I guess it’s pepper season

Last week's vegetable box had more peppers than we could eat, and this weeks has even more. I like peppers, so we will do our best. But I could use a little pepper identification help. The one on the right is obviously a bell pepper. We got some of those last week. The one second from the left is a banana pepper, which we also got last week, and it has some good heat to it. How do I tell what the heck the other 4 are?

Time to search out some more pepper recipes. Oh well that's half the fun of the vegetable box: making new things. So far this summer, along with a variety of grilled veggies, we have made the following which were new for us:

• Kohlrabi – we liked it roasted best
• Beets & Beet greens
• Garlic Scape – lovely tossed with pasta, veggies and a light lemon sauce.
• Stuffed Cabbage

All in all, the Veggie box is fun, and good for us. We are enjoying it. Now what are those peppers?

Stegosaurus in da ‘burbs?

Yep, that's our very own Stegosaurus, stalking our front garden. I am kind of ashamed to admit that a part of our front garden is this weedy and/or bare. But well, we've been concentrating on other things this summer. We think he makes a nice addition to an otherwise bare spot, formerly inhabited by a very pokey bush that we never liked anyway.

You see in the summer these High School students come to our school for a 6-week intensive "taste of freshman year in a drama conservatory" program. They take classes, do homework, and have fun as well I hear. One of my colleagues has a project that he does in his stagecraft class where they assemble oversize dinosaur skeleton models. You've seen em before. They're usually 1-2 feet tall, made out of balsa wood. In this case they are made out of ¾" pressure-treated plywood, which has been cut out on our CNC Router. They tend to be a little taller than the balsa wood models. Anyway, it's a great project, which builds construction, collaboration, and even nascent critical path awareness. Plus we get to show off the cool CNC Router, and begin to give a feeling for what can be done with it.

This year we had several orphaned dinos at the end of the program - high school student from far away, big dinosaur, mounting airline baggage fees, you get the picture. Anyway, as we were finishing off the summer program, one of the Stegosaurs needed a home, and we were happy to oblige.

Also See Tanbi's own blog post about the Dino project: I CAN HAS DYNASAAR - 2008

Eating (very) Locally in MA

So, you may recall from earlier posts that Mrs. Bob and I are trying the "eating local" thing. Here we are visiting my ancestral home in the Berkshires. For a change (recently) we happen to be here, when the blueberry crop is in. On Wednesday, between rainstorms, we all went out and picked berries. We got about 3 quarts before everyone was to tired to reach the berries that were still ripe. These are the smaller tart blueberries that grow wild, as opposed to the big mushy ones that are more readily available in most grocery stores.

We had so many; I was inspired to make a blueberry pie. I don't believe I have EVER made a blueberry pie, though I have certainly enjoyed my fair share in my life. We didn't have a readily available Fannie Farmer cookbook, so I did the next best thing. I jumped on-line, and found this blog cum recipe. I followed the recipes generally. For the crust, I used a whole stick of butter flavored Crisco and 2.5 cups of flour. It came out great. For the filling I used a little more than a quart of blueberries, cause I had a deep pan. I also only used 2/3 of the requested sugar, and a little more than a tablespoon of lemon (maybe 2). The pie came out deliciously slightly tart, which balanced with the buttery taste of the crust beautifully. I braved making a lattice crust, which was fun, if a little thick and slightly indelicate.

You can see in the photos that I was enjoying a little of the post-dinner Pinot Noir, while making the pie. You can also see that I plated the pie with a couple slices each of some wonderful cheeses from Rubiner's in Great Barrington. The lechevrot was my favorite of the two cheeses the previous night, served on a baguette. However, the Bonnema State Boerenkaas paired better with the pie. In either case who ever heard of a cheesemonger? Great Barrington may well have become more hoity toity than before, but I am certainly enjoying the results of that.

What to do when it rains in western Massachusetts

We've been in the Berkshires for two days now, and apart from the rains it's been lovely. With two children under 10 in the small house, we have been looking for other cabin-fever beating activities. Today several of us drove to my mother's house to pick up some things we needed. While we were in that neck of the woods, we brought the kids to the Magic Wings butterfly conservatory in South Deerfield, MA.

There were a TON of butterflies. We had a fun time being both indoors and not cooped up in the house, and trying to photograph the butterflies. The camera had a hard time focusing on them, and they had a habit of flitting about. Following are the best I could do.

Vacation Stop #2 – Plimoth Plantation

Did you miss stop number 1? Oh yeah, we packed the family into the car for the 11 hour ride from Pittsburgh to Woods Hole. We didn't take any pictures there, because we have been so many times, there was not too much new to shoot. We were too busy enjoying the ocean and our friends to bother with taking photographs. You'll have to be content with my profile photo which was taken last year in Woods Hole.

So what was stop #2 already? Plimoth Plantation. It's a living museum, with an English settlement a la 1627, and a Native American village of the same vintage, both with re-enactors. I haven't been to there since I was 8 years old or younger, but it all came rushing back to me like it was yesterday. It was a lot of fun, and the progeny and spouse enjoyed it greatly, as did the Woods Hole friends who joined us, even though their 4-year old was a little jaded by the whole affair. Big fun and we were off to the ancestral homeland in the Berkshires. Enjoy the Plimoth pics, and I'll post more soon.

You are supposed to READ the owners manual?

Mrs. Bob has a Chrysler PT Cruiser. It's cute, but after 3 years, the bloom is off the rose. It's not the best car either of us has ever owned. But it's not the worst either, I suppose.

Well, today we switched cars, because she needed my larger vehicle for something. I go out to get in her car…turn the key… it starts up…runs for a few seconds..dies. It does this several times, and then won't even turn over. I am fuming at this point, because I am supposed to be at work pretty soon. Grrr. She comes home from a morning appointment, picks me up and drives me to work, thereby wasting some of her morning.

Flash back a month or so, when this happened to me last time. Mrs. Bob and our daughter went away for the weekend with my car, leaving me with hers. I drove it to Home Depot Saturday morning to pick up some supplies, and the same exact thing happened to me there. That day I ended up walking the 3 miles up and over the very high hill back to the house, carrying my tool bag.

Don't we get home tonight, and I try it again…same thing. Mrs. Bob jumps in the car to try it, though I am sure nothing will happen. Whadaya know, it starts right up. We look at each other incredulously. I give her my key. She tries it and replicates my experience. Back and forth with her key and mine, starting and not starting. We go in the house, shaking our heads in disbelief. I grab the Owner's Manual on the way in, and here's what it says:

Hmph. Who'd have expected that in a krappy, cheap, PT cruiser? Anyone want a PT Cruiser key? The one on the left is available.

Groceries Delivered – woo hoo.

Last summer some neighbors told us about this farm subscription that they had, providing them with fresh local produce weekly. We had just begun to hear of the Pittsburgh Slow Food movement from other sources so we were intrigued. This sort of thing is arrangement is called a CSA, about which you can read more here. Mrs. Bob and I are interested in eating organic and healthy foods. We are also interested in supporting local businesses. So this seemed like a natural fit.

In May, we tried to sign up for a CSA subscription with Kretschmann's Farms, but we ended up on their waiting list. It appears they agree to a limited number of subscriptions being left at each drop off point, and that too many people in our neighborhood wanted their services. Dang! In early to mid June I got a flier at work for a local company named Isidore Foods. While not a farm themselves, they are a new small local CSA distributor. They work with several local farms do distribute their goods, directly to consumers, the same way that CSA's do. Sounds like a good next step, so we decided to give them a go.

Last Thursday (6/26) my daughter and I drove to a neighbor's garage, and picked up our first box of fresh vegetables. It's amazing how many vegetables can fit in one box. Oh, and the strawberries….WOW , were they good. They are the one's on the left, and way better than their larger brethren on the right. There are a couple of new veggies in there for us. Mrs. Bob nor I had ever cooked beets before, and she's not overly fond of Zucchini (to say nothing of 6 in a week). But, we have committed to the CSA idea for the summer. Part of the commitment is that you get the vegetables that are in season this week, and you eat those. So, Mrs. Bob tried cooking both the beets and the beet greens. She wasn't overly fond of the greens, but I liked it all.

Week 1: good start! Next week we'll have to find some sort of cart to drag to our drop-off point 5 blocks away. This way we can burn personally stored fuel (really I should have plenty), rather than gas in the retrieval of our fresh veg. There was one item in our box that we couldn't identify. It's the picture with the quarter included for size reference. If you know what it is, please illuminate us. Tastes like garlic, but it is tiny. Maybe it's just tiny garlic.

Dueling movie sob stories

Start with this one: Be Careful What You Wish For

Then come back and read on...

So on Friday the family and I went to see "Kung Fu Panda," and I too was struck by the new pricing. I assume we were at the same theatre former known as Loews. Simplified structure huh? Used to be a movie that started before 5:00 (like ours at 4:50) qualified for the matinee rate. Oh well, one more way to gouge us. Next they will charge us for each piece of checked luggage (no wait that's someone else, and besides, I digress).

Back to the point. The crap is back, and worse than before. Rather than the crappy old slide show advertising with some annoying muzak, the crappy new “slide show” is clearly video, because there is slight movement in the 3-5 seconds that each ad is on the screen. And to make matters worse, each “ad” has its own accompanying 3-5 seconds of muzak. So you get a fade up, established crappy muzak, fade out…over and over and over. Hard to maintain a conversation over that up and down audio onslaught. Sheesh. And then it’s on to the typical sprint and Coke ads before the previews. So I am glad you enjoyed the brief crap hiatus.

But be careful what you whine about, however. It could be worse, as we learned the hard way. On Saturday my wife and I went out to see another movie (that’s two in the past six months for those of you in the audience with kindergarteners counting). This time because of the planned dining experience, we ended up at a movie theatre in Cranberry township. We thought: what’s the big difference. The tickets were even a dollar cheaper than those the previous night but…..

1. The air conditioning was out in the one theatre showing the movie we wanted to watch. It wasn’t too hot a day so we decided to chance it. In reality it wasn’t too bad, just a little muggy.
2. The seats themselves were some of the worst movie seats I have ever sat in. They were just plain worn out. Very uncomfortable. I did my “old man holding his back” walk out of the theatre.
3. We arrived about 5-10 minutes before the scheduled start time, and a slightly better version of the video crap ads were already running, so I thought maybe we’d get on to the movie not too long after the scheduled start time of the movie. A full 35 minutes after the scheduled start time of the movie, it actually started. Maybe 5 minutes of the holdup was previews for other movies, the rest of it was all ads. Aaaaakkkkk. Let me tell you we enjoyed losing that half hour of our lives, paying the sitter for that extra half hour, and all of us, the sitter included getting to sleep that much later…NOT

In the end we’ll pay the extra buck to go back to the first theatre, and apparently put up with the “new crap.” But we don’t go to the movies that much anymore anyway. This is just pushing us further from being interested.

Don't get me started on how much gas we used, and at what cost on that secon movie night.

This is how I know I am done with a season.

It's my e-mail's current usage graph. It' was the day to clear out all of the e-mails, and get ready for a new year! It feels very liberating. Now on to the next thing.

Geeky outlook script

Do you ever get that thing where for some unknown reason you can’t turn off your head and get to sleep? Well, I do. Sometimes when I am there, I sit down at my computer and take care of something on my next actions list. Helps me feel like I have accomplished something, gets it off my mind and allows me to sleep. Sometimes I end up being awake for longer.

I have been known to check my e-mail in the middle of the night (probably not a good idea, really). Sometimes I will respond to e-mails that are waiting, never mind the hour. This in itself is not so bad, except that sometimes people notice that I have been sending e-mails in the middle of the night (note the timestamp on this posting). I have been setting the “send e-mail later” option, so as to not appear like a work-aholic. But I’m human, sometimes I don’t remember.

Enter VBA Scripting for Outlook. Say what you like about Outlook, and there’s plenty to say, but the geek in me is enjoying the scripting functionality lately. I wrote my own Outlook script (very little code theft here – except from the help file, which I feel is legit), which checks the time at which I am sending a message and if it’s between midnight and 8:00 am, viola…I get this pop-up: I bet you can figure out what happens when I push each button. Another effective “smart part of the brain” tricking the “dumb part of the brain” tool. Yayy.

(If you are also a geek and want to know how to do this, ask, and I will gladly share the code I wrote)

Who’s got the most…Baggage?

I was thinking the other day about political baggage. You know, we’ve got this primary coming up, here in Pennsylvania. I really like both Hillary and Barack for different reasons. I have been trying to find something that will help me make up my mind, between them. It has occurred to me that with experience comes baggage, and maybe we could do with a little less of that. My mind wandered back to the Clinton Whitehouse years, and a few of the scandals that went on. Now you can’t really paint Hillary with the Monica Lewinsky scandal per say. Some folks will try to take her on for her actions in the wake of that scandal, but I don’t feel vitriolic enough to go there.

Does anyone remember whitewater though? I know nothing really stuck to the Clintons too hard on that one, but both of them were implicated. Surely some of the implications were spun by their opposition. But I would be easily convinced that there was something shady going on there, and that the Clintons have some of it on them as well.

Then the other day I finally got around to watching Fahrenheit 9/11. Talk about your baggage. A dynastic family with WAY too many business interests to possibly run the country without phenomenal conflict of interest. So, though I like some of what Hillary has to say, I wonder whom she is beholden too, and am a little leery.

Plus, I really liked Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech.. I guess I’m leaning his way currently. We’ll see how this ends up.

Air Travel today – another industry in need of better scheduling

I write today from the comfort of an exit row seat on a Northwest Airlines flight to Minneapolis. This is one of the first flights I have taken in quite a while where which wasn’t over 80% capacity. This allowed me to move to the exit row affording me the room between myself and the seat in front of me to use my laptop, as well as putting some space in between me and the screaming baby that was in the row behind my assigned seat. Boy did I feel bad for that mom flying alone trying to comfort her child, obviously acutely aware of the disruption her child’s crying was making. Been there. Overfull flights, cramped seating, crying children. These are pretty standard air travel complaints, hardly worth making.

This is my 5th flight in two weeks, the third of which was delayed. Annoying as that is, it is also not a new complaint. What is interesting is that today’s flight was delayed by 20 minutes, just as last Sunday’s flight was delayed by an hour, due to “mandatory crew rest period.” I am sure this is not a new regulation. I am sure that other flights have been delayed for the same reason. I am also positive that this is a good reason to keep a plane on the ground. FAA mandatory Pilot rest is every bit as important as DOT mandatory Truck Driver rest. There are probably a few other things for which mandated rest would not be a bad idea. But I digress.

What sticks in my craw is that this is a delay that is completely avoidable through more careful scheduling. Someone in the NWA crew scheduling department needs to 1) take a class in Critical Path Management, and 2) build in slightly larger cushions to allow for schedule pinches caused by the inevitable weather delays. I know that money is tight in the airline industry today, for many reasons. However, Northwest will lose customers if it can’t more reliably schedule its flights and crews. I for one will avoid further Northwest flights, assuming I have a reasonable option on another carrier. At present I have three more flights booked before Valentines Day with Northwest. We’ll see if they can redeem themselves at all, and whether this delay will cause either me or my checked luggage to miss the connecting flight out of Minneapolis.

Clever donor ploy or privatizing of the pubic airways?

I am a long-time free-loading listener to WDUQ, the local NPR station. Actually a number of years ago, Mrs Bob and I were members. However, a few years back as we were moving to a new house, money got very tight around our household, and we cut back on a bunch of our charitable giving (along with other more frivolous things like movies, eating out, etc).

WDUQ is in its pledge drive mode again (groan). I know they have to do this to stay afloat. But I can’t stand listening to it, whether I am a member or not. For a long time now, I have listened to Morning Edition on the web, to avoid listening to the pledge drive. If Morning Edition is not available, which it sometimes is not, I listen to WFCR in Amherst MA, WAMC in Albany NY, or KUNI in Cedar Fall IA, all on the web.

We aren’t “flush” now. However, money isn’t as tight as it was. I am thinking that I will probably renew our membership in this valuable non-profit resource. I feel a liberal need to be a charitable donor to this and other worthy causes. It’s got me thinking however:

WDUQ does some of its regular programming stuff, even during the pledge drive: Local News, weather and traffic, and occasional cutaways to morning edition. In these days of secure websites that can be logged into, I see the potential for a value added member benefit. They could play their own content in real time when they would normally play it within the NPR programming. They could cutaway to those things from the pledge drive as they do now, just on the NPR schedule. This way they could offer their members an internet stream that is their regular programming with no pledge drive annoyance. They could pick a donation level that might encourage people to up their donation to access this benefit. I’d do it.

So, is this a good benefit to encourage donations to a non-profit that needs the cash? Or is this the first step towards privatizing part of public radio for the people who can afford it? I’m conflicted.

My challenge for the Comcast installer

We have a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) cable box. Actually this is our second. We used to have one when we had dish network in our old house too. It's been a few years since we have watched regular TV with commercials. Anyway over the past week, the cable box/DVR has been on the fritz, "resetting" itself. This has had an added annoying effect. See the cable box has a convenience outlet on the back of it, into which you can plug other things. When I followed the extension cord plugged into that outlet, I discovered that it was my wireless router, and network hub that were plugged into that outlet. This means that every time the cable box “reset,” my computer network wired and wireless would also power cycle. Uggg.

After a rather annoying half hour with a Comcast technician talking me through some troubleshooting (most of which I had already done), she finally agreed that I needed a service call, which we scheduled for last Saturday. Owing to some brain fart, at the exact time the technician was scheduled to come I was off taking my child to dance class. This left Mrs. Bob alone at home to deal with the tech. Now Mrs. Bob is not tech-dumb. In fact she’s pretty smart. However, our AV installation is a little geekier in setup than she can follow. Apparently she’s no the only one.

So, I got a call when the tech was nearly done. They were having trouble with the remote control of all things. Seemed the tech concurred that we needed a new box, which he had apparently already installed. I was surprised to hear that he didn’t need phone help from me earlier (note geek warning above). This is where I was happily surprised to hear about the inventiveness of the tech. Apparently he was a little surprised by the installation as well. So much so, that he took a picture of the back of my cable box with his cell phone, so that he would be sure to hook things back up correctly.

If you ask me there was nothing really unusual about what was plugged into the back of the cable box. However I am glad he bothered to take the picture. Box correctly replaced. Woo hoo! So, would you have wanted a picture? Or is it the receiver below the cable box which is really scary?
Who’s the Geek now?

Confirmation of yesterdays question

Okay. For quite a while now, I have encountered students that I teach (yes even graduate level students) who weren’t even born when I graduated High School. I try to live with that. Growing older is natural, right? Along with age come experience, perspective, and hopefully wisdom right? So I usually don’t dwell on it, but apparently this week, musical memories are my downfall, witness yesterdays U23D post.

Last night Mrs Bob noticed that Billy Joel was coming to town sometime soon. I lost interest in Billy Joel’s music right after the 52nd Street album. Really...”We didn’t start the Fire?” What the %*&! was that? She knows this, and was just tweaking me to see if I was interested in going. But I digress.

After Mrs Bob poked the bear, I started to respond “The last time I saw Billy Joel in concert…” and then my mind quickly not only filled in the blank (1978), but also did the math (just short of 30 years ago). OH MY GOD, and I thought the last time I saw U2 (The War tour) was a long time ago.

Well, I can comfort myself with the fact that while it says something about my age, it says even more about Billy Joel’s age. He was 29 when I saw The Stranger tour in 1978. You do the math.

I am glad I still feel young inside, even though I keep being reminded that I have a longer history of experience than I feel someone my age should.

Am I old, or just a geek?

So I heard this article on NPR yesterday about the new movie U23D. I was captivated by the review, and was instantly eager to see it. There are two things that really grabbed my interest. One: The Music of U2 in a well filmed concert movie. Two: a well done 3-D movie with content aimed at an audience above their teens.

So does this mean that I am old, because I really like U2? Or are younger hipper (as if that's really a word with any contemporary relevance) people interested in U2 these days also. Hmmm. I feel old, just asking that question.

Alternatively, it could just mean that I am a geek. The idea of 3-D movies has always been interesting to me for some inexplicable reason. I even liked the "It's a bugs life" show at Disneyland (or was it California Adventure...whatever), because of its 3-D effects, cheesy as some of them were. Guilty pleasure I guess.

Maybe I am both, if I have to wonder. Oh well. I guess one simply has to embrace what one is. So, if I am an old geek, I am an old geek. But I still want to see U23D. Now I just have to find a local IMAX, and no the science center doesn’t count. That is an OmniMAX theatre, and in my option, IMAX movies are very hard to watch there.