Shopping Center in Chapel Hill. I had been over to my parents' house earlier in the week and read the newspaper. I checked the What's Up section of the News and Observer and saw some of the restaurants that Greg Cox had reviewed since I moved. I really don't have an excuse for not keeping track since his columns are available online. In any case, he gave Oishii three stars and they have sushi. I was very excited about this possibility, since it's about ten minutes closer than Kurama. I ordered an Oishii Roll, which is primarily lobster and caviar. It was very good and gigantic, but all the toppings kind of overwhelm the lobster. The rest of the nigiri pieces that I ordered were excellent, in addition to the eel and avacado Dragon Roll that I shared with my mom. I ended up having to share a lot with my dad, because the portions were so generous.

On Sunday, I went over to GM's apartment. GM and AE made brownies from Ghirardelli brownie mix and JH came over and watched Sleepy Hollow with us. So far I've enjoyed every Johnny Depp movie that I've seen. It was suspenseful and even funny, particularly Depp's facial expressions. The brownies were really wonderful and I'm pretty snobbish about using baking mixes. Afterwards, AE and GM came over to my house and GM made spaghetti sauce with canned tomatoes, olives, garlic, mushrooms with pork sausage meatballs. It was very good.

Canned Peaches

I actually wrote a blog post while I was, dare I admit it, watching the Oscars. My brain rotted enough such that I shut my laptop off without remembering to actually publish. My post wasn't very inspiring anyway, so it's probably good that my dear readers were spared from it.

I even forgot to mention in that post that I had dinner with JJ at Blue Corn Cafe last week. We enjoyed fried plantains as an appetizer and then I ate smoked salmon quesadillas. Any meal that I can remember vividly a week and a half later is worth mentioning.

Last Wednesday, I saw AE and GM perform works by Glinka and Mussorgsky as a part of a Duke Symphony Orchestra concert. Among other things, they played Pictures at an Exhibition, which is one of my favorite pieces and is quite at home in my CD changer. It was fun getting to talk to them both as well as JH during intermission.

My Dube stage ball is actually the EXACT color of canned peaches. That's far more appealing to me than mashed bananas.

This past Sunday, I met JJ, JA and EB at Fowler's for brunch. I had a wonderful smoked salmon, green onion and goat cheese quiche, with home fries and a fresh fruit cup. We had a fun time talking and eating, as always. I also stocked up on Blenheim ginger ale.

It was cold and icky yesterday, so I worked from home. It really is nice to be able to do that. We were supposed to have snow. In fact, the local weatherman, Greg Fishel bet about a month ago that we would have frozen precipitation before the end of the month or he would jump in the fountain outside the television studio. ...and he did.

Missing Stromboli Theatre 3000

It's been a long, but memorable, week.

Saturday, I baked coconut macaroons before GM and AE came over. AE brought the order from JugglingStore.com, which we'd ordered two weeks ago. now have six of the seven juggling "bean bag" style balls I ordered. The yellow Dube stage ball for contact juggling is a really ugly shade of yellow, reminiscent of mashed banana, suitable for banana bread, quite unlike the bright canary yellow that I expected. When you were expecting your favorite color and it isn't, it's a little shocking.

GM brought over some popcorn and made it on my cooktop. I hadn't made any sort of popcorn since I moved in, so that was exciting. We watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and the movie was the Pod People. I think it was the best one I've ever seen. I haven't seen that many, but it was pretty funny. We also watched an MST short on Home Economics, which would have been funny without the traditional MST heckling. Afterwards, we went to Vinny's for dinner. They lost GM's stromboli and he didn't get it until we were almost finished, but we had a good time. We also tried the spinach artichoke dip, which was quite good.

Mr. Clean Saves the Day

Last night, after work, I met AE and GM at Chai's for dinner. This time, I tried the shrimp and rice bowl with Thai yellow curry. It was very good, but a little spicy. AE got us an order of gyoza dumplings, which were a nice treat. Afterwards, we went to Shade Tree Coffee. They have about five flavors of ice cream. I got a scoop of their delicious chocolate, in a standard sugar cone.

We planned to go see violinist Joshua Bell, who was playing as a part of the Duke Artists' Series. We cut it a bit close, timing wise. Tons of people were trying to get in the parking building, so even though the coffee shop wasn't that far from the auditorium, it took quite a while to get in and find a space. Then we just flew down the sidewalks to get there in time. It was if I'd had a flashback of being late for class. We got there at exactly 8pm, but the performance didn't start for another 15 minutes at least. The concerts always used to start approximately on time, but that was before they had the parking building. The concert was excellent and Bell received the first full standing ovation that I've seen there in a long time.

The most exciting thing this afternoon was discovering the joy of using a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. My mom had told me how wonderful they are at removing soap scum and she was right. They, however, are also extremely proficient at removing smudges from walls. I've been looking for something that would safely take handprints off my walls and they did the trick.

This evening, I met JJ and JA at Starlu's, which is a new restaurant near South Square. Unfortunately, we didn't have reservations and tonight was a little close to Valentine's Day. Fortunately, Pao Lim's Asian Bistro wasn't far away. We had a great time talking and I got to have dumplings, a spring roll, honey walnut shrimp and coconut ice cream for dessert.

When I got home, I got to see Duke lose to Maryland in basketball one more time.

Food and Ham

The memorable aspects of this past weekend were, of course, food related. My parents and I went to Taverna Nikos on Friday night. I had a somewhat unusual meal in that I ordered a crab cake appetizer, which included a small salad. For my entree I had the taramosalata or fish roe appetizer, which comes with pita wedges and an identical small salad. I've been wanting to order that again for quite a while, so I was thrilled to combine it with a delicious crab cake.

Saturday, GM, JH and AE came over and I fixed pasta with shrimp, bacon, garlic and basil. It was good, but the pasta was a little clumpy and needed a little more pasta water. We then watched an episode from the first Black Adder season while all doing a little contact juggling and then went to the nearest Maple View Farms location, for ice cream. It was definitely a fun afternoon.

Sunday, the main event was going to Vinny's Italian restaurant, which just opened about a half mile away from my house. It's a small chain restaurant, with most of the locations in North Carolina and southern Virginia. I ate eggplant parmesan, which was excellent.

Tonight, my dad and I went to the Durham FM Association meeting. The program was supposed to a talk, by Rachel Brady, on visualization, but the connection between her laptop and the projector wasn't working. After a tremendous effort, it was decided that she would try again at next month's meeting, with a different projector. I still had a good time, talking to several of the hams, before and after formal meeting.

Juggling and Ice

GM, AE, JH and I planned to get together this weekend, but there was a winter storm warning planned for Saturday and Sunday. I didn't want to meet at my house Friday night, because my kitchen, in particular, was a mess. In hindsight, I was probably just being silly. We had dinner at GM's apartment, instead. AE picked up dinner from Chai's, which was quite delicious, and then we watched three Black Adder episodes. Afterwards everyone played around with contact juggling for a while. We wanted to order from some online juggling stores, so went across the street, to JH's apartment, to use his internet connection. He has an awesome collection of stuff in his apartment, which reminded me of all the toys I have in my office. We ordered all kinds of juggling balls from three different stores, so we should definitely have some good times in the future. Overall, it was a fun filled evening with lots of food, fun and laughter.

Today we've had sleet and freezing rain on and off for most of the day. I made sure to do all of my laundry and run a load of dishes in the dishwasher to prepare for potential power outages.
I made some parmesan biscuits, so I'll have some food, too. Some predictions say we might have as much as a half an inch accumulation on the trees.

Gizmodo had an example of one slick looking Kitchen Aid mixer this week.

Weird Week Fine Food

The last week or so was kind of weird. I spent a lot of the time working from home, because we had snow and freezing rain. There wasn't a tremendous amount of accumulation, but it was enough such that I didn't want to risk driving in it if I didn't have to. The good thing is that I experienced what it was like to be at home between Wednesday afternoon and Tuesday morning. I didn't get cabin fever. I didn't mind staying home at all. That's definitely a good sign.

A couple of days before the wintery weather, GA and I went to PS's house for lunch. She cooked us a wonderful Indian meal, which included melai kofta, samosas (potato and potato with cheese and jalepenos), raita, lentil soup, puffed rice snacks, puri bread, gulab jamen, and one other excellent dish. I haven't had such an elaborate homemade Indian meal since I was a little kid and now I'm old enough to really enjoy it. It was cool getting to see her house and meet her son. She is way more organized than I even want to be.

In other exciting news, I led a couple of education sessions at work. If they had been formal sessions for large numbers of people, there would have been refreshments available. I thought this was a perfect excuse to make brownies for the first time. I used the recipe on the back of the Baker's brand unsweetened baking chocolate. I am very happy with the way they turned out, because they weren't too dry or too mushy. The only thing that didn't work out quite the way I wanted was that I was supposed to drizzle semisweet chocolate in stripes on top. I decided that maybe chocolate chips would work, but even after two minutes in the microwave, they were the consistently of softened butter. I just put a dab on each brownie, which wasn't as pretty but it still tasted great. Overall, I think the whole thing was a success.

Not One Damn Dime Day

Remember not to spend any money today. More later.. (obviously)

Fun-Filled Weekend

Friday night, I met GA and AE at Southpoint. After picking up movie tickets, we ate at the Q-shack, which is a small Durham chain. I believe I've complained about the fact that they no longer make fried pies. My parents and I have been getting take-out from the original location for quite a while. I had a baked potato with "all the fixins", which wasn't quite as good because the cheese wasn't melted. My mom pointed out that this was probably because it didn't ride in the car before I ate it. It was good, though. Fortunately, it was about half the size of the ones I'd eaten before, so it was actually a reasonable portion.

Before going to the movie, we stopped in the fudge shop and AE bought us chocolate covered orange slices, cherries and apricots to eat during the film. That turned out to be a superb idea.
We saw "Finding Neverland", which starred Johnny Depp and various other people. I thought it was an extremely good film, although it ends up being fairly sad. Afterwards, we wandered over to Barnes and Noble. We looked around and talked for quite a while.

Saturday, KS drove down from Richmond and visited me for the afternoon. She had seen the house before I moved in, so it was cool being able to show it off with all my furniture and things in it. We talked for several hours and then met CE and R at ACME Food & Beverage Company for dinner, which was fun. I ate lobster and corn ravioli, which was just as good as it sounds.

This morning, I met JJ and JA at Vin Rouge, for brunch. We finally celebrated Christmas and exchanged gifts. They gave me some beautiful glasses with brightly colored bases, coffee and a kitchen microplane, to use as a zester or for grating parmesan. I gave them two LED flashlights, similar to the one I bought for myself a few months ago. As always, I definitely had fun.

I blame it on the Christmas letters.

OK, I am now really behind in my blogging. I'm going to blame it all on my big Christmas letter sending project, which is also behind. It never hurts to have an inanimate scapegoat. I'm going to quickly and briefly write about all the things that I did that I happened to jot down something about in draft form and move on. I've had a great weekend and I'd rather write about that while it's fresh in my mind than something that I did two or more weeks ago. So, this is the cliff notes version of my life in the past two weeks, particularly if you've lost most of the pages toward the end.

At some point, my dad and I went to the Nantucket Cafe and had lunch. I tried their eggsalad for the first time and it was good. I also discovered that I really like their lobster bisque, even though I had it before and it was too rich for me.

Over the course of the past several weeks, my dad and I have visited Lowe's approximately 58 times, for various reasons. My dad added loads of Closetmaid shelves, we needed to go back to get things I'd gotten charged for but were left behind and we needed a conduit for the connection between the transfer switch and my future whole house generator.

On New Year's Eve, we ate at Taverna Nikos for lunch and I was planning to have the grilled kasseri cheese sandwich, but I ate something else instead. No, wait, I did have that. I made banana bread that evening, which turned out absolutely beautifully. It was done in the middle! At midnight we all checked into the Possum Trot net on my ham radio and we "admired" the tree again.

On New Year's Day, I met JJ for coffee at Blue. Actually we met at Ooh-La-Latte first and they were closed. It was a beautiful day.

The following day, I met JJ, JA and EB for brunch at Vin Rouge. MP met us there later. It was delicious and loads of fun.

At one point I went to Fowler's with JJ, CL and PS. I had a bowl of Manhattan clam chowder and a wonderful slice of salmon in puffed pastry.

I went to another Orange County Radio Amateurs breakfast last Saturday, which was fun.

Tuesday night, I went to the Durham FM Association monthly meeting. There was a fantastic turnout, because Frank Terhaar-Yonkers, W4FTY, gave a talk about high power amateur rocketry. It was obvious that he was incredibly enthusiastic about his hobby. JH came to the meeting, which was very cool.

Other than that, everything before this weekend is kind of muddled together in my memories. There was lots of beautiful weather, most of which I missed in my office, but appreciated when going to and from my van. I've spent a lot of time working late and mailing out "Christmas" letters. I still have several that need mailing, which means that I'm planning to write something in them. At least, that's the plan.

EG Visit

The day after Christmas, EG was supposed to visit me before he returned to the airport, from visiting his grandmother in Swansboro. Well, the eastern part of the state had a major snow and ice storm that day, so his drive completely terrorized him. He made it to the airport, decided to return his rental car and then called me to tell me that he wasn't going to be able to make it. Since there hadn't been a flake between the airport and my home, in Hillsborough, I went to pick him up. That way he got to see my house and we had a nice multi-hour tangential conversation. Plus, I got to cook dinner for him. We had pasta with garlic, shrimp, bacon, warmed diced tomatoes and plenty of basil and pepper. We got so engrossed in our conversation that we barely made it to the airport in time for him to get through security before his flight. I wish EG had called me at least before returning the rental car, but it all worked out nicely. He'd probably just decided to keep my Christmas gift, a stuffed Stitch, for himself.

Lefty Directory and Christmas

I've been added to the Lefty Directory! I'm all excited about that. Of course, I need to get back to posting regularly and I should probably express some more anti-conservative sentiment, too.

It's been quite a while since I've posted, because I was doing too many blogworthy things to write about during my vacation and then I've been busy recovering from work reentry ever since.

My parents and I celebrated our first traditional Ramm Christmas on Christmas Eve at my house. We spent the day setting up the tree and untangling ornaments. I made a shrimp, bacon and pesto pizza and we ate that for dinner. Then we watched the tree in all of its glory while listening to the Bach Christmas Oratorio. We exchanged gifts somewhere in there, too. My mom's new Canon s500 hadn't come yet, but my dad got his ironwood Lawrence Favorite vase/sculpture and I got various vases that I picked out from the Carolina Designer Craftsmen show, Thanksgiving weekend. My dad also got a huge bolt cutter, for cutting my additional Closetmaid shelving. My parents actually surprised me with a carbon monoxide defector and a can strainer.

Christmas Day is always kind of anticlimactic in our family, but my mom did prepare a wonderful turkey dinner at their house. I got to visit with FIFO and see their tabletop tree. They cut the top of the tree I rejected and put it on top of the breakfast room table. It was decorated with white satin balls that we decorated a few years ago, white lights, tin tinsel and sterling silver snowflakes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that my parents have collected for years.

The Days Before Christmas

On the Tuesday before Christmas, I went to the Capital City Chop House after work, to eat dinner with JJ, JA and JB. I had been there almost five years ago, about a week or two after I started working at IBM. It's extremely close to the airport. In fact, it's the only thing between the exit off of I-40 and the airport itself. I missed the turn and had to loop around through the terminals. Dinner was very good, but it was very rich. The entree came with soup or a salad and I chose the she-crab soup. I'm afraid I didn't eat much at all, because it was so creamy. I have a low saturation point for thick creamy soups. It was also an entire vat of it. The salads that EB and JA ordered were gigantic, too. This was followed by crab cakes with a honey mustard nut sauce, which were quite good. The leftovers are still in my refrigerator. I need to do something about that. For dessert I had a single scoop of raspberry sorbet with chocolate sauce drizzled on top. I also observed that they served very good bread, too.

Wednesday, around lunch time, I went over to JJ and JA's and we went to Mad Hatter's Cafe and Bake Shop on Broad Street, in Durham. We all got salad trios, which are cool, because you can substitute soup for one of the salads. I chose three of their salads. The chicken salad was ok, but not the best I've ever had. The caesar was great. The best one was the grilled pineapple and apple salad, which had the fruit over greens and had a nice dressing on it. After lunch, we went back to their house and JJ showed me the awesome toy box that he built for his nephew.

A couple of the mornings before Christmas, I got a chance to talk to HCI on the radio as he was commuting to work. This was a nice treat, because usually I'm on my way there, too and I can't really talk on the radio while I'm driving.

I spent a lot of time looking on the web for ornaments made out of straw. My grandmother made the straw chains that we hang on our tree, but those are easy to break, especially when they tangle themselves while they are put away in boxes. I needed to repair them, but I wondered if anyone had any instructions or if anyone sold the straw chains. In fact, I couldn't find anything about straw chains at all. I did see a lot of sites for the straw stars, which we also have on our tree. I actually found a lot more sites when I started searching in German. For example, structuring produced a lot more hits for me.

I soaked the straw in very hot water and eventually I got the hang of tying the knots to form the chains. I repaired all of our chains such that we have many long strands now.

Merry Christmas!

A year ago today, I started this blog. I had no idea whether I would keep up with it or what overall shape it would take. I didn't know what adventures there would be to describe in the coming year. This year has, indeed, been quite amazing for me with all the changes in my every day life. I hope that this year of blogging will bring as cheerful a collection of posts as the last. ...and just where would this blog be without you, my three or four faithful readers? Um...

Merry Christmas everyone!

...and now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Breakfast in Hillsborough

Saturday morning, I went to the Orange County Radio Amateurs weekly breakfast at BoJangles. I used to go regularly, several years ago, but I got out of the habit due to sleeping late on the weekends. Actually, it used to be held at Kelsey's Cafe, in downtown Hillsborough. It was fun seeing so many people I hadn't seen since....the previous Monday at the Christmas meeting. I checked into the Orange County ARES net and enjoyed listening and participating in interesting conversations while eating an egg and cheese biscuit. My attending the breakfast was, of course, due to the benefits of my clock radio.

On Monday, it was extremely cold, with a low of 9F, and very windy. I decided to work from home. In fact, I opened the doors to the deck only very briefly, in order to throw some birdseed out onto the deck. I also brought my old alarm clock, with its thermometer, to investigate how cold the great room was getting to see how much the fireplace was helping. When it was a warm and cozy 71F in my bedroom, which is closer to the gas pack, it got down to 64F in my great room. Within an hour or so of turning on my gas fireplace, it was up to 71F in there. I am immensely pleased. I had hoped the fireplace was making a difference, but I could have been wrong. It's nice to know that it's actually doing quite a lot of good. Three cheers for HeatNGlo!

Merry Chri$tma$ to Me

Thursday, I really blew it as far managing my schedule. I might want to consider looking at my calendar occasionally. I scheduled an appointment to have my dad take my van to be worked on in Kernersville, which is near Greensboro, perhaps an hour away from Hillsborough. The lift, power seat and hand controls needed maintenance, such as lubrication, which needs to be done every six months or so. Well, Thursday was the day that I needed to drive to Parizade, in Durham, for our work Christmas party. I was really annoyed with myself, because that meant that my mom had to give me a ride from work to the restaurant. It, however, turned out to be a good thing.

My dad hadn't even gotten out of Kernersville before the power steering died on my van. It has an electrical backup power steering system, so he was able to make it back to Triad Mobility Center, where the maintenance work was done. It's very good to know that the backup system cut in automatically, but I'm still glad that my dad was driving, to test it out. So, major brake repairs and replacement of the power steering are my Christmas present to myself this year.

Thursday night, I also checked into the Durham FM Association Thursday night net on my ham radio. This net was resurrected rather recently after a year of abandoning it. For those of you who are not hams, most amateur radio nets have a person who is net control and then other hams call that station. Net control makes a list and then calls each ham back individually to give them a turn at saying something. It can be a fun way to communicate. I used to check into these things quite frequently, several years ago. I enjoyed being net control occasionally, too.

Christmas Ham Dinners

Last Monday, (a week ago!), I went to the Orange County Radio Amateurs (OCRA) annual Christmas dinner. Instead of meeting at the 911 center, the entire meeting is held at the Village Diner, in Hillsborough. As I recall, 29 people showed up, which was a great turnout. I'm not especially fond of the food at the Village Diner, but I ordered a chicken salad sandwich, which was pretty good. I do like their country fried steak on their buffet, but I don't eat beef anymore. Unlike my 6-8 month quasi-vegetarianism, I am pretty religious about avoiding beef. It's not hard.

On Tuesday, I went to the annual Durham FM Association (DFMA) Christmas meeting. That's held at Fudrucker's, in Durham. The three main traditions of that are the collection money for the Durham Rescue Mission, collection of gifts to be donated to Social Services for kids and random trading of gifts among the members of the club. When I first joined the club, back in 1997, gag gifts were encouraged for the member exchange, but that has been largely abandoned. Lots of people got peanuts and candy, which was nice. The ARRL section manager attended the meeting and gave an impromptu talk that lasted at least a half an hour. It was actually fairly interesting, but most people seem to want to get out of the Christmas meeting fairly quickly. The turnout was quite low, so there was a lot of discussion on how to increase club participation, including the use of the repeaters. I think a different meeting place might help, although I certainly enjoyed the vanilla milkshake and French fries that I ate for dinner. Yes, I did have a nutritious lunch that day.

Food and Tea

Sunday morning, my dad and I made crepe style pancakes again. It's still tricky adjusting the heat on the cooktop. We had the heat on the frying pan way too hot at the beginning and then it takes a while to cool it down. I keep hearing legends about the magic of electric frying pans.

We took my brother to ACME Food & Beverage Company again for dinner. This time I had a pork empanada with spicy guacamole and sour cream. It was quite good, but spicy is an understatement. The empanada contained lots of black beans, which were also really good. For dessert, I had a decaf cappuchino. That's right, I didn't order anything other than a beverage. I really didn't feel like having anything more than that. It's shocking, but the cappuchino was excellent.

My brother flew home to Boston this morning. It was great that he finally got to see my house and we, of course, got to see him. Maybe someday he'll have enough vacation and we'll have enough activities planned such that he can stay a little longer.

I made some tea, this morning, with the Assam tea and a new yellow teapot that my brother gave me for birthday/Christmas. The pot, which came from the Upton Tea Company, has a cylindrical filter, which holds loose tea leaves and sits in the pot opening. My brother is pretty serious about his tea and I suspect he would have even used a tea cozy, had I had one. Fortunately, a kitchen towel sufficed. Note that my new teapot matches my bright yellow tea/coffee cup beautifully.

Food and Animal Watching

My brother, Karl, arrived Friday night. I showed off the house, since he hadn't seen it since its early stages last Christmas. Afterwards, we had some of my lemon meringue pie.

Saturday morning, I saw a pileated woodpecker in the oaks outside my great room windows. I was able to grab my binoculars and get a really good look. That was extremely exciting, because they aren't very common. Actually, it's not that unusual to hear them around here, but I have rarely actually seen them.
Incidently, I haven't seen the red headed woodpecker recently.

A little after noon, we drove over to A&M Grill, in Mebane. They have very good barbecue. It has a strong vinegar flavor, and, interestingly enough, a reddish sauce. I'm pretty picky about my barbecue, because I don't necessarily like what is thought to be truly good North Carolina barbecue. I've always liked Bullock's, but their food isn't quite as good as it used to be, but a good barbecue sandwich must have coleslaw on it and they have simply the best.

Afterwards, we drove by to see the buffalo in rural Orange County. My mom saw them just the other day and she's been eager to show us where they live ever since. We drove up and took pictures of the two of them, who didn't seem eager to get up and greet us, although we could consider ourselves glared at. This is probably a good thing, given their size. They look cute and cuddly, but I believe looks are quite deceiving, in this case.

Our neighbor, Mr D, gave us a whole bunch of catfish, which he caught on Lake Gaston. My mom fried them up at my house and I demonstrated my comparatively new talent of microwaving frozen corn and peas.

Birthday

I really need to write more often, because I usually have way too much to say if I wait too long.

Last Tuesday, December 7th, was my birthday. My office door was adorned with a "Happy Birthday" streamer. It didn't go up that high where it crossed the opening, so I suspected that the culprit was fairly short. Given that the majority of my friends at work are 5'1" or under, this didn't narrow it down too much.
It turned out that CL did it, but GA assisted with the tape. I generally think of everyone as being tall, so it was cool comparing people's heights while they were standing in my doorway.

GA had told me the previous day that she, CL, SY, EB and possibly some other people would take me out to lunch. We finally decided on Champa, since that's so convenient and very good. I had my usual Thai Iced Tea and shrimp Pad Thai. GA and SY left early and CL rode with me. I was suspcious at their leaving early, but I couldn't get any info out of her. I turned out that GA and SY had gotten a fourteen piece cheesecake sampler at BJ's. We had that afterwards, so I was completely stuffed during the afternoon. GA got me a whole bunch of assorted Marvin the Martian things and a stuffed penguin wearing a toboggan and scarf. TH got me a set of vinyl juggling balls.

On the way home from work that night, my car started running very roughly. My parents and I drove to ACME Foode and Beverage Company, where I had rainbow trout with capers, bacon and caramelized onions over roasted potatoes. For dessert we shared Jamaican style gingerbread with housemade vanilla icecream, drizzled with cranberry compote and surrounded by a moat of caramel sauce. The gingerbread was very dense. The consistency was somewhere between a brownie and a piece of toffee, but it was nice and spicy.

When we arrived at ACME, I noticed a strange smell, but decided that perhaps it was related to the restaurant. When we got back to my house, the smell was very strong and decidedly bad. We decided that it would be better to back the van out onto the concrete bad to keep the smell from getting any worse inside the house and to potentially keep the house from burning down if there were something seriously wrong. My mom drove me to work for the next couple of days and my dad was able to take it to Braxton Tire on Thursday morning.

It turns out that the problem with my van was actually the brakes. I'd noticed a problem with its pulling to the left for a long time, but they had never been able to find anything wrong. I had just gotten used to it. Well, it turns out that the caliper on the front right side needed replacing, as well as the hoses. They said that one of the pistons in the caliper was frozen. With an oil change, it all cost me $500. Nice. At least it's all fixed now and it's running beautifully. I guess I know what failing brakes smell like now, too.

The best thing that happened this week is probably that my new washing machine got delivered! Exactly two months after my four month old washing machine failed, Lowe's delivered a new one. It is shocking to me that it took this long. Frigidaire's customer service is just awful. I had to talk to four different people before I found someone who was serious about helping me. Even then, I had to call Lowe's several more times to make sure they got the authorization and followed through.

On Friday I made another lemon meringue pie for my brother's impending visit. It turned out well. I was extremely worried about it, because I almost dropped the thing in my lap when I was baking the crust and a piece broke off the edge. It also cracked quite a bit and I thought the filling would seep under it and make everything soggy. It actually turned out great. There still wasn't as much meringue as I would like, even though I used the standard hand mixer beaters this time.

We will fight for bovine freedom...

Here are two links that I recommend:

The first is an animated music video about our bovine friends. It's very catchy.

The second is a website that lists the companies that make less than 55% of their donations to the Republicans. It's actually quite surprising which of the companies strongly support the Democrats, but it's nice to see.

It's been a busy week. Here are some of the highlights:

Wednesday night, I went my dad and I met at Chai's. I really enjoyed my meal this time. I order a Japanese Teriyaki rice bowl, with shrimp. It was exactly what I was hoping for. They were out of Gyoza dumplings, so we got some Fresh Basil Rolls, which were quite good. After dinner, we went to go hear AE play the French horn in a Duke Symphony Orchestra performance. I also saw GM there and got to chat with both of them a bit.

Thursday night, I went to my parents' house and my mom made a shrimp and bacon pizza. It was nice to visit with FIFO.

Friday night, I went to the Duke Computer Science Department holiday party. It was relatively fun and they had a really good salad with marshmallows, maraschino cherries, oranges, coconut and toasted pecans all in a creamy white sauce.

As I was driving home from the party, I witnessed a pedestrian's being hit by the glancing blow of a car. It was at the intersection of LaSalle and Erwin. I had a clear view and I was the only one who stopped, so, this afternoon I had to write an account of everything I saw. They pedestrian wasn't seriously hurt, but it could have been so much worse.

Saturday night, I met GM and AE at Southpoint. We had a very difficult time finding a place to eat on such a busy shopping day. After peeking in several restaurants, we finally ended up at the Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which was fairly empty. It wasn't too bad. I had a barbecued chicken pineapple wrap, which was pretty good. I also had a "Blimey Limey" smoothie, which was strawberry, orange, lime and pineapple. It strongly reminded me of chewable vitamin pills that I used to have, which was not a favorable association. It would have probably tasted really good to anyone else. Afterwards we went to Nordstrom's and while AE shopped for makeup, GM and I wandered around while thinking that there wasn't anything the store that was suitable for purchasing as a Christmas gift. Finally, after searching fruitlessly for a puzzle store, we found the store, Origins, which had some decent smelling lotions. Actually, the one I really liked was "White Tea", but I wasn't about to spend that much on lotion for myself. Finally, we rushed off to the theatre to see "The Incredibles", which was a cute animated Pixar film. I enjoyed it, but I've enjoyed ever other Pixar film that I've seen.

I made biscuits this morning. I love making biscuits, because it's just so easy and they taste so good, especially with ginger preserves.

Last Christmas, everyone in my organization at work was given a gift certificate to either Maggiano's, the Angus Barn or 42nd Street Oyster Bar. I picked Maggiano's, because it was the closest to where I live. Well, almost a year has passed and I finally used it today. I had actually decided to use it at Big Bowl instead, but the Durham location recently closed and I didn't feel like driving to Virginia. Maggiano's has a reputation for long wait times and being expensive. I don't think it's actually that bad, expense wise, if you order sensibly. The portions are huge and the food is quite good. We four cheese ravioli and garlic shrimp with shells. I'd had the ravioli several months ago, so I knew I liked it. We also got parmesan garlic bread and Shrimp Oreganata, which was probably overpriced, but quite good. For dessert, we had spumoni ice cream, which was a nice end to the meal.

We will run free with the buffalo...

Shadow 1989-2004

This picture of Shadow was taken on Christmas Day, 2001.

The past day or so has been a sad time for me. My cat, Shadow, was put to sleep yesterday. He had lymphoma for several years, but it has been well under control, due to medication. He even went to the vet two weeks ago and the vet didn't find anything. Since that visit, a mass developed in his abdomen. The vet didn't think that he would have survived surgery. I know I should be happy that he lived as long as he did with the lymphoma, but it's still very difficult.

Shadow had an unusual personality, in part because he had many characteristics that were similar to a dog's.
Before he became deaf, he would come when he was called. He would walk alongside you. He would usually greet me as I pulled my van into the driveway. He even drooled. Perhaps it was because he grew up with my previous dog, Merlin.

In his youth, he also exhibited somewhat psychotic behavior. He would be very loving one minute and viciously attack the next. When he was quite young, I remember his dangling from my arm and my dad had to remove him. Fortunately, I often wore long velour sleeves during the winter in those days. He actually stopped attacking me when he was quite young, but he still considered my mom to be fair game and would occasionally do things like sink his teeth into one of her ankles as she was walking by.

The nicest thing about Shadow was that he really liked me, perhaps more than any other pet that I've owned. When I lived in Durham, we once had a huge thunderstorm and as I left the house in that afternoon, he crawled out from underneath one of our cars and crawled into my lap. He was just the teeniest kitten, much too young to be outside without his mother. When I came back later, he did the same thing. When I went in the house, he sounded as if he were a human frantically wailing to get in. It was almost a scream. Of course, despite already having three other cats and a dog, I was reduced to tears. I had to keep him! We were moving to Hillsborough, so my mom and I took him to the house, because we weren't sure how well such a tiny kitten would be able to fend off the other cats. We put up Lost Kitten signs and no sooner did we get to Hillsborough (which seemed much farther from Durham at the point), one our neighbors called to say "she" was hers. We drove back and talked to her. She was an elderly lady whose children insisted she take one of the kittens from their litter. Instead of keeping him inside until he was old enough, she just let him outside immediately.
Fortunately, she saw how much Shadow, who was plastered to my lap, liked me and suggested that I keep him. I was overjoyed.

Right now, I'm watching Duke basketball on tv and I'm reminded how Shadow used to sit in top of our television and bat at Bobby Hurley with his paws. I will miss him a great deal.

Carolina Designer Craftsmen and Turkey Spaghetti

Yesterday, I went to the Carolina Designer Craftsmen show, at the fairgrounds in Raleigh. It's held every Thanksgiving weekend and I've gone every year for at least ten years, with the exception of one year when I had the flu. The craftspeople that exibit there have exceptional work. I did a lot of Christmas shopping for myself and others. I've run out of things I absolutely need for the house, so I decided to ask my parents for things I wanted from CDC for my birthday and Christmas.

I knew I wanted a piece by Lawrence Favorite, who works with ironwood and inlays it with turquoise. It's a striking combination. I also always get earrings made by Janet Harriman and Nell Chandler. All of those artists are such nice people and I enjoy talking to them every year. I also picked out raku vases from people I'd never bought from before, Phil Chapman and Andy Smith. I picked out a wood turned vase made out of spalted pecan, by Darrell Rhudy. The Smith vase is gray with a lemon yellow striped pattern. Chapman, who was new to the show, sold me a vase that was crackled with a gradation of gray and beige.

I did fairly random stuff today, but I did make spaghetti with leftover turkey, for dinner. I added three small tomatoes, turkey cut up in small pieces, diced leftover garlicky French beans, basil, black pepper and just a little orange peel. I should have either served the meat and vegetables separately and not tossed it with the pasta or made a smaller amount of pasta. It didn't seem like enough stuff to go with a pound of pasta. I could have made more turkey and veggies, of course.

Thanksgiving

Well, yesterday was Thanksgiving. JJ and JA came over, which was quite a treat. I made a lemon meringue pie, rolls, and cranberry sauce. Wednesday night, I made our traditional lime jello with crushed pineapple, cream cheese and pecans. My mom made the turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and garlicky green beans. JA brought Thai pumpkin soup and candied yams. It was way too much food, which is ideal on Thanksgiving.

The pie turned out great, considering it was my first pie. The rolls were also much better, or at least more normal this time. After making so much pizza dough, I've learned that I may need to add extra flour to get it to the right consistency. More importantly, I've learned what the right consistency is. I also liked making the jello, since it was pretty easy. The cranberry sauce was pretty easy, too, actually. The pie was a little more challenging, particularly the pie filling.

One of the problems that I've had with making dough, including cookie dough, is that thick dough in my Kitchenaid mixer causes the bowl to rotate on its screw on base. It's to such a degree that I find it impossible to get it off. Even my dad had difficulties yesterday. I've googled and haven't been able to find a solution to this problem, but I'm considering adding some sort of lubrication to see if that helps.

It really was fun having JJ and JA over. It's always much nicer to have guests on Thanksgiving, so it seems more like a holiday. I love JA's soup, too. I don't generally like orange vegetables in dishes, but his pumpkin soup is a wonderful exception. I, for example, am not willing to eat yams, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, cooked carrots or butternut squash (with the exception of butternut squash ravioli). It's no wonder my night vision is lousy. Raw carrots are fine, as are carrot cake and pumpkin bread.

The weather was interesting yesterday, too. Early in the morning, we had a storm that just sort of flew through. One minute there were partly cloudy skies and the next, it was black overhead. It was gone quickly as it came. The rest of the day was extremely windy with deep blue skies and puffy white clouds as the temperature dropped precipitously.

Today, as soon as I got dressed, I immediately started washing dishes. In just a few hours, I had most of them tackled. By then I was pretty exhausted.

Tonight, my parents and I went to Taverna Nikos for dinner. I had shrimp with spinach fettucine and spinach leaves in a lovely cream sauce. The shrimp were just perfect. For dessert, I had a bowl of rice pudding. D was our waiter and he commisterated with us on the election results.

I finally have a clock radio!

Yesterday, my mom went to CostCo and picked up the Sony ICF-CF863V. The anxious decision making is over. The good thing is that it sounds great! I'm extremely pleased with it. It worked, too. I got up at 6:30 am, which used to be my usual time when I lived with my parents. It was easy with the radio blaring in the bathroom. Unlike turning off my old alarm clock, it's a little difficult to go to another room and turn it off without waking up. I got to work an hour earlier (which makes sense, given that I've been getting up around 7:30). I felt better, too, because I didn't doze off a few times due to snoozes or resetting my alarm.

Still no word on the replacement of my Frigidaire washing machine, which has been deceased about about 6 weeks now...

Juggling Evening and the Benson Hamfest

Had I written a few days ago, I would have complained about my coffee pot user error, whined about nicking the wall in my bedroom wtih a wicker stool and described observing an unoccupied car burning along the side of the Durham Freeway. Those calamities are so last week.

Instead I will tell you about my weekend. Last night, GM, AE and JH came over. First we had lots of fun practicing juggling. I even think there is hope for me. It just might be possible for me to learn to juggle. I might want to consider practicing more than twice a month, though. It really is a lot of fun, even if you're not very good experienced. We ate two pizzas from the new Papa John's in Hillsborough. I called for delivery and they actually found my house, which is pretty amazing. Afterwards, we ate macaroons that I baked yesterday afternoon. Finally, we watched two episodes of Keeping Up Appearances and two Alfred Hitchcock shorts 0n AE's DVDs. The coolest thing is that I found out that JH, too, is a ham radio operator! That's two hams that I've become friends with before finding out they were hams.

The other such ham, HC, had been encouraging me to go to the Benson Hamfest, a.k.a. JARSFest. So, I got up at 5am this morning in order to be in Benson a little after 8am. Note that Benson is at the intersection of I-40 and I-95, way south of Raleigh, in Johnston County. Fortunately I did get a chance to talk to HC a while at the hamfest and wander around. It's pretty crowded in their indoor area, but the tailgating outside was fantastic in today's beautiful weather. I got to chat with several hams that I hadn't seen in a while. The sad news was that Communications Headquarters, a Wilmington, NC based ham radio equipment retail store, is going out of business.

In other news, I still have not picked out a clock radio. I am debating between the Sony ICF-CD843V and the Sony ICF-CD863V.

Tilapia Radio

This weekend, I've been looking on-line for a clock radio. I had no idea how difficult this would be. All I really want is a good sounding stereo AM/FM receiver with dual alarms and a battery backup. I would also prefer that it last several years. This is not something that is easy to find. I guess I'm also hoping that it not cost a fortune. Generally it seems that if you want decent basic features, then you also have to get it with a CD player. It's like shopping for a nightlight and ending up with a refrigerator. I'm just going to have to sleep on this and hope that I'm motivated enough to wake up and buy it another day. The idea is that I want to put this in the bathroom so I have to actually get up in order to turn it off. I also want to be able to enjoy the music while I'm getting ready in the mornings. Perhaps that will help with the motivation, too.

I unpacked boxes most of the day and then cooked dinner for my dad. My mom wasn't hungry. In case you're wondering, she said that she wasn't hungry before we decided not to go out to eat. I cooked a pot of rice and baked three tilapia filets with basil, lots of minced garlic, celery and tomatoes. I was actually extremely pleased with the way it turned out. The celery and tomatoes seem to have kept the temperature down, so it had to stay in an extra four minutes. Next time I might add more tomatoes.

Treasured Pancakes

I feel like blogging and, therefore, I should probably blog. Then I can clean and unpack boxes. Then I can look over the code that I want to look over sometime this weekend, since I don't think I fully absorbed it yesterday. There.. Now I have my priorities in (reverse) order.

Wrong. It was necessary to feed the birds and squirrels once more before blogging.

There were two major exciting events this week. Last Sunday I made thin pancakes with my dad and on Thursday night I went to see National Treasure.

Before time began (sometime before I was born), my dad came up with a recipe for quasi crepe pancakes. They are plate sized, or more accurately, bottom of the frying pan in diamter and two to three millimeters thick. To give you an idea, they have a dozen eggs in them, per three to four servings or ten pancakes. I'd be happy to e-mail readers the recipes for anything I've mentioned, by the way. In fact, I still need to send the mocha cake recipe to KB. Dad's pancakes are great, because they can be served with syrup or filled with fresh fruit and real whipped cream. They would also be good with anything else inside, such as chicken and gravy or salmon and cream sauce. They are a little tricky to flip without tearing, so I really appreciated my dad's help. I also added the last ten eggs to the batter all at once, when I should have either added them while the mixer was going or at least mixed after the addition of each egg. If I dothat, it should be easier to get out the lumps next time.

JR, at work, gave me four free passes to go to a sneak preview of National Treasure on Wednesday night. Although I'd heard about other friends of mine going to see movies with free passes, I'd never tried it myself, so I was definitely curious. I invited CL, JL and JL's dad to go with me. I rushed over after work to JL's office and CL picked up food from Wendy's and then we ate quickly before heading over the Wynnsong, in Durham.
It was also cool getting to meet JL's father for the first time after hearing so much about him.

There weren't many people in the theatre, except for those who were waiting in line to see National Treasure. Apparently, they always give away more passes than people will fit in the theatre to ensure that it's full.
I'm not entirely sure why they have these sneak previews except for the possibility that they are trying to seed the word-of-mouth advertising or perhaps it's so they can sell concessions on an otherwise off night.
In any case, I really enjoyed the movie. It was produced by the same people that did Pirates of the Caribbean and it definitely had a similar flow in that it was faced paced and fairly funny at times. I often like movies with Nicholas Cage in them, but there are some exceptions. Overall, I do recommend the film and would be happy to see it again. Surprisingly, I think that's true for several of the movies I've seen lately.

Today my mom picked up food from the Q-shack. Every time I hear the name of the place, I think of an altered B-52's song. Unfortunately, they have stopped making my cherished fried pies. They only make cobbler now and, for some reason, my mom decided that I didn't like cobbler. I have no idea why, but it's probably for the best, because I just put a full four cup container of leftovers in the refrigerator. I have this feeling that after half of a loaded baked potato, hush puppies and onion rings, I'm not going to be anywhere close to hungry at dinner time.

A Rough Week

I've intended to post something all week that would sum up the feeling angst that many of us now feel. I know I am not the only one who had to display heroic levels of self restraint when encountering gleeful Republicans at the office or resist the urge to incite road rage in the drivers of pickups sporting "W" stickers in combination with disrespectful American flag waving during the morning commute. Or perhaps you don't even have a morning commute anymore.

People, such as Michael Moore, have encouraged us to look on the bright side or at least not to slit our wrists. At *least* 55, 949, 407 people voted for Kerry. That's quite a few. Only (at least) 115, 409, 172 people voted all together. That means, using 2000 census figures, (at most) 166, 012, 734 didn't vote. Why? Some of those people think that the fight is fixed, so why bother. Some of those people probably didn't register in time.
Some of those people couldn't get to the polls easily. Did the people who benefit from Meals on Wheels get to vote? Are all the polling places accessible to everyone? If there are people who just don't care, then why? Why are the voting mechanisms different in some states from others? If voters in Oregon get their ballots by mail, then shouldn't we all? Shouldn't black box voting be abandoned? Obviously there are questions still to be answered and more work to be done. If, in the worse case, it is fixed, then something needs to be done about it.

There won't be a major election for a while and people will keep dying in Iraq, the environment will be damaged and kids in our schools will be educated about creationism while we wait for another chance. I realize that the obvious solution is to round up the 59,459,765 Bush voters (Guantanamo style) and hold them in a containment area in close proximity to the US's leaking chemical weapon stockpiles. I'm afraid that it's probably *not* an option.

Many people simply are not aware of what is going in the world around them. In most people's cases, all they have time to do is watch the news. That's what I do. I try to at least make sure I watch every new episode of the Daily Show. Given that news media is influenced by their corporations or they feel threatened enough not to report the news at all, simply watching the news does not provide people with an adequate sense of their surroundings. It is vitally important that you try to educate these people by explaining what you have read in books, foreign newspapers and, yes, on the net. There are so many reputable resources available that you should have no trouble backing up your arguments. I have even run into many progressive friends who don't know about all the activities of the neocons, so it's important to make sure that they are on top of things as well.

What else can you do? Hit them in the only place they care about, their pocketbooks. I know that the five or so people who read my blog regularly will be something like the nibble of a dustmite, but every little bit helps.
Check out boycottbush.net, which, somewhat surprisingly, is a British site. There are other good links on there, too. Sometimes choosing products or businesses based on the candidates they support is impractical, but if enough people choose wisely at least part of the time, it will make a difference.

Halloween and Election Eve

Yesterday was Halloween. The excitement began when my dad and I went to the American Tobacco Historic District to hear the Durham Community Concert Band. I went because both GM and AE play in it. Knowing the musicians always makes concerts more fun. For added entertainment, GM dressed up as a werewolf, complete with furry hands and socks. AE had bright green hair! It's funny that I knew the only people dressed up out of 55 people.

Afterwards, I went over to JJ and JA's place to hang out while the Trick'r'Treaters came by steal candy. I've never seen so many in my life. They easily had 500 kids. It obviously helps to live in a closely packed urban neighorhood. It was amazing. Amongst the many spidermen, Tiggers, unidentified costumes and princesses, there were two very cool groups. There were two girls together and one of them was a weapons inspector and the other was a bomb. The inspector was looking around everywhere with a magnifying glass. The bomb said "Vote for Bush!" The inspector said, "No, don't tell them that!" The bomb said, "Oh! That's right! Vote for Kerry, because he's the bomb." We gave them extra candy. There were also 12-15 teenage pirates that had a huge chest and implied that they were going to take all our candy. Instead of taking the offered three pieces for each of them, they said they would take 60 each, but they just took a single handful for the whole group. Their costumes were very well done, too. It was a beautiful night for Halloween and we just sat on their front porch, eating cheese and crackers while the kids grabbed candy. One girl wanted one of our crackers and seemed very excited about getting one.

I made calls for the Kerry PhoneCorps again this evening. I actually signed some people up! It was very exciting, indeed. Unfortunately, it said that the call center was closed at 9pm, when I could have kept calling time zones to the west of here. It's definitely let me call later than that before, so that's really odd.

If you haven't voted already, please vote tomorrow. If you're still undecided, just go to the polling place and think, "What would Lenore do?" Vote accordingly.

A Few More Calls

I just called eight more people for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. This time I was calling Colorado and Washington State. Several people were already out at campaign events! That's pretty exciting. I left some messages, but everyone I talked to either already signed up or eager to help out in some other way. I would call more people, but I had to charge my cell phone battery again. Anyway, it was very encouraging.

I slept late this morning and then spent the rest of the day doing random house cleaning. The kitchen floor looks pretty good now that the cookie dough and walnuts are gone. I went to Casa Ibarra with my parents and ate Vegetarian #10. As my brother has said, this blog should really be titled "What's For Supper?"

Home is Where you Lose your Hat

Several people have asked me, since I've moved into my house, whether it "feels like home". I've always said I wasn't sure, but my parents' house still felt like home to me. In fact, I may have mentioned that in my blog at some point. I have now determined that it does, indeed, feel like home, because I can now no longer find anything. I have this $25 off rebate for my Kitchen-Aid mixer that's due on Sunday and I can't find the packing slip to send in as the receipt. I could probably use the order confirmation that Amazon sent me via e-mail, but I forgot to print it while I was at work. It's possible that I could get the printer working here, but there's no guarantee of that. Driving somewhere to do it makes less sense given the gas prices and the amount of time involved. In any case, I am now making an effort to start filing stuff in my filing cabinet.

Another exciting thing (as if the last topic were exciting) was that I believe that a juvenile red headed woodpecker visited my deck this week. I feed the birds on my deck rail and as I was getting ready for work, I saw a large bird with a brown head, a black back and a bright white spotted or mottled area near the tail. It was the same size, shape and had the same mannerisms of a red bellied woodpecker. Red headed woodpeckers are pretty rare around here, so it was pretty exciting. At the very least, I've never seen a bird like that one before.

Tonight I went to see the English Concert, which was a part of the Duke Artist's Series. I enjoyed it a great deal. They played mostly baroque and baroquey classical pieces of such composers as Vivaldi and Mozart. I'm definitely a fan of Vivaldi and all the music was lovely. The musicians all performed in different outfits of muted dark blues and purples, which added to the visual appeal of the performance. The director and violin soloist, Andrew Manze, introduced each piece by providing historical information as well as pointing out some of the structural components and themes of the pieces. This was well done and often humorous. It was clear that the musicians, especially Manze, enjoyed the music and enjoyed performing it, which is always nice to see.

If Only My DVR Could Read My Mind

Can you believe it? After anxiously awaiting Jon Stewart's appearance on 60 Minutes, I forgot to set my DVR to record it. I must have thought about it at least ten times today, but most of the time my hands were covered in cookie dough. Not only was I not able to watch it after coming home from dinner, but I won't be able to see it in HD. It's most distressing. Fortunately, I will be able to see it at my parents' house on an inferior television. I had to console myself by seeking out a video of the Jon Stewart Crossfire appearance, which was entertaining and thought provoking. IFilm has it in its entirety.

I made chocolate chip cookies today for someone at work, in order to thank him for how much he's helped me. Given how rich these are, he may have to get his wife and son to help him out.

Last time I forgot to mention the link to the Wolfpacks for Truth, which was in response to the Bush/Cheney wolf fear tactic commercial.

My parents and I went to ACME Food & Beverage Company tonight and I had fettucine with artichoke, fennel and saffron cream followed by pear and ginger bread pudding. Fortunately, I have enough to take to work for lunch tomorrow.

Voting and PhoneCorps

I voted today. We have "early voting" here, which is really voting by absentee. In my case, I voted curbside and made sure that my dad took in my ballot. I'm still paranoid about the potential of someone's carrying in my vote that might have differing political views from mine. It seems as if it should be possible to come up with some scheme to maintain the privacy of curbside voters. Or perhaps they could hold early voting in accessible locations? What a novel idea.

This afternoon I debated about whether I should participate in the Kerry-Edwards campaign PhoneCorps. I really wanted to do it, but then I discovered that I would be calling people in other states. I don't have a long distance plan and I was skeptical about whether my cell phone would be good enough at my house. I eventually gave it a try and called thirty people. I was signing up people to go door to door to ask people to vote. I left a lot of answering machine messages, but perhaps that isn't too surprising on a Saturday night.
I did end up talking to several people who were very enthusiastic about the campaign, but couldn't participate for one reason or another or had already participated in an event today. One of the women, who I talked to for close to ten minutes, was a charming 79 year old lady who reassured me that all her family members, but one, were voting democratic and stressed how very important it was that we get rid of Bush. A canvasser had already visited her earlier today and she'd already voted, but she was still happy to talk to me about her horror at what has and is happening in Iraq and how the administration compares to what she observed while living in Europe during the second world war. That's the sort of conversation that makes calling random strangers on the opposite side of the nation worth it. ..and maybe some will remember to listen to their answering machines when they get back home.

I almost forgot to stress the significance of this. I'm not sure if I've mentioned previously in my blog, but people who know me quite well probably know that I absolutely hate making phone calls. With some exceptions, such as making restaurant reservations, I feel sometimes extremely anxious before calling and other times just slightly anxious. I don't understand it and probably never will. In any case, I really wanted to participate in this, because it's something that I can actually do for the campaign and I figured it would be good for me.

Battle of the Signs

Someone (a neighbor?) put a Bush-Cheney sign just outside the edge of my property line at the end of our main driveway today. I thought it was necessary for my mom to immediately go out in search of our own Kerry-Edwards sign. She rushed off to the Orange County Democratic Party to get 3 Kerry-Edwards signs, 2 bumperstickers, a David Price sign and button. So now, if you drive by my driveway, you will see at least a somewhat more balanced display. Fortunately, the sign for our Democratic congressman, Price, tips it a little in the appropriate direction. Hopefully this will not attract signs for the horrid Republicans that are running for governor and the senate. I've now added another bumpersticker to my van and my mom promises to wear the button, since I already have my own (thanks to KB!).

Party II

I took the day off on Friday and the washing machine came by, because the door switch came in. Unfortunately, it seems that the timer was also bad, so he had to order a new timer. It will work again someday. Meanwhile, I baked chocolate chip cookies and coconut macaroons for my second party.

The second party, which was mainly intended for people who couldn't make my first party and those who I thought would like to visit with those people, was actually quite small. Everyone who had children declined, because of the difficulties in getting a babysitter or some other conflict. Nine of us, including me and my parents, sat around talking and eating for four hours or so, which was fun. I had mostly the same food as last time: lemon parmesan garlic dip, guacamole, cheeses, veggies, fruit, samsosas and the cookies mentioned above. I also had cold shrimp with cocktail sauce, which was surprisingly popular and very easy to serve. One thing that was interesting was that at my previous party, for which I had asked a couple of people to bring extra chairs, everyone stood. For this one, everyone sat down the entire time. Parties are obviously unpredictable.

Today my dad and I went to Sam's Club, because my mom had seen a digital piano that I might want for my birthday/Christmas. I read up a bit on-line about the Yamaha DGX500 and it didn't sound like something I would be interested in, because it didn't have weighted keys. We went to Sam's Club anyway, just to take a look and because I needed another case of IBC root beer. Even though the piano is not what I want, it's gotten me started looking at what's available in digital pianos and synthesizers, a market that I haven't looked at in over fifteen years. Like most electronic technology, it's come a long way.

Comment on the Last Debate

I have just a quick comment about tonight's debate. I don't think the recommendation to get an education if your job is outsourced will resonate with the voters whose jobs have been outsourced that already HAVE an education. I don't think an extra college diploma or courses at a community college will help your typical laid off software engineer. Yes, many people in manufacturing have been laid off, but it's definitely not a one size fits all problem.

Random Bits

There were several things that I neglected to mention in my last post. One of the reasons that last week's mocha cake and the macaroons turned out so much better is that my mom got me an oven thermometer and we were able to determine that you have to specify that the oven temperature is 360 degrees in order to get it up to 350 degrees. Apparently, that makes a big difference.

Also, one of JH's hobbies, that he demonstrated Saturday night, is contact juggling, which looks very cool.

My washing machine died Friday night. I spent most of the day waiting for the repairman to arrive. It looks as if the door lock switch failed and he'll have to order a new one. Joy. It's only been four months! I'm going to have to outsource my laundry related program activities. It will take an average of five to seven days for the part to come in.

You may have seen on other blogs the video that compares the eloquence of Bush ten years ago compared to his recent verbal blunders. If you haven't, I recommend that you check it out. If you think of Bush as being human (I realize this may seem a bit of a stretch), it's really rather sad. What's far more tragic (and scary) is the idea that someone who has obviously detiorated this much is running the country. It's one thing to be malevolent and another to be malevolent and suffering from dementia.

You also might want to check out this superb video by the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Juggling Macaroons

This week (during the week) the two main things (other than watching the debates) worth noting were that I went out to lunch twice. On Wednesday JJ and I went to Dale's Indian Cuisine and Friday CL, PS , and I went to Moe's Southwestern Grill, in Cary. I had a burrito at Moe's that reminded me of a Cosmic Cantina vegetarian one and it was about the same price. Last night I had a Burrito Cancun at Casa Ibarra, so not only did I have Mexican food twice in once day but I had burritos for both meals. I think that's a first. We got to sit outside for both lunch outings and the weather was absolutley perfect.

I've been cooking all day. GM, JH and AE came over for dinner. I made a shrimp, bacon, pesto and mozarella pizza with a spinach salad and coconut macaroons. Yes, I've made the same pizza for three weekends in a row. I'm going to have to learn to make something else for that many people, so I can invite people back a second time. This time I didn't overbeat the eggs for the macaroons so they actually looked normal. They even browned. I was very pleased.

Having them over was loads of fun. JH started teaching me how to juggle! I must say that I made more progress tonight than I ever have on my own.

After dinner we watched Pirates of the Carribean, which was very entertaining. It was yet another movie that I'd be happy to see again.

Lenore the Weekend Blogger

This week, I enjoyed yet another stellar weekend.

On Saturday morning, my mom and I left my house at 11:15 to head for 9th street find a parking space. For the 3rd time in four years, we intended to watch the NC Gay and Lesbian pride parade. JA is heavily involved in organizing it and I like to show my support. Plus, it's a really cool parade. I've thought for years about makin a sign that says "I'm straight, but they're great!", but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Unfortunately, someone pulled into my favorite parking space, just as I was pulling into the parking lot. We like parking across from Francesca's, so we can eat ice cream while we watch. We had to park in the George's Garage lot instead and they seem to have good coffee and good peanut butter cookies.

We waited an hour and a half for the parade to officially start. It's fun to people watch before that, although I have a feeling that people watching on 9th street would be pretty entertaining any Saturday morning of the year, or any other day, for that matter.

The parade was filled with the usual collection of motorcycles, gay pride organizations, bands, floats and a few drag queens. All the rainbow colored flags and baloons were nice and colorful, as always. I was happy to see that there were lots of Kerry supporters, both marching in the parade and watching from the side.

In the evening, I met GM and JH at Southpoint. We ate at Rockfish, where we shared calamari and oysters for appetizers and I had a cup of clam chowder for my meal. It was very good. Afterwards, we saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I enjoyed it. It was very entertaining and funny at times. I would be willing to see it again and, for me, that's a good recommendation.

This morning, I got up and started getting ready to get started cooking almost immediately. I made a mocha cake and a shrimp, bacon, pesto (and mozarella) pizza, just like last week. I also made a spinach salad with toasted almonds, raspberries, avacado and honey Asian citrus dressing from the Cook Something cookbook that RP gave me. JJ, JA, EB and MP came over to celenbrate JJ's birthday. I gave him a 256 MB usb flash drive. I put six birthday candles on the cake, to represent JJ's age in binary. I only lit three of them. Actually, JA lit them, because I'd forgotten how to use the lighter. I had a good time, of course.