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Archive for 2009
Thanksgiving “Break”
Here are the highlights for how we spent our all-too-brief holiday break:
- Cleared and set our dining room table with new centerpieces and a holiday theme
- Baked pie
- Brined and cooked two turkeys, one at our house, one elsewhere, as well as prepared associated trimmings
- Had delicious Thanksgiving dinner
- Went on three separate shopping outings, including an early one on Black Friday, another to buy a suit for an upcoming wedding, and yet another to Philadelphia Premium Outlets to hang out with family
- Gave Bram his first through fifth rides on bouncy cars and airplanes (totally worth $2.50)
- Cleared bookshelves and dressers in the master bedroom of various clutter
- Steam mopped the main level of our house
- Finally replaced X10 wired receiver for dining room fixture (killed many months ago by lightning)
- Sorted DVDs into binder, disposed of about 100 cases (100 more to go and our collection will be neatly organized and out of sight)
- Began planning holiday party
- Collected 3 batches of stuff we no longer wanted and left free items on curb (all taken)
- Sorted old baby clothes into lots – 0-6 months, 6-12 months, 12-18 months, 18 months-2T
- Sorted Tupperware, tossed dozens of old plastic containers kept “just in case,” prepped much unused stuff for sale
- Packed old China and other dishes for sale
- Made 5 postings to Craigslist (see clothes, Tupperware, China above; one transaction complete so far)
- Trimmed Christmas tree
- Hung up 10 pictures from various vacations and life events
- Sorted dozens of other pictures as candidates for placing in newly purchased frames
- Cleared space for Department 56 Christmas village display
- Hauled an embarrassing amount of trash to the curb
- Ran the dishwasher pretty much continuously
- Washed laundry
- Paid bills
- … and many other mundane things
I think it’s fair to say we’re not very good at relaxing, but we’re coming out of a few days off feeling good about some of the things we accomplished.
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Stuffed
Well, that’s another Thanksgiving come and gone, and I’m sad to see the celebration end.
- This was the first year I made two turkeys, brine and all, due to excessive paranoia about there not being enough leftovers. Once again, I am thankful for the magic made within a double convection oven.
- Tiffany made pumpkin pie, which I wait all year for, and there was enough of the good stuff left that we could have pumpkin pancakes on the morning of Thanksgiving.
- Bram rediscovered the deliciousness of peas, a preference he probably inherited from mommy. And, um, he’s also a hound for pie. I, uh, have no idea where that comes from.
I believe we are all sufficiently fortified for Black Friday.
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Gone, but Not Forgotten … and Now Back
We were offline for a few days due to a problem with our hosting provider. It looks like they needed to move our site to new hardware, at which point the entire blog stopped working. After some database tweaking — Really? They optimized our tables? — we’re back. We did lose our place in some standard Google searches, but hopefully we’ll swing back up to the top in short order now that all the links work again.
Did you miss us?
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Looking Smart
For more than a little while, we’ve been taking pictures of our favorite subject using the cameras in our smartphones. It’s the most convenient way for us to capture those special, spontaneous moments, and we’ve had some good luck catching them. Maybe you think so too. Check out the snapshots of our cute kiddo!
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Iffy
After a couple years of gentle persuasion, I finally convinced colleagues at my former employer (and also alma mater) to kindly redirect a link that’s been rather popular for years — the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling — from my defunct personal home page there to a site I can maintain. If you’re here for that poem, I hope you’ll note the link on the sidebar under “Pages” and find a link at the bottom of that page to a clean, printable version. It’s a poem of great significance to me, and I was recently reminded of its importance following a confluence of events: 1) a posting referencing it at The Art of Manliness, 2) a reading of the poem during a church service on Father’s Day, and 3) reflection on that same day in light of my first year of fatherhood.
Google Analytics shows it’s one of the most popular pages on this site. That’s for good reason.
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Filesystem Heck
For some time now, we’ve been using an old PowerMac G5 for some general purpose family computing. It’s located centrally in our house. Proximity to and an excellent view of the television is purely coincidental. We can also get a few tasks done while keeping an eye on unnamed bipedal and quadrupedal troublemakers. You know, fun like:
- paying bills
- reading email
- keeping up with all those time-sucking social networks
- shopping
- maintaining our photo library
- maintaining our catalog of books (via Delicious Library)
- editing video (and rendering slowly)
It was working out pretty well until … well, until it wasn’t. Random crashes. Laggy operation. General computer crabbiness.
I’m not terribly satisfied with the built-in troubleshooting tools in Mac OS X, but at least Disk Utility told me there were some filesystem problems. Fine, fine. I clicked the button that says “Verify.” I got a response back that says, basically, “You should repair this, Charlie. Try clicking the button that says “Repair.”" What would I do without such simple instructions? I clicked “Repair,” waited, then got a response back that says, basically, “Your problem is irreparable. Poor fellow.”
Reboot from CD. Rinse and repeat. Equally unhelpful. Consistent, though.
Luckily, the OS does turn out to have the tools I need, and it took more work to actually search for the right commands than it did to run them for 1) booting into single-user mode (command-s) and 2) a filesystem check with the right options (/sbin/fsck -fy). If this had been a machine without a flashy GUI, I would have thought of that first.
That worked. As an interesting side effect, it spun up the drive something fierce during the check, which is to be expected. What I didn’t expect was for all nine of the G5′s internal fans to spin up simultaneously and stay running even after the check was done. It must get pretty hot inside that chassis. If you could put your head inside a hair dryer, it would have sounded something like that.
Reboot. Problem solved. Disaster averted. Now, onto better backups.
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I, Rememberist
I have a very excellent wife who surprised me with tickets to see The Decemberists at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We had nice seats on the balcony with a great view of the stage, but away from the press of the milling crowd below. Note that I didn’t write rabble. We’re all rabble. This was a stop on their “A Short Fazed Hovel” tour and we were not disappointed. It was off to a good start when I heard Echo & the Bunnymen playing on the sound system as filler between the opening and main acts. (Sorry, Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3. We were running a little behind. I did gape at Peter Buck in the lobby as we were rushing in.) We sat in front of superfans who helped us whenever the vocals got drowned out by balance issues by singing out all the verses.
The first set was made up of almost all the songs from their newest album, “The Hazards of Love,” which is a folk tale told in instrumentals, peppy Baroque pop, and thundering rock. The stage was supplemented by the normal quintet to include Becky Stark (from Lavender Diamond) and Shara Worden (from My Brightest Diamond) in the roles of Margaret and The Queen, respectively. Special props to the roadie who, ninja-like, swapped out instruments between songs. Five sets of drums being pounded during “The Rake” is something to see.
I’m surely a bad concert attendee. I tweeted, checked lyrics, and researched folk tales during this show.
The jackets came off for set number two, which consisted of tracks from previous albums, including “July, July” and “O Valencia.” Colin Meloy is an entertaining frontman:
- He had the attendees in the pit vote for either keeping or removing the chairs. To his disappointment, they elected to keep them. There was a lot of standing afterwards, though. He probably shamed everyone. He did try out one of the chairs later, though.
- He talked the transformation of his worst song ever, “Dracula’s Daughter,” with a (his words) douchey cord progression, into “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. You probably had to be there.
- Finally, he and Chris Funk jumped down into the audience and had two women play their guitars while they circulated among the crowd. After climbing back up on the stage, Colin tapped his watch when his guitar took some time to make its way back to him.
It’s was a great show. If they’re coming to your town, see it.
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The End of the Beginning
Today is the 253rd Commencement at the University of Pennsylvania. I work in IT at Penn and this will be the sixth one that’s taken place since I’ve been there. I’ve never attended a ceremony, but I’ve seen it from afar and I’ve listened to the speakers via a live stream broadcast across the Internet thanks to the fine work of some of my colleagues. I don’t know any graduates who will be in today’s ceremonies, but I am reminded that there are different rituals that take place outside of the event itself that we share or will observe together:
- Campus will continue to be tidied by our Facilities department up until the last moment. (Prepare to dodge a sidewalk sweeper.)
- We all hope for no rain. (It rained during my Commencement. There’s no sound like the groan of 400 people simultaneously sitting down in chairs with little puddles in them. That’s except, of course, for the sound after they’re made to stand up, retrieve diplomas, and sit down … again.)
- It will be crowded everywhere, and we will all make do with longer lines. (I’ll get coffee early.)
- There will be scores of confused looking family, friends, and well-wishers who need directions.
- There will be a lot of people on the street in caps and gowns making final adjustments. (You look fine. Thanks for wearing something underneath.)
- There will be a lot of happy, nervous, proud, and excited expressions on people’s faces.
I cannot say anything new about the bittersweetness of this moment to come, that nexus of an ending and a beginning, except to say that life has a continuity to it, and this is one special moment among many, and that I personally have looked at it differently over the passage of time.
Usually, on this day above all others, I reflect upon why I work where I do. My professional career has consisted mostly of information technology work in support of academics and administrators. My work has never been central to “the mission of the institution,” that is, I don’t teach, and I don’t do research.
What I do, however, is believe in the product of this institution and others like it. I believe it sells something and provides something of almost incalculable value, although I’m sure that tuition bills make it seem like someone has spent an awful lot of time calculating. I believe in the transformative power of education to enlighten society, provide opportunities, and shape people into productive contributors who can, sometimes in the short term and sometimes in the long term, make our world better, richer, and more interesting.
And I have a good feeling coming into work on a day like today when I see that happening.
Brew-ding
Today, I walked out of my way for a good cup of coffee. I’ll bet I’m not the only one. That got me thinking about why I do it and how coffee fits into my life, whether it’s stepping out for a cup or making one myself.
The first order of business is to curse Dave Sobel, who introduced me to coffee during college. Dave, because of you I’ve spent an incalculable amount of money and time on this topic. I probably did derive a great share of pleasure from it, too. Let’s call it a wash.
At home, I’ve tried a variety of bean purveyors in my time, but the level of effort I’m willing to put behind the venture is limited. That is to say that I won’t buy raw beans and roast them, and I generally don’t have a lot of free time to hang out in or even drive by any establishments that might roast their own. Mostly I’ve gone with what can be found either in the grocery store or by mail order in whole bean form — never freeze dried, never ground. I have even inflicted on myself some of the ventures by the bulk brands to break into the whole bean market with painful results, including headaches, nausea, and upset stomach. I’m not going to dignify those companies by naming them.
Before you ask, I drink it black. There had been a slow paring back of coffee amendments for me. I settled on the simplest way as also the best way. It’s a personal choice, that’s what makes America great, etc., etc.
What do I like? There are two brands, one local and one not. La Columbe (which happens to be sold at our local suburban 320 Market and by the cup a couple blocks away at Picnic) is great: it has body and a well-rounded depth of flavor that is both rich and smooth. It makes everything you consume with it better, including Picnic’s pastries and delicious biscuit sandwiches. No, they don’t pay me anything.
As far as I’m concerned, though, the pinnacle of coffee flavor and experience is Peet’s. They’re based in California, so I’ve never consumed any of their coffee within minutes of roasting. However, it is a heady experience to order via mail and receive those airtight packages, crack one open, and go into olfactory overload. You can see the sheen of oil on those dark beans. The French press is my default method of brewing now since I almost never need to serve more than myself. After a coarse grind, hot water, and a few minutes of brewing I’m ready to go. Peet’s is the cup of coffee I can drink on its own, no accompaniment or sustenance needed. No, they don’t pay me anything. Stop asking.
When we traveled recently on an early morning flight out of Philadelphia International Airport, I did a double-take when I saw a Peet’s Coffee shop in Terminal E. Nirvana! With giant muffins! It’s a little inconvenient to drive to the airport and short-term park just for a cup of coffee.
There’s my honorable mention: Starbucks. It’s everywhere. There are two within a block of my office and three within a five minute drive of my house. They don’t need me to say anything about them to continue to be a success. Sometimes their cup is right on, and sometimes I buy or drink an astringent, weak blend that is less than satisfying. On balance, they come through for me more often than not. There aren’t many other places that spring to mind for actually good coffee-flavored beverages if that’s what you’re looking for.
In order of my preference, places in University City for coffee:
- Picnic (La Columbe)
- Saturn Club (La Columbe, but never open early enough)
- Potbelly (Starbucks, but a consistent blend)
- Starbucks (hit or miss)
- Houston Hall (Starbucks, but never open early enough)
- Cosi (their own)
- Avril 50 (who knows?)
- Campus food trucks (best not to ask)
- Dunkin Donuts (with cream and sugar … and two donuts)
I might buy coffee from other local places under duress, but life is too short to purposefully drink bad coffee.
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Cute Baby Overload
You can’t get enough of baby preciousness, can you? We thought not. Check out Jonathan and Cari’s new edition, Anna, at http://annastories.wordpress.com/!
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