Category: noted in passing

• Got my enormous enlarger installed and working, near enough. It throws a 16×20 image from a 4×5 negative which is a bit startling to see. Scored an enlarger bulb and an unopened pack of 8×10 paper from Jim’s Cameras. He has a lot of papers in there, few of which I have heard of. I’ll have to do some research. Now to sweep out the sawdust, clean up the room itself, finishing the light-proofing, and see if I can pull a print. I suspect some alightment issues may loom, but I’m thinking positively about it all. The enlarger is older than I am and arguably better-built.
• Made good “pantry soup” last night. Pantry soups are named because they use staples you probably already have, but I use the term to encompass ways of cleaning out the pantry of odds and ends. And you can make it without soaking beans overnight, something I can never remember to do. Pour a quart of boiling water over 1 cup of cannellini beans. Leave them for an hour. Crush 8 cloves of garlic, cook slowly in some oil, add some chopped fresh or dried rosemary until fragrant and golden. Add the drained beans and 7 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour. Add a couple of ripe tomatoes crushed or a 15oz can of your favorite canned tomatoes, with some dried basil/oregano/whatever you like and a 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil. Heat through. Fish out that partial bag of pasta (fusilli, orzo, your choice) you have left over from something you made and add it. When the pasta is done to your liking, season and serve. Even better the next day, if it lasts that long.
• Installed FreeBSD 7 on the laptop I have been working on. Took maybe half an hour. Sometimes the ugly ASCII art interface is the way to go. I didn’t get to use ZFS as it isn’t obvious on the installer screens. I’ll look at it more closely later.
• And tomorrow to Pacific Northwest Ballet to see the Nutcracker: we know three of the performers, all 10 year olds, and one of them is in tomorrow’s performance.

I had my doubts about this, but I’m over it now. I wasn’t sure how good the shows would be and I wasn’t familiar with the artists in any depth. But hey, it’s not like I’m paying to go and I don’t have to listen to the whole thing.

I went to my fortnightly appointment to donate 7.5×10^11 platelets and decided to give a listen to a recent show by Art Brut. Wow, a lot of fun and just the right length (about 45 minutes). I rarely have that long a block of time (at least not that I can count on) so it worked out well. The sound was a little uneven — some jumpy levels — but it was a great show, lots of energy and the band was plainly having fun, as was the crowd.

Check it out.

Boring prattle about blood product donation after the jump. You’ve been warned.

Continue reading “some great listening to be had here”

The picture of the pilot is just unreal. Like something out of a cartoon.

IT WAS like a scene out of a movie. A small cargo plane, flying over a busy highway, began losing steam and doing cartwheels in the sky over Florida.

Then it struck a warehouse, clipping its right wing, and crashed into a grassy swale on the side of the road — just metres from oncoming traffic.

I was reminded of when a Super Constellation crash-landed in a field, not far from where I lived. I should be able to map it: my guess is it would be a much worse disaster now. If memory serves, it crossed University Drive from the west and skidded across what was then an undeveloped plot of land. I can’t quite recall how far south it was but I’m thinking it was between Southgate and McNab. We drove out to see it, I think, or were perhaps passing by and pulled over to gape.

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• Web contracts can’t be changed without notice
  Is anyone else surprised the 9th Circuit is the one cited?
  (tags: law business values)

Quote of the Day:

“There once was a man named Vitter
Who vowed that he wasn’t a quitter
But with stories of women
And all of his sinnin’
He knows his career’s in the — oh, never mind,” John Kerry said, speaking at an event in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

What is it about Nantucket that inspires limericks?

After four hours at a swim meet when I had to get up every few minutes to see what events are coming up (a. you can’t hear the megaphone in a cavernous public swimming hall and b. events sometimes get condensed if there aren’t enough swimmers (what I call a SuperHeat)), it occurred to me that a POV display, like this one, might be useful. I wonder how hard it would be to make a simple input interface where you can key in event numbers and heats.

Harry:

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a fine thing that a noticeable
proportion of the whole world is going to stop what they’re doing this weekend and read a book instead.

The younger readers have been limited on these, with one on each birthday, starting at age 8. This means the Ten Year Old has read the first three, the Eight Year Old just the first. Well, with the buzz around this The Final Installment, we gave in to the badgering and let them carry on with the rest of the series with the proviso that they must stop when they get scared and no waking us up with gibbering about Dementors. So while we older readers scheme and plot to get our hands on the new one first (ha, I’ll just read it once she’s abed and snoring), they’re catching up.

Happy Potter Day to you.

a former colleague who moved into an old neighborhood of mine just let me know my old house[*] has been torn down for what I suspect is a better use of that lot but could be an ostentatious folly.

This is a description of what’s going in there: it will certainly alter the character of that street.

Still, it pains me a bit to think of that house going away after 50 years. It was a good little house (emphasis on little) at just under 1000 square feet. Hmm, I need to think about this and perhaps even grieve a little. I have seen other houses leveled and don’t find it pleasant: first time it’s happened to one I lived in.

* The map Google provides is wrong here: the point they provide is several houses away. The house directly to the right of the green pushpin is the one.