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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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fathering gold


What’s that they say about a man’s home being his castle? It’s true – I’ll tell you now. As I sit here, the final bits of daylight streaking Wednesday’s cloudy sky, I’m all alone (save for the cat and the pasta on the stove, if they count). Sharaun’s with Keaton at church. I, an occasional heathen, chose not to go. I know, I know, I shouldn’t forgo it, but… I did. So I sit here once again, with the windows open wide to catch the failing sun before it’s gone, Radiohead’s new LP loud on the speakers, and some bachelor-style pasta aboil on the stove. I can put an ‘a’ before “boil” and make it a fancier verb, right? I think you can do that with any verb, technically, if archaically at that. Anyway, I’m’a do it and you’re’a read it… and that’s about it, K? Let’s do this thang.

Seriously though, I’ve explored the theme of how much I love my “home” before on this blog, but moreso lately the whole theme keeps replaying in my head. Pretty sure it has to do with the fact that, during these last few days of sabbatical “downtime,” I’ve not strayed far from the comforts of the place. Cloistered tight within the walls, satisfied to waste the wonderful days reading and listening to music and lounging. I know, you’re saying, how many dang times can I write about “being lazy and listening to music?” A lot, apparently. For reals, though, I am having a truly good time… even if I do have a slight tinge of guilt about wasting so many fine outdoor hours. I feel I’ve earned some time to atrophy and watch the dust motes drift, I just do. In fact, the way I feel right about now, nothing could pry the smile from the corners of my mouth – I just feel good; happy; contented; in clover.

Speaking of Radiohead’s new album… What? Oh, I wasn’t? Hmmm…. well, shutup then. Speaking of Radiohead’s new album, I find it fantastic. And I’m confident that, with the two-plus hours of unadulterated listening time I have before me now, of which, by the way, I’m already taking full advantage, the thing will continue to grow on me. Man, I hope the comma/clause thing I have going on in that sentence is valid. You should get this album. It’s free, what do you care? Seriously… go and download it from anywhere… it’s all over the internetsites out there. If you have trouble finding it, this link should help. Good listening to ya.

Before I leave the subject, though, and because the message boards I frequently lurk on are alive with Radiohead chatter this day, I wanted to just pass along a hilarious quote from a looong thread about In Rainbows. This quote, I’m afraid, holds Nostradamus-esque signs and portents for how my own listening party will likely tonight, mere minutes from now, I’ll wager:

Well, after an evening of Radiohead holiday, reality slaps me in the face as my girlfriend walks in, politely listens to “15 Step” and “Bodysnatchers,” and then asks me to turn it off so she can watch that reality show about the restaurants that suck until the one guy comes in and makes them not suck, while making people cry.

Seeya tomorrow, Radiohead.

Moving on.

One of the fondest memories I have from my days as a kid is throwing a bottle to sea. A note I’d written, with help from dad, rolled tight and tucked inside, I can remember rearing back and tossing it off the end of the pier with all my might into the breakwater. My dad suggested both my brother and I do it, something to do together for fun. I don’t know what it is, but there is something distinctly “manly” feeling about throwing a message in a bottle into the surf. I suppose it evokes the survivalist archetype ingrained in the male psyche, or somesuch Jungian nonsense… Regardless, as activities for young boys to do with their dads go, it ranks up near the top to me. We used the resealable clamp/stopper-type bottles, you know, the ones with the ceramic/rubber stopper on the metal hinge thing you push down against the neck for the tension seal.

Even though I don’t remember the exact contents of the notes us young castaways tossed asea that day, I do remember including our addresses and an admonishment to any potential finders that we’d love to hear from them. I remember walking to the very tippy-top of the pier and chucking the thing into the coming waves, watching them bob in place for a bit before losing sight of them in the wash, hoping they’d make their way out to the deeper waters and maybe catch a swell that’d carry them to some foreign land. Man, what a great “bonding” thing to do with your kids, eh? Kudos, pop – that was fathering gold right there. Never did get a response from those bottles, I suppose. Likely they ended up in tidepool on the beach near the pier, never really going anywhere – but, that didn’t matter to me. I’m gonna do that with my own kid(s) one day… I promise. Way cool.

Awww crap, I thought it sounded familiar… last paragraph here. Three and a half years ago… must be running out of memories.

‘Fore I go, I was randomly reading posts again… here’s another bit I found funny and had forgotten writing altogether. Third paragraph into this one. A piece of string… still laughing.

Goodnight.

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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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a day in a tent


Twelve and a half hours in the tent yesterday. Twelve and a half. In an hour after the doors opened and out when they turned off the lights and security came around to clear house. It was a day at Oktoberfest, to be sure.

We arrived at 10ish and barely got a space inside (we missed the holiday opening, which was an hour earlier than we expected). But, thanks to a sympathetic waiter and a begrudgingly accommodating German and his companion, we scored a wonderful spot directly beneath the bandstand. Soon, our German tablemates forgot all about the invading American host which was our party, and by noon we were fast friends.

As the day plodded on, the room got increasingly warmer and wetter, the collective heat of near 10,000 bodies permeating the air. We marched on through liter after liter and oompah after oompah as the long hours were filled with delicious beer, delicious food, and incredibly friendly people. Some of us outpaced others, but on the whole our party consumed a staggering fifty liters of beer. For you Americans, that means the eight of us (plus our two German tablemates) quaffed a standard keg and then some.

Surprisingly, the drawn-out day aided in setting a naturally moderate pace, and combined with the food breaks, I’m happy to report that everyone walked out under their own power and made it back to the hotel safely. And yes, it was a sound and welcome sleep that took us once there.

And now, as I thumb-blog these very words, we’re back at the tents again, sitting outside this time to escape the crushing sauna of indoors, each enjoying another fine liter of helles bier.

And so it begins again.

Shawn and I rode the roller-coaster, I tried my hand at the shooting game, and we all did some shopping for souvenirs. So far then, the day is good. With today being our Oktoberfest denouement, it seems a fitting close.

Until later then, please excuse the typos, and wish us luck at the tents.

Auf wiedersehen.