Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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Master Lieabout von Housebound, Esq.


A few times today and once last night I heard thunder; even saw lightning. I enjoy hearing it; it reminds me of the rainstorms we’d get most summer afternoons back in Florida. Back now from Hawaii, I settled right back into my pre-trip alter-ego, Master Lieabout von Housebound, Esq.. Today was spent reading, listening to music, wrestling with Keaton, and monitoring a few choice IRC channels. I know, I know… you (nor I) haven’t used IRC since, like, highschool, or something… but I have decent reasons (all legit and legally kosher, mind you). Anyway, Sharaun’s at the gym now and Keaton and I are dancing around to In Rainbows (I didn’t get to jam to it much in Hawaii and was getting the shakes). We like our alone-time, it’s good for our relationship and stuff.

If you’ll cast your memories back with me for a moment, you’ll perhaps recall that, before leaving for a week in the Pacific Islands, I had torn down my summer tomatoes and sown in a goodly sized crop of “winter” wheat – all part of some idea I got in my head about wanting to “understand” the real “cost” of a piece of bread. While I was away, modern suburban scheduled irrigation dutifully watered my crop for me – and, while drinking coconut-infused cocktails astride the pool in Maui, I often wondered if there’d be any noticeable growth upon my return. I hoped for growth, of course, results from untended efforts are some of my absolute favorite results, but I was careful not to get my hopes up. When we had finally pulled into the driveway, fetched the luggage and baby, and were walking towards the front door, however, I made sure to get on my tippytoes for a second so I could peer over that little dip in our fence where the gardenbox is visible. I was ecstatic the view greeting me home:

Not bad. Now we’ll see if it’ll make it to seed.

Moving on, I feel I would be remiss were I not to note the fact that today is All Hallows Eve Eve. If you’ve been following my blog here at sounds familiar for any length of time, you know I’m an absolute nut for Halloween – have been since I was a kid. Every year since we bought our house, I’ve constructed and displayed elaborate props for the occasion, and we’ve thrown an annual bash for the past four years. Originally I figured, with Halloween falling during my sabbatical this year, that I’d have even more time to repair the brokenness of last year and maybe even make some super fantastic new props. But, the way things landed: our week in Hawaii right up against my favorite of all holidays, the run-down state of the existing props, and me being worried about repeat thievery with a yardful of props and no one home – I just decided to blow the whole thing off. It sucks, and I’ve had three neighbors ask me what’s up… but I vow to be back next year with a vengeance. It just doesn’t feel like Halloween without all the preparation and work, I’m a beaten man.

Goodnight.

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slightly more than usual


T-minus two days until Hawaii, and I’m getting truly excited. These past few days spent goldbricking around the house have been excellent, and have half-scared me by giving me a glimpse of what my life might be like without work. Doing nothing has merits, for a time, but even I begin to feel a mite guilty as one purposefully uneventful day blends into the next – so much so that I don’t even know, or care, what day it is. Now, that’s lazy…

I did, however, do a bit more than usual today. Well, sabbatical-usual, that is… and, only slightly more, at that. Got a bug and tidied Keaton’s room. It’s one of those rooms that folks rarely see, unless we escort them back there for a reason, so I don’t freak out about it being too untidy. And, Lord knows that, unless I’m the one tidying, it’s going to be a heap haphazard enough to make a hurricane jealous – with my wife. That room, and our master bedroom, are the ones in which I’m able to “tolerate” the most clutter. I still hate it with every fiber of my being, but I can at least keep my “areas” clear enough to keep my rage suppressed. Somedays I just lost it, though, and that’s when I tear through in a frustrated sweat, going a hundred miles an hour. I know this to be something my father “passed on” to me. I can recall when he’d reach the frustrated point where he’d sweep through the room, tossing anything he didn’t thing belonged there into the trash, or piling it in a heap on my bed. I used to hate it, then; now I find it completely gratifying, if rather ineffective. Anyway, that’s what I did today in Keaton’s room. A reverse whirlwind, cleaning with gusto, cleaning with a purpose.

Well, I had intended to post this entry last night – but before the preceding fourteen words, the previous two paragraphs where all I had, and the motivation dried up there. I stayed up late reading anyway, till sometime past 1am, when I finally decided I’d better hit the hay. So it’s Thursday morning now, we’re up watching TiVo’d episodes of the Backyardigans and Sesame Street – well, Keaton is, partway, at least… she’s never been a big TV person (good for her, I suppose). Regardless of all that – it’s the day before we leave for Hawaii. I’m sure there’ll be lots of planning and plotting and packing, and perhaps all sorts of other alliterative P-words too – you never know. Sharaun is freaking out a bit, true to form, asking me to do illogical things like call the concierge at the hotel ahead of time to find out where the closest grocery store is – as if having this piece of knowledge in advance will net us some material benefit. “We can ask when we get there,” I say. Women. Who’ll ever understand them?

Continuing my story of having dinner with our elders the other night: We were seated at the table and the conversation had, once again, turned to WWII (likely because I always subconsciously drive it there – did you know the target-audience of the History Channel is 80% male?). At some point in the conversation, our friend remembered a limerick the kids used to say at the time: “Frankie’s in the White House, eating pork and beans; Eleanor’s in the bathtub, shooting submarines.” She blushed and giggled like a little girl after saying it. Shooting submarines in the bathtub… that’s a scatological reference, right? Something having to do with torpedoes and pooping in the tub? Hilarious… especially from someone nearly ninety years old. OK, that counts as a paragraph, right? More than anything I wanted to get that quote on my blog in hopes of pulling in obscure Google searches (I coudn’t find it verbatim in reference to the Roosevelts, although it’s prevalent in what must be its original form about a judge and his wife).

Until next time, from somewhere on the beach and hopefully a few drinks in the black. Later.

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beans that go bang?


Hey, internet friends, before I even start trying to write – revel in joy. Why? Why, because I posted new pictures to Keaton’s gallery. This should catch us up to the present, if hastily. Check them out here, covering sabbatical times including September and October. I’ll try and upload some pictures from Oktoberfest later in the week, but you’ll have to make due with cute babies for now.

10:30am now, up since 7:30am when Keaton decided it was time. It’s sort of nice, having a reason to be awake early, something to kickstart the day, get the shower waters on me, the deodorant under my arms, brush on my teeth. On top of being up early, I got the morning to myself – to read and surf the internet and listen to music. I could’ve called people who are also on sabbatical, seen what they’re up to, maybe made arrangements to meet up and do something… but I didn’t Sometimes I just don’t want to move a stitch. I think it has to do with feeling “in control” of everything – which is easier when “everything” is practically nothing. I decide that I sit here; I decide when to eat lunch, and what to eat; I decide what to listen to; I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. It’s easy that way, it’s what sabbatical is all about for me – and I love it.

Tonight Sharaun cooked again for the older couple we occasionally do dinners with (the subject of blogs prior), and the conversation, as it did last time, turned to WWII-era times. It’s so fascinating to me to hear, firsthand, about those times in American history – right from the mouths of those who lived and fought during them. And tonight I heard something that piqued my interest. Our friend and meal companion mentioned that, during the war, her dad used to grow and sell black-eyed beans (which she says are the same thing as black-eyed peas, but that’s not what they called them then) to the US government for use in making gunpowder. This sounded strange to me, so I asked her more. Apparently, her dad used to profit more selling black-eyed peas to the government during wartime, for gunpowder, than from any of his other crops. Crazy, right?

Well, being the guy who hungers for knowledge about such things, as well as being the guy who was once the kid who was obsessed with all things incendiary – I just had to know how to make gunpowder from beans. So, as soon as we got home I hit Google looking for some reference to peas/beans along with gunpowder. After searching for a while and coming up with zilch, I hit Wikipedia to read up on the history of both gunpowder and black-eyed peas. Even armed with this information, I could find no reference whatsoever to the use of black-eyed peas, or any substance derived from them, in the manufacture of black powder.

I ask you, internet, help me figure this out. What the heck could the WWII-era relationship be between black-eyed peas and gunpowder, or guns, or artillery in general? Late in my searching, I found that sodium nitrate (archaically referred to as saltpeter), a key ingredient in black powder, occurs naturally in “leafy green vegetables” (Wikipedia source). I also found an obscure reference in one of Google’s online scans of a book called, Gunpowder, Explosives And the State: A Technological History, where they say that, in ancient Egypt, the “stems of lupine peas provided charcoal for gunpowder.”

Could it be that this woman’s dad was somehow selling greens to be processed for saltpeter? Or maybe he was selling the stems as a basis for the charcoal which is also a key gunpowder ingredient? I’m just dying to know…

Unrelated, except for being on Google Books, I found this “experiment” hilarious.

Goodnight.

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that’s what i do


Ouch. My hips are still sore from last night’s sleep – a product of getting old, I fear. Never before did the “activity” of sleep take any toll on my person, but, with age, it seems that, on the wrong mattress, I can wake up feeling like I’d slept on a pile of rocks. It tells me that, sooner or later, I’ll be unwilling to put up with it, and be willing to part with the dosh for a new bed – but, until that day comes, I’ll keep that money in my wallet and deal gingerly with the hips that result. But, we’re not here to talk about my less-than-graceful aging… or, are we? Huh. Maybe we are, after all.

Keaton’s awake, after a long afternoon nap – she’s currently taking her books from the wicker basket I use to collect them, one-by-one, re-littering the floor I cleaned a few hours ago after putting her down. It’s been a good day for me. While not breaking the chain of sabbatical do-nothingness, I at least took a pry bar to the weakest link and made show of an effort. I mowed the lawn, something I’d been needing to do – and that needs to get done before we leave for Hawaii. I also finally got around to razing my summer garden to make way for the makings of a winter one. I tore into the viney tomato plants with gusto, sad to see them go, but amazed that the bumper crop they decided to leave me with. I pulled off a couple pounds of ripe red fruit, and paper-bagged another six pounds or so in hopes they’ll ripen off the vine (the internet says they will, and who doubts the internet?). Yes, I expended all that effort today – before noon even. Don’t worry though, I spent the next few hours lounging on the couch alternating between reading and napping. Just as it should be.

Sharaun is out picking up the last few ingredients we need to make tonight’s experimental dinner. See, while at Oktoberfest, I happened to eat a bowl of delicious “Deftige Gulaschsuppe mit Hausbrot” at the Schottenhamel tent (that’s goulash soup with house bread, for us ‘mericans). So did I love the hearty stuff, that, upon returning home, I scoured the net for a recipe that looked faithful to my memory of its awesome flavors. In time, I found a recipe which looked about right – and even had some historical text prefacing it which mentioned Bavaria and Oktoberfest. Seemed right to me, so I printed it up and asked Sharaun to give it a try. I’ll let you know how it comes out, since I know you must be keenly interested.

I swear I’m uploading pictures tonight… but until then, here are some pictures Jeff posted from our time at Oktoberfest – I think anyone can view them. Enjoy.

Until later.

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waiting for rainbows


Mmmmmargggh… turning to stretch the tight knots from my neck, knots formed in the lazy contortion I’ve been holding for the past hour or so, stretched awkwardly across the loveseat reading my book. Through the window I hear the clink and clack of treaded heavy machinery, they’re busy building something-or-other new just down the hillside a bit from our place – a Mormon youth hangout… or something. Sharaun left a little while ago to do some shopping, Keaton’s napping.

As I wrote about yesterday, I made marinara sauce. I think it came out OK, but I was surprised that the near five pounds of tomatoes only yielded enough sauce for perhaps one four-person meal. At first when I saw the recipes online for freezing larger quantities of sauce demanding twenty pounds of fresh tomatoes, I didn’t believe it; now I know. At lot cooks off, after both seed and skin are discarded. Either way, I’ve got enough for a meal – I guess that’s cool.

My second goal for yesterday (today, as I write, but that’ll just mess with your head) was to “mill” some of the wheat seeds (which I also intend to plant) into flour. After some research, I decided my best bet for an “accurate” idea of what goes into making flour was to use a mortar and pestle to hand-mill the grains. Aside from setting up a donkey-powered milling stone in the backyard (a bit grandiose for my needs), I figured this would give me the best notion of the effort required. Too bad I don’t have a mortar and pestle, huh? Owell, I figure something out – and carry this “to do” onto the next day, I suppose. Anyone have an old-style mortar and pestle lying around they’d let me borrow? Let’s move on to things which are… sadly… likely not much more exciting (sorry).

Well, I must be honest: I’d have even thought I’d’ve written about it before now – but, hey, I’ve been gone. I’m referring to, of course, the whole Radiohead “LP7” revelation of the past week. Those who frequent the internet may have heard about this by now; heck, even those who still cling to ink-on-paper style information dissemination should’ve, by now, heard: Last week, Radiohead announced that their long-awaited new album, up until that point referred to by fans simply as “LP7,” but now officially titled In Rainbows, was not only complete and ready to be heard, but was to be sold exclusively (sort of, looking past the details) online. What’s more, the band would set no fixed price for the “record.” Buyers can, amazingly, name the price, down to, and including, zero, they wish to pay for the work – which, again, is available (for the time being) solely as a digital download. The news blazed across the internet, and even made the Wall Street Journal.

For me, the news was brilliant. Just returning from Germany and learning that a brand-spanking-new album by one of my all-time favorite bands of modern-times would be in my grubby little hands (or, on my grubby little hard disks, or, something) in a few days was news to smile over. For me, thought, the decision about how to obtain said work was one to ponder. The place where I “get” music now (which, as an aside, is a perfectly legal place where I trade hard-currency for musician’s hard-work…) would of course have In Rainbows available for 100% zero-dollars as soon as it became officially downloadable from Radiohead’s site. But, it seemed silly to “steal” something that the band is, if optionally, giving away.

Furthermore, I likely respect Radiohead more than most other acts around today – even to the point of giving me a willingness to pay them for their sounds. So, the decision was made: I’d go the “official” route and buy the music from their site. I decided against the ~$80 “discbox,” which would ship, in physical form, with an entire album’s worth of additional new songs sometime early December (I’ll use my favorite legal download site to obtain the extras, I suppose), and went instead with just the digital download of the material available immediately. As for price, I settled on $8 US. I entered less than half that in pounds sterling (stupid Bush), and received my confirmation code via e-mail seconds later.

And now, for tonight at least, I’m bound to this internet even moreso than than usual – as the hours tick by and I wait for my “activation code” to download the album. It’s already 4am October 10 in the UK as I write this, and the webpage says the downloads should become available sometime “UK morning” on the 10th. On a forum I frequent, someone e-mailed the webpage support address asking for a more pinned-down timeframe for the digital release, noting that “UK morning” is fairly vague. The response he received was a simple sentence of three words: “Vague is good.” Bitchin’. That is so Radiohead.

Sometimes, when I lack inspiration for writing, I’ll use the “random posts” section of my sidebar (over there, on your right) to leaf through some old entries. Every once in a while I find something I’d totally forgotten I’d written, and get impressed (more often, I find something I’d totally forgotten I’d written, and get un-impressed, to be more properly self-deprecating). Like the 2nd-to-last paragraph in this entry, about the guy trapped under a tractor and his dog. That plain cracked me up, and I have no recall of penning it. Guess that’s what happens when you write meaningless crap for four years plus (I missed this year’s sounds familiar four-year anniversary, but it happened back in September – congrats to me).

Let’s hope for four more. Goodnight.

[Late-breaking Radiohead update: It’s 11:23pm and I ended up downloading the entire thing off some sharing-site link posted to a forum before I ever got my “legit” download link from the inrainbows.com site (that came at 11:40pm). The internet: it happens faaaast. Now to load on the iPod and give it a whirl as I drift off to sleep.]

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home-time


Well, back from Oktoberfest and seemed to have picked up a small bug in the process. I started feeling iffy on the plane back, my head getting congested and just feeling altogether drained. Saturday I was OK, friends came over and we watched football all day, but sometime over Saturday night into Sunday I awoke with a fever and felt worse. Sunday I spent the entire day wasting away on the couch nursing a fever and seeming only to sleep and sweat. Sunday was the peak though, it seems, as yesterday the fever was gone – leaving only the fatigue and that I-was-sick “weak” feeling in its place. This morning, Tuesday, I feel nearly 100% – and so I figured it was a good time to step back into the blogging circle. Lucky us. Let’s do it then.

Anyway, I’m currently starting off the beginning of the first of two chunks of much-looked-forward-to sabbatical “home time.” With a mere month left in my extended time away from work, I’m happy to say that nearly all of that time is un-booked, un-reserved, un-planned. If you can’t tell, I’m quite happy about that. This morning I got up around 7:30am, readied for the day, and was in the living room with all the blinds pulled open and morning sunlight streaming through the windows while XM’s “Deep Tracks” station served up classic nuggets from the likes of Santana and Stones. Yesterday I lounged around to classic rock and read hour upon hour upon hour, finishing some 300 pages of my current tome to lilting guitar and frenetic percussion. I’ve got the house open for the breeze, and a pot of coffee brewed. I could, and quite possibly will, do this all day.

Well, that’s a bit of a fib, as I do have “plans” for some of my time today:

#1: Figure out how to “mill” (or “grind,” as most would say) some percentage of the winter wheat seeds I bought into flour. I plan to turn some portion into flour now, plant some, and save some. I know it may seem silly to make flour from the purchased seeds, as it pretty much seems to bypass the whole grow-wheat-to-make-flour thing, but I want to go ahead and try to have a sourdough “starter” ready and active by the time I (hopefully) get my grown wheat to seed and eventually milled into flour itself. That way, I’ll have a bread starter that’s 100% from the crop (in my mind, at least). The goal here, as a reminder to myself, perhaps, is for me to understand the “cost” of a loaf of bread. From cradle-to-grave, so to speak. What all goes into making bread. I’ll let you know sometime in the new year how it went; before then if it tanks completely.

#2: Turn the five pounds of tomatoes I yanked yesterday from the gardenbox into fresh marinara/spaghetti sauce, which I’ll then freeze and save for later use. I went out and picked everything remotely red or reddening yesterday, and gave a sad pause at the rampant growth I’ll have to tear-down to make way for my next experiment in agriculture and times-past: winter wheat. And, because this is turning into a new paragraph…

I can’t help but feel a bit of pride. Sure, for all the things I planted, I really only got a decent yield on the tomatoes (not counting a couple smallish cucumbers, one tiny bird-ravaged crop of strawberries, and the two or three okra buds I caught), but, overall, I’m happy with how the plants took off. The corn died, the watermelon did nothing, and the peppers grew and never fruited – but I still somehow feel good about what did grow and thrive. Maybe it just shows that any black-thumbed jackass can grow tomatoes, eh? Anyway, here’s a side-by side to give you an idea of just how awesomely (some of) my garden fared:


Before.


After.

I guess that’s about it for today…

This was probably a little boring… sorry about that. Look for new pictures from Oktoberfest and of Keaton to be added to the gallery pages later this week. Until later, love y’all.

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smells like fall


Being back at home with nothing to do, I’ve taken to sitting around reading, occasionally doing a little “housework” here and there. I do believe, in this time of having absolutely nothing to do, that the true spirit of “sabbatical” is finally starting to set in. I’m still sorely disappointed about having to call off our hike midway – but I am glad we did it, as the weather did indeed prove out our fears: with close to a foot of snow in the Sierra high country over the weekend (check out this post’s accompanying image, which was the light snow already on my car when we went to pick it up last Thursday, at only 7,000ft). We would’ve been in a spot of trouble had we been caught in that, I suppose. Anyway, we’ve vowed to try again next year – and the disappointment is waning quickly the more I sit around and enjoy that do-nothingness joy that can make a man so content.

Even the weather is changing to suit my mood. Fall moving in right on cue with rain, clouds, and a dip in temperature here in Northern California. I’ve often said, here and elsewhere, that Fall is my absolute favorite time of year – and it’s still true now. It’s funny, but, because we have houseguests from out of state staying with us this week, Sharaun went out and bought some new plug-in air freshener things – the kind with the little reservoirs of scented oil. She had cleaned up and had them all plugged in and freshening when I first arrived home from our abbreviated mountain trek, and the whole house immediately struck me as smelling perfectly “Fallish.” I’m not sure what they’re called exactly, but they smell like some heady mix of cinnamon and other wintery spices – and the scent reminds me of holidays where all sorts of tasty treats are being cooked at once, filling the air with an awesome mixture of spices and smells. Between the new smell of our house, the grey skies and rain, and my abject loafing – it’s the best Fall kickoff I’ve had in years.

I’ve decided what I’m going to do with my gardenbox for winter. I had considered all sorts of winter crops, but, truth be told, I’d like to do something a little lower maintenance (the lazy gardener, I suppose). So, I decided that I’m going to take my homemade bread fantasy to the most basic level possible, and fill the box with red winter wheat. It’s supposed to be good for the soil during the off season, it’s about the right time to plant now, and it’s a hardier variety than spring wheat. My plan involves cultivating my miniature wheat field, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, and, finally, milling it into my own flour. After that, I’d like to have make a sourdough starter with it, and eventually turn it into a real, live, rising loaf of bread. I honestly think, if none of the hundreds of things that could go wrong do go wrong, it could be a really fun experience to get an idea of just how much effort used to go into making a loaf of bread – something I ultimately take for granted. Anyway, I ordered my “hard red” winter wheat seeds yesterday, and I plan to get them in the ground after I get back from Germany, early October. I have no illusions about it being easy, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

I leave next Saturday for Germany, and, while I do look forward to the trip, I also feel just a bit sad that I’ll be once more leaving Sharaun and Keaton. I did miss them both a lot on the hike, even though I was only gone for a mere five days.

Well then, until tomorrow. Have a good week at work 🙂