hold....steady

(photo by Todd!)

I don't get bands sometimes. It's been awhile since I've been to a show at the 9:30 Club where the sound was so poorly mixed. Yeah, I'm not a music producer but I don't have to be - anymore than I need to be an actual chef to assess food. The Hold Steady happens to be a band that is unusually reliant on it's lead singer and lyrics. Even if you know all the songs - and I'm well-versed on most - if you can't hear the words then you're missing about 50% of their talent. What I know about the 9:30 is that they have a built-in sound system so it's not the venue, per se, that's the problem. Another experience sheds even more light on the issue: seeing the same band twice in the same building with the same system. I've seen the Old Crows there twice and the first show was just awful soundwise (and crowd-wise). The second show was so much more enjoyable as they either sorted out the sound, had a new board man, or listened to the venue when it comes to mixing. One more detail is that I have always sat in the same place so it's not a node / anti-node issue (I vaguely remember some of my 11th grade physics). Anyway, the rub is that the band's performance was energetic, the music sounded great, but the vocals were absolute crap, and in the end that's a killer. I was almost willing to write it all off as I was riding the Metro home when I remembered this was a short-notice, early evening, gig the night prior to them playing a festival today but then decided they don't get that benefit.

Here's a picture of something I discovered this morning after my shower:

Just to give you the lay of the land: the bathroom door is located just off the bottom left corner, the bed is off the bottom side, that's a wardrobe's leg you see on the left, and the living room / door from the bedroom is off the top of the photo (I apologize for not taking a more architectural / mall map-type photo). I would hope that everyone has the same initial reaction as I had, "Why has someone left a cup of coffee on the floor in the midst of the walking zone?" Am I (are we) crazy? It wasn't until 15 or 20 minutes later that I told X I may, or may not, have taken of picture of her coffee cup on the bedroom floor. In her little sideways voice she told me that I should be able to Poirot this little mystery. Well, I did look around and see that there was no dead or near-dead body laying on the floor near the cafe. Beyond that, I was useless. The truth sits somewhere between "I guess that's okay then," and "You're completely crazy" and isn't rally germane to the story. I will say this; in my experiences, women are much more likely than men to lay a cup or glass (wine, one each) on the floor. I'm all right with broad generalizations.

I had my fantasy football draft today in case you're wondering.

I'm off to make pizza and then sit about the place.

Love to all.

t

i'll need 10,000 copies

Another New Yorker feature (by Tad Friend) has drawn me in. This one, from the same issue as the divers, features Elon Musk and Tesla Motors. Musk, who has all sorts of business, engineering, and entrepreneurial history behind him, is pushing for a full-electric vehicle that uses lithium-ion batteries. It was this small portion of the piece that jumped out at me:

“The Roadster’s battery is a highly engineered arrangement of six thousand eight hundred and thirty-one finger-size laptop cells imported from Japan. Tesla adds two fuses to each cell so they’re all triple-fused, packs them all in six hundred and twenty-one cell modules, maintains the modules at a constant temperature with radiator coolant, and monitors them with twelve computers, then houses this amphibious latticework in a thick aluminum case shaped like a baby grand piano. The unit weighs half a ton.”

What I immediately screamed, in my head, was “How the hell is this going to work? A half a ton? Triple-fused cells numbering in the thousands? The mere idea is absurd.” It’s a nature reaction, isn’t it? Shortly after coming down from my perch of incredulity I remembered that phrase the Bill Gates allegedly uttered decades ago about no one ever needing more than 256K of computing power. It was a short hop and skip to a little research into the original PC; a product that must have seemed nigh impossible for the home or normal people. Here’s the wikipedia background on the forerunner to the PC life we take for granted: the IBM 5100. A few quick details most salient to my wonder:

A 5” CRT display
Several hundred kilobytes of ROM
64K of RAM
It weighed 55 pounds (and had a carrying case!)
12 different models ranged in price from $9,000-$20,000

Bear in mind that the price was in 1975 dollars – that range in 2009 dollars would be $31,000 – $81,000 for a big, old 55lb behemoth of circuits and high-end computing power.

My point? Aside from going to the moon, which isn’t yet an everyday or every person proposition, the going price of $100,000 for a Tesla roadster isn’t anything to worry much about in the long run. (We would be more willing to spent $100K on a car than $81K on a computer.) Musk believes that the price of the car will continue to halve as each new development/version rolls off the line. Whether or not the price actual does come down at the rate he suggests isn’t as important as believing we’ll get there; it’ll take someone half-crazed, and probably privately funded, to make it happen. IBM seems to me to be the equivalent in the 1970s of the American carmakers today: can’t be done, won’t be done, and we don’t much care. All the technology that can be developed to increase the viability and decrease the cost will come sooner or later; hopefully sooner. If it takes a decade, so be it. At least there’s someone out there who doesn’t find it all too pie-in-the-sky.

If you think we won’t eventually get to a non-gasoline burning vehicle then I’d not only point at the laptap on your lap but the iPod in your bag. Take a good, long look at them. The only thing that will stop the progress will be those that would rather see everything destroyed than give up with they have. Sorry, that was a bit off the deep…

t

game recipe. maybe you can score with her.

Here’s an ad from the local craigslist that I came upon when looking for tickets to a theatre (I think my search of “mammoth” brought this to my screen):

I have a horde 80 hunter and 80 death knight on the same server in world of warcraft. im looking to sell them.

+The hunters+ wearing half tier 7.5 and 2 tier 8.5 pieces all epicd. hes a male troll epic flyer also a mammoth hes pretty dam geared

+the death knights+ got 2 tier 8 almost enough emblems for another tier 8 piece full epicd as well and tier 7.5, no epic flyer on this toon but lots of quests undone for a lot of money. hes undead male hes also got epicd out tank set good enough to tank uld 10. 30k health unbuffed

I have no idea what’s going on with this any of this stuff. I know it’s a video game (?) of sorts but do people really sell this stuff to each other? These 80 hunter and 80 death knight – I can’t tell if it’s 80 of each for sale of they have some rank of 80 and are individuals – are going for $300. Of course, they are ‘epicd’.

About a year ago I read a Slate.com article on internet optical shops. I’ve kept the sites bookmarked and am finally ready to give them it go. Of course, it makes perfect sense to order on-line and save loads of money. Being that you aren’t paying for the brick-and-mortar shop, the assistants, the other assistants, the inventory of lenses and frames, you’ll be saving tons. The frames I have now are the perfect width and height so I can just measure them with a handy-dandy ruler and then shop on-line for what looks similar, compare the measurements, and complete the order form. I have all the prescription data, I can speak with them either on-line or on the phone, and then I get the specs in the mail for $50-$100 instead of the standard $300-$400. If all goes pear-shaped then I’m out all of $75; I’ll happily bet $75 to save $250, or so. I’ll pass along results.

I’m going to pass along a quick recipe that I got from Nigella’s appearance on NPR over the weekend. Maybe it’s not really a recipe as much as a thing. Equal parts of raspberries and sugar put in separate oven-proof dishes and run for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove from oven and pour the berries into the sugar bowl for a molten experience that results in an excellent syrup and/or thinnish jam. We had it over pancakes last weekend and the remaining stored for toast. After it’s been in the fridge it will gel up some but still remains a bit saucy and messy. We think you could even cut back on the sugar to give it a bit more body. I did 3 cups of raspberries to about 2-2 ½ cups of sugar; I think 3-to-2 might give the best result.

epic

my friends

Fair warning.

I was just watching a John McCain town hall in Arizona and I’m more than tired of listening to to the same swill over and over again. I have never been less impressed my country and its citizens. Never. And that includes living through eight years of the Bush presidency.

"Can they redo the Constitution?"

a hill taken

It's a wrap.

I'll admit that I wasn't sure I'd make it through the final quarter of the tomatoes; but then they looked so lonely and hopeful. Fine. We ended up with 20 qts. of crushed tomatoes to get us through the long, hard, mid-Atlantic winter. We are getting ready to order firewood and run a rope from the house to town just in case there's a big blizzard. I started at about 10:30am and the last half-dozen came out of the processing at about 5:30pm. There's some dead time in there - three rounds of processing at about 50 minutes each - so it's not work the entire time. In fact, I got all my laundry done, washed some bedding, and cleaned a good portion of the house while things were doing their things; I'd estimate about 5 hours of good, solid, settler work. There are some photos of the finished product included below (and a few of the steps along the way) - feel free to stop over in January if you need a base for a grand sauce or want a bite to eat.

The boys are back home (from Omaha) for a few days before heading to western Mass on Tuesday for their (sort of) final week of summer vacation. They'll be back and we'll all head to Ohio for the Labor Day weekend before they both start back in school; I estimate that's the last break for me until Thanksgiving.

I have theatre and rock n' roll over the next few weeks and the Eleven has our first opera of the season in mid-September.

I'm off to relex.

love to all,

T

charge!

The humidity is still absurd here in the Metro swamp.

I didn't get the jump on the tomato canning yesterday because the Eleven ended up running to-and-fro throughout Arlington and Fairfax counties. When I get a moment later this evening I may fill you in on the strangest, time-warped flea market/thrift store we've ever seen. As it is, here a some photos of the opening salvo and the 1st half-bushel of tomatoes in progress. And, if you are at all interested, I don't think they did this on the prairie and I'm call bullshit; this is serious techno stuff going on...

f-r-i-d-a-y niiiiiight

I finished Gran Torino - it's sort of, sort of. Clint Eastwood can certainly draft a story and put it to film with excellent results. Unfortunately, even though I enjoyed it, it's wholly lifted from Million Dollar Baby. Of course, if you do something that well then you might as well keep pulling that lever.

I have The Current (and Mark Wheat) up on a Friday night which reminds me so much of when the station first turned the key and started the engine back in 2005. I was living in Nevada and pulled it up online shortly after a trip to Minneapolis to see the Slobberbone farewell tour at the 400 Bar. I vividly remember listening to Wheat for the first time and deciding that I'd found my perfect radio station. I remember that first night was the eve of the weekend that Let It Be records was closing in the Cities - I'd only been there once but it seemed the closing of a circle since Wheat passed along some memories of spending his early Minneapolis days at the shop. Sorry if that's more of an unrelated backstory than you asked for; it happens.

I have the cookbooks on the end table and we can begin: to your seats, hands on laps, pencils at the ready.

The Naked Chef / The Return of the Naked Chef / Happy Days - Jamie Oliver

So I'm cheating a bit here. These three were published and purchased in England before Oliver crossed the pond. He was pretty big right off the bat in the UK and his first three series, which these books follow, were very enjoyable and useful. It always helped me to watch the cooking going on before giving it a whirl and his stuff back then was simple to master. I've done just about everything from all the books over the last decade or so (they hold my well-installed blinding pasta recipe) and can honestly say you'd be hard-pressed to have three better books to work from. Oliver's probably has a half-dozen other books but I haven't much watched him or bought any of his other books aside from this Making You a Better Cook reference thingy.

Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home - the Moosewood Collective

My volume of this basic book has a busted spine, pages yanked out (though stored somewhere), and the remaining pages are pretty beat up. I think I bought this along about the time I was buying Oliver's first book(s) and it quickly became my most basic favorite. I still use the black bean soup and corn scones on a nearly monthly basis. The beauty of this book is that all the recipes are easy and you won't find yourself hunting the store for anything too off-beat. (There are loads of 'Moosewood' books, some that I have and use often, but this one is by far the easiest and most functional.)

Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen - Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

A newer volume from about 2003 or so. I found Lidia purely by accident some Sunday morning while I channel-surfing in Nevada. She's on PBS and does the best Italian stuff - I think she's better and more straight forward than someone like Mario Batali (her son, ironically enough, is one of Batali's partners). My basic risotto recipe, eggplant parmigiana, gnocchi, and menestra are all pulled wholesale from this volume. She's had a number of additional series' on PBS and even though I've watched a bunch of them I don't need to get much beyond this book. I think everyone should have one go-to Italian cookbook since just about every person in the World - including the guests coming to your house or the girls you're trying to impress - likes Italian food.

The Cook's Encyclopedia of Baking - Carole Clements

I'll admit that until just now I didn't even know this little volume had a single author. I apologize to Ms. Clements - I just thought this book must have been passed down on slabs of marble. I happen to think, as a mediocre baker, that this is pure gold. Never a foot set wrong on any recipe and we've done a load. (This was the companion to X's 'pie and manners' mission last summer.) We originally discovered it across the hall on N. Park Dr. as it supported Corey's baking habit and I'm sure he told us (or me) to stop asking questions and just buy the book. Since everyone likes baked eats I'll guarantee this cookbook. Guaranteed.

Veganomicon - Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

After I'd been cooking for awhile I came to realize that I can almost immediately (maybe after looking at four or five recipes) recognize a cookbook that suits my styles. This one is the most recent purchase on the shelf and it's been a 100% success. Since we don't do meat, and fish/seafood are slowly disappearing from the menu, this book is worth it's weight. It's so good that you don't have to worry about "Oh, will they eat a vegan recipe" when they come over. No need to even tell anyone - and why would you since your veg/vegan arsenal can be so strong these days? - because they'll never know. Not only are the recipes brilliant but the narrations is hilarity.

We probably have three dozen various books on the kitchen shelf and they all have things I like to cook; very few make the cut even in the store. But, if pressed to leave the house with only five(-ish) books and start over again these would be the easiest choices.

Don't say I never gave you anything.

mission possible

I fell into a great pile of research yesterday concerning canning tomatoes. As previously mentioned, I have intent and desire to ransack the local farmers market this weekend and gather pound upon pound of the seasonal wonder; I’m not waiting another year. And as a matter of utility, it should be noted that I go through piles of canned tomatoes during the year…piles. What I suspected but hadn’t really researched was the amount of material available, and required, to successfully and safely can tomatoes; I feel like I’ve completed a credit-based college chemistry course: pH value, botulism, altitude, etc. Not only that, I’ve been well-briefed on the engineering and mechanics behind boiling water canners and pressure canners. I expect to receive at least three semester hours of credit from some institution of higher learning. I set out to find a boiling water canner (better known as a huge pot with a lid and a jarring rack in the bottom) at Sur La Table. I walked around spying everything but what I needed; well, I don’t mean needed-needed – there are loads of things I need in Sur La Table – but things I mostly couldn’t afford to buy right now (“Hello, KitchenAide mixer and ceramic knife set!”). As I’m moving toward the door I crossed paths with an employee and ask her if they, by chance, have any boiling water canners hidden in a back room. I follow her to the register area assuming that she’s planning on hitting the computer to see if they even sell them when she suddenly puts her paws on a big canner right on her counter. It was sort of stunning – why on Earth? Someone had called earlier and she’d brought it up to the counter was her witch-like story. She assured me that the caller only asked “if they had any” when and I could have this sole unit if I wanted it. I wanted; out I walked with my $30 canner. The Eleven headed to Ayer’s Hardware after getting home and bought a dozen 1-qt. Bell mason jars, a package of lids and bands, and a kit of canning tools. I haven’t sorted out exactly how Laura Ingalls and kin managed canning in the olden days but it takes some planning and experience. I think my planning is in order and now I’m ready to work on experience. Come back this weekend for pictures from my lab. One more thing before I move along - I’m a bit indecisive on securing tomatoes: the options seem to be either showing up at the crack of the market’s opening bell and finding someone to sell me a whole flat of tomatoes at some discount or, finding a vendor that would rather sell me a flat at the end of the day; maybe some quality but not so perfect toms that can be used for sauce. Ideas?

I’ve decided that I want to discuss cookbooks and I’m going to pass along a list of four or five that have been tried and true for me. What’s brought this is up remembering X talking about one of her law school pals who has no ability to cook much of anything and it’s impedes a few things: actual eating and entertaining/impressing chicks. As I recall, it took me quite awhile to get comfortable cooking – lots of practice and practical recipe goals – before I was willing to give just about anything a go. I distinctly remember when the idea of cooking fish scared me to death. I still routinely mess-up when cooking but more times than not it’s recoverable due simply to comfort. I have some books that helped me quite a lot and I think most of them are nearly foolproof…being that I was the fool and I’ve survived as proof.

I’ll bang away at that while I’m at home watching Gran Torino tonight.

you don't say

There’s a fantastic piece in the New Yorker this week, The Deepest Dive by Alec Wilkinson. I was reading it last night and was unable to participate in any social interaction until I finished and learned the result. Here’s a link to it but you need a subscription to read it all and I suspect that if you have a subscription you’ve already read it. For those that don’t, here’s a quick summary: there’s a group of deep divers / free swimmers who set records in various categories. In particular, we're following two women who are trying to set the constant-weight depth diving record (bringing back to the surface all the weight you take down) and be the first to break the mythical 100-metre deep barrier. They use mermaid-like fins to get deep but have no other equipment – it’s pretty stunning. The process and physicality of the dive, the mental aspect, the detachment from the body, and the recovery all make for great reading. The New Yorker will really draw you in every few issues with something you never knew or never even thought about. In fact, I had to re-read (twice) Malcolm Gladwell’s piece in the last issue that dealt with Southern Liberalism and the debunking of Atticus Finch; who’d have thunk?

It’s been so humid here over the last few days that we’ve awoken to full damp on the inside of our windows. I consider it to be untenable.

As I was wandering about the Internet yesterday, I don’t remember what started the quest, I found an in-studio performance by the reunited Jayhawks. They were in the Current studio in June and did three songs and answered a few questions. They have a box set coming out that will (I think) include all the studio albums, possibly a DVD, and some b-sides and outtakes. I’d forgotten just how good they sound when playing together (the last time was about 1994) and those first three albums before Mark Olson left the band were just grand. If you want a little primer on alt.country / Americana, you could do worse than just listening to early Jayhawks. (Here’s a link to the audio from the in-studio.) It sounds like they might hit the road after the New Year – we’ll be on the alert in the Metro for the news.

I’m awaiting an update on the first week of school from Laurel. I’ll give her another ring tonight and see how it’s going.

X is going to Nationals game tomorrow night. I was offered a game last night from a visiting friend and turned it down out-of-hand. Just goes to show you how little interest baseball holds for me. I think her seats for the game are going to be cush; in that case, it’s probably worth it.

t

clouds and nap from the Vermont summer

As promised, here are some of the photos from the Montshire visit. The first is how I found X during my walkabout to see if some ill had come it her. Go figure.

double true

After the Eleven got home last evening – she’d been at work and I’d been at the USO – we were lying on the couch, possibly taking a nap, and I said to her, “You smell a bit different today. Are you wearing something new?” Her first response was a no but after a minute or so she did say, “Well, I am wearing some carrot-patchouli oil on my arms and feet.” As if wearing carrot-patchouli oil was normal. I never cease to be amazed. This morning there another new scent wafting through the door and she told me it was merely a Tahitian monoi spray. Ah, monoi.

A bit more on the summer’s trip. On our drive back from Quebec we (the Eleven and three children) stopped in at the Montshire Museum of Science for a few hours. This was L.’s and my second visit – probably a half-dozen visits or more for the others – and it couldn’t have been planned better, being a summer Friday afternoon and all.

Our first visit was a few summers back when L. was staying with us as we lazed our summer days away (or, a week in my case) on the East Dummerston hilltop in Vermont. X suggested we head up to the museum being that it was, under her declaration, the best science museum ever. “Well, well, little lady,” I told her, “I’ve been to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Museum of Science and Technology in Barcelona. I know from science museums.” I’m not sure just how she expected some mini-museum in Vermont to compete with the grand exhibits of the World; I decided, and assuredly relayed to her, that she was nuts. Her calm response, something akin to a wink-and-a-nod, made me nervous. Could she know something I don’t know? Do they have a nuclear fission apparatus that they’ll let me play with? Nevermind, I thought, she just doesn’t know how experienced I am at the sciencer museums. Does she know that I’m a member of the SMM? Does she know that in Barcelona they don’t even give you experiment instruction in English yet it’s still fantastic? Probably not. What a dear, dear girl. We drove up one afternoon and ended spending two or three hours at the Montshire; that was longer than the ten minutes I needed to decide it was the best science museum, ever. After I was done knocking smaller kids out of my way, watching cutter ants, memorizing bees, playing with the fog machine and myriad other stuff any kid would love, I cornered her and declared the Montshire as “Todd’s Best Science Musuem”. If I remember correctly I think she rolled her eyes and let me continue to trumpet my very own genius.

Our visit this summer was probably even better. The kids spent a few hours inside while we walked the beautiful outdoor nature trail before all ended up out in the water-dam-ball-sprinkler contraption yard. The museum had very few people visiting on that Friday afternoon and it was perfect for viewing and playing with all the experiments. At some point X disappeared and I ended up finding her asleep under a tree on the grassy knoll of the water damming area. In my surprise I immediately joined her, followed by Laurel, and we three then spent nearly an hour watching beautiful clouds roll by, pointing skyward, and calling out things like: lobster, crab, monkey, alligator on a jetski, crab, lobster, dragon, rat, dog, crab, lobster. (You’d be surprised just how many clouds look like shellfish or crustaceans.) That hour was the most peaceful and perfect time.

When we finished we were all ready for lunch (having gotten directions to three or four sandwich shops from the New England Sandwich King) and headed just across the Connecticut River to Hanover, New Hampshire. Hanover is home to Dartmouth College and even though I’m not going to prattle on too much I will say this: Dartmouth and Hanover are what people have in mind when they think of college and a small town. It’s a beautiful place and if it weren’t so perfect I’d think it a cartoon.

I’ll add some cloud pictures when I get home.

am not! are too!

If I started wandering around your place and calling you names, let's say atheist, then my implication is that you don't believe in God. If I declared myself as patriotic while sitting around at a dinner party then by default my ideal is that you're not. When I say that my only concern is about my children when considering policy positions then I'm implying that you don't care about your children or why else would you be bickering with me? This is what it's come to over the last year or so when we try to define others not by using the more obvious method of name calling but by the less obvious path of deduction from language. (This is a very close relative of the excuse that "I didn't suggest anyone kill someone else when I used incendiary language! It's not my fault!" defense). One of the prime examples, and what's been rolling around in my head lately is the use of socialist / socialized / socialism. What it's use intones is that if one throws those words across the town hall meeting bow then it means the target doesn't believe or support capitalism. What's funny about this smack on the nose insult is that it misrepresents what capitalism actually is, by definition: the private ownership of the means (capital) of production. (Feel free to go find a broader or more detailed definition but we'll end up agreeing on the end point.) Capitalism is being easily transposed with the idea of free enterprise and even the term freedom - and there's the rub. Let me give you the types of capitalism that I've thought of over the last week, rudimentary as they may seem. Let's say you own a small company that employs six people. As the owner, and capitalist, you pay yourself $80,000 a year in salary after paying your bills, taxes, health care, and each employee $40,000 in salary. After three or four years the company has grown enough that the it's pulling in an additional $300K per year. There are two extreme position you could take on the spectrum; the first is that you keep your six employees and give yourself a raise to $380K per year. The second, you expand the business, give yourself a raise to $100K a year and hire another six or seven workers. The truth may well lie somewhere in the middle but that doesn't change the basic question in my head: is either option more capitalistic than the other? I say no even as I accept that people might make a different choice than I if they own the company. What we seem to confuse is the basic premise that both owners - even at the extreme ends of the spectrum - are equally capitalistic. What hovers about our economic and social debates these days is the whispering in our ear that if we aren't maximizing our take home pay, not company profits, then we aren't truly capitalists and if we aren't capitalists then we must be something else; and that something else always seems to be socialist - and that is such a disingenuous position to force into the discussion. What those who support his meme really want to say is that I am a communist or a Nazi but they don't have the backbone to say it aloud, so they imply. Once the door has been nudged open then all it takes to make the idea stick is to start piling it on top of every other discussion and calling it a day. I mean, really, if you aren't for maximizing the money in your wallet then you must be some sort of closet communist.

The health care debate is clearly the latest in a long line of pancakes draped in the socialist topping. Conservatives, who by definition, avoid the future like a plague - and often say that trying to predict the future is folly - are doing nothing but predicting the future while propping it up with scare tactics. I'm not positive how the final bill will look once everything is melded together and we see the final package. There are parts that I'll disagree with but what we don't know, nor can we assume, is that a public option, run by the government and entered by choice, isn't anything akin to socialized anything. Disagreeing with that position is perfectly acceptable based upon details and facts. Disagreeing with it based on recess logic is not only weak-minded but embarrassing.

That's what have to say this weekend.

i like pie

With all the yelling, screaming, analyzing, polls, and tears flying about during the healthcare debate and town halls, I’d like to present the only truly accurate chart that exists – trust this one. (courtesy of laughingsquid.com):


Laurel is back to school full time as of today. She had two half-days of orientation for high school, reports she didn’t get lost in the halls yesterday, and kicked off classes today. I’ve put her on assignment to report her class schedule and first impressions.

Something that I didn’t pass along from a few months ago was a little reuniting I had with Reagan’s attempted assassination in 1981. I remember it well because I heard about it while I was in accounting class (they announced it over the school "sound system") and the memory was jogged by something in the local press about John Hinckley and the hospital he’s committed to here in D.C. Then I began to wonder which Hilton Hotel was the scene of the crime – there’s one across the street from X’s office and another up on Florida Ave NW. What really shocked me when I starting looking around was just how lax security was just 30-years ago: Reagan was giving a speech to the AFL-CIO and was exiting the building afterwards when Hinckley shot him. When you drive by the hotel you can see the door he exited, and if you sort of marry it up with this photo, you can see that the cordon area and security near his exit seems pretty light. I’d imagine that since this event the Secret Service probably locks down the entire block and doesn’t allow people nearly this close to the President. The photo gives a sense that people were just hanging around the rope in the background and the area was mostly unsecured. Of course, I could be wrong.


I think it’s just about the weekend. Cats are no doubt sleeping and I have pizza to make tonight. Stop on over.

t

tom tom

It’s the season, finally. I guess this ties-in with my reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. August and September comprise tomato season around these parts – and every other part, I guess – so I’m anticipating pounds of tomatoes rendered into tomato sauces, plates of tomatoes for dinner, and salads galore. I’ll begin tracking the events somewhere on a notepad, and, maybe with my camera. The Kojo Nnamdi show had a piece on tomatoes today that included the WaPo deputy editor who mans their annual tomato recipe contest – pop over here if you want to see the winning recipes. With the explosion of peaches (nearing it’s end) and tomatoes (some of the heirlooms were out last weekend) at the DuPont Farmer’s Market last weekend we’re getting well deep into the best time of the market shopping year. Laurel and I spent three Sunday mornings at DuPont and one Sunday morning at Eastern Market enjoying the full summer offerings and bringing home bags and bags of fresh fruit and veg. In fact, I think I have some freestone peaches at home that are just about ready for a tart.

I decided to take a walkabout the neighborhood last evening to make sure Lemon hadn’t come to a horrible fate. Last spring she spent some time at a house around the corner so I decided to give them a knock and ask if they’d seen her over the last few days. Sure enough, she’d just been there and they’d been feeding her wet food, twice a day, over the last few days. I didn’t see her relaxing under any bushes as I left but at least I knew she was alive. About ten minutes after I got home there was a knock on the door and the wife, who hadn’t been there during my visit, had brought Lemon over in a carrier. She’d just gotten home and heard of the inquiry so she brought Lemon to the house. We had a very nice chat about Lemon’s lack of bulk – I don’t think she’ll ever be a bulky cat – and her initial worry that Lemon might be going hungry. In the end, she apologized for feeding her and said that now that she knew where she lived she’d feel better about seeing her slink about the streets. Lemon came in the house, had some food, got some pets, and eventually passed out peacefully on the couch. I happened to think it was all a combination of getting some nice moist cat food, we only feed her dry, and her pitching a kitty fit in protest of our week away.

beauty

I find most of the stunt and trail riders to be simply stunning. Add in a great song and camera work and it flows beautifully. Great stuff.

...makes the world go 'round

Sometimes the learning bit is the hardest part. Well, that and asking the questions you know will confuse the worker bees. As reported yesterday, I had an appointment this morning to have a couple of fillings replaced after my dentist told me during my last cleaning that they were getting a bit tired and should probably be redone; it’s probably been 15-20 years since I’ve had a filling. “Sounds like a top-drawer idea,” I said to him and I made the appointment to come back after vacation and get all gussied up, dentally speaking. A few things popped into my head last night that gave me pause as I headed to bed last night: the first was the dental guard situation (see my previous work here and here), and the second was X’s incident with the boys’ fillings. A quick review of the fillings is pretty simple – the boys ended up getting a number of fillings amongst them and the bill came to an uncovered number around $1,000. The problem is two fold and has been created by both the insurance companies (Delta Dental for the boys and the Tricare Retiree Plan for me, both of which are similar) and the dentists. Fillings can be dicey since the insurance basically covers amalgam fillings but not the resin composite option that most dentists seem to prefer. In X’s situation there wasn’t any pre-work talk from the dentist about the type of filling and/or whether or not it was covered. I don’t necessarily expect the office to know the ins-and-outs of every plan but if there are filling types that often enough aren’t covered then they should point that out, pre-drill. I decided to ask the office manager about cost and coverage when I signed in this morning; I might as well have walked in with a pig on a leash based upon the confusion I caused. My position was this: I’m cool with amalgam since I’m not a supermodel and I don’t really want to come out of my appointment, walk to the counter to pay my share, and hear the number $500. I have 80% coverage on amalgam (my 20% would run about $80-$100) so I wanted her to give me confirmation of the type of filling and the billable amount to me. Twenty minutes passed before she said they don’t do amalgam but there is some talk in my coverage (which I’d already read) that allowed for an adjustable rate for the composite resin. In either case, she couldn’t actually tell me how much two fillings would cost me before getting the work done. I’ve also found out that filling replacements, in general, aren’t covered in any circumstance unless it involves the structure of the tooth. The end result was that I wasn’t interested in a procedure with no cost associated, especially something as simple as a filling or two. What she finally put forth was a novel idea that they send a pre-authorization request to my insurance who will then respond to both of us with covered costs which allows both of us to understand my payment before the work is done. Her final attempt at “mysterious procedures and billing” involved letting me know that it can take up to three weeks for a pre-auth to come back from the company. I told her that was fine with me since I figured the difference between the $100 I think I should pay and the $500 sticker shock was worth the wait. I have my own ideas of how an office manager should run the place but apparently it’s too hard for anyone else to understand….sort of like turning from your lane to you lane when you’re driving.

I’ll keep you updated.

return of the king

(Update: it was a good entry but Schumacher has decided not to race again. He had a motorcycle accident earlier this year and his neck injury hasn't responded well to the strains of F1 driving.)

Michael Schumacher, retired for nearly three seasons, will slip back into the beautiful Prancing Horse in less than two weeks time. Schumi, easily my favorite driver of all time, is completing the season for the injured Felipe Massa after he was injured in a freaky and horrific accident two weeks ago. The seven-time World Champion (two with Benetton and five-in-a-row with Ferrari) and winner of 91 of 250 races in his career, has held an advisory position within the team since his retirement from driving after the 2006 season. At 40-years old he may not have been the obvious choice - especially since the team does have a paid test driver/F1 player in former teammate Luca Badoer - to step in but it's not that crazy. There are two sides to the coin that make me wonder; first, he wouldn't be doing this unless he felt could seriously compete in what's been, to this point, a pretty miserable car. (Bear in mind that Ferrari, prior to the accident, employed the 2007 World Champion, Kimi Raikkonen, and the driver, in Felipe Massa, that lost out on last year's title on the final turn of the final race. Neither of them have been able to squeeze anything out of this year's car.) I think Schumacher is worth two or three positions in a race based solely on his ability to manage a race better than any driver I ever watched. The second side of the coin is that his arrogance and sporting ego may well be getting in the way of his common sense; he could be totally outclassed. In the end, I think he could qualify mid-grid and finish the race in the top five - he is that good. I'll search the Web and try to catch my first race this season; it'll be worth it, regardless. An additional sideshow is that the top team in F1 this year is owned and run by Ross Brawn (taken over from Honda at the last gasp during the off season) who was Michael's team boss/technician during his glorious career. Believe me when I tell you that Brawn knows all of the Michael's tricks. With the new testing rules in effect this year the teams aren't allowed to actual test, or drive, their cars during the season. That's a fairly new rule and Ferrari did make an appeal to the other nine teams to allow Schumi to drive the 2009 version in order to prepare for his return - if you follow F1 at all you know that was met with distain by the entire field. It's sort of like Roger Federer or Tiger Woods asking for a little extra time in getting ready for a match or tournament. Even I laughed aloud at the sheer balls they showed in asking. Good luck, Michael.

re-foiled, again

Canada. Our week in Quebec was excellent but I think everyone, based upon my own study, has suddenly found themselves back in their offices or cubicles stunned by normalcy. My early portion of this week will include having two fillings redone tomorrow and a concert tomorrow night at the Birchmere; those two are clearly differing poles on a very long stick. I suspect the remainder of this first week back will be filled with catching up around the house, finding my cat (who’s not put in an appearance since our return), and getting back into the workday groove.

All three children were installed on a Midwest Express flight back to Omaha last night so the house is once again stunningly quiet and mostly clean. The boys come back in a few weeks but turn around immediately for a trip to WMass and will be gone for another week. The four of us will then drive to Ohio over the long Labor Day weekend before the schools in NoVa fire up the classrooms and torture kids with maths and literature.

Our place outside of Magog, QC (and within viewing distance of Lake Memphremagog) was plenty of strange house for everyone. We had five bedrooms over three floors, a big kitchen (with only two burners on the stove working), a great room with a beautiful fireplace (actually used twice in the evenings), no internet, a lovely pool in the estate, and neighbors that decided upon 4am for an absolute scream-fest fight on their back porch. Being that this community has large homes with loads of space and trees between the high-end properties it was surprising that I could hear the set-to so clearly on that Sunday morning. Of course, they were yelling in French so I’m not exactly sure what they were saying but I have some good guesses based on the staccato delivery.

A quick summary would give the following details: sailing, horseback riding, swimming, eating, a one-day trip to Montreal (me and L.), wall climbing, shopping, strolling, crosswords, *Pitch Penny©, learning or reacquainting ourselves with French, lazing about, reading, coffee, and sunshine. (I must point out that up yonder in Canada the days might get to 80º on a bad day but mostly hover in the mid-70s. On our first full day back in the swamp yesterday the temperature was mid-90s and it’s pushing 100º today.)

I would put forth the highlight for some as being the two sailing outings on the lake. They’d been looking and hoping for sailing over the last few years in Stowe but never managed to get a solid opportunity. This year the rubric was solved and they got out for two sails on a small three-person boat; the first with L. the second with G. From what I gathered – as if I’d get on a sailboat after some stories I’d heard – they were first given a refresher by a young French Canadian boy who gave them a grade of C+ before literally diving from the boat and swimming to shore. Nothing says confidence more than a horribly average grade given by a fleeing, teenaged instructor.

I’ve got a few other follow-ups but they’ll have to wait.

t

can't you hear me?

I should return with a story less grievous but I must get this one in first and foremost. We flew into BWI Saturday night and drove across the great shakes of Maryland, D.C., and NoVa en route to our beloved home. The issue at hand was the 8p hour and our need for food since my cafe was vacated when we departed eight days ago. We decided to swing through Rosslyn from 110 and grab a roasted chicken at the Whole Foods in Clarendon. What you need to know is that there's some crap local TV station with visions of grandeur - one that has an HQ in Rosslyn - and sports a smallish 'Times Square"-like big screen on the corner of Wilson Blvd. I suspect they were broadcasting some prime time news magazine during the few moments we were sitting at the traffic light, and as we sat, G. looks up at the screen and says, "Hey, why are they showing that guy's dick?" To which his mother appropriately responds with, "G! WHAT did you just say?" You know what's coming, right? A small child playing the American tourist who assumes his volume, and not his language, is the problem, "Why are they showing a picture of that guy's DICK!" It took every bone and muscle in my body to not fall out of the car from laughter. (I'm laughing aloud as I type.) I think the next block was filled with some talk of inappropriate vocabulary, threats, and phrases that included something about not yelling that word. I, of course, immediately came to the conclusion that if G. had called some other kid an asshole, and his mother asked him what he said, he'd just repeat the work ASSHOLE as loud as needed to be heard. Kids are hilarity.

Vacation updates to follow.

emigre

We are back in the Vermont - for one night - after our week in Quebec. Everyone is doing well and we'll be back in NoVa tomorrow night. More to follow.

Love to all.

t