Maybe we'll get out the video and show a few of Banjo's new tricks in the next week or so. Or some good pictures of him romping in the snow in Tahoe this weekend. Meanwhile, hi!
2.28.2008
It's been a while...
Maybe we'll get out the video and show a few of Banjo's new tricks in the next week or so. Or some good pictures of him romping in the snow in Tahoe this weekend. Meanwhile, hi!
2.20.2008
Beware the Chocolate Skittles
If any of you loyal readers might feel tempted to try these limited-edition chocolate mix skittles sometime in the future, I'd like to use this forum to recommend against it (against the advice of other bloggers). Unless of course you are some kind of crazy candy-eating maniac.
2.19.2008
Be a Virtual Librarian!
No offense to either of my librarian parents, but this has to be one of the most humorously bad video games ever created. Click on the picture to play, and make sure you have you sound on for full effect.
Who knows, maybe this will help spawn a burgeoning generation of children who have an advanced mastery of the Library of Congress Classification system (in case you need help). Maybe this will take the place of the Set Daily Puzzle as the most linked game on the blog's sidebar. Or maybe at least my parents will get a kick out of it. As you can see, I didn't last much past a score of zero.
(as a side note regarding Set, did anyone know that the NY Times now offers a fancy java version of Set online, including 4 levels of difficulty and the option to set up multiplayer online games of Set against your friends? Pretty snazzy, but it doesn't tell you your time at the end)
Who knows, maybe this will help spawn a burgeoning generation of children who have an advanced mastery of the Library of Congress Classification system (in case you need help). Maybe this will take the place of the Set Daily Puzzle as the most linked game on the blog's sidebar. Or maybe at least my parents will get a kick out of it. As you can see, I didn't last much past a score of zero.(as a side note regarding Set, did anyone know that the NY Times now offers a fancy java version of Set online, including 4 levels of difficulty and the option to set up multiplayer online games of Set against your friends? Pretty snazzy, but it doesn't tell you your time at the end)
2.14.2008
Tightwaddery
Happy Valentine's Day! Coincidentally, Tom and I were BOTH maneuvering to wake up early to make breakfast this morning. We compromised and cooked a delicious waffle and carmelized banana breakfast together. Yum! Tonight's festivities included the exchange of homemade cards, the take-out Indian food dinner, and a mandolin concert.
Valentines Day (or Hallmark Day) does carry some unfortunate traditions, I think. The $80 roses and the "if you love your wife you'll buy her diamonds" commercials drive me absolutely bonkers. I read that the AVERAGE American spends $121 on Valentines Day. Yikes! And it always makes me marvel that one of the values most central to being "American" is that of consumption.
So, in honor of a frugal (but lovely) Valentine's Day, I thought I would post about some interesting personal-finance web sites I've been reading in the last month or two. Feel free to ignore this post entirely if you're more interested in goofy pictures of our friends or stories where we fawn over Banjo. We'll be back to the regularly scheduled programming shortly.
First, my recent favorite investment vehicle - ShoreBank High Interest savings account. I started out in ING Orange, but ShoreBank has a higher interest rate and is also the FIRST online bank to offer accounts with a socially conscious charter - they invest in community improvement projects nationwide. Seems like a great idea to me!
Second, a couple blogs that I read regularly and enjoy - Money and Values, Boston Gal's Open Wallet, Get Rich Slowly, Queercents, and Make Love, Not Debt.
Third, (courtesy of Get Rich Slowly), some hysterical examples of "extreme personal finance". Sometimes I feel like we're being extreme by washing and re-using ziploc bags or freezing two tablespoons of leftover tomato paste, but these people take tightwaddery to an entirely different level... America on $10 a day, How to pay off your mortgage in 3 years, and The Most Fuel Efficient Man in America.
Lastly, I want to recommend a book that I have really enjoyed. The Tightwad Gazette is a compilation of several years worth of a "frugal" newsletter that was published ten years ago. There are some great ideas in there as well as some other examples of extreme tightwaddery (like rinsing out your ketsup bottles and saving the water for use in soup) but overall it is a great resource to have.
Cheers!
Valentines Day (or Hallmark Day) does carry some unfortunate traditions, I think. The $80 roses and the "if you love your wife you'll buy her diamonds" commercials drive me absolutely bonkers. I read that the AVERAGE American spends $121 on Valentines Day. Yikes! And it always makes me marvel that one of the values most central to being "American" is that of consumption.
So, in honor of a frugal (but lovely) Valentine's Day, I thought I would post about some interesting personal-finance web sites I've been reading in the last month or two. Feel free to ignore this post entirely if you're more interested in goofy pictures of our friends or stories where we fawn over Banjo. We'll be back to the regularly scheduled programming shortly.
First, my recent favorite investment vehicle - ShoreBank High Interest savings account. I started out in ING Orange, but ShoreBank has a higher interest rate and is also the FIRST online bank to offer accounts with a socially conscious charter - they invest in community improvement projects nationwide. Seems like a great idea to me!
Second, a couple blogs that I read regularly and enjoy - Money and Values, Boston Gal's Open Wallet, Get Rich Slowly, Queercents, and Make Love, Not Debt.
Third, (courtesy of Get Rich Slowly), some hysterical examples of "extreme personal finance". Sometimes I feel like we're being extreme by washing and re-using ziploc bags or freezing two tablespoons of leftover tomato paste, but these people take tightwaddery to an entirely different level... America on $10 a day, How to pay off your mortgage in 3 years, and The Most Fuel Efficient Man in America.
Lastly, I want to recommend a book that I have really enjoyed. The Tightwad Gazette is a compilation of several years worth of a "frugal" newsletter that was published ten years ago. There are some great ideas in there as well as some other examples of extreme tightwaddery (like rinsing out your ketsup bottles and saving the water for use in soup) but overall it is a great resource to have.
Cheers!
2.11.2008
Geocaching two
Tom and I and our friend Marc decided to take another geocaching excursion last weekend. We went to Angel Island, an island in the San Francisco bay that has a long, fascinating history. We've really enjoyed visiting there once before - you have to take a ferry to get there and then you have the place practically to yourself. The entire island is a state park - there are no cars allowed on the island and TONS of old historical buildings and artifacts to explore. The wikipedia entry has a lot of information on the Angel Island history, but two of the more visible past uses were that of an immigration station during WW II, and a military stronghold and missile silo during the Cold War.
The last time we went to Angel Island, we took the ferry from Tiburon. This time we decided to save on the driving a bit and take the ferry from Pier 39 on Fisherman's wharf. The ferry itself is always part of the fun, and this time was no exception. In fact, one of the coolest parts of the day was when an entire flock of seagulls descended on the boat and trailed us the entire way to Angel Island. The birds were just cruising along within a couple feet of the boat - you could really watch how all their muscles and feathers worked together in flight. It was almost like our own little nature documentary, although I suppose you wouldn't have hyperactive youngsters throwing the seagulls cheetos on "Nature".
Marc, Tom and I brought our bikes along with us so we could make short work of the 6 mile perimeter and swoop up more geocaches. We quickly discovered that it wasn't going to be that easy. First, we had hoards of geocaching boy scouts to contend with. We had to skip the first three caches on our list because they were swarming with kiddos. Glad to see kids are getting out there and learning about this - they definitely seemed excited to be there!
So we decided to shoot for the more challenging caches. This lead us into all sorts of interesting places on the island. The first one we found involved navigating down a steep slope onto a beach, where we waded through shrubberies and found a large ammo box tucked in behind a palm tree. One of the other caches we found (below), was deep inside a stump that could only be gotten to by skirting around a recent landslide. Very cool terrain, overall.
Around lunchtime we headed inland, up to the top of Livermore Peak, in the center of the island. During the Cold War, the military planed off the top 40 feet of the mountain in order to install a radar system and missile silo. After the military left the island, the state reconstructed the top based on photos of the island before the alteration. There was a nice little cache hidden up there at one of the picnic areas - and you can see part of the sweeping 360 degree view (Tiburon and Sausalito) that we enjoyed while we were up there.
One of our afternoon caches was cleverly hidden in "Battery Wallace". There are two batteries still standing on the island, and although you can't go in all the rooms in them, enough are left open to give you an idea of how they operated during the war. There are lots of bunkers and lots of room for the ammo for the guns at the batteries.
We ended the day after finding 7 caches and managed not to miss the last ferry back to the mainland. We celebrated with a fantabulous meal at the "Burma Superstar" - worth the 90 minute wait that we encountered when we showed up there at 5:45. Just enough time for a pre-dinner celebratory beer and a little walk around town!
The last time we went to Angel Island, we took the ferry from Tiburon. This time we decided to save on the driving a bit and take the ferry from Pier 39 on Fisherman's wharf. The ferry itself is always part of the fun, and this time was no exception. In fact, one of the coolest parts of the day was when an entire flock of seagulls descended on the boat and trailed us the entire way to Angel Island. The birds were just cruising along within a couple feet of the boat - you could really watch how all their muscles and feathers worked together in flight. It was almost like our own little nature documentary, although I suppose you wouldn't have hyperactive youngsters throwing the seagulls cheetos on "Nature".
Marc, Tom and I brought our bikes along with us so we could make short work of the 6 mile perimeter and swoop up more geocaches. We quickly discovered that it wasn't going to be that easy. First, we had hoards of geocaching boy scouts to contend with. We had to skip the first three caches on our list because they were swarming with kiddos. Glad to see kids are getting out there and learning about this - they definitely seemed excited to be there!So we decided to shoot for the more challenging caches. This lead us into all sorts of interesting places on the island. The first one we found involved navigating down a steep slope onto a beach, where we waded through shrubberies and found a large ammo box tucked in behind a palm tree. One of the other caches we found (below), was deep inside a stump that could only be gotten to by skirting around a recent landslide. Very cool terrain, overall.
Around lunchtime we headed inland, up to the top of Livermore Peak, in the center of the island. During the Cold War, the military planed off the top 40 feet of the mountain in order to install a radar system and missile silo. After the military left the island, the state reconstructed the top based on photos of the island before the alteration. There was a nice little cache hidden up there at one of the picnic areas - and you can see part of the sweeping 360 degree view (Tiburon and Sausalito) that we enjoyed while we were up there.
One of our afternoon caches was cleverly hidden in "Battery Wallace". There are two batteries still standing on the island, and although you can't go in all the rooms in them, enough are left open to give you an idea of how they operated during the war. There are lots of bunkers and lots of room for the ammo for the guns at the batteries.
We ended the day after finding 7 caches and managed not to miss the last ferry back to the mainland. We celebrated with a fantabulous meal at the "Burma Superstar" - worth the 90 minute wait that we encountered when we showed up there at 5:45. Just enough time for a pre-dinner celebratory beer and a little walk around town!
New additions to the family...
Our little family of three has grown by 600%!
Several weeks ago I decided to bring our fish tank out of retirement. When you first set up a tank, you have to put 4-5 hearty fish in it in order to help the tank develop a colony of nitrate-fixing bacteria to deal with the waste products. So I started off with five barbs, which are notoriously tough fish - three gold and two green, . Four of them made it, and they have doubled in size since I got them. They're the four fish who are obvious in the front of this photo. Last weekend I decided it was safe to add some more fish, so we got four dwarf platys (all males because I don't like to deal with liveborn babies), six cardinal tetras (Tom's favorite), and three angelfish (two marble and one striped). You can see the red platys in the top right of the photo, and the cardinals behind the red rock. I think you can spy part of the striped angelfish in the far right corner - they spent most of their first two days in the tank hiding back there.
So far everyone has been doing OK - I'm starting to get attached enough to start thinking about names. Any suggestions?
Several weeks ago I decided to bring our fish tank out of retirement. When you first set up a tank, you have to put 4-5 hearty fish in it in order to help the tank develop a colony of nitrate-fixing bacteria to deal with the waste products. So I started off with five barbs, which are notoriously tough fish - three gold and two green, . Four of them made it, and they have doubled in size since I got them. They're the four fish who are obvious in the front of this photo. Last weekend I decided it was safe to add some more fish, so we got four dwarf platys (all males because I don't like to deal with liveborn babies), six cardinal tetras (Tom's favorite), and three angelfish (two marble and one striped). You can see the red platys in the top right of the photo, and the cardinals behind the red rock. I think you can spy part of the striped angelfish in the far right corner - they spent most of their first two days in the tank hiding back there.So far everyone has been doing OK - I'm starting to get attached enough to start thinking about names. Any suggestions?
Brewmeisters
My brother Mark (and his wife Catherine) gave Tom and me a gift certificate for a beer making setup for Christmas this year. It was an appropriate gift - Mark was into home brewing himself when he was about our age. Unfortunately, after 3 or 4 successful batches, Mark read somewhere that adding pine extract to beer would make a nice Christmas brew. In actuality it made a beverage that bore an uncanny resemblance to pine-sol. Mark hasn't brewed since.
Aaannnyyyways, Tom and I aren't serious beer connoisseurs, but the chemistry and the do-it-yourself aspect definitely appeals to us. So we got a very nice kit from our local homebrew store, and decided to start with a batch of American Brown Ale. The first task was to accumulate 50 brown pop-top beer bottles. We had to throw a poker party a couple days before brewing to make sure we'd have enough. Then, we spent a long Friday night a couple of weeks ago brewing it up. When we were done, we nestled 5 gallons of precious yeasty mixture into our closet where it would stay warm and dark.
After three and a half weeks of fermentation in the closet we finally decided that it was done and ready to bottle. Tom was actually out in DC when it was time to bottle, so I had to schlep the 5 gallons around the house and figure out how to add the carbonation sugar on my own. Fortunately, Dustin showed up just in time to help me bottle the mixture - clamping the tops on all those bottles isn't a particularly easy task.
Last week, we popped open the first "test" bottle of brew when we had a few friends over. It got good reviews overall - it was nice and full and surprisingly hoppy. It had started to carbonate but wasn't quite ready to go yet, so we've put the bottles back in the closet to finish up.
With one batch of beer in the works, we decided to try our hand at something a little different - hard cider. It is tough to find a good set of directions for making hard cider; none of the libraries carry any literature and on-line material varies wildly from site to site. We ended up just quizzing the brew-store owner about how to make it, and we are hopeful that his verbal directions will work for us. Cider is a particular challenge because most commercial cider has a fair amount of sweetness to it. This is very tough to achieve for a home brewer, because any sugar that is left in the cider when you bottle has the tendency to over-carbonate and explode. So we'll likely end up with a very dry cider (despite using some very sweet gravenstein apple juice with 2 lbs of added honey), but we're hoping it tastes good anyway.
As we speak, the cider is perking away in its five gallon carboy in our closet! Cider takes a lot longer than beer to finish, so we aren't likely to be drinking any for at least two months, but it's fun and exciting to try something new!
Aaannnyyyways, Tom and I aren't serious beer connoisseurs, but the chemistry and the do-it-yourself aspect definitely appeals to us. So we got a very nice kit from our local homebrew store, and decided to start with a batch of American Brown Ale. The first task was to accumulate 50 brown pop-top beer bottles. We had to throw a poker party a couple days before brewing to make sure we'd have enough. Then, we spent a long Friday night a couple of weeks ago brewing it up. When we were done, we nestled 5 gallons of precious yeasty mixture into our closet where it would stay warm and dark.
After three and a half weeks of fermentation in the closet we finally decided that it was done and ready to bottle. Tom was actually out in DC when it was time to bottle, so I had to schlep the 5 gallons around the house and figure out how to add the carbonation sugar on my own. Fortunately, Dustin showed up just in time to help me bottle the mixture - clamping the tops on all those bottles isn't a particularly easy task.
Last week, we popped open the first "test" bottle of brew when we had a few friends over. It got good reviews overall - it was nice and full and surprisingly hoppy. It had started to carbonate but wasn't quite ready to go yet, so we've put the bottles back in the closet to finish up.
With one batch of beer in the works, we decided to try our hand at something a little different - hard cider. It is tough to find a good set of directions for making hard cider; none of the libraries carry any literature and on-line material varies wildly from site to site. We ended up just quizzing the brew-store owner about how to make it, and we are hopeful that his verbal directions will work for us. Cider is a particular challenge because most commercial cider has a fair amount of sweetness to it. This is very tough to achieve for a home brewer, because any sugar that is left in the cider when you bottle has the tendency to over-carbonate and explode. So we'll likely end up with a very dry cider (despite using some very sweet gravenstein apple juice with 2 lbs of added honey), but we're hoping it tastes good anyway.
As we speak, the cider is perking away in its five gallon carboy in our closet! Cider takes a lot longer than beer to finish, so we aren't likely to be drinking any for at least two months, but it's fun and exciting to try something new!
2.07.2008
Votehelp.org
Last post of the day, I promise. But my sister told me about Votehelp.org, a neat little website that asks your opinion on 15-30 of the current major issues in the political scene, how important they are to you, and then shows you how your positions match with those of the major candidates - so I thought I'd share. It also can show you a color-coded grid of policy agreement for the left-brained out there. Here's mine:
Granted, this may be a little late seeing as Super Tuesday has come and gone, and over half of the candidates are out of the race now. One strange (subliminal?) thing about the site is the Democratic candidates are pictured with a red background, and the Republicans with blue. Go test your self and see if you voted for the right person.
Granted, this may be a little late seeing as Super Tuesday has come and gone, and over half of the candidates are out of the race now. One strange (subliminal?) thing about the site is the Democratic candidates are pictured with a red background, and the Republicans with blue. Go test your self and see if you voted for the right person.
Jumbotron update
Courtesy of the snazzy ClarkHuntSmoot webcam overlooking construction on the new Nationals Stadium, the giant HD jumbotron appears to be operational and in fact Hi-Def (as evidenced by the images from the Smithsonian HD channel). Perusing the images around Jan 29-30 revealed some interesting webcam captures. For example, seeing an oscilloscope on a MLB stadium's big-screen display (see Jan 31, 4:40am) would have to be up there near the guy with a sword attacking the guy with a bat on a hiking trail for things I would never expect to see in my life. There's also this one:
Anybody recognize the subject matter from an earlier post perhaps? That's right! It's the FDR memorial down by the Tidal Basin. Anyways, pretty impressive screen, no?
Anybody recognize the subject matter from an earlier post perhaps? That's right! It's the FDR memorial down by the Tidal Basin. Anyways, pretty impressive screen, no?
China's industrial might
Seriously? China, the rising industrial and economic powerhouse that everyone claims it to be, can build fancy cable-stay bridges (see picture) but doesn't have snowplows and instead resorts to using like 900 guys in uniform with shovels? I know, those snowstorms were unusual and widespread, but still. Seriously?The somewhat outdated photo is from MSNBC's "The Week in Pictures."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)