Capital Idea

After last week's rant on grammar, I've come to the conclusion that I am not, indeed, the world's worst speller. There are several people that I work with that far outshine me in that category. I've also discovered just how much blatantly improper grammar disturbs me. I've noticed two things that show up in emails that make them particularly difficult to read, both a lack of capitalization and proper punctuation.

Today let's talk about our friend, the capital letter. The capital letter, sometimes known as a big letter, should appear at the beginning of a sentence or a proper name. The word 'I', a pronoun referring to yourself, is always capitalized, and no, I do not know why. Please, for the sake of your reader's sanity, hit the shift key on the keyboard. It's not too hard.

The other issue is a lack of punctuation. The period, the little dot at the end of the sentence, lets you know that the thought is over. You would think that we're in the midst of a period shortage or something. Trust me, you won't use them all up. I should know. I like to use short, choppy sentences, yet I always manage to find enough periods to throw in my writing.

To illustrate my point, I've rewritten the above paragraphs, taking out the capital letters, punctuation, and line breaks. See how difficult it is to read.

after last week's rant on grammar i've come to the conclusion that i am not indeed the world's worst speller here are several people that i work with that far outshine me in that category i've also discovered just how much blatantly improper grammar disturbs me i've noticed two things that show up in emails that make them particularly difficult to read both a lack of capitalization and proper punctuation today let's talk about our friend the capital letter the capital letter sometimes known as a big letter should appear at the beginning of a sentence or a proper name the word 'i', a pronoun referring to yourself is always capitalized and no i do not know why please for the sake of your reader's sanity hit the shift key on the keyboard it's not too hard the other issue is a lack of punctuation the period the little dot at the end of the sentence lets you know that the thought is over you would think that we're in the midst of a period shortage or something trust me you won't use them all up i should know i like to use short choppy sentences yet i always manage to find enough periods to throw in my writing.

Back on the Road

My car is out of the shop and back home. Yay! All things considered, the entire repair process was relatively painless. Jon at The Autobahn was really helpful throughout the whole thing. He helped me with the insurance process, let me know about Vermont's no fault liability law, and took care of the rental as well. The repair took a couple of days longer than originally planned, but there was also more damage than they originally thought. The car looks sharp. It's back in its pristine shiny condidtion, so now any scratches that get put on are my fault.

The Change We Voted For

After just over a month in the White House, and with conseratives and liberals alike fretting about Obama not delivering on his campaign promises, Obama is quietly ushering in some much needed policy changes. In a move that made many doctors, researchers, and science minded people very happy, President Obama has lifted the ban on funding for stem cell research.

"Barack Obama, US president, on Monday made another decisive break from the Bush years by overturning a ban on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research and promising to remove all ideology from scientific studies.

In a landmark policy change that angered anti-abortion groups, Mr Obama signed an order to permit public money to be used for research that scientists hope will produce cures for a range of serious conditions such as Parkinson’s."

I like science. I think we should fund research that has such potential for doing so much good. I also think that it was complete and utter bull sh*t when then President Bush did a press conference surrounded by adorable children that had been born with the help of embryo implantation. It gave a scewed view of where stem cells come from. Yes, stem cells come from human embryos, but the embryos used are often 'left overs' from fertility clinics slated for destruction. It made sense to use these, but, instead, we got a wedge issue, painting an image of embryo farms and scientists murdering children. I am so glad that the ban has been lifted.

It's Alive!

I have managed to install the new video card. I'm now running a screaming fast nVidia GTX 260. Sweet!

Many thanks to Yomper, who very patiently helped me decide what to buy. Thanks also to the roommate, who gave me a hand even though he swore he wouldn't.

I think that the forecast for the weekend is WarHammer, with a chance of Left for Dead.

The Operation Was a Success

I'm feeling brave. I fix medical equipment for a living, so replacing some computer compentents should be a cinch, right? At least, that's the theory that I'm working on. I have never really worked on a computer before, with the exception of upgrading a sound card. My fear is that I'll fry out my new system. But electronics are electronics, and I swap boards all the time at work, so onward I go.

I have successfully replaced the stock power supply with the 650W model that I purchased. I'll need the power later when I install the video card. Ofcourse, 650W is overkill for what I'm going to be running, but it was on sale and ended up costing less than the 550W model that I was looking at. Now I have enough power left over to power a USB waffle iron or something.

Replacing the power supply wasn't too bad, really. The hardest part was taming the massive amount of cables that I didn't use. All systems seem to be functioning normally. Now let's tackle the video card.

A Shiny New Computer

My shiny new computer finally arrived today. I was a little disturbed by the excessively large size of the shipping box. It looked like I might have ordered a server by mistake or something. As it turns out, the computer just wanted some room to stretch out.

I have managed to install the new system and remove the crappy free software that HP insisted on suppling with the system. A little later, if I'm feeling brave, I might try installing the higher wattage power supply and new video card.

English as a First Language

First off, I am a science and technology person, and we are not known for our writing abilities. Second, I am possibly the world's worst speller. With that said, let's talk about the proper use grammar, especially in a professional setting. While I am usually not a member of the grammar police, I can only sit on the sidelines for so long and watch the English language get butchered by its native speakers.

What spawned this tirade? I just read an email from a colleague and it was like trying to decipher an encrypted message. Seriously, think Charlie from Flowers for Algernon.

First up: spelling. Professional correspondence, and I do count work related emails as professional correspondence, should not contain spelling errors. It just looks sloppy. Spell check is your friend. Most email and word processing programs have a spell check function. Use it. However, don't forget that spell check is only a first line defense. Always proof read your writing before you hit send. Spell check will sometimes make some interesting changes. Keep a dictionary handy or use an online dictionary if you are unsure of how something is spelled.

My personal grammar related pet peeve is misplaced apostrophes. Learn the difference between plural and possessive. Hint: the possessive form uses the apostrophe. For example, the room has two computers, not the room has two computer's.

Homonyms. Use the correct form of the word. For example, to/too/two and their/there/they're. If you're (note that I didn't say 'your') not sure, look it up. Spell check won't fix this for you. The word is spelled correctly. Sometimes it's hard. I only recently figured out affect (verb) and effect (noun).

Also, let's not forget about our friend the paragraph. The paragraph helps you group thoughts and makes your writing so much easier to read. Remember, white space is a good thing.

So please, take the time to proof read, if not for yourself, than for the person who has to read and interpret what you're trying to communicate. I just had to read the sentence 'I no there computer's are to years old.'. This really made my brain hurt.

**Bonus Game**
Identify any spelling and grammar mistakes that I made in this post and let me know about them in the comments.

Just So You Know

Rice noodles make me really gassy for some reason. And now you know.

In Retrospect

I wrote earlier about my text book finally being published. That makes me incredibly happy. In looking through the final product, there are two things that I'm a little disappointed in.

First, and I'm fully aware that this is an ego thing, is that my name appears last in the list of authors. The other two authors are the director of my company, who wrote the introduction and the chapter on electrical safety, and the assistant director. I undersatnd that Fluke published the book with our names listed alphabetically, but I was the primary author of this thing, and I was the one who went without sleep in order to make the writing deadlines. I just wish that when the book gets referenced, the author would be listed as Quartermaster, et al instead of Director, et al.

The second issue is purely vanity. I needed to have my picture taken for my bio in the about the author section. The assistant director was going to snap a quick picture and send it off to the publisher. On the day that I was supposed to have my picture taken, I dressed up a little. I wore a suit, did my hair, and wore a little make up (it's rare, but it happens every now and again). Something came up and the picture didn't get taken that day. We then get busy and kind of forget about it, until one day Fluke asks about my picture. The assistant director takes a picture and that's taken care of. I'm not dressed as nice (not a big deal, it's a head shot anyway), my hair's kind of messy, and I'm not wearing makeup. So basically, it's a picture of me in my normal state. And I guess I'm bitching about not looking better than my normal state.

I'm an Author

And not just of this blog, either.

Let's back up a moment, shall we? In 2007 Fluke Biomedical commissioned by company to write a text book on testing and maintaining medical equipment. It's not as odd as it seems. First, I work for a university. Second, prior to being purchased by Fluke and moved to Nevada, Biotek was located in Winooski and our companies had a close working relationship.

There aren't a whole lot of text books for the biomedical equipment technician and there certainly are not a lot of field guides for maintenance programs. Fluke decided that they wanted a text book, geared toward using Fluke test equipment, of course, to use as part of their educational materials. It's kind of like when you get a recipe out of a magazine and it say to use 2 cups of Swanson chicken broth. In reality, any chicken broth will work for the recipe, but the recipe promotes Swanson chicken broth. That's kind of what my text book is like. The sample equipment used is all Fluke equipment.

Fluke will be using the book in its non-US markets; places that don't currently have an established set of regulations governing medical equipment. I think that's a good thing. The book was written with an eye towards US regulations (why we have them and why they are important) and also practicality. Really, it was to make people understand what they're trying to test for and how to go about it. The book has been translated into Spanish for the South American market and also into Chinese. There were also talks of doing translations into Japanese and a handful of the Arabic languages.

I actually finished writing in the fall of 2007. I was very proud that I made every one of my deadlines. Fluke had originally planned on publishing in December 2007. I'm not sure why there was so long of a delay.

Now I finally have a copy of Medical Equipment Quality Assurance: Inspection Program Development and Procedures. Not exactly the great American novel, but I'll run with it. I'm an author. And not just any author, but an international author.

Putting My Tax Refund to Good Use

Now that the car is taken care of, I can do something completely impractical and fun with my tax refund. I decided to buy a new computer, to replace my 6 year old system.

The roommate helped me pick out a nicely priced machine from HP. On that advise of Yomper, I'm upgrading the video card and the power supply. It kind of defeats the purpose of buying a pre-built system, but it should be a pretty sweet system when it's all together. I just received the new monitor from Newegg. Holy quick shipping Batman! The rest of the computer should be here Wednesday or Thursday next week. So right now, I have a ginormous LCD monitor hooked up to my old system. All things considered, it looks really good. And it even fits on desk.

The Bad and the Good

First, the bad.

While I was in Wisconsin, someone hit my parked car at home in Vermont. I had left the car in my apartment complex's upper lot in case it snowed while I was gone. We have opposite side parking here. When it snows, they plow one side of our street at 8am and then the other at 1. Usually I move my car on my lunch break, as I live across the street from my office. If you won't be available to move your car for plowing, you're supposed to park in the overflow lot behind the complex. That is exactly what I did.

Saturday after I returned home, I found a pretty big scrape all down the driver's side, along with some denting of the front door. The estimate I got from the body shop said it will cost about $1700 to get the whole thing fixed.

And now for the good.

Vermont is one of only two states (the other being Virginia, I believe) that has a no fault accident law. Usually, if the accident is not your fault, your insurance company will go after the other driver, or, more likely, the other driver's insurance, to get the money. In the case of an unknown driver, such as a hit and run on your parked car, you're out of luck. In this situation, Vermont's law forces your insurance company to waive your deductible and provide a rental car for you while your car is being repaired.

This is not something that the insurance company will advertise or even offer. I was tipped off about the law by the helpful people at Autonahn body shop (a big thank you to Jon, who helped me with the insurance process). I had to argue with Geico. The person who took my claim over the phone was not aware of the law and refused to waive the deductible. In speaking with the local insurance adjuster, who was familiar with Vermont's laws, everything was straightened out. My car goes in on Monday morning. Hopefully, she'll be good as new.

More Wisconsin Root Beer

I got a chance to try some more local Wisconsin root beer. Tonight's travels took me to The Great Dane, a pub and brewery located in Downtown Madison. In addition to a large selection of beer, they have a pretty decent menu; I had the Dane Burger and it was tasty. I had never considered putting artichoke dip on a burger before. As for my choice of beverage, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to try their root beer brewed in house.

The root beer came to me in a big frosty mug (yay for frosty mugs!), so I can't give you a run down of the ingredients. The root beer itself had just enough vanilla to make it smooth. It definitely had anise (yay for anise!). This root beer was spicy compared to others that I've tasted. There was a very strong taste of something that I couldn't put my finger on. The overall flavor was strong, without being over whelming. It was a nice change of pace; most of the root beers I've tried have been good but not exciting. This one was exciting. (Side note - for those of you keeping track at home, that's a total of two uses of the semicolon in this use. Let's here it for under used punctuation!)

Compared to the Sprecher's that I tried yesterday, Great Dane is by far the superior Wisconsin root beer. I will definitely have this again the next time I find myself in the area.

Midwestern Root Beer

I've been in Madison, Wisconsin all week for work. I'm taking a week long training class at the General Electric plant here. My class only runs until 4 in the afternoon and I've had my evenings free to explore the area.

In my travels this evening, I came across a locally brewed root beer. Yeah, you know I can't pass that up. (For those keeping track, I am still on my self-imposed caffeine fast. March will be one complete year).

That brings me to Sprecher root beer. It gets bonus points for coming in a full pint sized bottle. That's a whole 16 ounces, as opposed to the normal 12 ounces we're used to seeing in soda/beer bottles. It gets even more bonus points for using honey as a sweetener. However, it loses some of that bonus since it still uses high fructose corn syrup. In fact, the corn syrup is the second ingredient listed (meaning that it's the 2nd most abundant), right after carbonated water.

On the plus side, the root beer is very smooth and creamy. The honey adds a very subtle taste. It's well balanced. On the flip side, nothing really stands out, taste wise. This doesn't make it bad, just not as exciting as Maine Root or Harpoon.

Off Topic

And the award, for most assinine question asked of a world leader, goes to...... Michael Fletcher from the Washington Post, for asking about A-Rod's use of steroids.

A little background: Obama gave the first prime time press conference of his presidency. The topic, of course, was the horrendous state of the economy and what needs to be done to remedy the situation. He did a good job explaining the importance of the stimulous package and some of its nuances. But that is really not what I wanted to comment on.

Keep in mind that this is a press conference about the dire state of our economy. About thress quartes of the way through the question and answer period, Fletcher sees fit to ask the president, "What is your reaction to Alex Rodriguez's admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers?" Seriously. It was one of those surreal WTF moments.

Obama's response should have been "What the f*ck does that have to do with anything?". You know he was thinking it.

When Bakeries Know No Bounds

It's a well known fact that supermarket bakeries tend to stock yummy baked goods decorated for whatever is the most recent upcoming holiday/event. Think pink frosting and hearts for Valentine's or spider webs for Halloweeen. Our most recent event was the Super Bowl and there was a whole host of football themed sugary treatsd around.

I guess the bakers down at the PriceChopper got a little over excited and decorated everything they could get their hands on.

Yep. Those are loaves of bread, decorated to look like footballs. To the baker's credit, I'm pretty sure that it's not actually chocolate icing, but rather a darker dough on top of the lighter loaf.

Hey, I Really Do Have a Facebook Page

I've been getting emails from people asking to be my friend on Facebook. My reaction so far has been, huh? I don't recall ever signing up for a Facebook page. Out of curiosity, I searched for myself and did, indeed, come up with my own profile.

Judging by the 2 messages on the page, I'm guessing that I signed up at the request of one of my friends, as a way to keep in touch, of course, and then promptly forgot about it. Thinking hard I vaguely recall doing this.

And, so, that brings me to my dilemma. Do I simply delete the page and disappear in the ethos? Or do I actually put some content on the damn thing and get back in touch with people who took the time to look me up? Decisions, decisions.

Lilly Ledbetter Becomes Law

After passing both the House and the Senate, President Obama has signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act into law. This makes me very happy.

The Ledbetter Act was discussed heatedly during the last presidential election. McCain opposed the bill on the grounds that it would open up lawsuits. Um....yeah...the bill's supposed to open up lawsuits to companies engaging in pay discrimination. Instead of equal pay protection, McCain felt that women needed more education and training and also stated that the he didn't think the Ledbetter Act would do anything to help the rights of women.

That line of reasoning seems to have stuck, because when discussing this issue with people, I've found that an instinctive fear of frivolous lawsuits and a lack of understanding of what the Ledbetter Act actually does. After explaining what the Ledbetter actually does, they tend to agree that it makes sense.

Prior to Ledbetter, workers had 180 days from the time of the first unequal paycheck to file a complaint for pay discrimination. The problem with the law as written was that companies just had to hide unfair pay practices for 6 months and then they could continue to do so with no legal recourse. In practice, employees tend to not discuss how much they are getting paid with one another, especially if they are new at a company, which would be when one would receive her first paycheck.

The Ledbetter Act says that workers have 180 days from each act of unequal pay to file a complaint, so basically 180 days from each discriminatory paycheck. It does not change the definition of what pay discrimination is, nor does it make it any easier to file a frivolous lawsuit. It simply changes the timeframe when someone can file a lawsuit, taking into account that you may not know about the pay discriminition for years.

President Obama, after signing the bill stated, "If we stay focused, as Lilly did, and keep standing for what's right, as Lilly did, we will close that pay gap and ensure that our daughters have the same rights, the same chances, and the same freedom to pursue their dreams as our sons."

Alphabet Soup

I've started hanging out with a group of friends on Thursdays for ladies' night. We basically either cook something or go out to dinner and then talk/play a game/generally hang out for the evening. Last week we decided that it would be fun to try to go through the alphabet and cook a food for each letter. With each lady assigned a letter, it should take us a month or so to get through the entire alphabet. We're also going through the alphabet backwards, just to keep things interesting.

This week we're doing Z-T. I have the letter X. This will be a challenge. My first thought was to just pick up some Dos Eqis. This still remains my fallback plan if things go horribly, horribly wrong.

After a little research, I've come up with two options. Option 1: Xuxu, more commonly known as chayote or merliton. It's a South American squash. Option 2: Xigua, a Chinese watermelon. And yes, I understand that neither if these is an English word. I'm working with the letter X, cut me some slack!

I'm planning on going with option 1, assuming I can find chayote (or xuxu, in keeping with the X theme) around here. From what I've read, chayote can be substituted in any recipe requiring squash. I think I'll do some sort of chayote au gratin. Stay tuned for how this turns out.

And Only 3 Months Late

I finally got aound to posting my pictures of my uber cool Halloween costume. For those just tuning in, a friend of mine had a Star Wars themed party. I went as a Jawa.

For those of you who don't remember your Star Wars lore, Jawas were the short, robed and hooded residents of Tatooine. They drove the sandcrawlers and were the ones who sold R2D2 and C3PO. Here's a reference picture, to jog your memory.

Here's my costume in full light. The face is actually completely blacked out. The black burlap that I used had the neat effect that I could see out relatively clearly, but you couldn't see my face.

Here's the costume again with the LED eyes lit up. It had a wonderful creepy appearance. (Try to ignore the lamp behind me, even though it kind of looks like I'm balancing some kind of bowl on my head.)

Here's another shot with the eyes lit up. In dim light, the costume looks creepy. I'm very happy with how the eyes turned out. They really made the costume.

And one last, parting shot. Doesn't this look scarey coming out of the shadows at you?

A Happy Sunday Haiku

Ode to the I-Pod

Spent Sunday morning
lying in bed, listening
to Radiohead

Attack of the Giant Humongous Coffee Mug

Last year for Christmas one of my friends gave me a really nice and very large mug. It is by far the largest mug I own. I use it to drink tea at work. It makes me feel spiffy because I drink out of the largest mug in the office.

One of my co-workers now has a mug that puts mine to shame. It is not so much a mug, but rather a ceramic bucket.

Take a look. The first picture shows the mugs side by side. For a little perspective, here are the mugs with a more normal sized large coffee mug for reference. My mug feels small and inadequate.

Blu Ray Vs. DVD

In short, yeah, it is worth the investment for a Blu-Ray player.

Over the weekend, my roommate broke down and purchased a Blu Ray player to go with his ginormous television. (Have I mentioned how wonderful it is having a technophile for a roommate?)

We both purchased a few Blu Ray movies to go with it. The first movie we watched was Hitman, because it seemed appropriate to watch something with a lot of explosions for the high definition experience. It was a gorgeous picture. Unfortunately, I haven't seen this on regular DVD and don't have a base of comparison for this movie. The other night we watched Serenity, because I love Firefly and it's something I've already seen on DVD. The space scenes are particularly pretty. Part of me wants to watch the DVD and Blu Ray back to back for comparison.

My thought is that if you have a high definition television, then it's worth getting a Blu Ray player for the improved picture. This is especially true for action movies, and modern movies that can take into account filming in high definition.

I'm not sure how some of the older movies will do on the Blu Ray format. As an example, I noticed that there are several James Bond collections available, including the earlier movies. Dr. No was filmed in the early 60's, using the technology of the day. I don't think that putting this film on a Blu Ray disc is going to improve the picture significantly. I feel the same about television series. These shows were filmed specifically for standard definition broadcast.

With that said, newer movies, and possibly even newer TV shows since high definition broadcasting is becoming more common, have a much better picture. Over New Year's, Bluemule was showing off his fancy new set up and I was impressed. We watched a few scenes from the last Pirates movie. Water looks great. You could see the texture and detailing of the costuming. Definately an improvement over the DVD version.

I plan on watching WALL-E in the next day or so and I bet it will be absolutely beautiful.

Blu Ray movies are still more pricey than regular DVDs. My highly scientific statistical method of price gathering (meaning I glanced at the prices in BestBuy) found that the average new release DVD is around $20, compared to $30 for the same movie on Blu Ray. I'm won't be re-purchase all of movies on Blu Ray anytime soon, particularly since Blu Ray players will play DVDs. However, I will be buying new movies on Blu Ray from now on.

New Year Resolutions

I made 2 New Year's resolutions this year. The first, half jokingly, is to stay employed. With the economy in the toilet and getting worse, the university that I work at is facing budget cuts. It looks like my department is escaping intact. In addition, I had a pretty good performance appraisal yesterday, so it looks like I'll be here for a while longer.

My second resolution, and this one I'm serious about, is to give up chocolate for the year. Why? No real reason, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. I seem to have blown that one already. I got some really yummy looking chocolate as Christmas gifts, and I wanted to at least taste it. Last night I indulged in one last chocolate fest. It was delicious. Now that that is out of the way, my plan is to give up chocolate until this time next year.

On another note, I am almost nearly a whole year caffeine free, or at least caffeine minimal. My roommate likes to point out that chocolate has caffeine in it and I was still eating that. My response so far has been, 'So?'. My self-induced one year caffeine fast will be complete in March. I am looking forward to adding tea back into my normal beverage consumption. I have a thing for tea. Coffee and soda I can do without; tea not so much. And herbal tea just isn't the same. I had considered adding tea back in after the start of the year, but a whole 12 months just seems so much more symmetrical.

Holiday Wrap Up

...Get it? Wrap up? Ok., I'll stop.

So, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and all that stuff. Can you believe that it's 2009 already?

I actaully celebrated Christmas on December 25th this year. My family tends to celebrate what I've dubbed Rafuse Orthodox Christmas. It falls on the day closest to Christmas that everyone can get together.

I did minimal decorating in the apartment, but did manage to put up a rather nice tree. Space is very limited in the apartment, and because of that I decided to go without a tree last year. Then I discovered that not having a tree made me sad, so I bought a small pre-lit tree and called it done. This year I bought some small sized decorations to put on it. I tried putting on my normal sized decorations, but it looked silly. In any case, the tiny star that I found in a random aisle at Wal-Mart worked perfectly. The fun part is that I searched the Christmas decoration section for a while, found no trace of tree toppers large or small, and then gave up the search. I wandered through the pet supply aisle for something and found the little star lying discarded on a random shelf. A Christmas miracle? You decide.

I managed to get all of my sewing projects done before gift giving time. I ended up finishing a few after Chrsitmas, but that was ok, since I wasn't giving these out until Yomper's post-New Year LAN party. Let's hear it for procrastination!

My roommate and I had decided to not give each other presents. He has gift giving anxiety and neither one of us has room for extra crap. I woke up on Christmas Eve morning and found a gift under the tree for me. The roommate had gotten me an Ipod, engraved with my name on it. Surprise! I felt a little guilty, since I didn't get him anything, but I really do appreciate the gift. I've been wanting an Ipod for a while now.

The weather on didn't cooperate. Depending on what part of the road you were on, it was raining, snowing, sleeting, or a combination of all three. I had to pick up a couple of last minute things and discovered that 9am on Christmas Eve is a great time to shop. The 2 stores that I went to were nearly deserted.

I trekked down to the Kingdom to spend Christmas at my sister-in-law's parents' place. My brother and sister-in-law were there, of course, and my siter and her husband made it down from PA, even after the icey roads added another couple of hours on to their driving time. At my brother's suggestion, we all wnet out and played in the snow. It was a blast. The rest of Christmas was the nice kind of chaos that comes from having to many people in too small of a space. Alyssa slept through most of her first Christmas.

I spent New Year's eating yummy food and playing poker with BlueMule and friends. They were more than happy to take my money. As a consolation prize, I scored a recipe for some tastey chicken divan. All's well that ends well, right? Actually, I had a blast, and it was still cheaper then going out. I must be getting old, because for the last few years I have had absolutely no desire to go out to the bars on New Year's Eve.

Yomper had his annual LAN party that Friday. I ended up using his wife's computer because mine just isn't up to running any new games. This worked out for me because that meant I didn't have to schlepp my system to his place. We played Left 4 Dead all day long. Let me say that this game is the bomb diggity, and I'm not usually a huge fan of first person shooters. I've been playing the Xbox version with the roommate since late November. The basic concept is that it's the zombie apocolypse and a team of 4 survivors is trying to, well, survive. With 5 players, we decided to try the versus mode.

Playing the infected is even more fun than playing the survivors. It was with glee that I did all of the asshole-y tricks that the zombies have done to me in various run throughs of the main game. Smoker dragging a survivor into a witch, resulting in eviceration? Check. Boomer standing on top of a car with a sensitive alarm, so that shooting the Boomer results in alerting the zombie horde? Check. Multiple infected completely screwing over the survivors? Check and check. Playing this game with 8 players (4 survivor, 4 infected) would be insanely fun.

So, how have you been?

Dairy Overload

Brie cheese + horseradish cheddar + egg nog + cheese cake = a very unhappy tummy

And to think at the time I was a little sad because I didn't have room for the peppermint stick icecream.

A New Christmas Tradition

Last year, myself and some friends decided that it would be fun to get together, watch some old Christmas specials, decorate Chrsitmas cookies, drink egg nog, and generally have a merry time. I made up some sugar cookie batter and brought it to the party. For some reason, I lined the cookie sheets with wax paper instead of parchment paper. I discovered the mistake when the oven got a little smokey. Yeah. I'm a bad baker.

This year we carried on the now-annual Christmas get together. I joked about my past cookie problems. This year I just bought a tube of sugar cookie dough and let the others go at it. I'm not sure what happened, but the couple of batches were all burnt on the bottom and still raw on top.

Sonja and I have decided to rename this the party the Annual Let's See How We'll Mess Up the Cookies This Time Party.

Actually, other than the burnt cookies, we had a really fun time. Here's a shout out to Sonja, our hostess, who let us dirty almost every dish in her apartment. It was fun.

The Annual Christmas Crafting Conundrum

Every year I get it into my head that it would be really nice and special if I gave everybody homemade gifts. And then every year I procrastrinate about starting said gifts. And then every year the realities of the amount of spare time available during the Christmas season catches up with me. And then every year I vow to either, A) start these projects a whole lot earlier, or B) not try to do so many homemade gifts.

And then, of course, me being an intelligent creature, I promptly forget that yearly vow and do the same thing over and over again every year.

Don't get me wrong. Every gift I make for someone is a labor of love. Plus, I just really enjoy sewing. I'm slightly (OK, more than slightly) neurotic and stress about every imperfection that I wouldn't care about if I was making it for myself. I'm getting better at that.

The trouble is, there are only so many things that I make for gifts and I have to keep track as to who I gave what in previous years. This person's already got mittens? OK, then, it's a blanket for you!

Should I Have Been Concerned?

I saw a strange sight today as I walked to work. Walking up the hill was a disheveled looking young man wearing a leopard print bath robe. I couldn't help wondering if I should have been more concerned about that, although he did appear to be wearing pants and shoes.

Just A Second

Well, it's been a long year, and it looks like it's going to get longer. December 31 will be just a second longer, as a leap second will be added on to the last day of the year. The extra second will be added between 6:59:59 and 7:00:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time.

Apparently, there are two time scales - one based on the Earth's rotation and the other independent of the Earth's rotation. Atomic time is based on a signal emitted by electrons changing energy state within an atom.

The International Earth Rotation Reference Systems Service monitors the two timescales and makes adjustments when necessary. The Earth does not have a steady rotation and is gradually slowing down, causing the time scales to get out of synch. Leap seconds have been added at various intervals since 1972. The last leap second was December 31, 2005.

2008 is the first year with both a leap day and a leap second.

2008 is not, however, the longest year on record. That goes to the year 46 BC, when Julius Ceasar introduced the Julian calendar. In order to correct the difference between the calendar date and the season, determined by the position of the Earth in its rotation around the sun, Ceasar added 2 months and 23 days, making the year a total of 455 days long.

Tell Me What Comes To Mind

OK, people. Let's play word association. I'll give you a phrase and you tell me what pops into your head. There is a method to my madness, so humor me and play along.

Today's phrase is:
Chocolate Bacon Bar

A Public Service Announcement

Christmas cards make it to their destinations a lot easier if you remember to put a stamp on the envelope.

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

This year was my first time in charge of the Thanksgiving feast. I think it turned out rather nicely. We had a small gathering - my brother, his very pregant wife, her parents, and myself, so of course I cooked enough food for about a dozen or so people. With all said and done, everything came out nicely and I was able to put every dish on the table that I had anticipated.

I tried to get as much local food as possible. The bird came from Adams Turkey Farm in Westford, most of the produce came from Mazza's farm in Colchester, and the wine that we never got around to opening came from Boyden Valley winery in Cambridge. I am trying not to sound smug about this, but I do think it is important to purchase as much locally produced food as possible.

On a slightly humorous note, my geeky self made a spreadsheet of all of the ingredients that I would need. Hey, I was on hold at work for over 45 minutes with a computer in front of me. I started writing a quick shopping list and then as time went by, I got fancy. The spreadsheet actually helped tremendously, since I was taking everything down to my brother's place in Montpelier. It made the shopping quicker too, as I had sorted it by department.

I started prepping the meal around 8 on Thanksgiving morning, and by 9 the turkey was ready to go in the oven. I did not brine the turkey, which was recommended to me by several people. Instead, I loosened the skin and applied a rub of butter, pepper, and other spices. I put a little extra on the outside of the skin as well. Jenny has a set of silicone basting brushes that are wonderful and are going on my Christmas list.

With that done, I started working on the giblet gravey. This actually wasn't nearly as complicated as the recipe made it sound. I had anticipated this being the most difficult of the meal components, as it had a lot of ingredients, quite a few steps, and I had never made giblet gravey before. It turns out the only real difficult part was the chopping of the vegetables, and that was more tedious then anything else. My knife skills still leave a lot to be desired.

On another note, truffle oil smells awful when it's in the bottle. I put in slightly less than the recipe called for (1 teaspoon, instead of 1.5 teaspoons) because I was afraid this stuff would ruin the gravey. It ended up with a very subtle truffle flavor. In retrospect, I should have put in the entire amount, but I thought it was best to err on the side of caution in this case. So, was the truffle oil worth the expense? No, not really. It did lend a nice flavor, but I don't think it would have been missed if it wasn't there.

The veggies came out nice. I ended up doing the brussel sprouts as well as peas and onions at my brother's request. The peas were the only vegetable that I wasn't able to buy fresh. I had to use a bag of frozen peas, because there aren't a lot of fresh peas in Vermont in late November, but James won't eat many vegetables to begin with and I didn't want to deny his one request. Jenny helped me out by peeling the potatoes (both the regular and the sweet) and fetching me dishes as I needed them. She also made a last minute run to the grocery store in the morning for some forgotten items, including the bag of peas my organized self forgot to grab out of the freezer while packing up all of the groceries. And, on top of everything else, she made me breakfast. Thanks, Jen!

The meal itself wasn't difficult to cook. It was mostly chopping of vegetables and stirring of pots. I did take a couple of short cuts, though. The cranberry sauce came from a can. You know, the kind that holds the shape of the can after it's out. I love that stuff. The stuffing came from a mix, but I doctored it up with some vegetables and herbs. It was pretty good, for stuffing. I've never been a huge stuffing fan.

One thing I did notice - for someone who isn't a fan of onions, I put an awful lot of them in this meal.

Jen's father brought rolls and an assortment of pies, so I was let off the hook, baking wise. I didn't get to sample all 4 pies, as I had intended (no more room in the belly!), but the coconut cream was absolutely delicious.

For your viewing pleasure, here's some food pictures of our meal.

Jenny looks on as James learns the fine art of carving a turkey

Here's the spread. The table wasn't big enough to hold all of the food!

Here's hoping that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

A Quiet Office

It always makes me a little nervous when all of the managers are missing from the office. I wonder what's up.

I'm an Aunt!

On Sunday, November 30, we welcomed my brother and his wife's first child. Alyssa Amber weighs in at 6 pounds, 15 ounces and is 20 inches long. Both mom and baby are doing fine and should be coming home on Tuesday.

Here's Alyssa with her proud papa.

Office Lunch Room Redeux

I am happy to report that my sandwich survived today and made it through the office refrigerator in its original unsquished form. Yay!

And on an even better note, someone brought in cookies. With frosting. And sprinkles. I consider this an appeasement for 2 days of sqished sandwiches.

Refrigerator Etiquette

My workplace, like many other offices, provides a refrigerator in the break room. Mostly people store their lunches in there. This is the second day in a row where someone has piled something large and heavy on top of my lunch bag. The results have been 2 days of squished sandwiches. Not the end of the world, and still edible, but irritating all the same. I swear, if this keeps up I'm going to install a hidden camera in the break room to catch the guilty party, and then take every oppurtunity to squish the culprit's lunch.

And so, I've taken it upon myself to educate the masses in office refrigerator etiquette.

1. Try to pack your lunch so that it takes up a minimum of refrigerator real estate
2. Make every effort to place your lunch in a clear space
3. If you must move things around to make room for your own lunch, be gentle
4. If you absolutely have to stack lunches, put the squishy stuff on top. Put the sandwich on top of the tupper wear

Remember kids, only you can prevent squished sandwiches.

Let the Feast Begin

The eating season is upon us. As the roommate so aptly pointed out the other day, the holidays aren't sneaking up on us, they're roaring on by. I'm not sure how it is for the rest of you, but for me it seems like I start eating on Thanksgiving and don't stop until after New Year's. Not that there's anything wrong with that, or anything.

This year I will be attempting to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner. I like to think that my cooking skills have improved greatly over the last few years, but the thought of a full blown holiday meal is a little daunting.

I've been looking over some cooking magazines and scouting out recipes online. Waht can I say, I obsess about things, and this has given me something to obsess about. Also, it's a good excuse to spend an entire day cooking, which is something that I actually enjoy doing. I've got most of the menu planned out. This is what I have so far.

• Roast turkey - Duh!
• Turkey gravey with truffle oil - I've never used truffle oil, but it sounds intriguing despite the fact that many chefs think the stuff should be banned
• Mashed potatoes - Again, duh!
• Bruleed sweet potatoes - I got this recipe from Cooking Light. It is absolutely delicious.
• Sauteed brussel sprouts with leeks - Yum! I've made this for a few formal meals. It's good. Trust me
• Some other form of vegetable - Possibly peas and pearl onions, or possibly green beans. I'm open to suggestions.
• Stuffing - This will be a mix. Let's not get too crazy with the cooking. Most of the stuffing recipes I've found seem overly complicated for what you get. And I don't even like stuffing.
• Cranberry sauce - From the can, just like mom used to make.
• Rolls - Store bought. My baking skills leave something to be desired. If I'm feeling frisky, I might break out the Bisquick.

On a related note, I went to a free cooking workshop offered by Williams-Sonoma. The work shop was on cooking side dishes. On the plus side, it didn't turn into an hour long sales pitch. With that said, I was disappointed in the class. It was way more basic than I had anticipated. Williams-Sonoma is a high end kitchen store. I would assume that people who shop there know how to blanch vegetables, otherwise, what the heck are they doing with all of their overly priced gadgets and gourmet ingredients?

Next week's workshop is on pie. I haven't decided if it's worth going. On one hand, I already know the basics. On the other, I am pie crust impaired. Seriously impaired. Even when I follow the recipe exactly. I can make a pretty decent pie filling, but I have to get a pre-made pie crust. It's a tragedy, I know.

Gendered Toys

I was in Toys R Us today shopping for a birthday present for a 1 year old. Walking through the store, I noticed a disheartening trend with the toys. Toys that I always thought were gender neutral have shown up on the shelves with a feminine equivalent. There are now sets of Legos and TinkerToys that are "designed exclusively for girls". The difference? The girls' version comes in shades of pink and purple, as opposed to the bright primary colors of the regular version. WTF?

Time For Change

No, not another post election post. This time I'm talking about change in my personal life. I like to start small, like with my blog, here. The two of you who actually read this thing may have noticed something's different. I think I'm trying to shed my pirate persona a bit, which is unfortunate, considering the name of this thing. Anyway, I hope you like the new format.

In other change news, I had my first professional hair cut in some time. I decided that I had gotten my hair caught in the car door for the last time. I also recently managed to catch it in my top desk drawer. Everything was fine until I rolled back in the chair. Ow! So, 15 inches came off. It sounds drastic, but it's still pretty long.

What will be my next change? I'm feeling restless, so at this point only time will tell.

Yes He Did

As the dust settles on the 2008 elections, I thought I would weigh in with my two cents.

First, the good news. This sums things up nicely...

America has its first black president with Barack Obama defeating John McCain. Not only is this a historic first, but we also have a progressive leader who has some good ideas to repair the damage that has been done over the last 8 years.

Now that we're done doing our happy dances (or pouting in a corner and pointing your finger at Sarah Palin, if you happen to be a Republican), lets not forget that we were voting on more than just the president on Tuesday.

The good news is that the Democrats picked up a few more seats, making it easier for our new progressive leader to pass through his agenda. Dems picked up an additional 6 seats in the senate, giving them a 57-40 majority. The bad news is that they did not reach 60 seats, the magic number that will give the Democrats a fillibuster proof majority over the Republicans. Keep in mind that Republican fillibusters have been a huge reason why the Democrats have not been able to accomplish much since taking control in 2006 with a razor thin majority.

In more good news, women will be represented at a historic high in both houses. 17 women (13 Dems and 4 Reps) will be in the senate and 74 (57 Dems, 17 Reps) will be in the House. While I'm happy women are gaining ground in politics, we're still abysmally under-represented. Think about it. Women are 50% of the population, yet hold only 17% of the seats in congress.

In more good news, voter turnout in this election was at an all time high. Turnout is estimated at 64% of the eligible voting population, besting the previous high of 63% for 1960 election where JFK squared off against Richard Nixon. A quick look at the statistics for other presidential elections put voter turnout in the low to mid 50's. It's even lower in non-presidential election years, hanging somewhere in the 30 to 40 percent range. People were excited this time around. That's a good thing.

Ballot Initiatives

There were a few ballot initiatives I was keeping an eye on. It turns out that America is pro-choice but anti-gay. Sigh. Here's the run down.

The most well known ballot initiative in the country was California's proposition 8, a law banning gay marriage. An estimated $74M was spent on this ballot initiative, the most for any campaign this season after the presidential campaigns. I am incredibly sad that this passed. There is no word yet what will happen to the estimated 16,000 gay married couples in the state.

Another gay marriage ban, Ammendment 2, passed in Florida. And yet another anti-gay item passed in Arkansas. Act 1 banned gay couples from adopting or becoming foster parents. On a happier note, Question 1 in Connecticut failed. Question 1 would have paved the way for more anti-gay ammendments by changing the state's constitution.

On the pro-choice side of things, the big one, Colorado's Ammedment 48, failed by huge margin; about 73% voted no. I am extremely relieved that it failed so spectacularly, but still disheartened that it got on the ballot in the first place. The ammendment would have defined a fertilized egg as a human being, with full rights under law. Had this passed, not only would all forms of abortion be outlawed in the state, but it also would have affected in vitro fertilization and hormonal birth control. There is no word on whether or not an autopsy report would need to be filed every time a woman gets her period.

South Dakota's Measure 11, an outright ban on abortion in the state, also failed. This is the second attempt for this piece of anti-choice legislation aimed at challenging Roe v Wade. Measure 11 contained an exceptions for rape, incest, and health of the mother ('impending organ failure') that were not included in the 2006 bill. The good news is that it still failed. The bad news is that these anti-choice groups just won't go away and have vowed to put another abortion ban on the ballot for the 2010 election.

On a related note, Proposition 4 in California also failed. This was a parental notification law that required minors to wait 48 hours to have an abortion after a physician has informed her parents. Isn't that a wonderful thing to do to a kid who's already terrified? The law did give an exception so that another adult relative could be notified in the case of abuse, but the abuse needed to be reported to the police by the physician, and the court would then decide on a case by case basis. It's wonderful stuff for a very time-sensitive procedure.

Lastly, Initiative 424 in Nebraska passed. This will eliminate equal oppurtunity language from the state's constitution and bans affirmative action programs by state agencies. What does this mean? Among other things, state institutions, such as public schools and universities, can no longer offer scholarships for minority students.

Local Elections

In local news, Jim Douglas won his re-election bid for governor with enough votes to avoid a runoff election. No surprise there, though I would have liked to have seen a Progressive as governor. I did in fact vote for Anthony Pollina. I console myself with the thought that a Vermont Republican would be considered a liberal in other areas of the country.

Representative Peter Welch easily won his first re-election with over 80% of the vote. I'm glad. One of the reasons that I like him is that Vermont's lone representative is very responsive to questions and concerns. I am one of those annoying people that write letters to Congress. The responses that I've gotten back have been timely and worded so that they actually address the issue that I asked about in the first place.

Also, I was very happy to learn that Kesha Ram won her bid for state representative, upsetting Progresive incumbant Chris Pearson. Remember her name. I predict that we will have be hearing more from the 22 year old in the future.

Your thoughts?

Get Out And Vote (And Get Some Free Goodies)

Election Day is finally upon us and it looks like we're in for a doozey. I will be braving the crowds after work and casting my vote in Burlington's very populated Ward 1 district.

A few companies will be offering nation wide incentives for people to vote. Most of these require some proof that you actually voted, so show up with your 'I Voted' sticker or some form of proof if you voted early or absentee.

First up is free ice cream. Mmmm...ice cream. Ben and Jerry's will be offering a free scoop of ice cream nation wide on election day from 5pm to 8pm. I do wish that the offer was good for later into the evening, since polls here close at 7 and with long anticipated wait times, voters may not be able to take advantage of the offer.

Next we have an offering of free caffeine. Starbucks will be giving away a tall cup of regular coffee to voters on November 4th.

In the sugary treats category, Kispy Kreme will be giving out star shaped doughnuts with red, white, and blue spinkles. Dunkin Donuts, are you gonna step up to the challenge?

And if you really want to rock the vote....Babeland (Note - don't click this link at work!) will be giving out a free silver bullets (for the ladies) and sleeves (for the guys) at their New York and Seattle locations.

[UPDATE: I voted after work (around 4 pm). There was no line and check in was smooth. There were even parking spaces available in the area, which is amzing in itself on any given day.]

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween. It's a toss up for me if I like it more than Christmas, although Halloween might have a slim lead for my favorite holiday.

This year, I'm attending a Star Wars themed Halloween party. And so, in true Quartermaster fashion, I finished the costumes at about midnight last night. Let's hear it forthe last minute!

The roommates flak vest for his X wing pilot costume actually came out good. For the past three days I've been extremely frustrated by how it was turning out. I attempted 3 or 4 different methods of construction, none of which worked. Yesterday, I had the epiphany to just cut strips of fabric, fold them in half, and sew them on to the vest to create the ribbed look. It was tedious but not difficult. I wish I had thought of that 3 days ago.

His orange flight suit that I ordered off of Ebay hasn't arrived yet. I'm nervous about that since it is the main part of the costume. If it doesn't arrive, the backup plan is to get a pair of orange sweatpants and shirt from Wal-mart. It will look cheesey, but it will get the job done. I really hope I don't have to go that route.

I still need to put on the straps. We bought some grey ribbon that will look the part. I'm just going to loop it around him and sew in some velcro closures.

I got the lenses glued into my mask for the Jawa eyes. I think I'm just going to tape the leds into the lenses. If I have time when I get home from work, I'll sew a pocket into the hood to hold the battery. Otherwise I'll just wear the battery around my neck necklace style.

I should (operative word, should) be getting out of work today around 3:30. That will give me a little time to do the finishing touches on the costumes.

More On The Halloween Front

You get extra special credit if you just read the title as 'Moron, the Halloween Front'.

I have to keep telling myself that this is a Halloween costume, not a convention costume, so I don't have to be spot on. That's good, since I'll be possibly the galaxy's tallest Jawa.

Jawa Robe - Done! It's more like a Jawa dress then a robe, though. I was going to have it openable in the front (like a bathrobe) but I think it will be less work to just leave it closed. This means no hemming the slit and and not having to sew in velcro to keep it closed.

Hood - Mostly done. It's all sewn together and hemmed. I just need to sew to snap closure on the neck part and put in the velcro for the face covering. Speaking of which, I still need to cut out and hem the face covering.

Eyes - I ended up buying these already assembled from Ebay. They work great. I need to figure out how to mount them. I'm thinking I'll just fut some eyelets in the face covering and mount them in the eyelets.

Shoes - Not started yet. I did locate a pair of hard bottomed slippers that I have but never wear. They'll be sacrificed for this costume and covered with scraps of left over burlap. My intention is to sew the burlap on, but I think I may take the easy way out and grab a bottle of fabric glue.

Badoliers - Started but not done. The pieces are cut out. I put one of the pouches together last night. It didn't take too long but they're all going to have to be hand sewed. I was trying to avoid that. I might just do a couple of real pouches to hold my stuff (car keys, ID, money, chap stick) for the evening and do the rest as 'fake' pouches, like the fake pocket flaps you sometimes see on blazers.

Ion blaster - Not even started. I think I'll take a look at toy guns at the dollar store this weekend. If I can't find anything worakable, I'll just nix the entire idea.

As for the roommate, he's finally committed to being an x-wing pilot. I threatened to put a box over his head and call him an AT-ST if he didn't make up his mind. His original idea was to be one of the imperial guard. The costume itself isn't bad, really just a red velvet cloak. The helmet is the tough part. It turns out that these things are pricey, somewhere in the $300-$400 range.

I ordered the rebel pilot helmet on ebay earlier today. We had talked about getting just a generic white helmet and putting on rebel alliance stickers/decals. It turns out that the cost of the decals isn't much less than buying the completed helmet. Go figure. Since I'm not artisitic enough to paint the things on, ebay it is.

Now he just needs some orange coveralls and a few accessories. Looking through my box of scrap fabric, I found some grey vinyl that would work well for the flight suit scraps and also possibly the vest thing that the pilots wore. We also need the chest box, which will probably be a box with some miscellaneous switches and buttons swiped from the odd parts bin here at work glued on.

We've got a week to go. I think we can pull this off. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole group together. It should be a geeky good time. Hopefully, we can win best group costume at one of the local costume contests.

Snow!

It's not even Halloween yet, and I awoke to white flakes falling from the sky. What gives? Well, the Old Farmer's Almanac did predict a long, cold winter in the northeast.

On a related note...
My personal pet peeve of the day: people who claim global warming doesn't exist because it's cold outside. Or even worse, people who claim that global warming is a good thing because it's cold outside.

Star Wars Halloween

I've been invited to a Star Wars themed Halloween party. That in itself is pretty cool. The factt hat said party has been in the planning stages since about March is even cooler. I guess it's about time I started working on my costume.

That's not really as bad as it seems. When I first heard about the party, I was going to be unable to attend, since I would be taking the Clinical Engineering certification exam early the next morning in Boston. It turns out that one of my references didn't get turned in on time so that I'll be taking the exam next year instead. Which means I now have Halloween open. Yay!

My original plan was to do Jabba the Hutt. That would have been awesome and I had even started some of the preliminary planning. However, I would have had to start that costume in, oh, August, to pull it off. Plan B is to be the galaxy's tallest Jawa.

It will still look cool. I planned on rigging up some LEDs for eyes. The circuit is basically a couple of LEDs, a resistor, and a 9v battery. I actually found soeone who sells these already put together on Ebay, so for $5, I didn't have to deal with it.

I got the robe and hood cut out and sewn together last night. It's coming together nicely. I still need to hem everything, but the beauty of the Jawa costume is that it's ok if it looks sloppy. I'm planning on velcro-ing a piece of black burlap over the opening in the hood. I can still see through it, but you won't be able to see my face.

I haven't figured out how to mount the LEDs yet. I'll probably just wear the battery like a necklace under the robe. I also need to make the bandoliers. I may or may not get around to makiing a passable ion blaster. I've never liked lots of accessories with my costumes. It's always annoying carrying stuff around all night.

I'll post some pictures when it's completed.

Getting Lost In the Corn

Last saturday, myself and a few others traveled to the Great Vermont Corn Maze in Danville. For those of you not in the know, this is a 7 acre corn maze located in Vermont's northeast kingdom.

My roommate had never been to a corn maze and was pretty excited about it. I had never done one either, but it sounded like it could be fun. And we had beautiful weather to do it in; possibly the last real nice days until spring.

I had a blast and I'm pretty sure the others did, too. At the very beginning of the maze, you pick the trail that you want to start at, aptly named Eeny, Meeny, Miney, and Moe. The group split up right at the start. For the record, I took Moe. We found each other and lost each other several times throughout the day.

One of the nice features of the maze is the different shaped punches along the trail to mark your progress. The idea is that you can mark your progress on the map after you solve the maze. Also, when you come across the same shape that you've already punched, you've walked in a circle. After seeing the same shape 4 or 5 times in a row, I stopped punching.

Another feature is the bell of frustration. At the end of the maze is the bell of success. The bell of frustration is somewhere in the middle of the maze. I found it many, many times.

The website says that the maze will take an hour and a half to two hours plus to solve. Because our collective sense of direction is so fantastic, we were in the maze for about 4 hours. Around the 3 hour mark we decided to break down and ask the maze helpers for directions. Still, it was a blast. I will be doing it again next year and I recommend it to anyone who wants some good, inexpensive fun outdoors.

Where Did That Come From?

Have you ever pulled something out of your pocket and had no recollection of putting it there? I just pulled a black pen out of my pants pocket. I find this odd for the following reasons.

1. I pulled these pants fresh out of the closet this morning. They went into the closet after the last time I did laundry. I do not recall ruining an entire load of laundry with ink stains.
2. I tend to use blue pens for some reason. It's a strange preference. The lack of black pens in my immediate vicinity makes it doublely perplexing where this one came from.
3. I'm pretty sure this pen wasn't in my pocket when I got dressed. Which means that the mystery pen entered my pocket some time in the last 5 hours.
4. Also, I have been in the office all day so I haven't had a real good reason, nor an oppurtunity, to walk around with a pen in my pocket.

Strange. Either I have been visited by the pen fairy, or I suffer from unconscious cleptomania and shouldn't be trusted around office supplies.

My Take on the VP Debate

I watched the vice presidential debate last night. This post is really more for me to sort my thoughts on what went down. As a disclaimer, I went into this already being an Obama/Biden supporter.

My initial thought, and what was reported in the papers today, is that Sarah Palin did a better job than I thought she would. In fact, the headline in this morning's Burlington Free Press is "Palin Stands Ground in VP Debate" with the sub-headline "Republican holds her own vs. Biden". This all sounds warm and fuzzy for the McCain/Palin ticket until you realize that the expectations for Palin were really, really, really low going into the debate. Honestly, the fact that she could string at least two coherent sentences together and manged to go the entire hour and a half not humiliating herself means that she performed better than expected. Following up on that thought, if the bar was set so low for Palin as to be on the floor,what does this tell us about her ability to lead this country?

Some other random thoughts from the debate:

I will never understand why news outlets continue to poll people on who they thought 'won' the debate. How can you win a debate? If news outlets want to poll people on who they thought did better in the debate, that's fine, but can we stop this who won the debate nonsense?

Sarah Palin appeared nervous, but spoke well. Towards the end, she seemed to grow more and more anxious.

Joe Biden performed well as expected. He was careful not to come across as overly harsh, while still telling Palin why she is incorrect and getting in some zingers, such as comparing McCain's health care plan to the bridge to nowhere. He seemed frustrated with Palin's repeated use of disproven talking points.

One of my favorite moments from the debate was when the moderator, Gwen Ifill, called both Biden and Palin out for not answering the question. I think that she should have kept calling out the candidates when they danced around question without actually answering.

Joe Biden came off as very knowledgeable. For the most part, his answers were direct and contained as much policy substance as can be crammed into the 90-120 second answer period.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, did her best to avoid actually answering a single question (although she may have answered one by accident). Asked about the economy, she talked about Iraq, asked about health care, she talked about...something not remotely connected to health care; unfortuantely I do not recall exactly what. It may had something to do with Ronald Reagan.

Palin looked like she prepared answers for theoretical debate questions, and was determined to use those answers whether or not the questions were asked. At one point she made the statement to Biden, 'I may not answer the questions the way you or the moderator want to hear'. No, honey, you're answering questions that haven't been asked.

My personal favorite rebuttal was given by Biden, responding to Palin's wandering aswer on the environment and climate change, claiming that we don't really know what is behind our changing climate. Biden responds with 'If you don't understand what the cause is, it's impossible to come up with a solution.' I had the same thought about 5 seconds into her answer.

Biden looked relaxed and comfortable. He addressed his answers to Ifill, which makes sense, since she was the one asking the questions.

Palin addressed the camera. And winked a lot. What was up with that?

Another great moment came at the end of the debate. When asked about Dick Cheney's definition of vice presidential powers, Palin responded that she agreed with him. Biden responded by saying Cheney over stepped his power, citing Article I of the Constitution. Thank you, Biden.

Palin sure likes to mention Reagan a lot. In fact, in her closing statement, she said "It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free." It was pointed out to me earlier today that Reagan made this statement warning what would happen if Medicare was enacted. This might not have been the best choice of quotes, since a major difference between the two candidates is their position on health care.

More random thoughts...
The ever popular debate drinking game.
This debate, take a shot every time Palin says the word 'maverick'. Take another every time she winks at the camera. Take another shot every time Biden says the phrase 'middle class'. Sorry, that's the best I can come up for with Biden.

The moderator should be able to throw flags like a foot ball ref. When a candidate doesn't answer a question, call them on delay of game. Throw the penalty BS flag whenever a candidate spouts off an obvious lie or disproven talking point.

Also, don't forget to vote November 4th. And don't forget to register if you haven't done so already. The deadline in Vermont for voter registration for the general election is October 29th.

Computers and Baked Goods Don't Mix

The following cake came from a bakery with an on-line order form that is directly linked to an edible ink printer. In theory, this is a very cool piece of technology. In practice, well, sometimes things go wrong.


The above picture came from Cake Wrecks, a great blog with a level of snark that I can only aspire to.

It's A Wrap!

Well, it's a pair of wrap pants, anyway. Last night I finished a pair of wrap pants for Sonja's dance thing next weekend. They're very comfy and cool looking in a bohemian kind of way. I've also seen the same style sold as 'Thai fisherman pants' and 'samurai pants'.

It turns out that these are really easy to make. It's basically 2 squares of fabric, with a horseshoe cut out of one side.

I had a bit of a headache getting the thread tension write on my machine so I could sew the stretching fabric without the seams getting all bunchy. Other than that, it's the easiest thing I've ever sewn.

That's 2 completed projects in a week. I think it's a new record.

Triple Digits

Hey - I just noticed that I have 100 posts in my archive, which makes this post #101. Who new I had that much to say?

Hey, I Finished Something

It's been a while since I've actually sewn something. Last night I finally completed the onsie I was doing for my soon to be niece. I picked up some very cute fabric in, oh, let's see, last April. I've finally gotten around to doing something with it. The poor thing's been sitting partially done for some time now. I'll give a shout out and a thank you to Sonja for motivating this sewing slacker. She asked me to do some costumig for her upcoming dance routine and I really don't like to start another project before the current one is finished. So I actually finished the darn thing. I think it came out well. It was my first time using press on snaps, as opposed to the sew on kind. These are so much easier to use and I think that they look better than the sew on kind. I'll post a picture as soon as I figure out my new camera.

Underestimating the Mighty Blender

When I moved into my current roommate's apartment, I pared down on many of belongings, since his place was already fully furnished and there just wasn't storage space. This wasn't too much of a loss, since most of my stuff was purchased second hand to begin with. During the Great Apartment Purge of 2007 (alternately titled Let's Get This Sh*t Out of Here Fest), most of my small kitchen appliances went to Recylce North, including my blender.

So, fast forward a little over a year later, and I'm making split pea soup for dinner. I run my soup through the blender to get the consistancy right. Also because I suck at cutting up vegetables into small even pieces. Anyway, I venture into the Cupboard of Rarely Used Appliances, the place where the panini maker and the rice steamer live. I pull out the blender and my first thought was, Good lord, this thing feels cheap.

Now, you have to understand that my blender was pretty hefty and had a glass container. It worked pretty good and had decent power. Roommate's blender is all plastic. It's very light and it felt thin. I had reservations about how much power the thing was capable of.

And then I turn the sucker on. I have to say, it's an amazingly powerful little blender. Far more powerful then my old hefty guide. I was put off by its small size and light weight, but now that I've experienced it, I am completely won over. It's a bit like comparing a small sports car to a family sedan.

Shower Games

Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm planning a baby shower for my sister-in-law and people are expecting games. I'm on a quest to find baby shower games that don't completely suck.

My baby shower experiences are pretty limited. The last one I went to, we basically sat around, ate some food, talked, and oohed over the gifts. That seemed pretty good to me.

I did what anyone would do when stuck for lack of ideas - I turned to Google. I was dismayed at the results. These are some of the highlights of what I've found, which I will not be incorprating into the shower. No. Not ever.

• Guess how big around her belly is game. The idea is that everyone guts a piece of ribbon the length they think will go around the mom-to-be's pregnant belly. We then take turns wrapping our ribbons around her. Whoever gets closest, wins a prize. Publicly guessing a woman's waist size is not a good idea in the best of circumstances. Mom-to-be will be 8 months pregnant at the time of the shower. If anyone tries this sh*t, someone's getting stabbed in the eye with a plastic fork.

• Guess the flavor of baby food game. A variety of baby foods have had their labels peeled off. Guests are expected to guess the flavor of baby food. Whoever guesses the most correct flavors wins a prize, perhaps a bottle of antacids. Have you ever tasted commercial baby food? It's absolutely nasty stuff. No wonder babies spit up so much. And as a side note, mom-to-be is taking a class on how to make your own baby food, so she won't have to feed her kid that crap.

• Feed the baby game. Guests put on rain ponchos or trashbags with holes cut out for head and arms, 'cause this is getting messy. We then take turns feeding each other a bowl of pudding with a baby spoon. While I am a fan of eating large bowls of pudding, I don't get why we need the ponchos. Is it so difficult to get a tiny spoon into the mouth of an adult? If that's the case, the new parents don't stand a chance at all.

• Guess the poop in the diaper. I have to admit, I find this one hilarious and if I thought the crowd of elderly aunts would be equally amused, I would totally put this one on the itinerary. You get a bunch of diffent types of candy bars, some with peanuts, some with coconut, etc. Put each candy bar into a diaper and then microwave until the candy bar melts. Guests have to guess what kind of candy bar it is. They are allowed to touch, smell, and even tast the "poop". The idea is ha ha, we're eating poop. Remember that scene in the pool in Caddy Shack? You get the point.

• Baby bottle beer drinking contest. This also sounds vaguely fun in a keg stand kind of way. I have it on good authority that it is actually quite difficult to drink beer from a baby bottle. No one is going to be able to guzzle anything. However, I don't think mom-to-be will be impressed with drinking games that she can't participate in. Also, I don't think the elderly aunts would find this as amusing as I do.

So, my quest continues. Does anyone know of any baby shower games/activities that don't completely suck?

And I'm Back

The internets are working again! I've been away due to computer problems. As it turns out, one of those problems was a faulty network card. And so, I am back online. Yay for me!

When Math Majors Attack

I really wish I had the guts to do this...

A little explanation:
0.002 + e^(2*pi) = 535.49 (when rounding to 2 decimal places)
The limit of the sum of (1/2^n) as n goes to infinity = 1
So this check is made out for $536.49.

Isn't math great?

Adventures in Car Shopping

Well, it's finally time to turn in my little Kia and upgrade to a better vehicle. I've managed to keep the thing running for the past 8 years and, well, I just don't want to sink any more money into it. It's been making a lot of disconcerting rattling noises lately and recently began to do the sticking gear shift thing again which has always been the precursor to the transmission going ka-put. It also has strange electrical problems that once left me with no headlights one night, which require tearing the entire dash apart to diagnose and correct the problem. And it needs struts and possibly an alignment...and the list goes on and on. Egads! The more I think about it, the more I realize that my car is death on wheels.

And all of this work would need to be done at the Berlin City Kia dealership with the lovely service manager who likes to blame me for every warranty problem with the car. Seriously, the guy once tried to tell me I was driving the car incorrectly when I brought it in for transmission work. It's an automatic. There's really only one way to drive it (well, OK, 2, if you count reverse). On top of that, I know it will need new tires to pass inspection this fall, and probably new brakes....and well, you get the point.

Instead of draining my entire savings account on car repairs to keep the thing running for another year or so, I've decided to drain my entire savings account as a down payment for a shiney new car. Yay me!

So, I began the car buying experience. I approached this in the same way as I do when helping my customers buy expensive medical equipment. Yes, I know I'm a geek, and Ido like spreadsheets, thank you very much.

Step 1 - figure out what I want. In my case, a smallish sedan with good gas mileage; I'd like to get at least 30mpg. And air conditioning. My current car doesn't have that.
Step 2 - figure out my budget. Realisticly, I won't be getting anything high end, shooting for less than 20k.
Step 3 - figure out what's out there. This is where an internet connection at work is my friend.

And on to step 4, the kind of fun but strangely annoying part, actually visiting the dealerships. I narrowed my choices down to my top 4 - Chevy Cobalt, Ford Focus, Toyota Corolla, and Honda Civic. I also decided early on that if the first question out of the salesman's mouth was 'what color do you want', then I was immediately leaving. I didn't actually have to use that, and my roommate pointed out that it was amusing that I was talking about HP in the Cobalt versus the Civic, as opposed to the color.

The most obnoxious sales pitch I got was when someone, after my spiel about how I wanted a smallish sedan with good gas mileage, tried to sell me a Chevy Tahoe. WTF? It is neither small, nor good on gas. But jeeze, look how much money off of the price I'd save. Maybe that's because with $4/gallon for gas, no one wants one of those. Well, maybe if I had a family and 3 kids who all had to go to soccer practice or something, but since it's just me living in the city, no thanks.

Decisions, decisions. In the end, the Civic came out on top, just barely edging out the Corolla. Honestly, the two are very similar, but I decided the Civic was the sharper looking of the two. The Cobalt came in at #3, but looses out due to it's smaller interior and lower gas mileage. It was by far the peppiest of the 4 that I drove and if I was fresh out of college again I'd love this car. The Focus was, well, it was a basic economy car. That's about the nicest thing I can say for it.

As an amusing side note, I discovered that of the 4, the only one not assembled in the US was the Ford Focus. The Honda and Toyota are assembled in California, and the Chevy is assembled in Detroit. The Ford, on the other hand, is assembled in Mexico. Go figure.

Class Dismissed

Well, my summer class has finally ended and I am looking forward to having some free time again, at least until I decide to take another class.

I am happy to report that I still managed to get an A.

I'm A Poor Grad Student

Well, not really. I'm just taking one online class and still working full time. However, with 2 assignements turned in and 2 quizzes done, I'm riding high on a low A. Now I just need to get through Friday's exam.

It's A Girl!

Apparently we have confirmation from last week. My brother and his wife are expecting a baby girl. Congrats! I promise that I'll do my best to avoid all things pink. I've discovered that there is a weird phenomenon where every accessory for a baby girl is pink. What gives? It's not that there's anything wrong with pink, it's just that there are plenty of other nice colors out there and we should give them a try. Why force the kid into some weird monochromatic world?

Now It's Really Summer

I had my first Creemee of the season last night. Yum.

On an unrelated note, I noticed that the menu board listed 'sprinkles' and not 'jimmies', so I guess I'm loosing that battle.

Welcome to the Family

My brother and his wife are expecting a baby somewhere around Novemberish. They just sent me the latest ultrasound and it's starting to look like a baby now. Say hello to the latest member of the clan. We still don't know the sex yet, though the suspician is that it's a girl. During the ultrasound, the technician couldn't get the little bugger to spread its legs.

More on the Root Beer Front

I've had the oppurtunity to add 2 more root beers to my growing list.

First up is the micro-est of microbrews that I found at the Burlingon Farmer's Market. It's called Rookie's Root Beer and I believe it's brewed in a home brewery in Colchester. The guy selling it (Rookie, I'm assuming) didn't have a business card on him and I don't remember all the details.

Anyway, Rookie's is an above average tasting root beer. Major points for using real sugar and not high fructose corn syrup. I forgot to ask if he uses a preservative agent or if he just brews in small enough batches that it's not a problem. It doesn't contain anise, which is one of the flavors I really like about root beer. Not too heavy of a liquorice taste. It has a decent amount of carbonation, but not enough creaminess; it would have benefitted from some vanilla. Over all, it's a good tasting root beer. It gets extra points for presentation. It was served on tap from a wooden cask. More bonus points for using all Vermont ingredients.

Our next contender is Capt'n Eli's. It's a micro brew out of Maine that I picked up at a random convenience store while on the road for work. With a pirate on the label, you know I was not going to pass this by. one I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how yummy it was. Yay for anise. This is another one that uses real sugar. It's a nice trend in micro brew sodas. This one has earned a spot in the top 4, and just misses Maine Root. Hmmm...apparently Maine knows how to brew some good root beer.

Back to School

I'm currently taking a summer university class. Summer classes sound good in theory, but really only exist to drive you completely insane and make you long for those peaceful days when you were putting the finishishing touches on your senior thesis. Basically UVM takes a semester long class and crams in into 6 weeks. It's a lot of fun.

I am taking Advanced Medical Instrumentation, at the request of my boss, who is teaching the class. I was not technically forced to take the class, but the question was phrased in a way as to suggest that declining would not be the best thing for my career.

Unfortunately, I was also asked to sign up for the class last Monday, the day the class actually started. Normally this wouldn't have been much of a problem, but the class is completely online and I needed to go through UVM's online registration system. After several phone calls to the registrar's office, information technology, and finally Black Board (the company that hosts the online courses), I was finally able to log on to the course content late on Wednesday afternoon.

Keep in mind that this is a concentrated 6 week summer course. I just missed 3 whole days. And so I have spent this beautiful 3 day weekend here in my room, desperately trying to get myself caught up on the ridiculous amount of reading I had to do. And the 3 new articles that have been assigned.

I am happy to report that as of 10pm Sunday evening, I am officially caught up on my course work. Whoo hoo. Let's see if I retain any of that information for tomorrow's quiz.

Just For The Record...

Atomic physics makes my head hurt. As does the aptly named mathematical function convolution.

Movie Review: WALL-E

WALL-E is Pixar's latest animated film. I saw this movie knowing very little about it and working on the premise that Pixar does not do a bad film. I was pleasantly surprised by how good this movie was, even by Pixar standards.

First, WALL-E does not follow the standard animated movie plot. You know, hero is kind of a jerk, finds a group of friends, gains acceptance, royally messes things up, makes things right and saves the day, then lives happily ever after. WALL-E's plot is hard to sum up in a few sentences, and the whole thing is done with very little dialog.

The basic plot is that all of the humans have left earth because of all of the pollution. The humans were supposed to have been gone for 5 years to allow the WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class) units to clean up the mess. The humans never returned and the WALL-E units continued to work until they finally break down.

Our hero is the last remaining WALL-E unit and survives by scavenging spare parts from other broken down units. He continues to dutifully do his job cleaning up the garbage while collecting small treasures along the way. By picking through the trash, WALL-E gains the humanity that humans have discarded.

WALL-E himself looks like the love child of ET and Johnny 5. The Movie focuses on his fascination with the world. Throughout the first half of the film he collects treasures from the piles of junk. It's hard not to see the world through his very expressive eyes. He is the most lovable trash compacter that you will ever meet.

This is Pixar's darkest film. It's ominous without being overly scarey for the kids. It's hard to miss the enviromental message and the modern human, or at least American, life style is called in to question. There is also the threat of relying to heavily on technology that is implied in many sci-fi tales.

Like all Pixar films, there are some great little touches that you had to be looking for. WALL-E boots up every morning to the chime of a Mac. EVE is modeled after an I-pod. And the Auto Pilot is an obvious homage to Hal, complete with the 2001 overture during one scene.

All of this is wrapped up in a beautiful film. You would expect nothing else from a Pixar film. The animation is gorgeous. The musical score is fitting. But the amazing thing is that there is very little dialog throughout the moving. Everything is conveyed through expression and gesture, and it is utterly amazing how much is able to be conveyed in this way.

Awesomely Ironic Name

I caught the tail end of the Sox-Rays game last night. The closing pitcher for the Rays had the most awesomely ironic name.

If you can't read the name on the jersey, his name is Balfour. Now we just need to find a DH named Popup.