Life of Megan

Current Projects

2010-07-22T23:52:00.003-04:00

What I've been up to lately:
-- Work
-- Running
-- Trivia on Wednesdays
-- Cooking
-- Eating (the two appear to be closely related)
-- Gardening
-- Landscaping (removing ugly + thorny bushes)
-- Rick Bayless Twitter contest (technically, this is cooking)

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

2010-01-17T23:17:00.002-05:00

This year, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is January 18. To help us remember the influence and message of MLK, I give you the text to the "I have a dream" speech.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Things I've Been Doing

2010-01-12T23:04:00.002-05:00

I feel like I should update my blog, but I don't have anything in particular to discuss, so here are some things I've been doing lately:

-- cooking
-- running
-- playing board games
-- playing bridge
-- getting ready to close out a project
-- playing with Python and Matlab
-- not picking at my nails

Makeshift Dinner

2009-12-28T23:00:00.002-05:00

This morning, as I was making our coffee (which takes a while, since we use a Chemex), it occurred to me that we didn't really have any food in the house, and that planning for dinner in the evening, when it was snowy, might be a problem.

So I took a quick survey and discovered we had some dried beans. I got out our crockpot and poured in the beans. Then I chopped an onion and added it. I added two bacon ends, retrieved from our precious supply in the freezer (no Piggery until the spring market!). I added a little bacon grease and some salt. Then I turned the crockpot to low, put the coffee in thermoses, and went about my way.

Judson noticed the beans cooking this morning and offered to pick up anything I'd need for the rest of dinner. I asked him to get a vegetable and some garlic. He picked kale.

Tonight, I finished up dinner in around half an hour. I chopped some garlic and onion and a chipotle in adobo sauce. I boiled the kale until it was just tender in salted water in one pan. In another, I sweated some garlic and onion and then added rice, cooking over medium heat while stirring until the rice had turned a milky white. I then added water and salt, brought it to a boil, covered, and reduced the heat to low to finish cooking the rice.

After the kale was tender, I drained it and rinsed it in cold water to stop the cooking. Then I ran it through our salad spinner. I melted about 2 tsp of bacon grease in the pan I'd used to cook the kale, then sweated the remaining garlic and onion. I added the chipotle, and then the beans and some of their cooking liquid. When the rice was finished cooking and resting, I added the kale to the beans and added some lime juice and some epazote (not really necessary, just interesting).

I served the rice and beans with some flour tortillas we had left from early last week (they seemed fine). Good dinner, cheap, and easy!

Last Year's Resolutions

2009-12-27T22:47:00.002-05:00

Last year, on Dec. 28, I posted a bunch of resolutions for the year. Here's a review and how I did.

Greater than 75% Probability of Success

Lose 5-10 more pounds and keep the weight off
Done! My weight has fluctuated a bit since the fall began, but I have consistently kept off a total of 45-50 lb since I began my weight-loss journey, May 2008.

Write back to people who send me letters and things
Sadly, I was not nearly as good with this resolution as I'd hoped. I'll be trying again this year!

Continue to learn and to keep a great attitude at work
Despite adding a bunch of responsibilities to my job, I think I've been quite successful with this one.

Advance my running to the next level
Victory again! I built up to nearly 45 miles per week while training for the marathon and have stayed injury free. After the marathon, I cranked it back a bit. I'm currently revving back up to 30-35 mpw. I think 45 is probably a bit much for me.

Greater than 50% Probability of Success

Incorporate strength training into my exercise routine
I was successful at first but then stopped trying. Better luck next year.

Train for and run a fall marathon
Yes! I ran the Wineglass Marathon in October, finishing in 4:23.

Dress myself more professionally
I have my moments, but I still dress like a casual engineer.

Less than 25% Probability of Success

Leave my fingernails alone
I currently have white showing on all ten nails. Does that count? I'm going to try much harder this year. I need a plan.

Winter Solstice Run

2009-12-21T23:15:00.002-05:00

Today is, I believe, the first day of winter. It was also the first time in months that I went running when the windchill was under 20 F.

Actually, the windchill was about 11 F when I headed out. There was a constant wind, and, to make matters worse, it was quite gusty!

To ward off the cold, I donned my fleece-lined tights, two long-sleeved technical t-shirts (one of which had a half-turtleneck), light-weight convertible glove mittens (in mitten mode), and a hat. I covered my face, neck, and the bottoms of my ears in Vaseline.

I felt pretty comfortable, but I wish I had chosen a lighter weight t-shirt for the second shirt.

Airport Hijinks

2009-12-20T22:58:00.003-05:00

I spent the last few days in SC with my family, celebrating my brother's graduation and having a grand old time. Today, it was time to return to the cold North. Never have I been so grateful I booked my flight with a connection through Atlanta.

At any rate, yesterday, I failed to consider what might happen as a result of the Nor'easter that shut down the mid-Mid Atlantic region. I just checked to make sure *my* plane had made it to Charlotte. I checked in online, printed my boarding passes, and checked my bag (thus saving $5). Then, at half-past hatey o'clock, my dad and I departed for CLT.

Things looked pretty bad when I arrived about 55 minutes before my flight. The baggage drop-off line, reserved for folks who have boarding passes and checked-luggage receipts, had a long line. After about five minutes, it became clear the line wasn't moving. After about 10 minutes, I figured out why: all the weather snafus had led to hundreds of people waiting in line since 5:00 am or earlier, trying to get rebooked and to make their 7:00 am flights. Most of them appeared to be missing those flights.

It took me 30 minutes to drop off my checked bag. Things were starting to look pretty dismal for catching my flight. My flight was to leave from the A concourse, but that line looked at least 40 minutes long. I walked to the B-concourse line. Also bad. C? Abysmal. I finally found myself in the D/E-concourse line. By this time, I knew I'd need to be lucky and to run to make the flight, so I started asking people in front of me what time their flight was set to depart. This, smiling, and someone who happened to be able to translate to a Russian group got me ahead of about 12 people.

Fortunately, I decided to bring only my purse for carry-on, so I sailed through security, picking up my shoes at 7:06 or so. This was a problem: my flight's departure time was ostensibly 7:15.

Still, I hadn't heard any final boarding calls, and my name hadn't been called, so I decided there was hope. I slid on my sneakers but didn't tie them. I grabbed my baggie of hand sanitizer and lotion. I threw my purse over my shoulder, and I ran.

Incidentally, even though the A-concourse line is fairly close to the D/E-concourse line on the check-in side of security, they are much farther apart on the other side. I didn't let that bother me. I just ran. I even ran down the people mover, which earned me a number of very dirty looks from various airport employees.

But it paid off. I arrived at the gate just as they were checking in the last of the stand-by passengers.

Forty-five minutes or an hour later, we actually took off. I'd be annoyed about the running (and subsequent asthma attack--I should have used my inhaler while waiting in line but didn't), but I know that they wouldn't have let me on if I had arrived much later than I did. And anyhow, I didn't hold anyone up.

We arrived in Atlanta about 20 minutes late, which meant that I got to hurry again just to make the connection to Syracuse. This time, though, I had enough breathing room to use the restroom.

In Syracuse, my luggage was second off the conveyor belt. I'd say it was a pretty good travel day for me.

Ouch, that was a long hiatus

2009-10-13T23:18:00.003-04:00

I'm back!

In the last month and a half, I discovered film noir and detective novels (I read and watched The Maltese Falcon, and now I'm reading The Glass Key, also by Hammett). We finally got ourselves library cards, so I have added Hammett's The Thin Man and Chandler's The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely waiting in my queue.

I ran the Wineglass Marathon on October 4, finishing in 4:23:11. I had a fantastic race and only needed to walk a total of about two minutes away from the water stations. This was an improvement in my PR of nearly an hour! The monster month of training really paid off for me. I am planning to race another marathon next fall and think I can do even better, now that I know how much rest I need.

We had a great summer with our garden. Now we're down to herbs, spinach, lettuce, and chard. Judson planted some wheat to act as ground cover for the winter.

Seems like enough updating for now. I'm thinking about starting a little side project. I'll let you know soon.

Twitter + Facebook = No Blogging?

2009-08-25T21:52:00.004-04:00

Between ramped up running training, increased responsibilities at work, and my discovery of Twitter, it seems I have forgotten my blog. I'm sorry. I will try to do better.

Judson and I finally bought Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (both volumes!) after seeing Julie & Julia and have been testing some of the recipes.

The ratatouille recipe is excellent. To be honest, I'm not sure whether I had even eaten ratatouille before picking up the book, but it is a revelation. Aside from baba ganouj and things that are definitely bad for you (moussaka, eggplant parm), I think this is the first eggplant dish that I've actually liked (and it's definitely the first time I didn't hate parsley). The whole process is very time consuming. You salt eggplant and zucchini and wait. You concasse a bunch of tomatoes. You slice peppers and onions. And then you cook the ingredients in small groups (eggplant + zucchini, in batches; then peppers and onions and garlic, then add tomatoes). And then finally everything goes together. But in the end, all the vegetables have retained a lot of their original texture and flavor while still having merged into this delightful, beautiful stew. Plus Judson and I had a revelation: we could double the squash and leave out the eggplant, and suddenly we had an extremely freezer-friendly application that would use our bazillion squashes.

This brings me to our garden. It is thriving! We actually have tomatoes, a rarity in NY, which was heavily stricken by [early] late blight. It took them a very long time, but they now seem to be ripening in droves. We also have a ton of summer squash (as you may have surmised) and tomatillos. Our tomatillo plants are some sort of freakishly large, overly productive tomatillos. If you are making a tomatillo-themed B-movie, please contact us for man-eating plants. We have many delicata squash that appear to be ripe or nearly ripe. Incidentally, a delicata squash is a winter squash with all the great qualities of butternut and none of the failings (it's sweet and delicious, but oblong and easy to slice and peel). We have kohlrabi, which tastes like broccoli. We had a great run with our beans. We have beets (second round!) and swiss chard and other greens. We have a flourishing herb garden. I should really figure out how much money we've saved on herbs. I think our cilantro is succeeding in bolting, but we just planted a new crop, and I believe it has plenty of time to develop. We also have basil (many types!), thyme (many types!), tarragon, chives, parsley, rosemary, sage, oregano, mint, and other things I'm forgetting. One sad point is that our summer was so mild that it looks as though our little charentais melons won't have enough time to mature before the fall. I'm not sure whether we'll pull our garlic, leave it, or pull it in order to replant it in the Fall. Even our border flowers, nasturtiums and marigolds, are doing well. This is definitely a project we'll continue next year.

We made bacon ice cream. It's heavenly.

Krista is doing well.

My marathon training is coming along pretty well. I'm in the homestretch (of the difficult part) now. This week and the week after next will be the hardest in all my training. Then it's tapering for a while and the big race on October 4. I hope it cools off (a lot!) by then.

Eating Locally in Ithaca, NY at the End of July

2009-07-27T23:07:00.003-04:00

Well, I just saw Food, Inc, so I've been thinking about eating locally a bit more than usual. Of course, in Ithaca, we have an excellent Farmer's Market, a strong population of hippies and environmentalists, a ton of farming, and decent land for home gardening. Aside from our hatey weather, things are good.

We are currently faced with an onslaught of summer squash (a yellow variety, can't remember which) from our garden. We also have green beans, fava beans, practically any herb you could want, chives, beets, and various greens (Swiss chard, escarole, sorrel, borage, and some old and very bitter lettuce).

In our CSA box, we received: more squash, napa cabbage, baby bok choy, scallions, and a big cucumber.

At the Farmer's Market, we bought: blueberry-sage sausage, smoked andouille, and bacon from The Piggery; Keuka gold potatoes from Sabol's Farm; blueberries; corn; and tomatoes (some guy has a greenhouse!).

Ultimately, we only needed a few groceries from a store. These included milk (local), whipping cream (local), gruyere, parmesan (we are down to rinds--need to make soup), coffee, oats (for granola), dried fruit (also for granola), and beer (Brooklyn Brown). The gruyere and whipping cream weren't really necessary, but they make life better.

Yesterday, I cooked up the blueberry sausage (one 3.2-oz link each) with mashed potatoes (featuring chives from our garden); squash sauteed in butter and garlic and tossed with gruyere and parmesan; and green beans, boiled and then tossed with the leftover butter from the squash pan.

Tonight, I cooked again. This time, it was the Zucchini Breakfast Casserole from Simply Recipes. I served it with a salad (lettuce, cucumber, onion, homemade honey-dijon vinaigrette). Then we had the blueberries with a little whipped cream and cinnamon-sugar for dessert.

For the record, we found that the Zucchini Breakfast Casserole dish actually serves six people for dinner, if they have appetites similar to mine and Judson's. I target 2300-2500 calories per day and often have a light lunch.

I might update this as the week goes on, or I might forget.

So far, it's been a delicious (and possibly a bit too rich) week.

A series of updates

2009-07-21T23:03:00.002-04:00

Well, it seems that I continue to neglect my blog. I'm sorry.

Since we got back from China, a lot of exciting stuff has happened. I got to see my parents, who came up to visit. My dad and I ran the Boilermaker 15K together. I recently took on the role of project engineer at work, so I now manage the technical aspects of several programs.

My marathon training is going well so far, but it takes up a lot of time. Judson and I are still avidly playing bridge and other board games.

Our garden has been a lot of fun. We've had greens and peas and fava beans and beets. Now there are baby tomatoes and tomatillos everywhere. Our green beans are growing really well, and we will soon be inundated with squash.

All in all, life is good.

Ugh!

2009-07-06T23:15:00.001-04:00

I've been extremely busy lately. I'll try to post a real update soon.

Ten Ingredient Shopping Trip (Vegetarian Version)

2009-06-24T18:47:00.004-04:00

Mark Bittman did a segment on the Today show a while ago about making a week's worth of food with only ten ingredients. Today, the NY Times featured an article featuring Mark's 10-ingredient list and recipes for the five meals.

Many of the people who commented on the article thought there should be a vegetarian list, and others felt the menu was too short and/or should use more fruit and grains.

So I thought to myself, "I can do that."

And here I am. I assume you have the following things on hand (pantry/fridge): noodles (udon or linguine would be great, but whatever), rice, dried beans, basic dried spices, oil (sesame oil would be a plus), vinegar, soy sauce, butter, parmesan, peanut butter, honey, sugar, mustard, canned tomatoes. Maybe some of those are pushing it, but I think only beans and canned tomatoes may be rarities.

The Shopping List

Eggs
Fruit (your choice; for snacking and dessert)
Good bread, French, Italian, or Sourdough
Salsa
Sharp Cheddar
Broccoli
Arugula or Spinach
Tortillas
Limes
Cilantro

Breakfast and Lunch
For breakfast, you could eat toast, a peanut butter sandwich, eggs, French toast. For lunch, there's leftovers, plus sandwiches (PB, PB&H, cheese), noodles, etc.

The Dinners

Stir-Fried Eggs and Tomatoes on Rice, Stir-Fried Broccoli
Eggs and Tomatoes sounds kind of strange, but it's a Chinese staple. I just saw a recipe for it at Epicurious's healthy recipe of the day feed. For the broccoli, just blanch it for a couple of minutes in boiling water, then strain. Heat oil in a skillet. Add some garlic and ginger (both chopped), if you happen to have some on hand. Add the broccoli and a pinch of crushed red pepper and stir-fry until broccoli is fork-tender. Add a little soy sauce. If you have any sesame oil, add a tiny bit of that too. Toss and serve.

Mexican Rice and Beans
Cook the beans in a crockpot while you're at work. Finish them off with some salt and cumin. Squeeze a little lime into the beans. To cook the rice, start by preheating your oven to 350. Add some oil to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Toast the rice in the pan until it turns opaque. Add to the rice a mixture of 1 parts water to 1 part salsa that is the same volume of liquid you'd use to cook rice normally. Salt (use 1-1.5 tsp per cup of rice). Bring to a boil. Cover and place in the oven. Cook 25 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed. Serve with a little chopped cilantro and tortillas. Add a simple salad if you'd like--make a "vinaigrette" using 1 part lime juice to 3 parts oil, plus a little salt and pepper. (Rice recipe is a quick recap of Rick Bayless's method in Mexican Everyday

Bean Stew, Salad
Cook some beans in the crockpot while you're at work. When you get home, if you have any, chop some onions and garlic. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add oil. When the oil is hot, sautee the onions and garlic. If you don't have any, no worries. Add tomatoes to the skillet and cook for a while. Then add beans and some of their cooking liquid. Season with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper. Cook for 5-10 minutes to allow flavors to meld. Add arugula or spinach and cook until greens are tender. Cook an egg sunny side up. Spoon the stew into bowls, and top each with parmesan and a sunny-side-up egg. Serve with bread, if you'd like, a small salad with an oil-and-vinegar dressing.

Broccoli Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Boil broccoli in salted water. Puree the broccoli with enough of it's cooking liquid to bring the soup to the desired texture. Add pepper and a pat or two of butter. For the sandwiches, spread some mustard (preferably dijon) on bread. Top with cheese and a second piece of bread. Heat oil in a skillet. Grill the sandwiches in the hot skillet. The soup technique comes from Gordon Ramsay.

Noodles in Peanut Sauce
Mix peanut butter with soy sauce, vinegar (preferably rice wine), and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Heat sauce in a small sauce pan. Boil water. Cook some pasta to al dente. Drain. Mix with sauce.

Breakfast Burritos
Beat some eggs. Cook the eggs in the skillet over medium low, stirring nearly constantly. When the eggs are nearly set, add some salsa and a little cheddar. Spoon egg mixture onto tortillas and sprinkle on a bit of chopped cilantro. Fold tortillas to make burritos.

China, Part 2 - The First 24 Hours

2009-06-16T20:14:00.009-04:00

The first thing one does upon arriving at his or her hotel room when on an interesting vacation is to take a picture of the room and the bed. So, naturally, that's what I did. Behold, our room in the Sihe Hotel.

As it turned out, Judson and I were given the largest of the rooms among the family, and we could never figure out why. We are somewhat inefficient when it comes to space, so we were grateful for the extra room.

Anyhow, photos taken, we sought food, which was easy to find, since someone had recently made a trip to a local grocery store. Judson, Marc, Audrey, Grandma Franke, Austin, Dawn (Austin's girlfriend), and I all joined in and enjoyed the food and a beer or two. It was pretty tasty stuff. It's tough to find fresh lychees in the US, so those were a real treat.

I'm not really sure about what happened next. I think we sat there for a while and talked and drank. At any rate, we eventually wound up at a restaurant that specializes in Peking duck (and has won the award for best Peking duck in Beijing several years in a row). You'd think that in its city of origin, Peking duck would be unbeatable, but I wasn't really impressed with the whole meal. I think the best part was the squirrel fish. I am fairly certain I've had better Peking duck in Chinatown. But maybe that was all just the effect of jetlag. I don't know--the duck seemed dry to me, and the skin should have been crispier.

The next day, we set off for our real adventures. The agenda: Tian'amen Square, The Forbidden City, and Prospect Hill. The weather: extremely rainy. Judson and I went on this trip solo. We had planned to start at Prospect Hill and then work our way down to Tian'amen Square, but we couldn't seem to communicate that to our cab driver, who happened to understand Tian'amen very, very well.

A view from Tian'amen Square

Another view from Tian'amen Square. I think Chairman Mao's body is in that building for viewing. Mao apparently disliked Mondays as much as the next guy; the viewing/museum was closed.

Worker's Statue thingie on Tian'amen Square

I'm not really sure what one is supposed to do at Tian'amen Square. Judson's parents somehow spent an entire day there. Of course, they were able to see Mao. They report that he had a giant head. We just wandered around for a bit, took some pictures, and admired the Beijing police's really neat rain gear.

Soon enough, we were in the Forbidden City. It's not so forbidden anymore, but it is a gigantic compound. We had a great time exploring the buildings and seeing the architecture. We were able to look into many rooms to see how they would have been decorated during the various dynasties. There were a few really interesting exhibits about such topics as imperial pottery, weddings, and about the emperors themselves.

Finally, we moved on to Prospect Hill, also called something in Chinese, sometimes called Coal Hill. This hill was built using the dirt that was displaced when the moat was built around the Forbidden City. The top features a series of beautiful pavilions that overlook various parts of Beijing; some have wonderful views of the Forbidden City. The Prospect Hill area is part of a lovely park that features a number of beautiful gardens. It was a really nice place to visit, despite the weather. My camera stopped working before we reached the top of the hill, so the best I can offer is a picture of one of the Prospect Hill pavilions as seen from the Forbidden City.

For lunch, we ate at the restaurant at the Forbidden City, and the food tasted like an Asian-inspired microwave dinner. Dinner Monday night was Sichuan. It was tasty enough, but there was nothing really memorable.

Our shoes were dry sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

China Part 1 - Miscellaneous

2009-06-15T22:46:00.002-04:00

We had a great time in Beijing, but unfortunately, my camera broke the first full day there, so it'll be a day or two before I get pictures back. So I have to start talking about my trip with random stuff I might not have mentioned otherwise.

Bathrooms
One of the first things I wonder about whenever anyone travels abroad is what the bathrooms were like. In the unlikely event that people who read my blog are the same way, I'm going to start there. The standard Chinese toilet is called (at least by the Powers family) the squatty potty. It's basically a female urinal, though it's used for pooping by both sexes. They're kind of scary to use, but Austin gave us plenty of tips (including showing us how to squat--it's a deeper squat than you would do for strength training), and I didn't have any problems. In case you're planning a trip to China, you may want to read this E-How article before you go.

Other negatives:
All the bathrooms stink, since the Chinese do not flush the toilet paper. I have no idea why they do not flush the paper. I believe they feel it'll clog the sewers.

Many of the bathrooms have no doors. Sometimes, there's not even a door at the bathroom entrance.

Generally, there is no toilet paper provided.

The handwashing equipment is hit-and-miss, and there is rarely anything to use to dry your hands.

Sometimes, there are no hooks. Once, I had to use a squatty potty while wearing my backpack. Not fun.

Positives:
What the bathrooms lack in quality, they make up for in quantity. It's rare to go more than 2-3 blocks in Beijing without finding a toilet.

One real advantage of the squatty potty in general is that you don't have to touch anything.

We did find many nice bathrooms while in Beijing. You could generally tell how many Westerners visited a location by the type and cleanliness of bathroom available. I was very glad I had brought along instant hand sanitizer, and I used so much of it that I wasn't really angry when the Chinese wouldn't let me bring it on the plane with me on the way home. (They also took the bottles of water we bought after we had cleared security. What the hell?)

Water
The water in China is not potable. This is a real problem because Beijing is very dry, practically a desert, and is also very hot this time of year. Bottles of water are somewhat cheaper than they are in the US. We got 3 liters of water per day for about $1.50, and then we bought additional water on the streets. I have never been so thirsty in my life.

Taxis and Driving
Driving in Beijing is harrowing. The Chinese driving style is apparently to watch everything in front of you, nothing behind you, and to honk frequently. Pedestrians yield to both cars and to bicycles, the thinking being that it's easier for a pedestrian to stop than for a car. Lanes are suggestions.

Taxi drivers do not speak English. We generally got around on our own using a handy card our hotel had provided. Whenever Austin and his girlfriend Dawn were around, they'd have long discussions with our cab driver about how to get to the right place. Taxis are dirt cheap, so we didn't really worry too much about being driven around the block an extra time or two. We once were in a cab for 90 minutes, and it cost us $10. It's all right to sit in the front seat of a cab in Beijing.

Well, that's all I know for now, and I am dog tired. I should have my pictures from my digital camera back tomorrow, thanks to a handy memory-card reader thingie Judson has at his office.

Tomorrow's topic: The Forbidden City and other first-24-hour activities.

Food This Week

2009-05-31T21:56:00.002-04:00

This week, our grocery selection included pork belly confit, pork chops, rib tips, kale, spinach, and oyster mushrooms, among other things. We will also be eating arugula, lettuce, and radishes from our own garden. Woohoo! On the one hand, we eat a ton of pork. On the other hand, we haven't really been eating any other meat. I figure it mostly balance out. We've had plenty of nearly vegetarian weeks, anyhow.

Yesterday, I cooked pork chops and served them with a dijon-cherry-white wine sauce. I served them with asparagus cooked with butter and toasted pine nuts, topped with a little vinegar and some parmesan cheese. We also had a salad of our homegrown arugula with a vinaigrette made with red wine vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, dijon mustard, and a hint of honey, plus salt and pepper. It was all very good, but I think the highlight for me was how well my sauce turned out.

Anyway, moving on... Judson cooked rib tips tonight, low and slow, and finally glazed and topped with a homemade barbecue sauce. With that, we had spinach that was blanched and then mixed with a bechamel sauce.

Tomorrow is homemade pasta with mushrooms, lemon, and white wine.

Later this week, we'll be having pork belly confit burritos and a navy bean and kale soup (finally using some of our parmesan rinds for the broth!).

We are going out with friends one night, and we'll have to go with leftovers or a pantry dish another.

There's Still Dirt under my Fingernails

2009-05-23T18:48:00.014-04:00

Yesterday, when I got home, I wandered around our garden and noticed little red semispheres here and there, hiding under the radish greens. Because we had planted radishes in almost all the blank spaces in our garden to ward off weeds, and because I knew we'd be planting most of our remaining vegetables, I decided to pick a few.

Behold, the first of our garden bounty:

Judson did the same thing when he got home, so together we shared our small bounty of radishes (around eight each) with some butter and salt. This is practically the only way I know how to eat radishes. I thought the French were crazy for liking radishes this way when I was in France in college; now I see that I was the crazy one. Maybe it was the butter, or maybe it was just pride in eating something that I actually grew, but I don't think so. These radishes were delicious. Crisp and flavorful and surprisingly spicy.

Today, the real work began. We headed to the Farmer's Market just as it opened today, picking up vegetables for the week, a genuine porktopia from The Piggery (sausages, chorizo, pork jowl confit, rib tips, lard), and a number of vegetables we needed to start from plants, including most of the herbs we plan to grow, plus tomatoes and tomatillos.

We picked up some tomato cages and bean poles from Agway, and we rounded out our vegetables to plant from the collection at Early Bird Farm, a really cool nursery we recently discovered (thanks, Sue, for recommending it!).

Then we picked radishes, thinned our lettuce and arugula, weeded, planted, and sank the tomato cages. Tomorrow, we'll probably string our barbed wire and thin and support our fava beans.

Here's a little view of our garden:
View from the back corner

Arugula and radishes

Lettuces

Rhubarb, radishes, chives, garlic, lettuce

Endive, kohlrabi, arugula

Peas and fava beans

Tomatillos and tomatoes

Spinach

Herbs

Garden Update

2009-05-17T22:28:00.003-04:00

We are one week from the last expected frost date here in Ithaca. Our hearty, cold-weather crops have now been growing for three weeks, and they seem to be doing pretty well. We'd been a bit concerned about our fava beans, parsley, and dill, but it seems those all take quite some time to germinate. The fava beans, in particular, seem to be doing well. Our spinach, arugula, and radishes are all getting their real leaves, which look significantly different from their seed leaves. We just planted a few new things: borage, lemon balm, flowers for our garden's perimeter, among others.

We spent a few hours weeding and thinning yesterday. I don't think I really realized how annoying weeding would be. Fortunately, I got a free pass on a lot of that work so that I could get our lawn mowed before the rain.

Tonight, we're supposed to have a freeze, so we have covered our plants. Judson made a special cover for our little baby melon. Judson actually did a ton of work today, patching areas where the chicken wire was torn (it unrolled that way), filling in holes, planting stuff, removing remaining grass patches, and burying chicken wire at our gate. He even put in a little threshold at the gate.

Next week is the huge gardening push, which means that we can't escape town for Memorial Day weekend and, more importantly, Cornell graduation. Oh well. At least we'll be busy.

What's in Season?

2009-05-13T00:06:00.002-04:00

Seems like a lot of people have been asking me what exactly one can find at the Farmer's Market this time of year. According to the wonderful (and free!) magazine Edible Finger Lakes, the following foods are in season in Spring in the Finger Lakes:

Artichokes (someone at work just asked me how to prepare these)
Arugula (yep)
Asparagus (yep, appeared last week)
Beets (always?)
Beet Greens (duh)
Bok Choy (haven't seen it yet)
Broccoli (lies, I say, lies!)
Burdock (haven't seen it, but it's not popular)
Cabbage (true)
Collards (yes)
Dandelion Greens (definitely)
Fiddleheads (yes, but McGee says you shouldn't eat them)
Garlic Scapes (there are some in our fridge)
Herbs (yep)
Lettuce (yep)
Mesclun (that's a green, yes)
Mizuna (another green, yes)
Mushrooms (tasty--we missed the trumpet mushroom guy last week)
Mustard Greens (yes)
Parsnips (yes, but I'm allergic)
Peas: Snow & Snap (still a tiny bit too soon)
Radishes (yes)
Ramps (these are wild leeks, and they're here, and they're awesome)
Rhubarb (yes, witness the pie and the sauce in our fridge)
Scallions (yes)
Sorrel (yes)
Spinach (yep)
Sprouts (never see them at the Market though)
Strawberries (still too soon for Ithaca)
Swiss Chard (that's just another beet green, yes)
Tatsoi (that's like baby bok choy, yes)
Turnip Greens (yes)

Before and After

2009-05-06T12:14:00.003-04:00

Last year around this time, I started taking weight loss seriously. I found Calorie Count. I slowly but steadily increased my running. I ignored the Biggest Loser efforts around work and on TV to focus on something more sustainable. And slowly but surely, I lost the weight.

By mid-February, I had lost at least 50 pounds and achieved my goal weight. My BMI is now 23. For my body type, my weight is ideal. I feel good, and I look good. I still have plenty of days where I think I have a big tummy. I wish my face were more oval. I actually repeat a mantra daily that I should be happy with myself just the way I am. I try to see myself the way others see me. And I have to say that I'm more secure with myself than I have ever been. I like shopping now and getting dressed. I think I look cool when I'm out running. I don't mind having my picture taken. I feel sexy.

We all know that we can make little life changes that have great impacts in the long run. Here's a little more proof. Here's what a daily calorie deficit of 500-800 did for me:

Oh, and in case you are as critical of photos of me as I am (unlikely), that is not a tummy pouch on the right--that is me stupidly pushing my shirt out. I think. Yeah, I'm still a little crazy--what can you do? Also, sorry, Dad, that I cut you out of the picture on the left. ;-)

Even more vegetable futures

2009-04-26T22:58:00.006-04:00

Earlier this spring, we signed up for the Full Plate Collective, a CSA, alongside one of Judson's coworkers. So we have a 2/3 share of vegetable futures, theoretically enough to feed 2/3 of a family of four throughout the growing season (late May through late November). Since a family of four generally includes two children, who would a) not eat as much as adults anyway and b) be unimpressed with local vegetables, I assume a 2/3 share should come close to being way too many vegetables for the two of us.

So what did we do with this knowledge? We started our own garden! And it's not just a small herb garden, as I had originally envisioned. Nope, it's around 400 sq. ft.

Being the geeks we are, we did a lot of planning before we started doing real work. We perused the two gardening books we received as a gift from my in-laws (thanks, Marc and Audrey!), made a list, and then started figuring out when things would need to be planted. But this wasn't enough for me... I required spreadsheets.

So I made them.

It took us a while to get organized, but we finally broke ground (literally) last week. Judson rented a tiller, which he used to tear up our backyard while I was out for a 13-mile run. Then, the next day, we dug fence post holes. Last week, I built a gate door.

This weekend, we had all the really hard work to do, plus we absolutely had to get the very early stuff planted, since we're now about four weeks from Ithaca's last frost date. We dug trenches. We put up a fence. I hung the gate. We dug paths. We spread the most noxious smelling fertilizer I've ever encountered. We spread manure. We worked the fertilizer and manure into the soil. Finally, we planted seeds, watered the garden, and put down our floating row covers to protect them. Fortunately, in all our digging, we had found plenty of large rocks to act as anchors.

Soon, we'll have to string the barbed wire along the top and bottom of our fence to keep out the deer. We will also need to bury some fence under the gate to discourage the rabbits, or all our trench digging today and yesterday would be kind of pointless. And finally, we need to get some wood mulch for our pathways.

But nothing really needs to be done for the next two weeks, which is just fine with me. I'm supposed to be tapering for my half marathon on the 3rd.

Gorilla Detector

2009-04-21T23:05:00.002-04:00

I'll be blogging about my gardening adventures soon enough, but in the meantime, I thought I'd entertain and delight you with a brilliant invention from Muppet Labs.

Enjoy!

Mmm... Bacon

2009-04-13T21:48:00.002-04:00

I would say that I am offering further proof that science is awesome, but I am not convinced there's much actual science here.

But who needs science as an excuse to eat bacon after drinking too much?

Bacon Sandwiches Cure Hangovers and Make You Feel Good.

Anyhow, the Brits published this one, so it must be true, right?

Meals this Week

2009-04-06T22:49:00.004-04:00

I haven't done this for a while now, so it seems like this is a good time. And you can see how much pork we ended up buying. Next week, maybe there will be more moderation.

Saturday 4/4
Posole (Judson)
Posole is an ancient Mexican stew using posole, which is a hatey type of corn, and pork. I'm not really sure what all was in it other than those two ingredients, but it was delicious and made a great lunch Monday.

Sunday 4/5
Spicy orange beef, stir-fried sugar-snap peas, white rice (Megan)
I used left-over braised beef from a dish last week for this one. I basically followed Bittman's recipe (a deviation from his basil beef stir-fried dish) from How to Cook Everything. I cooked the rice using my favorite method for white rice. In a saucepan, combine 1 part rice to 1.5 parts water plus a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil. Stir slightly. Reduce heat to low, cover, and wait 15-20 minutes until the rice has absorbed the water. Judson ended up cooking the peas per my instructions. They were stir-fried in a little oil until they were crisp-tender and brown in places. Then they were tossed with a little sesame oil and a little soy sauce. The meal was good, especially after my long run, but I think I'd add more orange juice and a bit more orange zest next time, and I might use fish sauce instead of soy sauce for the beef. Using leftovers for the meat worked perfectly.

Monday 4/6
Pork chops, braised red cabbage with apples, farmer's potatoes (Megan)
For the cabbage, I sauteed a sliced Granny Smith apple with some chopped onions in about a tbsp of butter for around 2 minutes. Then I added about 3/4 of a pound of sliced red cabbage and 1/4 cup water and cooked for about five minutes, until the cabbage had started to wilt. I seasoned this mixture with plenty of salt and pepper, and then I added about 1/4 cup of cider vinegar (I think--I started with about 1/6 and added more later because it needed more acidity), 1 tbsp sugar, and one bay leaf. I reduced the heat to low and let it cook about 20 more minutes.

For the potatoes, I used some sort of local gold, waxy variety (like butter potatoes or Yukon golds). For the two of us, I prepared 4 small potatoes (probably about 1.5 normal potatoes). I cut the potatoes into roughly 1/2" cubes and parboiled them for a few minutes in salted water, just until they were approaching edible. Then I drained them. Meanwhile, I had chopped 1/2 onion and cut two strips of bacon from The Piggery into 1" pieces. Later, I chopped 3 small cloves of garlic. After I drained the potatoes, I left them in the colander and returned the pot to the stove. I cooked the bacon over medium heat until it was crispy and rendered all of its delicious pork fat. Then Judson took over for me because I was working on the pork, and he was starving. But he followed my directions. He added the onions and browned them, and then added the garlic. When the garlic started to turn a golden color, he added the potatoes and continued cooking until they were done and starting to brown. We added a little of the pork chop drippings because the potatoes seemed like they needed a little lubrication.

I got my pork chops out of the fridge when I started all my prep so they'd be closer to room temperature when I started cooking. These pork chops were from The Piggery. They were a little on the small side, about 8 oz each, including the bone and a thick layer of fat, but they were gorgeous and about an inch or more thick. Anyhow, I seasoned the chops with salt and pepper. I heated my cast iron skillet over high heat for about 30 seconds and then added some olive oil and waited for the oil to smell hot. Then, I browned the chops until they were nice and crusty on each side. I jabbed a thermometer into the meaty portion of one, reduced the heat to low, covered the thing with some aluminum foil (probe thermometers are not always accommodating of lids) and let it go. Another option would be to finish the chops in the oven, but Judson had used it to roast some beets for tomorrow, and I wasn't really thinking clearly. Anyhow, when the chops were about 5 deg. from done, I removed them from the heat. I made a quick sauce for the pork using the drippings, some dijon mustard, some sherry vinegar, and some water.

The meal was delicious. I wish I had made more cabbage.

Tuesday 4/7
Linguine carbonara, roasted beet salad (Judson)
Carbonara always seems to mean a very cream-laden dish in this country, but traditionally, there's no cream involved. You basically make a sauce from bacon, egg, and parmesan.

Wednesday 4/8
Spinach salad (Judson)
I'm not sure what he has in mind, but I'm pretty sure there'll be plenty of bacon.

Thursday 4/9
Curried lentils, brown rice, fruit (Megan)
I couldn't really think of a good vegetable accompaniment, so I'm going to serve plenty of fruit for dessert. I haven't worked through all the details yet. But I do know that I will be baking the rice, a la Alton Brown, because that method is tasty and has never failed me.

Friday 4/10
Mystery night!
Either we'll go out, or we'll gin something together with left-overs and/or eggs. =)

All hail the pig!

2009-04-03T11:17:00.002-04:00

After a 3-month period of living almost entirely pork-free (having resorted only to the occasional bacon or pancetta), we are eagerly anticipating the reopening of Ithaca's Farmers Market tomorrow and, with it, the return of the porktacular products of the Piggery.

And this year, they have bacon!

Alanis Morisette would think it's ironic.

2009-04-01T23:34:00.002-04:00

I am actually following a training plan for the Flying Pig Half Marathon. It's an intermediate plan, which means that I actually have speed workouts for a change.

My speed workouts are slated for Wednesdays. This way, I can have maintenance runs on Tues and Thurs, a long run on Sat, and a recovery run on Sun. Mondays and Fridays are off days, which works out really well with my work schedule.

Every Wednesday since I've started this plan, the weather has been miserable. Generally, it is very windy (15+ mph) and/or precipitating. This week looked to be no different, so I wisely chose to do my mile repeats yesterday.

It actually wasn't too bad today. I missed the rain, or the rain missed us. And it was certainly gusty, but the wind wasn't as bad as expected.

Now I see the forecast for Saturday (I have a 13-miler scheduled) is somewhat icky temps plus 22 mph winds. It's really hard for me to do my long runs on Sunday because I usually play board games late morning - 2 in the afternoon, and I have a hard time getting up early enough to manage food + digestion + 2 hours of running + showering before we meet up.

And this is my peak mileage week, and I am pooped already.

Grr!!!

Please cross your fingers that I'll face calmer winds this weekend. =)

On my long run...

2009-03-23T00:04:00.002-04:00

This week, on my 15-mile long run, I saw a two-Volvo family that has now set the standard for all residents of Ithaca. Not only did this one home have two Volvos, but the Volvos were the same battleship gray, late-90s sedan one sees so frequently in town. Both were adorned with all the appropriate bumper stickers. I would have taken a picture with my cell phone, but I feared my action would be mistaken for Big Brother's spying initiative.

I will be on the lookout for the double Subaru Forester home.

Go me!

2009-03-19T21:28:00.002-04:00

Sheesh, having a dog changes everything. Well, having a dog and playing bridge. It seems I have little time for much else these days. I suppose there's work, sleeping, eating, cooking, and running, but I figure that all activities necessary to support life don't count. Apparently, I have also decided to eschew whole sentences. Freaky!

Anyhow, this morning, when I stepped on the scale, I had to rub my eyes twice, because there was the number I'd been waiting to see for the last month or so: 138. My goal weight. A number I hadn't seen on my own scale since somewhere toward December 2003, when I was running a marathon, graduating from college, 750 miles away from Judson, and subsisting on college-kid fare. I suppose most women my height would aim for a smaller weight, but with a BMI of 23 and a medium-large frame, I think I've hit an ideal. And I'm wearing size 6 jeans. Woohoo!

For me, losing the weight was just something I did. I found a site that worked for me, Calorie Count, and I followed the simple equation of eating fewer calories than I burned. I usually had a 750-calorie deficit, though that number dropped closer to 500 as I approached my goal weight. I lost around 1.5 lbs per week, as predicted, except over a month near the holidays, when I lost just 0.25-0.5 lb/week (and also didn't really track anything). I am sure that my running made this all much easier, chiefly because I enjoy eating.

Now, I face the much more daunting task of keeping the weight off while making sure to eat enough to stop losing.

But that's a nice challenge, and one I'm proud to accept.

Wahoo!!! Me!!!

Stagger Forward

2009-03-07T23:02:00.003-05:00

I appreciate that the old expression "Spring forward; fall back" makes it easy to associate the season with which way you change the time. But 1) it's not spring yet, and 2) I humbly propose that we change the expression to the more apt "Stagger forward; fall back." Who can spring when they've lost an hour of sleep?

Running 30+ miles per week turns out to make me more tired than previously anticipated. I need to figure out how to go from 6.5-7.5 hours of sleep per night to 7.5-9 hours of sleep per night, I think. This is not a good situation when the NYS government has decreed that I should wake up when it is still pitch black. I believe the typical solution to this predicament is to go to bed earlier. But if I start going to bed at 10:00 or 11:00, I may have to admit to myself that I'm getting older. I'm only 28! Too soon, Executus!

Oh well. I'm going to bed. It's okay, because tomorrow at this time, it'll be midnight.

General Update

2009-03-05T22:39:00.002-05:00

I don't want this blog to be about nothing but my dog, but I find it hard not to talk about her. It seems my solution so far has been to avoid posting. That seems like a poor choice. So here I am with an update.

Krista is doing well. We are getting free training (as a service for someone seeking trainer certification and a MS in animal behavior), and she's responding really well so far. Krista's running focus and endurance seems to be improving. I took her on a 5-mile run yesterday, and she did very well over all.

Judson and I have been playing a lot of bridge. I've now been to the Bridge Club of Ithaca three times, and I officially became a member this week. I also joined the ACBL. I really enjoy bridge because it's a tactical, strategic game. There's an entire complicated bidding system to figure out. I can't help it...I'm a nerd.

This week, I got my very first raise. That was exciting.

I also got a really cool certificate for fixing a filing cabinet in Amy's office. Thanks, Amy! I'm glad I was able to put my skillz to good use.

My running is coming along very well. This week has been the hardest running week I've had in years. You know you're getting serious when your recovery runs are five miles. Today, I did 4x mile repeats, and I'm exhausted. I did very well pace-wise though. I was shooting for anything from 8:30/mi to 9:30/mi (I'm slow, and I'm training for a half marathon). I did my repeats in 8:21, 8:23, 8:24, and 8:17. Not too shabby! At the end of this week, I will have run something like 233 miles so far in 2009. That's enough mileage to take me from Ithaca to NYC.

I inadvertently created a sourdough-starter volcano last night. Somehow, I didn't realize how much starters expand. I had my starter in a mason jar that had about 0.75-in of head space. I had put the lid on the jar very loosely, only giving the ring a quarter turn or so. This morning, the lid and ring were next to the jar, and there was rapidly hardening starter everywhere. Oops! I started again in a much bigger container. I should be able to bake my first batch of sourdough in a few days.

Judson made crackers, and they were delicious. I think maybe it was Darrell's in Knoxville that served house-made crackers? I forget, but Judson's definitely made me nostalgic.

Work has been crazy for me (and for everyone else who works at Ithaco, I think). This is part of the reason I've been delinquent with blogging and with writing to people. Sorry! But I really enjoy what I do, so no complaints there either.

And now I think we're up to date. Phew!

zomg Update!

2009-02-22T21:48:00.002-05:00

Wow, I can't believe how many days I let slide between blog postings. To anyone who actually reads my blog, I apologize.

Krista is sleeping near my feet in a most unladylike position. Ah, to be a dog. I took her to the South Hill Rec Way and ran three miles with her today. It went pretty well. She doesn't pull as badly when I am running, and the Rec Way doesn't see too much foot traffic, so there weren't too many distractions. Krista and I made pretty good progress for the first half. I think she was pretty tired for the second half, and it was a lot slower. She spent more time sniffing stuff. Paradoxically, the more tired she got, the harder she pulled. I think she just wanted to get back to the car so she could drink some water and sleep as soon as possible. She has been an extremely pleasant dog since her run. I'll have to try this more often.

Fortunately, our days are getting longer, so I'll be able to do this for my daily runs soon.

We are the lucky recipients of free dog training thanks to our mad connections. Susan Wiser, with the Cayuga Dog Rescue, is a wonderful person who mentioned us to an associate who is pursuing becoming a Certified Dog Trainer. This certification requires something like case studies or field work, and we get to be one of those cases. We are looking forward to professional help when it comes to Krista's food possessiveness and with helping Krista be a more patient, less distracted dog when we're outside.

Judson and I went and played Bridge at the Ithaca Bridge Club (League?) last Tuesday. As it happened, one of my coworkers had showed up for the evening, and he became my partner. We all had a blast and are looking forward to playing more bridge.

Work has been fun, fulfilling, stressful, and busy. I have no complaints.

My running is going well. I am officially in training for the Flying Pig Half Marathon (in Cincinnatti). The first two weeks have gone well. If all goes as planned next week, I will have managed 200 miles in the first two months of 2009. I guess this is nothing spectacular, but it's a fairly high running load for me.

I need to buy some new shoes soon.

That's about all I know for now. I should get back to watching the Oscars.

My first few days as a dog owner

2009-02-08T19:18:00.005-05:00

Until about three minutes ago, I was typing with my arms fully outstretched, my neck turned nearly to Exorcist levels, with my laptop turned 45 degrees from it's usual resting place. Krista had fallen asleep at my feet. I'd been petting her and rubbing her tummy (reward for seemingly learning "Down"), so I should really blame myself. If I were a more tyrannical leader, I might have made her move. But I figure there is some wisdom behind that old proverb, "Let sleeping dogs lie." I did just that. Actually, I reached for my camera. But fiddling around with the batteries aroused her and set her on alert. She likes being photographed about as much as Judson, it seems. I am now free and back with my laptop in its customary position.

I guess it should be obvious by now that we adopted Krista. Here's what she looks like, post-nap, when I call her while holding a scary electronic thing in front of my normally friendly face:

I think the first few days of any life change are the toughest. When I started losing my extra pounds, I was pretty sure that I'd either die of hunger or murder someone for at least a week. And I was eating 1700 calories per day! I try to keep that in mind when I get tired of the drama on The Biggest Loser. Anyhow, I digress. Friday was frustrating because Krista pulled like a madwoman on her leash, and then she cried through half the night. I had to wake up at 7:00 Saturday to take her out. Ugh. She was still pulling like crazy on the leash. But I did finally figure out how to fit the Gentle Leader, and things started to look up. Well, that, and all this time, she was completely adorable and pretty obedient inside.

Today, we've been for a couple of longer walks, and she's not pulling so much. She is very good with "sit" inside, by hand signal or by word. Outside, she's starting to figure it out. I've been working on having her sit when I am not looking at her or not facing her, and she's slowly but surely getting it. I've also basically taught her to lie down, and she is doing better with "stay." Leave it is an issue, because if I use treats in my hand, she usually looks at me, confused, and then sits. I usually figure that's close enough. If I put the treat on the ground, she won't even go for it if it's near me. I have to turn away for her to attempt to get it, and then I'm not usually quick enough to sidetrack her with a treat she prefers. I really wish she had a greater affinity for toys, because I think it'd be easier to train her with those. My theory is that no one gave her toys when she was a puppy, so she doesn't know what to do with them.

I think the funniest thing about her so far is that she attempts to bury her bones under the pad in her crate.

We've also been very impressed with how polite she generally is. Today, we were lazy and ate dinner while sitting on the couch. She lay down and slept on the dining room rug.

The next week or two will probably be tough as we figure out how to adapt our schedules to fit Krista while she still adapts to walking on leash and to walking on concrete and asphalt. Even if she were already great on leash, she wouldn't be ready to run because the pads on her little feet need to toughen up. I'm sure that we'll come through it just fine. Life as a dog owner is pretty darn rewarding so far.

Soon to have a furry family member

2009-02-03T22:17:00.004-05:00

It turns out that Krista is a fabulous dog. She's sweet and young and energetic, but she's still pretty mellow inside. She's pretty darn cute. She's housebroken, and she's smart, and she's even spayed already.

And she'll be ours on Friday!

Photo stolen from the Cayuga Dog Rescue.

Judson and I are both really excited about welcoming Krista into her home. We've been amassing lists of things we need to buy to make her feel welcome. Today, we got a few essentials, like a nice big crate for her. My coworkers are pitching in with some of their old pet supplies that turned out to be bad matches for their own pets (like a Gentle Leader that continued to torment one dog, and a brush that's great for a short-haired dog but terrible for a Shelty). We'll be making a big trip to Ithaca Pet and Grain Supply to fill out our list tomorrow.

I am reading Patricia McConnell's The Other End of the Leash as a sort of crash-course on dog behavior. It came highly recommended from the Dog Rescue Folks.

We are busily trying to compile a list of rules and commands so that we can be consistent with our new friend. In truth, it's all a little overwhelming, but I think we'll do a good job.

Friday feels like it's so far away.

Quick Update about Dogs

2009-01-28T19:46:00.002-05:00

Yukon Jack is going to be someone else's happy pet.

We are now pursuing a wonderful-seeming dog named Krista through the Cayuga Dog Rescue. The organization has a rather lengthy adoption process, so we're working our way through the steps. I know a lot of people think it may be excessive, but I really appreciate that they go to such trouble to ensure they've found the right family for the dog (and the right dog for the family). I can't help but think that if all organizations were as thorough, there'd be a much smaller need for animal rescue organizations.

Trying to Adopt...a Dog

2009-01-24T18:21:00.002-05:00

Judson and I have decided we are ready for a dog. I've always wanted a dog. We had a couple when I was a kid, but for various reasons, they never worked out. Lady was too wild to be around my brother when he was still very little. Heidi was, well, I think she suffered a variety of problems as the result of being very inbred. Max was a great dog--we had him when I was at Clemson--but not only did I rarely see him, but he suffered terrible health problems and had to be put down when he was less than a year old. My mom got her shih tzu Lily a few years ago. I love Lily, but she's not mine.

But now, finally, I am in a stable environment, with a stable job. I have a fairly large yard. I live close to a dog park. We're no longer demolishing and rebuilding our kitchen. The time is right. I don't think Judson was as excited about being a dog owner at first, but I seem to have won him over.

We are trying to adopt a husky type dog. I want a dog that will run with me as far as I want to go. Judson wants a dog that kind of resembles a wolf and that does not constantly drool on you or drop balls in your lap. We'd like our dog to be at least a year old and to be housebroken already. We don't want a dog that is aggressive or that has extensive mental or health problems. That's about it.

We've found one excellent prospect, a husky-malamute mix named Yukon Jack. We met him on Tuesday, and he was wonderful. So now, we wait, read more about huskies, research other prospects if this doesn't work out, and try to figure out how to show that we'll be good owners even though we both work all day and that we're first-time owners.

Waiting sucks.

Anyhow, as we've read more about huskies, we've learned that they are extremely friendly dogs (to the point of being terrible guard dogs). They've very smart, but they bore easily. They can also be pretty stubborn. So we'll have our work cut out for us. But all in all, huskies seem to have a lot in common with Judson and me.

Time to go back to crossing my fingers.

Music Lives!

2009-01-20T14:32:00.002-05:00

Fleet Foxes may just be the best thing that happened to American music since Bob Dylan.

My brother got me the EP "Sun Giant" for my birthday; I bought myself the eponymous LP at Volume Records over the weekend. You know it's a good sign when the people in your small town's Indie record store, well pierced, rocking out to some 80s punk, grin and tell you that you've picked up a great album.

Thanks, MLK Jr.

2009-01-19T09:35:00.002-05:00

Today is Martin Luther King Day, and I imagine this is the first time in years that many Americans are actually paying attention. Once again this year, I give you the text to the "I have a dream" speech. It has been forty-five years since Martin Luther King Jr. first uttered these words in Washington, D.C. It continues to be one of the greatest and most inspiring speeches in American history.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Leek-Potato Soup and Roasted Beet Salad

2009-01-13T22:38:00.003-05:00

We ate vegetarian tonight, and it was pretty darn tasty! On the menu was leek-potato soup and roasted beet salad. I had a little leftover bread pudding for dessert. Mmm... bread pudding.

At any rate, my soup was one of those simple winter dishes that you can actually make from entirely local ingredients, even in Ithaca. For my soup, I started by sweating four leeks, half a celeriac (celery root), and three cloves of garlic in a bit of olive oil and butter with a pinch of salt. (Okay, the olive oil was Italian, but I could have used all butter. I just decided to avoid a little extra saturated fat.) Then I added 3 medium potatoes, cubed around 1/2" per side. I added enough water to cover the potatoes. I seasoned the soup with a little more salt and a lot of pepper. I brought my soup to a boil, then reduced the heat and let it simmer until the potatoes were soft. Then I pureed it with my immersion blender and added some milk to thin it a bit and to add a little more creaminess.

The beet salad was by far one of the best vegetable dishes I've ever had, and I didn't even know I liked beets until this fall. I started with two golden beets and with one red beet. I rinsed them and wrapped each in aluminum foil. I roasted them (on a tray--sometimes beet juices leak through the foil) at 425 F until they were fork-tender (I determined this by sticking a fork in them). In the meantime, I was working on the soup, and I mixed up a vinaigrette with 1 large, thinly sliced shallot, 2 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp sherry vinegar, an overflowing 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, salt, and pepper. When the beets were finally cooked, I pulled the foil off and peeled them by rubbing them in an old, clean towel. Then I cut them into pretty little batons. There was some finger burning at times, but it works out all right. Then I just tossed my beets with my vinaigrette.

And that was it! Almost everything I cooked came from the Ithaca winter market. It was cheap, simple, and healthful. And nothing needs to be measured exactly.

Is the Balance Board Balanced?

2009-01-10T21:48:00.002-05:00

I got a Wii Fit for my birthday this year, and I generally really like it. The games are fun, and it's always good for a clutz like me to work on balance. I like the way you unlock new games as you play the various games more. There's a nice mix of fun and challenging.

I am not so happy with the Balance Board character. I wish the guy would give me a break. If I weigh myself at the reasonable and recommended (by everyone outside of Wii Fit) once per week, he cajoles me for not doing my body tests more often. "You should at least come back for your daily body test!"

So I tried weighing myself every day. The third day, I had apparently gained 2 lbs. Is this possible in one day? Well, maybe, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't eat 9,500 calories the day before. My guess would be that it's water or hormones or different clothing. I'm not really neurotic enough for my Wii Fit. At any rate, my weight comes up, 2 lbs higher, and I think "Oh well." Then the Balance Board asks me to enter in why I thought I gained the weight.

Excuse me?!

So I look over the list. You can pick things like "Eating too much" and "Not exercising enough" and even "Eating after 7:00 pm." But try as I might, I see no "Look, asshole, it's just been a day--it's not real weight gain." I don't even see a friendlier version of this. I just closed my eyes, shifted my weight, and tapped to choose something at random.

Then the Balance Board says to me: "Did you know that your weight can vary as much as 5 lb from day to day? That's why it's important to weigh yourself at the same time every day. Your last weigh-in was at 6:00 pm."

F&@$#(*

I have continued losing weight since I got my Wii Fit. I think I initially set my goal weight to a BMI of about 23.7. My BMI is just a shade under 25. I think that when I started, it was just a shade over 25. For the record, a normal BMI is 20-24.9, and I have a pretty large/muscular frame.

After I had lost 5 lb, the Balance Board congratulated me on my success, and my average hatey level toward it dropped slightly. Then it continued. "Perhaps you should update your goal. Why not aim for a BMI of 22?"

A BMI of 22 at my height would be 128 lbs. In college, I weighed 135, and my body fat was only 17%--mid-range for athletes. To put it mildly, 128 isn't going to happen.

The Balance Board continues to suggest (randomly, as far as I can tell) that I aim for a BMI of 22.

Basically, every time I get on the Fit, before I can get to the games, I have to deal with the Balance Board and its hurtful ways. I'm glad that I'm strong enough not to be seriously affected by a personified piece of plastic, accelerometers, and load cells.

It's perfectly normal to stand there, saying aloud, "I can take you Balance Board. Your brain is dangerously accessible. You just wait; maybe this time, I'll actually jump when playing the ski jump game."

Ouch!

2009-01-06T08:14:00.000-05:00

I'll be posting a longer entry in the next day or two.

In the meantime, know that I started the new (February) Runner's World core workout, and I feel as though someone has punched me repeatedly in the stomach. Owies!!!

New Year's Resolutions

2008-12-28T17:50:00.005-05:00

Traditionally, I have been pretty good at keeping my New Year's resolutions. I try to pick goals that I have some real reason to keep, and I try to make them specific. I think posting them somewhere public makes it a bit easier to keep them. So, without further ado, here are my resolutions for this year:

Greater than 75% Probability of Success

Lose 5-10 more pounds and keep the weight off
Ah, the classic weight-loss resolution. But this year, I've got a big advantage--I've lost 41 lbs since the last week of May, and I'm on a roll and feeling great. My big secret has been a website, Calorie Count, which helped me figure out how many calories I'm burning a day and then made it easy for me to record how many I'm ingesting. Using this site, I've been able to lose weight without sacrificing anything but portion sizes (and the occasional bad donut at work).

Write back to people who send me letters and things
This one is about discipline. I feel pretty confident I can make time to stay connected this year, and I got beautiful stationery for Christmas to help keep me motivated.

Continue to learn and to keep a great attitude at work
Learning and staying upbeat have made my job a pleasure so far; I want to keep it up.

Advance my running to the next level
I have built to a decent base of 20-25 miles per week and have seemingly tamed my ITBS. Now it's time to push to 30-40 miles per week while continuing to stay injury free. I'll be using a number of solid running resources and will be rewarding myself with running swag.

Greater than 50% Probability of Success

Incorporate strength training into my exercise routine
I know I need to train my muscles to be the best runner I can be (and to burn those extra calories, thus forcing me to eat more!), but I typically maintain a strength-training program for 6-8 weeks before giving it up. With my Wii Fit and some nice other plans to help encourage me, I'm going to make this year different. My big limitation to running shouldn't be that my arms eventually get tired.

Train for and run a fall marathon
This one goes along with my desire to improve my running but falls into a lower probability of success category because marathon training requires so much time.

Dress myself more professionally
I know I should "dress for success," so to speak, but I am lazy, unskilled in these matters, and not a big fan of shopping. Still, with my weight loss, I'm eager to look more presentable to my coworkers, friends, and family. But let's face it--this is one area where I don't really know what I'm doing.

Less than 25% Probability of Success

Leave my fingernails alone
This has been my New Year's resolution since I started dating Judson more than 10 years ago. The problem is that I pick my nails when I am bored, stressed, or nervous and sometimes just because my hands happen to be empty. Further, my nails are always weak no matter what I'm eating. They are thin and flexible, and they break easily. Also, I don't particularly care what my nails look like. I do admit that I admire other women's nice nails. I need some sort of mini-goals and some rewards to help make this resolution a keeper, and I haven't thought of any so far.

An Engineer's Vocabulary: Delta

2008-12-16T22:41:00.003-05:00

The engineers at work, our customers, and our suppliers employ English in some pretty interesting ways sometimes. If you want to impress an engineer, or at least to make headway in convincing him that you aren't an idiot, throwing these terms into your every day speech can be helpful. I thought I'd try to help you out by occasionally posting some of the phrases I hear most often. Today's word is Delta.

Pretty much everyone who was forced to take physics at one time has seen the capital Greek letter Delta used to show a net difference between two measurements (for example, the difference in speed measured at one time and speed measured later). In this case, we'd normally say "What is Delta x?" There is nothing unusual about using Delta in this way--it's just shorthand for "What is x2 - x1?"

Engineers use Delta as a noun, by itself, whenever they're interested in how a value may change. It's as if we have not actually learned the words "difference" or "change." I can understand the latter, since as a whole, engineers tend to be politically conservative, but they've definitely taken enough math to have learned "difference." Here's an example of how to use this term correctly in every-day conversation:

Bob: "Larry, we thought the zebras would be home at 9:00, but it sounds like they'll be late."
Larry: "Really? What's the delta?"

So now you have a little insight into the secret language of engineers. Use it well!

Humble Food Is the Best Food

2008-12-15T23:29:00.002-05:00

Tonight, we had a really delicious dinner of boiled kale on toast, topped with fried eggs, and served with a beet roesti. This is undeniably peasant food, and it's quite seasonal for those of us living in the Northeast. It was hearty and good for us, and we had plenty to eat.

I think too often, we want to be rich. We think that if we were rich, we could eat like kings. And it's true that being on a budget really limits your ability to enjoy fine wine, to try out truffles, and sometimes even to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. But we should be grateful that so many have had to make do with so little for so long. Peasants gave us French toast, bouillabaisse, and French onion soup, just to name a few things (without even leaving France!). You don't need tons of money to make great food (though these days, it may be a stretch to buy fresh produce). You need simple ingredients, well seasoned, simply prepared. Everything else is just decoration. Woo woo!

Judson's Birthday Dinner

2008-12-09T23:58:00.006-05:00

Today was Judson's birthday, so I tried to make him a great dinner (and took a day off from calorie counting). I opted on a roast chicken with roasted broccoli and potatoes. Then for dessert, I tried to replicate the delicious peanut-butter mousse dish we had when we ate at Lola.

In the world of gastronomy, many consider the true test of one's cooking skills to be how well they can roast a chicken. And as it turns out, roasting a chicken is a pretty tricky thing. You want all the meat to be done and flavorful, juicy and moist. You want the skin to be thin and crispy. It's a simple process, but one that's easy to ruin, as my (and Judson's) past experiences have proven. The skin is really what makes it tricky, I think. At any rate, this time, I decided to try out Bittman's approach, which appealed to me because it seemed clever and because it didn't require me to truss the chicken. In my experience, trussing chickens results in losing some of the best skin. I turned the oven on to 450F and stuck a cast iron skillet in it. While it preheated, I started my mise en place for the other dishes, and then I got out my chicken. I checked to make sure it didn't have any kidneys and such, patted it dry, dusted it with pepper, stuffed a bunch of thyme, some rosemary, and a lemon inside it, and then rubbed olive oil over the whole thing. It's probably worth noting that I was using a Kosher chicken. The beauty of Kosher chickens is that the Koshering process ensures the chicken will be well-seasoned (with salt). Also, Kosher animals are killed humanely. That's important to me. At any rate, about 10 min after the oven claimed it had hit 450 (I wanted to make sure that skillet was 450 too), I carefully removed the skilled from the oven, put the chicken in the skillet, and then put the skillet back in the oven, burning myself only once or twice.

With the chicken done, I moved on to other projects. I sliced some garlic and cut up two small heads of broccoli. I put these in a half-sheet pan, tossed them in a little olive oil, and sprinkled on some salt and pepper. Then I set them aside.

I chopped a medium-large onion and some more garlic and placed those in a bowl together. Then I cut up two potatoes into cubes roughly 0.5" per side. I put a pot of water on the stove to boil, adding some salt.

Then I got to work on my mousse. After the chicken had been in the oven about 30 minutes, I slid the broccoli in with it (using the top rack). When the water was boiling, I added the potatoes. At some point, I chopped two pieces of bacon and started cooking them over medium heat in our large Le Creuset casserole.

I boiled the potatoes until they were almost ready to eat, and then drained them. I finished cooking them by first adding the onion and garlic to the casserole with the bacon, and then adding the potatoes when the onions and garlic were fragrant and the onions were turning translucent. The broccoli was finished long before the chicken. I put it in a casserole and tossed it with a little parmesan cheese, lemon zest, and lemon juice.

When the chicken was done (the thigh registered 165F), I removed it to a cutting board to rest. I added some of the pan juices to my potatoes to finish cooking them and warmed up the broccoli in the oven.

Then we ate dinner.

A while later, I came back to finish the mousse (which was made by heating milk, pouring it over some peanut-butter chips, stirring until smooth, adding peanut butter, and then stirring that until smooth, and then folding in homemade whipped cream) by making caramel sauce. For this, I heated sugar and water in a pan over medium heat with the lid on until the sugar was boiling. Then I removed the lid and stood there watching it until it was a nice, medium amber, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon to keep the cooking even. Then, I added cream, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. I stirred until it was smooth. I carefully tasted a little, added more salt, and cheered with delight.

When the caramel was no longer flesh-burning hot, I spooned some of it over the mousse and topped it with peanuts.

All in all, the chicken was fabulous, the broccoli was good (but would have been better had my timing been better), and the potatoes were delicious (but you knew that since they contained bacon). The mousse was a bit too sweet, but the caramel was delightful.

Should I feel guilty about eating a Kosher chicken and some bacon in the same meal?

Comfort Food, Medium Healthy

2008-12-04T23:53:00.006-05:00

With winter fast approaching, the Farmer's Market dwindling, and the sun hiding behind clouds until April, it is comfort-food season here in Ithaca. Sadly, comfort food is generally not low in calories, and even the most diligent portion-controller can struggle to find room for it. So today, I present a dish that is homey, easy, and fast. I would call it an Italian dish, but I don't actually know anything about Italian food (aside from the fact that the Romans thought cabbage was a panacea). I'm under the impression I invented this myself, but it's possible I read it somewhere, remembered the basics, and then later thought I invented it.

Please make up a name for it and tell me.

Ingredients:

2 oz pancetta, preferably cut into roughly 3/8" cubes
1 medium onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 (28-oz) can crushed or whole tomatoes (and their juice)
1-2 (14.5 oz) cans cannellini beans, drained
8-10 oz fresh spinach
Salt and pepper
Crushed red pepper
1-3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 oz Parmesan or Romano cheese, grated
Extra-virgin olive oil

Quick note on ingredients: I like to get my pancetta by asking the deli to cut me one slice 1/4"-1/2" thick. The last time I made this dish, I used 1.25 cups of dried cannellini beans, which I cooked the night before.

Directions:

In a large, high-sided skillet (or large saucepan), cook the pancetta over medium heat until it has rendered its delicious fat and is crispy. If you have defective pancetta, and you don't have enough fat in the pan to cook the onions, add a little olive oil.
Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the garlic.
When the garlic is golden and aromatic, add the tomatoes, deglazing the pan with their juice. Cook a few minutes until mixture is simmering.
Add the beans. Taste and add salt if needed. Season with pepper and crushed red pepper.
When the beans are hot, add the spinach in batches, mixing it with the other ingredients until it has wilted before adding more.
Reduce the heat to low. Stir in the balsamic vinegar, using a little at first and tasting as you go. Stir in about half the cheese.
Serve in bowls, topping with more cheese and with a swirl of extra-virgin olive oil.

Serves 2.

Note on cooking: Please do NOT pass up on the olive oil at the end to save a few extra calories. You'll be using a teaspoon or less, and it greatly enhances the dish.

Lola!

2008-12-01T22:54:00.003-05:00

For Thanksgiving, Judson and I headed to Canton, Ohio, to stay with my grandparents and to visit with them, my parents, and my brother. We had a great time. My grandmother's cooking is as good as ever (which is to say that it's great). Everyone was impressed by the chocolate-coated marshmallows I delivered, and my toffee was a big hit once again. I'm relieved to have Christmas Candy Making, Round I, complete.

Canton is about an hour south of Cleveland, Ohio. When I was a kid, Cleveland was not a city anyone would boast about. There was crime, grime, and not much else. But since then, Cleveland's grown up. First, Drew Carey proclaimed that "Cleveland Rocks!" Shortly thereafter (or maybe shortly before that), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was established in the city. Then, in recent years, I've become more interested in the food world. Michael Ruhlman lives there--food writer and author of The French Laundry Cookbook, among others, friend of Anthony Bourdain. So does Michael Symon; his two restaurants, Lola and Lolita, are thriving.

And so Judson and I had been planning to make a detour up to Cleveland to give Lola a shot even before Michael Symon became famous through Iron Chef America. Friday, we got our chance, and we were even nice enough to bring along my brother.

As I have learned, Lola is located in Cleveland's Warehouse district. This means that it's close to a huge phallic memorial and also to Progressive Field (formerly Jacobs Field, which I had actually heard of). The building looks modern and is among a variety of other interesting-looking restaurants. The decor was very cool. The walls were chocolate-colored, and there was food-related and bridge-related art on the walls. Music improved the audience--it was modern and interesting, but not too loud.

Of course, we wouldn't mind eating in an old shopping center if the food was good, so none of this mattered too much to us, except to justify my wearing heals. We were there for the food, and we weren't disappointed.

We started with the beef-cheek pierogies and the charcuterie. The pierogies were delicious. They didn't taste greasy or even too heavy, but they were rich and meaty and just perfect for the start of a winter meal. The charcuterie was heavenly. We were served cured pork loin, duck prosciutto, lamb salami, and some sort of delicious pepperoni. We were served tasty homemade toast points along with the meats, and to top it all off, there were delicious cornichons (tiny cucumber pickles) and pickled garlic. It turns out that pickled garlic is delicious beyond words. It's something I'm going to have to try out.

Adam ordered the pork schnitzel. Judson had seared scallops with navy beans and lamb sausage. I had the homemade pastrami sandwich. All our entrees were fantastic. Adam's pork was better than anything I'd tasted in Germany. Judson's scallops were perfect; as were the beans and sausage. I thought lamb sausage sounded odd, but it was savory and delicious, and the lamb flavor came through strong and clear. My pastrami was perfectly seasoned and cooked. The sandwich could put NYC delis out of business, and it wasn't even as big as my head. The French fries that were served with it were wonderful. They were shoestring fries, thin, crispy outside but still creamy inside. They'd been fried up with rosemary and garlic, and both flavors contributed to the deliciosity of my fries.

We didn't really think we had room for dessert, but we were wrong. We ended up ordering a chocolate pot de creme and a peanut-butter caramel mousse. Peanut butter + caramel = heaven. The mousse was light and airy, but the flavors were full and rich. The caramel flavor combined with the peanuts to give the dessert a taste somewhat like an ultra-peanutty peanut brittle. The chocolate pot de creme wasn't too shabby either. (I don't know. I love chocolate, but I'm just not a huge fan of chocolate desserts--I am not a great judge.)

All in all, we had one of the best meals of our lives, and we'd be happy to go back any day. The prices were pretty reasonable and were a steal for the level of food and service we received (and still would have been good had we gone for dinner). Our waitress was excellent (I wish I could remember your name!). The wine and beer lists were phenomenal.

If you're in Cleveland, I'd definitely recommend you give Lola a chance. You don't even have to dress up--their dress code is business casual.

Moroccan Stewed Chicken

2008-11-18T22:15:00.009-05:00

I cheated when I issued my cooking challenge. Judson and I had already done our shopping for the week. We were planning to use all those items (and more) already.

Tonight's dinner was Moroccan Stewed Chicken.

These days, I am generally cooking without a recipe per se (though I am often inspired by what I see at Bitten), but this time, I cooked from a script. Tonight's dinner was one of the Epicurious/Nutrition Center's "Healthy Dinner Tonight" suggestions. Want to make it yourself? Go here. I get these recipes through an RSS feed (using Google Reader). I used canned whole tomatoes instead of diced tomatoes. I used freshly ground cumin (ground cumin seeds in my spice mill--far more flavorful than even fresh pre-ground cumin), and I probably used twice as much as the recipe recommends. I didn't have any thyme, fresh or dried, so I left it out. And I added more salt and lots of pepper. I sweated the onions instead of sauteeing them (leaving them translucent instead of gold). I think there's already plenty of sugar in this dish, and that it may be too sweet with caramelized onions.

Oh, and thanks to the GreenStar, I have the option of buying 3 cardamom pods. I'd be surprised if that's the case most places. If you want to try this recipe out, I'd probably substitute about 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. Alternatively, I think it'd be great if you omitted the cardamom and threw in a cinnamon stick.

I used my large Le Creuset casserole. I would recommend that if you do not have a very large casserole or skillet, that you make this recipe in an actual pot, because there is a ton of food. Finally, I recommend removing all the chicken after browning, then stirring in the tomatoes and using the juice to deglaze the pan. Then add everything else. This way, you get all the crusty, cuminy deliciousness into the sauce. Also, cook things by how they look, smell, feel, and taste first. Only use the times as a suggestion.

I definitely think this serves four. I had plenty to eat; Judson got seconds; and I think there's still half of it left.

Although the whole thing was time consuming, it was absolutely worth it. The flavors were delicious, and it was filling. I will definitely be making it again.

Wondering what else we're eating this week?
Saturday: Penne and sausage
Sunday: Pork in garlic sauce, Asian slaw, brown rice, gingered, sesame broccoli
Monday: Beef Burgundy, roasted green beans, lentils
Tuesday: Chicken with squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and dried apricots
Wednesday: Cannellini bean and kale soup (made with uber-gelatinous chicken-feet stock!)
Thursday: Mushroom and barley soup, homemade bread, salad
Friday: Cannellini beans, tomatoes, spinach, and basil with a touch of pancetta

Down with Fake Food!

2008-11-15T19:02:00.002-05:00

I have always loved cooking, but in the last year or so, it's become a much more serious hobby. Judson and I are cooking as much as we can with local ingredients from the Farmer's Market. This makes us hippies in one sense and annoying trendy people in another, but it's really working for us. We have discovered (or rediscovered) foods that we probably wouldn't have tried otherwise, including: beets, rabbit, daikon, kohlrabi, broccoli raab, chard, celeriac.

Since May, I've been losing weight. I just decided one day that I had really gotten too chubby. I'm not on a diet; I just count calories. I aim for a deficit of 750 calories per day: that's supposed to translate to 1.5 lb per week. I use Calorie Count Online, a free online tool to estimate how many calories I've burned and how many I've eaten. I like this approach. There's no voodoo, no guessing, and it's effective. Plus, I can eat whatever I want. I suppose the Weight Watchers points system attains the same end result, but simply watching calories does not involve strange formulas. Plus, I don't want to feel guilty for the occasional 480-calorie breakfast of a large chocolate-chip muffin with coffee instead of Cheerios, milk, coffee, and fruit (clocking in with roughly the same calories).

Anyhow, at some point, I thought it'd be a good idea to sign up for the Hungry Girl daily email. Now, I'm stuck in a vicious cycle, reading the e-mails every weekday and then feeling stabby for the next 20 minutes. I like the idea behind Hungry Girl... It seems to be all about finding ways to enjoy the foods you love while still losing weight. But the fine details are a little disturbing. Dinner recipes have a constant theme of coating in crushed Fiber One cereal and baking for a fried-dish substitute. Desserts inevitably involve Egg Beaters and flavored coffee creamer powders. Apparently, noodles made out of tofu are tasty. Powdered peanut butter that you reconstitute with water is supposedly just as good as the real thing but only has half the calories. It's okay to eat an Olive Garden dinner that's low in calories but somehow contains 2,700 mg of sodium (note: that is more than a teaspoon--a palmful--of salt in a dish for one person). People are perfectly happy to trade in a real margarita for one made with Crystal Light lemonade and Sierra Mist Free. I have to admit that I'd find it a bit disturbing if my margarita was fizzy.

Don't we deserve better?

I can't help but feel that all these fake foods and far-reaching substitutes either numb the taste buds or contribute to the huge number of failed diets every year. If you want some creme brulee, have REAL creme brulee--just don't eat too much of it, and don't eat it too often. Teach yourself how to cook. You can save yourself hundreds of calories by learning how to like vegetables. And you know the secret to tasty vegetables? FAT and salt (and/or vinegar). You'd be amazed how good vegetables become when you add a small amount (1 tsp per person) of olive oil or butter to them. And proper seasoning is key. Vegetables are practically calorie-free. Eat more of them and less pasta and meat, and you're well on your way to a decent calorie deficit for the day.

Sure, cooking is often inconvenient. It can be time consuming. You generally have to plan ahead. And for many people, it's downright scary. But you know what? The worst that happens is that you throw it all out and order a pizza or get subs or cook eggs and toast.

I think cooking is one of those things that grows on you. To be a good cook, you have to practice cooking. To enjoy cooking, you have to practice cooking. As you understand where your food comes from and what you can do to bring out its flavors, you will see why low-cal, sugar-free, fat-free, non-dairy creamer powder does not belong in your coffee, much less in your creme brulee.

Try to stop using "diet food" and other processed foods as crutches. Go to your kitchen and cook yourself something delicious. You deserve it.

I'm issuing a challenge. Make something that uses one of the following and write a comment about how it turned out: cabbage, dried apricots, kale, spinach, winter squash, celeriac (celery root), sweet potatoes. You get bonus points if you use two or more of them.

DMB Killed the Radio Star

2008-11-06T22:18:00.004-05:00

I'll always have warm fuzzies when I think about WSBF, Clemson University's radio station. I was never on the staff there, but many of my friends were, and my time at Semantics left me next door. My freshman year, we helped WSBF end an era as all the student media groups moved from the old building with the smelly couches to the new, less smelly, more sterile student union. My brother has been active with WSBF since his own freshman year at Clemson, rising the ranks to senior staff and to station engineer. He works with many of my old friends there.

Now, it seems that WSBF is poised to end another era with a change that will have a bigger impact on the rest of Clemson than a change in setting. The station will be expanding its playlist, allowing DJs to play music by top-40 groups if those groups have not yet attained a gold record.

I'm not sure that the difference between a Top-40 ranking and a Gold Record is a big one. Maybe it's not. But on a visceral level, I don't like the change. I don't understand the change. A college radio station that plays almost entirely unknown, strange, indie music is never going to appeal [as a first-choice station] to the listener who still gets pumped up over the occasional Brittany Spears, pre-crazy, song. And to those who actually listen to college stations, this change could be a bad thing. Stuff White People Like got it right--there's huge appeal in music no one else has heard. College is about growing up, experiencing new things, getting smarter, and being weird. A college radio station should reflect all that.

I can see the opportunities behind going more "mainstream." The local college station here, WICB, mixes in popular music all the time, and they're up for an MTV music award.

But I'd take WSBF over WICB any day, even though I have never heard Scremo on WICB. I always feel so sad to hear a music block consisting of REM, Radiohead, and Incubus. It doesn't matter to me that I like the more popular songs. There are two or three other stations here that are doing the same thing. Give me more Sun Kil Moon please.

People will talk about that new take on "Wasn't that a Mighty Storm" and how bummed they are that they can't find it on YouTube. No one cares that you heard the newest Radiohead song for the fiftieth time today.

College kids, please keep radio weird.

Recent Food Experiments

2008-11-06T21:48:00.002-05:00

This week, I learned that I like red cabbage. I braised it, mostly following a recipe in Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef. So there was onion, red wine, a little sugar, and some vinegar. I cooked it on Monday, and I think we're still farting, but it was good stuff.

Judson made a super-delicious "tarte alsacienne," which is not a quiche with sauerkraut, but is actually an apple-custard pie (at least according to Anthony Bourdain). As you should be able to guess from the inclusion of apples and custard, it was (and is) delicious. This pie actually caused a little tension, since I would basically starve myself in order to have a piece in the evening (while maintaining a calorie deficit for the day). If you know me, you know what I'm like when I'm hungry. Eek.

Judson also made a tasty acorn-squash and tomato soup. Mmm.

Then, tonight, I made a mushroom risotto. It was inspired by an article in Bitten that mentioned making risotto without chicken stock. And we have these dried porcinis, so it seemed like a good idea. It was delicious!

Tomorrow, we're going out for dinner. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

Ah, daylight

2008-10-30T22:38:00.002-04:00

There isn't much I dislike about living in Ithaca. I love the scenery. I like our shops and restaurants. I like the people. I even like the weather (and that includes winter). But it's around this part of the year that I start missing the South. Our daylight is fading, fast. Already, the sun doesn't rise until after 7:30, and the sun sets around 6:00. I think we're losing 2 minutes per day. By mid-December, it'll be dark until 8:30, and then it'll get dark again around 4:30. Bleah.

Fortunately, I think I'll be able to run at lunch time. =)

Kitchen Renovation - All that Remains Is Painting Touch-Ups

2008-10-27T20:03:00.018-04:00

Sorry about the downtime on my blog. Not only did posting every day take its toll on me, but we also didn't have much to report. Until now. Phylis's constant pestering of the Silestone folks paid off, and we got our countertops in record time. It's hard to believe, but they look even better than we had imagined. The windows came in just before the countertops; Matt installed them one day before the countertop installation, making his job far easier. Sometime while we were waiting for the countertops, we bought a new fridge. After the countertop and sink installation, we had a day to wait before plumbing, but this gave us a chance to paint the baseboards before they went up. So between Friday and Monday, Matt was able to finish up the job, installing baseboards, the backsplash, the disposal, the dishwasher, and the faucet.

In case you are in the area and looking for some new kitchen or bathroom work, Judson and I would highly recommend our designer Phylis, from Builder's Best, and our contractor Matt Mydlenski. They helped us get exactly what we were looking for at a reasonable price and on a great schedule. Phylis was always there to answer our questions and to help us out with design decisions. She really worked a miracle on our difficult kitchen space. Matt's work was top-notch. They were both easy to work with, dependable, and kept to their schedules. Please contact me if you'd like to get in touch with them.

I know you just want to see more pictures at this point, so here you go.

Kitchen Renovation, Day 11

2008-10-09T20:05:00.009-04:00

Today, the floor was finished, and our appliances arrived (except for the microwave, which I forgot to mention was on backorder). Plus, Matt installed our prodigal wall cabinet. Oh, and he put on the toekicks. Our floor was finished with a nice, angular piece of oak (I think) at the threshold to the dining room, and there is another nice oak piece at the top of the steps. I suppose I should take pictures of these, but that may give me something to do tomorrow when there probably won't be anything to report.

Oh, and I'm sorry about the lighting in some of these shots. I probably should have turned on the undercabinet lights.

The back corner. As you can tell, we cooked our first meal on our new stove tonight!

The front wall. The dishwasher installation will be completed once the sink is installed.

The front corner. Doesn't that extra cabinet help the kitchen look finished, even without a door?

Another shot of that corner.

I think we can all agree that we ought to splurge for a new fridge to complete the look.

The finished floor!

Dinner was a potato, onion, pepper, garlic, and egg hash, which Judson was nice enough to start cooking while I was out running.

Kitchen Renovation, Day 10

2008-10-08T18:30:00.002-04:00

Today, the countertop guys prepared their template for our countertops. Phylis came over to answer their questions and help out, and I went home for the occasion. I felt like I was basically unneeded, but it was fun to watch them work. They had a laser surveying camera with an extremely nice tripod. They also did a lot of tape-measuring and sketching. It seemed like a smart combination of old and new technologies. The whole process was far more time consuming than I had imagined it would be.

Matt spent a long day here laying out our floor tile. He had to run to the store for more of tile adhesive when he was down to about 10 remaining tiles. =( Anyhow, it looks great!

Tomorrow, the floor gets finished, and our appliances get installed. Hooray!

Dinner was squash, potato, and apple soup. It was less weird and much tastier than it sounds.

Kitchen Renovation, Day 9

2008-10-07T20:16:00.009-04:00

Today, we went over to Builder's Best to meet with Phylis and pick out a grout color for our backsplash tile. We picked a light, creamy gray. I think it'll look really nice.

Anyhow, work continues to move along with our kitchen. I bet you all thought our cabinets were already as awesome as they could be. I know we probably did. But today, someone turned the volume to 11:

The crown molding is in place!

Surprise!

Here are a few more photos:

The reason that the front cabinet doesn't look finished here is that we are waiting for another cabinet to come in. There was a misunderstanding about our replacement windows, which led to a measurement issue. Anyhow, who cares?! More photos time!

Oh, and Matt installed our lighting fixture:

Tomorrow, the templaters are coming for our kitchen counters, so it should be a really big day. We're looking forward to it.

Dinner tonight was steak and veggies from the grill. Yum!

Kitchen Renovation, Day 8

2008-10-06T21:16:00.005-04:00

Here's what I saw when I came home:

Except that I didn't see the under-cabinet lights for at least an hour, and I didn't notice the paint problem in the bottom left corner where the oven will go until I uploaded these pictures. My guess is that the spackle wasn't completely dry, so the primer didn't adhere well there. We'll just cut that out, prime, and repaint.

I think my thoughts went: "Wall cabinets! I'm so cold! Wall Cabinets! Ooh, outlet and switch plates. The walls are less shiny. I should look in the cabinets!"

Yes, there were that many exclamation points.

Here's the front corner. We don't really know why Matt didn't get around to the hardware there--but that stuff can be a lot more time-consuming than it looks.

Eventually, I noticed that our under-cabinet lights were installed. It occurred to me to check whether they were wired. They were! It turns out that lit under-cabinet lights are difficult to photograph. Here are the best results.

The templaters are coming on Wednesday, and our new appliances are being delivered on Thursday. Hooray!

Kitchen Renovation, Day 7

2008-10-05T21:19:00.006-04:00

Today was a good example of how you don't always get what you want. We finished the first coat of paint last night at midnight. Then we kept ourselves awake until 1:00 so that we could check to see whether we'd need a second coat. It was pretty obvious we did. Because of the amount of trim we had to paint (two doors, a third threshold, and the window) and needing to get the ceiling done, we knew we needed to get up early to get that second coat done as quickly as possible.

So we got up at 7:00 this morning and got working. Then we went to play board games while we waited for the paint to dry. The Cheap-Ass game "The Big Idea" turned out to be fun. We also played hearts and one round of Pitch. So it was more of a card-gaming session.

Anyhow, we came home around 2:00 or 2:30 and checked the paint. It still felt a little tacky, but it wasn't leaving any fingerprints, and our tape test didn't show any problems. Unfortunately, it turned out that no tape would stick to it, so we couldn't mask.

We painted the doors and all outer trim (stuff that was already masked). That took a while. We took a break, and then we went to dinner. We got home and started working again around 6:30.

The tape still wouldn't stick. My best guess is that with the darker paint, plus the high humidity and cooler temperatures, the paint drying time is far longer than normal. We had to get the ceiling done, or it'd be nearly impossible, so we decided to freehand the edging, since anywhere that would eventually be visible would be reasonable to mask and touch-up later with the red. Also, we didn't really have a choice. We'll get to the trim in a day or two when we can spend the time and when the paint is good and dry.

All in all, we worked our butts off this weekend, and we made good progress. We're not where we wanted to be, but realistically, we're not very far away, either. We wish our paint (it's a satin finish) was a little less shiny, but maybe that's partly that it's not completely dry. On the other hand, it's not too bad. And I can still move my hands enough to type, which is a good sign.

The color doesn't seem to be coming through too well on my monitor, but I'm trying to provide pics just the same. Another note on the photos: a lot of places, it looks like we have problems or need a third coat. It's not like this in real life--the problem is largely related to sheen and uneven walls.

Back corner.

Front corner.

Entrance.

Door to mudroom.

Front corner again. Spot on ceiling is undried paint (it rolls on pink).

Kitchen Renovation, Day 6

2008-10-04T21:49:00.007-04:00

This weekend is all about painting, and we got a good start today (okay, so we're still going to go back and paint our first coat on the walls). While Judson was showering, I vacuumed the kitchen.

We officially started off our day by going to the Farmer's Market to get some vegetables for grilling and crockpotting. Judson had already decided to make us stew for dinner. This was a great idea, aside from the torture of smelling the stew as we worked. After that, we stopped at Ithaca Bakery for breakfast. I had a Tex Mex. Yummy. Our next stop was Lowes, where we bought paint, gray primer (we had some white primer for the ceiling and trim already), rollers, and rechargeable AA batteries (so you guys can see our progress). Then, we went to Home Depot for Frog Tape. (The Frog Tape is worth the trip, trust me). Finally, we headed to Wegmans for plasticware and paper plates, plus breakfast food, beer (Saranac Pumpkin), and Wegmans Diet Orange Soda.

The big angled one is "Bus," and the small angled brush is "Top."

Paint-related tools and supplies

The paint!

Finally, we got to work. We cleaned using Simple Green, which has always worked well for us. Once the walls were dry, we masked and primed the trim and ceilings. We don't know who painted our kitchen doors, but we do know that they had a knack for unleashing the pain. We recently finished priming the walls, and I think the whole room took us one quarter the time it took us to paint two doors, the window trim, the ceiling, and a threshold. Ugh.

I swear the primer is gray, not blue.

Our ladder!

Check out our snazzy gas line protection.

Kitchen Renovation, Day 5

2008-10-03T20:47:00.002-04:00

Today was a pretty slow day as most things are now waiting for us to finish painting. Matt extended/ran our gas line up and has it ready for the stove. His other work for the day wasn't immediately obvious--I think it was largely planning related (or maybe he spent the day cutting tiles).

Kitchen Renovation, Day 4

2008-10-02T20:19:00.013-04:00

Oh it's beginning to look a lot like kitchen,
Everywhere you go.
Take a look at the lazy Susan,
Revolving at a whim:
It's where our pots and pans and things will go!

Now that I've planted that ear worm, let's talk about my kitchen. As you may have guessed, our kitchen is starting to look like a kitchen again! What brought this about? Base cabinets!!!

I had a busy but satisfying day at work. I had arrived there early (7:30) so that I could leave early, giving me time to run and to take a quick shower before going to Hang Time at Red Feet Wine Market around 6:00. I believe I pulled into our driveway around 5:30. I practically ran to the front door. I bounded up the steps into the kitchen. And then I stopped dead in my tracks, mouth agape, just thinking "Wow."

Back right corner of the kitchen; the opening is for the stove.

Front of the kitchen; the opening is for the dishwasher.

Front of the kitchen from a different angle.

Back of the kitchen; the stove will sit at the other side of the lazy Susan.

Front corner of the kitchen. The dishwasher goes on the other side of the lazy Susan. The lightbulb is related to the under-cabinet lights; it's controlled by the other new switch.

Today, Matt also checked out our toilet to make sure that it wasn't responsible for our ceiling damage and resealed it, just in case. The toilet probably wasn't leaking, but this adds a little insurance. The real problem (as I had suspected) is that the wood in that area is damaged from years of slow leaks, and that's not a simple fix. So we have another project for the future.

Matt extended our boiler stack thingie (as you can tell, I'm not really sure what it is) so that snow and ice won't easily fall into it. Yay!

And stuff in the basement suggests he is ready to install the gas line. Also, he told Judson that he wanted to install the gas line soon.

We will definitely be painting this weekend. I know it may seem unconventional to paint after installing some of the cabinets, but this allowed us to get a templating appointment early next week, and masking isn't really *that* terrible.

We lost our baseboard for the cabinet installation, and because of how that stuff is nailed into place, much of it got harmed when it was being removed. Also, it was painted. So we'll be getting new baseboard in the areas that do not have cabinets. Should we go with a natural wood tone, or should we paint it? If we go natural, what wood/stain?

Dinner tonight was Viva. It's Ithaca's version of Super Taco. (Shoutout to my Clemson buddies!)

Kitchen Renovation, Day 3

2008-10-01T21:35:00.002-04:00

I wanted to start by apologizing for a lack of new photos today. I was going to take some, but it seems that two of my rechargeable batteries have kicked the bucket (the recharger gives its ominous blinking "recharge failing" code no matter which slot I put these two into, and the others charge fine in all slots). My camera is a battery hog, and I can't find any other AA batteries. So you'll have to give me time to buy replacements. =)

All the backer board is now installed, and the doors to our Butler's Pantry were shortened so that they will still open after the tile is installed. A bonus to this is that Matt completed my project to even up the tongue-and-groove boards that were sliding on the door--that's one that I'd been hoping to get around to for 2 years! Both doors are now installed, and they look great.

All our wiring is now hot and working. The labels in our circuit-breaker box are now mysteriously accurate. The old 220 V connection for the old electric stove has been dropped back to the basement and set up as a plug for an electric dryer. All the mudding is finished, and we have a nice, smooth ceiling.

Judson bought our under-cabinet lights. We decided on our new windows.

I think that tomorrow, the base cabinet installation starts, but I'm not really sure. I think it's a little more fun to come home to a big surprise.

Dinner tonight was Sindbad. I had half a chicken pita and some zaatar bread.

Kitchen Renovation, Day 2

2008-09-30T19:30:00.002-04:00

We started today with the hope of clearing up a few measuring discrepancies. Matt, our contractor, had mapped out the location of the cabinets yesterday evening, and it seemed like we had two walls that were longer than our plans suggested. There was also a wall cabinet that was supposed to be 15 inches wide where there was only room for an 8- or maybe 9-in cabinet. I called Phylis, our designer, when I got to work this morning, and she made an appointment to get to our house later in the morning. As it turned out, the walls we thought were "too long" were entered that way because we needed some space along those walls for traffic-flow reasons. I am pretty sure that we should have remembered that from our virtual walk-through, but there are a lot of details in projects like these. The wall cabinet was a mistake, but it's an easy one to fix and won't put us behind schedule. Phew!

Matt basically finished the wiring today--just a few things left. The pull-cord on our "lighting fixture" is gone--we now have a switch! Our ceiling has been fixed, and almost all the backer board is down for our tile floor. The plumbing pipes and joints behind our sink had turned out to be badly corroded, and they had to be replaced--that was also finished today, and the wall is now patched up like new. All in all, a productive day. Our cabinets are being delivered on Thursday. The plan is to get the base cabinets installed as soon as possible so that the countertop guys can come in and create their template. We will be painting this weekend.

Dinner was leftover pizza from our trip to The Nines on Sunday.

The Kitchen Project Has Officially Started!

2008-09-29T20:24:00.003-04:00

Today was the first real day of our kitchen renovation project. The kitchen is now actually empty, and most of the electrical work has been done. Not much else to report so far, but I thought I ought to write something on the first real day of work.

We celebrated with sushi. Japanese vegetable rolls = delicious. Some sort of roll involving plum paste = very, very weird. Spicy tuna rolls, spicy scallop rolls, freshwater eel nigiri, and tuna nigiri = tasty as always (okay, so we didn't know about the scallop rolls, but scallop rolls are tasty, and so are spicy rolls, so it was not much of a leap).

Kitchen Renovaton, Day 0

2008-09-28T20:49:00.009-04:00

Tomorrow, our floor tile arrives, and our contractor Matt starts work on our kitchen. This is work we've been eagerly anticipating since we moved into our house. At 10' by 10', our kitchen is not small. Unfortunately, the kitchen includes three different thresholds, so its layout is critical to having a functional kitchen. Ours wasn't. We've been making due with one real cabinet with a countertop, one overhead cabinet, a hutch, and a bookcase forced to double as a kitchen cabinet. Now that we both have real jobs and some money saved, it's time to make that happen.

Our work includes putting in new tile floors, adding semi-custom maple cabinets, Silestone (engineered quartz) countertops, an undermount sink, a translucent glass-tile backsplash, ceiling fixes, paint, new stove, addition of a dishwasher, a new microwave, undercabinet lighting, and switches (so that we don't have ugly lighting fixture chains). There are, of course, more details, but I can't necessarily remember them all, and I'm fairly certain that if I could, I wouldn't want to list them.

Today, we did prep by clearing out our kitchen. When Matt arrives tomorrow, he'll be greeted by us (well, Judson, anyhow, and me later), and a kitchen that is empty and ready to go, with only the oven, sink, and overhead cabinet left in place. We have our fridge, microwave, and some minor storage/workspace set up in our dining room, and most other kitchen supplies are packed in boxes.

If you haven't had the distinct pleasure of spending time in our kitchen, I hope you enjoyed these photos. They document our starting point, which my mom says is important (and she has a point if I want to be in This Old House magazine or something similar someday).

Consumer Alert--Excedrin Analgesics

2008-09-21T14:42:00.002-04:00

Excedrin sells some great pain killers. They have a bunch of different products for various ailments (back/body ache, headache, migraine, etc). And they work well. All their products contain 2+ of [aspirin, tylenol, caffeine]. For example, the tension headache formula has tylenol and caffeine, but no aspirin. Migraine and extra-strength headache relief contain all three.

Now the combination of tylenol, aspirin, and caffeine is a great thing, especially in treating migraines. Not only does the caffeine potentiate the tylenol and the aspirin, but it also helps to constrict blood vessels. Since blood vessels typically dilate or spasm during migraines, this is a good thing. Also, tylenol potentiates the aspirin, if I recall correctly.

So I'd encourage migraine sufferers to use Excedrin's products, since they actually work very well (for OTC analgesics).

But here comes the alert. For some reason, the "good" folks at Excedrin feel they can charge $1.00 or more per bottle of pills when they use the word "migraine" instead of "extra-strength headache." You'd think something between the two formulas would be different. But the pill count of the two medicines is the same, as are their active ingredients (and dosages).

I don't doubt that this is an effective sales technique, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

So remember folks, shop for your pain killers before you're actually in pain, and look at what they're actually giving you. If pills that claim they're for back pain have the same ingredients (in the same proportions) as pills that claim they're for migraines, then they're the same damn thing.

And in case any Excedrin marketing execs are reading this post, shame on you. Shame!

I made pasta!

2008-09-15T23:01:00.002-04:00

We've had a pasta maker for a while now, but it's largely Judson's toy. He seems to use it to make fresh pasta once a week or so.

But I usually get home too late to want to make pasta, and frankly, the whole process seems especially difficult. I never trust cooking advice in which everyone claims that something is actually very easy. Alton Brown tried to tell us that souffles are easy. Gordon Ramsay's team still bakes a test souffle every time one is ordered at one of his restaurants. (Souffles are actually pretty easy, but it is kind of tough to tell when they're done...)

At any rate, I decided to give it a try this week, serving up pasta with winter squash and sage.

I decided to try out the classic well method. So I measured out 8 oz of unbleached flour, put it in the middle of a cutting board, made a well, and cracked a couple of eggs into it. With the addition of the second egg (out of three), it was pretty clear that I had not made a deep enough well. I decided to try to start pulling the dough together before adding the third egg and started whisking the two eggs in my well with a fork. Then my well broke, and egg started running everywhere. It was like an elementary school volcano project, except stickier and more likely to make people sick.

This wasn't a great start, but I was able to pull it all together, and I ended up with a very nice, smooth but elastic dough. I quartered the dough and wrapped each quarter in plastic wrap to let it rest for half an hour or so. During this time, I did some dishes, got the squash ready, and put salted water on to boil.

After the dough had rested, I ran it through the pasta machine, starting with the biggest setting (7) until it was a thickness 2 (which seems to be about linguine thickness). Then I folded it up, cut it into noodles by hand, and cooked it. Fortunately for everyone, Judson had wandered downstairs to see if I needed help as I was rolling out the dough, and he ended up cooking the squash and sage.

Dinner was delicious, and making the noodles was pretty easy in the end. I'd just try the well method inside a bowl instead of on a cutting board.

Chickpeas!!!

2008-09-08T20:45:00.002-04:00

Tonight's dinner was like a festival of chickpeas (or garbanzo beans, or whatever else you like to call them).

The inspiration was Mark Bittman's recent The Minimalist column in the New York Times. Well, inspiration isn't quite the right word, since I just read the article and decided to make it now, while peppers are in season at our Farmer's Market.

I knew the salad itself wouldn't be enough for dinner. Judson suggested I add a second vegetable (I picked green beans), and then I remembered that a while ago, Bittman had an interesting article about flatbreads in his blog, Bitten. I don't think I found the article I'd been looking for, but in searching the Web, I found a recipe for Socca that sounded pretty darned tasty, so I decided to make that too.

Aside from the chickpeas, olive oil, lemons, spices, and chickpea flour, all my ingredients came from the Farmer's Market.

Everything was absolutely delicious. It was all fairly easy to do, and the meal was filling and very summery. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who just wants to escape the heat for a while (keep that in mind next summer, I guess). And the salad would definitely be a crowd-pleaser at parties.

This week's meals/groceries

2008-08-30T22:40:00.003-04:00

I thought it might be interesting to talk about what we bought at the farmer's market this week and what we plan to cook.

From The Piggery (in front of the Red Feet Wine Market):

4 oz deli ham
8 oz fresh kielbasa
8 oz bratwurst
2 (1 lb and change) rib chops

From the Ithaca Farmer's Market:

3 lb tomatoes
3 red bell peppers
1 large green pepper
4 ears of corn
2 jalapenos
2 large handfuls of green beans
3 lb onions
1 head of garlic
1 bunch of tat soi
8 oz spinach
4 oz shiitake mushrooms
1 bunch of cilantro

From Wegmans:

Milk
Eggs
1 can refried beans
Bagels
Cheerios
1 package of small corn tortillas
Some kind of bread with sun-dried tomatoes that they had fresh and that we couldn't resist.

It's going to be tricky to fit the sausages into my calorie count, but I'll figure it out.

We will still need to buy some sort of Japanese noodle, plus some sort of fresh bread.

We are making:

Sausage with spinach and homemade pasta (Judson)
Pork chops, green beans, and creamless "creamed" corn (you use the corn starch from the corn and the ears as a thickener, a la Tom Colicchio) (Judson)
Roasted red pepper and tomato soup with open-faced ham-and-egg sandwiches (me)
Steak fajitas (using Ferdinand) with refried beans and homemade salsa (me)
Stir-fried steak with rice or udon or soba (me)
Some sort of mystery dish, probably involving mussels (Judson)

And that's about all I know for now!

Ham

2008-08-30T22:27:00.002-04:00

Those of us who are not vegetarians or Muslim or Jewish know that the pig is a miraculous animal. Pigs are smart. They're fairly clean animals. They can be trained to find truffles, and unlike dogs, pigs are intelligent enough to take their own truffle cut. But mostly, pigs are delicious.

Long have I admired their flavor. This summer, we discovered Heather, Brad, and their Piggery. Suddenly, pork was even more delicious.

All my life, I have loved pork and bacon, but I have never liked ham. Christmas (and my birthday) is generally spent with me eating sides and having extra room for dessert. Sure, I liked the French jambon and the Italian prosciutto, but American ham? As the teenaged me would have said "Gag me with a spoon!"

Fortunately, there are times in our life when trust in good producers combined with a healthy sense of adventure leads to revelations. Today was one of those times. The folks at The Piggery were selling deli ham for the first time. And we had been planning to pick up some prosciutto at Wegmans for a dish later this week (involving eggs and roasted red pepper and tomato soup). Why not try the ham at The Piggery? We decided to get 4 oz and try it out. While Brad and Heather were weighing and tallying our pork, they gave us a little ham sample.

Our only regret is that we did not buy more ham. I guess ham sandwiches will finally be in my lunch box.

The battle of the lighting fixture..

2008-08-22T22:19:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, it sucks to live in an 80-year-old house.

Last weekend, Judson and I were finally victorious over the lighting in our living room. The plan had been to change out the fixture weeks ago. But when we brought down the old fixture, we discovered that not only did we not have the right type of box, but that there only seemed to be about 1/2" clearance between the ceiling and the joist the box was anchored to. Ouch. To make matters worse, when we tried to remove the old box, we didn't notice the armored cable anchors until we had already clipped numerous wires awfully close to the armored cable. It turns out that installed armored cable is practically impossible to cut (given any kind of cutting tools we owned and purchased).

We dealt with the shortened cables by using butt splices to add length; this had the added benefit of removing any old frayed and unreliable cloth insulation (yes, our wiring is so old that the insulation is woven cloth). There's nothing like a few butt splices to bring out your inner Beavis and Butthead. We also established once again that I am the mechanically inclined member of our family. This is reassuring, since I'm the mechanical engineer.

Once we had installed the butt splices and re-established how the wiring worked (there were eight wires--none of which were bare grounding wire; the armored cable conduit stuff provides grounding), we used wire nuts to make everything safe. We tested the butt splices by tugging firmly on them and by bending the wires; then we gave them a little extra insulation by wrapping them with a rather copious wrapping of high-quality electrical tape.

And this is how our living room remained for roughly three weeks. The wires that were hanging down were far too long for a 1/2" ceiling box. We didn't want to cut up the joist to allow for a deeper box. And while side-mounting seemed like it might be an option, we couldn't find an appropriate box and didn't want to have to tear up the whole ceiling.

Last week, something in me snapped, and I decreed that we would have our new fixture installed by Sunday evening.

It worked.

We managed to find a side-mount ceiling fan box whose punch-outs were in the perfect place for our armored cable. It was a spacious 2.5" deep. It was not easy to pry out the nails that held brackets positioning the armored cable in precisely the wrong place, but I got it done. And I didn't fall off the ladder, even though I had numerous close calls. If you're klutzy, you should probably not attempt a task that requires you to use a lever at a level higher than your head while standing on a ladder, especially if you are exhausted from a hard workout earlier in the day. Incredibly, it was even more difficult to screw in the new box. Against the odds, I eventually got the screws started (using a normal screwdriver, no less!), and that proved to be the hardest part. Soon our box was installed, and the cable was hanging down in the perfect orientation. We didn't even have to cut too big an opening in the ceiling.

With the box installed, we decided to check out the fixture and decide whether we needed to patch the ceiling. We didn't! Huzzah!

So we installed the light fixture. It looks great. I'll take a picture as soon as I figure out what's going on with our battery recharger.

People always say that replacing/installing light fixtures is easy. And they're right.

Update coming soon!

2008-08-20T23:13:00.001-04:00

I just can't figure out what to write about right now... =)

Happy Left-Handers' Day!

2008-08-13T21:25:00.002-04:00

Today is Left-Handers' Day. So to celebrate, I wrote a note about it on my whiteboard at work. But no one said anything about it, even though I had people in my cubicle virtually all day today because I was acting as my boss (who's on vacation)... Oh well!

Here's one thing that's really great about being a lefty:
When Judson and I go out to dinner together, we can comfortably sit (and eat) at a table for two, even if one side is wedged against a wall.

What do I dislike about being a lefty? Signing those electronic pads at grocery stores and such. The stylus often won't reach the left side. There's hardly any room to sign. At the DMV, I've had to sign while holding the stylus like a toddler because part of my hand kept touching the pad and messing up the signature. Ugh!

Red Jacket Orchards

2008-08-12T20:57:00.002-04:00

My friends, I would like to talk to you about juice. And about cider.

I think it's easy to be oblivious to how tasty various juices can be. Sure, we drink juice when we think it will solve our health problems. Pomegranate juice had its day. Now we've moved on to the remarkable acai berry and its juice. Sour cherry juice is also popular these days. But if you've already graduated preschool, it's unlikely that you find many opportunities to try and relish new juices.

In my area, apple cider and apple juice are king. This is because Cornell has been instrumental in developing new apple varieties and promoting them in this country. Right now, the Geneva agricultural station, in Geneva, NY, is home to some of the world's cutting edge apple research. (I'm not making this up... Google it if you must.)

Is it any wonder, then, that what turns out to be the world's best juice producer, Red Jacket Orchards, is located in Geneva, NY?

A while ago, I noticed Red Jacket in the juice/soda cases at local shops. I didn't think much of it. But then, just a few weeks ago, I tried their cranberry apple cider. It was sublime. And the ingredients list was delightfully simple: the juice only involved apples and cranberries. It even had 3 grams of fiber per serving! Since then, I've tried the apple cider (tasty) and the fabulous Joe's Summer Blend (apple and lemon juice).

If you're in the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic region, I urge you to try to find these juices. If not, you can order some online. Or if you know me personally, I may get some for you as a gift some time.

Hmm... All this typing has made me thirsty...

Happy Birthday, Adam!

2008-08-08T09:42:00.003-04:00

Twenty-two years ago, I got two of the best gifts a 5-year-old girl could ever receive: a My Little Pony dream castle, and a little brother.

I don't know what became of the dream castle, but I'm sure it was well-used and well loved. And it stands as a testament that I was, in fact, slightly girly as a kid.

In the end, my brother was a better gift. He's a nice guy and a good friend, and I wish I could see him more often.

And to that end, I'd like to remind him that Ithaca and the Finger Lakes region features the following perks:

Ithaca Beer Company, whose beers have received accolades from the NYT Beers of the Times folks.
The package store near Kinkos, which features hundreds of beers from around the world.
Wegmans and the Wegmans beertropolis.
Three great wine stores.
The Ithaca Coffee Company, which sells wonderful coffee and has a very knowlegable staff. They even sell Chemex devices and filters!
Purity Ice Cream and the Cornell Dairy.
Wineries!
Great hiking trails
A small but committed group of libertarians who stand in front of CVS every Friday morning with signs.
The Short Stop Deli and the Hot Truck. Mmm... pizza subs.
Hal's Deli, whose pastrami on rye rivals any NYC deli.
And much, much more!

RIP Alexander Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-04T09:20:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Solzhenitsyn died at age 89, apparently of heart failure. The world has lost a great writer.

And I am reminded that I need to read The Gulag Archipelago. (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch was amazing, even the second time around, when I had to read it for school.)

Call Me a Pioneer

2008-08-02T21:17:00.012-04:00

When I was seven or eight, I joined a Parks and Rec soccer team. It was coed. I don't think many girls were interested in playing at the time. I think there may have been other girls in the league, but I am fairly certain that I was the only girl on my team. It generally wasn't a big deal. Most of the boys were fine. I didn't mind too much that there weren't other girls playing. Occasionally, a boy would tell me that I was bad because I was a girl, but I usually found a way to prove him wrong. I played for about three years. I think during that time, the number of girls in the league increased. I don't think it ever mattered to me. Playing soccer was fun.

Twenty years later, I see girls playing soccer everywhere. Mia Hamm is a household name. So many young girls play that I see leagues of them every time I run through Cass Park.

And I am still one of very few women playing a "boy's" game.

Only 20% of engineering undergraduates are women, and in the real world, women make up only 10% of the engineering workforce⁽¹⁾. In my office, I am the only mechanical engineer who lacks a Y chromosome (out of 8). There's also a female electrical engineer (Yan); she's one out of five. Lots of people are trying to figure out why there aren't more of us. Even more are working on increasing our numbers. I bet your area has at least one program aimed at increasing the number of women in engineering and the sciences. I know mine has several. Some members of Congress⁽²⁾ have even suggested that we should apply Title IX to engineering schools. Title IX is the measure that was used to help increase the number of women's sports programs.

I would love to see more women in engineering. There is absolutely no reason that an intelligent woman who enjoys math and problem-solving should avoid engineering. If our society is consciously or subconsciously telling women and girls that they should stay away, then we have a problem to fix. And I can see how such a problem might exist. Girls generally take more flak than boys for being geeky. Girls are supposed to be interested in dance and cheerleading camps, not science camps. Barbie is a progressive woman. She was a doctor even when I was a kid. But to the best of my knowledge, there is no engineer Barbie, no rocket-scientist Barbie. And Barbie commercials seem to focus on fashion and modeling.

I think that we should probably shift the way we present career opportunities, math, and science to young girls. PSAs encouraging kids to be more active and to study more should show girls in the lab with the boys. I think it'd be helpful to focus our efforts on kids when they're still in elementary school, before all the stereotypes and peer pressure becomes entrenched.

But Title IX for engineering schools? Rabidly pushing women into engineering, even when maybe it's not what floats their boats? That's a problem. Women who don't like engineering are not going to make good engineers. And I don't want anyone thinking that I got my job just because I'm a woman. Women engineers need to be as good and as passionate as the men, or all women will suffer. I hope that Congress (16% women) will not let this Title IX in school idea go anywhere.

All things considered, I don't know how to approach the subject of women in engineering. Maybe I'm naive, but I think our numbers will increase naturally.

Maybe engineering just needs its own Mia Hamm.

I don't think that designing and analyzing satellite components has much of a chance of giving me the kind of fame really needed to inspire young girls. But I am doing my best.

I hope engineering will turn out to be like soccer.

Twenty years from now, I might just be seeing women engineers everywhere.

^{(1) Girls are ready for engineering if engineering is ready to share.}
^{(2) Sex, Bias and Data}

Wegmans gets even better

2008-07-30T22:14:00.002-04:00

Everyone who has been to the Wegmans in Ithaca knows how fantastic it is.

For a while, we were concerned. They were reorganizing the store again. In the last move, they made the foreign foods section bigger. Recently, they were moving all the Italian stuff and a few other things around. We were miffed. We'd just gotten used to the new layout.

Well, the changes were for the good.

We now have four dedicated aisles of high-quality beers. It is a thing of wonder and glory.

We have glasses! (Updated)

2008-07-27T11:16:00.005-04:00

When my parents visited us back in June, we made them dinner. Everything was lovely, except that we had to serve them drinks in a weird hodgepodge of glasses. The only glasses we received for our wedding were wine glasses. And while the wine glasses that we had chosen were gorgeous, their long stems made them very susceptible to breakage. We started with a set of four, and we have broken three of them. I have a slip somewhere to replace broken glasses at a reduced rate, but given our (okay, my) clutziness, I'm not sure it'd be a wise investment. I think that to have a homogeneous group of wine glasses, I'll have to buy some simple, heavy ones.

Anyhow, when we helped clear out Judson's grandmother's house, we were able to take our pick of her collection of glasses. We took almost all of them. We now have a set of six highballs, eleven 8-oz juice glasses, six nice beer glasses, four old-fashioneds, and a vast collection of various cocktail glasses.

Update! We found a whole box of glasses that we had forgotten about and gained an extra 12 tall glasses and 12 short glasses!

We previously had mugs and a very nice set of eight Waterford "claret" glasses, but while they are very pretty, they are unfortunately not ideal for wine.

So if you come to our house now, you will be served in matching glasses. Unless we have more than 12 people.

Our glasses neatly filed away in our Butler's Pantry.

And the cocktail glasses we don't quite know what to do with.

Beef!

2008-07-25T23:35:00.003-04:00

Some of you may be visiting us for dinner sometime this year. If the thought of eating steak named after the protagonist in a children's book is even slightly upsetting to you, you may want to skip this post.

As I mentioned in my last post, Judson and I purchased 1/6 of a cow. We ended up with about 75 lb of meat in the form of steaks (you ought to see these porterhouses--I think we'll have to have a dinner party to get them consumed), roasts, and ground beef. It ended up costing us $4/lb.

Our cow grew up in nearby Groton, NY, at a local farm. That's only about 17 miles from us. That is close enough to make Ed Begley, Jr. jealous. Seeing as how, according to the Simpsons, Ed's car is powered by his own sense of self-satisfaction, that's saying something.

Anyhow, because our cow grew up just down the road, and because we have quite a bit of him to eat, I feel like he deserves a bit more respect than your average meat. I mean, we looked at houses in Groton--maybe I saw him as a very young calf!

So I have decided to name him. Ferdinand. I sincerely hope that he enjoyed just sitting in the fields and smelling the flowers. Especially since we will be rewarded for his laziness in the form of more delicious meat.

I will write about said delicious meat as soon as we actually eat it. But this weekend, we're picking up some pork products from the guys at The Piggery, and since it's all fresh (not frozen), we will be eating that first. Wilbur? Babe? You pick.

Quick Update

2008-07-21T23:12:00.002-04:00

I've been very busy in the last few days. I haven't figured out what I feel like writing about, so I thought I'd do a quick rundown and make up my mind later.

I made sour cherry jam using only sour cherries, sugar, and a lemon. I did this because sour cherry jam seemed healthier than sour cherry pie, and I was inspired by an article in the Amateur Gourmet. It actually jelled, and it's tasty!
I went down to Lewisburg and helped Judson's family clear out his grandmother's house. This was a little sad and a lot of hard work. We did come away with a lot of cool furniture and silver pieces, etc.
I ate moules portugaises, which Judson cooked for dinner tonight and which were delicious. Incidentally, mussels only cost like $2.50/lb and cook in like 5-8 minutes.
Our dryer broke, and then was fixed. It turns out that the glowplug was at fault.
We bought a 7.2 cu-ft chest freezer.

Right around now, if you haven't left home to buy mussels, you should be wondering why in the world Judson and I would need or want a chest freezer.

Tomorrow, Judson is bringing home 1/6 of a cow, conveniently cut into roasts and steaks and ground into, well, ground beef. Some people in his office wanted to buy a half a cow, but they needed some others to help divide up the meat (newsflash: cows are big!)... So we went in for 1/3 of the half. The meat is from a local farmer/rancher. The steer had a good life and ate good food as part of a small establishment, and then it was butchered locally, and dry-aged for a while, and then frozen. It will be delicious. Yum. And the price is very nice, even after you factor in the cost of a brand new chest freezer.

Beets: The Verdict (Plus Dinner Tonight)

2008-07-15T19:55:00.002-04:00

Beets are, in fact, good eats!

For dinner tonight, I made pork chops with a mustard-tarragon sauce, sauteed swiss chard and beet leaves with garlic, and roasted beets. Everything turned out really well, and I think all the flavors worked together.

When we first bought the beets, we cut the leaves off about an inch from the beets so that the chard wouldn't continue to steal the beets' precious sugar.

With tonight's dinner, I started by preheating the oven to 450 F. I cleaned the beets and wrapped each beet in aluminum foil. Then I put them on a cookie sheet and stuck them in the oven.

About 45 minutes later, I started working on the prep. I cut the stems out of the greens and then put them in my salad spinner and filled the spinner with water. I gave them a good swish and let them sit so that the sand and silt would filter to the bottom of the bowl. I crushed two cloves of garlic for the pork and crushed and chopped two more cloves for the greens. I chopped a small handful of tarragon. I quartered and peeled an onion.

Then I added about 2 tsp. of olive oil to a large skillet and heated it over medium-high heat. I added the chopped garlic. I quickly drained and spun my greens. Then I added them to the skillet with the garlic. I seasoned the greens with a pinch of salt. I reduced the heat to medium-low once the greens started to wilt.

After reducing the heat, I put a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat and added about 2 tsp. of olive oil. Then, as the oil heated, I quickly seasoned my chops with salt and pepper. I added the chops to the cast-iron skillet and browned each side for 1-2 minutes. Then, I turned the heat down to low, put about 1.5 tsp of butter on top of each chop, and scattered the onion and crushed garlic around the chops. I covered the dish and let the chops finish cooking.

Throughout all this, I stirred my greens. Once I covered the chops, I removed the beets from the oven and tested to make sure the beets were done by piercing one with a toothpick (going right through the foil--it went in without much resistance, so I knew the beets were done). I let them cool down on a clean cutting board.

I poked the chops and discovered they were done (at 140 F). I removed the chops to a plate and covered them with a clean towel (normally, I'd use foil, but I ran out with the beets). I deglazed the pork chop pan with some wine (maybe 1/4 cup?), added the tarragon, and then a big tablespoonful of mustard. I whisked (okay, Judson did the whisking so that I could peel the beets) the sauce together. I peeled the beets using an old, clean kitchen towel. I sliced them as evenly as I could considering their super-high temperature. I put them in a bowl and tossed them with a sprinking of kosher salt and about a teaspoon of olive oil.

And then Judson and I assembled the plates and ate! Huzzah!

I suppose over all, there was quite a bit of oil and fat, but sometimes, you just have to make your vegetables taste good. And they did! The beets were delicious, despite their reputation and their somewhat scary aroma.

Beets - A Prologue

2008-07-15T12:36:00.002-04:00

Tonight, I will be cooking beets for the first time ever and eating them for the first time in 12-15 years.

I will be roasting them, whole, wrapped in aluminum foil. I will then peel them and most likely dress them with some yet-to-be-determined vinaigrette.
We'll also eat the greens, which are just chard (and which are known by me to be tasty).
I'm also serving pork chops.

Wish me luck!

Chemex - A Coffee Maker for the Geeky

2008-07-12T22:33:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, my trusty coffee maker, a Black and Decker I got just before my freshman year in college, kicked the bucket. Judson's (which was a similar age) had broken a couple of months before that. So we spent a couple of weeks making the occasional pot with the French Press and drinking the coffee we have available at work while researching replacements.

Eventually, we opted on the Chemex, a coffee maker that appears to be a favorite of coffee geeks everywhere.

Behold, the Chemex:

Yes, it looks like it's from the 70s, but the Chemex is much older. It was invented in 1941. The Chemex website has a nice write-up of the development of the Chemex device.

So why would we be so excited about an hourglass-shaped glass vessel with a weird wooden handle that requires special filters?

Because the coffee it brews is awesome.

It's a labor-intensive process, to be sure. Boil water. Wait for it to cool down a bit. Pour in just enough to wet the grounds, but not enough to let them float. Slowly add water and wait for it to transform into coffee over the course of the next five minutes or so. Discard filter. Profit. Basically, it's a manual, unheated version of the standard automatic drip filter.

But this is no ordinary coffee maker! It was developed by a chemist. The Chemex is a favorite of coffee geeks and baristas everywhere (just ask coffeegeek.com or the sites of your favorite baristas). It has won numerous design awards. It is in the permanent collections at MoMA and at the Corning Museum of Glass.

So if you're patient (it really doesn't take much longer than any other coffee maker, but you have to do more babysitting) and are in the market for a new coffee maker, keep the Chemex in mind. It'll give you the best coffee you've ever tasted for a $35 (or less) device.

On a related note, I found a very entertaining web site about coffee here: A Trip Inside Your Coffee Pot.

Farfalle with Summer Squash and Lemon

2008-07-10T20:30:00.002-04:00

I'm trying to do more cooking without recipes. The theory is that I know how to cook, and I know what tastes good together, so I should be able to figure it out. Tonight's experiment: a summery pasta dish, still served hot.

Note: I had some cannellini (small white) beans that I meant to add to this, but I forgot them. Judson and I think they'd fit in just fine.

Ingredients

Juice and zest of one lemon
2 summer squashes (e.g. zucchini), cut into sticks
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
4 oz prosciutto, cubed
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine
salt
pepper
2 scallions, sliced
8 oz farfalle or other pasta

Directions

While you prep the veggies, bring a big pot of salted water to boil. You want to add enough salt so that the water tastes like sea water.
Melt butter over medium-high heat in a large skillet. When the butter is foamy, add the summer squash, and cook until done (if you're not sure, just taste it!). Remove the squash to a medium bowl using a slotted spoon. By now, your water should DEFINITELY be boiling. Add the pasta to the pot.
Add the olive oil to the skillet. Cook the onions until slightly caramelized. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the garlic and cook until you can smell the garlic, and it has turned an almond color. Put the onions and garlic in the bowl with the squash.
Add the prosciutto and cook until crispy. Add it to your veggie bowl.
Deglaze the pan with the wine. Reduce the wine by approximately half. Add the lemon juice and stir well. Add the veggies and prosciutto. Add the scallions. Season with a little salt and a lot of pepper. The time it takes to cook the onions, garlic, and prosciutto should be less than the cooking time of the pasta.
Test the pasta. When it is just a little too hard to cook (about a minute before you think it'll be ready to serve), drain it, reserving about 1 cup of the cooking liquid, just in case. Add the pasta to the skillet. Toss well and finish cooking, about 1 minute. If you don't have enough liquid to cover all the pasta, add some of the cooking liquid. Serve!

Serves 2-4, depending on hunger levels. I ate about 1/3 of it; Judson ate the rest.

Sorry that I'm a noob and didn't take a picture.

FYI, I used some sort of yellow squash.

It's Official!

2008-07-09T20:05:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, my MS diploma arrived. It's all official, and it came in a neat Cornell envelope. I can already feel the bitterness subsiding.

My First Real Vacation

2008-07-07T21:05:00.002-04:00

Judson and I just got back from our first real vacation. Our honeymoon didn't count. That's not a vacation, it's a once-in-a-lifetime event. Also, when we got back from our honeymoon, we both had to return to our lives as graduate students, which sucked.

This time, we got to go back to REAL jobs that we actually like.

The Setting: Martha's Vineyard. There's a long and somewhat complicated story here, but the end result is that Judson's aunt Dianne owns a guest house (designed to look and feel kind of like a refurbished barn) there, and she leaves time for Judson's family to come stay during the summer.

Activities: Reading, cycling, bike riding, cooking, sitting on the beach, hiking.

We brought along our bicycles. It turns out that you can fit two adult bicycles in the back seat of a Pontiac Grand Am if you take off their wheels. We also brought a small collection of kitchen/cooking essentials (not realizing, unfortunately, that we should have brought along our knives), plus all the normal vacation clothes, books, etc.

While we were on the Island, I managed to read:

Lolita by Victor Nabokov (actually, I was more than halfway through when we left, but it's a dense book).
Deliverance by James Dickey
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (I had read this one before but thought it was time for a re-read
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Of these, the best book was Lolita, whereas the best beach read was Deliverance.

One of the best things about being on the Island was the proximity to fresh seafood. We had a great time cooking and experimenting with fish, something we don't get to do often since we live so far from the coast. We made three fish dinners.

The first day, we were a bit inexperienced and ended up with red snapper. All of the fish markets had snapper, but I'm not convinced that it was actually local. At any rate, we sauteed it in butter with shallots and then made a pan sauce using white wine and a little more butter. We served it with local asparagus and some crusty French bread. It was all right, but asparagus was definitely the wrong choice for the fish. The snapper itself was good, especially toward the tail end.

We later cooked swordfish with a fresh salsa and bacon. We lightly seared the swordfish, then covered it with bacon and surrounded it with a homemade salsa. Then we cooked it in the oven at about 350 F until it was done (no longer translucent, nice and moist). We served it with a hot corn salad consisting of corn, onions, red peppers, jalapenos, cumin, salt, and pepper.

We also made goujonettes, small strips of fish (we used gray sole) lightly floured and fried. We served that with a salad. It was delicious.

So I've written all I care to write for now. I hope to eventually figure out how to make this more interesting.

Little Bunny Foo Foo

2008-06-23T22:25:00.003-04:00

Generally, when people ignore their blogs or their journals for more than a year, they have a whole post about how they're back and what they learned. But I hate those posts. So if you're reading this, you're stuck with just a few sentences. I'm hoping to keep this thing updated at least once a week for at least three months.

Lately, Judson and I have been doing most of our shopping at the Farmer's Market. This week, our final Wegmans grocery list was: cereal, sandwich bread, bok choy, spinach. I think this is the best we've done so far. I had a great time visiting my parents, and we were able to serve them an entire meal made from local ingredients (excluding condiments and butter). We had sirloin steaks with garlic mashed potatoes and sugar snap peas. And it was a hit!

This week, I made the mistake of noting (loudly) that the Sheep people had rabbits. For eating. The sales woman, who I think had been hoping to convince my mom to buy the Folie Bergere cheese, immediately pounced. And soon enough, we paid just over $20 for a 2.4-lb rabbit. I was immensely relieved when I took possession of the rabbit because 1) it was headless and 2) it had been skinned.

I've eaten a number of odd animals, but I don't think I'd ever had rabbit. And because Judson gets a bit squeamish when it comes to butchering meats, all the scary tasks (i.e. cutting up the rabbit) fell to me. I don't mind this, but from Saturday morning when we bought the rabbit until Monday evening when I ate it, I was apprehensive about the experience. And I couldn't get "Little Bunny Foo Foo," out of my head; this I found equally worrisome.

Interesting note about me: I can't handle "dissections" for science class, but I have no problem cutting up animals for eating, even when they have distinct muscle groups and organs.

After work, I got out my Pepin guide (because its description was shorter than the one in Peterson) and started carving. The legs were easy to separate. Then I was stuck with the ribcage/breast meat and the saddle/loin. I think Pepin wanted me to cook spinal cord and backbone, but I am not there yet. So I actually separated everything out. I ended up with about 10 pieces of rabbit--nice legs and arms, good (professional-looking!) loin cuts, etc. I lightly floured the pieces. I also threw out the kidneys, heart, and liver because my waving them around and poking at them seemed to make Judson a little green. The rabbit's kidneys were larger than its heart. I wonder if people are like that.

Anyhow, we braised the rabbit and served it with leftover mashed potatoes (which we baked in ramekins) and a mizuna (which I think is wild arugula) salad. It was tasty.

So what does rabbit taste like?

Delicious. Like rabbit. But since that's not very helpful, I would say very much like what it would taste like to blend turkey breast meat (off a real turkey that has been roasted) with chicken thigh meat.

And it's a good thing we liked it, since tomorrow, we finish off the rabbit with some homemade fresh pasta and mushrooms.

Cornell Ranger Update! (Now with Video!)

2007-04-06T11:12:00.000-04:00

Well, our mechanical cancer-fighter, the Cornell Ranger, had a really tough time navigating the crowds and turns of the track, but he's a fighter, and in the end he did pretty well. Progress with the robot in general seems to be coming along well, though as with all research endeavors, it seems that every three steps forward we make are accompanied by two steps back.

The important thing is that the Ranger helped raise $755 for cancer research. =)

Click here to watch the ranger in action!

Relay for Life

2007-03-29T11:39:00.000-04:00

Well, sorry it's been so long since I've updated my blog... I am going to try to maintain a somewhat regular posting schedule starting now. I think I'm just aiming for once a week though. In the event that anyone still checks my blog, I wanted to let you know about my lab's effort to help in Cornell's Relay for Life.

We build walking robots, and we think one of our robots has already set the world record for farthest distance ever covered by an unassisted robot at 1 km. One of the main contributors to our lab, Gregg Stiesberg, has been diagnosed with colorectal cancer is currently on leave getting treated. He has finished a round of chemo and just recently underwent surgery and reports that he's doing well. We thought we would try to raise money to help people who, like Gregg, are fighting cancer in the most public way we know how--having our robot do the walking for us. And so, the brave Cornell Ranger will do the walking this Saturday at Relay for Life. We may have to pick him up and reset him frequently. He may even rebel and end up being carried throughout the event. But we hope the stars will align, and he'll walk farther than ever before.

We are pretty sure that our robot will be the only robot participating in the event, and we'd really like him to make a good showing. If you would like to help sponsor his march, here's what you do:
1) Visit the Cornell Ranger Team Page at Relay for Life.
2) Enter your donation in the "Enter Donation Here" box.
3) Press continue
4) Enter the necessary donor information.

And that's it!

Insurance Companies--Make it "One Less"

2007-02-02T14:08:00.000-05:00

Merck paints a nice picture--girls in a city, jumping rope together, chanting "One less--I wanna be one less." They're singing about how they can avoid cervical cancer by getting the new HPV vaccine--Gardasil. This vaccine protects women against four strains of HPV, and two of these strains are responsible for up to 70% of all cervical cancer cases. Why is this such a big deal? Because the CDC estimates that at least 50% of US citizens will contract HPV in their lifetimes (and according to many studies, 75% may be a more accurate figure). This vaccine is a HUGE advance in modern medicine and has been championed by medical professionals and women's rights activists alike. More than 12 states have already introduced legislation attempting to make the vaccine mandatory or available free.

In the mean time, few insurance companies currently offer compensation for the vaccine, and some medical practitioners are apparently choosing to write prescriptions for it or other ways of avoiding stocking it because of the cost. Getting a full HPV vaccination requires three shots, each costing $120+. At Cornell, the vaccine costs $150/shot. As a graduate student who complained bitterly when her flu shot cost her $25, I appreciate the toll that $450 can take on a budget. Maybe I'm stereotyping a bit too much, but I find it unlikely that the little girls in the commercial will be receiving the vaccine any time soon (unless they live in the right state, and the legislature flows through).

I don't really blame Merck... I'm sure the development costs were enormous, and the vaccine has only been around since July. But all insurance companies should be providing reimbursement for this one. The vaccine doesn't work after you've contracted HPV--this is something we need to do for the nation's kids.

I will be writing a letter to my insurance company to encourage them to cover this vaccine. I hope you will see my blog and decide to do the same.

A message to Boson-Area Massholes

2007-02-01T13:42:00.000-05:00

You try to run over me when I'm halfway across the street, running in a sidewalk. You created and maintain the streets of Cambridge, and during the century that people have been driving cars, you have not made these streets more navigable. Driving in traffic with you is worse than being driven by a NY cabdriver who is in labor, on a cellphone, surrounded by tourists, during rush-hour. And now you can't even distinguish between an advertisement and a public safety hazard?!!

If it weren't for Fenway Park, killer food, the Boston Marathon, and Fannueil Hall, we'd be calling you the new Newark.

To catch a thief

2007-01-29T12:38:00.000-05:00

Friday was a strange day. I was working in the lab, sitting at my desk, which is separated from the lab-portion of the lab by 8-ft bookcases. All the other kids who are normally around were doing lab orientation and machine-shop safety and were out in the hall somewhere. A student came in and asked me whether Pranav (another grad student working in the lab) was around. Pranav wasn't, so I told him he could wait a few minutes by Pranav's desk (i.e. where I could see him) or out in the hall. He said he'd just stop by later and left. I checked the clock to see what time it was so I could tell Pranav he missed the guy. I asked his name but promptly forgot. I looked at him long enough to be able to describe him accurately to Pranav.

About thirty seconds later, I got a weird feeling and headed out to the lab portion to check things out. The student had left, and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I went back to work, this time without my headphones.

Pranav came back at 2:00 and was really upset that he'd missed the guy. About fifteen minutes later, Sam, one of the undergrads who does a ton of work on robots, came back. His laptop was missing. The peripherals (minus the charger) were still sitting on the desk. After talking to people in the lab to see if it had just been moved, etc., he called the police. This is how I came to discover that something was stolen right in front of me (albeit beyond a wall of bookshelves so I couldn't see). We asked everyone who works in the hall and who was in the machine shop if they'd seen anyone unusual. The guy looking for Pranav was noticed by just about everyone.

The police arrived 15-20 minutes later, and it's now close to 3:00. Pranav has been trying to call this guy. It turns out they had met at the ISSO, and Pranav had been keeping some medicine for the guy while the guy traveled. Pranav didn't know him well, and he feels about as bad as I do. We tell the police everything we know--I gave a really complete description (hadn't been long), including a description of the laptop bag he was carrying. The policeman says he's going to look up the student and go question him, having only one suspect. He doesn't take fingerprints of the peripherals. I'm disappointed about that. The policeman heads out around 3:30.

At 4:00, Sam gets a phone call. It's the policeman. He has Sam's laptop. He stopped the suspect, carrying Sam's laptop, as the suspect left his dorm. He hadn't changed his clothes. My description was enough that the policeman readily identified him on sight. Sam got his laptop back at 4:30 and decided not to press charges, but to fully support the on-campus handling of the matter (through the JA). He didn't want to lose his laptop to evidence.

So that's the story of how a friend's laptop was stolen while I was in the room with it, and then how I managed to get it back for him (though Pranav's willingness to give the police all the contact information he had was the main help). Some files had been deleted, but Sam didn't suffer any major losses. Now we are all being a bit more careful with our possessions and with lab security when everyone is working at the desks.

In other news, Jud and I went furniture shopping this weekend and came away with a table and chairs (image from the Ashley Furniture website).

We aren't big fans of the upholstery, but we're told it's easy to change, and that there's a JoAnn's fabric shop nearby. We got our set during what turned out to be a huge 50%-off sale, so it only cost us $550, including tax and delivery. Our table and chairs will be delivered in two weeks or so... In the meantime, we are preparing the room. We cleaned and primed the walls last night. Killz--nice primer, but you might as well be painting with Elmer's glue.

Hooray for the Ithaca Beer Company!

2007-01-24T11:48:00.000-05:00

This week, instead of doing its typical "wines of the times" column, the New York Times covered "ales of the times"--more specifically, brown ales.

And our little Ithaca Beer Company made the cut with its Nut Brown Ale! Receiving three out of a possible four stars (meaning: excellent), the Nut Brown Ale was among the top ten beers tasted by the panel, and it was included in the multimedia feature!

As some of you may know, Judson and I have long recommended the Nut Brown Ale to those seeking a delightful, thirst-quenching local beer. It's one of my favorites. So today, I am even prouder to be an Ithacan.

In other news, a Clemson Tiger spoke at our MAE colloquium yesterday! Best colloquium I've seen in a long time. =)

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

2007-01-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

Today is MLK day. It's one of those holidays appreciated only because it happens to give most of us a day off. But Martin Luther King, Jr. is the sort of person who ought to be remembered, even if it's just for teaching us that within our own lifetimes, if we embrace a great cause, we can see progress even without resorting to violence. So I found and copied the "I have a dream" speech for anyone who still bothers to read my blog. Enjoy.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Give back to the community

2006-11-29T13:45:00.000-05:00

Last year, I posted about my favorite charity, Child's Play, and I think I generated almost as large an impact as I did when posting about the Colgate 360 toothbrush (still my favorite toothbrush). So this year, I'm reminding everyone about this fabulous organization. =)

Child's Play has the humble goal of making children's hospital stays a little bit better. How, you ask? Simple--the guys who founded the organization, the authors of the web comic Penny Arcade--help hospitals set up Amazon.com wish lists for games/crafts/etc that will improve the quality of life for patients. There aren't any administrative fees, and no one will harass you to give more. You may even receive a nice thank-you card from the hospital.

There are a lot of people out there who need help. We have many, many diseases that we still don't understand and that still extol a huge toll on civilization. There are people who can't afford presents. And all of these are nice causes to support.

But right now, there are hundreds of kids battling disease in hospitals around the world. Wouldn't it be great to make their stays a bit more fun by giving them toys?

The End to Cervical Cancer

2006-11-06T10:57:00.000-05:00

Is is now possible to get vaccinated against HPV, the sole cause of cervical cancer. Talk to your healthcare provider about it. Te vaccine is now on the official schedule of vaccination shots for female patients beginning at age 12. It consists of three shots: an initial shot; one two months later; and a third four months after that. According to the CDC, "Approximately 20 million people are currently infected with HPV. At least 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives. By age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection. About 6.2 million Americans get a new genital HPV infection each year."

Protect yourself. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

One room painted, many lessons learned

2006-10-23T10:13:00.000-04:00

We painted our guest bedroom this weekend. It is now "heirloom lace," which means it's a sort of creamy off-white that I can't really describe. I think it looks pretty nice. We have some touching-up to do, and we have to figure out how to clean the floors, but it's looking nice.

We learned that fake TSP (the phosphate is illegal here because of environmental legislation) takes the finish right off our floors (or at least cleans them really well). Hooray for drip marks. We also learned that paint can go through a heavy canvas drop cloth pretty quickly. I really wish we had the huge and scary drop cloths my dad has. Ah, well. Live and learn. Next time, the plastic tarp will go down first. Most of the floors need to be refinished anyhow. I think I'm going to find out how much getting all the remaining floors sanded would cost. Staining and protecting are not a big deal. There's also the option of chemically resurfacing--we just need to get a bunch of chemicals, go into the closet, and figure out what protectant is on the floors now. This is something we need to do anyhow for the purposes of cleaning the floors.

Raking is hard work. I learned that yesterday too.

All right. Back to work.

The Bathroom Floor Is Done!!!

2006-10-19T10:46:00.000-04:00

When we moved in to our house, there was truly awful carpet covering the bathroom floor. I don't think this picture adequately conveys how gross the carpet was, but it's the only thing I have:

We decided to find out what was beneath the carpet. The original plan was to install ceramic tile. Well, under the carpet, we found the most glorious linoleum either of us had ever encountered. It was Clemson orange with multi-colored speckles throughout. This was the kind of linoleum that took your breath away. This was linoleum perfectly designed to meet the needs of hard-partying college kids. With this sort of surprise discovered by simply pulling up a corner of the carpet, we had to find out whether we'd discover a similar shocker under the linoleum. And we did--original hardwood flooring, just like the rest of the house.

Needless to say, the linoleum had to go. And go it did, thanks to our dads' efforts in the days before our wedding.

Now we were left with thick patches of black, tarry, linoleum glue with glints of wood peaking through here and there. You know what they don't tell you about linoleum glue? It's tough stuff to remove. We scraped for a while before giving up and buying a heat gun. It turns out that melting linoleum glue smells awful, gives you headaches, and makes you cough a lot. We became the proud owners of a very fancy all-purpose face mask with carbon (and some additional) filters. Yep, it's the kind of mask you'd use if you had to go and clear out 90+ cats from some crazy old man's house.

Eventually, all visible traces of the linoleum glue were gone. Next up, sanding away remaining glue and floor protection. We bought a medium-duty random-orbit sander, a sanding block, and a ton of 60-grit sandpaper. I was nervous about renting a machine because the bathroom isn't huge, and I figured big machines have a bigger chance of causing damage through inexperienced user error than small ones. Random-orbit sanders are foolproof. This turned out to be a huge tactical error on my part, but we plowed through.

Or rather, we sanded through. I don't know how many hours the entire sanding job took, but it was far more than a reasonable amount of time. Even considering how slowly sanding goes for small projects. Random-orbit sanders are so soothing that I couldn't use it without struggling to stay awake within minutes, so I hand sanded edges, corners, and inaccessible areas while Jud worked away on the rest of the floor. My shoulder is still sore.

Finally, we removed all the dust. This also took forever. Pledge dry dusting wipes are an awesome invention, but we're still disappointed we didn't think to try rubbing alcohol. Staining and applying polyurethane turned out to be easy tasks. We had a lot of luck with the water-based polyurethane we bought. It went on smoothly and bubble-free, and we can't find brush marks anywhere.

Although there are a few areas where you can see stain overlap (it's just tough to avoid with such), they're hardly noticeable. Over all, we're really proud of how the floor turned out, and are highly hesitant to do such an intense and annoying project any time soon. Next week, we start painting. Woohoo!

Why don't I have one of these?

2006-09-22T14:35:00.000-04:00

Now this would have made an excellent shower present!

It's girly because it's pink. =)

Updates, updates

2006-09-18T14:33:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, I am supposed to demonstrate what I've accomplished with "the chair" so far. This is all related to my new muscle energetics project. Unfortunately, the undergrads were a bit too enthusiastic when trying an isometric test and stripped the teflon coating from the cable that connects the motor to the test subject, controls, and dynamometer, meaning that right now, there is no working machine for me to use for the demo. Great. The good news is that we are supposed to receive a new cable tomorrow, so I may be able to pull off my demo without having to reschedule.

Work on our house is coming along pretty well. We've gotten everything unpacked and out of the way in the main living areas--there is stuff in the attic that will come downstairs when we have more furniture/organizational supplies and stuff in the basement that will come up either as we need it or after we've renovated the kitchen, but that's it. We are going to look into furniture soon--right now, we definitely need a dining room table, chairs, a coffee table, a bed (we just have the frame that came with our mattress). Some closet organizational supplies would help too.

We're picking out paint colors and hope to do that soon. Right now, our biggest priority is finishing the bathroom floor. Our dads took up the carpet and most of the linoleum, revealing the original hardwood floor. So far, we have scraped up the big chunks of linoleum glue, hit the rest with a heat gun, and have gotten a good start at sanding. Once we've finally gotten back to the bare wood and gone over the floor again with finer sandpaper (we're using 60 grit now--soon it'll be 120 and 240). Then, we seal areas around the tub and toilet and apply many, many coats of polyurethane or some other protectant/water-proofer. Our research tells us that hardwood can be just fine in bathrooms as long as you are thorough when protecting the wood and don't stand around dripping for ages. Good ventilation (to keep the air dry) will be very important as well--fortunately, we have plenty of space to run a vent up to the attic and out near the attic vent.

I have discovered that having a house made me care about the lawn. Not only am I very careful to make sure that the lines the lawnmower cuts are perfectly straight, but I am pondering mulch, landscaping, seeding, and fertilization. I talk about a weed whacker every week. I really want an edger. I am highly allergic to the bushes that form a sort of privacy fence, but that doesn't stop me from mowing in/and around them, getting stratched and rashy in the process.

It occurred to me yesterday that we really need to be taking pictures before, during, and after any big house projects, so I think I'm going to start that tonight. I found a great blog run by people who have a (much bigger) house renovation project that I thoroughly enjoy--House in Progress.

On the big accomplishment front, we only have five thank-you cards left to write and send, and none of those are my responsibility. Hooray!

Time to get back to work!