2007

There were 200 posts published in 2007 (this is page 4 of 20).

Cats Like Birds

I was pleased this afternoon to come home and remember that I was supposed to do prep work for dinner. I took out the chicken breasts, cleaned them, and cut them into chunks. Kris had asked me to put the chicken pieces into a bowl, and so I did.

I was nearly finished with my task when I was distracted by the zhoop of a chat window opening in the other room. It was my “imaginary colleague” Leo from Zen Habits. We chatted for a few minutes, discussing possible guest posts.

When we’d finished, I came back to the kitchen to finish my work. What did I find? My three hairy sons on the counter, clustered around the bowl of chicken. “A feast!” they sang. “Dad left us a feast!” They saw me come in. “Thanks, Dad! We always did like you better than Mom.”

Their praise was short-lived. I clapped my hands and shouted, sending the two younger boys in various directions. Simon, however, took this as an invitation to choose the choicest piece.

When I tried to take his prize from him (after snapping this photo, of course), Simon growled his low, nasty growl. “I hate you, Dad,” he said. “I always did like Mom better.”

I guess our chicken dinner will have tooth marks. We’ll give those pieces to Tiffany.

Meanwhile, as I’ve sat here in the kitchen typing this story, all three boys have returned to the counter, eagerly searching for the delicious treasure that was there only moments before. (They glare at me from time-to-time — they know I’m responsible for spoiling their fun.)

Anyone want to come over for dinner tonight?

A Chip Off the Old Block

Several weeks ago, I drove to Brownsville to purchase a chipper from my cousin Mart. It was a long drive. I left early from work, taking the van through the scenic Willamette Valley highways. I was intentionally trying to avoid the freeway.

After nearly two hours of driving, I reached Mart’s house. I chatted with him and Elizabeth for a bit, and then we loaded the chipper into the van. I wanted to set it on its side, but when I did, it leaked gasoline. We managed to tied it to one of the van’s inside walls.

At this point I might have returned to the freeway. Instead, I decided to take the same scenic highways home. Things went well at first, but then I reached Lebanon and got lost. I went around and around in circles for twenty minutes (seriously), before saying “to hell with it” and striking north on the first road I could find. Much to my dismay, this road wound through country, eventually leading southwest, almost to the point where I had started. Meanwhile the stench from the leaked gasoline was making me woozy. I was not happy.

I tried a couple of other routes across the valley, navigating by dead reckoning, but after an hour and only a few miles of northward progress, I gave up. I found the freeway and zoomed home.

When I went to start the chipper a few weeks later, I was concerned. The pull cord was jammed. It didn’t take long, however, to discover that a single thickish twig was lodged between the blades. Simple to fix, yes? No. Chippers are dangerous. Because of this, they’re designed so that it’s almost impossible for a person to reach the blades. Even when I laid the chipper on the ground (letting it leak gasoline), I couldn’t reach the jam. Eventually I had to find a long stick, which I used to whack on the twig in question until it came loose.

In the 3-1/2 years since we moved to Rosings Park, we’ve become accustomed to dealing with yard debris. We ship most of it off in the yard waste container, but the big stuff just won’t fit. To make matters worse, we’d really need two or three containers to transport the waste we generate. As a result, we’ve accumulated a huge pile of branches and twigs (and, in some cases, entire trees) underneath the redwood.

Two weekends ago, Kris and I began our quest to eliminate this pile.

For three hours, Kris cut branches into smaller pieces. She made stacks next to the chipper, and I fed the wood into the hoppers. The chipper did it’s thing, grinding things to mulch, and spitting it into a bag. We produced about six wheelbarrows full of mulch, which we spread around the base of our blueberries. Eventually, however, the dust and fumes became too much — I developed a splitting headache and began to sneeze uncontrollably. I called it a day.

This weekend, we decided to try to finish the job. Though it was cold, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. It was nice weather for yardwork. Again, Kris made stacks for me, and I fed the wood into the chipper. We managed to work our way through most of the pile, until all that was left was nasty little twiggy twisty branches that don’t fit well into the chipper. I’m not sure how we’re going to get rid of these. I’d like to burn them, but Kris is convinced that we can’t. I’m not so sure. (Anyone know what the law is for unincorporated Clackamas County?)

Next we decided to tackle the oak leaves. The chipper makes short work of leaves. The problem comes, however, when you also feed acorns and twigs in with the leaves. The leaf hopper isn’t designed to take twigs, and even small pieces can cause big problems. We were nearly finished when the chipper jammed to a halt.

Ugh.

Suddenly I was transported to that strange, unfamiliar world: the world in which I’m required to be Mr. Handyman. I spent an hour banging on the chipper, opening various access points, searching for a jam. Eventually I found it. Two twigs had independently become stuck between blades. I had to use a screwdriver and rubber mallet to free things, but eventually I did get the machine working.

I’d had enough, though.

It’s nice to have a chipper — it makes short work of a lousy chore — but the beast has been a burden. I put it away for the winter. Maybe we’ll finish chipping next spring.

New Themes

Here’s the thing — as much as I love the theme I’ve been using at foldedspace, it gets in the way of things. It’s not appropriate for this site. I did pay $59 for it, so it’s going to get used somewhere. Just not here. Instead, I’m going to spend the next couple weeks playing with other WordPress themes until I find one I like.

Sure, it’d be nice to do something custom, but I don’t have the time or the inclination. Instead, I’ll just find an out-of-the box template I like.

Weekend Getaway

When Mac and Pam called to invite us to spend the weekend at a family beach house, we jumped at the chance. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to get away and relax. It’s been an even longer time since we did so with the Proffitt-Smiths.

Kris and I had intended to leave early on Friday afternoon, but various delays — including a disastrous “short cut” through Tigard/Sherwood/McMinnville — found us just three minutes ahead of Mac and Pam on the highway to Lincoln City. Our hosts humored me by agreeing to meet for dinner at Mo’s, an Oregon landmark.

Mo’s is where I first learned to eat clam chowder. It was the summer after my senior year in high school, and somebody — perhaps Stan Oyer, though I cannot recall exactly — convinced me to give the stuff a try. I liked it. It tasted like Dad’s potato soup. I have many fond memories of the place. I haven’t been to Mo’s for many, many years, however, and I must confess the place is disappointing. The chowder is average at best. I did enjoy my chicken-fried steak, but that’s mainly because the breading was crispy and delicious. (Sometimes I just get in a chicken-fried steak mood, you know?)

After dinner we stopped for ice cream before heading the beach house belonging to Mac’s aunt. After the Liam and Megan went to bed, the four adults spent some time chatting. Very nice.

On Saturday, we spent a lot of time on the beach. I made use of my little camera’s video capabilities:

I spent some time wading in the cold, cold ocean waters. My toes and legs were numb! In the afternoon, we watched the Oregon Ducks defeat the USC Trojans 24-17, and then spent some more time on the beach.

I would have liked to stay one more night, but Kris and I decided we needed to get things done on Sunday, so we drove home. Instead of heading home through Salem, I decided to head north. But in Tillamook, I had a moment of doubt: drive to Forest Grove on Highway 6 or head north to Highway 26? I made a Bad Choice, heading north. After an extra hour of driving, we finally cut over to 26 on Highway 53, a nasty, twisty little road. We arrived home an hour later than we should have.

We did some yard work on Sunday, though my efforts were cut short when I managed to mow over the metal edging around Kris’ rose garden. The mower blade cut into the edging and then bent as it tried to continue spinning. Ugh.

In the evening, we joined the MNF group at Jeremy and Jennifer’s for pumpkin carving. Kris and I were both out of sorts, though; we were both beginning to come down with colds. We woke this morning feeling crummier, so we both stayed home from work. Kris has slept most of the day. I’ve spent a lot of my day in the bathtub (surprise!) reading Gone With the Wind.

In all, it was a relaxing weekend. Just what I needed!

Autumn at Rosings Park

The past two Sundays have been lovely here in Oak Grove: cool and grey and damp. Last week Kris called me downstairs to look at the dew-covered spider webs, like tiny crystal structures hanging from the house, from the roses, from the camellias. I grabbed my camera to make a quick video tour of the place.

The unexpurgated edition of this video features 20 seconds of Kris playing Dance Dance Revolution, but she has exercised spousal privilege and prohibited me from posting it. If you’d like to see the full thing, let me know in person.

The rain has been falling thick and heavy lately. We’ve had nearly 1-1/2 inches of rain in the past three days. I know that’s not a huge total, but it’s seemed to come in downpours rather than our constant Oregon drizzle. (Of course, we’ve had a month of that constant Oregon drizzle, so maybe a change of pace is welcome.)

The Einstein Principle

From Study Hacks comes The Einstein Principle: Accomplish More by Doing Less.

Einstein’s push for general relativity highlights an important reality about accomplishment. We are most productive when we focus on a very small number of projects on which we can devote a large amount of attention. Achievements worth achieving require hard work. There is no shortcut here. Be it starting up a new college club or starting a new business, eventually, effort, sustained over a long amount of time, is required.

In a perfect world, we would all be Einsteins. We would each have only one, or at most two, projects in the three major spheres of our lives: professional, extracurricular, and personal. And we would be allowed to focus on this specialized set, in exclusion, as we push the projects to impressive conclusions.

But this doesn’t happen…

Our problem is that we don’t know in advance which project might turn out to be our theory of relativity and which are duds. Because of this, most ambitious people I know, myself included, follow a different strategy. We sow lots of project seeds. We e-mail a lot of people, join a lot of clubs, commit to a lot of minor projects, set up lots of meetings, constantly send out feelers to friends and connections regarding our latest brainstorm. We don’t know which seed will ultimately take root and grow, so, by planting many, we expose ourselves to enough randomness, over time, to maximize our chance of a big deal, interesting, life-changing success eventually happening.

These numerous seeds, however, have a tendency to transform into weeds. While some of them clearly grow into pursuits worth continuing, and others die off quickly, many, instead, exist in a shadowy in-between state where they demand our time but offer little promise of reward in the end.

These weed projects violate the Einstein principle.

We can no longer focus on a small number of important project, but find ourselves, instead, rushing between an increasingly overwhelming slate full of a variety of obligations. This time fracture can prevent real accomplishment. Imagine if Einstein maintained a blog, wrote a book, joined a bunch of clubs at ETH, and tried to master rowing at the same time he was working on General Relativity? We’d still be living in the age of Newton.

Filed for future reference.

Picky but Adventurous

Jason sent me a New York Times article about kids who are picky eaters.

As many of you know, I have a reputation as something of a picky eater. The way I like to think of it is that I may be a picky eater, but I’m adventurous. That is, I don’t like certain foods (mushrooms, broccoli, green beans, mushroom, broccoli, coffee, mushrooms, broccoli, etc.) but I am willing to try new and different cuisines. Kris, on the other hand, is not picky, but she’s unadventurous.

Anyhow, the NYT article reports on recent research from Dr. Lucy Cooke at University College London:

According to the report, 78 percent is genetic and the other 22 percent environmental.

“People have really dismissed this as an idea because they have been looking at the social associations between parents and their children,” Dr. Cooke said. “I came from a position of not wanting to blame parents.”

Nutritionists, pediatricians and academic researchers have recently shifted focus to children who eat too much instead of those who eat too little. But cases of obesity are less frequent than bouts of pickiness.

In some families, communal meals become brutal battlegrounds, if they haven’t been altogether abandoned. Cooks break under the weight of devising a thousand variations on macaroni and cheese. Strolls through the farmers’ markets are replaced with trudges through the frozen food aisle.

For parents who know that sharing the fruits of the kitchen with family is one of the deep pleasures of cooking, having a child who rejects most food is a unique sort of heartbreak.

Hugh Garvey, an editor at Bon Appétit magazine, knows the heartbreak firsthand. He shares his experience on gastrokid.com, a blog he created with a British pal that details the gastronomic life of families. His daughter, 6, is an omnivore’s dream child. But his son, 3, will eat only brown food.

“The way I comfort myself is the way any quasi-sane parent comforts himself,” Mr. Garvey said. “It’s like potty training. Eventually, they’re going to graduate from diapers. In the end, he’ll eat something green.”

Of course, it doesn’t help me to know that my picky eating is genetic. What I really need to know is how to get over it.

[New York Times: Picky eaters? They get it from you]

The Curse of E-Mail

I now declare e-mail bankruptcy every month or two. Things are that bad.

The last time I did this was September 26th. Things were fine for a few days. I stayed on top of things. Then earlier this week, my life all of a sudden went into busy mode again. Monday was busy at Custom Box. Yesterday I spent several hours trying to write a pair of essays for Get Rich Slowly. Today I had to make a sales call, and that took all morning.

The net effect of this is that I’m now behind on e-mail again. I started the evening with more than 100 messages in my inbox. These are not spam messages. These are not blog comments. These are actual messages that merit a reply of some sort. I’ve already filtered out the other stuff. I spent two hours tonight acting on the messages, and I’ve managed to whittle the total down to 58. But that’s still 58 messages that need some sort of action. Even if each message only takes an average of three minutes, that’s three hours I still need to find to work on e-mail.

I need a secretary.

The Number One Reason Women are So Rare on the Internet

Kris and all her little friends love the web comic xkcd. They even ordered a bunch of t-shirts featuring their favorite xkcd slogans: “Stand back, I’m going to try science!” “Science — it works, bitches!”, etc. (My personal favorite is the “make me a sandwich, SUDO make me a sandwich”, but that’s because I’m a computer geek.)

Anyhow, I really liked this recent episode of the comic and felt inclined to share:

I’ve begun to believe there should be an age limit for the internet. At 18 you can get a learner’s permit that allows you to look at sites, but not comment. At 21, you can have a full-fledged license. The stuff that young men post is just inane.

(Can you tell I’ve been spending too much time on Digg lately?)