trinalin thinks things through

Tasty Tasty Taste!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:16:24 GMT

Food, glorious food! I think one of the most important things in going on vacation is all of the wonderful FOOD you get to have. And one of the best things about going on vacation with judiang and elsaf is that they're as much Foodies as I am. So, we know how to have a good time AND eat lots of good food.

This morning, we started out by going off to Whole Foods, an organic grocery (seriously, there's, like, carbon compounds EVERYWHERE there!) It was HUGE. And pretty impressive. Elsa was looking for ingredients for the phenomenal meal she was planning for us. So ingredients we bought. Judi, meanwhile, was nearly comatose with caffeine deprivation, so I sent her off to get herself coffee and me a vanilla steamer. She returned awhile later, perkier and with a hazelnut steamer. (OK, so she missed the word "vanilla" but the steamer was very yummy.) Apparently, she was looking all over for the Starbucks that she knew was in the shopping plaza, only to later discover she was standing in front of it. Now *that's* what I call caffeine deprivation!

Once we bundled the groceries into the car, we drove back over the Long Ass Bridge (ah, I remember alryssa, tiger5, Judi and I walking over that once - I so much prefer driving) to return to Judi's place. Then we walked over to the Taste of Chicago. Yum! (Although we don't go over any Long Ass Bridges, it's still something of a Long Ass Walk, but it's still a lot closer than many people going to the Taste had to travel.)

So, with my handy Taste of Chicago booklet in hand, I shall rattle off the good things I sampled there (everything I bought was a "taste" portion):

Lagniappe-Creole Cajun Joynt - beignet

A Natural Harvest - tamale

The Breakfast Club - bite of Elsa's tamale

Tamarind - Taiwan Shining Noodles

Kasia's Deli - pierogies

Arya Bhavan - samosa

Wow Bao - a Kung Pao bao (steamed dumpling with kung pao filling)

BJ's Market & Bakery - bite of Judi's mustard fried catfish and bite of Judi & Elsa's peach cobbler

Bobtail Ice Cream Company - chocolate - dipped ice cream cake on a stick (which was ENORMOUS for a sample-size. I'd be afraid to see the regular sized one!)

To save Judi and Elsa having to walk too much, I did most of the food gathering, but the advantage there is having bites of what I'd bring them to eat. Heh. Tomorrow we hope to tackle the other side of the taste - there's at least 7 things I want to try tomorrow.

The walk back from Taste was warm (and long). So I told the girls that I wanted to go swimming. Elsa agreed and then we talked Judi into at least putting on her suit in case the water was warmer today. So we got in the pool (this time full of people, especially kids) and agreed that it was, indeed, warmer than last night. We stayed for over an hour in the pool and then sat on the lounge chairs for a bit longer drying off. It was very refreshing!

When we returned to the apartment, Elsa started working on supper, starting with the ice cream. Judi and I went to the market at her apartment complex to get a few needed items while Elsa cooked. It's a cute little market which actually had everything that we needed (including lemons and batteries - and yes, you can make a battery from a lemon, but they don't usually fit inside of garage door openers or radios).

I set the table (with Judi correcting me the whole time) and Elsa plated the dishes. The salad was heirloom tomato, fennel, tarragon, and bleu cheese with vinaigrette. I'm not a big tomato eater, but I enjoyed the salad. The main course was pork chops with brandied peaches, potato souffle, and broccoli with lemon. Oh my, the pork chops were wonderful! And the brandied peaches - yum! I enjoyed the potato souffle too and ate most of my broccoli. :-) Dessert was the christening of Judi's ice cream maker (which Elsa had given her at Christmas) - Bailey's Irish Cream Ice Cream. Yum! I'd forced Judi to buy me a Lindt milk chocolate bar at the market, so I topped the ice cream with a square of that in each - yummy.

Elsa and I watched the end of the Navy Pier fireworks from their reflection in the apartments across the way - that was pretty neat. I have suggested to Judi that she & I go on Saturday to see them up close & personal. She agreed. :-) We're now vegging on laptops while Judi works on cases for her job. Poor thing! Tomorrow, more Taste, some fireworks, and more fun!

Chicago 2008

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:43:19 GMT

It's not yet 8am CDT and elsaf and I are already up. judiang's still a snoozin'. Guess it's early for her. (Us Eastern time people, however, know it's a decent "get up" time.)

Elsa and I have, once again, invaded Judi's place in order to celebrate the Fourth of July properly - with Taste of Chicago and Grant Park fireworks. So yesterday, Elsa drove over from Michigan and I flew in from Ohio. Elsa arrived first (shortly before I boarded my plane), so she & Judi picked me up at the airport. After we left the parking garage, both of our GPS systems (both using Garmin software) told Elsa to go back into another parking garage in order to leave the airport! First Garmin has a deal with the Holland Tunnel, now it has a deal with O'Hare parking? Thankfully, the fellow at the gate believed us when we told him our GPS led us astray. No $2 for you, Garmin!

Once we left that second garage, Garmin behaved herself and got us to Judi's place with little fuss. (Though Judi had a few suggestions for an easier trek to her place.) Once we got to Judi's place, I dumped my bags and, although it wasn't yet 5pm, we walked over to Judi's favorite Thai place (in reality, a place with lots of types of Asian food) for supper. Turns out I was the only one who'd had lunch that day. (Quiznos at the Columbus airport.)

The place, Ma & I, was a very short walk from Judi's apartment. And it's across the street from the Marble Slab Creamery. In the warmer months (like now) they can open up the side wall to the street. So it's like eating in an outside cafe, but you're inside. :-) Judi and I both ordered pad thai (mine with shrimp, hers with chicken) and Elsa had lad nar. We also ordered some sushi - I got the ebi-Q maki (shrimp roll with cucumber salad, apparently) and the girls ordered sake maki (salmon roll). A very tasty supper all around.

When asked if we wanted dessert, Elsa deferred to Judi while I was trying not to be too obvious with my hand motions pointing to Marble Slab. But Judi had also come to that conclusion - we'd forgo dessert at Ma & I and head across the street for ice cream. Yum!

Marble Slab Creamery is like Cold Stone Creamery in our area. They'll happily moosh up your ice cream choices with various nut and/or candy thingies. Or you can do as I do and go moosh-free with multiple flavors. They had coconut ice cream! Yay! I'd not had coconut ice cream since I was in Italy. So I got that and a double chocolate ice cream in a cup. Very tasty!

We walked back to Judi's place while munching away at our ice cream delights. Then we vegged out for awhile, trying to get our various internet appliances onto Judi's wireless router. (We had a password issue, which I managed to resolve - by typing a new password into her router.) Once we were well rested, however, it was time for the POOL!

We donned bathing suits and towels and things and headed to Judi's private pool. Well, it's not a private pool, but there's rarely ever anyone in it when we're there. And we were the only ones there most of the hour we were swimming (well, swimming's too strong a word - playing in the water's better). The water was very cold, but we all eventually got down to our necks. Some of us quicker than others. (Judi's of the opinion that I should be a polar bear. Heh. I don't think so!)

As it started to get dark outside, we finally braved the winds and got out of the pool. The towel felt so nice and warm when we got out. :-) We returned to Judi's apartment and played with Judi's crappy internet connection, watched BBC America and Food TV, and eventually went to bed. Today, Judi's internet connection seems to be doing better that it was last night.

Well, Elsa's just about done in the bathroom, so I guess I should get ready for the day. I believe the plan is going to the Taste for lunch (hopefully before it rains) and then having Elsa cook us a glorious supper. More details later. :-)

Summer Festivals are Go!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:36:18 GMT

Well, B-WISER is done and I think everyone had a great time. I know that I did. I love B-WISER week because at the end of it my jaws are sore from all of the laughing. We teachers know how to have a great time.

Saturday, I headed off to Mom & Dad's place at the Lake to give dad the rest of his birthday present (he received the main part - an 8" Calphalon chef's knife the Saturday before his birthday). At the Toyrifix toy store near Wooster, I got us both metal spud guns. (I'd seen the plastic ones before, but this is the first time they'd had the olde fashioned metal ones.) He was pleased. :-)

It was threatening rain that day, but we decided to go to the Country Festival in Maria Stein for lunch. It worked out quite nicely for us at first. It started raining a little as we made our way from the car to the first tent, but once we got into the dry, the rain ceased. It actually was nice festival weather - only little rain spurts and pleasant temperatures.

I started off with a caramel apple. Mom let me have a bite of her corn dog, too. I opted for a brat with kraut (and mustard and onion) and a few sips of dad's cola. Then I got us some fries from another booth and managed to dump half a bottle of vinegar on it - whoops! Once I poured the extra vinegar off, the fries were pretty tasty. We decided to check out the craft booths before deciding on dessert.

I was dismayed to see the number of charlatans hocking magnets, hematite, and aromatherapy shit. But the magnet and hematite people gave me information fliers which I intend to debunk in my new science course this year. Yay! There were neat things to look at (and some dips and sauces to taste), but we all refrained from buying anything.

For dessert we went to a trailer selling funnel cakes, elephant ears, sugar waffles, and deep fried Oreos. Dad bought us a funnel cake and an order of deep fried Oreos (our first time for them). It was then that things got interesting weather-wise. From our side of the trailer we saw the rain come closer. The lady on the other side of the trailer zipped over to our side - she was wet before the rain got to our side. We managed to stay in the lee of the overhang from the trailer and didn't get wet. One of the ladies working in the booth had to zip out to get the bubble gum dispenser and remove the hanging signs. She was nearly soaked when she got back in.

When we got our fried stuff, it was still raining hard, so we munched a bit while standing at the trailer (still nearly all dry) and chatted with the ladies working the booth. The funnel cake was the best we'd ever had (I suspect it's because she got distracted by the oncoming storm and it fried longer than it should - heh). It was very crunchy and still chewy inside. The fried Oreos were not what I was expecting. They were soft, for one thing. And they were VERY tasty. Guess I'll have to tried a fried Mars bar someday. ;-)

The rain slowed enough to let us race to the car. We were quite surprised by how little rain had gotten on us. That trailer was just in the right place to shade us from the storm. We returned to the Lake where the rain eventually stopped and the sun came out to give us a very beautiful day at the Lake.

Supper was steak for me & mom, and sausage for dad. Plus green beans and potatoes. It was quite yummy. I took my requisite nap on the sofa as well. Then it was time to head home. After all, I had a date to watch episode 12 of Doctor Who with the girls. :-)

Tomorrow I fly off to Chicago to stay at judiang's place. elsaf is also coming, so I know the three of us will have a blast.

B-WISER 2008

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:15:51 GMT

Yay! I can has Internets! :-)

Wooster has changed their IT policy and you can't simply connect to a cat-5 jack in a dorm room and then access the Internet. You now need an account to do so. So our contact at the college has gotten dorm accounts (for this week) for me and two other teachers who have bought our laptops to the camp. This is good cuz I need to upload photos to the B-WISER images site for the girls to access tomorrow.

The camp has been going very well so far. We have 52 girls, which is up from last year's all-time low. That's excellent. The goal (with our current schedule of morning classes different from afternoon and teachers double-teaming) is 60 girls a camp, so we're not far off the mark.

Sunday, I arrived right before noon. And I wasn't the last teacher to show. Five of us then went to Applebees for lunch. I returned to the dorm to meet the camp coordinator who had 5 laptops for me to help pad out the 12 in the room I was assigned. I got the room set up as well as I could and returned to the dorms right before one of the really big rains hit. (Big ol' hail fell - just a little smaller than moth-ball-size.)

We introduced ourselves to the girls, watched them perform their "getting to know each other skits" and then went to supper. After supper was the evening activity - originally planned to be the hot air balloon, but due to weather, being an engineering activity. The girls got an 8.5x11" sheet of paper and a foot of cellophane tape (gah, Metric system anyone) and they had to build the tallest free-standing structure. They got a practice sheet & tape, then they created their final one. The tallest one was 1.13m tall. Wow!

Monday was sunny to start out. While Dee was working with the girls in physics, I met a couple of the tech department to get a hub for the room. When I met 'em, they asked why I didn't use room 205 instead of 210. 205 apparently has 16 PCs (it's a Mac campus, so Winders boxes are rare) and with the two laptops with decent wireless, I'd get 18 (the max number of girls at any point in time). All we needed in 205 was a projector and screen. Apparently that wasn't difficult to requisition. So I put a sign on 210 saying we were in 205 and tested things in there. It all worked. Yay!

After lunch we had computer classes and the girls seemed excited about getting 1GB flash drives. One girl said "oooh, I've been wanting a flash drive!" Even if they don't use 'em with the Portable Apps programs on 'em, they'll have a nice little storage device. I did my internet safety presentation and two of the three classes had enough time to research a female scientist.

The evening activities for Monday were scavenger hunt, bowling, and crafts. I worked at the crafts station and made a little binder clip deer. Kind of cute, but I screwed up the ears. I went to bed exhausted.

Today went a bit smoother with technology - only had to leave physics once to upload some photos and check the weather. And then we were given our usernames & passwords to access the 'net in the dorms. Yay. In the afternoon we used OpenOffice.org Calc Portable to calculate work and power expended going up stairs. And then when classes were done, it was teacher's night off.

Six of us headed out to the Toyrifix toy store first. I got a couple of olde fashioned toys (one for me, one for dad) and Looney Labs' Fluxx card game. Then we saw Get Smart and I really enjoyed it. Then supper was Red Lobster where I had Tuesday's shrimp special. Mmmmm. We then had a short stop at Walmart so Carolyn and I could pick up The Spiderwick Chronicles. We also got 10,000 BC too (I got the one with the National Geographic extra DVD on saber tooth tigers).

I'm sleepy now - just a few more photos to upload and then I'll head off to bed.
Now

Going Digital!

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:29:36 GMT

As I slowly make myself a digital-only gal, I have several store-bought PAL VHS tapes which I no longer need. Just in case anyone here is still analog and has either a PAL or multi-play VCR, I'll be happy to send you any of these tapes for free. (If I don't already have your snail mail addy, you can e-mail it to me.) I'll be throwing 'em away in a week or so. First come, first served! (Sorry folks with NTSC-only VCRs. I'll eventually start getting rid of those tapes, but I'll get to 'em later.)

Titles are as follows:

One Foot in the Grave series 1&2, 4

One Foot in the Algarve

Nearly all of the One Foot in the Grave specials

Porridge: A Day Out

Porridge: A Night In

Porridge: No Way Out

Porridge: the movie

Murder Most Horrid series 1

TISWAS: The Best of the Best Bits

TISWAS: More of the Best Bits

TISWAS: Comedy Capers

Rab C Nesbitt: series 5 part 2

A History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (the ABC tapes, not the BBC tapes)

Babylon 5: vol 5.01 & 5.05

The Prisoner eps 1&2

The Wind in the Willows (Terry Jones version)

Danny the Champion of the World

The Curse of Fatal Death

Delta & the Bananamen

Ghost Light

Castrovalva

Mark of the Rani

Trial of a Time Lord

So, Trina, how's summer break treating you?

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:03:29 GMT

Nearly done with my first full week of summer break (after a nearly full week off last week). And I will say this - it's sooooooooooooooo nice not working for a change. :-)

So, what all have I been doing thus far?

Very slowly, I'm getting my closets cleaned out. The bedroom ones are pretty much done, it's the ones in the library and den that are taking awhile. Mostly because I hate to throw things away. But I will do it, by gum!

I was helping my mom's cousin Lyn (a shut-in) with her electronics. She had several different things hooked to her LCD TV and had so many remotes she didn't know what to use to do what. So I first got her connections set up properly, then recommended a Harmony remote from Logitech. She liked the idea, so mom & I picked one up for her and then I installed the software on mom's laptop, but had to take it to Panera Bread in order to finish setting up the remote (requires an Internet connection, which Lyn doesn't have).

I went to the Strawberry Festival on Sunday. I got two dozen strawberry donuts (some for me & dad, some for mom & Lyn), picked up BBQ chicken dinners for all of us, had a strawberry-lemon shake up, and tried a strawberry burrito. I wasn't at the festival long - I usually just go for the food.

When I dropped off lunch from the Festival to mom & Lyn, I finished working on the Harmony remote (which required another visit to Panera - two, actually). I got everything working - the stupid LCD TV takes 7 seconds to warm up and it was affecting how the remote changed inputs.

I finished working on the B-WISER photo gallery.

I started working on a new Sylvester McCoy Image and Sound Archive using Coppermine as the backbone.

FINALLY cleaned my tub and got my kitchen cleaned up after leaving things lie for too long.

Decided to give The Biggest Loser/BistroMD service a try for a week. The frozen foodstuff arrived today, so I'll start tomorrow. (As monocot mentioned in her blog, the food comes packed with dry ice, so I took some 'round to dad and we played with it. Heh.)

Went for a workshop on using FirstClass to build teacher webpages. I was quite pleased with the results. The pages generated are standards compliant! Yay! And it's easy to use since our staff are already used to FirstClass.

Tomorrow I'm going in to work in order to update a few web pages and work on the student handbook for the HS. It's the closest I'll come to working all summer. Heh.

"Why would an Eskimo need an air conditioner?" "SUMMAH!"

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:32:32 GMT

For those of you lucky enough to never see a Rex commercial, the title of this post will make no sense. Heh.

Anyhoo, today was my second day of Summer Vacation. Yay! It's nice not having to work. Of course, today I was at the school, but that was mostly for a Design Team meeting about the new school (and the architects provided lunch for us - woohoo). Yesterday, however, I spent a nice day hanging out with Linus. He basically sat down beside me or on me no matter where I was in the house. I even got my first assignment done for my summer course.

Now that summer is here and I can breath again, I've been working on B-WISER preparations. I found 1GB USB drives for $5.99 a piece and bought the store out (45 bought - and I'll need to get a few more because we're up to 49 girls now as of my last correspondence with the camp coordinator). The drives arrived today and they're just what we need for the computer class. And they're very cute. (Oh, and I'd tell you where I bought the USB drives from, but I'll wait until I get the others ordered - don't want you folks buying out my second choice, also $5.99 a piece!)

One thing that I worked on yesterday and today was an image gallery for my website. OK, so it uses up my last database on my webhost, but it'll be very helpful for getting B-WISER photos out to the girls. (I used to just bung 'em into folders on my website - this way the girls can actually SEE what's there.) I'm using Coppermine Photo Gallery (one of the photo galleries that Fantastico can automatically install) and I like it. Especially now that I have it working. Heh.

I already had 2005, 2006 and 2007 photos from B-WISER on a folder on my webhost, so I wanted to use the Batch Add Files option that the program provides. Only every time I tried to use it, I'd get a couple of different warnings. One was a permissions warning, the other a warning from either ImageMagick or GD version 2.x (the programs used by Coppermine to make thumbnails etc). I posted a question about stuff to the InMotionHosting support forum, and one of the techs asked me to PM her with more details. However, before she got back to me, I slogged through things today and found out the problem. Coppermine *said* that either permission levels 777 or 755 would suffice (which all of the folders were). But the program worked only when I set all of the folders to the more permissive 777 setting.

So now I'm fixing and tweaking and making the place look more inviting. I don't, for the moment, want to have user accounts for the site, so I've disabled that, I think. I'm playing with the morpheusXgreen theme, though if I later find it's not standards compliant, I may switch to one of the default themes. (One of my summer goals is to update my website and go to XHTML 1.0 transitional and be as standards compliant as I can.) Check out the B-WISER photo gallery thus far.

School's Out!

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:05:24 GMT

Today was a LONG day. For the kids, it was pretty short - they were dismissed at 11am. Rather than have normal classes today, we had a series of workshops that kids signed up for on cool things they could do in the summer. Neat idea. I signed up to work in the room that Barefoot Canoes was doing their sessions on. I sat for the first two sessions and then the other teacher in the room let me go to the Brukner Nature Center workshop.

I liked the sessions I observed and the Brukner one was doubly cool cuz she had critters. She brought a snake, a salamander, a teeny little screech owl (adult size), and a juvenile possum. These were critters from their wildlife rehabilitation clinic - if the critters get back to 100% health, they'll be returned to the wild. The snake isn't an Ohio native (too cold in Ohio for it), the screech owl was blind in one eye, and the possum couldn't smell, so I doubt if they'll be returned to the wild. But they're very well behaved critters, so they are great for the nature center for taking them around to schools.

After the kids were gone, the staff had a carry-in lunch. I brought brownies. Mmmm, brownies. I baked 'em myself! Lunch was tasty and it was nice to chat with co-workers.

I spent most of the rest of the day working on LPDC stuff. I'm the chair of the local professional development committee at work and we were having our last meeting of the year today. So I got all of the paperwork ready for the meeting and chased down a few people who really needed to get paperwork in today. Normally our LPDC meetings are 15 minutes or less. Today's meeting was 45 minutes and we were all sore in our signing arms when we were done. Towards the end, I was getting my initials confused with dating and my signature. Sheesh.

I made copies of all of the LPDC paperwork of the day, filed stuff in folders, and returned originals to staff members. And then I finally had time to work in my lab. Our superintendent was great - he gave us the option of working til 6pm today and getting tomorrow off, or working a regular day today and working tomorrow. I left shortly after 6pm. Sleeping in tomorrow - woot!

I'll pop into the school a few times this summer to work on lab stuff, but I don't actually work this summer. My first summer off in years. Woohoo!

OMGWTFBBQ!

Mon, 26 May 2008 03:22:27 GMT

Ah, sitting in the dark in the three season room with my fellow geeks as the Raccoon Family Chorus sings in the background. It doesn't get much better than this! Oh wait, the geese are adding to the warbling chorus - I guess it does get better. :-)

Today's biggest priority was elsaf making her barbecue country spare ribs. We had few other plans for the day, so most of it was spent here at the cottage enjoying the beautiful weather and the wonderful wildlife.

I slept in the 3-season room again last night, this time in dad's chair. And it was quite a good sleep except for the Raccoon Family Massacre that took place at 3am (well, there wasn't a massacre, but the sheer amount of screaming that the little suckers did made it sound that way) and the Goose & Gander sing-along around 6 in the morning. Apart from those times, I slept until around 8am.

Although Elsa and I got up at decent times (and even judiang woke up & got up at a reasonable time!) breakfast was a little late due to Elsa being distracted by a nice entry she was writing for DailyKos. But once she was done, she made us French toast and sausage. Mmmmm!

We rested and geeked until around 1pm when it was time for lunch (despite not being all that hungry for it). We picked up a grilling basket at the hardware store in Minster (Elsa needed two for the ribs and the folks only had one) and then went to Casadores in New Bremen. Elsa and I ordered lunch and gave a little to Judi so that she wouldn't get hungry before suppertime. (She said she wasn't hungry, but we fed her anyway - we're cruel that way.) We picked up ice cream for the ala mode to our dessert for supper before we returned to the cottage.

While Judi and I read and rested, Elsa worked on her BBQ ribs and potato salad. The parental units showed up after a bit and brought the Market Day apple pie which I'd received as a free gift for my last order. (I thought it would be perfect for this weekend.) I started baking it right away.

More resting, reading, and chatting and even Elsa had some time to relax after a bit. But suppertime was looming, so I got to work on the fire for the grilling. Then I finished the lunch prep and set the table for supper while Elsa basted and then grilled the ribs.

Supper was wonderful. We all love that Elsa loves to cook. :-) She used the broth from the ribs to make a Japanese-inspired soup, which we started with. Then we had the ribs and potato salad. There was leftover foccacia bread and sour dough bread as sides as well. And I cut up the peaches we still had left and served them with a little sugar (and some fruit fresh) with a few blueberries for garnish. It was a lovely supper and photos from it are below the bird photos.

I shooed Elsa and the folks off to sit by the fire while Judi washed dishes and I dried & put them away. She's a fast dish washer, but it still took us awhile to get everything cleaned up. Then we joined everyone at the fire for chatting and photo-taking. It was quite pleasant.

After a bit, Judi started muttering "pie! PIE!" so it was time to serve the pie. I was very pleased with the pie - when I cut it, it flaked just like an apple pie should. I served it with the ice cream and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Judi gave it a 9 out of 10. I said since it was free, it deserved a 10 out of 10. :-)

More musing by the fire, and then some singing. We're not as well-versed in camp songs as my sister or Rachel, so that petered out eventually. But then the baby raccoons started coming out of their tree and came over to see us. Elsa and dad took photos and Elsa's posted some of the photos to her journal.

The folks headed off home and Judi and I tended the fire a bit longer. But then it was time to come inside and geek, so that's what we're doing.

Duckling Formation
The little ducklings swim toward the shore in a deceptively random "duckling formation."

My Two Dads
2 guys and a gal and their six ducklings. "Uncle Steve" is just like another father to these little ones.

Duck, Duck, Goose
Or in this case, "Goose, Goose, Duck." It's shame that, despite hanging out "together," the geese all sit in the sun together and the ducks all sit in the shade together. So much for integration!

Mmmm, ribs!
Elsa's barbecued country spare ribs and potato salad. Yummy!

Pie!
Pie are square. No, pie are round, cake are square!

Super Saturday!

Sun, 25 May 2008 03:20:41 GMT

Today was a busy day. And a great day too. After a night of little sleep (turns out the airbed for the cottage now leaks, so I wound up sleeping on the uncomfortable lounge chair in the 3-season room last night), I snoozed a bit on the sofa and got up around 8:15am. elsaf got up then too and started preparing her new electric griddle for making us pancakes for breakfast. After my shower, I nipped off to Wagner's to get ice for the pop cooler and a shower poof for judiang. I returned around 9 to find our breakfast chef had disappeared mid-prep. (The plates were lovingly decorated with sliced strawberry garnish, but no pancakes were made yet.) Elsa was off in the shower. Heh.

Once she was showered, we woke up Judi with promise of blueberry pancakes and she, too, got all cleaned up for the day. My goal was to be on the road by 10:30am, and we managed it, even with me cleaning up the breakfast dishes. The goal was to head south to the Bookery so Judi could get her Doctor Who magazines, we could have Indian Fud, and watch Indiana Jones (at $7.25 for a matinée - gah! Gimme my $4 matinées from Piqua & Troy.) We accomplished the goal and included a stop at a used bookstore where I bought more Terry Brooks' Landover novels and a stop at BestBuy where I bought dad the wireless mouse he wanted and decided to get one for myself. I'll be interested to see if I use it much - I've become pretty used to my trackpad on my laptop.

We enjoyed the movie - it's silly fun with some edge-of-your-seat action and really crappy science. But it played up to its silly science and was an enjoyable 2 hours. (I'll still prefer the third movie because I loved the interplay between Ford and Connery.) Several of the trailers were entertaining too. I think we all agreed that Hancock will be our 4th of July movie when we're in Chicago (where I'll be wishing I was paying that $7.25 matinée price of today).

When we got back to the Lake, our guests for the evening were already here and enjoying nachos with salsa and guacamole. Aunt Becky and Deanna had come up for supper and to play cards. Mom and dad were also here for supper and cards (dad to avoid them, mom to play them). Even my Uncle Dean showed up for supper. I got to work on making the burger patties. Dad had already started a fire, so once the burgers were made, I could start grilling them and the hot dogs. I also grilled the leftover shrimp so that Elsa could have some - indeed, anyone that wanted to try the shrimp was able to. And it was just as delicious today as yesterday. Go shrimp!

My hostess skills are constantly improving thanks to these Memorial Day weekend gatherings. However, I didn't remember tomato and, to my uncle Dean's dismay, deviled eggs. However, I doubt that deviled eggs will ever be part of my hostessing repertoire. Never liked the suckers, even though they're pretty to look at. Thanks to the brownies that Becky brought and the sugar cookies and no bake cookies that I'd bought, we had plenty of sweet stuff. Everyone got their fill and then some.

After supper it was time for some Shanghai Rum. Elsa isn't much for card playing, but she condescended to join us for the game. She picked up the rudiments to the game quickly, but Judi had smelled victory early on and fought hard for the final win of the game. Becky decided that we'd have to have a rematch later this summer when Judi deigns to visit again. Heh.

Folks headed out once the game was done and Judi cleaned the dishes with me drying them. She's now slowly downing an amaretto sour while playing World of Warcrack on her laptop. Elsa's also working on her laptop (and most likely NOT playing World of Warcrack). I'm writing this.

Tomorrow is Relax Day. Our only real task is to make supper - with Elsa making barbecued country ribs and sour cream potato salad. I'll be baking an apple pie (from frozen) for dessert. Should be another fun & food filled day tomorrow!

The First Lazing at the Lake for 2008

Sat, 24 May 2008 01:02:51 GMT

Ah, the sun is getting lower in the sky, the song birds are saying "night night!' to each other, the geese are going "honk honk" as they pass each other on the Lake. Yup, it's Memorial Day weekend at the Lake, 2008.

judiang's sleeping in the 3-season room. I'm sitting out by the fire (a very nice one I must say) typing on this. And poor elsaf is driving here from Detroit. She just can't seem to buy a break today. Her intent was to arrive around 4pm. But we've received 2 e-mails and a text message, each stating yet another delay. Poor dear. She last figured 9:30pm. Hopefully that time will stand.

Judi arrived at the airport around 10:30 this morning and my folks picked her up. Since we're into the last 10 days of school, by contract I wasn't able to take a personal day even though, with the seniors gone, I don't have students in the afternoon. Not a problem, since the folks were willing to help out, things went just fine.

They dropped Judi off at the school around 11 and I immediately showed off my Airliner tablet and the SmartBoard software. She was truly impressed and got a few lessons on optics. (She now knows the difference between diffraction and refraction.) I also showed her the current design plans for the new school building and my own plans for my chemistry classroom/lab. Then I drug her around the school so she could see some of the folks she went to Italy with. We couldn't find Marcia, but she saw Jacki, John, Tammy, and Marcia's hubby Gary (who gave her a big hug). We had a turkey sub from Indian's Pizza (Jeff's wife delivers to us every other Friday), some Munchies, apple slices and Pepsi. Tasty tasty. Then I drove Judi to my home, fixed her dessert (Betty Crocker's new 150 calorie microwave brownies - very very yummy! Especially with whipped cream.)

I returned to work after I got Judi all nicely tucked up on the sofa. My brain was pretty much fried by then, so I helped out in the office moving boxes and stuff so they wouldn't be in the hallway during graduation. It wasn't until 2:30 that MJ remembered there was a calligraphy job she needed doing for the valedictorians. No matter, I grabbed my calligraphy kit and was done with the certificates in time to leave around 3. (We have 6 valedictorians this year. Out of a class of around 45-50. Before people shout "grade inflation" I'll tell you this: 19 of the students are receiving various scholarships from universities - the total amount offered to those 19 kids is nearly $840,000. Eight hundred and friggin' forty bucks! Sheesh, I wanted to get $160,000 to give 'em just to round it up to an even million.)

When I got home, I read the two e-mails from Elsa describing her late start and late arrival. So I didn't rush us out the door as I had originally intended. Still, we got to the lake by 5pm, where upon I got the fresh fruit cleaned up (strawberries, peaches, blueberries) and made us amaretto sours.

Around 6pm, I started prepping for supper. I was going to surprise the girls with marinated shrimp on the grill. Well, Judi was surprised. Elsa will have to wait til she gets here to be surprised. And there's shrimp left over which I can grill tomorrow for Elsa. I also had veggies to grill and some focaccia bread for the side. The veggies I bought were yellow squash, vidalia onion, red pepper, turnips (well, why not?), button 'shrooms and shitake 'shrooms (another new grillee for me), and marinated artichoke hearts. I skewered the shrimp & artichoke hearts and grilled the veggies in our vegging grilling bowl. The turnips and shitake mushrooms were a good idea. I'll be grilling them again! I had also bought pineapple for grilling, but forgot to prep it, so we'll have it later this weekend.

The shrimp and veggies were very tasty and I'll have to make that shrimp marinade again. (It was garlic, rosemary, salt, and olive oil.) Indeed, I think I'll probably use that marinade on other things.

So after I cleaned up the kitchen, I decided to get the fire going again and go sit outside. And that's what I'm doing. Yay for my folks' cottage at the Lake!

"Aaaaaaaaaa!" quoth the Fonz

Fri, 16 May 2008 23:40:21 GMT

Well, summer semester starts Monday, and we've finally gotten our grades for the spring semester. And as you might guess from my title, I got As! Yay! 4 courses down, 3 As and a B+. (Curses Logic Class!) Still waiting for my statistics final project to be returned, but our prof e-mailed us that he would be sending them back. Good, I wanna see if I'm on the right track. :-)

May has been... well, considering that I've written only one other post this month, I guess you can figure it's either been dead boring or horribly busy. I'll give you a hint - if it ever got dead boring, I'd start posting memes. ;-)

Why I like World of Warcraft

Mon, 05 May 2008 23:54:36 GMT

Flying in World of Warcraft - ain't it bootiful?

Phew! Done with That!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:24:02 GMT

Well, about 15 minutes ago, I turned in my first statistical research paper, which also happened to be my first APA-style paper. I had turned in a very rough draft on the 18th (with minutes to spare before midnight) but, alas, never received any feedback from it. Still, I worked on the paper since then, especially yesterday, and it was taking good shape. However, when I was walking home today, I was feeling rather low about research papers in general, wondering even if I'd be able to tackle my eventual thesis paper.

My work on the thing after work today managed to swing that feeling around. At 8:30pm I was done with the paper, so I printed it off (cuz it looked so nice!) and took it around to the folks' who agreed that it looked nice. And surely looking nice is half the battle! Dad didn't see anything truly glaring in my conclusions, so that's something too. After they oggled the paper, I returned home, saved the file in Word format (I use StarOffice at home) and turned it in. Yay! I feel elated and have begun to work on the other class's final project - a curriculum for a science and the public course. That's due on Friday.

Wow - hard to believe that after this week, I'll be 12 semester hours into my Masters program! I have a summer class starting May 19th (and ending July 12th) on scientific writing. That should be good practice for my science blog (tls_scienceblog) among other things. And this weekend, I start up my 30-day retail version of World of Warcraft. Yay!

"It's curtains for you!"

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 01:46:11 GMT

Since I have a final project due on Monday and a final curriculum due on Thursday, I'm doing everything I can to avoid working on them. But at least I'm doing productive things to avoid them!

The first thing we (parents and me) did today was check out garage sales in town - well, visited Aunt Becky at her son's garage sale. After we went to the post office and library, we picked up pork tenderloin sandwiches and French fries from a vendor on Main street (in place for the town garage sales).

Before we headed off for our grand adventure, I stopped back home for something, only to find that the kitties had pulled the living room curtain down again. They get their claws stuck in the lace and pull it down. And then trying to get the lace back on the curtain rods is a pain in the arse. So I measured the windows and resolved to buy new curtains while we oot & aboot.

We started out at JoAnn fabrics with the thought of mom making curtains (she's making some gingham ones for her side-door), but then we decided to check if Walmart had something like I could use. And there, we found just what I needed - sheer but not lace (no place for kitties to get claws caught on) and not floor length like the big window had. I also got some grass seed and wrapping paper & cards for Amy & Rachel's birthday presents.

Back home I got to work taking down the old curtains and putting up the new ones. And before I did that, I cleaned the front window - it had a long row of kitty nose prints from kitty cats walking along the sill and looking outside. Turns out in addition to nose prints there was a nice layer of dirt. Comes with never cleaning my windows. Ugh. Should do my other windows tomorrow.

I also put some of my grass seed in the dead spots in my lawn. And watered it. That took a bit of time. Then it was time to have supper and watch the new DW. And then judiang, elsaf, and hergrace got online so we watched the episode together. Let's hear it for Instant Messaging! :-)

Anniversary Celebration

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:03:11 GMT

Today was mom & dad's 40th Anniversary! I wasn't around 40 years ago when they got married, but I was around today, so I took them out for a nice dinner at the restaurant of their choosing. (Yesterday I gave 'em a dozen roses courtesy of the Lion's Club selling 'em at school through their Leo Club.)

Mom wanted to try out The Caroline, a new restaurant that's where Taggart's used to be (a fairly well-known restaurant in Troy, OH). I like a grand adventure, so I agreed to take 'em there. Although they lost my reservation, it wasn't really needed and we were seated right away. We got a friendly waitress who did a nice job serving us. For an appetizer we had shrimp cocktail. We all had side salads (I had the Caesar salad), then our main courses came out. Mom got the prime rib, which was the day's special. It was very juicy and tasty. Dad ordered their house steak (and he got it medium, which was a shock). I ordered their chipotle pork chop with spiced apples - tasty but I should have gotten medium rather than medium well - was just a bit dry. I also had the lyonaisse potatoes as my side - basically fried taters cooked with onions. Then, though we were pretty stuffed, we split their three layer chocolate cake. Very very moist and tasty!

It was a very pleasant evening out and we enjoyed ourselves and our food. Happy 40th Anniversary Mom & Dad! Here's to 40 more! :-)

Data mining

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:46:24 GMT

So I'm playing around with Ohio's data on school performance and lots of variables to see if there are any correlations for my statistics class's final project. And to my (pleasant?) surprise I found out that there is correlation between teacher salary and the school's performance indicator (a number the state comes up with for each school based on several qualifying factors). And it's a positive correlation. OK, so it's not as strong of a correlation as economic advantage or on percentage of white students (since standardized tests are usually written with the middle/upper class white student) but it's statistically significant. So yeah, pay me more and my school will do better! :-)

Here's the graph:

Graphs are cool! I like graphs!

OK, back to number crunching!

A favor to ask of you...

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:36:51 GMT

For our Statistics class, we'll be doing a statistical research project. One of my classmates is doing research on home schooling and has a survey that she needs respondents for. I did the survey myself and it didn't take very long at all (she specifies 3-5 minutes, but it seemed shorter to me). If you're willing and able, would you please fill out her survey to help with her project? The survey is completely anonymous (and she probably doesn't know any of you anyway, heh).

http://homeschoolsurvey.questionpro.com/

Thanks in advance to those of you who've taken the survey!

(In my own project, I decided I'd wade through all of the Ohio Graduation Test/Ohio Achievement Test data and see what I could find. Should be, um, fun?)

Glad I got that out of my system!

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:03:42 GMT

For my Masters program this semester, I had to make a presentation either on Science & Religion or on Science & Policy. I'd been meaning, for some time, to tackle the so-called controversy over evolution but didn't think I was ready for it. However, last week during our class's discussions on science & religion, I decided I would do it. So I made a presentation on Impress (StarOffice/OpenOffice.org's presentation software) and uploaded it to Slideshare (sort of a YouTube for PowerPoints). And then posted it on my science blog for my classmates and anyone else to read it. Check out the entry with slide show here.

I've actually been updating my science blog each Wednesday since early February, which I'm very pleased about. I hope it's something I can keep up. (I have two more misconceptions I want to cover in the next two weeks, so that's April covered for the most part.) If you'd like to see the posts as they show up, I have created an LJ feed for the syndication: tls_scienceblog.

Birthdays!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:00:40 GMT

Happy Birthday to judiang!

Happy Birthday to shebit!

May your day be devoid of fools (she says, choosing her LJ icon for April Fools Day rather than her Birthday one). :-)

Taste Testing

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:57:53 GMT

Today I went out with two ladies from the Alumni Association Executive Committee (of which I am also a member). We had to pick up a few items and order some things for the upcoming banquet. We have an all-school alumni banquet every May honoring the 10 year class, 25 year class, 50 year class, and 75 year class. Any alumni can come and sometimes we get large groups of the 20 year class or some other group in addition to our "honored classes." It's actually fun being on the committee, though I'm mostly there as the person who knows Access (the Micro$oft Database program).

One of the main reasons we were out today was to see the caterer's and try the dishes that we were hoping to serve at the banquet. Our caterer this year (for the second year running) is Christopher's Restaurant from Kettering (a 'burb of Dayton). Heh, catering from Kettering - reminds me of a One Foot in the Grave joke. Anyhoo, when we got there, the chefs sat down and talked with us, and served us a nice meal of the items we'd picked. After a starter of salad (with their excellent dill house dressing), we had Chicken Francese and Harvest Pork Tenderloin, both of which were excellent. We also tried their mashed potatoes with leeks and shallots and their California medley. Two of us decided that maybe the medley wasn't what we wanted for the banquet and so we switched to baby carrots for the actual event. While the head chef was talking with us, he was bragging about their homemade soups. I asked if they made cream of broccoli and he said they did and were serving it that day. He brought me a cup of soup (and my two co-tasters their homemade mushroom bisque) to show off. Very creamy, very tasty. They also decided to show off with their desserts and asked what we wanted. As soon as they said "bread pudding" I knew what I wanted. And this HUGE piece of bread pudding with sauce and ice cream was brought to me. And it was the best bread pudding I've had this side of New Orleans. Next time judiang and elsaf come to visit, I'll see about making the detour south so they can check this place out. The actual restaurant is in a strip mall and doesn't look all that special, but the food was exemplary. And the folks working there are wonderful. I'm still full from the late lunch (I was expecting a taste, not a meal, and was pleasantly surprised by the quantity of food they offered).

PS: Happy Birthday gregmce!

Spring Break '08!

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:56:44 GMT

Although I had today off (being Good Friday and all that jazz) I didn't feel like I'd started Spring Break until just a few minutes ago when I finally finished the third Data Analysis Exercise for my stats class. But it's turned in, my proposal for my statistics final project is turned in (though originally I turned in a StarOffice file instead of Word document - whoops!) and I can now think a bit more about Spring Breaking!

I did sleep in today (well, til 8am - went to bed at the usual time last night since I was so tired) and talked dad in to buying Chinese Buffet for my lunch today. We also had a short stop at Walmart after lunch. But for the most part I've been in my library working on statistics. I'd been putting it off to get teaching stuff done last week and this week. The third quarter ended yesterday, so I've been trying to get caught up on grading. However, I have all of the quarter exams to grade and several retests for chemistry to grade (I had an Amnesty Day since some of the test scores this quarter were pretty low on average - I blame all the days off due to weather - or maybe lousy teaching, heh). Hopefully I'll actually do them rather than let them sit there until Sunday night of next week. Heh. (One of my seniors predicted that and I suspect he'll be right, procrastinator that I am.)

Anyway, back to statistics. I actually like doing the Data Analysis Exercises - number crunching has always been good to me. Indeed, I understand the exercises more than I understand the reading assignments. Well, at least I can use the tools to do the exercises and maybe understand what the numbers mean once they're crunched. StarOffice Calc has been a godsend to me (as MS Exel would have been had I had it installed on any of my computers, which I don't - ha!) but so have some nice websites which do statistical calculations which Calc can't do. OpenEpi has been wonderful for ANOVA and t-test results. And today I found an Effect Size Calculator to calculate Cohen's d. Joy joy. :-)

I usually like to visit judiang during Spring Break since it always falls close to her birthday, but with my college work (much of which needs completed this next week) calling to me, I'm having to bow out of the visit. :-( Judi's making me feel guilty, which she doesn't need to since I already feel guilty. But all that guilt will probably result in a nice present for her, so she wins in the long run. Heh. Anyhoo, I'm sure she and elsaf will have a lovely time, if Elsa's able to make it up there.

Tomorrow morning I'll use one of my 15-day City of Heroin cards I got for Christmas to start up the addiction again. My only concern is that the game will completely sap my break such that I don't get my college stuff done. I shall try to be strong. However, I'm itching so much to play again that I've got to do it. :-) I've already decided that the first toon I play will be my archer on the Freedom server - Pointed Stick. :-) Those 15 days have to last me until the end of the semester (April 28th or so) when I use the 30-day retail code for World of Warcrack. Ah, I've missed my little Elf and Dwarf hunters. (Not hunters of elves and dwarves, but hunters who are elven and dwarven.)

If I can tear myself away from CoH long enough tomorrow, I also intend to go to Fairborn for my Indian Fud/DWM run. Should be a nice day, even if the weather isn't nice. (Of course, if the weather is really crappy, I'll go to Fairborn another day of Spring Break.) Other plans for the break include FINALLY cleaning out closets and getting stuff together to take to auction, cleaning the house completely, reading, doing more college work, hanging out with the kitties, and whatever else I happen to think of doing. :-) Should be fun!

Now that's more like it, Miyazaki!

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:03:28 GMT

After my disappointment with Porco Rosso (the animation, as usual, was beautiful, but I didn't care for the story - particularly the ending), I was pleased to find Howl's Moving Castle more to my taste. As usual, the imagery blew me away, and this time the story drew me in as well. The movie's quite long (especially compared to Rosso, which I watched twice in one night - once in Japanese, once in English) but I didn't really notice until near the end (when my body was saying "hey, isn't it close to bedtime?"). The English-speaking voices look like they'll be fun, so I'll probably watch it with the English language track another night this week. (I always like to watch Anime in the original Japanese with subtitles. Depending on the English-speaking voices, I may watch it in English as well.)

I think I'm coming down with a cold, so I'll hit it with Nyquil-clone tonight and hit the sack early. Here's hoping I can nip it in the bud! Really don't want to be sick during Spring Break, which starts this Friday for us.

Happy Pi Day

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:05:20 GMT

Since mom & dad had nothing in the house to eat (other than some things in the freezer) they decided we'd go out for lupper (we all slept til noon once we got home, so it was 3pm before we got to eat) at Frisch's then go to the grocery. And we picked Frisch's cuz they have nice pie choices. Although we were full after lupper, we ordered the pie to go. Mom and I got coconut cream pie (which turned out to be big ass pieces) and dad got pecan.

When I got back, I cleaned some and eventually mom called around 6:30 - it was time for pie. I returned to their place and we ate our pie and watched TV. A nice denouement to the day's activities. (So, do the day/month/year countries have Pi Day on April 31?)

Last Train to Clarksville

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:03:05 GMT

Just got back home and it's the time I'd be starting my first period class. However, I've taken a personal day today to pick up mom & dad from the train station in Cincinnati. The train ended up being 2 hours late - it was supposed to arrive at 3:17am, but wound up arriving after 5:20am.

I had hoped to sleep a bit before going off to pick them up, but I couldn't fall asleep. So I got up at 1:30am, headed to Meijer for some Pepsi (caffeine) and Munchies (to kill the burn of the Pepsi), then turned on my Tilt to direct me to the Amtrak Station. It did a very nice job until the very end when it overshot the station. (The station is now also a museum and stuff, which really threw me off at first.) A short trip around the block thanks to the GPS and I got there just as dad called to say they were 45 minutes away. The 45 minutes got more time tacked on while I sat in the station playing Bejeweled 2 and other games.

When the train was finally set to arrive, they let us all go down to the platform to wait. Then those of us meeting people got to do so. The folks were surprised to see me there on the platform (we're so used to airport security). Time for hugs and then out to the car. The GPS got us safely north, though it was nearing 6am by this point so the traffic had picked up considerably. The caffeine did its job, as well as the excitement of seeing the parental units again, so I was wide awake for the drive back. We stopped at Waffle House in Troy for breakfast and then I took them home.

Now I think I'll try to sleep some. I'm very tired, but still wired from the caffeine.