Rays win!

Okay baseball fans, it is your duty to watch this series because you are fans of the game and not fans of the dreaded Yankees, etc. You may not like it, but it can only be good for the sport.

On a different note: Bills win! They haven't been this good since they were beat in the super bowl. I'll let you figure out which time!

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday I went to a birthday party for my friend's daughter. She turned two and loves Elmo. Yes there was Elmo everywhere. I walked in and was stuffed rotten before I really had a chance to sit down. There was an entire table full of food. I ate chicken kabob, pasticcio, spanakopita, salad, cake and cookies. Mmm. The hosts were even kind enough to send me home with three plates of leftovers so tonight I was essentially able to recreate last night's meal. Note: one plate was just cookies and baklava. It is an interesting home to be in because you can hear Greek, Hindi, Russian, and English being spoken simultaneously. Sometimes I feel like I've been dropped into a bad ethnic joke where the punch line is "they eat a lot of tasty food". This was a great way to end a not so good week.

No more adventures!

I'm with C-3PO on that one. Last night I arrived home at about 10:30 pm after being gone all day to discover a flooded apartment. Yikes! The person two floors above me decided to leave their taps open all day. There was about an inch of water on my kitchen floor and bathroom floor. Half of the bedroom carpet was soaked, it was like walking through puddles to get to the bathroom to check it out. Water had leaked from the ceiling onto my bed as well. That being said I only threw away my collection of plastic bags, my toothbrush, a cucumber, and a throw rug (that was about 20 years old anyway). Thankfully my book collection survived unscathed. The maintenance guy came out and used a wet vac to suck up as much water as he could and today the apartment manager promised to call in a carpet cleaner. I hope that happens. This was shame because yesterday was a really good day otherwise.

My Trip

I want to apologize to my thousands of readers. I appreciate your concern over my absence from the blog sphere, but be assured I didn't die, I was just busy.

On to the important stuff! The weekend of September 20th found me in San Diego visiting Dr. Lisa. What a fun trip! I ate lots of goodies including lobster burritos, California burritos, fish tacos, shrimp tacos, and a tasty fruit filled scone. One night we ate dinner at a restaurant that seems to go out of its way to hide its name. There we shared Japanese pub food (Izakaya). I really liked the dish of deep fried eggplant with ground beef in a ginger sauce. Mmm.

It was nice to see parts of San Diego, especially the water and the big ships parked in the water. Aircraft carriers are big! big! big! I was happy to walk along the beach and wished I could have packed it up and brought it back here. At least the temperature is finally going down.

This weekend was quick, but it was fun. Hopefully I didn't annoy Dr. Lisa too much so she'll let me come visit again.

Revisions!

What did I say last week about the Diamondbacks making the playoffs? Ouch! They are currently being clobbered by the Giants. Unless they go on a good run over the next couple of weeks I have to say the season is over.

Thankfully the Bills won their opener this weekend. Now I can hope for another week that they will run the table and go win their next 15 games. I just hope they didn't blow their points scored budget for the year already. The AFC East should be interesting now that Brady is done for the year.

Since I was at a church retreat on Saturday I did not see any football though I did get to hear part of ASU's beat down of Stanford when I got home. I'm looking forward to the match up with Georgia in a couple of weeks. Thinking about it I will be in San Diego visiting Dr. Lisa that weekend. Dude, sports bar?

Sports!

My favorite sports time of the year has begun. I am sitting here watching USC and Virginia on TV. Later today the hometown Sun Devils kick off their season by playing Northern Arizona University. The baseball pennant races are kicking into gear as the last month of the season is getting started and next week the NFL season will kick off. This is way better than any other time of the year.

As a kid growing up in New York state I followed the Yankees. I lost interest in the sport as I grew up but became interested again when the hometown Diamondbacks came into the league in 1998. They are hanging on to a small lead in the NL West and will probably make the playoffs, but I don't expect them to do much once there. I am much more interested in the Yankees not making the playoffs. Yes, I am a Yankee hater. As much as I dislike the organization I hope they go back to the model they used to become so successful in the late 90s using homegrown talent instead of overpaid and under performing free agents. I am shocked that the Rays are still in the AL east lead. Wow. I can even see a scenario where the Red Sox and the Yankees don't make the playoffs. It could happen. That would be something.

I prefer college football to the NFL. Evey year I hope for controversy in the college game because I want a playoff at the end of the year instead of the current bowl system. I was just struck by a thought. With the Olympics fresh in my mind I realized that the college football polls are a lot judging gymnastics. A team does its thing on the field and then the receive a score based on their performance. A team can even receive a deduction for a stumble or flawed performance. That's no way to crown a football champion.

Summer's Over

Well, summer is over. Technically there is still a few weeks left but the fall semester has started and I am back to work teaching the kids math and physics. No matter how tired and worn out I may be I always look forward to the start of a new school year. I wonder what adventures the next 16 weeks will bring?

Sushi!

Last night I ate sushi with my friend Alissa at Sushi Kee. Mmm sushi. In my opinion sushi is the perfect food. With each piece you get a little protein, a little rice, and some vegetables. Some times you also get a little bit of added fat for flavor. Sushi has no extra parts, flavors, or calories and you get yummy goodness in each and every bite.

I have tried to make sushi at home but have failed miserably. For starters I need lessons in making good sushi rice. Any one out there need an apprentice?

Finally!

Finally on my summer vacation I took a vacation. I went with my friend Wayne to visit long-time friends Clay and Kristi at their farm near Monroe, Wisconsin. It was a relaxing week with beautiful weather.

The farm's vegetable garden supplied us with tasty corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, and herbs. It had been quite some time since I've eaten food within hours of it being picked. When we weren't raiding the garden we ate everything else in sight. One thing I particularly liked was farmer's cheese spiked with basil that we bought from Brennan's Market. That was good!

In Monroe we visited the Minhas brewery. The tour took us through the facility to see the large vats where the beer is brewed and also the bottling facility. It was pretty cool to see the line running. I've seen the same thing on TV, but it was nice to see in person. The tastings before and after the tour were the highlight. I enjoyed the Lazy Mutt Ale and the Amber Bock. The brewery also makes sodas and an energy drink. I don't go in much for energy drinks since I gave up Red Bull some years ago, but I really liked the root beer. After the tour we ate at a place called Baumgartner's. The braunschweiger sandwich was quite tasty. I found the signs in the place to be very funny. My favorite was "In case of tornado hide behind the urinal in the men's room, it hasn't been hit in years". Ha!

On the day before the brewery tour I ate fried cheese curds at Suisse House. Never having had cheese curds before I would say it just tasted like fried cheese. Did I miss anything? We also visited a place called Chocolate Temptation. This place featured hand dipped chocolate and I indulged in one piece each of amaretto creme, hazelnut creme, and a chocolate covered cherry. The order was for eating in so I was served my chocolates on a small white plate. It was kind of like eating sushi in a way and was very tasty.

Swiss Colony has an outlet store in Monroe too. I really like Petit Fours but never order any when I see them catalogs because they always seem overpriced. Well, I was right! In the outlet store you can get factory rejects for about $1.50 per pound. So what if they are crooked or missing a layer, they taste fine!

We also made a trip to a nearby town of Galena, Illinois. The main street has a lot of ancient brick buildings that now sell tasty treats and a lot of novelty items. One store sold sauces, salsas, and dips of every kind. I was impressed by the amount of hot sauces they sold, something like three large seven foot tall racks full of every kind of hot sauce imaginable. In a special box they had on display something they tout as the hottest hot sauce there is. I took their word for it. Novelty items like balsa wood gliders and cap guns brought back memories of my childhood.

When we weren't eating or watching Olympic events on TV we did engage in other activities like grass cutting, basketball, and Frisbee. I did try to play with the kitties but they just hissed at me or ran away until the last day anyway when the hissy cat jumped up on me to beg a piece of cheese.

Oh My

I just heard on ESPN Radio that Brett Favre has been traded to the Jets for a pepperoni pizza and sack of bagels. This disturbs me because I live and die with the Bills. Mostly I die. Time to give back at least one of the wins I was counting on. Blah.

I'm torn on the whole idea of Favre unretiring. On one hand I'm happy that he wants to come back and play because he has been one of the few true tough guys in the league the past decade who played the game the right way. On the other hand I am disappointed by the way things have gone down the past few weeks. Maybe he shouldn't have been so quick to retire? Maybe the Packers shouldn't have demanded an answer so quickly? It is going to be odd seeing Favre in the wrong uniform this year. It's too bad the Packers don't have the Jets on their schedule this year. I'd really like to see that game.

Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine

I've been an off-and-on reader of Asimov's since about 1988. I was still a high school student at the time and not much of a reader yet. I knew who Isaac Asimov was but at the time was mostly into fantasy thanks to The Lord of the Rings and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

This magazine has published some amazing stories over the years, but they have also published some bombs. The bombs are why I've been an off-and-on reader for the past 20 years. When my renewal notice came earlier this year I chose to re-up for three years instead of the usual one. Don't let me down Asimov's!

Some favorites from this year:

• Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders by Mike Resnick (January)
• Sex and Violence by Nancy Kress (February)
• Inside the Box by Edward M. Lerner (February)
• Shoggoth's in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear (March)
• The House Left Empty by Robert Reed (April/May)

and some not so favorites:

• The Hob Carpet by Ian R. MacLeod (June)
• Call Back Yesterday by Nancy Kress (June)
• Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons' Blues by Gord Sellar (July)

I really enjoy fiction at shorter lengths because it is not much of an investment of time. Even a 90 page novella no matter how bad it is will only cost me a couple of hours of my time. Reading Asimov's allows me to try new authors and stories I would never go near if I had to shell out $8 and then read a behemoth 900-page novel that is probably book 1 of a planned decology. Sorry, I mean book 1 of a planned decology that is sandwiched between prequel and sequel decolgies.

There are also many online markets for short fiction, but I just don't read them. I have limited time and do not like to read on my computer screen for long periods of time. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to hold what I am reading in my hands. Someday there will be a good electronic reader that is inexpensive. For now I'll take paper, not plastic.

How do you pick a peach?

I've recently read a book called How to pick a Peach by Russ Parsons. I found the book to contain a lot of interesting information about farming science. The author spends a lot of time with agricultural scientists and self-educated farmers to learn about the things they deal with. Some questions are how do you breed a peach or strawberry so that it ships well. No, it doesn't have to do with making good tasting fruit, shipability and being disease resistant are more important. I've often wondered why I have never had a good-tasting fresh apricot. Seems that the varieties that ship well have no flavor, according to the author. Guess I will stick with dried apricots from now on.

The book also has a lot of fascinating information about apples and oranges. I learned that red delicious apples used to taste good. This was back in the days of the apple being golden with some red stripes. These did not sell well. Red sells better so red delicious apples became all red and in doing so lost all of their flavor. I hate red delicious apples. I also learned that oranges are probably crosses between a pummelo and a tangerine.

The author does not cover every fruit and vegetable that you are likely to find in your neighborhood grocery store, but you will find the most common items. One notable exception is celery.

At the end of each chapter there are tips on buying and storing the items just discussed so the author does teach you how to pick peaches, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. I found most of the how to buy rules pretty common sense. I know to avoid things that look damaged, wilted, moldy, and so on. What I did learn was how to store my produce. It seems that a lot more things should be refrigerated then I thought.

There are some recipes in the book, most I am not likely to try because of my limited space and lack of a blender which nearly every recipe used. Even with that complaint I am tempted to buy an ice cream maker just so that I can try the nectarine-cardamom ice cream recipe. I was most interested in the book for its information content and not its recipes and serving ideas so I got what I wanted out of the book. If you are interested in food science and where food comes from, then I would recommend How to pick a Peach to you.

Something in the Air

You know I smell something in the air. Pigskin, I think. Football. Training camps are starting to open. Mmm football.

Summer Movies

Today I decided to play hookey from work and go see some movies. Before heading into the theatre I ate two slices of pizza at Slices. I had a slice with pesto and tomatoes and a slice with pepperoni and sausage. Tasty stuff.

The first movie I saw was The Dark Knight. I'd heard good things about this movie including this review in Time Magazine. Again I don't read comic books so I cannot comment on the accuracy of the translation to the big screen. What I can say is that this was a very good movie. Yeah, it is based on a comic book character, but the movie made me think and ask myself the question is it ever okay for the "good guys" to cross the line to win, or achieve some desired outcome? They can, but not if they still want to be counted among the good guys. They aren't involved in mass murder or anything like that, but just ask Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens about crossing the line and how they are treated now.

I may not have read Batman comic books, but I do remember watching the TV series with Adam West and seeing the Michael Keaton as Batman movie. The Heath Ledger Joker character is by far the most interesting one I have seen. I'm sorry that he will be unable to act the role again.

The other movie I saw today was WALL-E. Hey, I needed something to balance out The Dark Knight. It is a totally sappy movie, but kinda cool. Now where have I seen such devotion in a droid before?

Feast for the Senses

There was a lot of sensory input this weekend.

Taste and smell: I had a lot of good food this weekend. Lunch on Saturday was bacon, eggs, cheddar cheese, and salsa served on warm flour tortillas. Yum! For dinner I made myself a soup with zucchini, potatoes, and angel hair pasta. Then I cooked a bison strip steak. I can't remember if I have ever eaten bison before. After this experience I will be eating it again. This steak was very tender and flavorful and was surely worth way more than the three dollars I paid for it. I served the steak with a sauce of tomatoes and roasted peppers and had buttered peas, garlic chips, and jalapeno slices on the side. Yum! For whatever reason I decided to go to Sonic for lunch today. One thing I like about Sonic is that I can eat an extra long cheese coney, french fries, and a medium-sized drink and not feel totally disgusting afterwards like I do after eating at other fast food places. This is true even when items are not super-sized. No wonder I avoid them whenever possible. The other thing I like about Sonic are their drinks. Cherry limeade. Mmmm.

Sight: Just recently I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries from a few years ago. Hey, I'm slow! I enjoyed the miniseries immensely and got the season 1 DVDs this past week. Saturday I watched the first seven episodes and was terribly sad that I had to stop watching and go to bed. It is a darn good series if I say so myself. No spoilers, please! You know, if there were more blond Cylons on TV, I'd watch more TV. Today I finally saw Iron Man. (Didn't I already say I was slow?) Cool movie. I vaguely remember watching Iron Man cartoons and I never got into comic books so I will leave discussion of the movie's accuracy to the experts. This movie was good though. Tony Parker sure knows how to make cool toys.

Sound: I listened to a ton of good podcasts from Escape Pod this weekend. Escape Pod will get its own entry someday soon, but for now I'll just say they podcast short science fiction and fantasy stories.

It was a pretty good weekend here, how was yours?

Friday Night Treats

After two long meetings today I left work early to go get treats. Tonight I settled for an iced mocha at Gold Bar. I started going to Gold Bar a few years ago after The Muse closed. That closing made me sad. The Muse had the comfiest couches around and free wireless that usually worked. I miss The Muse.

I've spent a lot of time at Gold Bar working and reading. It is usually pretty quiet in there, unless it is Friday night when they have live jazz. It is very loud when they play inside. Many of the regulars (and employees) are students at one of the many local colleges so it can get busy around exam time. There is usually a pretty good selection of treats in the case. I haven't sampled too many of the usual items but I have had good cheesecake, muffins, and an eclair. One time I had a slice of an orange chocolate cake that I was disappointed by. It wasn't bad or anything, I was just hoping it would taste more like the orange chocolate that I would get in my Easter basket when I was little.

Looks like it's time for the weekend. Enjoy!

The Most Boring Day of the Year

Last night was the MLB All-Star game so that means there is no sports activity going on today other than contact talks. That makes today the most boring day of the year. I actually found last night's game to be very interesting (I've subtracted Dan Uggla's performance), but it would have been much more interesting had the game continued past the 15th inning. Oh well.

Old Time Radio

This past Saturday while working I listened to several hours of Old Time Radio (OTR) programs. I first discovered OTR when I was a kid. I really don't know why a 10 year-old would be listening to the local all-news radio station (on the AM band! in mono!), but I did. One night while listening some old radio program came on and I was hooked. The mists of time have destroyed the memory of that first program, but this station tended to play comedy programs. I remember getting a big kick out of Fibber McGee's closet. Strangely, my closet resembles his.

A few years after my initial discovery I heard a program called Theatre of the Mind that aired on an FM station out of Toronto at 11 pm on Sunday nights. (Can anyone tell me why I was so tired on Monday mornings?) I listened religiously for about five or six years before the program went away. This is the program that introduced me to shows like The Shadow and Suspense.

Fast forward a couple of decades to my discovery of Internet radio. I was thrilled to find Brando Classic OTR especially with its listen free link. This website and many others have thousands of shows available. If you didn't guess already my favorite day to listen is Saturday. This is the day when some of the old sci-fi shows are aired. It is a joy to listen to programs like X Minus 1 and Dimension X (they aired many of the same episodes). Some of the scripts these shows used were originals, but most were adaptations of stories published in the magazines Galaxy and Astounding. These shows originally ran in the 1950s and the adaptions are of stories by writers you mights recognize like Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Leinster, Sheckley, and Simak. I'm leaving off many other recognizable names, but you can get full episode listings at the provided links.

Most of the stories are set in the future, like 1995. The stories are dated for the most part, but they still get me to think about what should have been. This is why I like SF so much and hard SF in particular. It gives me hope that tomorrow will be filled with wonders that I could not imagine today and that some day I will finally get to take that trip to the moon. How cool will that be?

The School of Hard Drives

About a week ago the hard drive in my Dell laptop failed. It wasn't too hard to get a replacement sent to me because my system was still under warranty. The DHL driver left the box on my doorstep yesterday. Yes it was over 100 degrees out when this was done and my door is about 10 feet from the pool area which was being heavily used when I arrived home yesterday. I am very grateful for my honest neighbors. This was just the beginning of the fun. One included CD reinstalled some version of Windows XP. Not bad in sense because all of the junk bundled software is no longer on my computer. But this also means I had to reinstall a lot of drivers that were not included on any of the CDs though all of the junk bundled software was included. Among the missing drivers were those for the onboard wireless card and modem. How am I supposed to download drivers to make my internet connecting devices work when I am unable to connect to the internet because I don't have drivers installed? That's enough to make my head spin. Thankfully I kept the wireless card Wayne donated to me some years ago (thanks Wayne!) so I was able to get this task completed. The lesson I learned is not only should I keep backups of my files (did that!) I should also keep a copy of the drivers I need.

Asian Market Adventure

I started my summer vacation by dropping off a load of clothes at Goodwill and drinking glass of iced tea at Gold Bar (I'll address my tea obsession and Gold Bar another time). I hadn't been to an Asian market in a while so I went to Asiana Market and browsed their selection of mostly Korean food. Wandering the aisles at Asian markets is so fun. Mostly I wonder how items would taste and how do you even prepare them. Many items have English language stickers placed on them so you sort of know what you are looking at. This assumes a good translation though.

I walked out with my usual assortment of yum-yums like kimchi and various packages of udon soup. I usually try to find something new to try each time I visit. This visit I went with an anchovy flavored udon soup. In the pickled stuff aisle I looked hard at the seasoned fermented pollack entrails which were right next to the fermented squid. Maybe next time I will be brave enough to give them a try. The entrails were from wild-caught pollack in case you were dying to know. Even the snack aisle at this store is interesting. Sure they have an assortment of standard things like chips and crackers, but who wants that stuff when you can buy dried squid bodies and tentacles? I guess this is just beef jerky of the sea. Maybe I will try this someday too.

Using my loot I made a tasty dinner of asparagus, a chicken and mushroom stir-fry, rice, and kimchi. I washed down my dinner with a nice twig tea. Mmm. It was a good Tuesday.

Done!

Just a short time ago I finished my last task at work and now begin about 5 or so weeks of vacation. Whatever shall I do? Hm.

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